“Now, I will tell you the irony of this destiny. Many weeks later I read, by chance, in a newspaper, how my rival had been granted your Royal Humane Society’s testimonial, on the evidence of a casual spectator, for a brave but unsuccessful attempt to save me from drowning; and how the little pretty romance had terminated with his marriage to the admiring object of our two regards. So I was dead; and, as long as I lay in my nameless grave—for my body, it appeared, had never been recovered—the ghost of my fear was laid. I do not complain, therefore. Yet—ah, mademoiselle, most condescending of sympathizers!—she had been very dear to me.”
Here Carabas found it necessary to console my Campaspe before he could go on.
“I obtained work—under an assumed name, of course—and for many years found at least a living in that immense capital. I had an aptitude for languages, which was my great good fortune; yet prosperity never more than looked at me through the window. What then? I could keep body and soul together. Ill-luck is too mean a spirit for Death to patronize. Many a time has the great Angel turned his back disdainfully on the other’s spiteful hints. He will not claim me, I believe, until he sees him asleep, or tired of persecuting me.
“One day I was travelling on your underground railway. I had for companion in my compartment a single individual. He jumped out at the Blackfriars station, leaving a handbag on the seat. At the moment the train moved off I noticed this, seized it, and leaned with it out of the window, with a purpose to shout to its owner. I saw him in the distance, hurriedly returning. The train gathered speed; I saw he could never reach me in time, and I flung the bag upon the platform. Instantly I perceived him leap, and jerk his arm across his eyes; and on the same moment a terrible explosion occurred.
“Stunned, but unhurt, I had fallen back, when, in a flash, the full horror of my situation burst upon me. It was the time of the dynamite scares, and—ah, mon Dieu, mam’selle! your quick wit has already perceived my misfortune.
“The train had stopped; the place was full of smoke; the hubbub of a great tumult sounded in my ears. The owner of the infernal machine was certainly destroyed in his own trap; I, at the same time, had as certainly thrown the bag. No evidence to exonerate me was now possible. Without an instant’s consideration, I opened the door upon the line, slipped out, closed it, and raced for my life through the smoke to the next station. I was successful in gaining its platform without exciting observation. News of the catastrophe had already been passed on, so that I was able, mingling with a frenzied crowd, to make my way to the streets. But panic was in my feet, and all reason had fled from my brain. I felt only that to remain in London would be to find myself, sooner or later, the most execrated of human monstrosities, on the scaffold. There and then I effaced myself for the second time, hurried to the docks, and procured a post as steward on an out-going steamer. I have never been in England since. I now give monsieur the explanation he once asked for, secure in the thought that, as ill-luck has at last conceded to me the ministrations of this dear angel of a mademoiselle, his persecution must be nearing its end before the approach of the only foe he dreads. I leave it to monsieur, if he likes, to vindicate my name.”
As he finished, Mr. G——, whose face had been wonderfully kindling towards the end, bent over the bed.
“This must not be, Carabas,” he said. “The man, the dynamiter, confessed the whole truth before he died.”
Carabas sprang up.
“Monsieur!” he cried.