“Willingly,” I answered; “as soon as I know the truth, I shall be glad that all the world knows it also.”
“That as we shall judge hereafter,” said Westover, with a significant smile, “and now will you stay and dine with me. We have time for a ride, or a walk, before the dinner hour.”
I declined, however, for I felt myself in no state of mind to enjoy society, and returning to the hotel, I sat there in uneasy pondering, till the sky began to turn gray. I then walked out and passed down Swallow street; but it was not yet dark enough for my purpose. I proceeded therefore to the end of the street, took a turn through those long forgotten alleys which led to St. James’s market, and walked back again, while a dingy man, with a red-flaming and stench-emitting link, ran up and down a ladder at every lamp-post before me, lighting the dim lamps, which were the only illumination of London before the modern improvement of gas. Just as I approached the door of the apothecary, I saw that worthy gentleman issue forth, with coat tightly buttoned up, and hat pressed down upon his brows, and not wishing to call him back to his shop, I passed by a few steps and then returned. When I entered I found no one but a small servant boy or apprentice at the counter, and simply saying, I wished to speak to Monsieur de Carcassonne, I approached the foot of the stairs by which I had mounted before. The boy seemed to hesitate as to whether he should try to stop me or not; but at length when I had the door leading to the staircase in my hand, he said, “You’d better take a light,” and handed me a lamp. As I mounted the steps, in a foul, close atmosphere, which below, had the odor of drugs, and above, that of confined and deteriorated air, I heard a frequent, rattling cough, sounding from the upper rooms, and I judged by the peculiar noise it made, that the life of the cougher was not worth many day’s purchase. I knocked at the door of the Marquis de Carcassonne, as a mere matter of ceremony, but without waiting, opened it and went in. I found him seated in nearly the same position as when I previously saw him, before the fire of his little stove grate; but though the room smelt of food there was no cooking going on.
He was greatly altered. His face was white and blue, and become exceedingly thin and meagre: His whole person shrunk, and his eyes full of a vivacious anxiety which I have often since remarked in the last stages of organic diseases. He had got a newspaper in his hand, which in the true French spirit he was reading eagerly, by the light of a single, sweaty, tallow candle, that required incessant snuffing; but he instantly raised his eyes above the edge of the paper, looking toward the door, with a somewhat perturbed expression of countenance. At first he gazed at me without the slightest trace of recognition on his face, but I was not in a frame of mind to be abashed or daunted by the look of any man. There was a stern, earnest determination in my heart, which could meet a sneer, or an insult, or a threat, with equal indifference.
He rose up from his chair, with habitual politeness, went through the customary bow with the customary grace, and then sank down again into his seat, unable to stand long upon his feet. I walked calmly and deliberately up to the side of the table, and without being invited, seated myself exactly before him.
I must not stay to scrutinize my feelings at that moment. It is enough to say that they were sufficiently fiendish. There he sat, the murderer of my father, the persecutor of my race—a worm—a snake—which wanted but one crush of my heel, as it seemed to me, to lie a mass of rotting corruption before me. Pity! I could feel no pity at that moment. All human charities seemed extinguished within me, and although I would not have injured the frail body for the world, yet I felt if I could have got at his spirit I would have torn it to pieces.
He looked at me in surprise and dismay, as in dull silence I drew a chair to the table and sat down, gazing fixedly at him, as if I would have looked into his very soul. He said not a word, and after a pause, I asked, “Do you know me, Marquis de Carcassonne?”
“No,” he said, in the shrill treble of age, and with a look of fear and agitation, shrinking back in his chair as far as he could. “No. The dead do not come back here below—That is a superstition—No, I do not know you, though you are like—very like.”
“I am Louis De Lacy,” I said, sternly.
“Ah!” he cried “ah!” and he put out his hand as if to push me off from him.