CHAPTER XII
As may be supposed my meeting with the Don afforded me abundant food for reflection. Was it true, as he had said, that in his hour of distress Nikola had afforded him an asylum? and if so, why was the latter doing so? I knew Nikola too well by this time to doubt that he had some good and sufficient reason for his action. Lurking at the back of my mind was a hideous suspicion that, although I tried my hardest not to think of it, would not allow itself to be banished altogether. I could not but remember the story Nikola had told me on that eventful evening concerning his early life, and the chance remark he had let fall one day that he knew more about the man, Don Martinos, than I supposed, only tended to confirm it. If that were so, and he still cherished, as I had not the least doubt he did—for Nikola was one who never forgave or forgot,—the same undying hatred and desire for vengeance against his old enemy, the son of his mother's betrayer, then there was—but here I was compelled to stop. I could not go on. The death-like face of the man I had just left rose before my mind's eye like an accusing angel, whereupon I made a resolution that I would think no more of him nor would I say anything to any member of our party concerning my meeting with him that afternoon. It is superfluous to remark that the latter resolve was more easily kept than the former.
The first dinner in Venice after our return was far from being a success. Miss Gertrude's headache, instead of leaving her, had become so bad that she was compelled to go forthwith to bed, leaving Glenbarth in despair, and the rest of our party as low-spirited as possible. Next morning she declared she was a little better, though she complained of having passed a wretched night.
"I had such horrible dreams," she told my wife, "that when I woke up I scarcely dared close my eyes again."
"I cannot remember quite what she said she dreamt," said Phyllis when she told me the story; "but I know that it had something to do with Doctor Nikola and his dreadful house, and that it frightened her terribly."
The girl certainly looked pale and haggard, and not a bit like the happy creature who had stepped into the train at Rome.
"Heaven grant that there is not more trouble ahead," I said to myself, as I smoked my pipe and thought over the matter. "I am beginning to wish we had not come to Venice at all. In that case we should not have seen Nikola or the Don, Miss Trevor would not have been in this state, and I should not have been haunted day and night with this horrible suspicion of foul play."
It was no use, however, talking of what might or might not have happened. It was sufficient that the things I have narrated had come to pass, and I must endeavour to derive what satisfaction I could from the reflection that I had done all that was possible under the circumstances.
On the day following our return to Venice, the Dean of Bedminster set off for England. I fancy he was sorry to go, and of one thing I am quite sure, and that was that we regretted losing him. It was arranged that, as soon as we returned to England, we should pay him a visit at Bedminster, and that the Duke should accompany us. Transparently honest though he was in all things, I fancy the old gentleman had a touch of vanity in his composition, and I could quite understand that he would be anxious to show off his future son-in-law before the society of his quiet cathedral town.
On the night following his departure, I had the most terrible dream I have had in my life. Though some time has elapsed since then, I can still recall the fright it gave me. My wife declares that she could see the effect of it upon my face for more than a day afterwards. But this, I think, is going a little too far. I am willing, however, to admit that it made a very great impression upon me at the time—the more so for the reason that it touched my thought, and I was quite at a loss to understand it. It was night, I remember, and I had just entered the Palace Revecce. I must have been invisible, for, though I stood in the room with Nikola, he did not appear to be aware of my presence. As usual he was at work upon some of his chemical experiments. Then I looked at his face, and saw that it wore an expression that I had never seen there before. I can describe it best by saying that it was one of absolute cruelty, unrelieved by even the smallest gleam of pity. And yet it was not cruelty in the accepted meaning of the word, so much as an overwhelming desire to punish and avenge. I am quite aware, on reading over what I have just written, that my inability to convey the exact impression renders my meaning obscure. Yet I can do no more. It was a look beyond the power of my pen to describe. Presently he put down the glass he held in his hand, and looked up with his head a little on one side, as if he were listening for some sound in the adjoining room. There was a shuffling footstep in the corridor outside, and then the door opened and there entered a figure so awful that I shrank back from it appalled. It was Don Martinos, and yet it was not the Don. The face and the height were perhaps the same, but the man himself was—oh, so different. On seeing Nikola he shambled forward, rather than walked, and dropped in a heap at his feet, clutching at his knees, and making a feeble whining noise, not unlike that of an animal in pain.