Seven years afterward, Toni found himself one day at the little town of
Beaupré, in the valley of the Seine, where the circus was performing,
for Toni had remained with it all that time. Beautiful young ladies in
spangles had come and gone, demigods in red satin with white sashes
had done the same. Toni himself was a demigod in red satin and a white
sash, and was the crack rider of the circus. He had a large head-line
of letters a foot high all to himself--Monsieur Louis D'Argens he was
called on the bill-boards, although everybody about the circus called
him Toni. Toni was then twenty years old and at least twenty years
wiser than he had been seven years before. One does not spend seven
years in the circus without learning many things. He learned all the
immense wickednesses as well as the immense virtues which may be found
in the lower half of humanity.
But, like most demigods, Toni was not happy. Perhaps it was a part of
the general quarrel which every human being has with fate. But Toni's
principal quarrel was that he was haunted with fears of all sorts.
This madcap fellow, this daring bareback rider, this centaur of a man,
to whom nothing in the shape of horseflesh could cause the slightest
tremor, who could ride four horses at once and could do a great many
other things requiring vast physical courage, coolness and resolution,
was, morally, as great a coward as he had been in the old days when he
ran away from all the boys in Bienville except Paul Verney, and ran
away from home rather than face his mother after having taken a single
franc. He was mortally afraid of a number of persons: of Clery, the
tailor in far-off Bienville, for fear he might set the police on him;
of Nicolas, who had the upper hand of him completely, and of a friend
of Nicolas', Pierre by name, who was the most complete scoundrel unhung
except Nicolas himself. Both of these two men Toni could have whipped
with one hand tied behind his back, for he was unusually muscular and,
though somewhat short, a perfect athlete. His two scampish friends,
Nicolas and Pierre, were wretched objects physically, such as men
become who are born and bred in the slums, who have behind them a
half-starved ancestry going back five hundred years, and who are on
intimate terms with the devil. For a circus rider may practise every
one of the seven deadly sins with perfect impunity except one, that of
drunkenness. A circus rider must be sober.
They had drawn Toni into many a scrape, but here again Toni's strange
cowardice had saved him from taking an actual part in any wrong-doing.
He watched out for Nicolas and Pierre, at their bidding, he knew of
their wrong-doing, where they kept their stolen gains, how they cheated
the manager, how they abused the women. But Toni himself, although the
associate of two such rogues and rascals, and in many ways their blind
tool, had kept himself perfectly free from the commission of any crime
or misdemeanor. His heart remained good--poor Toni!
He still hankered, mother-sick, for Madame Marcel. Once every year
since he had run away he had written to her as well as he could,
for Toni's literary accomplishments were very meager, a letter all
tear-stained, telling her he was well and trying to behave himself,
and he hoped she did not have rheumatism in her knees and that he was
sorry for having stolen the franc. He even sent her a little money
once a year, which Madame Marcel did not need, but which Toni did,
and in these letters he always sent his love to Denise, but he never
gave his address nor any clue to his employment. He was afraid to give
any address for her to answer his letter, and so did not really know
whether his mother were alive or dead.
His heart still yearned unceasingly after Paul Verney, the friend of
his boyhood; and none of the young ladies in tights and spangles had
been able to put out of his mind little Denise in her blue-checked
apron, and her plait of yellow hair hanging down her back, and her
downcast eyes and sweet way of speaking his name. He never heard the
church-bells ringing on a Sunday morning that his Bienville Sundays did
not come back to him--his mother washing and dressing him for church;
the sight of Denise, in her short white frock, trotting along solemnly
with her hand in Mademoiselle Duval's; Paul Verney smartly dressed and
hanging on to his father's arm; Madame Ravenel, in her black gown,
standing just inside the church door, with Captain Ravenel, grave and
stern-looking, standing outside--and then the world in which Toni
lived seemed like a dream, and this dream of Bienville the only solid
reality.
One friend remained to him, the ever-faithful Jacques, now battered
almost beyond the semblance of a soldier. Toni continued his friendship
for horses. Half of his success with them came from the perfect
understanding of a horse's heart and soul which Toni possessed. The
other half came from that strange and total absence of fear where
actual danger was concerned. When the circus tent caught fire in
the midst of a crowded performance, Toni was the calmest and most
self-possessed person there, and careered around the ring doing his
specialty, a wonderful vaulting and tumbling act, while the canvas roof
overhead was blazing and no one but himself saw it. When the bridge
broke through, with the circus train upon it, Toni was the first man to
pull off his clothes and jump into the water, and assisted in saving
half a dozen lives. He was regarded somewhat as a hero and daredevil,
while secretly he knew himself to be the greatest coward on the face
of the earth. Nicolas and Pierre knew this weakness of Toni's from the
beginning and traded on it most successfully.
[Illustration: "Doing his specialty, a wonderful vaulting and tumbling
act."]
The company was performing in the fields outside of Beaupré, but
as they were playing a whole week's engagement in the town, some of
them were quartered in the little hamlet close by. Within sight of the
hamlet's church-spire was a beautiful château standing all white and
glistening in the sunlight, surrounded by prim and beautiful gardens
watched over by sylvan deities in marble. On the broad terrace a
fountain plashed, and lower down a beautifully-wooded park stretched
out. Over the stone gateway leading into the park were the words
"Château Bernard."
The first time Toni saw this was when he was on his way to the midday
performance in the town of Beaupré. He stopped, and the meaning of
that name flashed into his mind in a second. Little Lucie, that
charming little fairy whom Paul Verney loved so much, and of whom he
had confided, blushingly and stumblingly, some things to Toni in those
far-off days at Bienville, seven years before, when he and Paul had sat
cuddled together on the abutment of the bridge,--the sight of the name
"Château Bernard" brought all this back to Toni.
It was a beautiful, bright spring morning, like those mornings at
Bienville, except that to Toni the sun never shone so brightly anywhere
as it had shone at Bienville. He stopped and gazed long at the
château, his black eyes as soft and sparkling as ever they had been,
although now he was a man grown. But there was an eternal boyishness
about him of which he could no more get rid than he could cease to
be Toni. There had not been a day in all the years since he left
Bienville that he had not thought of Paul Verney, and thinking of Paul
would naturally bring to his mind the beautiful little Lucie who was
like a dream maiden to him--not at all like Denise, who was to him a
substantial though charming creature. He reckoned that Lucie must be
now twenty, and Paul must be a sublieutenant.
As Toni stood there, his arms crossed, and leaning on the stone wall,
he heard the clatter of horses' hoofs, and down the avenue came three
riders, a young girl and her escort in front and a groom behind. As
they dashed past Toni, he recognized, in the slight, willowy figure
in the close-fitting black habit and coquettish hat, Lucie Bernard, a
young lady now, but the same beautiful, joyous sprite she had been ten
years before in the park at Bienville. The cavalier riding with her
was, like Toni, below middle size, but, unlike Toni, light-haired and
blue-eyed, not handsome, but better than handsome--manly, intelligent,
clear of eye, firm of seat, full of life and energy, and with an
unstained youth. It was--it was--Paul Verney.
As the two flashed past, followed by the groom, Toni almost cried aloud
in his agony of joy and pain, but he dared not run after them and call
to them. They, of course, knew that he had run away from Bienville
because he was a thief. That theft of a franc was perpetually gnawing
at Toni's heart. The sight of Paul Verney seemed to show him the gulf
between them. Toni stood, leaning on the wall, his head hanging down,
his mind and soul in a tumult, for a long time, until presently the
sound of a clock striking through the open window of the keeper's house
aroused him to the knowledge that it was almost time for the circus to
begin. He ran nearly all the way to Beaupré, for he worked as honestly
at his trade of a circus rider--only it did not seem like work to
Toni--as Paul Verney did at his as a sublieutenant of cavalry.
But all that day, through the performance, during the intermission, and
at the afternoon performance and in the evening, when Toni went back
to his little lodging in the village, the vision haunted him. Lucie
and Paul looked so young, so happy, so fresh, so innocent! They had not
behind them anything terrifying. Neither one of them had ever stolen
anything, unless it was the other's heart. They had no Nicolas and
Pierre to make them stand watch while thefts were being committed--to
make them lie in order to shield rascally proceedings--always to be
threatening them with exposure.
Toni was so tormented by these thoughts that he lay on his hard little
bed in his garret lodging, wide-awake, until midnight and then he was
roused from his first light sleep by a pebble thrown at his window.
Toni waked, started up in his bed and shuddered. That was the sign that
Nicolas and Pierre wanted him. They were his masters; he knew it and
they knew it. He got up obediently, however, slipped on his clothes,
and went down the narrow stair noiselessly. Outside were his two
friends.
"Come along," said Nicolas.
"Where are you going?" weakly asked Toni.
"We will tell you when we get there," replied Pierre, with a grin.
There was no moon, and the night was warm and sultry, although it was
only May. Toni followed his two friends along the highroad. Nicolas and
Pierre spoke to each other in low voices, and Toni easily made out that
they were engaged on a scheme of robbery. At that his soul turned sick
with horror. He had never robbed anybody of a single centime except
that one solitary franc which he had taken from his mother, but he knew
more about robberies than most people. The bare thought of them always
frightened him inexpressibly, but he continued trudging along without
making any protest.
Presently they came to the stone wall around the park of the Château
Bernard, over which they all scrambled and made straight for the
château. Everything was quiet about it and apparently every one was
asleep, except in one room on the ground floor. There were some
gigantic, luxuriant lilac bushes, now in all their glory of bloom and
perfume, and under these the three crept. Never again could Toni smell
the lilac blooms without being overcome by a sickening recollection.
The window was open, and within the small and luxuriously-furnished
room they could see an old lady, very splendidly dressed, and a man of
middle age. Toni at once recognized her from the description which
Paul and Lucie had given him so many years before. Madame Bernard was
very large, tall and handsome, and sterner in aspect than both old
Marie, who sat by the monument at Bienville, and the monument itself.
She was by far the grandest-looking person Toni had ever seen, and he
did not suspect that she was as great a coward in her way as he was in
his. Courage is a very variable quantity and subject to mysterious ebbs
and tides.
Some gold and bank-notes were on a table before them, and the old lady
was saying, weeping a little as she spoke:
"I think you have behaved to me most cruelly, Count Delorme. Whatever
Sophie's faults were, you got, at least, the benefit of her entire
fortune, which you squandered in your five years of marriage. Now you
come here, when my little Lucie is at an age to be damaged by raking up
this old story about Sophie, although you promised me, if I would give
you two thousand francs a year, that you would never show yourself in
this part of the country."
"I am obliged to show myself," responded Delorme, a thin-lipped,
hawk-eyed man, who looked the villain he was. "What are two thousand
francs a year? My cigars cost me almost as much as that. And as for
Sophie's fortune--well, a woman like that was dear at any price. If I
had not got it, Ravenel would, and I should not think that you would be
particularly proud of him as a grandson-in-law."
"I am not," responded old Madame Bernard weakly, and then summoning
something of dignity, added, "but I venture to say that he is a better
man than you are, Count Delorme. At least, he has been far more
considerate of the feelings of Sophie's family, and has kept himself
and her in the strictest seclusion, nor have they asked me for a franc.
I think, also, that the Ravenels still have many friends, while I am
not aware of a single one that you have, Count Delorme."
In answer to this, Delorme coolly picked up the notes and money, and,
without counting either, stuffed them in his pocket. Madame Bernard
made a faint protest. "There is much more there," she cried, "than two
thousand francs. I did not mean to give you all." But Delorme, rising
and taking his hat, walked out of the room, and let himself out of the
house by a small side door.
Toni knew then what his friends were up to. The three followed Delorme
through the park, Toni lagging behind. Presently, in a dark place
overhung by a clump of cedars, they came upon Delorme, who had every
vice except that of cowardice. He turned on them and said, in a
threatening voice:
"What do you mean by following me, fellows?"
For answer, Pierre and Nicolas fell upon him, Nicolas striking him a
violent blow on the head with a short, loaded cudgel. Delorme fell over
without a word, and in a minute his pockets were rifled. Toni stood by,
dazed and unable to move. It was all over in less than two minutes,
and the three were running away as fast as they could. Toni knew that
Delorme was dead, lying in the roadway in the dark, his face turned
upward toward the night sky, himself robbed of the money of which he
had robbed Madame Bernard.