XI

Resentment--fierce, vengeful, absorbing--took possession of Carey

Grey. That he should have been disgraced, dishonoured, robbed for a

time of his reason and his memory, his friends made to suffer, his

life put in jeopardy, and all without the slightest provocation, was

an outrage so heinous that he considered no punishment too great for

its perpetrators. The fact that the one who was apparently mainly

responsible for the inspiration and the execution had been summoned to

a spiritual tribunal to answer for his misdeeds tempered not a whit

the victim’s bitter animosity. Indeed, he felt that death had cheated

him of what he craved as a meagre compensation for his wrongs--the

opportunity to visit personally upon the arch-offender his own

retribution. But if Herr Schlippenbach had been snatched from his hands

by a too kindly Providence there were others remaining who should feel

the weight of his relentless vengeance.

In this mood, wakeful and dreamful by turns, a cold compress on his

bruised head, Grey worried through the early hours of the morning. With

the first sign of the blue dawn, however, he became more composed.

His meditations took on a more gentle guise; his brow, which had been

wrinkled with frowns, smoothed; into his eyes came a tenderness that

routed spleen, and his mouth softened its tensity of line. The day held

for him a joy the anticipation of which was a benison.

After all, heaven was not wholly unkind. He had been made to suffer

cruelly and undeservedly, but there was at least one compensation--the

woman he loved was here, near him, in the same city; in a few hours

he would meet her, talk with her, feel the warmth of her hand in

his, experience the benignant sympathy of her eyes and the caressing

graciousness of her voice. With the dawn had come confidence, and he

smiled as he recalled his doubts of the previous afternoon. Her love

was steadfast, enduring, immutable. Of this he felt assured. And her

faith and loyalty were like her love. He lay for hours in blissful

contemplation of the character, disposition, mind, manner and person of

the woman he adored.

He recalled their first meeting at a barn dance at Newport, when she

was in her débutante year; and then, an event of the following day

came back to him vividly as in a picture. The scene was the polo field

at Point Judith. He had just made a goal by dint of hard riding and

unerring strokes, and a hurricane of applause had followed, led, it

seemed to him, by a tall young woman in white, with great, shining

brown eyes and flushed cheeks, who was standing up in her place atop

a coach, clapping her hands in frantic delight. And this picture was

followed by others--a panorama in which the same girl figured again and

again--always beautiful, always smart, always gracious.

He attired himself, this fine Sunday morning, with more than usual

care, despite the absence of his valet, and set forth early for the

rendezvous he had chosen. Already the boulevards were alive. Many of

the chairs in front of the cafés were occupied by sippers of absinthe

and drinkers of black bitters. From the gratings in the sidewalks

arose the appetising aroma of the Parisian _déjeuner à la fourchette_.

He crossed the Avenue de l’Opéra and, turning into the rue de la Paix,

was presently passing the entrance of the hotel that sheltered her who

filled his thoughts--her whom he had come out to meet. A _fiacre_ was

at the curb, and, fancying that it might be awaiting her, he hastened

his steps so that he should not encounter her in so public a place.

From the summit of the Vendôme Column the imperial-robed Napoleon cast

an abbreviated shadow across his path as he cut across the _place_ into

the rue de Castiglione. A man he did not remember bowed graciously as

he passed him at the corner of the rue de Rivoli, and a little further

on a somewhat showily gowned woman in an enormous picture hat, probably

on her way to the Madeleine, leaned from her carriage to smile upon

him. And she, likewise, was without his recollection.

At the corner of the rue Cambon he made a diagonal cut to the garden

side of the street, and a minute later reached the broad and imposing

Place de la Concorde in all its bravery of bronzed iron and granite

fountains, sculptured stone figures, rostral columns and majestic

Obelisk.

As he turned into the gardens of the Tuileries, Grey glanced at his

watch to discover that the time still lacked five minutes of eleven.

He looked back in expectation of seeing a cab approaching, but, though

there were many crossing the place at various angles, there was none

headed in his direction. He strolled off between the flower-beds

into the little grove at his right. Just ahead of him he descried a

figure in pink, and his heart bounded; but he overtook it only to meet

disappointment. He lighted a cigarette, sat down on a bench, and dug

in the gravel with his walking-stick; his eyes, though, ever on the

alert, looking now one way, now another. He took out his watch again.

The minute hand was still a single space short of twelve. He got up and

retraced his steps towards the entrance with the object of meeting her

as she came in. Again he gazed across the wide, sun-washed area of the

place, but without reward, and then a dour melancholy threatened him.

He was assailed by forebodings. She would not come. He had offended her

beyond reparation. The day suddenly grew dull. A cloud hid the sun.

The gaiety of those who passed him became offensive. The sight of a

youth with his sweetheart hanging on his arm filled him with rancour.

He walked back and forth irritably. He was depressed, heavy-hearted,

apprehensive.

Another five minutes dragged by, with a corresponding increase in the

young man’s dejection. His imagination was now active. It was quite

possible she had left Paris. His messenger, perhaps, had failed to

deliver his note. He wondered if by any chance she might be ill.

He was standing, pensive, by the fountain, undecided whether to wait

longer or to go on to the Ritz in search of her, when the rustle of

skirts behind him caused him to turn.

“Ah--h!” exclaimed a laughing voice, “it is then you after all. I was

not sure. I looked and I looked, but you are so changed, Mr. Grey!”

It was Marcelle, Miss Van Tuyl’s maid, and at the sound of her peculiar

accent Grey recognised her instantly. He realised, too, that it was she

whom he had seen on the moment of his coming--the figure in the pink

frock.

“Miss Van Tuyl sent this note, Mr. Grey,” she went on, handing him an

envelope which he noticed was unaddressed.

His spirits rose a trifle. She had not left Paris, then, and she had

received his message.

“Miss Van Tuyl is not ill, I hope?” he questioned, anxiously.

“Oh, no, Mr. Grey,” and Marcelle shrugged her plump shoulders and

raised her black eyebrows, “but--” and she hesitated just the shade of

a second “she is--oh, I fear she is most unhappy.”

“Thank you very much, Marcelle,” he said, ignoring her comment, though

the words were as a sword-thrust, and handing her a louis. “Is there an

answer?”

“I do not know, monsieur; but I think not.”

Grey tore open the envelope and glanced over the inclosure.

“No,” he announced, his face very set and suddenly pale. “Give my

compliments to Miss Van Tuyl,” he added, “that is all.”

When the girl had gone he turned again into the little grove and once

more found the seat under the trees where a few minutes before he had

impatiently dug the gravel with his walking-stick. He sat now with his

forearms resting on his thighs, the note crushed in his hand, his eyes

bent, thoughtful but unseeing, on the grass across the walk.

She had refused to come to him. It was probably better, she had

written, that they should not meet again. She could imagine nothing

in the way of explanation that would form an adequate excuse for his

action of the afternoon before. And that was all. Only five lines in a

large hand.

The self-chastisement of the man was pitiless; his contrition pathetic.

He was willing now to make any sacrifice, to suffer any abasement, to

risk any punishment, to sustain any loss if by so doing he could gain

forgiveness, achieve reinstatement in favour--aye, even attain the

privilege of pleading his cause. He had been so sure of her; it had not

seemed possible that she could ever be other than love and devotion and

loyalty personified. Her smile was the one sun he thought would never

set and never be clouded. And now she had taken this light from his

life forever. With that gone, he asked himself, what else in all the

world mattered? What were honour, position, credit, fortune, if she

were not to share them?

He smoothed out the crumpled sheet and read it again, slowly,

carefully, weighing each word, measuring each phrase, considering each

sentence. And then the utter hopelessness of his expression changed.

“It is probably better,” he repeated, quoting from the note, and the

“probably” seemed larger and more prominent than any other eight

letters on the page. There was nothing absolutely final about that. It

was an assertion, to be sure, but there was a lot of qualification in

that “probably.” And further on, she had not said: “There is nothing in

the way of explanation you can offer,” but “_I can imagine_ nothing.”

He thanked God for that “I can imagine.” Oh, yes, indeed, there was

a very large loophole there; and so he took heart of grace, and even

smiled, and got up swinging his stick jauntily. All he wanted was a

fighting chance. He had won her a year ago from a score of rivals, and

he would win her now from herself. And not from herself, either, for

with the return of hope he felt that he would have no more stanch ally

than she. It was with her sense of what was fit and becoming that he

must battle--her pride and her self-esteem which he had outraged. He

would go to her, bravely, as he should have done before, instead of

asking her to meet him in this clandestine fashion. He had been a fool,

but he would make amends and she would forgive him. Yes, he was quite

sanguine now that he could win her pardon.

He retraced his steps briskly to the Place Vendôme and turned in at

the Ritz with head erect and chin thrust forward. He had no cards,

of course, but he scribbled “_Carey Grey_” upon a slip of paper and

asked that it be sent to Miss Van Tuyl at once. And then he waited,

nervously, smoking one cigarette after another, walking back and forth,

sitting down, only to get up again, agitatedly, and to resume his

pacing to and fro.

“Miss Van Tuyl is not at home, monsieur.”

It was the _portier_ who delivered the message. Grey stood for a full

half-minute, staring stupidly. He had not counted upon this. He had

been all confidence. That she was in the hotel he felt very certain;

but she would not see him. He might have foreseen that consistency

demanded this attitude of her. To send him a note one moment refusing

to permit him to explain and at the next to grant him an audience

was not to be expected of a young woman of Hope Van Tuyl’s sterling

character. There was, therefore, but one course open to him. What he

had to say he must put in writing.

“I’ll leave a note,” he said to the _portier_; and he went into the

writing-room and sat down at a table. But when he came to write he was

embarrassed by the flood of matter that craved expression. There was

so much to tell, so much to make clear, so much to plead that he was

staggered by the contemplation. Again and again he began, and again and

again he tore the sheet of paper into tiny bits. He dipped his pen into

the ink and held it poised while he made effort to frame an opening

sentence; and the ink dried on the nib as one thought after another was

evolved only to be rejected.

For the fifth time he wrote: “My Very Dearest,” and then, nettled over

his laggard powers, he dove straight and determinedly into the midst

of the subject that engrossed him, writing rapidly and without pause

until he had finished:

“I cannot find it in my heart to question the justice of your

decision,” he began. “Viewed in the light of your meagre knowledge,

or rather ignorance, of facts, I must look indeed very black. But I

am guiltless; that I swear. Under the circumstances you must know how

anxious I am to prove this, and how, in justice to you and myself, I

must let no opportunity pass to discover and convict the real culprits.

To have recognised you at Versailles yesterday before the man you were

with would have been to ruin every chance of accomplishing what I have

set out to do. Imagine, my dear, the alternative from which I had to

choose. Had it been simply a question of my personal liberty, you

cannot doubt which course I should have taken. I was burning to speak

to you--to look into the eyes I love, to hear the voice I adore--and

yet for both our sakes I had to deny myself. The child who was with me

is sweet and charming, and in no way implicated in the plot against me.

When you know her, as I hope you will one day, you will be very fond

of her. But I can understand how the situation must have appeared to

you. I would give all I have and all I hope for if I could but be with

you and tell you everything. All I ask now is that you trust me. I am

leaving Paris this afternoon for Kürschdorf by the Orient Express. I

cannot say when I shall return. But when I do it will be to search for

you, and with honour vindicated and no further need of secrecy. My

heart is with you always, my darling. _’Au revoir._”

The letter dulled, in a measure, the keenness of Grey’s disappointment

and reinspired him to the accomplishment of the task that lay before

him. After luncheon he had up his trunks from the hotel storeroom and

with Baptiste’s assistance accomplished his packing. Already O’Hara

had engaged places for three on the train, for Miss von Altdorf’s

destination was the same as theirs. She had a married sister living

in Kürschdorf, and she was most anxious to join her at the earliest

possible moment.

By half-past five everything was in readiness for their departure;

Baptiste had retired with a liberal tip, and Grey and O’Hara were

making themselves ready for the journey. Just at this juncture there

was a knock at the door, and in answer to Grey’s command to enter,

it swung open to reveal, bowing on the threshold, the sturdy little

figure, pale face, and close-cropped yellow head of Johann.

The two occupants of the room stood astonished, their eyes wide with

surprise.

“Johann!” they exclaimed together.

“Yes, Herr Arndt,” said the lad, bowing again; “it is as you see--I

have come back.”

“Back from where, Johann?” Grey asked.

“I started for Kürschdorf with the Herr Captain Lindenwald; but I am

come back from Strasburg.”

“And why?” queried the American, very much puzzled.

“Because, Herr Arndt, I knew it was not right for me to be going with

the Herr Captain. I was in your service, and perhaps if you were seized

with madness you have all the more need of me.”

“Madness!” repeated Grey, frowning. “What is this? Who said I was mad?”

“The Herr Captain and Lutz,” confessed Johann, stolidly, with scarce a

change of expression.

O’Hara laughed. “Oh, ho!” he shouted, dropping into a chair, “now we

have it. You are mad, and so you cannot go to Budavia to claim your

own.”

Johann nodded; and Grey, leaning against the edge of the table, was

lost for a moment in thought.

“But the Fraülein?” O’Hara questioned. “What did they say of her? Was

she to be left with the madman?”

“No, Herr O’Hara; only for a little. The Herr Captain Lindenwald had

arranged, Lutz told me, to have Herr Arndt taken to an asylum by the

doctors and then the Fraülein was to be brought to Kürschdorf.”

Grey smiled, grimly. “The doctors were the gentlemen you chased out of

the window last night, Jack,” he said. And then he asked of Johann:

“Did they say anything of Baron von Einhard?”

“No, Herr Arndt.”

“You are quite sure?”

“I have not heard of his name, Herr Arndt.”

Then Johann was told of the plan of departure and was sent off to

telephone for another place on the Orient Express for himself. When he

returned the American said to him:

“It was very good of you, Johann, to come back.”

“Ah, Herr Arndt,” he returned, in a tone of appreciation, “I could not

do less. Can I ever, do you think, forget that it was you who saved my

life?”

Grey’s surprise must have shown in his eyes, but he asked no questions.

Later, however, just as they were about to start for the Gare de

Strasbourg, he found himself alone with O’Hara for a moment and put the

query to him:

“What is this about my having saved Johann’s life?”

“You don’t remember it? Oh, of course not,” the Irishman answered.

“Well, you had your pluck with you, lad, if you didn’t have your

memory. We were in that fire at the Folsonham, in Piccadilly. It

happened in the early morning when the whole house was asleep, and

that the death list was not larger was little short of a miracle. The

front stairs were burning as Schlippenbach, the Fraülein and you and

I reached them. When I got to the bottom I missed you, and looking

back saw you through the smoke still standing at the top. ‘For God’s

sake, make haste, man!’ I called, ‘the stairs may fall at any minute.’

But you had seen a figure staggering down, half suffocated, from the

floor above. Well, instead of saving yourself you went back to help

that figure, which proved to be Johann. And even at that moment the

staircase fell with a crash. But you caught the stumbling, dazed

Budavian from out a hurricane of sparks, rushed him through a room

filled with blinding smoke and climbed with him hanging limp over your

shoulder out of a window onto an already burning ten-inch cornice.

And there you held him, against the wall, God only knows how, until a

ladder was run up and the pair of you brought safely to the street just

as the cornice crumbled and went down. And, good Lord, but didn’t the

crowd cheer! Only fancy your not remembering anything of it!”

“I’m glad I managed it,” said Grey, simply. But the story depressed

him. What else had he done in those five months of somnambulism? The

thought of that period and its possibilities had grown distressful to

him. He had committed a great crime and he had performed a brave deed.

They were the opposite poles of that world of sleep. But what other

acts lay between? What other incidents of right and wrong filled the

intermediate zones? He shrank from asking general questions on the

subject, and speculation was as distasteful as it was futile. When, as

in this instance, accident had revealed something, the result was a

sort of emotional nausea.