THE FIGURE ROBED IN BLACK.
On leaving Alderman’s Lane, Captain Desfrayne made a hurried luncheon,
and then at once returned to the station, to start therefrom back to
his quarters.
He had forgotten to ascertain the exact hour at which the train left;
the consequence was he had to wait some five-and-thirty minutes. That
delay cost a life.
When fairly seated in the train, Paul had full leisure for reflection.
His thoughts were not pleasant.
He had not dared to stay to see his mother. It had been difficult and
bitter enough to tell her the fatal secret of his unhappy marriage. To
let her know the deeper humiliation in which he found himself involved
would just now be impossible. It would be time enough to reveal this
additional misery when the search proved successful; if it failed----
If it failed!
“I fancied I could not be more wretched,” he thought. “I was mistaken.
Could it be possible to wring a confession from Guiscardini? Alas, no!
Her nature is absolutely callous. She would elect to be bound to me
rather than to my servant. How am I to face my servant--how am I to
tell my wretched story? My pride is trailed in the dust. My name, given
to my charge free from spot or taint, is stained and splashed with
shame.”
It was night before he reached Holston. Arrived there, he engaged the
last rickety old fly left within the precincts of the station, and
drove to the barracks.
The vehicle had lumbered its way almost to the gates, when Captain
Desfrayne, happening to look from the open window, to ascertain how far
it had proceeded, saw, by the long, slanting rays cast from the lamps,
a female figure, draped in black, closely veiled, hurrying along the
road toward the station.
The mien, the step, even the somber robes, seemed somehow familiar to
Paul Desfrayne. He put his hands to his forehead in horror and despair.
“Great heavens! It is impossible!” he cried. “Am I going out of my
senses? Is this figure conjured up by my disordered brain, or is
it--can it be--Lucia Guiscardini? It _cannot_ be--and yet--and yet it
is her very walk--her insolent bearing.”
The wild idea that it might be her spirit for an instant crossed his
mind--a pardonable notion in the excited state of his brain, for the
swiftly gliding form looked spectral in the blackness of the summer
night, seeming more shadowy from being draped in such dark vesture.
Recovering from the first shock, however, he hurriedly stopped the
vehicle, ordering the coachman to wait for him, and ran back in the
direction the misty form had traversed.
He looked from side to side, and even struck with his cane the bushes
that grew by the edge of the road on either hand, but no sign betrayed
that any human creature besides himself and the old man seated on the
box of the fly were within miles.
Distracted by contending feelings, he went hastily back to the spot
where he had left the vehicle. The driver, an old and stupid man, was
almost asleep, and stolidly awaited the return of his fare, without
troubling to guess why he had so suddenly alighted.
“Did you see any one pass just now?” demanded Captain Desfrayne
excitedly.
“No, sur, I can’t say I did,” replied the driver.
“Not a woman?”
“Not a soul.”
“A woman dressed in black, walking very quickly toward the station?”
“I see no one at all, sur. Be there onything wrong at all?”
“I can’t tell. I hope not. You think, if any one passed along this
road, they must go to the station?”
“Unless they stopped in the fields.”
“Is your horse very tired?”
“No--he bain’t so fresh as he moight be, but----”
“I want to return to the station for a few minutes, and after that to
resume my way to the barracks,” said Paul Desfrayne. “Drive as fast as
you can.”
So firmly persuaded was he of the reality of Lucia Guiscardini’s
appearance on this lonely spot that he was resolved to seek some
information of the clerk and porters at the railway. He reentered the
shaky old vehicle; the stolid old driver whipped the weary old horse,
and in a minute they were returning the way they came.
There was just a possibility that he might surprise her at the station.
What conceivable motive could she have had for coming hither? Probably
to see Gilardoni, her legal and legitimate husband. But why visit him
in this secret manner, when at any moment she could have commanded his
presence at a place infinitely more suitable? There was not much doubt
that her apparition boded evil.
As the fly came in sight of the station, Paul had the satisfaction of
seeing the last train for London slowly puff and snort its way along
its destined iron track.
“Wait here until I come back,” he said to the coachman, and then rushed
into the station.
“Did a lady dressed in black take a ticket here just now?” he asked of
the ticket-clerk.
“No, sir.”
Paul Desfrayne looked about for one of the porters. After a little
delay he found one half-asleep on a bench, for the last trains had
departed for the night. He shook the man by the shoulder.
“Did you see a lady dressed in black just now? I believe she must have
gone by the train to London, and must have had a return ticket.”
“I was not here when the train for London left, sir,” replied the man
respectfully. “The other porter was on duty--I was in the office.”
“Where is he?” demanded Paul Desfrayne.
He seemed destined to be baffled at every turn.
“I’m afraid he’s gone, sir.”
An inquiry resulted in proving the fear to be correct. Another inquiry
elicited the fact that he lived a mile and a half away across some
fields.
In no very enviable frame of mind, Captain Desfrayne returned to his
waiting fly, to continue his broken journey to the barracks.
“Did you find her, sur?” asked the flyman.
The young man shook his head, too much dejected, and even physically
exhausted, to be able to otherwise reply.
At length he reached his quarters, when he dismissed the vehicle in
which he had come. To-morrow he meant to seek once again for evidence
as to whether the lady dressed in black had been seen by any other than
himself.
His rooms seemed strangely silent as he approached them. Gilardoni
had hitherto contrived to make his presence cheerful, and always had
a reality as well as words of welcome for his master. A bright glow
of pleasant light, gleaming through doors ajar, a slight movement of
ever-busy feet or hands, had given under his influence a faint tinge of
_home_.
The door of the first room was ajar, though scarce perceptibly so. A
dim ray of light struggled through, as if seeking to disclose some
ghastly secret. A silence as of the grave reigned. Apparently not a
living creature was within the apartments.
Paul Desfrayne paused for a minute or two before entering. A strange,
painful foreboding seized him. What he feared he dared not admit to
himself.
What if that woman--Lucia Guiscardini--had come hither with some
sinister motive, and had slain her husband in one of her almost
ungovernable fits of passion?
But no, it could not be. What end could she hope to gain? She valued
her own safety, her own ease; she prized this beautiful and splendid
world too highly to let her temper carry her to such a dangerous
extreme.
Gilardoni had fallen asleep. The hour was late, and he was, no doubt,
weary with waiting.
Taking up the heavy lamp, Paul held it above his head as he entered the
second chamber, which was a sitting-room.
Directly opposite to the door, in an oblique direction, was a couch,
the first object on which Captain Desfrayne’s eyes rested.
At full length upon this couch, in an attitude that seemed to indicate
the young man was enjoying an easy sleep, lay Leonardo Gilardoni.
Paul Desfrayne placed the lamp on a side table, and then said rather
loudly:
“Gilardoni, my good fellow!”
The recumbent figure made no sign of awaking. Paul Desfrayne, seriously
uneasy, but still fighting with his fears, crossed the room, and placed
a hand on the sleeper’s shoulder.
“Gilardoni, awake!” he said, in a voice which, spite of his effort at
self-constraint, trembled.
Not the faintest sound issued from the pallid lips. Not a movement
showed the smallest sign of life.
Paul Desfrayne at last placed the palm of his hand upon the temples of
the apparently sleeping man. They were almost ice-cold.
The young officer caught the hands lying outstretched on either side
the silent, rigid form, and felt for the pulse, his heart throbbing so
violently as well-nigh to suffocate him.
With a groan of despair, he dropped the cold hands. Leonardo Gilardoni
was dead.
One cruel touch had sent him from the world--one touch of those
delicate waxen fingers he had loved so much and kissed with transport
so often--one little stroke from the hand of the woman he had so
fatally wasted his heart upon, the wife he had idolized, for whom he
would have laid down his life willingly in the days of his fond, blind
worship.
Only too truly did Paul Desfrayne now understand the meaning of that
woman’s mysterious presence here. But why had she come--for what reason
had she risked her very life--what advantage did she promise herself
from this horrible deed? It was absolutely impossible she could have
heard anything of the projected search for her brother. The only idea
he could conjure up was that the Padre Josef was on his way back to
Europe.