|Though by no means so stormy as that described by Fairchild, our voyage
was an unconscionably long one. To say nothing of fogs and head winds,
an accident befell our machinery, whereby we were compelled to lie to
for sixteen precious hours, while the damage was repaired. We did not
make Cherbourg till the afternoon of Friday, January 25.
Ashore, my first act was to enquire when a train would leave for Paris.
A train would leave at midnight, due at the capital at half past nine
in the morning. My next act was to telegraph Fairchild, informing him of
our arrival, and warning him to expect us on the morrow.
At half past nine to the minute, Saturday, we drew into the Gare St.
Lazare. We were a little surprised not to find Fairchild there to meet
us, and perhaps also a little disturbed. Was Miriam so ill that he dared
not leave her? After seeing our luggage through the Customs House, we
got into a cab, and were driven to the Hôtel de la Bourdonnaye.
I inquired for Mr. Fairchild.
“Monsieur Fairchild is in his room, Monsieur.”
“Show us thither at once,” said I.
“Pardon, Monsieur. If Monsieur will have the goodness to send up his
card---”
“Josephine,” I exclaimed, “how do you account for this? Apparently we
are not expected. He does not meet us at the railway station; and here
at his hotel we are required to send up our card.”
“Well, send it up. We shall soon have an explanation,” Josephine said;
and I acted upon her advice.
In two minutes Fairchild appeared.
“What! Arrived!” he cried, seizing each of us by a band. “Your
steamer was overdue; when did you get in? Why didn't you telegraph from
Cherbourg?”
“Why _didn't_ I telegraph? But I did. Do you mean to say you haven't
received my despatch?”
“Not the ghost of one. If I'd known you were coming this morning---- But
wait.”
He stepped into the office of the hotel. Issuing thence in a moment,
“There!” he cried, exhibiting a blue envelope, “here's your telegram.
In America I should have received it twelve hours ago. But they manage
these things better in France. It came last night, after I'd gone to bed
and the authorities of this hostelery were too considerate to wake me.
Then this morning, they say, they thought I was so much occupied that,
they would do best to wait about delivering it till I was at leisure.
That's French courtesy with a vengeance. However, you're safely arrived
at last, and that's the important thing.”
“And Miriam? Miriam?” I demanded impatiently.
“The doctors are with her even now,” he answered.
“You got my cable despatch, of course, and put off the operation?”
“Yes, I got your despatch; and we put off the operation until all the
physicians insisted that it must not be put off longer--that, if put off
longer, it would be ineffective.”
Panic-stricken, “You don't mean to say,” I gasped, “you can't mean to
say that it has been performed!”
“As I just told you, they're with her now. They are performing it at
this moment?”
“Heavens and earth, man! Didn't I say in my telegram that it would
imperil her life? Didn't I entreat you at all costs to postpone it until
I arrived?”
“You did, certainly. But these other medical men, who were on the spot,
and could examine her for themselves, were of one mind in declaring that
her life would not be imperilled, but that the longer the operation was
delayed, the greater would be the danger of atrophy of the optic nerve.
Finally, on Wednesday of this week, they fixed upon this morning as
the furthest date to which they could consent to postpone it. It was a
choice between going on without your presence, and taking the risk of
permanent blindness. So I had to let them proceed.”
“You don't know what you have done! You have done that which you will
repent to your dying day!!” I groaned, wringing my hands. “You might
have known that I never should have telegraphed as I did--that I
never should have packed up and taken ship for Europe at two days
notice--unless it was a matter of life and death But where are they?
Take me to them. Perhaps it is not yet too late. Perhaps I am still in
time to prevent it. Take me to them at once.
“I doubt whether they will admit you. They would not allow me to be
present, and I am her husband. I have had to walk up and down the
corridor, waiting.”
“Not admit me! They will admit me, if have to break down the door. Take
me to them this instant.”
“Very well,” he assented. “This way.”
He led me up a flight of stairs, and halted before a door, upon which he
gently rapped.
The door was immediately opened by an elderly man, in professional
broad-cloth, who said in French: “You may enter now. It is finished.”
My heart turned to ice. For a breathing-space I could neither move nor
speak.
At last, with the stolidity that is born of despair, “Finished!” I
repeated. “You have then trephined?”
“We have.”
“And the patient----?”
“She is not yet recovered from the anaesthetic.”
We entered the room. Miriam, pale and beautiful, lay unconscious upon
a sofa near the windows. Two other professional-looking gentlemen stood
over her, one of whom was fanning her face.
Fairchild presented me: “The English physician, Dr. Benary, the uncle of
my wife.”
I was in no mood to be courteous or ceremonious. Having bowed,
“Gentlemen, I must beg you to leave me alone with the patient,” I began,
addressing the company at large.
My remark created a sensation. The French physicians exchanged perplexed
and astonished glances; and a chorus of indignant “Mais, monsieurs,”
rose about my ears.
“Fairchild, I am in earnest,” I said. “I insist upon these gentlemen
leaving me alone with my niece. I look to you to see that they do so.
I have neither the leisure nor the inclination to discuss the matter.
Every second is precious.” Somehow or other Fairchild prevailed upon
them to withdraw. I suspect they saw that I was in no frame of mind to
bear trifling with.
“I may remain?” Fairchild queried.
“No, not even you. I must be quite alone with her for the present.”
“But-----”
“Nay, do not waste time is controversy. Leave me at once.”
Fairchild reluctantly went off.
I sat down at the side of Miriam's couch, and fanned her.
By-and-by she opened her eyes, and they rested upon my face.
From their expression, it was obvious that she saw me. Her blindness had
been cured.
Almost at once, however, she closed her eyes again; and then for a
little while she lay still, like one half asleep.
Suddenly she drew a deep quick breath, sat up, and looking me intently
in the face, “Well, is it over?” she asked.
“Yes, dear; it is over,” I replied. “Well, then, it is a failure--a
total, abject failure! I remember everything. My memory was never
clearer or more circumstantial. And you--you said there was no chance of
failure! Oh, I was a fool to believe you. But what were you, to tell me
such monstrous lies?”
With these words, she sighed, and fell back upon her pillow, while I,
with a deadly sickness at the heart, realised that the worst which I had
feared had come to pass.
She was Louise Massarte now. Where was Miriam Benary? She was Louise
Massarte. She had taken up her former life at the exact point where
Louise Massarte had dropped it. She had begun anew at the exact point
where Louise Massarte had left off. And the operation which she had in
her mind when she asked, “Is it over?” was the operation which I had
performed upon her nearly five years before. Those intervening years
were as perfectly erased from her consciousness as if they had been
passed in dreamless sleep.
Where was Miriam Benary? What had become of that sweet and winning
personality? And of the innocent pure love with which she had blessed
our lives? Oh, it was a hideous transformation. Miriam was gone into the
infinite void of Nothingness, leaving this changeling in her place. It
was more unbelievable, it was more horribly impossible, than any wild
nightmare phantasy, than any ancient grisly tale of necromancy; and
yet it was true, it was undeniable, it was irremediable. It was worse,
incomparably worse, than it would have been if she had died. For had she
died, we could at least have hoped that her soul still lived, good and
true and beautiful as ever. But now her soul had simply changed its
form, and become the corrupt and sinful essence of Louise Massarte--just
as in books of the Black Art we read of the fair virgin Princess being
changed at a touch into a wicked grinning ape.
“Yes, you have failed, you have failed,” she said again.
Then, all at once, starting up, and speaking passionately: “Oh, why did
you interfere with me last night? Why did you cross my path and thwart
my will? Why did you not let me die then, when it would have been so
easy? Why did you bring me here to your house, to fill me and intoxicate
me with hopes that were doomed to be disappointed? Oh, it was cruel, it
was cruel of you. I was insane to listen to you. I was mad to place any
sort of credence in what you said. It was so obvious a fairy-tale. I
ought to have known that you promised the impossible, that you were
either a liar or a lunatic.--But it is not yet too late. Leave me. Leave
the room. Let me get up and dress myself, and go away. Where is your
sister? She put away my clothes. Send her to me. I will not be detained
here longer. Give me my clothes. I will get up, and go away, and throw
myself into the river, before they have a chance to retake me, and send
me back to prison.”
What could I do? What could I say? “Oh, Miriam, Miriam,” I faltered
helplessly. “Calm yourself. For Heaven's sake, lie quiet. You will work
yourself into a fever, into delirium. Your agitation may cost you your
life. Lie quiet and let me think. My poor wits are distracted.”
She caught at the name Miriam.
“Miriam? Miriam! Who is Miriam? Have I not told you my name? My name is
Louise Massarte. Why do you call me by another? Miriam!--Miriam! Am I in
a madhouse? _Oh, oh! my head!_” she screamed sharply, putting her hand
to her head. “What have you done to my head? What have you done to me?
Oh, I had such a pain! It shot through my head. Oh! fool, imbecile, that
I was, ever to enter your house.”
At this juncture the door opened, and Fair-child came into the room.
“I could wait outside no longer,” he explained. “I heard her scream. I
cannot stay away from her.”
To my unspeakable amazement, she, at the sight of her husband (whom,
I had every reason to suppose, she would not recognise), started
violently, and, catching her breath, exclaimed--
“What! You! Henry Fairchild! Henry Fairchild! Here! Good God!”
“Yes, dear Miriam,” Fairchild answered, coming forward, and putting out
his hand to take hold of hers.
But she drew quickly away from him.
“Miriam again! Miriam! What farce is this? Am I really in a mad-house?
Or have I gone mad? I believe you are both maniacs, that you call me
Miriam. Or is it some charade that you are acting for my bewilderment?
And you, Henry Fairchild! What are you doing here? You, of all men!
Oh! this is some frightful trick that has been played upon me! This
glib-tongued old man, with his innocent face and his protestations of
benevolence, has trapped me here to send me back across the river. But
why so much ceremony about it. Call your officers at once, and give me
up to them. One thing I'll promise you: they'll never get me back
there alive. Ha-ha-ha-ha-ha! And so, Mr. Fairchild, your friend, Roger
Beecham, is dead. I came to town last night for the especial purpose of
calling upon him, and settling our accounts; and then I learned that he
had died from natural causes. Well, there is one consolation: unless the
dogma of hell be a pure invention, he is roasting there now. I daresay I
shall join him there presently, and then we will roast together! What a
blow his death must have been to you, his faithful Achates!” During
the first part of her speech, it was plain that poor Fairchild simply
fancied her to be raving in delirium; but when she mentioned that name,
Roger Beecham, an expression of terrified amazement, mingled with blank
incomprehension, fell upon his face, and he stood staring at her, with
knitted brows and parted lips, like a man dumbfoundered and aghast.
“Oh, I hope he died hard!” she cried. “I hope his mortal agony was
excruciating and long-drawn out. I hope his death-bed was haunted and
surrounded by twenty thousand hateful memories!” Fairchild found his
tongue.
“Roger Beecham,” he repeated, as if dazed. “What do you know of Roger
Beecham?”
“That's good! That's exquisite!” cried she. “What do I know of Roger
Beecham? You play your comedy very well, though I confess I don't see
the point of it. What does Louise Massarte know of Roger Beecham? What
does she _not_ know of him?”
Fairchild became rigid.
“Louise Massarte!” he gasped. “What have you to do with Louise
Massarte?--the murderess of Beecham's wife! Was she--for God's sake, was
she related to you? Long ago I noticed a certain resemblance--a certain
remote resemblance--such a resemblance as might exist between an angel
and a devil. But why do you speak to me of her? What can you know of
her? Louise Massarte!---- Dr. Benary, what has happened to my wife? She
is delirious. Yet how comes she to know these names? What can be done?”
“I am not delirious, Mr. Fairchild,” she put in, hastily. “But either
you are, or you are a most clever actor, and have missed your vocation
in failing to go upon the stage. As I said before, I cannot see the
point of your mummery; but you do it uncommonly well. Why do you pretend
not to recognise me? Surely, I can't have changed beyond recognition in
two years.”
“Not recognise you? Not recognise you, Miriam, my wife! Oh, what
dreadful insanity has come upon her?”
“I? Miriam? Your wife?” She laughed. “Come, Mr. Fairchild, a truce to
this mystery.”
Fairchild sank upon a chair, and pressed his brow between his hands.
“She is out of her senses. But how comes she to know those names?” he
said, as if speaking to himself. Then, turning to me: “Perhaps you, Dr.
Benary, can clear this puzzle up?”
“This is hardly a fitting time or place for attempting to,” I replied.
“If you had only respected my desires, there would have been no such
occasion.”
“Will you answer me this one question? Do you understand what she means
by her reference to Louise Massarte?”
“Yes. I do.”
“Explain that meaning to me.”
“Not now, Fairchild. Not now. Later I will tell you everything. I have
not the heart nor the wit to explain anything just now.”
“But the relation, the connection, between that woman and my wife? Were
they sisters?”
“No, not sisters.”
“What then?”
“Fairchild, I implore you----” I began, but I got no further.
From the couch upon which Miriam lay came a low peal of sarcastic
laughter. Then suddenly it expired in a most piteous moan. She gave a
sharp cry, and swooned.
Fairchild was at her side in a twinkling. He knelt there, seizing her
hands, and gazing with wild eyes into her face.
“She is dead! She is dead!” he groaned frantically.
“No, she has only fainted, from pain and exhaustion. But the
consequences of a fainting fit in her condition may be terrible,”
said I.
“Oh, my darling! my darling!” he sobbed, bending over till his cheek
swept her breast.
* * * * *
She never regained consciousness.
I have not the heart to dwell upon what followed.
This paragraph, cut from _Galignant's Messenger_ of February 1, tells
its own story:--
“_Fairchild.--On Wednesday morning, January 30, at the Hôtel de la
Bourdonnaye, of _phrenitis_, Miriam Benary, wife of Henry Fairchild, of
Adironda._”
THE END.