Part 35 (2/2)

If, when she has read them, she still wishes me to go, I will do so without attempting to see her again.”

The woman nodded.

”Very well,” she said; ”wait outside.”

He left the room and walked softly up and down the pa.s.sage, eyeing with some contempt the rich faded curtains and quaint artistic furniture about the place, so unlike the gilded glories of his own taste. In about half an hour the housekeeper came out to him.

”She is conscious now,” she said; ”give me your message.”

He gave her a card on which he had already penciled a few words, and waited, terribly anxious, for the result. The woman withdrew, and closed the door. For a moment there was silence. Then a wild, fierce cry rang out from the room and echoed through the house. Before it had died away the door was flung open, and she stood on the threshold, her white hair streaming down her back, and every vestige of color gone from her face.

Her eyes, too, shone with a feverish glow which fascinated him.

”Is it you who wrote this?” she cried, holding up the card clenched in her trembling fingers. ”If you are a man, tell me, is it true?”

”I believe it is,” he answered. ”In my own mind, I am certain that it is. You are the only person who can prove it. I want you to come to England with me.”

”I am ready,” she said. ”When can we start?”

He looked at his watch.

”I will be here in half an hour with a carriage,” he said. ”If we can get over the hills by midday, we shall catch the express.”

”Go, then,” she said calmly; ”I shall be waiting for you.”

He hurried away, and soon returned with a carriage from the inn. In less than an hour they had commenced their journey to England.

It was an early summer evening in Mayfair, and Sir Allan Beaumerville stood on the balcony of his bijou little house, for which he had lately deserted the more stately family mansion in Grosvenor Square. There was a soft pleasant stillness in the air, and a gentle rustling of green leaves among the trees. The streets below were almost blocked with streams of carriages and hansoms, for the season was not yet over, and it was fast approaching the fas.h.i.+onable dinner hour. Overhead, in somewhat curious contrast, the stars were s.h.i.+ning in a deep cloudless sky, and a golden-horned moon hung down in the west.

Sir Allan was himself dressed for the evening, with an orchid in his b.u.t.tonhole, and a light overcoat on his arm. In the street, his night brougham, with its pair of great thoroughbred horses, stood waiting. Yet he made no movement toward it. He did not appear to be waiting for anyone, nor was he watching the brilliant throng pa.s.sing westward. His eyes were fixed upon vacancy, and there was a certain steadfast, rapt look in them which altered his expression curiously. Sir Allan Beaumerville seldom used his powers of reflection save for practical purposes. Just then, however, he was departing from his usual custom.

Strange ghosts of a strange past were flitting through his mind. Old pa.s.sions, which had long lain undisturbed, were sweeping through him, old dreams were revived, old memories kindled once more smoldering fires, and aided at the resurrection of a former self. The cold man-of-the-world philosophy, which had ruled his life for many years, seemed suddenly conquered by this upheaval of a stormy past. Under the influence of the serene night, the starlit sky, and the force of these old memories, he seemed to realize more than he had ever done before the littleness of his life, its colorless egotism, the barrenness of its routine. Like a flash it stood glaringly out before him. Stripped of all its intellectual furbis.h.i.+ng, the chill selfishness of the creed he had adopted struck home to his heart. A finite life, with a finite goal--annihilation! Had it really ever satisfied him? Could it satisfy anyone? A great weariness crept in upon him. Epicureanism could have been carried no further than he had carried it. He had steeped his senses in the most refined and voluptuous pleasures civilization had to offer him. Where was the afterglow? Was this all that remained? A palled appet.i.te, a hungry heart, and a cold, chill despair! What comfort could his much-studied philosophy afford him? It had satisfied the brain; had it nothing to offer the heart? Something within him seemed to repeat the word with a grim echo. Nothing! nothing! nothing!

What was it that caused his eyes to droop till they rested upon two figures on the opposite pavement? He could not tell whence the power, and yet he obeyed the impulse. They glanced over the man with indifference and met the woman's upturned gaize. And Sir Allan Beaumerville stood like a figure of stone, with a deathlike pallor in his marble face.

The stream of carriages swept on, and the motley crowds of men and women pa.s.sed on their way unnoticing. Little they knew that a tragedy was being played out before their very eyes. A few noticed that stately white-haired lady gazing strangely at the house across the way, and a few too saw the figure of the man on whom her eyes were bent. But no one could read what pa.s.sed between them. That lay in their own hearts.

Interruption came at last. Mr. Benjamin Levy's excitement mastered his patience. He asked the question which had been trembling on his lips.

”Is it he?”

She started, and laid her hand upon his shoulder for support. She was very much shaken.

”Yes. See, he is beckoning. He wants me. I shall go to him. May G.o.d give me strength!”

She moved forward to cross the road. He caught hold of her arm in sudden fear.

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