BLOOD
Ralph stepped up to them, and without paying any attention to Bregeac
said quietly to Marescal: “Life seems very complicated because we only
see it in scraps, and those by unexpected lights. It is so with this
express case. It’s as entangled as a newspaper serial. The facts spring
up at random, stupidly, like fireworks which will not go off in the
order in which you arrange them. But when a lucid mind sets those facts
in their places, all things become reasonable, simple, in perfect
accord with one another, as natural as a page of history. It is that
page of history that I’ve just read to you, Marescal. You know now the
whole business; you know that Aurelie d’Asteux is innocent. Let her
go.”
Marescal shrugged his shoulders and growled: “No.”
“Don’t get obstinate, Marescal. You can see that I am not fooling or
joking any longer. I simply ask you to recognize your mistake.”
“My mistake?”
“Certainly, since she did not commit murder, since she was not a
confederate, but a victim.”
Marescal said in sneering accents: “If she did not commit the murder,
why did she fly? In the case of William, I can admit reasons for
flight. But in her case, what did she gain by flying? And why hasn’t
she said anything about it since—except a few words at the beginning of
the affair when she kept wailing to the policeman: ‘I wish to speak to
the magistrate, I wish to tell him the story.’ Apart from that,
silence.”
“That’s a good point, Marescal,” Ralph admitted. “It’s a point well
worth raising. This silence has often bothered me also, this stubborn
silence which she has always kept, even with me, who was helping her,
and who would have found a confession of the greatest use in my
enquiries. But her lips remained closed. And it is here only, in this
house, that I have solved this problem. I hope that she will forgive me
for having searched her drawers when she was ill. It was necessary.
Read these words, Marescal, which are among the instructions which her
dying mother, and who had no illusions about Bregeac, left her:
‘Aurelie, whatever happens and whatever the conduct of your step-father
may be, never accuse him. Defend him, even if you have to suffer at his
hands, even if he is guilty: I have borne his name.’”
“But she did not know about Bregeac’s crime,” protested Marescal. “And
even if she had known of it, she could not have guessed that it had
anything to do with the crimes on the express. Bregeac therefore could
not have come into the matter.”
“She did know of it.”
“Who from?”
“From Jodot.”
“What proof is there of it?”
“The statement which William’s widowed mother made to me. I hunted her
up in Paris, where she lives, and I paid her handsomely for a written
statement of all that she knows about the past and the present. Her son
told her that in the compartment of the express, face to face with
Mademoiselle, above the two dead brothers, with his mask torn off and
covered by William’s revolver, Jodot shook his fist at her and said
with an oath:
“‘If you breathe a word of this business, Aurelie, and give the police
my name and I am arrested, I will inform them of the crime committed
years ago. It was Bregeac who murdered your grandfather d’Asteux!’
“It was this threat, repeated later at Nice which overwhelmed Aurelie
d’Asteux and made her keep silence. Have I spoken the exact truth,
Mademoiselle?”
“The exact truth,” she murmured.
“Then you see, Marescal, your objection falls to the ground. The
silence of the victim, this silence which left you still suspicious, is
on the contrary a proof in her favor. For the second time I ask you to
let her go.”
“No!” said Marescal stamping his foot.
“Why not?”
Of a sudden Marescal’s rage burst forth and he shouted: “Because I wish
to avenge myself! I want the scandal! I want everybody to know that
whole business, her flight with William, her arrest, Bregeac’s crime! I
want her to be dishonored and shamed. She has rejected me. Let her pay!
And let Bregeac pay too! You’ve been stupid enough to give me the
damning details I had missed. I hold Bregeac and the young woman more
firmly than I thought—and Jodot and the Ancivels and the whole band!
Not one of them shall escape me; and Aurelie is one of the gang!”
He was raving with rage, and came to a stop for sheer lack of breath,
and leaned back against the door. In the silence that followed they
heard Tony and Labonce talking on the landing.
Ralph picked up from the table a scrap of paper taken from the bottle,
a scrap on which was written: “Marescal is a blockhead.” He unfolded it
with a careless air and handed it to Marescal.
“Take it, old chap, have it framed, and hang it up at the foot of your
bed,” he said in the kindest accents, smiling amiably.
“Yes, yes: go on fooling!” snarled Marescal. “Go on fooling as much as
you like. It doesn’t alter the fact that I’ve got you too! You showed
me the truth at the very beginning! That business of the cigarette!
‘Could you oblige me with a light.’ I’ll oblige you with a light all
right! A light that will last you the rest of your life—in prison! Yes,
in prison from which you came, and to which you’re going back straight
away. In prison, I repeat—in prison! If you think that during my
struggle with you I have not pierced your disguise; if you think that I
do not know who you are and that I haven’t already all the necessary
proofs to strip the mask off you, you’re wrong. Look at him, Aurelie,
look at your sweetheart; and if you wish to know who he is, think for a
moment of the king of crooks, of the most gentlemanly of burglars, of
the master of masters, and say to yourself that Baron de Limézy,
pseudo-nobleman and pseudo-explorer is no other man than——”
The front door bell rang loudly and cut him short. It was Philippe and
his two big policemen. It could be no one else.
Marescal rubbed his hands and took a long breath.
“I think you’re well in the soup, Lupin. What do you think?”
Ralph looked at Aurelie. The name of Lupin appeared to have made no
impression upon her. With an expression of anguish she was listening to
the sounds below.
“Poor lady with the green eyes, your faith is not yet perfect,” said
Ralph. “How on earth can a gentleman of the name of Philippe torment
you?”
He opened the window, and speaking to some one on the pavement below,
he said: “It’s the gentleman named Philippe from the Prefecture, isn’t
it? Just a word with you, my friend, apart from your three big
policemen, for they are three, hang it all! Don’t you recognize me?
Baron de Limézy. Hurry up! Marescal is waiting for you.”
He shut the window.
“They’re all here, Marescal,” he said. “Four downstairs and three up
here for I don’t count Bregeac, who seems to have lost interest in the
business. That makes seven three-headed giants to make only one
mouthful of me. I am horror-stricken, and so is the young lady with the
green eyes.”
Aurelie forced herself to smile; she even muttered two or three words
they could not catch.
Marescal was waiting on the landing. The front door was opened;
hurrying steps came up the stairs. At once Marescal had to hand, eager
to pull the quarry down, like a pack of hounds ready to be let loose,
six men. He gave them their orders in a low voice, then entered,
smiling all over his face.
“You don’t want a useless fight, do you, Baron?” he said cheerfully.
“No fight, Marquess. The idea of killing all seven of you, like the
seven wives of Bluebeard, is positively hateful to me,” said Ralph.
“Then you’ll follow me?”
“To the end of the world!” said Ralph with enthusiasm.
“Unconditionally, you understand?”
“Oh, no, there’s one condition: you’ve got to buy me a meal,” said
Ralph.
“Right. Dry bread, dog-biscuit, and water,” said Marescal.
“No,” said Ralph.
“Well, what is your bill of fare?” said Marescal.
“The same as yours, Rudolph. Meringues Chantilly babas au rhum, and
Alicante wine.”
“What do you mean?” asked Marescal on a sudden high note of acute
anxiety and surprise.
“My meaning is perfectly simple. You invite me to tea. I accept with
pleasure. Haven’t you an appointment at five?”
“An appointment!” cried Marescal almost in a squeak.
“Yes. You haven’t forgotten it? At your place—not your house—your
bachelor’s flat—Rue Duplan—a little flat looking on the street. Isn’t
it there that you meet every afternoon and stuff with meringues dipped
in Alicante, the wife of your——”
“Be quiet!” said Marescal in a strangled whisper.
He was as white as a sheet. All his self-confidence had vanished. He
looked as if he would never joke again.
“Why do you want me to keep silent?” asked Ralph innocently. “Is the
invitation off? Aren’t you going to introduce me to——”
“Silence, damn you!” hissed Marescal.
He went back on to the landing, shut the door behind him, and took
Philippe aside.
“Just a few minutes, Philippe. There are some details to straighten out
before we make an end of it. Take your men downstairs so that they
mayn’t hear anything.”
He came back into the room, rather shakily, went to Ralph and with his
face almost touching Ralph’s face, said in a voice too low for Bregeac
and Aurelie to hear it: “What do you mean? What are you getting at?”
“Nothing at all.”
“Then what are you talking about? How do you know?”
“The address of your flat, and the name of your pretty friend?
Goodness, all I have to do in your case was what I did in the case of
Bregeac and Jodot and his colleagues, make discreet inquiries about
your private life, which enquiries brought me to a mysterious
ground-floor flat, very prettily furnished where you entertain charming
ladies. Dim lights, incense, flowers, sweet wines, divans as deep as
tombs—Marescal’s Folly. What?”
“And what ab-b-bout it?” stammered Marescal. “Haven’t I the right to do
as I like? What connection is there between that and my arresting you.”
“There wouldn’t be any connection at all, if you hadn’t been guilty of
the further folly of choosing this little abode of love as a safe place
to hide those ladies’ letters.”
“It’s a lie!” snapped Marescal.
“If I were lying, you wouldn’t be as white as a sheet,” said Ralph.
“The details?” said Marescal savagely.
“In a cupboard there’s a secret drawer. In this drawer is a casket. In
this casket some charming letters from women, tied up in packets with
colored ribands. Letters that compromise two dozen ladies and actresses
whose passion for the handsome Marescal is expressed without the
slightest restraint. Shall I name a few? The wife of the Procureur B.,
Mademoiselle X. of the Comédie Française—and above all, above all, the
worthy spouse, a little mature, but still presentable of——”
“Shut up, you dog!”
“The dog,” said Ralph amiably, “is a man who takes advantage of his
physique to obtain protection and promotion.”
With a hang-dog air and bowed head, Marescal walked up and down the
room. Then he stopped before Ralph and said in the same low voice:
“How much?”
“How much what?”
“What do you want for the letters?”
“Thirty shekels, like Judas.”
“Stop your fooling! How much?”
“Thirty millions.”
Marescal trembled with impatience and rage.
Ralph laughed and said: “You’ll make yourself ill, Rudolph. I’m a good
fellow, and I like you—you’re so sympathetic. I’m not asking a cent for
your comico-amorous literature. I value it too highly. There’s months
and months’ amusement in it. But I demand——”
“What?”
“That you throw down your weapons, Marescal. Absolute peace for Aurelie
and Bregeac, and even for Jodot and the Ancivels. I’m going to deal
with them myself. Since the whole of this case from the police point of
view is in your hands, and there is no actual proof, no real evidence,
let it drop. It will be pigeon-holed.”
“And you’ll give me back the letters?”
“No. They’re a pledge; and I keep them. If you do not play fair, I
publish some of them in all their simple crudeness. All the worse for
you—all the worse for your pretty friends.”
The drops of sweat stood out on Marescal’s forehead.
“I’ve been betrayed,” he snarled.
“Very likely,” Ralph agreed.
“Betrayed by her. For some time I’ve had a feeling that she was spying
on me. It’s thanks to her that you’ve been able to manage this business
exactly as you liked. She recommended you to her husband and had you
placed with me.”
“What do you expect?” said Ralph cheerfully. “All’s fair in war. If you
employ such discreditable means in your fighting, could I act
otherwise, when it was a matter of defending Aurelie against your
abominable hatred? And then you’ve been too simple, Rudolph. How could
you suppose that a man like me would go to sleep for a month and wait
on events and your good pleasure? You saw me act at Beaucourt, at Monte
Carlo, and Sainte-Marie, and you saw me get away with the bottle and
the paper? Why didn’t you take precautions?”
He shook him affectionately by the shoulder.
“Come, Marescal, don’t bow before the storm,” he went on. “You lose the
game—be it so. But you have Bregeac’s resignation in your pocket, and
since you stand well at Court, and his post has been promised you, it’s
a great step forward. The good days will come again, Marescal, be sure
of it. One condition however: don’t trust women. Don’t use them to rise
in your profession, and don’t use your profession to succeed with them.
Be a lover, if it’s your fancy, and be a detective, if you like the
job; but don’t be either a lover-detective, or a detective-lover. In
conclusion, a word of advice: if ever you meet Arsène Lupin on your
path, slip away by a by-path. For a detective, it’s the beginning of
wisdom. I have spoken. Give your orders and—good-by.”
Marescal chafed at the bit. He turned and twisted in his fingers the
points of his beard. Should he yield? Was he going to throw himself on
his enemy and summon his giants? A storm in a skull, thought Ralph.
Poor Rudolph, what use was it to struggle on?
Rudolph did not struggle long. He was too clearsighted not to see that
any resistance would make the situation worse. He obeyed therefore with
the air of a man who admits that he has to obey. He summoned Philippe
and talked to him. Philippe went away with the policemen and the
detectives. The front door opened and shut. Marescal had lost the
battle.
Ralph turned to Aurelie.
“Everything is in order, Mademoiselle, and we have only to start. Your
suit-case is down in the hall, isn’t it?”
She murmured as if she were awaking from a nightmare: “It is possible?
No more prison? How did you get——”
“Oh,” he said quickly. “One gets everything one wants from Monsieur
Marescal, by the exercise of a little tact and reason. He’s a good
fellow. Shake hands with him, Mademoiselle.”
Aurelie did not shake hands with him: she shrank away. Besides,
Marescal had turned his back on her, and stood with his two elbows on
the mantelpiece, his face buried in his hands. She showed a slight
hesitation as she passed Bregeac. But he seemed wholly indifferent to
her and was wearing a strange air which Ralph was to remember almost
immediately.
“One word,” said Ralph, stopping in the doorway. “I undertake, in the
presence of Marescal and your step-father, to conduct you to a quiet
retreat, where you will not see me at all for a month. In a month I
shall come to ask you how you intend to arrange your life. Do you
agree?”
“Yes,” she said.
“Then let us go.”
They went. But he had to put his arm round her on the staircase to
support her; she was so shaken.
“My car is near here,” he said. “Do you think you’ll be strong enough
to travel all night?”
“Yes,” she said. “It’s such a joy for me to be free!” She paused and
added in a low voice: “And such anguish!”
Just as they were leaving the house a muffled report came from an upper
story. Ralph quivered; but Aurelie, in her feebleness, did not seem to
have heard it.
“I’ve forgotten something. There’s my car, down the street. There’s an
old lady inside it, the old lady of whom I have already spoken to you,
my old nurse. Will you go to her? I must just run upstairs and tell
Marescal something. I’ll be with you in a couple of minutes.”
She turned down the street; he ran quickly upstairs.
In his study Bregeac was lying on a sofa in his death agony. A
revolver, fallen from his nerveless hand, lay on the floor beside him.
Marescal was bending over him. The blood poured from his mouth; a last
shudder shook him; he did not move again.
“I ought to have foreseen it,” murmured Ralph. “His downfall—the loss
of Aurelie. Poor devil! He has paid his debts.”
He said to Marescal: “Telephone for a doctor and get this business
hushed up. Hemorrhage, is what it is. Don’t let there be any question
of suicide. At any cost Aurelie must not hear about it at present. She
is not strong enough. You can say that she’s ill in the country,
staying at the house of a friend.”
Marescal grasped his wrist and said: “Answer me. Who are you? You’re
Lupin, aren’t you?”
“Splendid!” said Ralph. “Professional curiosity always comes to the
top.”
He faced Marescal, then turned his profile to him and then his
three-quarter face, and said with a laugh: “You’ve seen it, duffer!”
He ran downstairs quickly and caught Aurelie up; the old lady was
helping her into the back of a comfortable limousine.
But, having, in accordance with his custom of always taking
precautions, cast a look up and down the street, he said to Victoire:
“You haven’t seen any one prowling about the car?”
“No one,” she declared.
“Are you sure? A rather stout man, accompanied by a man with his arm in
a sling?” he persisted.
“Yes, of course I have! They were walking up and down on the pavement
lower down the street.”
He started off at a run and overtook, in the little passage which runs
round the church of Saint Philippe du Roule, two men, one of whom
carried his arm in a sling.
He tapped them both on the shoulder and said cheerfully: “Well, well,
well, so you know one another, you two? How goes it, Jodot? And you,
William Ancivel?”
They turned. Jodot, dressed like a prosperous tradesman, thick-chested
and with the hairy face of a vicious dog, showed no astonishment.
“Ah, it’s you, is it? The gentleman of Nice?” he said. “I said that it
was you who was with the little girl just now.”
“And it’s also the gentleman of Toulouse,” said Ralph to William. And
he went on: “What have you been messing about here for, brave boys? You
were watching Bregeac’s house. What?”
“For the last two hours,” said Jodot arrogantly. “The arrival of
Marescal and his detectives and the police, the departure of Aurelie,
we’ve seen everything.”
“Well?” said Ralph.
“Well, I suppose that you know all about the business, that you’ve been
fishing in troubled waters, and that Aurelie slips away with you, while
Bregeac fights it out with Marescal. Resignation without a
doubt—probably arrest as well.”
“Bregeac has just killed himself,” said Ralph.
Jodot started: “What?” he said sharply. “Bregeac? Bregeac dead!”
Ralph gazed at them curiously for a moment; then he said: “Listen to
me, both of you. I’ve forbidden you to meddle with this business. You,
Jodot, murdered Etienne d’Asteux, you murdered Miss Bakersfield and
were the cause of the death of the brothers Loubeaux, your friends,
associates and confederates. Am I to hand you over to Marescal? And
you, William, you’d better know that your mother has sold me all her
secrets for a big sum, and on condition that you were left alone. That
promise covers the past. But, if you start afresh, it does not hold any
longer. Am I to break your other arm and hand you over to Marescal?”
William, panic-stricken, was ready to give in. But Jodot held out.
“In a word, you’re to have the treasure,” he growled. “Nothing could be
plainer.”
Ralph shrugged his shoulders and said: “You believe then in that
treasure, do you?”
“I believe in it as you do,” growled Jodot. “I’ve been working on it
for nearly twenty years; and I’m going to get away with it in spite of
all your maneuvers.”
“Get away with it! You’ve got to find out first of all where it is and
what it is,” said Ralph sharply.
“I know nothing and neither do you, no more than Bregeac. But the girl
knows. And that’s why——”
“Would you like to go shares in it,” said Ralph laughing.
“It isn’t worth while. I shall manage to get my share of it, on my own,
and a good share too. And all the worse for those who get in my way!
I’ve more trumps in my hand than you think. Good evening. You’ve had
your warning,” growled Jodot.
Ralph watched them walk away. The incident annoyed him. What the devil
was this ill-omened bird of prey up to?
“Rubbish!” he murmured. “If he wishes to run after the car for two
hundred and fifty miles, I shall be delighted to act as pace-maker.”
The next day, at noon, Aurelie awoke in an airy room from which she
saw, across gardens and meadows, the somber and majestic cathedral of
Clermont-Ferrand. An old boarding-house, situated on a hill, and
transformed into a sanatorium, afforded her a most discreet retreat and
one well fitted to re-establish definitely her health.
There she passed peaceful weeks, speaking to no one but Ralph’s old
nurse, walking in the park, dreaming for hours at a time, her eyes
fixed on the town or on the mountains of the Puy-de-Dome of which the
hills of Royat form the first strongholds.
Not once did Ralph come to see her. She found in her room flowers and
fruit which his nurse brought her, books and magazines. Ralph kept out
of sight in the little lanes which wound between the vineyards on the
ridges hard by. He watched her from a distance and poured forth to her,
in his heart, long speeches, teeming with the passion that grew more
intense every day.
He gathered from her movements and her supple carriage that life was
welling up in her, like an almost dried-up spring into which fresh
water flows again. A dusk was falling over the hours of terror, the
sinister faces, the corpses and the crimes and over and above
forgetfulness there was the expansion of a tranquil happiness, serious
and unconscious, sheltered from the past and even from the future.
“You are happy, lady with the green eyes,” he murmured. “Happiness is a
state of mind which allows one to live in the present. While suffering
nourishes itself on painful memories and hopes by which it is not
duped, happiness mingles itself with all the little things of everyday
life and transforms them into elements of serenity and joy. Yes, you
are happy. When you pluck the flowers or stretch yourself out on your
lounge chair, you do it with an air of contentment.”
On the twentieth day came a letter from him inviting her to go for a
motor drive one morning the following week. He had important things to
discuss with her.
Without hesitating, she wrote to accept the invitation.
On the appointed morning she walked along the little rocky lanes which
brought her down to the high road where Ralph was waiting.
When she caught sight of him, she stopped short in a sudden, disquieted
confusion—like a woman who asks herself at a solemn moment whither she
is directing her steps and whither circumstances are taking her. But he
came to her quickly and signed to her to be silent. It was for him to
say the words that must be said.
“I did not doubt that you would come,” he said. “You knew that we must
see one another again because this tragic business is not yet at an end
and certain parts of the problem still await solution. Which they are,
is of little importance to you. You have given me a commission to
arrange everything, to solve everything and to do everything. You will
simply obey me. You will let yourself be guided by my hand, and
whatever happens, you will no longer be afraid. That is over, the fear
which overwhelms and presents visions of hell. Isn’t that so? You will
smile beforehand at the things that happen, and welcome them as
friends.”
He held out his hand. She allowed him to press hers. She would have
liked to speak and tell him that she was grateful, that she trusted
him. But she must have understood the vanity of such words, for she was
silent.
They started and passed through the old village of Royat, with its hot
baths.
The hands of the church clock pointed to half-past eight. It was a
Saturday, the fifteenth of August. The mountains rose under the
sunniest of skies.
They did not exchange a word. But Ralph never ceased pouring out the
tenderest protestations to her, in his heart.
“Well, so you detest me no longer, lady with the green eyes, you have
forgotten my offense at our first meeting. And I, I have so much
respect for you that I do not wish to remember it. Come: smile a little
since you have now fallen into the habit of regarding me as your good
genius. One smiles at one’s good genius.”
She did not smile. But he felt that she was friendly and very close to
him.
The car traveled for barely an hour. They came round the Puy-de-Dome
and took a fairly narrow road which ran southwards, with zigzag
ascents, and descents through the middle of green valleys and dark
forests.
Then the road grew narrower and ran through a deserted, arid region and
became steep. It was paved with enormous slabs of lava of different
sizes, with large cracks between them.
“An old Roman causeway,” said Ralph. “There is not an old corner of
France in which one does not find some relic of this kind, some road of
Cæsar.”
She did not answer. Of a sudden she appeared to have grown
absent-minded and dreamy.
The old Roman causeway was now little more than a goat path. The ascent
of it was difficult. At the top of it was a small plateau in the middle
of which stood an almost abandoned village. Aurelie read the name of it
on a fingerpost: Juvains. Then came a wood, and then, of a sudden, a
grassy plain of pleasing aspect. Then once more the Roman causeway,
which climbed upwards, quite straight, between grassy embankments. At
the top of this ladder they stopped. Aurelie had drawn more and more
into herself. Ralph did not cease to watch her closely.
When they had mounted a series of boulders which rose one above the
other like a staircase, they came to a circular stretch of country,
which delighted the eye with the fresh greenness of its turf. It was
shut in by a high wall of rough stone, the mortar in which had not been
destroyed by the bad weather of years. It stretched, right and left, to
a distance. A large door in it faced them. Ralph had the key of it. He
opened it. The ground continued to rise. When they had reached the
crest of the slope, they saw before them a lake set in a glassy
smoothness, in the hollow of a circle of rocks which rose evenly above
it.
For the first time Aurelie asked a question; and it revealed the manner
in which her mind had been working.
“May I ask whether, in bringing me here rather than somewhere else, you
had a motive? Or was it just chance?” she said.
“The view is indeed rather gloomy,” said Ralph without answering her
directly. “But all the same it displays a ruggedness and wild
melancholy which are not without character. They tell me that tourists
never make excursions to it. However, one can go for a row on the lake,
as you see.”
He took her towards an old boat moored to a stake by a chain. She
stepped into the stern and sat down without a word.
He took the oars and they moved gently over the surface.
The water, slate-colored, did not reflect the blue of the sky but
rather the somber hue of invisible clouds. From the end of the oars
fell shining drops which looked to be as heavy as mercury; and it
seemed astonishing that the boat could make its way through this, so to
speak, metallic flood. Aurelie dipped her hand into it, but had to draw
it out at once, so cold and unpleasant was the water.
“Oh!” she said and sighed.
“What is it? What’s the matter?” asked Ralph.
“Nothing—or at least—I don’t know.”
“You’re troubled—moved.”
“Moved, yes—I’m conscious of impressions which surprise and trouble me.
It seems to me——”
She paused.
“It seems to you?” he said.
“I can’t quite tell you. It seems to me that I’m another creature—and
that it isn’t you who are here. Do you understand?”
“I understand,” he said smiling.
She murmured: “Don’t explain it to me. What I feel is rather painful,
and yet for nothing in the world would I miss feeling it.”
The circle of cliffs, on the summit of which the great wall here and
there appeared, ran at a radius of five or six hundred yards. Suddenly
there appeared in the middle of it a hollow in which began a narrow
channel, hidden by high walls from the rays of the sun. The boat
entered it. The rocks were blacker and gloomier. Aurelie gazed at them
with amazement, for they were of strange shapes: crouching lions,
massive chimneys, colossal statues, gigantic gargoyles.
Of a sudden, when they reached the middle of this fantastic corridor,
they were, as it were, smitten by a blast of murmurs, faint and
indistinct, which came, by the road they had themselves taken, from the
regions they had left little more than an hour before.
They were the chiming of church bells, of smaller bells, clear notes of
bell-metal, delicate and joyous notes, all a trembling of heavenly
music, under which droned the big bell of the cathedral.
Aurelie turned faint. She understood now the meaning of her distress.
The voices of the past, that mysterious past which she had done
everything not to forget, echoed within and around her. They came
echoing back from the cliffs in which granite was mingled with the lava
of ancient volcanoes. They sprang from rock to rock, from statue to
gargoyle, moved over the hard surface of the water, mounted to the blue
strip of Heaven, fell again like spray to the bottom of the gulf, and
went in rolling echoes towards the other end of the passage where shone
the light of day.
Overcome, trembling with memories, she strove to struggle against so
many emotions and braced herself not to succumb to them. But she was no
longer strong enough. The past weighed her down like a bending branch,
and she bent her head, murmuring with a sob:
“Who are you? Who are you?”
She was astounded by this inconceivable miracle. Having never revealed
the secret that had been instructed to her; guarding jealously, since
her childhood, the treasure of remembrances over which her memory
watched so dutifully, which she was not to hand over, according to her
mother’s command, to any one but the man she should love, she felt
herself wholly feeble before this strange being who read the very
depths of her soul.
“Then I haven’t made a mistake? It is really here, is it not?” said
Ralph, infinitely touched by the girl’s charming abandon.
“It is really here,” murmured Aurelie. “During the whole drive the
things that met my eye seemed to me things I had already seen—the
road—the trees—the paved causeway which rose between two
embankments—and then this lake, these rocks, the color and the coldness
of this water—and above all the sound of these bells! They are the same
as long ago—they have come to our ears at the very spot at which they
came to my mother, my mother’s father, and the little girl I then was.
As to-day we came out of the shadow to enter the other part of the lake
under as bright a sun.”
She had raised her eyes and was gazing ahead. In truth, another lake,
smaller, but on a more grandiose scale, opened before them, ringed by
steeper cliffs and of an aspect of a yet more savage and more striking
solitude.
One by one the memories awoke in her. She told Ralph of them quietly,
as confidences one makes to a friend. She called up before his mind a
little girl, happy, care-free, amused by the spectacle of the shapes
and colors which she was again contemplating to-day, with her eyes
shining with tears.
“It is as if you took me on a journey through your life,” said Ralph,
in tones shaken by emotion. “And I take as much pleasure in seeing the
scene on that long distant day as you in recalling it.”
She went on: “My mother was sitting where you are, and her father was
facing her. I was holding my mother’s hand. Look, that tree all by
itself, in that hollow in the cliff, it was there—and also those great
red stains on that rock over there—and see how the cliffs narrow just
as they did then. But there is no more of the channel—it’s the end of
the lake. This other lake stretches in a curve like a half moon. We’re
going to come to a quite small beach at the end of it. Look, there it
is—with a waterfall on the left springing out of the cliff. There is
another to the right of it. You’ll see the sand in a minute; it
sparkles like mica. And there is a big grotto—yes, I’m sure of it—and
at the entrance of this grotto——”
“At the entrance of this grotto?”
“There was a man waiting for us, a queer-looking man with a long, gray
beard and wearing a maroon blouse. We saw him from here, standing
upright, very tall. Aren’t we going to see him now?”
“I thought that we should see him,” said Ralph. “And I’m very much
astonished that we don’t. It’s nearly noon; and our appointment was at
noon.”