"If Youth but Knew!"

by Agnes Castle; Egerton Castle

Steven, under that terrible gaze, ironic even in its haunting agony, was at a loss how to reply. He muttered something of a woman's duty and wifely submission. The fiddler caught up the words fiercely.

"Ay," cried he. "A woman's duty—wifely submission. Oh, strange how men prate of chivalry, in the exercise of their bodily strength, because of a woman's weakness, and yet never see that, because also of a woman's sensitiveness of soul, a man should take shame to parade the superior strength of his will—that he should spare the delicate spirit as well as the delicate frame. Listen:—my strength of mind was such that it left me no choice but to desert the woman whom I had vowed to protect, to make parade of my manhood by leaving her to live her own life alone, to cast the frail and lovely thing I had held in my arms away from my love and guardianship. No doubt, no doubt, I made some very generous dispositions as regards my fortune—even as you now propose towards Madame Sidonia, and she had her people to go to, even as your wife has: those whom she had given up to come to me. But when the day dawned that I had to look into my heart and read the truth, what did I see? Look into your heart now, and learn the baseness of your own motives. Why do you leave your bride? Why did I leave mine? For what reason, but that she might weep and mourn for me; that she might learn how precious was the jewel she had not appreciated! ... To be revenged ... revenged on the Beloved!"

He flung himself back against the bole of the fir that rose behind him and closed his eyes.

"I left her," he went on, "left France, left Europe. I went to America, the new home of Freedom, the only country on the face of the earth where the goddess was worshipped as she should be. I had vowed not to return till recalled: I was summoned by a voice terribly different from hers. It took three months before the noise of the storm reached me on that far-off shore, and I knew that it must take me at least a month more ere I could reach her. And she was in danger! ... I think it was then I began to go mad—for it is understood that I am mad, is it not?"

He opened his bright eyes and fixed them on Steven, who became so extremely embarrassed that the fiddler broke into unmirthful laughter.

"Mad!" he repeated. His gaze flickered; and, if truth be told, he looked none too sane. Then he sank his head between his hands with a groan. "If only I were a little madder!" he cried. "The story is nearly finished," he went on presently, in a new, toneless voice. "When I landed in France, all the powers of the Hell my superior intellect denied were let loose in the land—Danton, Marat and Robespierre represented the trilogy of Liberty, Reason and Humanity! The prisons were full, the guillotine everywhere restless.... Our Golden Age! ... A fortnight I looked for her. Have you ever sought in vain one you had loved, even for an hour? Dante never devised a more exquisite torture for his deepest circle. My house in Paris had been confiscated for the nation's soldiers; her father's castle in Lorraine had been burnt to the ground. At my old home at Nancy at last I found a trace. She had refused, it seemed, to join in the flight of her people across the Rhine; but, when trouble became threatening, had taken up her post on my estate. That was like her. She had been arrested—so dangerous an enemy of the people! She was in the infamous prison at Nancy. She——" He flung his battered old hat from his head, dashed back his hair, loosened the wide collar at his throat. Breath seemed to fail him. A dark wave of blood rushed to his forehead. "All, all had abandoned her, save one poor girl—a peasant from our farm, whose people were of the local patriots.... This girl was allowed access to the cells. I met her at the prison gates, whither my frenzied search brought me at length. She knew me, though I was a tramp already. At sight of my face, she clapped her hands and broke into wild sobs. I was too late! That morning.... Why do you look at me like that? Do you wonder that I am still alive? That is where the God I denied has His vengeance of me, you see. I cannot die. Oh, I could kill myself, of course! But, mark how deep has the Encyclopædist fallen.... I dare not, dare not, lest I lose my chance of meeting her again! ... Ah! there is great pity in your eyes.... Her little delicate head—she held it like a queen's. Under the powder, her hair was gold. (I have not even one lock of her hair.) I used to clasp her slender throat between both my hands.... The peasant girl had kept by her to the end. She had stood at the foot of the scaffold, that a last friendly glance might speed that lovely soul. 'She smiled to me,' said the poor creature, sobbing. My eyes were dry.... Then she drew from her bosom a bunch of violets, and said, 'Madame, les avail à son corsage.'..."

Geiger-Hans gathered up the flowers scattered on his knees, and crushed them against his face.

"She always loved violets," he murmured. "These have no scent," he went on dreamily; "but hers, hers—oh, they were sweet!"

"She always loved violets. These have no scent, ... but hers,—oh, they were sweet!"