“WHOSOEVER SHALL SMITE THEE--”
Before the house next morning, in the dull gray dawn, the two
antagonists met. It was bitterly cold and misty, with that wet
frost, all shadow and shiver, that precedes the late wintry sun.
Gerard drew his cloak around him as he saluted the Count. Under his
arm he held a long green baize bag.
“You still wish it to be swords?” he asked.
Count Frechenfels waved his hand in haughty acknowledgment.
“Permit me to precede you,” said Gerard, gravely.
They walked away into the park with quick, ringing steps. Only once
Gerard broke the silence. “Excuse me,” he began, looking round,
“but I think we had better go some distance. The clash, you know.”
The German repeated his gesture.
In silence, then, they reached the little clearing which Gerard had
selected. Here he paused. As it happened, the place was the same
where Ursula had fought her battle the day before. It was a natural
halting-place for those who wandered in the wood.
The robin lay stiff and stark with upturned legs. Gerard kicked it
aside.
Count Frechenfels looked to right and left. “Your doctor?” he said
at last. “Where is your doctor? At least you have arranged for a
medical man?”
“No, indeed; he would have warned the police,” replied Gerard.
“What do we want a doctor for?”
The German hesitated. “But it is murder,” he said, half to
himself. “No one does such things. Supposing one of us is badly
wounded. Mynheer van Helmont, you know that not one man in ten
would consent to meet you like this?”
“I don’t care about the other nine,” replied Gerard,
inconsequentially. He threw down his bag. “Count Frechenfels,” he
said, “you insulted the Dutch army in my person last night. There
is nothing more to be said.”
The Count began to get ready. “So be it,” he answered. He took up
one of the swords. “It is the Dutch army we fight on,” he said,
significantly. “However this mad affair ends, that is clearly
understood?”
“Of course,” replied Gerard, with some slight wonderment.
“Very well. I am ready, Mynheer. This is not a duel, but a fight!”
In another moment they were clashing at each other amid the
surrounding stillness, their swords ringing in the constant
concussion of the parry. The morning as yet was almost too dark
for their object, especially here, under the white-rimmed trees;
but as the metal shone and flashed in the haze, high over the
combatants’ heads the intensity of the moment’s expectation seemed
to clear away the mist. A sword duel, even when well ordered, is
always disconcerting because of the noise; in this case, as the
German had remarked, the combat, when it deepened, without umpire
or timekeeper, was not a duel but a fight.
“I shall kill him,” thought Gerard, but at the same moment he felt
that this would not be an easy thing to accomplish. It required
the utmost vigilance on his part to ward off his enemy’s blows;
he found but little opportunity for independent attack; he began
uncomfortably to realize that the Count was the better swordsman.
Also the Count was the taller of the two--a very great advantage.
Gerard set his teeth hard in the continuous crash of the other’s
onslaught. The whole wood seemed listening, holding its already
bated breath.
Suddenly--in a flash of lightning, quicker than thought--the young
Dutchman realized that his guard was gone, that his opponent’s
sword was upon him, bearing straight down upon his unprotected
head, with the certainty of terrible wounding, the possibility
of death! With unthinkable swiftness he understood it and even
found time--in that hundredth of a second--to await the inevitable
end. In that hundredth of a second, also, he saw his antagonist
swerve aside under the very force of sweeping downwards, swerve
with a sudden slip of his footing, just enough to cause the aim
to diverge, while exposing himself in his turn. In that hundredth
of a second Gerard knew, as it passed, that he had the German in
his power, that he, not the German, was become, by a twist of the
wheel, the irresistible victor, that his sword, once more curling
aloft, could descend where he chose. And he _did_ choose--still in
that immeasurable atom of existence--and struck his foeman, not
through the skull, but, with a quick revulsion from murder, in a
hideous long gash across the cheek.
It was over. The Count reeled and recovered himself as Gerard ran
forward to support him. Then, his long passion grown suddenly
cool, with his profusely bleeding victim beside him, Gerard felt
there was nothing left but to avow himself tardily “an idiot.” He
looked round desperately for the indispensable assistance he had
previously scouted. He would have called out, but what was the
use of calling? Even as he told himself that it would be utterly
useless, he became aware that his sylvan solitude was not deserted.
The figure of a woman, making towards him, became visible through
the trees.
He recognized her with immense relief--only Hephzibah, his Aunt
Louisa’s maid. Angular in every fold of her dark stuff gown and
shawl, that cross-grained female approached the little group in the
clearing.
“Help the gentleman to sit down, Jonker,” she said, without
looking at Gerard. And she began deftly arranging a bandage with
two spotless pocket-handkerchiefs which she produced from inner
recesses. They were her Sunday handkerchiefs (ready for the
morning’s devotional exercises). No cry of anguish broke from her
as she calmly tore them into strips.
Count Frechenfels watched her skill with evident satisfaction.
After all, why should he let himself be comfortably killed in
contradiction to all the correct rules of carving? He was contented
with himself: he had behaved with great magnanimity, like the
“grand seigneur” he was.
“I will go fetch a carriage from the stables,” said Gerard.
The woman nodded, engrossed in her work; when she had finished,
she stood waiting, erect by the wounded man, like a soldier on
guard.
It seemed a long time before Gerard returned with the brougham
which he had got ready unaided. As Hephzibah established the Count
in the carriage, the Jonker turned for one last look at the scene
of the combat, wondering whether he could account for that sudden
slip of his adversary’s to which he felt that he owed his life.
Something black in the hard snow caught his eye. He stooped quickly
and took up a woman’s dark glove, half imbedded and trodden down.
The Count’s foot must have slid on the soft kid. Gerard thrust the
glove into his pocket. One of Hephzibah’s squint eyes, at any rate,
was fixed on the Count.
A few minutes later the little brougham stopped before the doctor’s
house in the village street. The village street was empty, blinded,
and asleep, yet Gerard, on the box, as he sat amid the jingle of
the harness, felt that the dead walls were Argus-eyed, and that his
secret was become the world’s.
“Good gracious!” squeaked the doctor from his window, in a red
nightcap. “Good gracious, Jonker, what has occurred?”
“Nothing of importance,” replied the Jonker’s loudest tones. “Come
down, and I’ll tell you.”
Curiosity accelerated Dr. Lapperpap’s enrobing. Soon he was
examining the patient by the light of hastily raised blinds.
“And how did this happen?” asked Dr. Lapperpap.
“I did it,” replied Gerard, promptly. “Sword exercise.”
The doctor cast a quick glance from his twinkly black eyes. “H’m,”
he said; “an accident. _Of course._”
His tone rendered further discussion superfluous. It was arranged
that, for the present, the Prussian should remain where he was.
Gerard drove Hephzibah back to the Manor House; the good woman
despised all pomps and vanities, yet she was by no means insensible
to the honors of her position. The Count had presented her with one
florin.
Near the avenue she applied the carriage-whistle.
“I will get out here, Jonker, please,” she cried; and then,
standing in the early snow: “On Christmas morning!” she said, while
her whole figure grew heavy with reproach.
“Hephzibah, however did you come to be out in the wood?” asked the
Jonker, hastily.
“In their affliction they shall seek me early,” replied Hephzibah.
The quotation was inappropriate, for her omnifulgent eyes had
watched the gentlemen leave the house, but the sacredness of the
words staggered Gerard. He held out a gold piece.
“No, Jonker,” said the waiting-woman. “Not from you. Not for this.
It would be blood-money.” And she marched away, gaunt and grim,
down the lines of grim, gaunt elms.
As Gerard came up from the stables to the house he caught sight
of Ursula walking on the carriage sweep. For one moment a great
impulse came over him to go and ask her why she, as well as Helena,
seemed so anxious to have him out of the way. He could understand
Helena’s feelings--or, at any rate, he thought he could. Well, he
had spoiled the German’s fine countenance for the remainder of his
stay. Count Frechenfels would carry away with him a memento of his
visit to the Lowlands.
But what would be the use of worrying Ursula? Gerard hated to make
a woman uncomfortable. He had done it already, yesterday--after a
full year’s hesitation. And she had taught him a lesson he would
never forget. How greatly he had wronged this purest among women!
Generous natures always own an immense debt of gratitude to those
they have wronged.
“Gerard,” cried Ursula, “I have dropped a glove. I feel sure I
came out with a pair.” She held up one for him to see. Gerard had
a disastrous weakness for blurting out the very thing he wanted to
keep back.
“Not unless you have been in the wood already,” he said, producing
the missing article, which Ursula, of course, had dropped, not now,
but the day before. Then he put it back. “I want you to let me keep
this,” he added.
Her eyes grew troubled. “Oh, no--no,” she protested. “Give it back
to me at once!”
“But it can have no real value for you. Whereas, for me”--his voice
trembled with the memory of his terrible escape--“let me keep it,”
he said.
[Illustration: “GERARD THRUST THE GLOVE INTO HIS POCKET”]
Ursula knew not what to say or think. Slowly she dropped the
remaining glove on the ground at her brother-in-law’s feet; slowly
she raised her faithful eyes to the level of his own. In that
moment, quite unexpectedly, as by a revelation, he saw how very
beautiful she was. He stood before her dismayed, his heart full of
yesterday’s conversation, of this morning’s experiences. “Ursula,”
he stammered, “I--I am going to Acheen--at once!”
“I thank God,” she said, with solemn bitterness, and left him.
* * * * *
Meanwhile the wretched husband shrank back behind his dressing-room
curtains. It was true that he had begun to spy on his wife. He
hated himself for doing it. He despised himself for believing the
clear testimony of his eyes.
He went down to breakfast; somebody said he was looking ill.
“It is the worry at the close of the year,” he told his mother;
“this time I can certainly not make both ends meet.” Mopius had
a business-man’s suspicion of financial complications. Under the
influence of the sacred season and the baronial splendor around
him, he offered his “nephew Otto,” just before going to church, a
considerable loan, free of interest. The Baron courteously declined
it. “If Mopius were but a gentleman!” he reflected, with a sigh.
So the Dominé preached his festival sermon to various inattentive
ears. Gerard had disappeared, suddenly recalled to Drum; Helena
was wondering what had become of Count Frechenfels. Willie would
have been fast asleep but for Aunt Louisa’s persistent pokes; the
Dowager was trying to remember whether it was in ’42 or ’43 that
her husband had broken his arm out shooting three days before
Christmas. “Note,” said the Dominé, “that the message of peace is
brought by the hosts, that is, armies, of heaven. It is always so
in the history of the Church, as of each individual Christian.
Nowhere is this truth made more consistently manifest: _Si vis
pacem, para bellum_.” That was what the peasants of Horstwyk
admired most in their pastor. He quoted the New Testament at them
in the original Hebrew.
When the service was over, Otto remained behind to speak to his
father-in-law. The preacher’s last words still hovered about the
deserted pulpit: “Not till the city has surrendered does Emmanuel
issue his proclamation of peace and good-will.” Otto went into the
vestry where the Dominé was resting in his arm-chair, the Cross
showing bright on his ample black gown.
“I can’t bear it any longer!” exclaimed Otto. “I must speak of it
to some one. I must speak of it to _you_.”
“What is your trouble, my son?” said the Dominé, gently. “If we
confess our sins to each other, it often helps us to confess them
to God.”
Otto started back. “How do you know that it is a sin?” he asked.
“Our troubles usually are, are they not?” said the Dominé, simply.
“It is a sin, and it is not a sin. I cannot resist it. It is
stronger than I.”
“I will help you all I can.” The Dominé’s face grew very pitiful.
“In most of our troubles men can help, God in all.”
“But I have proof,” cried Otto, hastily. “So much proof--too much
proof. Only listen, father.”
He began speaking of his doubts, and the old man shrouded his face
with one hand--his only one--white and transparent.
When Otto ceased speaking, a long silence ensued. At last the
Dominé removed his hand, and Otto stared in horrified amazement.
The minister’s clear face had become dark purple; veins stood out
on his forehead which Otto had never perceived before. He began
speaking, in a very low voice, but that voice also was new to the
hearer:
“Go,” he said, “I have nothing to answer you.”
“But, father,” cried Otto, “speak to me. Pity me! For pity’s sake,
don’t let me lose the only friend I have!”
The Dominé rose to his full height, in his long robes, pointing to
the door.
“Go,” he repeated. “God forgive you. I cannot. Not at this moment.
_My Ursula!_ Go!”
And Otto, stalwart and sunburned, crouched to slink away.