In answer to his inquiries for Megret, Arwed learned that he had
retired into the garden in company with a strange officer. He followed
him there, and their voices guided him through the leafless and snow
covered walks to a thick grove of yew-trees, in which Megret and the
stranger were sitting. A glance through an opening in the branches of
the trees discovered to him the face of Siquier, pale and wasted by
disease and affliction; and the interest of a conversation which now
commenced between them, chained him with irresistible power to the
spot.
'What is it that you particularly want of me?' asked Megret, with
mingled embarrassment and vexation. 'We have both of us so long and so
carefully avoided each other, that this unexpected visit may well
excite my wonder.'
'I am about to leave Sweden forever,' answered Siquier, in a desponding
tone, 'and have come to take my leave of you, and to procure money for
my traveling expenses.'
'Money for traveling?' murmured Megret. 'We settled with each other
long since, and balanced our accounts. Above all, how came you to form
the resolution of leaving Sweden?'
'You know,' answered Siquier, in a low voice and looking carefully
about him, 'with what ignominy common report has branded my honor since
the king's death. I still hoped that those suspicions would gradually
die away, but they continued daily to strengthen and increase, and I
learned that my enemies with witty insolence pronounced my once
honorable name, _Sicaire_,[1] thus, by a slight change of sound
expressing the accusation with that atrocious word. Two duels followed,
and still the rumor continued to spread. Had I fought half the army, it
would have been unavailing. Finally my mental sufferings overpowered my
physical strength. A raging fever seized me, and...' He ceased.
'And then?' asked Megret, with painful anxiety.
'In the paroxysms,' stammered Siquier, almost inaudibly, 'I am said to
have accused myself of Charles's murder, and to have thrown up my
windows and begged Sweden's pardon for the crime.'
'What consequence could they attach to such silly phantasies?' asked
Megret, turning deadly pale.
'The government,' continued Siquier, 'had me confined in a mad-house,
and when I recovered I received my dismission, with an injunction to
leave the kingdom.'
'Are you also, like myself, dismissed?' cried Megret, with a ferocious
laugh. 'They are right! The lemons have been squeezed, why should they
not sweep out the useless peels?'
'It is dreadful to have no means of escaping the gnawing worm in the
heart,' said Siquier, 'but, between ourselves, Megret, have we deserved
anything better?'
While saying this he seized Megret's hand and gave him a piercing
glance. The latter angrily tore himself from his grasp.
'You know our former agreement,' said he moodily, 'never to allude to
bye-gone occurrences, even in our most secret conversations.'
'You are right,' said Siquier, with a look and tone of horror. 'The
past is, for us, a black night, full of blood and flames! Let us wait
until it re-appear in eternal futurity!'
'Here is money,' said Megret, placing a heavy purse of gold in his
hand. 'Go and prosper.'
'It contains more than thirty pieces of silver,' said Siquier, weighing
the purse in a sort of mental abstraction. 'There is more than enough
to purchase a potter's field for a wanderer's grave!'
'The fever has weakened you, poor Siquier!' exclaimed Megret, with
forced laughter. 'You have grown learned in the scriptures, and will no
doubt become one of the professing brothers of La Trappe, in your old
age. Do hasten to get there.'
'Mock me not, seducer!' said Siquier, grating his teeth and grasping
the hilt of his sword. After a few moments he observed, 'you are right!
I believe in a hereafter,--I believe in future rewards and punishments,
and may I therefore live to repent and reform. You entertain a
different belief, and you have only to shoot yourself when your
conscience awakens from its death-sleep!'
'That may become advisable!' said Megret, in a low tone, and both
remained sitting near each other, their arms resting on their knees,
and their faces buried in their hands. They remained silent, each
absorbed in his own reflections, while the thickly falling flakes of
snow gradually wrapped them in white mantles, without attracting
notice.
At length a heavy sigh escaped from Siquier's laboring breast. He rose
up, threw the purse of gold before Megret's feet, and suddenly left the
garden, without bidding him farewell. Megret, uttering no word,
remained sitting in the same posture, and Arwed was detained motionless
for some time, by the feelings which this singular and dreadful
disclosure awakened, and by a want of decision, which of the two first
to call to account for their hidden deed of horror. He finally
concluded: 'why should I contend with the miserable man, whom the
judgment of God has already stricken, whose marrow has been already
consumed by sickness and remorse, who has neither strength nor courage
to oppose me, and who, perhaps, would welcome death from my hand? No,
the insolent transgressor, in all the pride and bloom of life, shall be
the object of my wrath--the _seducer_! as his accomplice called him. I
will punish not the _knife_, but the _hand_!'--and he quickly
approached the entrance to the grove, which Megret was that moment
leaving.
The latter shrunk before the indignant glance of the youth. The flush
of anger and the paleness of terror alternately played upon his
countenance, and it was dreadful to see the two manly forms confronting
each other with looks of enmity and defiance.
The fearful silence was interrupted by Arwed. 'I have overheard your
conversation with Siquier, colonel,' said he, 'and, as you know how
strong was the love I bore the king, you will not be surprised when I
declare to you that we must fight!'
'You have an especial passion for pistol-shooting!' calmly and
jestingly replied Megret. 'Probably you wish to revive the custom of
the ancient pagans, with whom the companions in arms of a hero prince
reciprocally slaughtered each other on his grave; as an evidence of
their love and respect for him.'
'Name your time and place!' cried Arwed, whose anger was increased by
his insolent witticisms.
'Eight days from this, about the same hour,' answered Megret, after
some little reflection, 'in the first iron mine of Danemora.'
'That is a late and distant rendezvous,' said Arwed. 'You will not let
me wait for you there in vain?'
The Frenchman's eyes flashed, and in his anger he resembled an evil
spirit in the human form. 'Young man!' he cried, 'doubt every
thing--doubt even of Megret's eternal salvation--but doubt not his word
or his courage,--or you will compel him to annihilate you even against
his will.' And with a proud step he left the garden.