PAULINE CORSI OFFERS TO REVEAL A SECRET.
Silas Craig was right in his conjecture. Paul Lisimon went straight
from the lawyer's office to the Villa Moraquitos.
It was there, and in the eyes of her so dearly loved, and of the
haughty benefactor of his youth, that the young Mexican was eager to
disprove the lying accusation brought against him.
A thief!
His proud spirit revolted at the very thought of the base nature of
the crime of which he was accused. Theft--the most contemptible, petty
theft--a theft upon the employer who had trusted him!
He found Camillia within doors, and, in the presence of Pauline Corsi,
told her the story of his wrongs.
The lovely eyes of the Spanish girl flashed with indignant fire.
"We always hated this man, Craig, by instinct, Paul," she said; "that
instinct did not deceive us."
Pauline Corsi appeared to sympathize sincerely with the lovers, and
expressed the utmost contempt for Silas Craig.
While Paul was seated by Camillia, her hand clasped in his, her large
black eyes bathed in tears, yet lifted confidingly to his face, the
sound of the footsteps of several men was heard upon the staircase
without, and Don Juan Moraquitos entered the apartment, followed by
Silas Craig.
The brow of the Spaniard was dark with passion, but beneath the red
eyebrows of the lawyer, there sparkled the light of malice and cunning.
"Release the hand of that man, Camillia Moraquitos!" exclaimed Don
Juan, with suppressed fury, as he beheld his daughter and Paul Lisimon
seated side by side; "release his hand, or never again dare to call me
father!" The young girl raised her eyes to the face of the Spaniard and
met his angry gaze with a glance of calm defiance.
"Why should I take my hand from his?" she said, calmly; "we have been
playfellows, companions, and friends from childhood. You have seen our
hands locked together ere to-day; why do you wish to part us now?"
Though the voice of the Spanish girl was calm and unfaltering, and
although she met her father's gaze without one quiver of her snowy
eyelids, her slender form trembled with emotion as she spoke.
"Shall I tell you why?" asked her father.
"Yes; I wait to learn."
"Because Paul Lisimon, the man whose boyhood has been spent beneath
this roof, whose education has been shared with you, who has ever been
treated as a son, rather than as a dependent, that man is a thief!"
Had Camillia been unprepared for this accusation, the blow might, for a
moment, have paralyzed her. But she had heard all from Paul's own lips,
and she was prepared for the worst.
"He is no thief!" she exclaimed, proudly; "were he that, he would not
have come hither to seek for sympathy from Camillia Moraquitos."
"Deluded girl, he has been discovered in an act of daring
robbery--robbery which is most contemptible, being allied to treachery
of the basest nature. He was trusted, and he betrayed his trust."
The lip of the Spanish girl curled with unutterable scorn.
"Trusted!" she exclaimed, "trusted, did you say! Father, I ask you, by
all your knowledge of mankind, by your faith in Nature's surest index,
the human countenance, is that the man to trust any living creature?"
She pointed to Silas Craig as she spoke, and the lawyer quailed beneath
her flashing glance. For a moment he shrank back abashed and powerless
to reply to the Spanish girl's disdainful words, then recovering
himself with an effort, he said, with an assumed air of meekness:
"Donna Camillia is pleased to be severe. We lawyers are certainly
not over-trusting in our fellowmen--we are too often deceived; but I
thought I might safely trust the protege of Don Juan Moraquitos. I did
not think to find him a thief."
"Liar!" cried Paul Lisimon. "Dastard! You know I am no thief. You know
the base plot which has been planned by you--from what motive I know
not--for my destruction. Now that all is past, I can see the base
scheme from the very first. Your pretended confidence; your desire
that I should remain alone in your office to receive a sum of money
which you might have as well received yourself; your trusting me with
the key--of which, you say, you have no duplicate; your simulated
friendship, and your affected surprise this morning upon missing the
casket containing the money; all these are so many links in the chain
of infamy which you have woven around me; but through all I defy you.
The money was taken from your office by no common robber; it was
removed either by you, or by an agent in your employ."
"The inner office has but one door," answered Silas Craig, "you
possessed the only key of that door--nay, more, the mulatto boy,
Marcus, slept in the clerk's office, and must have heard anybody who
attempted to enter the inner chamber. Heaven knows," ejaculated Silas,
sanctimoniously, "how much grief I feel at the discovery of such
baseness in the adopted son of my most respected client; but guilt such
as yours must not, for the benefit of society, go unpunished."
Paul Lisimon turned from him with a gesture of loathing, and addressed
himself to Don Juan.
"You hear this man," he said, "you hear him, yet you surely do not
believe one word he utters. Look in his face, on which 'liar' is
branded in unmistakable characters, by the hand of Heaven; and then
believe him if you can. My patron, my benefactor, friend and protector
of my otherwise friendless youth, has any one action of my life, since
I have shared the shelter of your roof, and eaten your bread--has any
one action of my life given you reason to believe me the base and
guilty wretch this man would have you think me? Speak, I implore you."
The young Mexican waited with clasped hands for Don Juan's reply. The
Spaniard coldly averted his face. It seemed as if he, too, shrank from
meeting that noble countenance.
"Circumstances speak too plainly, Mr. Lisimon," he said; "facts are
incontrovertible--they are stronger than words, and they force me to
believe."
"They force you to believe that the man who has been reared beneath
your own protection, has been guilty of an act worthy of one of the
swell-mobsmen, or experienced burglars of New Orleans. One word more,
Don Juan Moraquitos--it is the last with which I shall trouble you."
"I listen," replied the Spaniard.
"I appeal to you by the memory of the dead--by the memory of him who
was more than a father to me--by the memory of the last hour of Don
Tomaso Crivelli."
It seemed as if the sound of this name struck upon the most sensitive
chord in the nature of the haughty Spaniard. He started as if he had
been shot, and dropping into a chair that stood near him, buried his
face in his hands. Silas Craig lifted his eyes with a glance of pious
horror.
"This is horrible!" he exclaimed; "the guilty wretch dares to call upon
the name of the dead, dares to wound his noble benefactor's sensitive
heart. Why delay any longer to reason with this hypocrite? The officers
of justice are without, let them at once do their duty."
Silas Craig opened the door of the apartment as he spoke, and beckoned
to three men who were waiting on the staircase.
"The police!" exclaimed Paul.
"Yes; they have a warrant for your arrest," replied Silas Craig. "You
have carried it with a very high hand, Mr. Paul Lisimon, but you will
sleep in jail to-night."
The young Mexican did not condescend to answer this speech, but,
turning to Don Juan, he said with quiet dignity--
"Since this man's accusation appears to you stronger than my
declaration of innocence, I cannot blame you, sir, in believing him. I
freely own that the chain of evidence forged against me is a damning
one, but, sooner or later, the day will come when I will shatter that
chain, link by link, and prove yonder wretch the basest of his kind. In
the meantime, I would ask one favor of you. I have papers and letters
in my room, which are of priceless value to me, suffer me to gather
those together before they convey me to prison."
Don Juan had not once lifted his head since the mention of his
brother-in-law's name. He replied to Paul's request, in a broken voice--
"Let him take the papers he speaks of," he answered, "I will be
responsible for him."
The principal police-officer bowed. "I will accompany you to your
rooms, Mr. Lisimon," he said, "and remain with you while you collect
those papers."
"Father, father!" exclaimed Camillia; "can you suffer this--can you
allow the companion of my youth to be sent to jail as a common felon?"
"He merits no other fate," replied Don Juan; "he has proved himself
unworthy the name of an honest man."
"He has not done so," cried Camillia; "he is innocent!"
"What leads you to believe in his innocence?"
"My own instinct," replied the fearless girl.
Again the brow of Don Juan grew dark with fury.
"Your own instinct!" he exclaimed; "beware girl, do not force me to
believe you have another reason for thus defending this man. Do not
compel me to despise you!"
While this conversation was passing between father and daughter, Paul
Lisimon and the officer proceeded to the Mexican's apartment, which
was situated, as the reader is aware, upon the upper floor of Villa
Moraquitos; but the Spaniard's elegant abode was only elevated one
story above the ground floor, so that the room occupied by Paul was
not in reality more than eighteen feet above the garden, into which it
looked. The police-officer followed his prisoner into the room, and
seated himself near the door, while Paul unlocked his desk and examined
its contents.
The papers which he wished to secure were a few brief notes that had
been written to him, at different periods, by Camillia Moraquitos. The
young girl had often slipped a few lines of affectionate encouragement
into her lover's hand at a time when the lynx eyes of strangers
prevented their exchanging a word.
Paul Lisimon knew that, brief as these letters were, they contained
quite enough to betray the secret of the lovers, and to draw down upon
Camillia all the terrors of a father's wrath.
He secured the little packet with a ribbon, which the Spanish girl
had once worn in her hair, and, thrusting the packet into his bosom,
prepared to accompany the officer.
As they were about leaving the apartment, a low rap sounded upon the
panel of the door.
The person who thus demanded admittance was the French governess,
Pauline Corsi.
"Let me speak to your prisoner--alone--if only for a few moments?" she
said, pleadingly, and with all the fascination peculiar to her manner;
"let me speak to him, monsieur, I implore!"
"You are welcome to speak to him, mademoiselle," replied the officer,
"but I regret to tell you that whatever you have to say, must be said
in my presence."
The Frenchwoman shrugged her shoulders with a graceful gesture of
vexation.
"That is very hard, monsieur," she said, looking thoughtful.
"Nay, Mademoiselle Corsi," interposed Paul, who could not understand
the Frenchwoman's desire to see him alone, "you can have nothing to say
which this man may not hear. Speak freely; I have no secrets."
"But perhaps I have," answered Pauline. "See, monsieur," she added,
extending her plump little hand, upon one finger of which there
sparkled a superb diamond ring, "tell me what you think of those
diamonds."
Paul Lisimon started, for he recognized the ring. It was one he had
often seen Camillia wear.
The French governess had been sent to him, then, by the devoted girl?
"They are magnificent stones, are they not, monsieur?" repeated
Pauline, still addressing the officer.
"They are, mademoiselle."
"The ring is worth eight hundred dollars, and it is yours for eight
minutes private conversation with the prisoner."
"Impossible, mademoiselle."
"Eight hundred dollars for eight minutes. That is at the rate of a
hundred dollars a minute."
"True, mademoiselle," replied the officer, "but if in those eight
minutes my prisoner should take it into his head to jump out of that
window, I am a ruined man."
"I pledge you my honor I will make no attempt to escape!" said Paul,
eagerly.
The officer reflected for a few moments, and then looking searchingly
into the face of the young Mexican, he said, energetically, "I have
known many a gentleman pledge his word and break it as if it was a bit
of cracked china; but our profession teaches us to reckon up a man by
the cut of his phiz, and I think you're an honorable man, M. Lisimon,
and I don't think you guilty of this business that's brought against
you, so give me the ring, mademoiselle," he added, holding out his hand
for the valuable trinket. "I'll step outside and wait while you say
what you've got to say."
He walked out of the room and closed the door behind him, leaving
Pauline and the Mexican together.
"Paul Lisimon, I came to save you," said Mademoiselle Corsi.
"You come from Camillia?"
"No; I come of my own accord. That ring is Camillia's; she gave it to
me at my request, as a bribe for your jailer."
"Noble girl!"
"Ay, noble girl!" exclaimed the Frenchwoman, bitterly; "because she
gave one from the costly heaps of jewels her foolish father has
lavished upon her; but I, whose brain devised the plan, deserve no word
of praise."
"Pardon me, Mademoiselle Corsi, believe me I am not ungrateful."
"Paul Lisimon," said Pauline, fixing her limpid blue eyes upon the face
of the Mexican, "you love Camillia Moraquitos?"
"Love her--"
"Nay, why seek to dissemble? Do you think I have not read your shallow
secret from the very first? You sought to blind and hoodwink me, but I
laughed at the pitiful deception. Paul, tell me, is this love a lasting
one?"
"Since you know my secret," replied the Mexican, "concealment is
useless. It is a lasting love--eternal as yonder blue heaven."
"Foolish boy. Then ruin and destruction will track your footsteps."
"Ruin! Through my love?"
"Yes; you have not one friend in this house, save her who now speaks
to you. Camillia loves you, you will answer! Yes; but with the feeble
passion of a capricious beauty, which may change with to-morrow's sun.
How long, think you, will her love endure when she hears every creature
in New Orleans brand you as a thief and ingrate? Will it outlast the
hour when she sees you placed in a criminal dock, side by side, with
the lowest thief in the city? Will it survive degradation and shame?
No; Camillia Moraquitos is proud, and from the hour that you leave this
house with the clanking fetters on your wrists, she will despise and
hate you--hate you for the very memory of her past love."
Paul Lisimon knew the pride which formed the leading principle in
Camillia's character, and he felt that there might be truth in these
bitter words.
"Oh, Heaven," he cried, "this is indeed terrible!"
"Hear me, Paul. It is in my power to save you from these fetters and
this shame. It is in my power to bring Silas Craig and his haughty
employer, Don Juan Moraquitos, groveling to your feet to implore you
for mercy--to entreat your forbearance to save them from the fate of a
felon."
"You are mad!" exclaimed Paul. "What in mercy's name mean you by these
words?"
"Listen to me, Paul Lisimon, for these few minutes, bought from the
vigilance of the officer without yonder door, must decide the fate of
both of us. Thirteen years ago, Don Tomaso Crivelli expired in the
arms of his brother-in-law, in an apartment at the end of the gallery
outside this door. You have often been in that room."
"I have. It is sacred to me, for it was there my earliest friend
breathed his last sigh."
"That chamber is hung with Indian embroidery of shells and feathers
upon leather. These hangings are about two feet from the wall, leaving
an aperture behind large enough to admit of a slender person's hiding
behind the embroidery. On the night of your benefactor's death I was
concealed behind these hangings."
"You, a spy? But for what reason?"
"Don't doubt that I had my reason--reasons which at some future time I
will reveal. When I carried the child Camillia to her uncle's bedside I
heard a few words dropped which excited my curiosity; to gratify that
curiosity I concealed myself at eleven o'clock that night behind the
hangings of the dying man's bed-chamber. There I heard Tomaso Crivelli
dictate his last will and testament to the lawyer, Silas Craig, in
the presence of your father. The signature to that will was afterward
witnessed by two persons, one a creature of the attorney's, the other a
dependent of Don Juan Moraquitos."
"But what has all this to do with me?" asked Paul.
"It might have much to do with you. That night I learned a secret--"
"A secret!"
"Yes; and one by the aid of which I can save you from shame and
humiliation, and elevate you to the proudest position even your haughty
spirit could devise."
"You can do all this?"
"I can."
"And you will?"
"On one condition."
"That is--"
"You renounce forever all thoughts of Camillia Moraquitos; and that in
the hour when, through my aid, you are elevated to name and fortune,
you will make me your wife."
"You--my wife!" exclaimed Paul, thunderstruck by the words of the
Frenchwoman.
"Yes. Is there anything so monstrous in the proposition? I am a few
years older than you are, it is true. I have not the Spanish beauty of
Camillia, but flattering tongues have told me that I am not destitute
of the power to charm--I am no love-sick girl, but an ambitious woman,
with a brain to scheme and plot a glorious future--I ask no love from
you, but a share in the future to which I can elevate you. Do you
refuse my offer?"
"I do," replied Paul. "Camillia Moraquitos may cast my image from her
heart--may join with the rest and think me guilty; but, to the last,
she, and she alone, will possess my love. Through the deepest abyss of
shame and degradation I will be true to the guiding star of my life.
Keep your secret, Mademoiselle Corsi; it can never be mine at the price
which you propose."
"Fool!" cried the Frenchwoman, "you have refused rank, name, station,
and wealth--nay, more than these, revenge! Be it so; abide by your
choice. Perish in ignorance of the mighty secret which I have kept for
thirteen patient years, and which will be a fortune to me if not to
you. Rot in a jail; die in a transport ship; drag out your life in a
penal settlement; Pauline Corsi has spoken for the first and last time."
She walked to the door of the apartment, and, opening it, admitted the
officer.
"You see," she said, "there has been no attempt at escape." Without
one glance at Paul, she descended the staircase, and returned to the
chamber in which she had left heart-broken Camillia.
That night Paul Lisimon was lodged in the jail devoted to the reception
of those accused of felony.