I fought my way to Brussels against the elements, and reached there at sunset of the last day of the year. I had not slept for thirty-six hours, and then it was in the rude cart of a peasant, jolting over the rough highroad. But sleep had departed from me. Up to that time I had managed to get a few hours of rest out of every twenty-four, for I was a soldier and knew how to take hard travel. But if I had been offered the great down bed of Louis le Grand, I could not have slept on that December night, thank God! Had I remained the night in Brussels—had I preferred soft slumber to the dumb cry of Francezka’s soul to mine—what grief! What remorse! Therefore, I took horse again at sun-setting, and did not draw rein until I reached Capello, at nine of the clock.

It was the first time I had seen the place in the icy clutch of winter. I had ever thought it the cheerfullest spot on earth. Nature was all gaiety at Capello. Now she was in a tragic mood, but not the less beautiful. The sky was of a deep, dark blue, jeweled with stars in every part. A radiant, majestic moon rode high, flooding the snowy earth with a pale, unearthly splendor. The chÂteau, white and stately, shone dazzling 459 in this moonlit glow. The bare branches of the forest covered with frost, were like silver lace. All was cold, still, lonely and sad.

I noticed as I approached the chÂteau through the great bare avenue of frosted lindens, that the windows were not, as usual, lighted up. Two only were illuminated—the windows of the little yellow saloon, where Francezka spent her evenings when without company.

As ever I drew nearer to Francezka, that need for haste seemed to be more urgent. I dismounted in the courtyard, and ran, rather than walked up the terrace. Through the window, with its undrawn curtains, I saw Francezka and Gaston seated together in the yellow saloon.

I had not meant to watch them. I meant to stop and recover myself a little before presenting myself before them, but I could not keep my eyes away from the scene in the yellow saloon. I believe most persons have felt the fascination of looking at an interior illuminated with fire and candle, as one stands without, and so, unconsciously, I stood and watched Francezka and Gaston Cheverny.

The room presented that charming, luxurious and comfortable air which always distinguished it. A fire was burning on the hearth, and a table with candles and books on it, was drawn up. Gaston sat on one side of it, and Francezka on the other. She wore a robe of some white shimmering stuff, and her rich dark hair was unpowdered. I noticed the little tendrils of hair upon her milk-white neck. In her lap lay an open book, which she was not reading. She was pallid, and had no more that joyous loveliness of flesh and blood which 460 had once been hers; but never saw I more plainly her mysterious and poetic beauty, which shone forth star-like. And one thing else I saw, and would have seen had it been my first view of her—she had a canker at her heart.

Gaston sat on the other side of the table, looking as usual, handsome and content. He, too, had a book in his hand, which he was not reading. He was furtively watching Francezka. Francezka watched the fire.

After a time—I know not how long—Francezka laid her book down softly, went to her open harpsichord, and sitting before it, played with her usual skill. I recognized the air; it was that old, old one of Blondel’s, O Richard, O mon roi!

Gaston shifted a little in his chair. He had ever showed an indifference to the song, which once had been so dear to them, and had been so full of meaning for them. There was a look of uneasiness in his face, and he began for the first time to read attentively, his brows drawn together, while Francezka’s fingers delicately played this quaint air.

Francezka played some other airs, lightly, gracefully, softly, pausing between them, meditating, with one hand on the keys of the harpsichord, and the other hanging down. The hand that hung down moved a little, as if in the act of patting a dog’s head. I was reminded of poor Bold—it was as if Francezka were thinking of this lost friend. She gave me the impression of a person who feels herself alone and debates with herself.

When she ceased to play this fitful soft music, she rose and went to the window which looked toward the 461 lake. She shaded her face with her hands, so she could see the still, pale glory of the night, and the lake, lying in melancholy beauty under the soft shining stars. There was a deep and perfect silence within and without, and it seemed to cast a spell upon Francezka and upon me, so near together, and she all unknowing.

And then, feeling rather than seeing some one near me, I turned and saw a figure in a black cloak pass me; the same figure that had passed before me in the shadowy streets of Prague—the man I thought to be Gaston Cheverny. He walked straight to the great door of the chÂteau, and without knocking, opened it as if he were the master of all there. And then, as I stood unable to move, with all my faculties concentrated in my eyes, I saw the door of the yellow saloon open. I saw the real Gaston Cheverny enter. I saw Francezka turn toward the opening door. I saw the man I had supposed for nearly two years to be Gaston Cheverny rise from his chair—and he was, in truth, Regnard Cheverny. It was impossible to mistake one for the other, standing together, face to face. It became a miracle how Regnard had ever managed to deceive his whole world into thinking him Gaston Cheverny. All the differences between them came out and seemed to clamor for recognition. The expression of the eye was different; the whole of the actual man in each was dissimilar; and how this could have been covered up by the mere likeness in shape, in voice, in feature—no one could tell.

Gaston was Gaston. He was pale and thin, and looked ten years older than he should, but there was no mistaking him. I know not how I found myself 462 standing on the threshold of the room. Gaston had advanced to the middle, and held out his arms to Francezka.

“I know all,” he cried, “poor, faithful soul! For you there is an unchanging love. There is nothing to forgive—nothing—nothing!”

Francezka stood as if turned to stone for a moment—one of those moments in which Time seems no more. Then she moved a little back, averting her face from Gaston, with a look, never to be forgotten—love, shame, despair—crying aloud from her eyes. But as Gaston spoke, she turned again, full toward him, and raised both of her white arms.

“Dearest,” she cried, in her old, sweet, penetrating voice. “I do not ask why you did not come before. You could not—you could not come until now!”

At that, Regnard stepped forward, and raised his hand to separate the two.

“Wait,” he said to Gaston. “She was your wife for one week. She has been my wife nearly two years. She shall remain so. I, too, loved her well, from my boyhood—and was it to be expected that I should let that childish fancy for you stand between her and me, when I thought you dead?”

I think neither Gaston nor Francezka heard him; but suddenly as a bird flies from its perch, so Francezka flew to Gaston and rested her head upon his breast. Not even Regnard dared to lay a sacrilegious hand upon her there.

“I have been the most miserable woman on God’s earth,” she said to Gaston, raising her head, and looking him full in the face—“and I can not survive this 463 hour. Do not ask me to live—I can not live. I was thinking, just now, as I sat and played the air we loved so well, that I must, this very night, seek rest in death—for I suspected the truth only a little while ago. But, love, this hour atones for much. You know now how I loved you—how I remembered you. If I was dull of apprehension—if, after seven years, I accepted too quickly the deception practised on me—well, it was because I loved you so well. But I must depart; there is no place on earth for me.”

For answer Gaston kissed her tenderly.

“Would you leave me now?” he asked. “Have not I, too, loved you and sought you? And shall not our happiness swallow up our misfortune, and the crimes committed against us, after those crimes are avenged?”

Then, as calmly as a summer day, he placed Francezka in a chair, and, turning to his brother, said:

“To-night, you or I must die.”

“Agreed,” replied Regnard.

He opened a cabinet in the room, took out several swords, and, handing them to Gaston, said:

“Choose which one you will die by.”

Gaston selected one.

“With this will I kill you,” he said.

Neither of them had seen me, although I was in evidence plain enough. I started forward, however, and grasping Gaston’s arm, forced him to look at me.

“Babache,” he said, recognizing me instantly. “The world is not big enough for my brother and for me. It is better to end it now and here. Either let him kill me, or let me kill him; so I pray you, hands off; and if I am the one to die, take care of Francezka.”

I thought, too, that the world could not and ought not to hold them both living, and the sooner it was settled which should die that night, the better.

Francezka, meanwhile, sat quite still in the chair where she had been placed. Gaston, turning to her, said, with an air of gentle command:

“Leave. This is no place for you.”

“Stay!” cried Regnard violently. “You are to obey my commands, not his.”

Francezka, without looking toward Regnard, without a shudder or a tremor, rose. I had thought she could neither rise nor move nor speak, but there was not the least sign of weakness about her. She actually stopped and curtsied toward Gaston as she went out. He bowed ceremoniously in response.

I took her hand and led her out into the vast hall, dimly lighted. She did not speak my name, but she held on to my hand. In the tempest of her soul she instinctively clung to one whom she knew to be true. She walked with me steadily across the great hall, and into the Diana gallery, now dark and cold as a vault. She looked like a specter as her white figure glided past the mirrors on the walls.

She continued to grasp my hands as a drowning man grasps his savior. We were too far off from the place of combat to hear anything except the dull shuffling of feet upon the floor. I had not the slightest doubt that in five minutes, at most, Regnard would kill Gaston.

In less than five minutes the door of the yellow saloon opened, and a flood of light poured into the great hall, vacant, dark and silent. Regnard appeared on the threshold.

“Come, Madame,” he cried in a loud and triumphant voice. “Come and behold the man you claimed as husband just now!”

Through the open door we could see Gaston, lying huddled in a pool of blood upon the floor of the little room. Blood, too, was on Regnard’s face, but he wiped it off with his handkerchief, and laughed to himself.

I turned to where Francezka had sat, but she was gone. At the end of the hall, I heard the great door clang. At once the thought of the lake suggested itself to me and I ran out of doors. The way Francezka usually took to the lake was by way of the Italian garden. I knew this, but a strange confusion fell upon me when I found myself out of doors, under the blue-black starlit sky. I could not recall the way to the Italian garden—nor yet the lake. At last, it came to me. I saw, afar, through the bare trees, the white statues gleaming, the black cedars, the yew trees—black, too, in the white moonlight.

I ran toward this garden, with its pathway to the lake, and thought every moment I should see before me Francezka’s flying figure. She was ever fleet of foot, and when I remembered this, the heart within me died.

When I reached the statue of Petrarch under which the poor dog lay buried, I stopped and searched the scene with a glance sharpened by agony. The lake lay before me; I heard its voice in the night—that strange voice to which I had often listened with Francezka. And then from the lonely cedars on the bank, I saw Francezka emerge, and, at the same moment, there 466 was a sound of swift pursuing feet—Regnard, too, had known where to seek her.

Francezka paused one moment on the brink of the lake, and turned her head toward those steadily nearing footsteps. Then she raised her face, raised both arms above her head and clasped them, as if in one last appeal to that Eternal Power, on the bosom of whose mercy she was about to cast herself, not wholly despairing. There was a sound of parting waters—of the black and icy waters—oh, Francezka! Francezka! How sweet must Death have been to thee!

THE END

Transcriber’s Note:

Author’s archaic and variable spelling and hyphenation is preserved.

Author’s punctuation style is preserved.

Any missing page numbers in this HTML version refer to blank or un-numbered pages in the original.

Illustrations have been kept close to their original positions.

Typographical errors were corrected, and these are highlighted in the text and listed below.

Irregularly hyphenated words are listed below.

Transcriber’s Changes:

Page 55: Was ’Cheverney’ (Regnard Cheverny, like his brother, was no man of milk and water, and once seen, was likely to be remembered.)

Page 59: Was ’her’ (Monsieur Voltaire pricked up his ears; it was well-known that he loved the society of the great.)

Page 148: Was ’led’ (We sat late, and, before we parted, Jacques Haret had arranged to travel with us, riding one of the lead horses.)

Page 150: Was ’toward toward’ (you show great good-will toward Monsieur Gaston Cheverny—and they are as like as two)

Page 175: Was ’good by’ (At last the time came for us to say goodbye to the chÂteau of Capello, and to start for Paris)

Page 263: Was ’must I’ (I can tell you, but I know not how to tell Gaston. Yet, I must tell him some day.)

Page 317: Standardised hyphenation: Was ’snuffbox’ (He spoke to her, gave her a silver snuff-box in default of money)

Page 403: Was ’tactiturnity’ (I fell behind all the party, and was rallied by Count Saxe on my taciturnity)

Page 442: Was ’Jacquet’ (he turned again in his chair, but said no word, although Jacques Haret’s laughing face was thrust toward him.)

Irregular hyphenation:

bare-legged and barelegged

small-pox and smallpox

death-bed and deathbed

head-long and headlong

sun-dial and sun dial

good-will and good will

hand-clapping and hand clapping

right-hand man and right hand man

love-letter(s) and love letter(s)

half-light and half light

baggage-wagons and baggage wagons

well-known and well known

ever-present and ever present

half-ruined and half ruined

well-remembered and well remembered