HUSBAND AND WIFE.
Ever since Mascarin’s visit, the Count de Mussidan had been in a
deplorable state of mind. Forgetting the injury to his foot, he passed
the night pacing up and down the library, cudgelling his brains for some
means of breaking the meshes of the net in which he was entangled. He
knew the necessity for immediate action, for he felt sure that this
demand would only be the forerunner of numerous others of a similar
character. He thought over and dismissed many schemes. Sometimes he had
almost decided to go to the police authorities and make a clean breast;
then the idea of placing the affair in the hands of a private detective
occurred to him; but the more he deliberated, the more he realized the
strength of the cord that bound him, and the scandal which exposure
would cause. This long course of thought had in some measure softened
the bitterness of his wrath, and he was able to receive his old
friend M. de Clinchain with some degree of calmness. He was not at
all surprised at the receipt of the anonymous letter,--indeed, he had
expected that a blow would be struck in that direction. Still immersed
in thought, M. de Mussidan hardly took heed of his wife’s presence,
and he still paced the room, uttering a string of broken phrases. This
excited the attention of the Countess, for her own threatened position
caused her to be on the alert.
“What is annoying you, Octave?” asked she. “Surely, not M. de
Clinchain’s attack of indigestion?”
For many years the Count had been accustomed to that taunting and
sarcastic voice, but this feeble joke at such a moment was more than he
could endure.
“Don’t address me in that manner,” said he angrily.
“What is the matter--are you not well?”
“Madame!”
“Will you have the kindness to tell me what has taken place?”
The color suffused the Count’s face, and his rage burst forth the more
furiously from his having had to suppress it so long; and coming to
a halt before the chair in which the Countess was lounging, his eyes
blazing with hate and anger, he exclaimed,--
“All I wish to tell you is, that De Breulh-Faverlay shall not marry our
daughter.”
Madame de Mussidan was secretly delighted at this reply, for it showed
her that half the task required of her by Dr. Hortebise had been
accomplished without her interference; but in order to act cautiously,
she began at once to object, for a woman’s way is always at first to
oppose what she most desires.
“You are laughing at me, Count!” said she. “Where can we hope to find so
good a match again?”
“You need not be afraid,” returned the Count, with a sneer; “you shall
have another son-in-law.”
These words sent a pang through the heart of the Countess. Was it an
allusion to the past? or had the phrase dropped from her husband’s lips
accidentally? or had he any suspicion of the influence that had been
brought to bear upon her? She, however, had plenty of courage, and would
rather meet misfortune face to face than await its coming in dread.
“Of what other son-in-law are you speaking?” asked she negligently. “Has
any other suitor presented himself? May I ask his name? Do you intend to
settle my child’s future without consulting me?”
“I do, madame.”
A contemptuous smile crossed the face of the Countess, which goaded the
Count to fury.
“Am I not the master here?” exclaimed he in accents of intense rage.
“Am I not driven to the exercise of my power by the menaces of a pack of
villains who have wormed out the hidden secrets which have overshadowed
my life from my youth upward? They can, if they desire, drag my name
through the mire of infamy.”
Madame de Mussidan bounded to her feet, asking herself whether her
husband’s intellect had not given way.
“You commit a crime!” gasped she.
“I, madame, I myself! Does that surprise you? Have you never had any
suspicion? Perhaps you have not forgotten a fatal accident which took
place out shooting, and darkened the earlier years of our married life?
Well, the thing was not an accident, but a deliberate murder committed
by me. Yes, I murdered him, and this fact is known, and can be proved.”
The Countess grew deadly pale, and extended her hand, as though to guard
herself from some coming danger.
“You are horrified, are you?” continued the Count, with a sneer.
“Perhaps I inspire you with horror; but do not fear; the blood is no
longer on my hands, but it is here, and is choking me.” And as he spoke
he pressed his fingers upon his heart. “For twenty-three years I have
endured this hideous recollection and even now when I wake in the night
I am bathed in cold sweat, for I fancy I can hear the last gasps of the
unhappy man.”
“This is horrible, too horrible!” murmured Madame de Mussidan faintly.
“Ah, but you do not know why I killed him,--it was because the dead man
had dared to tell me that the wife I adored with all the passion of my
soul was unfaithful to me.”
Words of eager denial rose to the lips of the Countess; but her husband
went on coldly, “And it was all true, for I heard all later on.
“Poor Montlouis! _he_ was really loved. There was a little shop-girl,
who toiled hard for daily bread, but she was a thousand times more
honorable than the haughty woman of noble race that I had just married.”
“Have mercy, Octave.”
“Yes, and she fell a victim to her love for Montlouis. Had he lived,
he would have made her his wife. After his death, she could no longer
conceal her fault. In small towns the people are without mercy; and when
she left the hospital with her baby at her breast, the women pelted
her with mud. But for me,” continued the Count, “she would have died of
hunger. Poor girl! I did not allow her much, but with it she managed
to give her son a decent education. He has now grown up, and whatever
happens, his future is safe.”
Had M. de Mussidan and his wife been less deeply engaged in this hideous
recital, they would have heard the stifled sobs that came from the
adjoining room.
The Count felt a certain kind of savage pleasure in venting the rage,
that had for years been suppressed, upon the shrinking woman before him.
“Would it not be a cruel injustice, madame, to draw a comparison between
you and this unhappy girl? Have you always been deaf to the whisperings
of conscience? and have you never thought of the future punishment
which most certainly awaits you? for you have failed in the duties of
daughter, wife, and mother.”
Generally the Countess cared little for her husband’s reproaches, well
deserved as they might be, but to-day she quailed before him.
“With your entrance into my life,” continued the Count, “came shame and
misfortune. When people saw you so gay and careless under the oak-trees
of your ancestral home, who could have suspected that your heart
contained a dark secret? When my only wish was to win you for my wife,
how did I know that you were weaving a hideous conspiracy against me?
Even when so young, you were a monster of dissimulation and hypocrisy.
Guilt never overshadowed your brow, nor did falsehood dim the frankness
of your eyes. On the day of our marriage I mentally reproached myself
for any unworthiness. Wretched fool that I was, I was happy beyond all
power of expression, when you, madame, completed the measure of your
guilt by adding infidelity to it.”
“It is false,” murmured the Countess. “You have been deceived.”
M. de Mussidan laughed a grim and terrible laugh.
“Not so,” answered he; “I have every proof. This seems strange to you,
does it? You have always looked upon me as one of those foolish husbands
that may be duped without suspicion on their parts. You thought that
you had placed a veil over my eyes, but I could see through it when you
little suspected that I could do so. Why did I not tell you this before?
Because I had not ceased to love you, and this fatal love was stronger
than all honor, pride, and even self-respect.” He poured out this
tirade with inconceivable rapidity, and the Countess listened to it in
awe-struck silence. “I kept silence,” continued the Count, “because I
knew that on the day I uttered the truth you would be entirely lost to
me. I might have killed you; I had every right to do so, but I could not
live apart from you. You will never know how near the shadow of death
has been to you. When I have kissed you, I have fancied that your lips
were soiled with the kisses of others, and I could hardly keep my
hands from clutching your ivory neck until life was extinct, and failed
utterly to decide whether I loved you or hated you the most.”
“Have mercy, Octave! have mercy!” pleaded the unhappy woman.
“You are surprised, I can see,” answered he, with a dark smile; “yet
I could give you further food for wonder if I pleased, but I have said
enough now.”
A tremor passed over the frame of the Countess. Was her husband
acquainted with the existence of the letters? All hinged upon this.
He could not have read them, or he would have spoken in very different
terms, had he known the mystery contained in them.
“Let me speak,” began she.
“Not a word,” replied her husband.
“On my honor--”
“All is ended; but I must not forget to tell you of one of my youthful
follies. You may laugh at it, but that signifies nothing. I actually
believed that I could gain your affection. I said to myself that one day
you would be moved by my deep passion for you. I was a fool. As if love
or affection could ever penetrate the icy barriers that guarded your
heart.”
“You have no pity,” wailed she.
He gazed upon her with eyes in which the pent-up anger of twenty years
blazed and consumed slowly. “And you, what are you? I drained to the
bottom the poisoned cup held out to a deceived husband by an unfaithful
wife. Each day widened the breach between us, until at last we sank into
this miserable existence which is wearing out my life. I kept no watch
on you; I was not made for a jailer. What I wanted was your soul and
heart. To imprison the body was easy, but your soul would still have
been free to wander in imagination to the meeting-place where your lover
expected you. I know not how I had the courage to remain by your side.
It was not to save an honor that had already gone, but merely to keep
up appearances; for as long as we were nominally together the tongue of
scandal was forced to remain silent.”
Again the unhappy woman attempted to protest her innocence, and again
the Count paid no heed to her. “I wished too,” resumed he, “to save some
portion of our property, for your insatiable extravagance swallowed up
all like a bottomless abyss. At last your trades-people, believing me to
be ruined, refused you credit, and this saved me. I had my daughter to
think of, and have gathered together a rich dowry for her, and yet----”
he hesitated, and ceased speaking for a moment.
“And yet,” repeated Madame de Mussidan.
“I have never kissed her,” he burst forth with a fresh and terrible
explosion of wrath, “without feeling a hideous doubt as to whether she
was really my child.”
This was more than the Countess could endure.
“Enough,” she cried, “enough! I have been guilty, Octave; but not so
guilty as you imagine.”
“Why do you venture to defend yourself?”
“Because it is my duty to guard Sabine.”
“You should have thought of this earlier,” answered the Count with a
sneer. “You should have moulded her mind--have taught her what was noble
and good, and have perused the unsullied pages of the book of her young
heart.”
In the deepest agitation the Countess answered,--
“Ah, Octave, why did you not speak of this sooner, if you knew all; but
I will now tell you everything.”
By an inconceivable error of judgment the Count corrected her speech.
“Spare us both,” said he. “If I have broken through the silence that I
have maintained for many a year, it is because I knew that no word you
could utter would touch my heart.”
Feeling that all hope had fled, Madame de Mussidan fell backward
upon the couch, while Sabine, unable to listen to any more terrible
revelations, had crept into her own chamber. The Count was about to
leave the drawing-room, when a servant entered, bearing a letter on
a silver salver. De Mussidan tore it open; it was from M. de
Breulh-Faverlay, asking to be released from his engagement to Sabine de
Mussidan. This last stroke was almost too much for the Count’s nerves,
for in this act he saw the hand of the man who had come to him with
such deadly threats, and terror filled his soul as he thought of the
far-stretching arm of him whose bondslave he found himself to be; but
before he could collect his thoughts, his daughter’s maid went into the
room crying with all her might, “Help, help; my poor mistress is dying!”