But Ralph was really intolerable on this particular evening; he had
never been more stupid and dull and tiresome. He could say nothing
apropos, and, to cap the climax of his loutishness, he gave no sign of
taking his leave even when the evening was far advanced. Madame Delmare
began to be ill at ease; she glanced alternately at the clock, which had
struck eleven--at the door, which had creaked in the wind--and at the
expressionless face of her cousin, who sat opposite her in front of the
fire, placidly watching the blaze without seeming to suspect that his
presence was distasteful.
But Sir Ralph's tranquil mask, his petrified features, concealed at that
moment a profound and painful mental agitation. He was a man whom
nothing escaped because he observed everything with perfect
self-possession. He had not been deceived by Raymon's pretended
departure; he perceived very plainly Madame Delmare's anxiety at that
moment. He suffered more than she did herself, and he moved irresolutely
between the impulse to give her a salutary warning and the fear of
giving way to feelings which he disavowed; at last his cousin's interest
carried the day, and he summoned all his moral courage in order to break
the silence.
"That reminds me," he said abruptly, following out the line of thought
with which his mind was busy, "that it was just a year ago to-day that
you and I sat in this chimney-corner as we are sitting now. The clock
marked almost the same hour; the weather was cold and threatening as it
is to-night. You were ill, and were disturbed by melancholy ideas; a
fact that almost makes me believe in the truth of presentiments."
"What can he be coming to?" thought Madame Delmare, gazing at her cousin
with mingled surprise and uneasiness.
"Do you remember, Indiana," he continued, "that you felt even less well
than usual that night? Why, I can remember your words as if I had just
heard them. 'You will call me insane,' you said, 'but some danger is
hovering about us and threatening some one of us--threatening me, I have
no doubt,' you added; 'I feel intensely agitated, as if some great
crisis in my destiny were at hand--I am afraid!' Those are your very
words."
"I am no longer ill," said Indiana, who had suddenly turned as pale as
at the time of which Sir Ralph spoke; "I no longer believe in such
foolish terrors."
"But I believe in them," he rejoined, "for you were a true prophet that
night, Indiana; a great danger did threaten us--a disastrous influence
surrounded this peaceful abode."
"_Mon Dieu!_ I do not understand you!"
"You soon will understand me, my poor girl. That was the evening that
Raymon de Ramière was brought here. Do you remember in what condition?"
Ralph paused a few seconds, but dared not look at his cousin. As she
made no reply, he continued:
"I was told to bring him back to life and I did so, as much to satisfy
you as to obey the instincts of humanity; but, in truth, Indiana, it was
a great misfortune that I saved that man's life! It was I who did all
the harm."
"I don't know what you mean by harm!" rejoined Indiana, dryly.
She was deeply moved in advance by the explanation which she foresaw.
"I mean that unfortunate creature's death," said Ralph. "But for him she
would still be alive; but for his fatal love the lovely, honest girl who
loved you so dearly would still be at your side."
Thus far Madame Delmare did not understand. She was exasperated beyond
measure by the strange and cruel method which her cousin adopted to
reproach her for her attachment to Monsieur de Ramière.
"Enough of this," she said, rising.
But Ralph apparently took no notice of her remark.
"What always astonished me," he continued, "was that you never guessed
the real motive that led Monsieur de Ramière to scale the walls."
A suspicion darted through Indiana's mind; her legs trembled under her,
and she resumed her seat.
Ralph had buried the knife in her breast and made a ghastly wound. He no
sooner saw the effect of his work than he hated himself for it; he
thought only of the injury he had inflicted on the person whom he loved
best in all the world; he felt that his heart was breaking. He would
have wept bitterly if he could have wept; but the poor fellow had not
the gift of tears; he had naught of that which eloquently translates the
language of the heart. The external coolness with which he performed the
cruel operation gave him the air of an executioner in Indiana's eyes.
"This is the first time," she said bitterly, "that I have known your
antipathy for Monsieur de Ramière to lead you to employ weapons that
are unworthy of you; but I do not see how it assists your vengeance to
stain the memory of a person who was dear to me, and whom her melancholy
end should have made sacred to us. I have asked you no questions, Sir
Ralph; I do not know what you refer to. With your permission I will
listen to no more."
She rose and left Monsieur Brown bewildered and crushed.
He had foreseen that he could not enlighten Madame Delmare except at his
own expense. His conscience had told him that he must speak, whatever
the result might be, and he had done it with all the abruptness of
method, all the awkwardness of execution of which he was capable. What
he had not fully appreciated was the violence of a remedy so long
delayed.
He left Lagny in despair and wandered through the forest in a sort of
frenzy.
It was midnight; Raymon was at the park gate. He opened it, but as he
opened it he felt his brow grow chill. For what purpose had he come to
this rendezvous? He had made divers virtuous resolutions, but would he
be amply rewarded by a chaste interview, by a sisterly kiss, for the
torture he was undergoing at that moment? For, if you remember under
what circumstances he had previously passed through those garden paths,
stealthily, at night, you will understand that it required a certain
degree of moral courage to go in search of pleasure along such a road
and amid such memories.
Late in October the climate of the suburbs of Paris becomes damp and
foggy, especially at night and in the neighborhood of streams. Chance
decreed that the fog should be as dense on this night as on certain
other nights in the preceding spring. Raymon felt his way along the
mist-enveloped trees. He passed a summer-house which contained a fine
collection of geraniums in winter. He glanced at the door, and his heart
beat fast at the extravagant idea that it might open and give egress to
a woman wrapped in a pelisse. Raymon smiled at this superstitious
weakness and went his way. Nevertheless the cold seized him, and he felt
an unpleasant tightness at his throat as he approached the stream.
He had to cross it to reach the flower-garden, and the only means of
crossing in that vicinity was a narrow wooden bridge. The fog became
more dismal than ever over the river-bed, and Raymon clung to the
railing of the bridge in order not to go astray among the reeds that
grew along the banks. The moon was just rising, and, as it strove to
pierce the vapors, cast an uncertain light on the plants which the wind
and the current moved to and fro. In the breeze which rustled the leaves
and ruffled the surface of the water there was a sort of wailing sound
like human words half-spoken. There was a faint sob close beside Raymon
and a sudden movement among the reeds; it was a curlew flying away at
his approach. The cry of that shore-bird closely resembles the moaning
of an abandoned child; and when it comes up from among the reeds you
would say that it was the last effort of a drowning man. Perhaps you
will consider that Raymon was very weak and cowardly; his teeth
chattered and he nearly fell; but he soon realized the absurdity of his
terror and crossed the bridge.
He was half-way across when a human figure appeared in front of him, at
the end of the rail, as if waiting for him to approach. Raymon's ideas
became confused; his bewildered brain had not the strength to reason. He
retraced his steps and hid among the trees, gazing with a fixed,
terrified stare at that ill-defined apparition which remained in the
same place, as vague and uncertain as the river mist and the trembling
rays of the moon. He was beginning to believe that in his mental
preoccupation he had been deceived, and that what he took for a human
form was only a tree-trunk or the stalk of a shrub, when he distinctly
saw it move and walk toward him.
At that moment, had not his legs absolutely refused to act, he would
have fled in as great a panic as the child who passes a cemetery at
night and fancies that he hears mysterious steps running after him on
the tips of the blades of grass. But he felt as if he were paralyzed,
and, to support himself, threw his arms around the trunk of the willow
behind which he was hidden. The next moment Sir Ralph, wrapped in a
light cloak which gave him the aspect of a phantom at three yards,
passed very close to him and took the path by which he had just come.
"Bungling spy!" thought Raymon, as he saw him looking for his
footprints. "I will escape your cowardly surveillance, and while you are
mounting guard here I will be enjoying myself yonder."
He crossed the bridge as lightly as a bird, and with the confidence of a
lover. His terrors were at an end; Noun had never existed; real life was
awakening all about him; Indiana awaited him yonder; and Ralph was on
sentry-go to keep him from entering.
"Watch closely," said Raymon, gayly, as he saw him in the distance going
in the opposite direction. "Watch for me, dear Sir Rodolphe Brown;
protect my good fortune, O my officious friend; and, if the dogs are
restless, if the servants wake, pacify them, keep them quiet by saying:
'It is I who am watching, sleep in peace.'"
Scruples, remorse, virtue were at an end for Raymon; he had paid dearly
enough for the hour that was striking. His blood that had frozen in his
veins flowed now toward his brain with maddening violence. A moment ago
the pallid terrors of death, dismal visions of the tomb; now the
impetuous realities of love, the keen joys of life. Raymon felt as bold
and full of animation as in the morning, when an ugly dream has
enveloped us in its shroud and suddenly a merry sunbeam awakens and
revivifies us.
"Poor Ralph!" he thought as he ascended the secret staircase with a
bold, light step, "you would have it so!"