CONTINUING FOR THE PROSECUTION
When Floriot swore that the story of the wreck of his life should never
be told until Judgment Day he did not know that the only man to whom he
could possibly have poured out his grief was alive, and he could not
foresee that one day he would be so near to collapse that he would be
forced to seek the relief of confession. It is rarely that high-strung,
sensitive men can put into words such a story as that which Floriot was
about to confide to his friend. That is why they call upon the gunsmith
instead of the divorce court for aid in "cleansing their honor."
But now the need of counsel and comfort was strong upon him. Noel's
refusal to agree with him, coming with the recollection of his owns
wavering before his pleading wife, shook his faith in himself. He was
willing to live again the terrible drama of his wrongs, and his grief
to harden his bitter resolution and make a sure ally of Noel. The
latter, when he was invited to sit down and listen, looked uncertainly
at his friend's drawn face for a moment and then slowly settled back in
the big chair, shading his eyes with his hands, until the other could
barely tell whether they were open or closed. Floriot did not sit. He
paced slowly up and down the room in silence as if preparing himself
for the ordeal; and then he began.
"Noel, my friend," he said, in low steady tones, "there is no man--or
woman--alive excepting you, to whom I could talk as I'm going to do. I
have no one left in the world but you and my boy and, God knows, I need
both of you--if there is a God," he added bitterly.
"You were about to defend her just now without question. You said that
she was most to be pitied. I know why--you knew her before she was
married. That was five years ago. Marriage develops people"--there was
the bitter note again--"and she developed into a woman that you never
knew and never dreamed could live in the same body with her. She had
the happiness of a home and the life's happiness of two--and possibly
three--persons in her hands. For the sake of a vicious intrigue which
she now sees could never bring her anything but misery, she sacrificed
her boy and me. And there is no consolation for me in the thought that
she was caught in the ruins of the home that she pulled down!"
Noel stirred in his chair but did not speak. In spite of his breezy
humor and love of light conversation he had been blessed with the
divine power of silence.
"Her misery is no consolation to me," Floriot went on, his voice
trembling slightly, "because I--I--old man, I still love her! And she
loved me--for a year! Oh, Noel, that is the worst of the hell that I
have lived in for two years! She loved me--for a year!"
He paused in his walk and wiped his forehead with his handkerchief.
Noel watched him silently.
"But I am not weak enough nor cowardly enough to let that weigh
with me. The boy must be protected. He must never know that she is
alive--never know what she did." He seemed to be talking more to
himself than to his friend. "If she came back there is no knowing how
long she would stay!" He clenched his fists end cried bitterly:
"The man who said that a woman who was untrue to one man would be
untrue to two or a dozen knew her and her kind!"
Noel was motionless; and, after a few more turns up and down the room,
Floriot went on:
"I know that she must have loved me, or why should she have married me?
If she wanted position she could have married men farther up in the
world than I was--than I am now. If she wanted money she could have
married a bigger bank account than mine. No! She loved me--for a year.
You said she was not naturally wicked. She was nothing else. Her love
is a passion that bums itself out in a year and she will probably have
a dozen lovers before she dies!"
There was a restless movement in the chair that Floriot did not notice.
"Noel, you can't realize the happiness of my life until I--I--learned
that I was a fool! For the first year I pitied the whole world because
it couldn't be as utterly happy as I was. It didn't seem possible that
a man could be more completely filled with joy and content. Then our
boy was born, and after that it seemed that before I had been miserable
by contrast!" Anguish choked him and he was silent until he recovered
control.
"Before that time I thought that I had fully the average man's capacity
for work and then it was doubled. I was in my office early and
late--every moment that I could tear myself away from my home. I even
worked in my study at night so that I could be near her and our baby
and still be struggling for them. And my spirit was always with her--at
her feet--God! How I worshipped her!" he groaned, his hands pressed
to his face. Again there was a silence in which Noel could hear his
friend's heavy breathing.
"Noel," he went on at last, "if I had not lost belief in everything but
hell, I would believe that God Himself must have destroyed my happiness
because He envied me, and could promise me none in heaven to equal that
I had on earth! It was too great, too complete, for this life!
"I had set my eyes on the position I now hold as the first big step in
my climb, and I was tireless in my work for it. I was as sure that I
would win as I was of the sanctity of my home. Then came the scandal in
the Finance Department."
"Did you hear anything about it? Do you remember? Some rather big men
were convicted."
Noel nodded almost imperceptibly.
"There was one brilliant young fellow in the lot, of whom you may not
have heard--thanks to my efforts. Lescelles--Albert Lescelles. I was
morally certain before I had been working on the case three days that
he was innocent. The older and dishonest cabal had carefully prepared
a chain of circumstantial evidence that would lead to Lescelles. None
of my associates agreed with me, and that made my work harder; but I
finally proved my theory to be the sound one, and you remember the
sensation it created when the net of lies was finally ripped and some
of our most respected public officers were dragged into the scandal.
"It was a great triumph for me, though my part in it was not generally
known beyond official circles. Lescelles knew it and tried to kill me
with gratitude. The day that he was discharged we were both drunk with
excitement, and I insisted that he should come home to dinner with me
that evening."
Floriot paused again in his tramp to and fro to wipe his moist brow.
"It was a merry dinner the three of us had that night! Lescelles was
a brilliant young fellow and I never knew Jacqueline to be wittier or
more entertaining. For the few months preceding she had been a little
more contained and reserved, but she blossomed out into her old self.
"After dinner I left them together and went to my study to attend
to some urgent matters that were to come up the next day, and I can
remember now how I smiled to hear the laughter coming up to me. If the
wine had poisoned him!" he groaned....
"He came to see us often after that. He was alone in the world and
seemed to have such a good time with us that I was always glad to have
him. I could see that Jacqueline liked him and that was enough for me.
He never tired of thanking me for what I had done for him, and his face
would light with pleasure whenever he saw me.
"How was I to suspect anything? As his visits became more frequent and
my work grew more absorbing, I encouraged him to escort Jacqueline to
the races and the other places of amusement of which she was always so
fond. I seldom had time to go with her. But in spite of this friendship
Jacqueline grew more affectionate to me every day and pleaded with me
constantly to go about with her and let my work take care of itself. I
showed her time and again how impossible this was, and then she would
pout until Lescelles came, and I would tell him to take her somewhere.
"What a blind fool I was!" he cried with a harsh laugh. "I can see it
all now. And what an actress she was! The more guilty she grew with
Lescelles the more affection she displayed for me to prevent any hint
of suspicion.
"One day I told her that I would be unusually busy--would dine at a
café and would not be home until very late. But, as it happened, when
I returned to my office after dinner, I found there was nothing of
importance and so I went home."
He stopped again and the other could see that he was fighting to retain
his composure as he reached the climax of the story. Noel did not speak
or stir, but the hand that had but rested on the arm of the chair
gripped it tightly.
"Noel!" There was unspeakable anguish in his voice. "Noel! In the
blackness of these two years I've suffered so that I've sometimes
wished that I had not gone home that night until I was expected! It
was raining a little and when I reached the front door I let myself in
without making any noise. I wanted to surprise Jacqueline and----Oh,
God! I did--I did--I did!" And with a sobbing groan he sank into a
chair and bowed his head on his arms.
It was a long time before he could continue, and when he began again
his voice was hoarse with the effort he made to speak calmly.
"My friend, God grant that you may never know what I felt when I opened
the door of the room where they were and found them--together! For
you will never know till you have been--as I was! I think the shock
must have unbalanced my mind in the moment that I saw them as I opened
the door, for I leaned against the door-post and stared at them as
if paralyzed. They leaped up and were staring back at me, and their
faces--! They probably thought that I was enjoying a moment of bitter
joy before I killed them both, and do you know what was passing in my
mind? I was thinking that a chair just behind her was too close to the
divan, and that if she leaned back in it, it would probably strike and
scar the furniture. My mind refused to grasp the horror that my eyes
had seen.
"And then in some dim, vague way the idea worked into my benumbed
brain--I must shock them! I turned away from the door and stumble down
the hall toward my study. I didn't have any desire to kill them in any
way--at that moment I didn't even think that I ought to do it. But it
seemed to me that I must kill them, and with a revolver--in the same
way that a man would go through a distasteful social function.
"I was some little time finding my revolver, but that did not seem at
the time to make any difference. I came back with it in my hand, fully
expecting to find them there, waiting to be shot--but the room was
empty!
"And then the paralysis passed from my brain and I went mad with fury.
I rushed through every room in the house, cursing them at the top of my
voice. Fortunately, none of the servants was at home.
"Then I ran bareheaded out into the rain and dashed down the street
aimlessly, in the hope that I had taken the right direction and might
come up with them. Before I had gone a hundred feet I ran into someone
and nearly shot him accidentally. He yelled with fright and ran. I had
just sense enough to put the revolver in my outside coat pocket, and
with my hand still gripping it, I hurried on."
He paused again to mop his brow, but his voice I grew firmer and higher
as the story of his wrongs worked him from grief to rage.
"I don't remember much of the rest of that night. I was only conscious
of the rain on my face and that I was walking always at top speed
without any goal. Now I was along the quays, then I remember peering
into a few cafés. It seems to me that I was stopped several times by
gendarmes, who released me when I showed them my card, but I never
heard of it afterward. I think I passed through the Bois once, but
when dawn came I was in some vile street in Montmartre. And with the
daylight came some sort of calm.
"I started back toward my house, and after a short walk found a cab.
In that drive I became, as I thought, complete master of myself again.
I know now that I was practically a somnambulist. I thought the whole
thing over in an almost impersonal way, and decided I would devote the
rest of my life to vengeance. I would hunt both of them down and kill
them, and I would begin the hunt systematically that day.
"When I reached home my clothes were soaking wet and my collar and
necktie were gone. I had probably tom them off and thrown them away.
Rose met me in the hall, and it did not strike me as being at all
strange that she asked no questions. I went up to my room, took a bath
and dressed in the most faultless style that my wardrobe would permit.
With the pistol in my pocket I started, out again, first sending word
that I would not, probably, be in my office for several days.
"All that day I haunted the cafés and clubs that I knew Lescelles
frequented. I did not intend to kill him there unless he saw me. My
plan was to follow him to whatever place he had taken Jacqueline, and
kill them together.
"No one had seen him and I went home early in the morning, bitterly
disappointed. I sat in my study most of the day planning, imagining,
devising the most delightful ways in which to commit the double murder,
as I did not intend to use the revolver unless it became necessary. The
way that struck me as being best would be to find them asleep and waken
them with one hand on the throat of each. Those throats haunted me. A
dozen times that night I felt the joy of sinking my fingers into them,
slowly squeezing out their lives as they stared up at me with eyes
pleading for mercy.
"I was setting out again that evening when I met Rose a few steps
outside my door. I think she was waiting for me--and she had the baby
in her arms." His voice wavered and sank as if the rest were too
terrible to tell.
"Noel," he went on at last in a strained, uncertain voice, "up to that
moment I had not felt the slightest grief. I was apparently rational,
but I was as insane as any man that ever lived. Fury and the lust of
vengeance left no room for any other emotion. And," the voice dropped
with horror until it was barely more than a hoarse whisper, "for a
fraction of a moment I felt an impulse to kill the baby because it was
hers!" Again he stopped, unable to go on. Noel could not repress a
shudder but his hand shaded his features and he made no other sign that
he had heard. Then Floriot spoke again.
"Noel! Noel!" he half-sobbed. "I thought the next moment that I was
dying and--if it had only been true! For then for the first time came
the realization of what I had lost. I must have staggered into my
room and locked the door before I fainted, for light was coming in
the window when I recovered consciousness and I was lying across my
bed. With consciousness came the suffering hat has not ceased for two
years!...
"I will not try to tell you what the next few days were. I lost track
of time. I could not eat or drink or sleep. My revolver lay on the
table and a dozen times I picked it up to blow out my brains, but the
thought of the baby stopped me. I wept because I couldn't do it. She
was so completely part of me that I did not see how I could live any
longer.
"Finally, I made up my mind that no matter how dreary and empty my life
might be, I must; live for the boy's sake, and with that resolution I
locked up the revolver, burned every letter and photograph of her that
I had, I held them in the fire, one by one, until the flames burned my
fingers! Then I came into the world again.
"I fled to work like a man running away from something and the work
brought--success! Success!"--And he ended with a grating laugh.
Then he turned his white, drawn face and feverish eyes on the still
figure in the chair.
"Now," he demanded, "my friend, which of us deserves the most pity?"