A CRIME!
"The veil of mist that held her eyes was rent
As by a lightning flash...."
--W. KIRBY
An hour passes. The shades draw on and begin to blend hues and forms.
Chrysler moves his deliberative survey over the neat-clipped grass and
the tall hedge, the poplars looking over it from the other side of the
highway, the boughs and trunks of the great triple tree--and the little
pinnacles along the Manor-house. A couple of the visitors along the
paths are discussing the situation with dapper Parisian steps and
gestures.
Suddenly the shades creep perceptibly deeper. The gate rattles. A wild
acting man--it is Benoit in his sky-blue clothes--rushes panting in,
throwing out his arms before him, stumbling and gasping inarticulately
lamentations of anguish. "He is dead; my God, the poor young man! Poor
François! My God! my God!"
Yes, it is Benoit Iscariotes.
Everyone springs to him. A great tragedy has occurred--for Dormillière;
perhaps little for a more experienced world. In Benoit's mind quivers a
scene that has set shouting all the wild voices of his conscience.
Ever-cheerful François, so full of life, so faithful, well named
"Vadeboncoeur," lies motionless upon the highway, deadly white, with
glazed, half-closed eyes. Blood trickles from his open mouth, scatters
from a frightful gash over his forehead, and bathes the ground in a
dark pool; and a heavy stone lies near and relates its murderous tale.
This is what guilty Jean-Benoit saw at his feet, as, having finished his
"labors" to his own satisfaction he was returning from Miséricorde in
the footsteps of his coadjutor Cuiller. O, as the poor body lay in the
blood like a judgment before him, and those half-closed eyes seemed to
gleam at him from their lids, what a fearful blow did Conscience strike
that hypocrite, leaping from the lair in which it had long lain in wait!
He cannot stir. A mighty thunder cloud rises up from behind high above
him, and darkens the earth. A silence lies on the trees, the road, the
moor, and all around to the horizon--a silence accusing him.
Not a leaf moved. The sun went down. The bright little narrow gleam
under the eyelids of the dead stared slily up to him with an awful
triumph. His heart was caught by the grip of a skeleton hand. He could
feel its several sinews as they tightened their grasp. It was impossible
to break away--the grip of the hand was on the heart in, his breast, and
he was in the power of the triumphant _corpse_!
What made him reel, what made him leap at length with such an insane
cry, over the ghastly obstacle? He will go mad. This not quite balanced
brain might coldly enough commit even some kinds of murder, but fright
can unhinge it. Is he not mad, to flee so wildly? He runs--he runs--he
gropes, under his black thundercloud and load of fright and agony,
towards the glimmer that he must fly to those he has wronged. To her
first--to Josephte, his cruelly-treated daughter--the hour tells him
where she is! Flying, stumbling, pained, groaning, out of breath,
fearing the lone hedges of the road, in wild struggle throwing his vain
lust of appearances for once to the winds, and having behind and above
him as he fled, the sky filled with vast pursuing shapes, with shrieks
and curses, and before all the pursuers the CORPSE, he reaches at last
the Manoir, and stops before it crying out. It seems as if the instinct
failed him here, and the Mansion's imposing front forbade.
She hears though. The maiden's heart, and the world's indefinite voices,
beats sharply at certain sounds before the ear has caught them, for they
strike the inner strings of its being. First a pang of great alarm,--and
then she heard. Rushing forth, she clasps the sobbing wretch in her arms
and cries, "My father, what say'st thou! My God, what is it?--what has
befallen François?--O my dear father!"
"He is dead, he is dead!--thy loved one,--at La Miséricorde."
"O Holy Virgin!"
Josephte did not fall in a swoon: she darted towards the gate.
Chrysler took the man and made him sit down on a bench,--a wild
spectacle of reason in the course of dethronement. The household stood
about: the two visitors looked on curiously and made useless
suggestions. Haviland and Zotique, driving past to make sure of
Miséricorde, heard a commotion and turned their horses in. Benoit threw
himself on his knees to Chamilly, violently begging his forgiveness, and
incoherently confessing the evil work of himself and Spoon, whereat
Zotique attacked him with maledictions.
Chamilly restrained his companion. Soul of man was never seen to soar
more easily over injury.
"My dear friend, calm yourself. If there has been bad work, what should
be done now is to try and rectify it. Repeat what you were saying of
François."
"The poor young man! The poor young man! I have seen him dead on the
road."
The impulse to act was that which came naturally to Haviland. "Not a
moment, Zotique!" and almost immediately the rattle of the wheels was
dying into the distance.