At first the gloom seemed too profound to be dispersed by the feeble flickering light, but gradually, as his eyes became accustomed to it, he began to distinguish the more familiar objects. Half fearfully he glanced towards the door on the right-hand side. It stood half open. There was no longer room for any doubt. The house had been opened during his absence.
The full realization of any disaster often brings with it a calm which, to all outward appearance, contrasts favorably with the prior state of anxiety. This appeared to be the case with Mr. Bernard Brown. His entrance to the house had been hesitating and anxious, but as soon as he was convinced that what he dreamed had really come to pass, his nervousness seemed to fall away from him, and he was his old self again, calm and resolute. Holding the flickering candle high above his head, he moved steadily forward into the room on the right-hand side of the entrance.
Everything here was exactly as he had left it. The cases filled with books, some half emptied, some untouched, still lay about the floor, with the dust thick upon them. He cast one swift glance around, and then walked across and opened the door of the small inner room. The sudden draught extinguished his candle, and he found himself suddenly in total darkness. The closely barred shutters, which protected the low window, were securely fastened, and effectually shut out the lingering remnants of daylight. Stooping down, he re-lit the candle which he was still carrying, and holding it high over his head, looked anxiously around. One glance was sufficient. In the corner of the room opposite to him was a small table, where he always kept a basin of cold water and some clean towels. Round here the carpet had been torn up, and rearranged, with little pretence at concealment. Nearer the window stood a large oak cabinet, the most important piece of furniture in the room, and this he saw again in a moment had been tampered with. It had been moved a little out of its position, and one of the lower drawers stood partly open.
Like a man in a dream he slowly walked across to it and drew out a bunch of keys from his pocket. The final test had yet to be applied, and the final blow to fall.
He unlocked the topmost partition, and revealed a number of small drawers. Eagerly he drew out the topmost one, and looked inside. Then he knew the worst. It was empty. There was no longer any doubt whatever. His cottage had been entered by no ordinary housebreaker, for the purpose of plunder, but with a set of false keys, and with a far more serious object. The secret on which more than his life depended was gone!
CHAPTER XX
GOD! THAT I MAY DIE!
For a certain space of time, which seemed to him indefinite, but which was indeed of no great length, he stood there stunned, gazing at the rifled cabinet. Then, as consciousness returned to him, the roar of the storm without fell upon his ears, and struck some strange note of accord with the tumult in his brain. Turning round, he unbarred the shutters, and, opening the window, stepped outside. With slow, uncertain steps he made his way through the dense black plantation of shrieking fir trees, and out on to the cliffs. Here he paused, and stood quite still, looking across the sea. There was no light in the sky, but the veil of absolute darkness had not yet fallen upon the earth. Far away on the horizon was a lurid patch of deep yellow storm-clouds, casting a faint glimmer upon the foaming sea, which seemed to leap up in a weird monotonous joy to catch the unearthly light. From inland, rolling across the moorland, came phantom-like masses of vaporous cloud, driven on by the fierce wind which boomed across the open country, and shrieked and yelled amongst the pine plantations as though mad with a sudden hellish joy. On the verge of the cliff he stretched out his arms, as though to welcome the wild din of the night. The thunder of the ocean, seething and leaping against the rocks below, shook the air around him. The salt spray leaped up into his white face, and the winds blew against him, and the passionate cry of saddened nature rang in his deafened ears. At that moment those things were a joy to him.
And there came to him then something of that strange sweet calm which lays its soothing hand for a moment upon those who stand face to face with death, or any other mighty crisis. Looking steadfastly far away, beyond the foaming waste of waters to where one faint streak of stormlight shone on the horizon, pictures of the past began to rise up before his eyes. He saw himself again a happy, light-hearted child, riding gaily upon his father's shoulder, and laughing up into the beautiful face of his youthful mother. The memories of that time, and of his first home, came back to him with a peculiar freshness and fragrance, like a painting by one of the old masters, perfect in design, and with its deep rich coloring softened and mellowed by age. He remembered the bright beauty of those sunny southern gardens, where he had passed long hours listening to the gentle splashing of the water in the worn grey fountain bowl, and breathing in the soft spring-like air, faint with the sweetness of Roman violets. And, half unconsciously, his thoughts travelled on to the time when all the pure beauty of his surroundings—for his had been an artist's home—had begun to have a distinct meaning for him, and in the fervor of an esthetic and unusually thoughtful youth, he had dreamed, and felt, and tasted deep of pleasures which the world yields only to those who stoop to listen to her secrets, with the quickened sensibilities and glowing imagination of the artist—one of her own children. He had read her in such a way that he found himself struggling, even in early boyhood, for some means of expression—but at that time none had come to him. The fruits of his later life had been the result of his early experience, but how embittered, how saddened by the unchanging gloom, which, at one period, had seemed as though it must dry up for ever all enthusiasm from his boyish heart. What a fire of passions had blazed up and died away within him; and as he thought of that sudden dying away, he thought of the moment when they had been quenched for ever, and of the voice which had quenched them. Again he crouched on his knees by the side of the sofa drawn up close to the high open windows of the Italian villa, and felt that thin white hand laid gently upon his trembling lips, checking in a moment the flood of angry words which in his heart had been but the prelude to a curse. The calm of that death-white face, with its marble passionless pallor and saint-like beauty, lingered still, faithfully treasured up in the rich store-house of his memory. Death alone would wipe it out. It was one of the experiences of his life, written alike into his undying recollection, and into his heart.