“Do you believe it? I know him very well indeed. There is no monster in all the world so self-convinced of his own irresistibility. You think he has left Le Prieuré. As a fact he does not start for Turin until to-morrow morning, when urgency compels him. But he will not fail to storm the coy fortress first—to-night he will do it—either to persuade or enforce!”
He paused, listening for an answer, but none followed.
“You may question how I know this,” he went on. “Be satisfied; we who read the stars command our instruments. He is to go secretly after dark, to-night, I say, crossing the glacier of the Winds from the further side towards the Montverd. Nicholas Target will be there to conduct him; Nicholas Target will have been instructed first to dismiss his daughter from the auberge on some errand which will delay her. Monsignore will find the Marchesa quite alone and defenceless—nothing to complain of for a wife. He will presently leave her to return, as secretly, by the way he came. What then? There are pitfalls on the glacier, and Target will likely be drunk. Perhaps Fate will choose to verify its prediction during that passage. I cannot tell. For me, I have done my part. If this act is necessary for his destruction, a young widow will be ensured in Le Prieuré before long. That is my message to you; I speak it, with absolute conviction of its truth, for your consolation. If the marriage is consummated, the man must die. On the other hand, if one would save a threatened honour, balk by a timely abduction the hand of Fate, one would certainly procure a renewed lease of life for a villain, and a villain, one might be sure, who would not accept his despoliation with meekness. It is a nice point in ethics, upon which I will not presume to give an opinion. It had occurred to me once, I admit, that a revelation of the plot to the father would be the proper course. Reflection, however, convinced me that he would be only too glad to sanction, indirectly, the most treacherous of means for breaking down the barrier which his daughter had raised between himself and a potential greatness. In the end, monsieur” (he prepared to leave), “I resolved to confide the issue to the hands the most strong, in faith and godliness, to direct it—to your hands, in fact. You have my sympathy and good wishes. I have the honour to bid you good morning.”
He might have been speaking to an apparition for any response he could extort. Only Saint-Péray’s eyes were fixed upon him with a greed more horribly eloquent than words. He felt them following him as he left the room—clinging, it seemed, like the discs of tentacles to his back as he descended the stairs—pursuing him, silently, deadlily, through all the convolutions of his way, however he might twist and turn to elude them. He was not a fanciful man for all his mysticism; but the impression of this unwinking pursuit haunted his soul into the very dominion of sleep. The eyes followed him upstairs, in the little inn where he was sojourning for the moment, and lay down with him on his pillow.
* * * * * * * *
On that same day Mr Trix received his final congé from his patron with the most serene good temper.
“Rogue, rogue,” said the old devil—“though I have loved a rogue, we must part. There is no place in this reformation for a Cartouche.”
“You have taken good care of that,” said the young man, pleasantly. “It is very natural you should not wish to be haunted by your past. Besides, I can foresee all sorts of complications if we remained penitents together.”
“Don’t tell me that you also are a penitent—no, no,” said the Marquess, with a nervous chuckle.
He was fumbling at a cabinet against the wall.