“Convinced that he could not strike the Lieutenant while he was locked in his arms, the Italian bethought him of another plan. Suddenly, and very dexterously, he relaxed his grip. Permitting his muscles to go limp, he slipped to the floor, hacking at the other’s legs as he did so. So surprising and so clever was the movement, that Zol sprang away to avoid the cut of the blade, and in that moment Klun was free. Determined that no false stroke should put him in the clutch of his antagonist again, he stepped back, a great oath upon his lips, and gathered himself together like a beast about to spring.
“‘Holy Virgin, my lieutenant,’ he cried, ‘I am going to slit your throat! You shall tell your tale then, if you have breath. What! you have no fancy for it? Devil’s cub that you are——’
“He sprang forward with the words, and Zol, who had reeled backward against the wall, thought, indeed, that then was the moment when he was about to die. One instant, he said, and the mystery of life would be a mystery to him no more. No longer had he the strength to parry or to grip; he could but wait for the blow and wonder if the agony of death were an agony hard to bear. But that blow never fell, excellency. The Hand of God was over the boy. The holy angels watched him. Even while he told himself—for so were his nerves wrought upon—that Klun had struck him, the Italian lay dead at his feet. A miracle, you say; aye, surely—yet what a miracle!
“For thus it befell: The men in their struggle had pulled up the great mat in that corner of the room where the end came. As Klun sprang upon the boy, he caught his foot in the edge of this mat, and lurched forward heavily upon his face. The upturned knife—upturned because his arm bent under him—was driven by the weight of his body into his own throat. During one long minute the dying man clutched frantically at the floor beneath him. Then, rising upon his knees, and plucking at the dagger he, of a sudden, gave a gurgling cry, and fell stone dead.
“In the same moment Christine stepped from her carriage and ran up the stairs of the house to her room.”
CHAPTER XXV
THE END OF THE STORY
“She had come out of the theatre with her victory fresh upon her. The change from the glare of lights and the clamour of voices to the darkness of the streets and her own solitude reminded her how little that triumph meant to her. ‘He has forgotten,’ she said to herself always. The purpose of her work, that she might be worthy of her lover; the purpose of her suffering, that he might not suffer, guided her no longer. She seemed to sink back to a world of misery and of hopeless effort. The silence of the night reminded her that she was without a friend in all the city. She had ever hungered for love; the loveless childhood she had known had fed that hunger. Jézero had been to her a garden of delight because love had built there arbours for her, and she had rested in them. But now these were shut to her. She recalled every word that Count Paul had spoken; his callousness, his raillery, his restraint in avoiding any word of affection for her. She knew instinctively that never more would she hear his voice or touch his hand. She remembered that she must go back to a home which was not a home; she thought of the man Klun, of his brutalities and his persecutions. She asked herself to what end she had succeeded in the theatre, had realised the visions of her childhood. Life could give her nothing, since it did not give her love.
“These thoughts—the children of her melancholy—were hers until the carriage set her down in the Wallner Strasse, and she ran up the stairs to her apartments. She was a little surprised that Zol opened to her knock; but surprise became fear when she saw his face and the blood upon his hands. She had long looked upon the young hussar as a real friend, though she was often ignorant of her own feeling in the matter. But now when he stood before her, pale and bloody and trembling with excitement, a great flood of affection for him rushed upon her, and she seized both his hands.
“‘Zol,’ she cried, ‘tell me—what is it, Zol? You have hurt yourself! Oh, my God! don’t look at me like that! Speak to me!’
“She said this, but her instinct—as the instinct of woman will in moments of peril—told her something of the truth. She endeavoured to pass into the boudoir, but he held her back, the blood from his hands soiling her cloak.