THE STORM BURSTS.
The Duke of Hereward arrived at home the next morning. When the
fiacre that brought him from the railway station rolled through the
porte-cochere into the court yard and drew up before the main entrance
of the Hotel de la Motte, he sprang out with almost boyish eagerness, and
ran up the stairs, and rang and knocked with vehemence and impatience.
The gray-haired porter opened the door.
"How is the duchess, Leblanc? Has she risen? Send some one to let her
know that I have arrived," he exclaimed, hurriedly.
_"Helas!_ Monseigneur!" answered the venerable old servant, in
a distressed tone.
"What do you mean? Is the duchess ill? I got a letter from her yesterday,
in which she said she was quite well. It met me at Marseilles. She
continues well. I hope? Why don't you speak?" impatiently demanded
the duke.
"_Mille pardons_. Monseigneur; but madame has gone," sadly replied
Leblanc.
"What do you say?" exclaimed the duke, discrediting the evidence of his
own ears.
"_Mille pardons_, Monsieur le Duc, Madame la Duchesse has gone."
"Gone! the duchess gone!" exclaimed the duke, in amazement, not unmixed
with incredulity.
"Oui; Monseigneur."
"Gone! the duchess gone! Where?"
"_Miserable_ that I am, Monseigneur, I do not know. I cannot tell.
Will Monsieur le Duc deign to consult the coachman who drove Madame la
Duchesse in the carriage when she left the house last night, not to
return. He can probably give Monseigneur some information," respectfully
suggested the old porter.
"Send Dubourg to me in the library, then," said the duke, as he strode
down the hall, full of vague alarm, but far from suspecting the fatal
truth.
Soon the coachman came to him in the library, and in answer to his
questions told how he had driven the duchess alone to the railway station
to catch the night express for Marseilles.
"The night express for Marseilles! Then the foolish child was going to
meet me, and must have passed me on the road!" said the duke to himself,
with a strange blending of flattered affection and anxious fears.
"That will do, Dubourg. The duchess went down to the seaport to meet me
on the steamer, and we have missed each other on the road. It is a pity,
but it cannot be helped!" said the duke dismissing his coachman by a wave
of his hand.
The man bowed and retired.
"Silly child, to go and do such an absurd and indiscreet thing as that!
I would go down after her by the next train only I should be sure to pass
her on the road again; for she will hasten immediately back when she
finds that I have arrived at Marseilles and left for Paris," said the
duke to himself, as he rang for his valet and retired to his own room to
dress for breakfast.
But there, on the bureau, he found a letter addressed to him in the
handwriting of Valerie.
At the moment he picked it up his valet entered the room in answer to his
ring.
Some intuition warned the duke to send the man away while he should read
his letter.
"Have a warm bath ready for me at nine o'clock, Dubois, and order
breakfast at half-past," he said.
The man bowed and left the room.
The duke dropped into a chair, and with a strange, vague foreboding of
evil, opened the letter.
Well might he shrink from the dread perusal of the story--the story of
her cowardice and folly, and of his own humiliation and despair.
It was Valerie's full confession, the revelation of her woeful history as
it is known to the reader, with one single reservation--the name of her
lover.
The Duke of Hereward had wonderful powers of self-control. He read the
fatal letter through to the bitter end. Then he folded it up carefully,
and locked it up in a cabinet for safe-keeping.
And when, fifteen minutes later, his valet came to tell him that it was
nine o'clock, and his bath was ready, no one could have guessed from his
looks that a storm had passed through his soul.
He was rather pale, certainly; but that might well be explained by the
fatigue of a long night's journey, and his gray mustache and beard
concealed the close compression of his lips. He went through his morning
toilet and his breakfast with apparently his usual composure.
After breakfast, however, he instituted a cautious but close
investigation of the circumstances attending the flight of the duchess.
The servants, having nothing to gain from concealment and nothing to fear
from communication, spoke freely of the daily visits of the Count de
Volaski, continued through the seven weeks of the duke's absence.
Then the dreadful light of conviction burst full upon his startled
intelligence. Count Waldemar de Volaski had been her acquaintance at the
Court of St. Petersburg! He it was, then, who had been the hero of her
foolish love story and mad marriage, before the duke had ever seen her.
He it was who had been her constant visitor during the duke's absence.
He it was who was the companion of her flight!
The duke did not believe Valerie's solemn declaration, that she left
Paris only to isolate herself from every one and live a single, lonely
life. Valerie had deceived him once, by keeping a fatal secret from him,
and he would not trust her now. He believed that she had gone away with
the Russian count to remain with him. The duke's rage and jealousy were
roused and burning against them both.
He was determined to find out the place of their retreat, and to take
immediate and signal vengeance.
He put the case in the hands of the most expert detectives, with
instructions to use the utmost caution and secrecy in their
investigations.
He permitted his first theory of the duchess' absence, made in good faith
at the time it was first stated--that she had gone down to Marseilles to
meet him, and had missed him on the way--to prevail in the household,
and penetrate through that medium to the world of Paris.
He left the Hotel de la Motte, which he had only occupied in right of his
wife's family, and saying that he should not return until the arrival of
the duchess, he took up his residence at "_Meurice's_."
He shut himself up in his apartments, and never left them. He refused to
see all visitors except the detectives in his employment. Thus he escaped
the annoyance of having to answer questions and to make explanations.
He had remained at "_Meurice's_" about five days, when Villeponte,
the chief detective, came to him and told him that they had succeeded in
making out the facts connected with the flight of the duchess.
The duke, controlling all manifestations of excitement, directed the
officer to proceed with the story at once.
Villeponte then related that on the Wednesday of the preceding week,
madame, the Duchess of Hereward, had left Paris in company with Monsieur
the Count de Volaski; that they took a coupe on the evening express for
Marseilles, traveling alone together without servants or attendants; that
they were now domiciliated at a vine-dresser's cottage in the little
village of San Vito, at the foot of the Appenines.
Having concluded his information, Monsieur Villeponte asked for further
instructions.
The duke told the detective that he had no further orders to give; but
thanked him for his zeal, congratulated him on his success, paid him
liberally, and bowed him out.
That evening the Duke of Hereward, unattended by groom or valet, took a
coupe on the night express train for the south of France, and started for
Marseilles, en route for Italy.
On the evening of the third day after leaving Paris he reached his
destination--the little hamlet of San Vito at the foot of the Appenines.
He stopped at the small hotel.
Coming alone and unattended, carrying a small valise in his hand, and
looking weary, dusty, and travel-stained, the Duke of Hereward was not
intuitively recognized as a person of distinction, and therefore escaped
the overwhelming amount of attention usually lavished upon English
tourists of rank and wealth by continental hosts.
He was shown to a little room blinded by clustering vines, and there left
to his own devices.
He ordered a bottle of the native wine, and sent for the landlord.
The latter came promptly--a thin, little, old man, with a skin like
parchment, hair and beard like a black horse's mane, and eyes like
glowworms.
He saluted the shabby stranger with courtesy, but without obsequiousness;
for how should he know that the traveler was a duke?
"Pray sit down. I wish to ask you some questions," said the Duke of
Hereward, with a natural, courteous dignity that immediately modified the
landlord's estimate of his value.
"Non, signor; but I will answer questions," he declared, as he bowed
deferentially, and remained standing.
"Did a gentleman and lady arrive here about ten days ago!"
"Si, signor--a grand milord, and a beautiful miladi. But they have been
here before, signor, about two years ago."
"Ah! Where are they now?"
"At their old lodgings, signor--at the cottage of Beppo, the
vine-dresser. The signor is a good friend of the young milord and
miladi?" questioned the landlord, deferentially, but very anxiously; for
just then it flashed upon his memory that two years previous another
grand "signor," of reverend age like this one, had come inquiring about
the young pair, and had ended in breaking up their union for the time.
"I have known the lady for about a year, or a little longer; the
gentleman only a few months; but I can scarcely lay claim to so an
intimate a relation to them as 'friendship' would imply," answered the
duke, evasively, and putting a severe constraint upon himself.
The landlord was completely deceived and thrown off his guard.
"How far from the village does this vine-dresser live?" inquired the
duke.
"Just on the outside, signor--just at the foot of the mountain--about
three miles from this house."
"Can I have a carriage to take me there this evening."
"Si, signor, assuredly; but will not the signor refresh himself before he
leaves?" inquired the host.
"No; I will refresh myself after I come back. Let me have the carriage as
soon as possible."
"Si, signor," said the landlord, bowing himself out.
The duke, unable to rest, even after a long and fatiguing journey, walked
up and down the floor of his little room, until the landlord re-appeared
and announced the carriage.
The duke caught up his rough traveling-cap, clapped it on his head,
hurried out and entered the rustic vehicle, dignified with the name
of a carriage.
And in another moment he was rolling off in the direction of the
Vine-dresser's cottage at the foot of the mountain.