The Ten-foot Chain Part 6

"Is it possible? The Middle Ages have returned!"

He moved back until the light chain was taut.

"My mind whirls. I try to laugh, but your voice convinces me. _Madame_, will you explain my situation in words of one syllable?"

"I have explained it already. You are imprisoned in a place from which you cannot escape. You will be confined here, held to me by this chain, for three days. At the end of that time you die."

"Will you swear this is the truth?"

"Name any oath and I will repeat it."

"There's no need," he said. "No, it cannot be a jest. Franz would never risk the use of a drug, wild as he is. Some other power has taken me.

What reason lies behind my arrest?"

"Think of it as a blind and brutal hand which required a victim and reached out over the city to find one. The hand fell upon you. There is no more to say. You can only resign yourself to die an unknown death."

He said at last: "Not unknown, thank G.o.d. I have something which will live after me."

Her heart leaped, for she was seeing once more the artist from Rembrandt's brush.

"Yes, your paintings will not be forgotten."

"I feel that they will not, and the name of--"

"Do not speak of it!"

"Why?"

"I must not hear your name."

"But you know it already. You spoke of my painting."

"I have never seen your face; I have never heard your name; you were brought to me in this room darkened as you find it now."

"Yet you knew--"

Her voice was marvelously low: "I touched your face, sir, and in some way I knew."

After a time he said: "I believe you. This miracle is no greater than the others. But why do you not wish to know my name?"

"I may live after you, and when I see your pictures I do not wish to say: 'This is his work; this is his power; this is his limitation.' Can you understand?"

"I will try to."

"I sat beside you while you were unconscious, and I pictured your face and your mind for myself. I will not have that picture reduced to reality."

"It is a delicate fancy. You are blind? You see by the touch of your hands?"

"I am not blind, but I think I have seen your face through the touch."

"Here! I have stumbled against two chairs. Let us sit down and talk. I will slide this chair farther away if you wish. Do you fear me?"

"No, I think I am not afraid. I am only very sad for you. Listen: I have laid down the revolver. Is that rash?"

"_Madame_, my life has been clean. Would I stain it now? No, no! Sit here--so! My hand touches yours--you are not afraid?--and a thrill leaps through me. Is it the dark that changes all things and gives eyes to your imagination, or are you really very beautiful?"

"How shall I say?"

"Be very frank, for I am a dying man, am I not? And I should hear the truth."

"You are a profound lover of the beautiful?"

"I am a painter, _madame_."

She called up the image of her face--the dingy brown hair, long and silken, to be sure; the colorless, small eyes; the common features which the first red-skinned farmer's daughter could overmatch.

"Describe me as you imagine me. I will tell you when you are wrong."

"May I touch you, _madame_, as you touched me? Or would that trouble you?"

She hesitated, but it seemed to her that the questing eyes of Rembrandt's portrait looked upon her through the dark--eyes reverent and eager at once.

She said: "You may do as you will."

His unmanacled hand went up, found her hair, pa.s.sed slowly over its folds.

"It is like silk to the touch, but far more delicate, for there is life in every thread of it. It is abundant and long. Ah, it must s.h.i.+ne when the sun strikes upon it! It is golden hair, _madame_, no pale-yellow like sea-sand, but glorious gold, and when it hangs across the whiteness of your throat and bosom the hearts of men stir. Speak! Tell me I have named it!"

She waited till the sob grew smaller in her throat.

"Yes, it is golden hair," she said.

"I could not be wrong."

His hand pa.s.sed down her face, fluttering lightly, and she sensed the eagerness of every touch. Cold fear took hold of her lest those searching fingers should discover the truth.

"Your eyes are blue. Yes, yes! Deep-blue for golden hair. It cannot be otherwise. Speak."

"G.o.d help me!"

"_Madame?_"

"I have been too vain of my eyes, sir. Yes, they are blue."

The fingers were on her cheeks, trembling on her lips, touching chin and throat.

"You are divine. It was foredoomed that this should be! Yes, my life has been one long succession of miracles, but the greatest was reserved until the end. I have followed my heart through the world in search of perfect beauty and now I am about to die, I find it. Oh, G.o.d! For one moment with canvas, brush, and the blessed light of the sun! It cannot be! No miracle is complete; but I carry out into the eternal night one perfect picture. Canvas and paint? No, no! Your picture must be drawn in the soul and colored with love. The last miracle and the greatest! Three days? No, three ages, three centuries of happiness, for are you not here?"

Who will say that there is not an eye with which we pierce the night? To each of these two sitting in the utter dark there came a vision.