Marcel Allain

"You are alone, Wilhelmine?"

Mademoiselle de Naarboveck had just left the house in the rue Fabert. It was three in the afternoon, and she was going shopping. At the corner of the rue de l'UniversitÉ she came on Henri de Loubersac.

It was a delightful surprise. She had not seen him for several days. She was aware of the difficult and dangerous nature of her future fiancÉ's duties; that they frequently took him from Paris for days at a time; that they forbade him writing even a post card to let her know where he was!... Now she felt delightedly sure that he had taken advantage of his first free moment to pay her a visit. How charming of him!

The truth was that de Loubersac, whose anxieties and suspicions had increased hour by hour, till he was suffering the tortures of the damned, had made up his mind to have a decisive talk with Wilhelmine. A clear and final explanation he would have, cost what it might!

Full of joy at the meeting, Wilhelmine did not seem to notice his anxious looks, his strained expression. She answered his question with a welcoming smile.

"I am alone."

"Your father?"

"Went away this morning: the calls of diplomacy are numerous, and frequently sudden, you know!"

"And Mademoiselle Berthe?"

Wilhelmine raised her beautiful bright eyes and met her fiancÉ's questioning glance.

"No news of her for several days. Berthe seems to have disappeared." Her tone was grave.

De Loubersac did not speak: mechanically he fitted his step to Wilhelmine's. Presently he asked:

"Where do you think of going?"

"I was going to do a little shopping ... nothing much ... there is no sort of hurry!"

She felt that Henri wished to discuss something important with her: hers was too direct a nature to put him off with flimsy excuses when he desired a serious talk.

"Should we walk on a little, talking as we go?" she suggested, with a charming smile. To walk and talk with Henri was such a pleasure!

De Loubersac agreed.

The young couple crossed the Esplanade des Invalides, and by way of the rue Saint-Dominique, the boulevard Saint-Germain, and rue Buonaparte, reached the Luxembourg Gardens. Here they could talk at ease.

A few casual remarks, and Henri de Loubersac came to his point.

"Dear Wilhelmine, there is a series of mysteries in your life which I cannot help thinking about: mysteries which trouble me greatly!... Forgive me for speaking to you so frankly!... You know how sincere my feeling for you is!... My love for you is strong and deep.... My one desire in life is to join my fate, my existence, to yours.... But before that, there are some things we must speak of together, serious things perhaps, about which we must have a clear understanding."

Wilhelmine had grown strangely pale. Despite the protestations of love in which her future fiancÉ had wrapped his questions, she was greatly troubled. The painful moment she had waited for had come: she must tell Henri de Loubersac the secret of her life: no very grave secret if considered by itself; but the consequences of it, and the innumerable deductions that could be drawn from it, might react unfavourably on their relations to each other!

Wilhelmine must speak out.

They were just outside the church of Saint-Sulpice. Some large drops of rain fell.

"Let us go into the church!" said Wilhelmine: "It will be quiet there. If what I have to say to you is said in that holy place, you will feel that I am speaking the truth. It is almost a confession." The poor girl's voice trembled slightly as she uttered these decisive words—words that frightened de Loubersac. What shocking revelations did they foreshadow?

He acquiesced: the lovers entered the porch.

As he stepped aside to let Wilhelmine pass, he noticed a cab with drawn blinds which had that minute drawn up not far from the space in front of the church. He examined it anxiously.

"It seemed to me we were being followed—shadowed," replied de Loubersac. "It is of little importance, however—we must expect that in our service."

"Yes, you also have secrets," remarked Wilhelmine.

"They are only professional ones: there is nothing about my personality to hide: my life is an open book for all the world to read!"

De Loubersac's tone was hard.

It hurt Wilhelmine.

---

For some while they had been seated behind a pillar, in the shadow: Wilhelmine had been speaking: Henri had been listening.

She told him she was not the daughter of the baron de Naarboveck, that her real name was ThÉrÈse Auvernois.[5]

[5] See FantÔmas: vol. i, FantÔmas Series.

This told de Loubersac nothing.

Wilhelmine explained that her childhood had been passed in an ancient chÂteau, on the banks of the Dordogne, with her grandmother, the Marquise de Langrune. One fatal December day the Marquise had been assassinated. They were led to believe the assassin was a young man, son of a friend of the family, by name, Charles Rambert. This tragedy had altered the whole course of the orphan girl's life. She was taken care of by the father of the supposed murderer, a worthy old man, Monsieur Etionne Rambert. He recommended her to Lady Beltham, whose husband had been murdered some months before; thus the bereaved girl came to live under Lady Beltham's wing, and grew very fond of her. Then Monsieur Etionne Rambert disappeared in a shipwreck, and Wilhelmine went with Lady Beltham to her castle in Scotland.

Two peaceful years passed. Among other friends and visitors, Wilhelmine met the Baron de Naarboveck, a foreign diplomat. Then Lady Beltham went to France, and one sad day the orphan girl learned that her mother by adoption had died there![6]

Six dreary, anxious months followed. Then the baron, the only person in the whole world who seemed to care whether she lived or died, came to find her. He took her to Paris. There he decided to pass her off as his daughter, declaring he had very grave reasons for doing so.

Though making her the centre of a mystery, for undeclared reasons of his own, de Naarboveck was very good to her, helped her to unravel her financial affairs, and informed her that she was the owner of a large fortune. He told her that some day she would have to go to a foreign country to take possession of this fortune—the baron did not say where.

Wilhelmine stopped her narrative, jumped up, pointing to a shadow moving across an altar.

"Did you see?" she questioned anxiously.

"I think I did," answered Henri de Loubersac. "It is the shadow of some passer-by thrown into relief on the light background."

"Oh, I hope we are not being spied on!"

"Of whom are you afraid?" asked de Loubersac.

Wilhelmine—or ThÉrÈse Auvernois, as she had confessed herself to be—glanced about her. There was not a soul within hearing! Now she would speak her mind to Henri—her dear Henri—and tell him all.

"You want to know, dear one, why my existence has been surrounded with so many mysterious precautions of late years! You wish to know why the baron is so determined that my real identity should remain hidden! You are right; for I have long asked myself the same question. When I spoke to the baron about this for the first time—it was only a few weeks ago, and told him that I wished to appear as what I really am, ThÉrÈse Auvernois, my father by adoption—I may call him that, seeing how good, how kind he has been to me—began by telling me it was impossible—that the most terrible misfortunes would result from such a revelation.... I insisted. I wanted to know what these dreadful misfortunes would be, and why they would follow as a matter of course, were it made known that I am ThÉrÈse Auvernois. Thereupon the baron told me astonishing things.

"According to him, from the time of my poor grandmother's death, I, and those near to me, all those about me, were pursued, not only by a terrible fatality, but also by a being, who, for unknown motives, wished to sow perpetual death and terror among those intimately connected with us.

"The baron did not want to talk of all this, but I made him speak out. Bit by bit, I learned the details of one of those tragedies which touched my life when a child. I went to the National Library, secretly, and looked through the newspapers of that period. I noticed that in whatever concerned us, whether legally or privately, closely or distantly, one name appeared and reappeared, a terrifying and legendary name, the name of a being we think of but dare not mention—the name of FantÔmas!"

Henri de Loubersac was staggered. This statement of the girl he knew as Wilhelmine de Naarboveck, far from impressing him favourably, seemed to him an improbable story invented, every bit of it, for the sole purpose of putting him on the wrong track.

He had learned to love this charming girl, believing her to be sincere, honest, pure, brought up as a young girl should be, amidst elegant and distinguished surroundings: now, behold an abyss opened before his eyes, separating him from one whom he was now inclined to consider an adventuress.

He remembered Juve's words!

Granting the truth of her statement, that a tragedy had shadowed her young life and altered her existence, this did not prevent her from having been seduced by Captain Brocq! Rather, her early experiences would tend to break down the barriers, behind which nice girls lived and moved!... There were things that called for an explanation! For instance, how explain the intimacy existing between de Naarboveck, his so-called daughter, and this Mademoiselle Berthe, whose part in the affair engaging de Loubersac's attention was open to the gravest suspicions?...

Wilhelmine continued what she called her confession, thinking aloud, opening her heart, confiding in her dear Henri, whose silence she took for sympathy and encouragement.

"FantÔmas," she murmured: "I cannot tell you how often I have thought over this maddening, this puzzling personality, terrifying beyond words, who seems implacably bent on our destruction!... Again and again I have had reason to fear that his ill-omened influence has been directed against my humble self!... As if he guessed something of this, the baron has frequently sought to reassure me; yet, through some singular coincidence, each time we have spoken of FantÔmas a tragedy has occurred, a dreadful tragedy, which has reminded us of monstrous crimes committed by him in the past!"

Wilhelmine's statements were impressing de Loubersac less and less favourably.

"Play acting—and clumsy play acting at that!" decided Henri: "Done to avert my suspicions, imagined to feed my curiosity!... She thinks herself a capable player at the game! She does not know the person she is playing with!"

De Loubersac came to a decision. He rose, stood close to Wilhelmine, who also rose, instinctively, looked her straight in the face, and asked, point-blank:

"Wilhelmine de Naarboveck, or ThÉrÈse Auvernois—it matters little to me—I wish to know the real truth.... Confess, then, that you were Captain Brocq's mistress!"

"Monsieur!" exclaimed the startled girl. She met de Loubersac's inquisitorial look proudly.

His penetrating stare did not falter.

Suddenly Wilhelmine's lips began to tremble. She grew deadly pale: she might have been on the verge of a fainting fit. She had realised the incredulity of the man to whom, in her chaste innocence, she had given her heart. In the pure soul of this loving girl an immense void made itself felt. It was as though a flashlight had revealed to her the lamentable truth: that the strange position in which destiny had placed her—a position strange but not infamous—had made of her a being apart, had put her outside the ordinary life of humanity, outside the law of love!... A desire to explain, to convince, to justify herself, the desire of a desperate creature at bay, burned up in her like a flame: it flashed and died. Henri had no confidence in her! He believed this odious thing of her—this abominable, incredible thing!... Her heart was full to bursting with an agony of grief, of outraged innocence.... She looked him straight in the eyes—her own flashing fury.

"You insult me!" she cried.... "Withdraw what you have just said!... You will apologise!"

De Loubersac said in a low, distinct voice:

"I maintain my accusation, Mademoiselle, until you have furnished me with absolute, undeniable proofs!"...

De Loubersac's voice failed him. Wilhelmine had turned from him. She hurried to the door, descended the church steps, and threw herself into a passing cab.

De Loubersac had followed her.

In tones of contempt she had flung at him the words:

"Farewell, monsieur—and for ever!"

Henri's answer was a shrug of the shoulder.

As he stood there, an outline, a shadow, appeared under the church porch: a something, a being, indescribable, appeared, disappeared, running with spirit-like swiftness, vanishing. Henri de Loubersac had a clear conviction that during his conversation with her who might have been his fiancÉe in days to come, they had been shadowed, spied upon!