BETWEEN TWO PASSIONS
Slowly, and with hesitating steps, Sergius Thord mounted the long flight
of stairs leading to the quiet attic which Lotys called ‘home.’ Here she
lived; here she had chosen to live ever since Thord had made her, as he
said, the ‘Soul of the Revolutionary Ideal.’ Here, since the King had
conquered the Revolutionary Ideal altogether, and had made it a Loyalist
centre, did she dwell still, though she had now some thoughts of
yielding to the child Pequita’s earnest pleading, and taking up her
abode with her and her father, in a pretty little house in the suburbs
which, since Pequita’s success as _première danseuse_ at the Opera,
Sholto had been able to afford, and to look upon as something like
a comfortable dwelling-place. For with the election of Thord to the
dignity of a Deputy, had, of course, come the necessity of resigning his
old quarters where his ‘Revolutionary’ meetings had been held,--and he
now resided in a more ‘respectable’ quarter of the city, in such sober,
yet distinctive fashion as became one who was a friend of the King’s,
and who was likely to be a Minister some day, when he had further proved
his political mettle. So that Sholto had no longer any need to try and
eke out a scanty subsistence by letting rooms to revolutionists and
‘suspects’ generally,--and Thord himself had helped him to make a change
for the better, as had also the King.
But Lotys had not as yet moved. She had lived so long among the
desperately poor, who were accustomed to go to her for sympathy and aid,
that she could not contemplate leaving so many sick and suffering and
sorrowful ones alone to fight their bitter battle. So had she said, at
least, to Thord, when he had endeavoured to persuade her to establish
herself in greater comfort, and in a part of the city which had a
‘better-class’ reputation. She had listened to his suggestions with a
somewhat melancholy smile.
“Once,--and not so very long ago,--for you there was no such thing as
the ‘better-class,’ Sergius!” she said; “You were wont to declare that
rich and poor alike were all one family in the sight of God!”
“I have not altered my opinion,” said Thord, a slight flush colouring
his cheek; “But--you are a woman--and as a woman should have every care
and tenderness.”
“So should my still poorer sisters,” she replied; “And it is for those
who have least comfort, that comfort should be provided. I am perfectly
well and happy where I am!”
Remembering her fixed ideas on this point, there was an uneasy sense of
trouble in Thord’s mind as he ventured again on what he feared would be
a fruitless errand.
“If I could command her!” he thought, chafing inwardly at his own
impotence to persuade or lead this woman, whose character and will were
so much more self-contained and strong than his own. “If I could only
exercise some authority over her! But I cannot. What small debt of
gratitude she owed me as a child, has long been cleared by her constant
work and the assistance she has given to me,--and unless she will
consent to be my wife, I know I shall lose her altogether. For she will
never submit to live on money that she has not earned.”
Arrived at the summit of the staircase he had been climbing, he knocked
at the first door which faced him on the uppermost landing.
“Come in!” said the low, sweet voice that had thrilled and comforted so
many human souls; and entering as he was bidden, he saw Lotys seated in
a low chair near the window, rocking a tiny infant, so waxen-like and
meagre, that it looked more like a corpse than a living child.
“The mother died last night,” she said gently, in response to his look
of interrogation; “She had been struggling against want and sickness for
a long time. God was merciful in taking her at last! The father has to
go out all day in search of work,--often a vain search; so I do what I
can for this poor little one!”
And she bent over the forlorn waif of humanity, kissing its pale small
face, and pressing it soothingly to her warm, full breast. She looked
quite beautiful in that Madonna-like attitude of protection and
love,--her gold hair drooping against the slim whiteness of her
throat,--her deep blue eyes full of that tenderness for the defenceless
and weak, which is the loveliest of all womanly expressions.
Sergius Thord drew a chair opposite to her, and sat down.
“You are always doing good, Lotys!” he said, with a slight tremor in his
voice; “There is no day in your life without its record of help to the
helpless!”
She shook her head deprecatingly, and went on caressing and soothing the
tiny babe in silence.
After a pause, he spoke again.
“I have come to you, Lotys, to ask you many things!”
She looked up with a little smile.
“Do you need advice, Sergius? Nay, surely not!--you have passed beyond
it--you are a great man!”
He moved impatiently.
“Great? What do you mean? I am Deputy for the city, it is true--but that
is not the height of my ambition; it is only a step towards it.”
“To what do you aspire?” she queried. “A place in the Ministry? You will
get that if you wait long enough! And then--will you be satisfied?”
“No--I shall never be satisfied--never till--”
He broke off and shifted his position. His fierce eyes rested tenderly
upon her as she sat holding the motherless infant caressingly in her
arms.
“You have heard the latest news?” he asked presently, “That Carl
Pérousse has left the country?”
“No, I have not heard that,” said Lotys; “But why was he allowed to go
without being punished for his dishonesty?”
“To punish him, would have involved the punishment of many more
associated with him,” replied Thord; “His estates are confiscated;--the
opportunity was given him to escape, in order to avoid further
Ministerial scandals,--and he has taken the chance afforded him!”
She was silent.
“Jost too has gone,” pursued Thord; “He has sold his paper to his chief
rival. So that now both journals are amalgamated under one head, and
work for the same cause--our cause, and the King’s.”
Lotys looked up with a slight smile.
“It is the same old system then?” she said. “For whereas before there
was one newspaper subsidised by a fraudulent Ministry, there are now
two, subsidised by the Royal Government;--with which the Socialist party
is united!”
He frowned.
“You mistake! We shall subsidise no newspaper whatever. We shall not
pursue any such mistaken policy.”
“Believe me, you will be compelled to do so, Sergius!” she declared,
still smiling; “Or some other force will step in! Do you not see that
politics always revolve in the same monotonous round? You have called
me the Soul of an Ideal,--but even when I worked my hardest with you, I
knew it was an Ideal that could never be realised! But the practice
of your theories led me among the poor, where I felt I could be
useful,--and for this reason I conjoined what brains I had, what
strength I had, with yours. Yet, no matter how men talk of ‘Revolution,’
any and every form of government is bound to run on the old eternal
lines, whether it be Imperial, Socialistic or Republican. Men are always
the same children--never satisfied,--ever clamouring for change,--tired
of one toy and crying for another,--so on and on,--till the end! I would
rather save a life”--and she glanced pityingly down upon the sleeping
infant she held-“than upset a throne!”
“I quite believe that;” said Sergius slowly; “You are a woman, most
womanly! If you could only learn to love----”
He paused, startled at the sudden rush of colour that spread over her
cheeks and brow; but it was a wave of crimson that soon died away,
leaving her very pale.
“Love is not for me, Sergius!” she said; “I am no longer young. Besides,
the days of romance never existed for me at all, and now it is too late.
I have grown too much into the habit of looking upon men as poor little
emmets, clambering up and down the same tiny hill of earth,--their
passions, their ambitions, their emotions, their fightings and
conquests, their panoply and pride, do not interest me, though they move
me to pity; I seem to stand alone, looking beyond, straight through the
glorious world of Nature, up to the infinite spaces above, searching for
God!”
“Yet you care for that waif?” said Thord with a gesture towards the
child she held.
“Because it is helpless,” she answered; “only that! If it ever lives
to grow up and be a man, it will forget that a woman ever held it, or
cherished it so! No wild beast of the forest--no treacherous serpent
of the jungle, is more cruel in its inherited nature, than man when
he deals with woman;--as lover, he betrays her,--as wife, he neglects
her,--as mother, he forgets her!”
“You have a bad opinion of my sex!” said Thord, half angrily; “Would you
say thus much of the King?”
She started, then controlled herself.
“The King is brave,--but beyond exceptional courage, I do not think he
differs from other men.”
“Have you seen him lately?”
“No.”
The answer came coldly, and with evident resentment at the query. Thord
hesitated a minute or two, looking at her yearningly; then he suddenly
laid his hand on her arm.
“Lotys!” he said in a half-whisper; “If you would only love me! If you
would be my wife!”
She raised her dark-blue pensive eyes.
“My poor Sergius! With all your triumphs, do you still hanker for a
wayside weed? Alas!--the weed has tough roots that cannot be pulled up
to please you! I would make you happy if I could, dear friend!--but in
the way you ask, I cannot!”
His heart beat thickly.
“Why?”
“Why? Ask why the rain will not melt marble into snow! I love you,
Sergius--but not with such love as you demand. And I would not be your
wife for all the world!”
He restrained himself with difficulty.
“Again--why?”
She gave a slight movement of impatience.
“In the first place, because we should not agree. In the second place,
because I abhor the very idea of marriage. I see, day by day, what
marriage means, even among the poor--the wreck of illusions--the death
of ideals--the despairing monotony of a mere struggle to live--”
“I shall not be poor now;” said Thord; “All my work would be to make
you happy, Lotys! I would surround you with every grace and luxury--with
love, with worship, with tenderness! With your intelligence and
fascination you would be honoured,--famous!”
He broke off, interrupted by her gesture of annoyance.
“Let me hear no more of this, Sergius!” she said. “You were very good to
me when I was a castaway child, and I do not forget it. But you must not
urge a claim upon me to which I cannot respond. I have given some of
the best years of my life to assist your work, to win you your
followers,--and to advance what I have always recognised as an exalted,
though impossible creed--but now, for the rest of the time left to me, I
must have my own way!”
He sprang up suddenly and confronted her.
“My God!” he cried. “Is it possible you do not understand! All my
work--all my plans--all my scheming and plotting has been for you--to
make you happy! To give you high place and power! Without you, what do I
care for the world? What do I care whether men are rich or poor--whether
they starve or die! It is you I want to serve--you! It is for your sake
I have desired to win honour and position. Have pity on me, Lotys! Have
pity! I have seen you grow up to womanhood--I have loved every inch of
your stature--every hair of the gold on your head--every glance of your
eyes--every bright flash of your intelligent spirit! Oh, I have loved
you, and love you, Lotys, as no man ever loved woman! Everything I have
attempted--everything I have done, has been that you might think
me worthier of love. For the Country and the People I care
nothing--nothing! I only care for you!”
She rose, holding the sleeping child to her like a shield. Her features
seemed to have grown rigid with an inflexible coldness.
“So then,” she said, “You are no better than the men you have blamed!
You confess yourself as false to the People as the Minister you have
displaced! You have served their Cause,--not because you love them, but
simply because you love Me!--and you would force me to become your wife,
not because you love Me, so much as you love Yourself! Self alone is at
the core of your social creed! Why, you are not a whit higher than the
vulgarest millionaire that ever stole a people’s Trade to further his
own ends!”
“Lotys! Lotys!” he cried, stung to the quick; “You judge me wrongly--by
Heaven, you do!”
“I judge you only by your own words;” she answered steadily; “They
condemn you more than I do. I thought you were sincere in your love for
the People! I thought your work was all for them,--not for me! I
judged that you sought to gain authority in order to remedy their many
wrongs;--but if, after all, you have been fighting your way to power
merely to make yourself, as you thought, more acceptable to me as a
husband, you have deceived me in the honesty of your intentions as
grossly as you have deceived the King!”
“The King!” he cried; “The King!”
She flashed a proud and passionate glance upon him--and then--he
suddenly found himself alone. She had left the room; and though he knew
there was only one wall, one door between them, he dared not follow.
Glancing around him at the simple furniture of the chamber he stood
in, which, though only an attic, was bright and fresh and sweet, with
bunches of wildflowers set here and there in simple and cheap crystal
vases, he sighed heavily. The poor and ‘obscure’ life was perhaps, after
all, the highest, holiest and best! All at once his eyes lighted on one
large cluster of flowers that were neither wild nor common, a knot of
rare roses and magnificent orchids, tied together with a golden ribbon.
He looked at them jealously, and his soul was assailed by sudden
resentment and suspicion. His face changed, his teeth closed hard on his
under lip, and he clenched his hand unconsciously.
“If it is so--if it should be so!” he muttered; “There may be yet
another and more complete Day of Fate!”
He left the room then, descending the stairs more rapidly than he had
climbed them, and as he went out of the house and up the street, he
stumbled against Paul Zouche.
“Whither away, brave Deputy?” cried this irresponsible being; “Whither
away? To rescue the poor and the afflicted?--or to stop the King from
poaching on your own preserves?”
With a force of which he was himself unconscious, he gripped Zouche by
the arm.
“What do you mean?” he whispered thickly;--“Speak! What do you know?”
Zouche laughed stupidly.
“What do I know?” he echoed; “Why, what should I know, blockhead, save
what all who have eyes to see, know as well as I do! Sergius, your grasp
is none of the lightest; let me go!” Then as the other’s hand fell from
his arm, he continued. “It is you who are the blind man leading the
blind! You--who like all thick-skulled reformers, can never perceive
what goes on under your own nose! But what does it matter? What does
anything matter? I told you long ago she would never love you; I knew
long ago that she loved his Majesty, ‘Pasquin Leroy!’”
“Curse you!” said Thord suddenly, in such low infuriated accents that
the oath sounded more like a wild beast’s snarl. “Why did you not tell
me? Why did you not warn me?”
Zouche shrugged his shoulders, and began to sidle aimlessly along the
roadway.
“You would not have believed me!” he said; “Nobody believes anything
that is unpleasant to themselves! If you had not some suspicion in your
own mind, you would not believe me now! I am foolish--you are wise! I am
a poet--you are a reformer! I am drunk--you are sober! And with it all,
Lotys is the only one who keeps her head clear. Lotys was always the
creature of common-sense among us; she understood you--she understood
me--and better than either of us--she understood the King!”
“No, no!” whispered Thord, more to himself than his companion; “She
could not--she could not have known!”
“Now you look as Nature meant you to look!” exclaimed Zouche, staring
wildly at him; “Savage as a bear;--pitiless as a snake! God! What men
can become when they are baulked of their desires! But it is no use, my
Sergius!--you have gained power in one direction, but you have lost
it in another! You cannot have your cake, and eat it!” Here he reeled
against the wall,--then straightening himself with a curious effort at
dignity, he continued: “Leave her alone, Sergius! Leave Lotys in peace!
She is a good soul! Let her love where she will and how she will,--she
has the right to choose her lover,--the right!--by Heaven!--it is a
right denied to no woman! And if she has chosen the King, she is only
one of many who have done the same!”
With a smothered sound between a curse and a groan, Thord suddenly
wheeled round away from him and left him. Vaguely surprised, yet too
stupefied to realise that his rambling words might have worked serious
mischief, Zouche gazed blinkingly on his retreating figure.
“The same old story!” he muttered, with a foolish laugh; “Always a woman
in it! He has won leadership and power,--he has secured the friendship
of a King,--but if the King is his rival in matters of love--ah!--that
is a worse danger for the Throne than the spread of Socialism!”
He rambled off unthinkingly, and gave the only part of him which
remained still active, his poetic instinct, up to the composition of
a delicate love-song, which he wrote between two taverns and several
drinks.
Late in the afternoon--just after sundown--a small close brougham drove
up to the corner of the street where stood the tenement house,--divided
into several separate flats,--in which the attic where Lotys dwelt was
one of the most solitary and removed portions. The King alighted from
the carriage unobserved, and ascended the stairs on which Sergius
Thord’s steps had echoed but a few hours gone by. Knocking at the door
as Sergius had done, he was in the same way bidden to enter, but as he
did so, Lotys, who was seated within, quite alone, started up with a
faint cry of terror.
“You here!” she exclaimed in trembling accents; “Oh, why, why have you
come! Sir, I beg of you to leave this place!--at once, before there is
any chance of your being seen; your Majesty should surely know----!”
“Majesty me no majesties, Lotys!” said the King, lightly; “I have been
forbidden this little shrine too long! Why should I not come to see
you? Are you not known as an angel of comfort to the sorrowful and the
lonely?--and will you not impart such consolation to me, as I may, in my
many griefs deserve? Nay, Lotys, Lotys! No tears!--no tears, dearest of
women! To see you weep is the only thing that could possibly unman me,
and make even ‘Pasquin Leroy’ lose his nerve!”
He approached her, and sought to take her hand, but she turned away from
him, and he saw her bosom heave with a passion of repressed weeping.
“Lotys!” he then said, with exceeding gentleness; “What is this? Why are
you unhappy? I have written to you every day since that night when your
lips clung to mine for one glad moment,--I have poured out my soul to
you with more or less eloquence, and surely with passion!--every day I
have prayed you to receive me, and yet you have vouchsafed no reply
to one who is by your own confession ‘the only man you love’! Ah,
Lotys!--you will not now deny that sweet betrayal of your heart! Do
you know that was the happiest day of my life?--the day on which I was
threatened by Death, and saved by Love!”
His mellow voice thrilled with its underlying tenderness;--he caught her
hand and kissed it; but she was silent.
With all the yearning passion which had been pent up in him for many
months, he studied the pure outlines of her brow and throat--the falling
sunlight glow of her hair--the deep azure glory of the pitying eyes,
half veiled beneath their golden lashes, and just now sparkling with
tears.
“All my life,” he said softly, still holding her hand; “I have longed
for love! All my life I have lacked it! Can you imagine, then, what it
was to me, Lotys, when I heard you say you loved my Resemblance,--the
poor Pasquin Leroy!--and even so I knew you loved me? When you praised
me as Pasquin, and cursed me as King, how my heart burned with desire to
clasp you in my arms, and tell you all the truth of my disguise! But
to hear you speak as you did of me, so unconsciously, so tenderly, so
bravely, was the sweetest gladness I have ever known! I felt myself a
king at last, in very deed and truth!--and it was for the love of you,
and because of your love for me, that I determined to do all I could for
my son Humphry, and the woman of his choice! For, finding myself loved,
I swore that he should not be deprived of love. I have done what I could
to ensure his happiness; but after all, it is your doing, and the result
of your influence! You are the sole centre of my good deeds, Lotys!--you
have been my star of destiny from the very first day I saw you!--from
the moment when I signed my bond with you in your own pure blood, I
loved you! And I know that you loved me!”
She turned her eyes slowly upon him,--what eyes!--tearless now, and
glittering with the burning fever of the sad and suffering soul behind
them.
“You forget!” she said in hushed, trembling accents; “You are the King!”
He lifted her hand to his lips again, and pressed its cool small palm
against his brows.
“What then, my dearest? Must the King, because he is King, go through
life unloved?”
“Unless the King is loved with honour,” said Lotys in the same hushed
voice; “He must go unloved!”
He dropped her hand and looked at her. She was very pale--her breath
came and went quickly, but her eyes were fixed upon him steadily,--and
though her whole heart cried out for his sympathy and tenderness, she
did not flinch.
“Lotys!” he said; “Are you so cold, so frozen in an ice-wall of
conventionality that you cannot warm to passion--not even to that
passion which every pulse of you is ready to return? What do you want of
me? Lover’s oaths? Vows of constancy? Oh, beloved woman as you are,
do you not understand that you have entered into my very heart of
hearts--that you hold my whole life in your possession? You--not I--are
the ruling power of this country! What you say, that I will do! What you
command, that will I obey! While you live, I will live--when you die, I
will die! Through you I have learned the value of sovereignty,--the good
that can be done to a country by honest work in kingship,--through you
I have won back my disaffected subjects to loyalty;--it is all you--only
you! And if you blamed me once as a worthless king, you shall never have
cause to so blame me again! But you must help me,--you must help me with
your love!”
She strove to control the beating of her heart, as she looked upon
him and listened to his pleading. She resolutely shut her soul to the
persuasive music of his voice, the light of his eyes, the tenderness of
his smile.
“What of the Queen?” she said.
He started back, as though he had been stung.
“The Queen!” he repeated, mechanically--“The Queen!”
“Ay, the Queen!” said Lotys. “She is your wife--the mother of your sons!
She has never loved you, you would say,--you have never loved her. But
you are her husband! Would you make me your mistress?”
Her voice was calm. She put the plain question point-blank, without a
note of hesitation. His face paled suddenly.
“Lotys!” he said, and stretched out his hands towards her; “Lotys, I
love you!”
A change passed over her,--rapid and transfiguring as a sudden
radiance from heaven. With an impulsive gesture, beautiful in its wild
abandonment, she cast herself at his feet.
“And I love you!” she said. “I love you with every breath of my body,
every pulse of my heart! I love you with the entire passion of my life!
I love you with all the love pent up in my poor starved soul since
childhood until now!--I love you more than woman ever loved either lover
or husband! I love you, my lord and King!--but even as I love you, I
honour you! No selfish thought of mine shall ever tarnish the smallest
jewel in your Crown! Oh, my beloved! My Royal soul of courage! What do
you take me for? Should I be worthy of your thought if I dragged you
down? Should I be Lotys,--if, like some light woman who can be bought
for a few jewels,--I gave myself to you in that fever of desire which
men mistake for love? Ah, no!--ten thousand times no! I love you! Look
at me,--can you not see how my soul cries out for you? How my lips
hunger for your kisses--how I long, ah, God! for all the tenderness
which I know is in your heart for me,--I, so lonely, weary, and robbed
of all the dearest joys of life!--but I will not shame you by my love,
my best and dearest! I will not set you one degree lower in the thoughts
of the People, who now idolise you and know you as the brave, true man
you are! My love for you would be poor indeed, if I could not sacrifice
myself altogether for your sake,--you, who are my King!”
He heard her,--his whole soul was shaken by the passion of her words.
“Lotys!” he said,--and again--“Lotys!”
He drew her up from her kneeling attitude, and gathering her close in
his arms, kissed her tenderly, reverently--as a man might kiss the lips
of the dead.
“Must it be so, Lotys?” he whispered; “Must we dwell always apart?”
Her eyes, beautiful with a passion of the highest and holiest love,
looked full into his.
“Always apart, yet always together, my beloved!” she answered; “Together
in thought, in soul, in aspiration!--in the hope and confidence that
God sees us, and knows that we seek to live purely in His sight! Oh,
my King, you would not have it otherwise! You would not have our love
defiled! How common and easy it would be for me to give myself to
you!--as other women are only too ready to give themselves,--to take
your tenderness, your care, your admiration,--to demand your constant
attendance on my lightest humour!--to bring you shame by my persistent
companionship!--to cause an open slander, and allow the finger of scorn
to be pointed at you!--to see your honour made a mockery of, by base,
persons who would judge you as one, who, notwithstanding his brave
espousal of the People’s Cause, was yet a slave to the caprice of a
woman! Think something more of me than this! Do not put me on the level
of such women as once brought your name into contempt! They did not love
you!--they loved themselves! But I--I love you! Oh, my dearest lord, if
self were concerned at all in this great love of my heart, I would not
suffer your arms to rest about me now!--I would not let your lips touch
mine!--but it is for the last time, beloved!--the last time! And so I
put my hands here on your heart--I kiss your lips--I say with all my
soul in the prayer--God bless you!--God keep you!--God save you, my
King! Though I shall live apart from you all my days, my spirit is one
with yours! God will know that truth when we meet--on the other side of
Death!”
Her tears fell fast, and he bent over her, torn by a tempest of
conflicting emotions, and kissing the soft hair that lay loosely ruffled
against his breast.
“Then it shall be so, Lotys!” he murmured, at last. “Your wish is my
law!--it shall be as you command! I will fulfil such duties as I must
in this world,--and the knowledge of your love for me,--your trust in
me,--shall keep me high in the People’s honour! Old follies shall be
swept away--old sins atoned for;--and when we meet, as you say, on the
other side of Death, God will perchance give us all that we have longed
for in this world--all that we have lost!”
His voice shook,--he could not further rely on his self-control.
“I will not tempt you, Lotys!” he whispered--“I dare not tempt myself!
God bless you!”
He put her gently from him, and stood for a moment irresolute. All the
hope he had indulged in of a sweeter joy than any he had ever known, was
lost,--and yet--he knew he had no right to press upon her a love which,
to her, could only mean dishonour.
“Good-bye, Lotys!” he said, huskily; “My one love in this world and the
next! Good-bye!”
She gazed at him with her whole soul in her eyes,--then suddenly, and
with the tenderest grace in the world, dropped on her knees and kissed
his hand.
“God save your Majesty!” she said, with a poor little effort at smiling
through her tears; “For many and many a long and happy year, when Lotys
is no more!”
With a half cry he snatched her up in his arms and pressed her to his
heart, showering kisses on her lips, her eyes, her hair, her little
hands!--then, with a movement as abrupt as it was passion-stricken, put
her quickly from him and left her.
She listened with straining ears to the quick firm echo of his footsteps
departing from her, and echoing down the stairs. She caught the ring of
his tread on the pavement outside. She heard the grinding roll of the
wheels of his carriage as he was rapidly driven away. He had gone! As
she realised this, her courage suddenly failed her, and sinking down
beside the chair in which he had for a moment sat, she laid her head
upon it, and wept long and bitterly. Her conscience told her that she
had done well, but her heart--the starving woman’s heart,--was all
unsatisfied, and clamoured for its dearest right--love! And she had of
her own will, her own choice, put love aside,--the most precious, the
most desired love in the world!--she had sent it away out of her life
for ever! True, she could call it back, if she chose with a word--but
she knew that for the sake of a king, and a country’s honour, she would
not so call it back! She might have said with one of the most human of
poets:
“Will someone say, then why not ill for good?
Why took ye not
your pastime? To that man My word shall answer, since I knew the Right
And did it.” [Footnote: Tennyson ]
A shadowy form moving uncertainly to and fro near the corner of the
street, appeared to spring forward and to falter back again, as the
King, hurriedly departing, glanced up and down the street once or twice
as though in doubt or questioning, and then walked to his brougham.
The soft hues of a twilight sky, in which the stars were beginning to
appear, fell on his face and showed it ashy pale; but he was absorbed in
his own sad and bitter thoughts,--lost in his own inward contemplation
of the love which consumed him,--and he saw nothing of that hidden
watcher in the semi-gloom, gazing at him with such fierce eyes of hate
as might have intimidated even the bravest man. He entered his carriage
and was rapidly driven away, and the shadow,--no other than Sergius
Thord,--stumbling forward,--his brain on fire, and a loaded pistol in
his hand,--had hardly realised his presence before he was gone.
“Why did I not kill him?” he muttered, amazed at his own hesitation; “He
stood here, close to me! It would have been so easy!”
He remained another moment or two gazing around him at the streets,
at the roofs, at the sky, as though in a wondering dream,--then all
at once, it seemed as if every cell in his brain had suddenly become
superhumanly active. His eyes flashed fury,--and turning swiftly into
the house which the King had just left, he ran madly up the stairs as
though impelled by a whirlwind, and burst without bidding, straight into
the room where Lotys still knelt, weeping. At the noise of his entrance
she started up, the tears wet on her face.
“Sergius!” she cried.
He looked at her, breathing heavily.
“Yes,--Sergius!” he said, his voice sounding thick and husky, and
unlike itself. “I am Sergius! Or I was Sergius, before you made of me a
nameless devil! And you--you are Lotys!--you are weeping for the lover
who has just parted from you! You are Lotys--the mistress of the King!”
She made him no answer. Drawing herself up to her full height, she
flashed upon him a look of utter scorn, and maintained a contemptuous
silence.
“Mistress of the King!” he repeated, speaking in hard gasps;
“You,--Lotys,--have come to this! You,--the spotless Angel of our Cause!
You!--why,--I sicken at the sight of you! Oh, you fulfil thoroughly
the mission of your sex!--which is to dupe and betray men! You were the
traitor all along! You knew the real identity of ‘Pasquin Leroy’! He
was your lover from the first,--and to him you handed the secrets of
the Committee, and played Us into his hands! It was well done--cleverly
done!--woman’s work in all its best cunning!--but treachery does not
always pay!”
Amazed and indignant, she boldly confronted him.
“You must be mad, Sergius! What do you mean? What sudden accusations are
these? You know they are false--why do you utter them?”
He sprang towards her, and seized her roughly by the arm.
“How do I know they are false?” he said. “Prove to me they are false!
Who saved the King’s life? You! And why? Because you knew he was
‘Pasquin Leroy’! How was it he gained such swift ascendancy over all our
Committee, and led the work and swayed the men,--and made of me his tool
and servant? Through you again! And why? Because you knew he was the
King! Why have you scorned me--turned from me--thrust me from your
side--denied my love,--though I have loved and cared for you from
childhood! Why, I say? Because you love the King!”
She stood perfectly still,--unmoved by his frantic manner--by the glare
of his bloodshot eyes, and his irrepressible agony of rage and jealousy.
Quietly she glanced him up and down.
“You are right!” she said tranquilly; “I do love the King!”
A horrible oath broke from his lips, and for a moment his face grew
crimson with the rising blood that threatened to choke the channels of
his brain. An anxious pity softened her face.
“Sergius!” she said gently, “You are not yourself--you rave--you do not
know what you say! What has maddened you? What have I done? You know
my life is free--I have a right to do with it as I will, and even as
my life is free, so is my love! I cannot love where I am bidden--I must
love where Love itself calls!”
He stood still, staring at her. He seemed to have lost the power of
speech.
“You have insulted me almost beyond pardon!” she went on. “Your
accusations are all lies! I love the King,--but I am not the King’s
mistress! I would no more be his mistress than I would be your wife!”
Slowly, slowly, his hand got at something in his pocket and clutched
it almost unconsciously. Slowly, slowly, he raised that hand, still
clutching that something,--and his lips parted in a breathless way,
showing the wolfish glimmer of white teeth within.
“You--love--the King!” he said in deliberate accents. “And you dare--you
dare to tell me so?”
She raised her golden head with a beautiful defiance and courage.
“I love the King!” she said--“And I dare to tell you so!”
With a lightning quickness of movement the hand that had been groping
after an unseen evil now came out into the light, with a sudden sharp
crash, and flame of fire!
A faint cry tore the air.
“Ah--Sergius!--Sergius! Oh--God!”
And Lotys staggered back--stunned, deafened--sick, dizzy----
“Death, death!” she thought, wildly; “This is death!”
And, with a last desperate rallying of her sinking force, as every
memory of her life swept over her brain in that supreme moment, she
sprang at her murderer and wrenched the weapon from his hand, clutching
it hard and fast in her own.
“Say--say I did it--myself--!” she gasped, in short quick sobs of
pain; “Tell the King--I did it myself--myself! Sergius--save your own
life!--I--forgive!”
She reeled, and with a choking cry fell back heavily--dead! Her hair
came unbound with her fall, and shook itself round her in a gold wave,
as though to hide the horror of the oozing blood that trickled from her
lips and breast.
With a horrid sense of unreality Thord stared upon the evil he had
done. He gazed stupidly around him. He listened for someone to come and
explain to him what had happened. But up in that remote attic, there was
no one to hear either a pistol-shot or a cry. There was only one thing
to be understood and learnt by heart,--that Lotys, once living, was now
dead! Dead! How came she dead? That was what he could not determine.
The heat of his wild fury had passed,--leaving him cold and passive as a
stone.
“Lotys!”
He whispered the name. Horrible! How she looked,--with all that
blood!--all that golden hair!
‘Tell the King I did it myself!’ Yes--the King would have to be
told--something! Stooping, he tried to detach the pistol from the
lifeless hand, but the fingers, though still warm were tightened on the
weapon, and he dared not unclasp them. He was afraid! He stood up again,
and looked around him. His glance fell on the knot of regal flowers
he had noticed in the morning,--the great roses,--the voluptuous
orchids--tied with their golden ribbon. He took them hastily and flung
them down beside her,--then watched a little trickling stream of blood
running, running towards one of the whitest and purest of the roses.
It reached it, stained it,--and presently drowned it in a little pool.
Horrified, he covered his eyes, and staggered backward against the door.
The evening was growing dark,--through the small high window he could
see the stars beginning to shine as usual. As usual,--though Lotys was
dead! That seemed strange! Putting one hand behind him, he cautiously
opened the door, still keeping his guarded gaze on that huddled heap of
clothes, and blood, and glittering hair which had been Lotys.
“I must get home,” he muttered. “I have business to attend to--as Deputy
to the city, there is much to do--much to do for the People! The People!
My God! And Lotys dead!”
A kind of hysteric laughter threatened him. He pressed his mouth hard
with his hand to choke back this strange, struggling passion.
“Lotys! Lotys is dead! There she lies! Someone, I know not who, killed
her! No,--no! She has killed herself,--she said so! There she lies, poor
Lotys! She will never speak to the People--never comfort them,--never
teach them any more--never hold little motherless infants in her
arms and console them,--never smile on the sorrowful, or cheer the
sick--never! ‘I love the King!’ she said,--and she died for saying
it! One should not love kings! ‘Tell the King I did it myself!’ Yes,
Lotys!--lie still--be at peace--the King shall know--soon enough!”
Still muttering uneasily to himself, he went out, always moving
backwards--and with a last look at that fallen breathless form of
murdered woman, shut the door stealthily behind him.
Then, stumbling giddily down the stairs, he wandered, blind and half
crazed, into the darkening night.