XXXII.
It struck two when Daniel jumped out of a carriage before No. 79 inPeletier Street, where the offices of the Pennsylvania Petroleum Companywere now, and where Count Ville-Handry lived at present.
Never in his life had he felt so embarrassed, or so dissatisfied withhimself. In vain had Papa Ravinet and Mrs. Bertolle brought up allpossible arguments to convince him, that, with a woman like SarahBrandon, all reprisals were fair; he would not be convinced.
Unfortunately, he could not refuse to go without risking the peace ofhis Henrietta, her confidence, and her whole happiness; so he went asbravely as he could.
A clerk whom he asked told him that the president was in his rooms,--inthe third story on the left. He went up. The maid who came to open thedoor recognized him. It was the same Clarissa who had betrayed him.When he asked for the count she invited him in. She took him throughan anteroom, dark, and fragrant with odors from the kitchen; and then,opening a door, she said;--
"Please walk in!"
Before an immense table, covered with papers, sat Count Ville-Handry.He had grown sadly old. His lower lip hung down, giving him a painfulexpression of weakness of mind; and his watery eyes looked almostsenile. Still his efforts to look young had not been abandoned. He wasrouged and dyed as carefully as ever. When he recognized Daniel, hepushed back his papers; and offering him his hand, as if they had partedthe day before, he said,--
"Ah, here you are back again among us! Upon my word, I am very glad tosee you! We know what you have been doing out there; for my wife sent meagain and again to the navy department to see if there were any news ofyou. And you have become an officer of the Legion of Honor! You ought tobe pleased."
"Fortune has favored, me, count."
"Alas! I am sorry I cannot say as much for myself," replied the latterwith a sigh.
"You must be surprised," he continued, "to find me living in such adog's kennel, I who formerly--But so it goes. 'The ups and downs ofspeculations,' says Sir Thorn. Look here, my dear Daniel, let me giveyou a piece of advice: never speculate in industrial enterprises!Nowadays it is mere gambling, furious gambling; and everybody cheats. Ifyou stake a dollar, you are in for everything. That is my story, and Ithought I would enrich my country by a new source of revenue. From thefirst day on which I emitted shares, speculators have gotten hold ofthem, and have crushed me, till my whole fortune has been spent inuseless efforts to keep them up. And yet Sir Thorn says I have fought asbravely on this slippery ground as my ancestors did in the lists."
Every now and then the poor old man passed his hand over his face asif trying to drive away painful thoughts; and then he went on in adifferent tone of voice,--
"And yet I am far from complaining. My misfortunes have been the sourceof the purest and highest happiness for me. It is to them I owe theknowledge of the boundless devotion of a beloved wife; they have taughtme how dearly Sarah loves me. I alone can tell what treasures are hidin that angelic heart, which they dared to calumniate. Ah! I think I canhear her now, when I told her one evening how embarrassed I had becomein my finances.
"'To have concealed that from me!' she exclaimed,--'from me, your wife:that was wrong!' And the very next day she showed her sublime courage.She sold her diamonds to bring me the proceeds, and gave up to me herwhole fortune. And, since we are living here, she goes out on foot, likea simple citizen's wife; and more than once I have caught her preparingour modest meals with her own hands."
Tears were flowing down the furrowed cheeks, leaving ghastly lines onthe rouged and whitened surface.
"And I," he resumed in an accent of deepest despair,--"I could notreward her for such love and so many sacrifices. How did I compensateher for being my only consolation, my joy, my sole happiness in life! Iruined her; I impoverished her! If I were to die to-morrow, she would bepenniless."
Daniel trembled.
"Ah, count," he exclaimed, "don't speak of dying! People like you live ahundred years."
But the old man lowered his voice, and said,--
"You see, I have not told you all yet. But you are my friend; and I knowI can open my heart to you. _I_ did not have the--the--cleverness toovercome all the restrictions which hamper this kind of business. I wasimprudent, in spite of all Sir Thorn's warnings. To-morrow there will bea meeting of the stockholders; and, if they do not grant me what I shallhave to ask of them, I may be in trouble. And, when a man calls himselfCount Ville-Handry, rather than appear in a police-court--you know whatI mean!"
He was interrupted by one of the clerks, who brought him a letter. Heread it, and said,--
"Tell them I am coming."
Then, turning again to Daniel, he added,--
"I must leave you; but the countess is at home, and she would neverforgive me if I did not take you in to present your respects to her.Come! But be careful and don't say a word of my troubles. It would killher."
And, before Daniel could recover from his bewilderment, the count hadopened a door, and pushed him into the room, saying,--
"Sarah, M. Champcey."
Sarah started up as if she had received an electric shock. Her husbandhad left them; but, even if he had been still in the room, she wouldprobably not have been any more able to control herself.
"You!" she cried, "Daniel, my Daniel!"
And turning to Mrs. Brian, who was sitting by the window, she said,--
"Leave us."
"Your conduct is perfectly shocking, Sarah!" began the grim lady. ButSarah, as harshly as if she had been speaking to a servant, cut hershort, saying,--
"You are in the way, and I beg you will leave the room."
Mrs. Brian did so without saying a word; and the countess sank into anarm-chair, as if overcome by a sudden good fortune which she was notable to endure, looking intensely at Daniel, who stood in the centre ofthe room like a statue.
She had on a simple black merino dress; she wore no jewelry; but hermarvellous, fatal beauty seemed to be all the more dazzling. The yearshad passed over her without leaving any more traces on her than thespring breeze leaves on a half-opened rose. Her hair still shone withits golden flashes; her rosy lips smiled sweetly; and her velvet eyescaressed you still, till hot fire seemed to run in your veins.
Once before Daniel had been thus alone with her; and, as the sensationshe then felt rose in his mind, he began to tremble violently. Then,thinking of his purpose in coming here, and the treacherous part he wasabout to act, he felt a desire to escape.
It was she who broke the charm. She began, saying,--
"You know, I presume, the misfortunes that have befallen us. Yourbetrothed, Henrietta? Has the count told you?"
Daniel had taken a chair. He replied,--
"The count has said nothing about his daughter."
"Well, then, my saddest presentiments have been fulfilled. Unhappy girl!I did what I could to keep her in the right way. But she fell, step bystep, and finally so low, that one day, when a ray of sense fell uponher mind, she went and killed herself."
It was done. Sarah had overcome the last hesitation which Daniel stillfelt. Now he was in the right temper to meet cunning with cunning. Heanswered in an admirably-feigned tone of indifference,--
"Ah!"
Then, encouraged by the joyous surprise he read in Sarah's face, he wenton,--
"This expedition has cost me dear. Count Ville-Handry has just informedme that he has lost his whole fortune. I am in the same category."
"What! You are"--
"Ruined. Yes; that is to say, I have been robbed,--robbed of every centI ever had. On the eve of my departure, I intrusted a hundred thousanddollars, all I ever possessed, to M. de Brevan, with orders to holdit at Miss Henrietta's disposal. He found it easier to appropriate thewhole to himself. So, you see, I am reduced to my pittance of pay as alieutenant. That is not much."
Sarah looked at Daniel with perfect amazement. In any other man, thisprodigious confidence in a friend would have appeared to her the extremeof human folly; in Daniel, she thought it was sublime
.
"Is that the reason why they have arrested M. de Brevan?" she asked.
Daniel had not heard of his arrest.
"What!" he said. "Maxime"--
"Was arrested last night, and is kept in close confinement."
However well prepared Daniel was by Papa Ravinet's account, he couldnever have hoped to manage the conversation as well as chance did. Hereplied,--
"It cannot be for having robbed me. M. de Brevan must have been arrestedfor having attempted to murder me."
The lioness who has just been robbed of her whelps does not rise withgreater fury in her eyes than Sarah did when she heard these words.
"What!" she cried aloud. "He has dared touch you!"
"Not personally; oh, no! But he hired for the base purpose a wretchedfelon, who was caught, and has confessed everything. I see that theorder to apprehend my friend Maxime must have reached here before me,although it left Saigon some time later than I did."
Might not M. de Brevan be as cowardly as Crochard when he saw that allwas lost? This idea, one would think, would have made Sarah tremble. Butit never occurred to her.
"Ah, the wretch!" she repeated. "The scoundrel, the rascal!"
And, sitting down by Daniel, she asked him to tell her all the detailsof these attempted assassinations, from which he had escaped only by amiracle.
The Countess Sarah, in fact, never doubted for a moment but that Danielwas as madly in love with her as Planix, as Malgat, and Kergrist, andall the others, had been, she had become so accustomed to find herbeauty irresistible and all powerful. How could it ever have occurred toher, that this man, the very first whom she loved sincerely, should alsobe the first and the only one to escape from her snares? She was takenin, besides, by the double mirage of love and of absence.
During the last two years she had so often evoked the image of Daniel,she had so constantly lived with him in her thoughts, that she mistookthe illusion of her desires for the reality, and was no longer able todistinguish between the phantom of her dreams and the real person.
In the meantime he entertained her by describing to her his actualposition, lamenting over the treachery by which he had been ruined, andadding how hard he would find it at thirty to begin the world anew.
And she, generally, so clearsighted, was not surprised to find thatthis man, who had been disinterestedness itself, should all of a suddendeplore his losses so bitterly, and value money so highly.
"Why do you not marry a rich woman?" she suddenly asked him.
He replied with a perfection of affected candor which he would not havesuspected to be in his power the day before,--
"What? Do you--you, Sarah--give me such advice?"
He said it so naturally, and with such an air of aggrieved surprise,that she was delighted and carried away by it, as if he had made her themost passionate avowal.
"You love me? Do you really, really love me?"
The sound of a key turning in the door interrupted them.
And in an undertone, speaking passionately, she said,--
"Go now! You shall know by to-morrow who she is whom I have chosen foryou. Come and breakfast with us at eleven o'clock. Go now."
And, kissing him on his lips till they burnt with unholy fire, shepushed him out of the room.
The poor man staggered like a drunken man, as he went down the stairs.
"I am playing an abominable game," he said to himself. "She does loveme! What a woman!"
It required nothing less to rouse him from his stupor than the sightof Papa Ravinet, who was waiting for him below, hid in a corner of hiscarriage.
"Is it you?" he said.
"Yes, myself. And it seems it was well I came. But for me, the countwould have kept you; but I came to your rescue by sending him up aletter. Now, tell me all."
Daniel reported to him briefly, while they were driving along, hisconversation with the count and with Sarah. When he had concluded, theold dealer exclaimed,--
"We have the whole matter in our hands now. But there is not a minute tolose. Do you go back to the hotel, and wait for me there. I must go tothe court."
At the hotel Daniel found Henrietta dying with anxiety. Still she onlyasked after her father. Was it pride, or was it prudence? She did notmention Sarah's name. They had, however, not much time for conversation.Papa Ravinet came back sooner than they expected, all busy and excited.He drew Daniel aside to give him his last directions, and did not leavehim till midnight, when he went away, saying,--
"The ground is burning under our feet; be punctual to-morrow."
At the precise hour Daniel presented himself in Peletier Street, wherethe count received him with a delighted air.
"Ah!" he exclaimed, "you come just in time. Brian is away; Sir Thorn isout on business; and I shall have to leave you directly after breakfast.You must keep the countess company. Come, Sarah, let us have breakfast."
It was an ill-omened breakfast.
Under the thick layers of rouge, the count showed his livid pallor;and every moment nervous tremblings shook him from head to foot. Thecountess affected childish happiness; but her sharp and sudden movementsbetrayed the storm that was raging in her heart. Daniel noticed that sheincessantly filled the count's glass,--a strong wine it was too,--andthat, in order to make him take more, she drank herself an unusualquantity.
It struck twelve, and Count Ville-Handry got up.
"Well," he said with the air and the voice of a man who braces himselfto mount the scaffold, "it must be done; they are waiting for me."
And, after having kissed his wife with passionate tenderness, he shookhands with Daniel, and went out hurriedly.
Crimson and breathless, Sarah also had risen, and was listeningattentively. And, when she was quite sure that the count had gonedownstairs, she said,--
"Now, Daniel, look at me! Need I tell you who the woman is whom I havechosen for you? It is--the Countess Ville-Handry."
He shook and trembled; but he controlled himself by a supreme effort,and calmly smiling, in a half tender, half ironical tone, he replied,--
"Why, oh, why! do you speak to me of unattainable happiness? Are you notmarried?"
"I may be a widow."
These words from her lips had a fearful meaning. But Daniel was preparedfor them, and said,--
"To be sure you may. But, unfortunately, you, also, are ruined. You areas poor as I am; and we are too clever to think of joining poverty topoverty."
She looked at him with a strange, sinister smile. She was evidentlyhesitating. A last ray of reason lighted up the abyss at her feet. Butshe was drunk with pride and passion; she had taken a good deal of wine;and her usually cool head was in a state of delirium.
"And if I were not ruined?" she said at last in a hoarse voice; "whatwould you say then?"
"I should say that you are the very woman of whom an ambitious man ofthirty might dream in his most glorious visions."
She believed him. Yes, she was capable of believing that what he saidwas true; and, throwing aside all restraint, she went on,--
"Well, then, I will tell you. I am rich,--immensely rich. That entirefortune which once belonged to Count Ville-Handry, and which he thinkshas been lost in unlucky speculations,--the whole of it is in my hands.Ah! I have suffered horribly, to have to play for two long years theloving wife to this decrepit old man. But I thought of you, my muchbeloved, my Daniel; and that thought sustained me. I knew you would comeback; and I wanted to have royal treasures to give you. And I have them.These much coveted millions are mine, and you are here; and now I cansay to you, 'Take them, they are yours; I give them to you as I givemyself to you.'"
She had drawn herself up to her full height as she said this; and shelooked splendid and fearful at the same time, in her matchless beauty,diffusing energy and immodesty around her, and shaking her headdefiantly, till the waves of golden hair flowed over her shoulders.
The untamed vagabond of the gutter reappeared all of a sudden,breathless and trembling, hoarse, lusting.
&n
bsp; Daniel felt as if his reason was giving way. Still he had the strengthto say,--
"But unfortunately you are not a widow."
She drew close up to him, and said in a strident voice,--
"Not a widow? Do you know what Count Ville-Handry is doing at thismoment? He is beseeching his stockholders to relieve him from theeffects of his mismanagement. If they refuse him, he will be brought upin court, and tried as a defaulter. Well, I tell you! they will refusehim; for among the largest stockholders there are three who belong tome: I have bribed them to refuse. What do you think the count will dowhen he finds himself dishonored and disgraced? I will tell you again;for I have seen him write his will, and load his revolver."
But the door of the outer room was opened. She turned as pale as deathitself, and, seizing Daniel's arm violently, she whispered,--
"Listen!"
Heavy steps were heard in the adjoining room, then--nothing more!
"It is he!" she whispered again. "Our fate is hanging in the scales"--
A shot was heard, which made the window-panes rattle, and cut hershort. She was seized with spasms from head to foot, but, making a greateffort, she cried out,--
"Free at last, Daniel; we are free!"
And, rushing to the door, she opened it.
She opened it, but instantly shut it again violently, and uttered aterrible cry.
On the threshold stood Count Ville-Handry, his features terriblydistorted, a smoking revolver in his hand.
"No," he said, "Sarah, no, you are not free!"
Livid, and with eyeballs starting from their sockets, the wretched womanhad shrunk back to a door which opened from the dining-room directlyinto her chamber.
She was not despairing yet.
It was evident she was looking for one of those almost incredibleexcuses which are sometimes accepted by credulous old men when violentpassions seize them in their dotage.
She abandoned the thought, however, when the count stepped forward, andthus allowed Papa Ravinet to be seen behind him.
"Malgat!" she cried,--"Malgat!"
She held out her hands before her as if to push aside a spectre thathad suddenly risen from the grave, and was now opening its arms to seizeher, and carry her off.
In the meantime Malgat came forward, with Henrietta leaning on Mrs.Bertolle's arm.
"She also," muttered Sarah,--"she too!"
The terrible truth broke at last upon her mind: she saw the snare inwhich she had been caught, and felt that she was lost. Then turning toDaniel, she said to him,--
"Poor man! Who has made you do this? It was not in your loyal heart toplan such treachery against a woman. Are you mad? And do you not see,that for the privilege of being loved by me as I love you, and were itbut for a day, Malgat would again rob his employers, and the count wouldagain give all his millions, and his honor itself?"
She said this; but at the same time she had slipped one of her handsbehind her back, and was feeling for the knob of the door. She got holdof it, and instantly disappeared, before any one could have preventedher escape.
"Never mind!" said Malgat. "All the outer doors are guarded."
But she had not meant to escape. There she was again, pale and cold likemarble. She looked defiantly all around her, and said in a mocking toneof voice,--
"I have loved; and now I can die. That is just. I have loved. Ah!Planix, Malgat, and Kergrist ought to have taught me what becomes ofpeople who really love."
Then looking at Daniel, she went on,--
"And you--you will know what you have lost when I am no more. I may die;but the memory of my love will never die: it will rankle ever in youlike a wound which opens daily afresh, and becomes constantly sorer.You triumph now, Henrietta; but remember, that between your lips andDaniel's there will forever rise the shadow of Sarah Brandon."
As she said the last words, she raised a small phial, which she held inher hand, with an indescribably swift movement to her lips: she drankthe contents, and, sinking into a chair, said,--
"Now I defy you all!"
"Ah, she escapes after all!" exclaimed Malgat, "she escapes fromjustice!" He rushed forward to assist her; but Daniel stepped between,and said,--
"Let her die."
Already horrible convulsions began to seize her; and the penetratingsmell of bitter almonds, which slowly filled the whole room, told buttoo plainly that the poison which she had taken was one of those fromwhich there is no rescue.
She was carried to her bed; and in less than ten minutes she was dead:she had never uttered another word.
Henrietta and Mrs. Bertolle were kneeling by the side of the bed, andthe count was sobbing in a corner of the room, when a police-sergeantentered.
"The woman Brian is not to be found," he said; "but M. Elgin has beenarrested. Where is the Countess Ville-Handry?"
Daniel pointed at the body.
"Dead?" said the officer. "Then I have nothing more to do here."
He was going out, when Malgat stopped him.
"I beg your pardon, sir," he said. "I wish to state that I am notRavinet, dealer in curiosities; but that my true name is Malgat,formerly cashier of the Mutual Discount Society, sentenced _incontumaciam_ to ten years' penal servitude. I am ready to be tried, andplace myself in your hands."