MARK FELT.
UBJECTED as I have been in the last three hours to distress and turmoil, I was delighted to find mademoiselle asleep, and to behold her peaceful face. Gazing at it, and noting the happy smile which unconsciously lingered on her lips, I could not but feel that, despite the hideous revelations which lay before her, her lot was an enviable one, allied as it promised to be with that of one of such high principles as the marquis. Though I am old now and have had my day, the love of the innocent and pure is sacred to me, and in this case it certainly has the charm of a spotless lily blooming in the jaws of hell.
As it was late and I was almost exhausted, I began to think of rest. But my uneasiness in regard to madame would not let me sleep till I had made another visit to her room. So, leaving the gentle sleeper lapped in serenest dreams, I proceeded to descend once more. As I passed the great clock on the stairs, I noticed that it was almost midnight and began to hasten my steps, when I heard a loud knock at the front door.
This is not an infrequent sound with us, but it greatly startled me this night. I even remember pausing and looking helplessly up and down the hall, as if it were a question whether I should obey the unwelcome summons. But such knocking as speedily followed could not be long ignored. So, subduing my impatience, I hastened to the door, and unlocking it, threw it open. A gust of rain and wind greeted me.
This was my first surprise, for I had not even noticed that the weather was unpleasant, so completely had I been absorbed by what had been going on in the house. My next was the bearing and appearance of the stranger who demanded my hospitality. For though both face and form were unknown to me, there was that in his aspect which stirred recollections not out of keeping with the unhappy subject then occupying all my thoughts. Yet I could not speak his name, or put into words the anticipations that vaguely agitated me, and led him through the hall and into the comfortable sitting room so lately vacated by the marquis, with no more distinct impression in my mind than that something was about to happen which would complete rather than interrupt the horrors of this eventful night.
And when the light fell full upon him, and I could see his eager eyes, this feeling increased, and no sooner had his cloak fallen from his shoulders and his hat left his head, than I recognized the prominent jaw and earnest face, and putting no curb on my impetuosity, I exclaimed at once, and without a doubt:
"Mr. Felt!"
The utterance of this name seemed to cause no surprise to my new guest.
"The same," he replied; "and you are Mrs. Truax, of course. Mr. Tamworth has described you to me, also this inn, till I feel as if I knew its every stone. I did not wish to visit it, but I could not help myself. An unknown influence has been drawing me here for days, and though I resisted it with all my strength, it finally became so powerful that I rose from my bed at night, saddled my horse, and started in this direction. I have been twenty hours on the road, but part of these I have spent in the thicket just over against you on the opposite side of the road. For the sight of the house awakened in my mind such a disturbance that I feared to show myself at the door. A voice out of the air seemed to cry, 'Not yet! not yet!' Nevertheless I could not go back nor leave the spot, which, once seen, possessed for me a fatal fascination."