A great sigh broke from his lips, through which the discoloured blood
began to ooze slowly--he was dead. And Fontenelle, whose wound bled
inwardly, turned himself wearily round to gaze on the rigid face
upturned to the moon. His brother's face! So like his own! He was not
conscious himself of any great pain--he felt a dizzy languor and a
drowsiness as of dreams--but he knew what the dreaming meant,--he knew
that he would soon sleep to wake again--but where? He did not see that
the woman who had professed to love Miraudin had already rushed away
from his corpse in terror, and was entreating the cabman to drive her
quickly from the scene of combat,--he realised nothing save the white
moonbeams on the still face of the man who in God's sight had been his
brother. Fainter and still fainter grew his breath--but he felt near
his heart for a little crumpled knot of filmy lace which he always
carried--a delicate trifle which had fallen from one of Sylvie's pretty
evening gowns once, when he had caught her in his arms and sworn his
passion. He kissed it now, and inhaled its violet perfume--as he took
it from his lips he saw that it was stained with blood. The heavy
languor upon him grew heavier--and in the dark haze which began to
float before his eyes he saw women's faces, some beautiful, some
devilish, yet all familiar,--he felt himself sinking--sinking into some
deep abyss of shadows, so dark and dreary that he shuddered with the
icy cold and horror, till Sylvie came, yes!--Sylvie's soft eyes shone
upon him, full of the pity and tenderness of some divine angel near
God's throne,--an angel of sweetness--an angel of forgiveness--ah!--so
sweet she was, so childlike, so trusting, so fair, so enticing in those
exquisite ways of hers which had pleaded with him, prayed to him, tried
to draw him back from evil, and incite him to noble thought; "ways"
that would have persuaded him to cleanse his flag of honour from the
mud of social vice and folly, and lift it to the heavens white and
pure! Ah, sweet ways!--sweet voice!--sweet woman!--sweet possibilities
of life now gone forever! Again that sinking,--that icy chill! His eyes
were closing--yet he forced himself to open them as he sank back
heavily on the turf, and then--then he saw the great white moon
descending on him as it seemed, like a shield of silver flung down to
crush him, by some angry god!
"Sylvie!--Sylvie!" he muttered, "I never knew--how much I loved
you--till-now! Sylvie!"
His eyes closed--a little smile flickered on his mouth for a
moment--and then the Shadow fell. And he lay stark and pallid in the
moonlight, close to the brother he had never known till the last hour
of life had revealed the bond of blood between them. Side by side they
lay,--strangely alike in death,--men to whom the possibilities of noble
living had been abundantly given, and who had wasted all their
substance on vanity. For Victor Miraudin, despite his genius and the
brilliancy of his art, was not likely to be longer remembered or
mourned than the Marquis Fontenelle. The fame of the actor is even less
than that of the great noble,--the actor's name is but a bubble on the
air which a breath disperses,--and the heir to a proud house is only
remembered by the flattering inscription on his tombstone. Forgotten
Caesars, greater than any living monarch, had mixed their bones with
the soil where these two sons of one father lay dead,--the bright moon
was their sanctuary lamp,--the stars their funeral torches,--the width
of the Campagna their bier, and the heavens their pall. And when the
two terrified witnesses of the fatal fight realised the position, and
saw that both combatants had truly perished, there were no regrets, no
lamentations, no prayers, no thought of going for assistance. With the
one selfish idea uppermost,--that of escaping immediate trouble--Jeanne
Richaud rallied her scattered wits, and dragging the praying and
gesticulating cab-driver up from his knees, she bade him mount his box
and drive her back to the city. Tremblingly he prepared to obey, but
not without unfastening the horse which the dead Marquis had so lately
ridden, and taking some trouble to attach it to his vehicle for his own
uses.
"For if we do this, they will never know!" he muttered with chattering
teeth, "A horse is always a horse--and this is a good animal, more
valuable than the men;--and when they find the men that is none of our
business. In--in with you, Madama! I will drive you into the
city,--that is, if you give me a thousand francs instead of the five
hundred your man promised me! Otherwise I will leave you here!"
"A thousand!" shrieked Richaud, "Oh, thief! You know I am a poor
stranger--Oh, mon Dieu! Do not murder me!" This, as the driver, having
hustled her into the vehicle and shut the door, now shook his dirty
fist at her threateningly. "Oh!--what a night of horror! Yes--yes!--a
thousand!--anything!--only take me back to Rome!"
Satisfied in his own mind that he had intimidated her sufficiently to
make her give him whatever he demanded, the driver who, despite his
native cupidity, was seriously alarmed for his own safety, hesitated no
longer, and the noise of the dashing wheels and the galloping hoofs
woke loud echoes from the road, and dull reverberations from the Ponte
Nomentano, as the equipage, with two horses now instead of one,
clattered out of sight. And then came silence,--the awful silence of
the Campagna--a silence like no other silence in the world--brooding
like darkness around the dead.