“I must know where she is going at four o’clock in the morning. I will
follow her.”
Unfortunately, Miss Brandon’s coachman had, no doubt, received special
orders; for he drove down the avenue as fast as the horse could go,
and the animal was a famous trotter, carefully chosen by Sir Thorn, who
understood horse-flesh better than any one else in Paris. But Daniel
was agile; and the hope of being able to avenge himself at once gave him
unheard-of strength.
“If I could only catch a cab!” he thought.
But no carriage was to be seen. His elbows close to the body, managing
his breath, and steadily measuring his steps, he succeeded in not only
following the _coupe_, but in actually gaining ground. When Miss Brandon
reached Concord Square, he was only a few yards behind the carriage. But
there the coachman touched the horse, which suddenly increased its pace,
crossed the square, and trotted down Royal Street.
Daniel felt his breath giving out, and a shooting pain, first trifling,
but gradually increasing, in his side. He was on the point of giving
up the pursuit, when he saw a cab coming down towards him from the
Madeleine, the driver fast asleep on the box. He threw himself before
the horses, and cried out as well as he could,--
“Driver, a hundred francs for you, if you follow that _coupe_ down
there!”
But the driver, suddenly aroused by a man who stood in the middle of the
street, bareheaded, and in evening costume, and who offered him such
an enormous sum, thought it was a practical joke attempted by a drunken
man, and replied furiously,--
“Look out, rascal! Get out of the way, or I drive over you!”
And therewith he whipped his horses; and Daniel would have been driven
over, if he had not promptly jumped aside. But all this had taken
time; and, when he looked up, the _coupe_ was far off, nearly at the
boulevard. To attempt overtaking it now would have been folly indeed;
and Daniel remained there, overwhelmed and defeated.
What could he do? It occurred to him that he might hasten to Maxime, and
ask him for advice. But fate was against him; he gave up that idea. He
went slowly back to his lodgings, and threw himself into an arm-chair,
determined not to go to bed till he had found a way to extricate himself
from the effects of his egregious folly.
But he had now been for two days agitated by the extremest alternatives,
like a man out at sea, whom the waves buffet, and throw--now up to the
shore, and now back again into open water. He had not closed an eye for
forty-eight hours; and, if the heart seems to be able to suffer almost
indefinitely, our physical strength is strictly limited. Thus he fell
asleep, dreaming even in his sleep that he was hard at work, and just
about to discover the means by which he could penetrate the mystery of
Miss Brandon.
It was bright day when Daniel awoke, chilled and stiffened; for he had
not changed his clothes when he came home, and his fire had gone out.
His first impulse was one of wrath against himself. What! he succumbed
so easily?--he, the sailor, who remembered very well having remained
more than once for forty, and even once for sixty hours on deck,
when his vessel was threatened by a hurricane? Had his peaceful and
monotonous life in his office during the last two years weakened him to
such a point, that all the springs of his system had lost their power?
Poor fellow! he knew not that the direst fatigue _is_ trifling in
comparison with that deep moral excitement which shakes the human system
to its most mysterious depths. Nevertheless, while he hastened to kindle
a large fire, in order to warm himself, he felt that the rest had done
him good. The last evil effects of his excitement last night had passed
away; the charm by which he had been fascinated was broken; and he felt
once more master of all his faculties.
Now his folly appeared to him so utterly inexplicable, that, if he had
but tasted a glass of lemonade at Miss Brandon’s house, he should have
been inclined to believe that they had given him one of those drugs
which set the brains on fire, and produce a kind of delirium. But he had
taken nothing, and, even if he had, was the foolish act less real for
that? The consequences would be fatal, he had no doubt.
He was thus busy trying to analyze the future, when his servant entered,
as he did every morning, bringing his hat and overcoat on his arm.
“Sir,” he said, with a smile which he tried to render malicious, “you
have forgotten these things at the house where you spent the evening
yesterday. A servant--on horseback too--brought them. He handed me at
the same time this letter, and is waiting for an answer.”
Daniel took the letter, and for a minute or more examined the direction.
The handwriting was a woman’s, small and delicate, but in no ways
like the long, angular hand of an American lady. At last he tore the
envelope; and at once a penetrating but delicate perfume arose, which he
had inhaled, he knew but too well, in Miss Brandon’s rooms.
The letter was indeed from her, and on the top of the page bore her
name, Sarah, in small blue Gothic letters. She wrote,--
“Is it really so, O Daniel! that you are entirely mine, and that I
can count upon you? You told me so tonight. Do you still remember your
promises?”
Daniel was petrified. Miss Brandon had told him that she was imprudence
personified; and here she gave him a positive proof of it.
Could not these few lines become a terrible weapon against her? Did they
not admit the most extraordinary interpretation? Still, as the bearer
might be impatient, the servant asked,--
“What must I tell the man?”
“Ah, wait!” answered Daniel angrily.