IN THE LAST RESORT.
It was Marian, who came quickly forward, her cheeks aglow with
pleasurable excitement.
"Papa, what do think? There are a couple of Neapolitan _pifferari_ on
the lawn, and I have told them to come round here. You should have
seen how delighted they were when I spoke to them in Italian. I knew
you would be pleased to hear them play a few of their simple airs. It
will seem like old times come back again, will it not?"
"Old times, forsooth!" exclaimed Drelincourt with his most riant air.
"You talk, _mignonne_, as if this were your fiftieth birthday instead
of your eighteenth. But where are these vagabonds of yours? I suppose
I must submit to having my ears tortured, since you will it so." Then,
as the girl turned away, the shadow swept over his face again, and
under his breath he murmured: "Rodd--Rodd--whip and spur!--whip and
spur!"
Marian had flitted on to the lawn, and was beckoning to the
_pifferari_, who presently came slouching along, and took up a
position a little way removed from one of the long windows.
"Poor fellows! Their clothes seem little more than tatters," remarked
Marian, as she reëntered the room. "And yet how picturesque they
look!"
"And how very far from clean!" Added Walter in a low voice. "It would
be a charity to make them a present of a bar of soap--if one could
feel sure of their using it."
Then they began to play. The air, although set to waltz time, was a
wild and plaintive one, and not at all like conventional dance music.
After listening for a couple of minutes, Marian clapped her hands and
cried excitedly: "Papa, don't you remember?"
"Remember what, my dear?"
"The air they are playing. It's called '_La Strega_,' which"--with a
glance at Walter--"being interpreted for the behoof of illiterate
people, means 'The Sorceress.'"
"So kind of you to enlighten my ignorance!" murmured the young man.
Marian turned to her father.
"It's the same tune two wandering minstrels played one day ever so
long ago on the terrace at Bordighera. And that day you were so gay
and light-hearted that you and I danced to it together. Oh, I have not
forgotten! And now it's my birthday, and we will dance to it again."
"_I_ dance! Madness!"
"It's a very delightful kind of madness. Am I not queen today? Do you
dare, sir, to dispute any of my behests?"
"There's Walter."
"It is you, papa, whom I am going to dance with, not that boy. I won't
listen to another word. Come! Let us try for a little while to fancy
ourselves back in Italy."
"What it is to be a slave of a tyrant in petticoats!"
He offered no further resistance, but slid an arm round his daughter's
waist, and the pair began to waltz to the music. Walter stood looking
on from the embrasure of one of the windows. Twice had they gyrated
the length of the room and back, when Drelincourt caught sight of
Roden Marsh's pale face peering at him through an opening in the
portière. The latter had approached unseen and unheard by either of
the young folk. For a couple of minutes longer the dancers kept
revolving to the music, then, as they again drew near the window where
Walter was lounging, Drelincourt beckoned to him to take his place,
which the young man did, nothing loath. A second later Drelincourt had
disappeared through the portière.
"Your news?" said Drelincourt to Roden Marsh, the moment they were
alone.
"Found guilty and sentenced to death."
"So now the curtain is rung up for the last act!"
Rodd grasped one of his foster brother's hands in both his, and for a
few moments the two stood looking into each other's eyes.
Then Drelincourt said, "Come," and with that he led the way to his own
room, where there was less likelihood of their being intruded upon.
"And of course the judge held out no hope of mercy?" he recommenced,
as soon as he had seated himself and motioned Rodd to another chair.
"None whatever. The fact of Gumley having confessed to the robbery
seemed to be accepted both by judge and jury as conclusive evidence
that he must be guilty of the other crime."
"His counsel----"
"Urged every point in his favor that could be urged, but to no
purpose.
"Poor devil! What must his sensations have been when he heard his doom
pronounced! But in a little while, as at the wave of a necromancer's
wand, the weight of that dread sentence shall be lifted off his heart,
and life shall once more taste sweet in his mouth."
"Felix! What would you do?"
"Can you ask? I thought it was long ago understood between us what my
course was to be should the worst ever come to pass. The worst _has_
come to pass--as I have felt all along it would surely do some
day--and it has now, to be faced. Could anything be more simple?"
"But consider, Felix, consider! This fellow who was sentenced today is
a low, brutal, besotted wretch, who--as was proved against him by the
police--has already served two terms of penal servitude for other
crimes; who, as I have ascertained, has not a single tie to bind him
to life, and of whom, when he dies--and the sooner the better--the
world will be well rid. No sane man would seriously think of
sacrificing himself for such a scoundrel. Let him hang! Such
_canaille_ as he are fit fruit for the gallows."
"My dear Rodd, how strangely you must have misread me all these years,
if you think it possible that, deliberately and knowingly, I could
allow this man to pay the penalty of a crime of which he is as
innocent as you are! Granting him to be all that you say he
is--assuming him to be the vilest wretch that crawls--his life is the
one sacred thing he can call his own till he himself shall forfeit it,
and all the unseen powers forbid that I should rob him of it! The
thing done by me twenty years ago concerns me, and me only, and I
swear that this man's blood shall not lie at my door!"
Then, in a changed voice:
"Rodd, you remember what we agreed upon long ago in case of emergency?
Have you the vial still by you which I gave at that time into your
keeping?"
"I have."
"That is well--that is very well. Fetch it me now--at once."
A groan broke from Rodd's lips; too well he knew how futile any
further remonstrance on his part would have been. There was that about
Drelincourt which brooked no denial. All his life Rodd had done his
foster brother's bidding, and he did it now.
"How strangely calm I feel now that the suspense is over and I know
the worst!" mused Drelincourt, when Rodd had left the room. "My pulse
beats as evenly as an infant's. Tonight I shall sleep as I have not
slept for weeks. Now that my doom stares me straight in the face, now
that I hear a footstep on the threshold audible to myself alone, of
what little consequence the world and its business have all at once
become to me! Already life and the things which make life sweet have
put on an altogether different aspect; already I find myself regarding
them almost as impersonally as if I were a denizen of another plant,
and had no part or parcel in them. It is a novel experience, and did
time allow, I might endeavor to analyze it."
His unspoken soliloquy was brought to an end by the return of Rodd.
"Have you found the vial?" he asked, with restrained eagerness.
"I have." He came slowly forward. "Felix, once more----"
"Give it me. Not another word!" Drelincourt held out his hand, and
Rodd had no choice save to do as he was told. Drelincourt's features
were lighted up by a faint smile. "Why this childish puling?" he
asked. "Why this sudden faint heartedness? You know well how it was
agreed between us years ago that this should be my way of escape when
none other was left me."
Rodd resumed his seat without replying, and letting his elbows rest on
the table, covered his face with his hands. Drelincourt held the vial
up to the light.
"Even in the tiny compass of this the Great Destroyer finds room to
lurk. 'Swift and painless,' were the words of the Italian _savant_
when he put it into my hands. Swift--and--painless. It is well. Now I
am prepared."
Rodd turned on him a face charged with tragic intensity.
"You will not do this thing just yet--if it must be done at all?" he
pleaded.
"Not today certainly--nor yet tomorrow. I have much to see to first.
Besides, this is my daughter's _festa_, and no faintest shadow of a
cloud shall mar its brightness. In years to come, when she is a happy
wife, and when the trouble which is now closing round her shall be
nothing but a memory, I would fain have her be able to look back on
this day as one of unclouded happiness."
"And Mrs. Drelincourt?"
"Ah! Now you stab me. Now you all but unman me. Why did you mention
her name?"
He got up abruptly, his hands clinched, his features working. Scarcely
ever before had Rodd seen him so moved.
"Leave me now," he went on, after a brief pause. "I must be alone for
a little while. I will see you again later. But not a word to my wife
about the verdict. Should she question you, tell her that the trial
will not be finished till tomorrow. How strangely you look at me! Go,
and fear nothing."
Sadly and lingeringly Rodd left the room. "There is one door of escape
for him, and it rests with me to open it," he said to himself as he
went. "He saved my life when we were boys; why should I not make an
effort to save his now? Felix--Felix--dearer to me than any brother
could have been--had I a dozen lives I would willingly sacrifice them
all to save yours!"
Left alone, Drelincourt crossed to one of the windows which fronted
the west, and flung wide the casement.
"Yes, to leave her--my Madeline--will in very truth be to drain
death's bitter cup to the lees. If she and I could but walk hand in
hand into yonder sunset, and so vanish forever from mortal ken--that
would indeed be well!"