"THEY BEHELD THEIR MASTER LYING UPON HIS FACE UNDER THE TABLE."
ACT IV.
Scene First.—The Seine at midnight.
Darkness as of death, and, excepting for the hollow murmur of the river, silence as of the grave, utter and profound.
The sky above is a dim, misty opalescence of moonlit stillness; against it rise great, towering, crazy buildings, sharp-roofed, gabled, as black as ink. Across the narrow stretch of intervening water tower other buildings—crazy, sharp-roofed, gabled, as black as ink—and above all loom the great spires of the church into the pale sky, ponderous, massive, silent. One broken strip of moonlight stretches across parapet and roadway of the bridge, white and still. All around it is gaping blackness. Suddenly there is a little movement in the darkness, the sound of a stumbling step, halting and uneven, and then some one appears in the white patch of moonlight. It is Oliver, pale, hollow-eyed, dishevelled, his hair tangled, his lace cravat torn open at the throat, his waistcoat unbuttoned, his silk stockings stained and spattered with mud. He reels like a drunken man as he struggles against the invisible power that holds him relentless as fate. Step by step that power thrusts him, struggling and shuffling, towards the parapet of the bridge. He mounts it and flings one leg over the edge. Beneath him in the inky blackness he can hear but not see the water rushing onward under the arches.
Suddenly some one touched Oliver lightly upon the shoulder, and instantly he felt the same physical effect that had happened when the master had struck his hands together in the room at the Hôtel de Flourens. It was as though a blow had fallen upon him. Bright sparks danced and flashed before his eyes, his brain spun like a teetotum in a dizzy horizontal whirl, and he clutched the cold stones with his fingers to save himself from falling. Then suddenly the sparks vanished and the whirling ceased, and he awoke sharply as though it were from some horrid nightmare. He gazed stupidly around him, still sitting upon the parapet of the bridge; the figure of a woman stood within ten paces of him, her waxy-white face turned full upon him, her unwinking eyes, sparkling in the moonlight, fixed full upon his.