CHAPTER XIV.
It was but a few minutes past seven o’clock when Jules tapped at the door of Madame De Vigne’s boudoir. The summons was responded to by Nanette. ‘Monsieur De Miravel’s compliments to Madame De Vigne, and would she grant monsieur the honour of an interview for a few minutes?’
The answer came at once: ‘Madame De Vigne was ready to receive Monsieur De Miravel.’
Daylight was waning, and although the Venetians were drawn half-way up the windows, the room was in twilight. To De Miravel it seemed almost in darkness as he went in; but in a few moments his eyes became more accustomed to the semi-obscurity, and he then perceived his wife standing in the middle of the floor—a tall, black-robed figure, crowned by a face whose extreme pallor, seen by that half-light, would have seemed like that of a dead woman, but for the two large, intensely glowing eyes which lighted it up.
After his first momentary hesitation, De Miravel advanced a few steps and made one of his elaborate bows. Madame De Vigne responded by a grave inclination of her head, and motioning her visitor to a chair, sat down herself on an ottoman some distance away. In the silence, not yet broken by either of them, they heard the low, far-away muttering of thunder among the hills.
De Miravel was the first to speak. ‘I am desolated, madame, to have been under the necessity of seeking this interview,’ he said. ‘But I have been waiting, waiting, waiting till I have grown tired. I am tired of being here alone in this great hotel, where I know no one. It is now two days since I spoke to you. You know my proposition. Eh bien! I choose to wait no longer; I am here for your answer.’ He spoke the last words with a kind of snarl, which for the moment brought his long, white, wolfish-looking teeth prominently into view.
‘As you say, I am fully acquainted with your proposition,’ answered Mora in cold, quiet, unfaltering tones. ‘But you know well how hateful to me are the conditions which you wish to impose. I think I made that point clear to you on Wednesday.’
‘You were in a passion on Wednesday. I heeded not what you said.’
‘But I meant every word that I said. In view of that fact, and knowing what you know—may I ask whether in the interim you have not seen some way by which those conditions may be modified—some way by which, without injury to what you conceive to be your interests, they may be made less objectionable to me?’
He shook his head impatiently. ‘You are only wasting my time and yours,’ he said. ‘When I have said a thing, I mean it. As the conditions were on Wednesday, even so they are now—altered in nothing. If you cannot comply with them, tell me so at once, and at once I will seek out Sir William. Ah ha! Mademoiselle Clarice had better wait awhile before she orders the robe for her wedding!’
She heard him apparently unmoved. There was not a flash, not as much as a flicker to be seen of the passion which had so possessed her on Wednesday. Her quietude surprised him, and rendered him vaguely uneasy.
‘Consider, Laroche—before it is too late.’
‘Too late?’ he muttered under his breath. ‘Peste! What can she mean?’
‘You know how utterly impossible it is that I should live with you for one day, or even one hour, as your wife,’ continued Mora. ‘You know that I would sooner seek a refuge in the dark waters of yonder lake. Why, then, strive to make a desperate woman more desperate? And my sister!—she has never harmed you, she does not even know of your existence. Why try to wreck the happiness of her life, as you wrecked mine? Why try to shatter the fair future that lies before her? To do so can in nowise benefit you. Consider—think again before you finally decide. Have pity on this child, even though you have none on me. Ah, Laroche, you never had a sister, or you would know something of that which I feel!’
‘This is child’s play,’ he exclaimed with a sneer. ‘We are wasting time. A strong man makes use of others to effect his ends. I make use of you and your sister. I have said.’ He was convinced by this time that her quietude was merely that of despair—the quietude of a criminal who submits to the hands of the executioner.
‘Listen, Laroche!’ she continued in the same icy, impassive tones. ‘Although I am not what the world calls rich, I am not without means, as you are aware. Give me your promise to leave England, and never to seek out or in any way annoy either my sister or me, and half of all I am possessed of shall be settled upon you. It will be an income for life which nothing can rob you of.’
An eager, greedy light leaped into his eyes. ‘What do you call an income, dear madame?’ he said. ‘How many thousand francs a year would you be prepared to settle on your brave Hector?’
‘Six thousand francs a year would be about half my income.’
‘Six thousand francs! And my wife’s sister married to the son of one of the richest milords in England! Chut! Do you take your Hector for an imbecile?’ He rose, crossed to the pier-glass over the chimneypiece, adjusted his scarf in front of it, and then went back to his chair. ‘Do you know what is now the great ambition of your Hector’s life?’ he asked, gazing fixedly at her out of his half-shut eyes. ‘But no—how should you? Listen, then, and I will tell you. It is to be introduced to two, three, or more of the great London clubs where they occupy themselves with what you English call “high play.” Sir William or his son shall introduce me—when I am of their family. Six thousand francs a year! Parbleu! when once I have the entrée to two or three of the cercles I speak of, my income will be nearer sixty than six thousand francs a year.’
‘If such are your views, if this is the course you are determined to pursue, I am afraid that any further appeal by me would be utterly thrown away.’
‘Utterly thrown away, ma belle, an absolute waste of time, as I said before.’
‘I felt convinced from the first that it would be so.’
‘Ah! Then why amuse yourself at my expense in the way you have?’
‘It was not by way of amusing myself that I appealed to you, but for the ease of my conscience in the days yet to come.’
He stared at her suspiciously for a moment or two, then he said with a shrug: ‘I do not comprehend you.’
She rose and pushed back her chair. ‘There is nothing more to be said. I need not detain you further.’
He too rose, but for once he was evidently nonplussed. ‘Nothing more to be said?’ he remarked after a pause. ‘It seems to me that there is much more to be said. I have not yet had your answer to the proposition I laid before you on Wednesday last.’
‘I thought you understood. But if you want my answer in a few plain words, you shall have it.’
In the twilight he could see her clear shining eyes gazing steadily and fearlessly into his. Craven fears began to flutter round his heart.
‘Hector Laroche, you have lost much time and put yourself to much trouble and expense in hunting down a woman whose life, years ago, you made a burden almost too bitter for her to bear—and all to no purpose. You have found me; what then? You have made a proposition to me so utterly vile as altogether to defeat your own ends. From this hour I know you not. I will never see or speak to you again. It will be at your peril to attempt to molest me. I have friends who will see that I suffer no harm at your hands. There is the door. Begone!’
‘Ho, ho!’ he cried with an hyena-like snarl. ‘You bid me begone, do you? Eh bien! I must not disobey a lady’s commands. I will go—but it shall be in search of Sir William.’
‘Your search need not take you far; Sir William Ridsdale is here, under this roof.’
Laroche could not repress a start of surprise. He was still staring at Mora like a man at an utter loss what to say next, when a tap was heard at the door, which was followed a moment later by the entrance of Nanette: ‘Sir William Ridsdale has sent word to say that he should like to see Monsieur De Miravel as soon as that gentleman is at liberty to wait upon him.’
‘Monsieur De Miravel is at liberty to wait upon Sir William at once,’ said Madame De Vigne in clear, staccato tones.—‘Nanette, conduct monsieur to Sir William’s apartment.’
Laroche scowled at her for a moment. Then he said in a low voice: ‘Do you set me at defiance? Is it really that I am to tell Sir William everything?’
‘Yes; I set you at defiance. Tell Sir William all that you know. Scélerat! do your worst.’
The scowl on his face deepened; his lips twitched, but no sound came from them. Madame De Vigne’s finger pointed to the open door at which Nanette was standing. Laroche turned on his heel and walked out of the room with the air of a whipped cur.
By this time it was nearly dark; the evening was close and sultry; distant thunder reverberated among the hills; there was the menace of a storm in the air. The grounds of the hotel were deserted, and just at present the house was as quiet as though it were some lonely country mansion, instead of a huge hostelry overflowing with guests. It was the hour consecrated to one of the most solemn duties of existence, and, with few exceptions, the flock of more or less hungry birds of passage were engaged in the pleasing process of striving to recuperate exhausted nature by means of five courses and a dessert.
Nanette, after conducting Laroche to Sir William’s room, was on her way back to light the lamp in her mistress’s boudoir, when, as she turned a corner of the corridor, she was suddenly confronted by Jules, between whom and herself, as being of the same nationality, a pleasant little flirtation was already in full swing. The meeting was so sudden and the corridor so dusky, that the girl started, and a low cry broke from her lips.
‘Hist! do not make a noise, I beg of you, ma’amselle,’ whispered Jules; ‘but tell me, is madame in her room and alone?’ His face looked very pale in the twilight, and Nanette could see that he was strangely moved.
‘Madame is in her room, but she is indisposed, and cannot see any one this evening—unless,’ she added archly, a moment after, ‘the business of monsieur with her is of very, very great importance.’
‘Ah, believe me, dear ma’amselle, it is of the very greatest importance. Do not delay, I beg of you! Any moment I may be missed from the salle and asked for. Tell madame that the affair I want to see her upon is one of life and death.’
The girl stared at him for a moment, and then went.
He stole noiselessly after her and waited outside the door. Presently the door opened, and Nanette beckoned to him to enter. He went in, and found himself alone with Madame De Vigne.
‘Pardon the question, madame,’ said Jules; ‘but may I ask whether the gentleman—Monsieur De Miravel he calls himself—who left this room a few minutes ago is a friend of madame?’
Madame became suddenly interested. ‘I have been acquainted with the person you name for a great number of years,’ she replied after a moment’s hesitation.
‘Madame would not like any harm to happen to Monsieur De Miravel?’
‘Harm? No; certainly not. I should not like harm to happen to any one. But your question is a strange one. Tell me why you ask it.’
‘I ask it, because Monsieur De Miravel is in danger of his life.’
‘Ah!’ Her heart gave a great leap; she turned suddenly dizzy, and had to support herself against the table.
‘I have told this to madame in order that she may warn Monsieur De Miravel, should she think well to do so. If he wishes to save his life, he must leave here at once—to-night; to-morrow may be too late.’
Mora was thoroughly bewildered. What she had just been told had the effect of a stunning blow upon her; it had come so suddenly that for a little while her mind failed to realise the full meaning of the words.
‘What you have just told me is so strange and terrible,’ she said at last, ‘that you cannot wonder if I ask you for further particulars. You assert that M. De Miravel’s life is in danger. What is it that he has done? What crime has he committed, that nothing less than his death can expiate?’
Jules slowly drew in his breath with an inspiration that sounded like a sigh. What he was about to tell must be told in a whisper. ‘Throughout Europe, as madame may be aware, there are certain secret Societies and propaganda, which, although known by various designations, have nearly all one great end in view. Of one such Society Monsieur De Miravel is, and has been for the last dozen years, an affiliated member. Nearly a year ago, several brothers of the Society were arrested, tried, and sentenced to long terms of imprisonment. Certain features of the trial proved conclusively that the arrests were the result of information given by a spy. There was a traitor in the camp; but who was he? That question has at length been answered. It has been proved beyond a doubt that the traitor is the man who calls himself Monsieur De Miravel. The sentence on all traitors is death. De Miravel has been condemned to die.’
‘This is horrible,’ murmured Mora.
‘It is simple justice, madame.’
‘Has Monsieur De Miravel any knowledge or suspicion of the terrible fate to which he has been condemned?’
‘None. How should he have, madame?’
Mora remained lost in thought for a few moments; then she said: ‘It seems strange that you, in the position you occupy, should know all that you have told me, and yet Monsieur De Miravel himself should know nothing.’
Jules lifted his shoulders almost imperceptibly. ‘It may seem strange to madame; but it is not so in reality. I, Jules Decroze, the poor garçon, am a humble brother of that Society which has condemned the traitor De Miravel to die. I, too, am affiliated to the sacred cause.’
‘You! Oh!’ Involuntarily she moved a step or two farther away.
Jules spread out his hands with a little gesture of deprecation.
‘I hope you don’t run any risk yourself in telling me what you have told me this evening?’ said Mora after a few seconds of silence.
‘If it were known that I had broken my oath, as I have broken it but now, I should be sentenced to the same fate as De Miravel. But that matters not. I have long owed madame a debt of gratitude; to-night I have endeavoured to pay it.’
‘You have more, far more than paid it. You may have broken your oath, as you say, but you have done all that lay in your power to save a fellow-creature’s life.’
‘For your sake, madame—not for his, the traitor!’ muttered Jules.
If Mora heard, she took no notice. ‘You must not remain here another moment,’ she said. ‘You have run too much risk already. Perhaps I may be able to have a few words with you in private to-morrow. You say that Monsieur De Miravel must go away at once—to-night?’
‘At once. If he lingers here over to-morrow’—— He ended with one of his expressive shrugs.
Mora shuddered. ‘Suppose he refuses to believe what I tell him, and puts it down as an invention for the purpose of frightening him away?’
‘If madame will say these words to him, “The right hand of the Czar is frozen,” Monsieur De Miravel will know that she speaks the truth.’
A moment later the door opened and closed noiselessly, and Mora was alone.