FIVE YEARS LATER.
Five years of absence from home may glide rapidly enough away, when passed in pursuit of pleasure or profit; dragged out between prison walls, they appear an eternity, a chasm between the captive and the world. So thought Dominique as he re-entered Montauban, at the expiration of his sentence. During the whole time, not a word of intelligence had reached him from his home, no friendly voice had greeted his ear, no line of familiar handwriting had gladdened his tearless eyes. Arrived in his native town, his first inquiry was for his father. Pascal Lafon was dead. The fate of his wife and son had preyed upon his health; the prison air had poisoned the springs of life in the strong, free-hearted man. The physician declared drugs useless in his case, for that the atmosphere of liberty alone could save him; and he recommended, if unconditional release were impossible, that the prisoner should be guarded in his own house. The recommendation was forwarded to Paris, but the same post took a letter from Anthony Noell, and a few days brought the physician's dismissal and an order for the close confinement of Lafon. Examinations followed each other in rapid succession, but they served only to torment the prisoner, without procuring his release; and after some months he died, his innocence unrecognised. The cause of his death, and the circumstances attending it, were loudly proclaimed by the indignant physician; and Dominique, on his return to Montauban, had no difficulty in obtaining all the details, aggravated probably by the unpopularity of the judge. He heard them with unchanging countenance; none could detect a sign of emotion on that cheek of marble paleness, or in that cold and steadfast eye. He then made inquiries concerning Anthony Noell. That magistrate, he learned, had been promoted, two years previously, and now resided in his native town of Marseilles. At that moment, however, he happened to be at an hotel in Montauban. He had never recovered the loss of his sons, which had aged him twenty years in appearance, and had greatly augmented the harshness and sour severity of his character. He seemed to find his sole consolation in the society of his daughter, now a beautiful girl of seventeen, and in intense application to his professional duties. A tour of inspection, connected with his judicial functions, had now brought him to Montauban. During his compulsory absences from home, which were of annual occurrence and of some duration, his daughter remained in the care of an old female relation, her habitual companion, whose chief faults were her absurd vanity, and her too great indulgence of the caprices of her darling niece.
Dominique showed singular anxiety to learn every particular concerning Anthony Noell's household, informing himself of the minutest details, and especially of the character of his daughter, who was represented to him as warmhearted and naturally amiable, but frivolous and spoiled by over-indulgence. On the death of his sons, Noell renounced his project of sending her from home, and the consequence was, that her education had been greatly neglected. Madame Verlé, the old aunt already mentioned, was a well-meaning, but very weak widow, who, childless herself, had no experience in bringing up young women. In her own youth she had been a great coquette, and frivolity was still a conspicuous feature in her character. As M. Noell, since his sons' death, had shown a sort of aversion for society, the house was dull enough, and Madame Verlé's chief resource was the circulating library, whence she obtained a constant supply of novels. Far from prohibiting to her niece the perusal of this trash, she made her the companion of her unwholesome studies. The false ideas and highflown romance with which these books teemed, might have made little impression on a character fortified by sound principles and a good education, but they sank deep into the ardent and uncultivated imagination of Florinda Noell, to whose father, engrossed by his sorrows and by his professional labours, it never once occurred to check the current of corruption thus permitted to flow into his daughter's artless mind. He saw her gay, happy, and amused, and he inquired no further; well pleased to find her support so cheerfully the want of society to which his morose regrets and gloomy eccentricity condemned her.
One of Dominique's first cares, on his return to Montauban, was to visit his parents' grave. Although his father died in prison, and his memory had never been cleared from the slur of accusation, his friends had obtained permission, with some difficulty, to inter his corpse beside that of his wife. The day was fading into twilight when Dominique entered the cemetery, and it took him some time to find the grave he sought. The sexton would have saved him the trouble, but the idea seemed a profanation; in silence and in solitude he approached the tomb of his affections and happiness. Long he sat upon the mound, plunged in reverie, but with dry eyes, for the source of tears appeared exhausted in his heart. Night came; the white tombstones looked ghastly pale in the moonlight, and cast long black shadows upon the turf. Dominique arose, plucked a wild-flower from his mother's grave, and left the place. He had taken but three steps when he became aware he was not alone in the churchyard. A tall figure rose suddenly from an adjacent grave. Although separated but by one lofty tombstone, the two mourners had been too absorbed and silent in their grief to notice each other's presence. Now they gazed at one another. The moon, for a moment obscured, emerged from behind a cloud, and shone upon their features. The recognition was mutual and instantaneous. Both started back. Between the graves of their respective victims, Anthony Noell and Dominique Lafon confronted each other.
A dusky fire gleamed in the eyes of Dominique, and his features, worn and emaciated from captivity, were distorted with the grimace of intense hatred. His heart throbbed as though it would have burst from his bosom.
"May your dying hour be desolate!" he shrieked. "May your end be in misery and despair!"
The magistrate gazed at his inveterate foe with a fixed stare of horror, as though a phantom had suddenly risen before him. Then, slowly raising his hand, till it pointed to the grave of his sons, his eye still fixed, as if by fascination, upon that of Dominique, a single word, uttered in a hollow tone, burst from his quivering lips.
"Murderer!" he exclaimed.
Dominique laughed. It was a hideous sound, a laugh of unquenchable hatred and savage exultation. He approached Noell till their faces were but a few inches apart, and spoke in a voice of suppressed fierceness.
"My father and my mother," he said, "expired in grief, and shame, and misery. By your causeless hate and relentless persecution, I was made an orphan. The debt is but half paid. You have still a child. You still find happiness on earth. But you yet shall lose all—all! Yet shall you know despair and utter solitude, and your death shall be desolate, even as my father's was. Remember! We shall meet again."