I walked fast as one who would try to escape from his fate.

I could not but see the cards being dealt by some mysterious hand; I could not but remember that Von Lichtenberg, a nobleman, a man of honour, the friend of his King, and presumably sane, had three times attempted my assassination when I was a child, to shield little Carl from some terrible evil at my hands; and look, to-night, whom had I met?

Then, Franzius, entering my life as he had done, and Eloise, like the people on the stage who are seen in the first act of the drama, to reappear in the last act, helping to form the tragic tableau on which the curtain falls.

But the terror and repulsion in my mind rose not from these things; it came like a breath from afar; it came like a breath from the unknown, from the time remote in the past when lived Margaret von Lichtenberg, the woman murdered by Philippe de Saluce.

I walked hurriedly, not caring whither I went; the sounds and lights of Paris surrounded me, but my spirit was not there. It was in the gardens of Lichtenberg, walking with Eloise and little Carl; it was in the picture-gallery, gazing at the portrait of the dead-and-gone Margaret, beneath which was the little portrait of Philippe de Saluce, so horribly like myself; it was in the windy bell-tower where the Man in Armour stood with his iron hammer before the iron bell; I saw again the duel in the forest, and Von Lichtenberg lying in the arms of General Hahn, and I heard again the slobbering of the torches, the wind in the pine-trees, and the far-off barking of the fox in the wood.

Ah, yes; all that might have something to do with me, but beyond all that I refused my fate. I refused to believe that the dead Margaret had a hold upon me—the last of the Mahons, who was also the last of the Saluces; the horrible whispered suggestion: "Are you Philippe de Saluce returned? Were you once in that old time the murderer of Margaret? And is she—is she little Carl?" This I refused; that I would not listen to; this I abhorred, as a whisper from the devil, as a blasphemy against God's goodness and against life.

"I have never done harm to any man!"

"Or woman?" queried the whisperer, whose voice seemed my own voice, just as in that story of Edgar Poe's the voice of William Wilson found an echo in his double.

"Or woman? Ah, yes—Eloise—a moment of passion——"

"A moment of passion murdered Margaret de Saluce."

"But God is good; He does not create to torture; He does not bring the dead back to confront them with their crimes."

"Know you that there is a God?" replied the whisperer. "And not a Fate working inexorably and by law?"

"Cease!" I replied, "Let there be a Fate. I am a living man with a will. No dead fate working by law shall drag me against my will, or move me to another purpose than my own. I will not—I will not!"

This mental dialogue had brought me a long way. I was called to my senses by a bright light illuminating what seemed a river of blood stretching across the pavement.

It was a red carpet, and the great house from whose door it was laid down was the Prussian Embassy.

A carriage, flanked by a squadron of Cent Gardes, was at the pavement, and a man was leaving the Embassy.

It was Napoleon, who had been dining privately with the Prussian Ambassador. He was in evening dress, covered by a dark overcoat; his hat-brim was over his eyes, and he held a cigarette between his lips. When Napoleon wore his hat in this fashion, with the brim covering his eyes like a penthouse, the whole figure of the man became sinister and full of fate.

I would sooner a flock of black birds had crossed my path than that mysterious figure in the broad-brimmed, tall hat, beneath which in the darkness the profile showed vaguely, yet distinctly, like the profile on some time-battered coin of Imperial Rome, some coin on which the Imperial face alone remains asking the dweller in a new age: Who is this?

I watched him getting into his carriage and the carriage driving away, surrounded by the glittering sabres of the Cent Gardes; then I returned home.

This, it will be remembered, was the night of the 1st of October.

* * * * *

On the 4th of October, three days after, I was sitting at my club, reading a newspaper, when the Comte de Brissac proposed a game of ÉcartÉ.

I take cards seriously; the gain or loss of money is nothing to me beside the gain or loss of the game. That is why, perhaps, I am often successful.

There were several other players in the room, and a good many loungers looking on at the games, several around our table, of whom I did not take the slightest notice, so immersed was I in the play.

I lost. Never had I such bad luck. The cards declared themselves against me; some evil influence was at work. At the end of half an hour, during a pause in the game, and after having lost a good sum of money to De Brissac, I looked up, and for the first time noticed the people around us. Right opposite to me, standing behind De Brissac, and looking me full in the face, was Baron Carl von Lichtenberg.

The surprising thing was that I was not surprised. My unconscious self seemed to have recognised the fact that he was there all the time, whilst the conscious self was sublimely indifferent to everything but the cards.

Then I did just what I would have done had a cry of "Fire" been raised—cast my cards on the table, and left the room, walking hurriedly, but not so hurriedly as to express what the old Marquis d'Ampreville once described as ungentlemanly alarm.

Now, Lichtenberg was not a member of the Mirlitons; and as I was a pretty regular frequenter of the place during certain hours of the day, and as he had taken his place at the card-table at which I was playing, the suggestion became almost a certainty that he had come there to meet me.

"I am a living man with a will. No dead Fate working by law shall drag me against my will or move me to another purpose than my own." I had said that on the night of the 1st of October. Well, there was something more than a dead Fate here, a thing working by law. There was the will of Von Lichtenberg; and as I walked down the Boulevard des Italiens, away from the club, the gin seemed to have closed more tightly around me.

It is unpleasant to feel not that you are going to meet your fate, but that your fate is coming to meet you; to swim from a danger, yet find the tide slowly and remorselessly driving you towards it.

Now, what was this danger I dreaded? Impossible to say; but I felt surely in my soul that far more destructive to my happiness and my life than Vogel, or the fantastic old woman who lived in the wood and made whistles of glass, silver, and gold for children to play upon, was this man Carl von Lichtenberg. That, just as Eloise had brought me the flowers of childhood perfumed and dew-wet in her hands, Carl von Lichtenberg was bringing me flowers from an unknown land, flowers scentless as immortelles, sorrowful as death.

Why should I, young and happy, and rich, with all the joy of life in me, with a clear conscience and a healthy mind: why should I be troubled by the tragic and the fateful? As day by day men turn the pages of their life-story, men ask of God this question, receiving only the Author's reply: "Read on."

The next day I had the extra knowledge that not only was Von Lichtenberg's will against me, but the tattle of fools.

The affair at the Mirlitons had been talked about. The loungers about the card-table had seen me look up, stare at the Baron, fling my cards down, and leave the room.

I had, it seemed, put a public affront on him.

My guardian told me of the talk.

"Paris is a whispering gallery," said the old gentleman, "filled with fools. They put the thing down to the fact of the duel between your father and Baron Imhoff. The whole thing is unfortunate; the relations of the Saluces and the Lichtenbergs have always been unfortunate; yet the two families have had an attraction for each other, to judge by the intermarriages. Still, this young Baron Carl seems quite a nice person, a nobleman of the old type, a man of distinction and presence——"

"You have met him?"

"I was introduced at D'Harmonville's ball. Yes; quite a nobleman of the old school; and it seems a pity that you should bear him any grudge on account of the unfortunate fact that Baron Imhoff——"

"I don't. I don't hold him responsible for the fact that Baron Imhoff killed my father. I have no grudge against him."

"I am glad to hear that," said the Vicomte; and two days later he invited Von Lichtenberg to dinner with me!

I did not come to that dinner. I was a living man with a will of my own. (How that phrase haunts me like satiric laughter!) I would pursue my own course; and no dead Fate would drag me against my will, or move me to another purpose except my own.

I dined at the CafÉ de Paris with a friend, and as I was coming away whom should I meet but my old enemy the Comte de Coigny!

This gentleman was flushed with wine; he was descending the stairs with two ladies, and when he saw me he started. We had not spoken for years, yet he came forward to introduce himself.

When we had exchanged a few platitudes, he turned to the matter that was evidently the motive-power of his civility.

"I am surprised to see you here to-night," said he, "for my friend M. le Baron von Lichtenberg told me he was to dine with you."

"He told you wrong."

"Ah! just so. I thought there was some mistake; he would scarcely be dining with you after the affair at the Mirlitons."

"M. de Coigny," I replied, "I know of nothing that gives you the warrant to introduce yourself into my private affairs. I dine where I choose, do what I please; and should anyone question my actions they do so at their own peril."

Then I turned on my heel and left the cafÉ with my friend.

"Another man would send you his seconds in reply to that," said my friend.

"And why not De Coigny?"

"Oh, he is a coward. But he is also a bad man. Be on your guard, for he will try to do you an evil turn."

I laughed, and told him of the occurrence when, years ago, I had made De Coigny's nose to bleed in the gardens of the HÔtel de Morny.

"All the same," replied he, "be on your guard."

Next day I had a very unpleasant interview with my guardian. I had not only insulted Von Lichtenberg, it seems, but I had also hit the convenances a foul blow. Hit them below the belt, in fact.

"Ah, yes," said the old gentleman, "I try to do the best for you, and see your return! In my own house, too! And to receive the message that you were dining out only an hour before he was expected, giving me no time to make excuses!"

"What did he say?" I asked.

"Say!" burst out M. le Vicomte. "He said nothing. Ah, if I had been in his place! But, no. He only looked sad and depressed. Had he been a girl instead of a man, a girl in love with you, monsieur, he could not have taken the matter with more quietness or with more sad restraint. Say! Ah, yes, I will tell you what he said, what we said. I will give you the dialogue:

"'I had hoped to meet someone else.' That was what he said.

"And I: 'Alas! monsieur, Fate has ordained us to a solitude À deux.'

"I did not mention your name, monsieur, for in mentioning your name I would have mentioned a person who had disgraced me."

"Very well," said I. "I will disgrace you no longer. I will leave Paris to-morrow, and go to Nice."

This determination I carried out next day.

Now, under the tragic cloak of the story, under all these evasions of mine and this pursuit of Von Lichtenberg, there lay a lovely comedy, of which I, one of the chief actors, was utterly ignorant of the motive and the extraordinary dÉnouement. But this, if you have not guessed it, you will see presently.

I went to Nice. I had never been South before; I had never seen the white, white roads, the black shadows, the green olives, the leaping palms; I had never seen the oranges glowing like dim golden lamps amidst the glossy green leaves; and it seemed to me that I had never seen the blue of sky or the blue of sea before I entered that Paradise.

It is all changed now. The Avenue de la Gare from a road in heaven has become a street in a town; vulgarity and wealth have done their work; and to-day you may buy a diamond necklace of M. Marx, where, in 1869, under a plane-tree, sat the old woman who sold peeled oranges for a sou a dozen.

I spent the winter at Nice, finding plenty of amusement and friends, and cutting myself off completely from Paris, communicating only with my guardian and with Franzius and his wife, who were living at the Pavilion.

The 4th of April was the date for the production of his opera, "Undine." It was based on De la Motte Fouquet's lovely tale; and its success, as far as I could learn from Carvalho, was assured, for one can say of certain artistic productions, just as one can say of sunlight or pure gold: "This is assured. Let the tastes or the fashions alter, this will always be reckoned at its full value, a treasure indestructible."

I had fixed to return to Paris on the 30th of March, but I came back sooner; for on the 15th of March, driving on the Promenade des Anglais, I passed a carriage in which were seated the Comte de Coigny and the Baron Carl von Lichtenberg.