Part 44 (1/2)
”His death!” she murmured. And with trembling fingers she opened and read the last lines ever penned by her too pa.s.sionate admirer.
”SWEETEST SYLVIE! Dearest and purest of women! If you ever receive this letter I shall be gone beyond the reach of your praise or your blame.
For it will not be given to you at all unless I am dead. Dead, dear Sylvie! That will be strange, will it not? To be lying quite still, cold and stiff, out of the reach of your pretty warm white arms,--deprived for ever and ever of any kiss from your rose-red lips,--ah, Sylvie, it will be very cold and lonely! But perhaps better so! To-night I saw you, up in your balcony, with someone who is a brave and famous man, and who no doubt loves you. For he cannot fail to love you, if he knows you. G.o.d grant you may be happy when I am gone! But I want you to feel that to-night--to-night _I_ love you!--love you as I have never loved you or any woman before--without an evil thought,--without a selfish wis.h.!.+--to the very height and breadth of love, I love you, my queen, my rose, my saving grace of sweetness!--whose name I shall say to G.o.d as my best prayer for pardon, if I die to-night!
FONTENELLE.”
Sylvie shuddered as with icy cold . . . a darkness seemed to overwhelm her . . . she staggered a little, and Ruspardi caught her, wondering--at the lightness and delicacy and beauty of her, as he a.s.sisted Madame Bozier to lead her to a deep fauteuil where she sank down, trembling in every nerve.
”And--he is dead?” she asked mechanically.
Ruspardi bowed a grave a.s.sent. She paused a moment--then forced herself to speak again.
”How did it happen?”
In brief, concise words Ruspardi gave the account of the quarrel with Miraudin,--and Sylvie shrank back as though she had received a blow when she heard that her name had been the cause of the dispute.
”And this morning, hearing no news,” continued Ruspardi, ”I made enquiries at the theatre. There I found everything in confusion; Miraudin and a soubrette named Jeanne Richaud, had left Rome the previous evening so the box-keeper said, and there was no news of either of them beyond a note from the girl saying she had returned alone to Paris by the first morning train. Nothing had been heard of Miraudin himself;--I therefore, knowing all the circ.u.mstances, drove out to the Campagna by the Porte Pia, the way that Miraudin had gone, and the way I bade the Marquis follow;--but on the Ponte Nomentano I met some of the Miserecordia carrying two corpses on the same bier,--two corpses so strangely alike that they might almost have been brothers!--they were the bodies of the Marquis Fontenelle and,--Miraudin!”
Sylvie uttered a low cry and covered her face with her hands.
”Miraudin!” exclaimed Madame Bozier in horrified tones. ”Miraudin! Is he killed also?”
”Yes, Madame! Both shots must have been fired with deadly aim. They had no seconds. Miraudin had hired a common fiacre to escape in from the city, and the police will offer a reward for the discovery of the driver. My horse, which my unfortunate friend Fontenelle rode, is gone, and if it could be discovered, its possessor might furnish a clue;--but I imagine it will be difficult, if not impossible to trace the witnesses of the combat. The woman Richaud is on her way to Paris. But by this time all Rome knows of the death of Miraudin; and in a few hours all the world will know!”
”And what of the Marquis Fontenelle?” asked Madame Bozier.
”Madama, I posted all the letters he entrusted to my charge. The one I have brought to the Contessa was enclosed in an envelope to me and marked 'To be personally delivered in case of my death.' But among the letters for the post was one to the Marquis's only sister, the Abbess of a convent in Paris--she will probably claim her brother's remains.”
He was silent. After a pause Sylvie rose unsteadily, and detached a cl.u.s.ter of violets she wore at her neck.
”Will you--” her voice faltered.
But Ruspardi understood, and taking the flowers, respectfully kissed the little hand that gave them.
”They shall be buried with him,” he said. ”His hand was clenched in death on a small knot of lace--you perhaps might recognise it,--yes?--so!--it shall be left as it was found.”
And,--his melancholy errand being done,--he bowed profoundly once more, and retired.
Sylvie gazed around her vaguely,--the letter of her dead admirer grasped in her hand,--and his former letter, proposing marriage, lying still open on the table. Her old gouvernante watched her anxiously, the tears rolling down her cheeks.
”You are crying, Katrine!” she said, ”And yet you knew him very little,--he never loved you! I wish--I wish MY tears would come! But they are all here--aching and hurting me--”and she pressed her hand to her heart--”You see--when one is a woman and has been loved by a man, one cannot but feel sorry--for such an end! You see he was not altogether cruel!--he defended my name--and he has died for my sake!
For my sake!--Oh, Katrine! For MY sake! So he DID love me--at the last!
. . . and I--I--Oh, Katrine!--I wish--I wish the tears would come!”
And as she spoke she reeled--and uttering a little cry like that of a wounded bird, dropped senseless.
XXV.
The death of the famous actor Miraudin was a nine days' wonder, and about a three weeks' regret. He had made no reputation beyond that of the clever Mime,--he was not renowned for scholars.h.i.+p,--he had made no mark in dramatic literature,--and his memory soon sank out of sight in the whirling ocean of events as completely as though he had never existed. There was no reality about him, and as a natural consequence he went the way of all Shams. Had even his study of his art been sincere and high--had he sought for the best, the greatest, and most perfect work, and represented that only to the public, the final judgment of the world might perhaps have given him a corner beside Talma or Edmund Kean,--but the conceit of him, united to an illiterate mind, was too great for the tolerance of the universal Spirit of things which silently in the course of years p.r.o.nounces the last verdict on a man's work. Only a few of his own profession remembered him as one who might have been great had he not been so little;--and a few women laughed lightly, recalling the legion of his ”amours”, and said, ”Ce pauvre coquin, Miraudin!” That was all. And for the mortal remains of Guy Beausire de Fontenelle, there came a lady, grave and pale, clothed in deep black, with the nun's white band crossing her severe and tranquil brows,--and she, placing a great wreath of violets fresh gathered from the Pamphili woods, and marked, ”In sorrow, from Sylvie Hermenstein”, on the closed coffin, escorted her melancholy burden back to Paris, where in a stately marble vault, to the solemn sound of singing, and amid the flare of funeral tapers, with torn battle banners drooping around his bier, and other decaying fragments of chivalry, the last scion of the once great house of Fontenelle was laid to rest with his fathers. Little did the austere Abbess, who was the chief mourner at these obsequies, guess that the actor Miraudin, whose grave had been hastily dug in Rome, had also a right to be laid in the same marble vault;--proud and cold and stern as her heart had grown through long years of pain and disappointment, it is possible that had she known this, her sufferings might have been still more poignant. But the secret had died with the dead so far as the world went;--there remained but the Eternal Record on which the bond of brotherhood was inscribed,--and in that Eternal Record some of us do our best not to believe, notwithstanding the universal secret dread that we shall all be confronted with it at last.