Master of His Fate Part 10

"Nora, my life! I am afraid of myself! You would not harm me, but I would harm you! Ah, I know it now only too well!"

Then, as she closed her eyes again, she said, "I had better die!"

"No, you must not die!" he exclaimed. "Your time is not yet! Yes, you will live!--live! But I must be cut off--though not for ever--from the sweetest and dearest, the n.o.blest and purest of all G.o.d's creatures!"

In the meantime Lefevre had been examining his sister with closer scrutiny. He raised her eyelid and looked at her eye; he p.r.i.c.ked her on the arm and wrist; and then he turned to Julius.

"Julius," said he, "what does this mean?"

"It means," answered Julius, covering his face with his hands, "that I am of all living things the most accurst!" Then with a cry of horror and anguish he fled from the room and down the stairs.

Lady Lefevre followed him in a flutter of fear. Presently she returned, and said, in answer to a look from her son, "He s.n.a.t.c.hed his hat and coat, and was gone before I came up with him."

Without a word Lefevre set himself to recover his sister, and in half an hour she was well enough to walk with Lady Mary's a.s.sistance to bed.

The guests, meanwhile, had departed, all but two or three intimates; and in less than an hour Dr Lefevre was returning home in the Fane carriage.

Lord Rivercourt and he talked of the strange events of the evening, while Lady Mary leaned back and half-absently listened. They were proceeding thus along Piccadilly, when she suddenly caught the doctor's arm and exclaimed--

"Oh! Look! The very man I met in the Park! I am sure of it! I can never forget the face!"

Lefevre, alert on the instant, looked to recognise Hernando Courtney, the Man of the Crowd: he saw only the back of a person in a loose cape and a slouch hat turning in at the gateway of the Albany courtyard. In flashes of reflection these questions arose: Who could he be but Hernando Courtney?--and where could he be going but to Julius's chambers? Julius, therefore (whose own conduct had been that night so extraordinary), must be familiar with his whole mysterious course, and consequently with the peril he was in. Before Lefevre could out of his perplexity s.n.a.t.c.h a resolution, Lord Rivercourt had pulled the cord to stop the coachman. The coachman, however, having received orders to drive home, was driving at a goodly pace, and it was only on a second summons through the cord that he slackened speed, and obeyed his master's direction to "draw up by the kerb."

"I'll get out," said Lefevre, "and look after him. You'd better get Mary home; she's not very strong yet, and she has been upset to-night."

He put himself thus forward for another reason besides,--on the impulse of his friends.h.i.+p for Julius, without considering whether in the event of an arrest and an exposure, he could do anything to s.h.i.+eld Julius from shame and pain.

He got out, saying his adieus, and the carriage drove on. He found himself well past the Albany. He hurried back, nerved by the desire to encounter Julius's visitor, and at the same time by the hope that he would not. In his heart was a turmoil of feeling, to the surface of which continued to rise pity for Julius. The events of the evening had forced him to the conclusion that Julius possessed the same singular, magnetic, baleful influence on men and women as his putative father Hernando; but Julius's burst of agony, when Nora lay overcome, had declared to him that till then he had scarcely been aware of the destructive side of his power. All resentment, therefore, all sense of offence and suspicion which had lately begun to arise in his mind, was swallowed up in pity for his afflicted friend. His chief desire, now that he seemed reduced to the level of suffering humanity, was to give him help and counsel.

Thus he entered the Albany, and pa.s.sed the porter. The lamps in the flagged pa.s.sage were little better than luminous shadows in the darkness, and the hollow silence re-echoed the sound of his hurried steps. No one was to be seen or heard in front of him. He came to the letter which marked Julius's abode. He looked into the gloomy doorway, and resolved he would see and speak to Julius in any case. He pa.s.sed into the gloom and knocked at Julius's door. After a pause the door was opened by Jenkins. Lefevre could not well make out the expression of the serving-man's face, but he was satisfied that his voice was shaken as by a recent shock.

"I wish to see Mr Courtney," said Lefevre, in the half hope that Jenkins would say, "Which Mr Courtney?"

"Not at home, sir," said Jenkins in his flurried voice, and prepared to shut the door.

"Not at home, Jenkins? You don't mean that!"

"Oh, it's you, Dr Lefevre, sir. Mr Courtney is not at home, but perhaps he will see you, sir! I hope he will; for he don't seem to me at all well."

"But if he is engaged, Jenkins--?"

"Oh, sir, you know what 'not-at-home' means," answered Jenkins. "It means anything or nothing. Will you step into the drawing-room, sir, while I inquire? Mr Courtney is in his study."

"Thank you, Jenkins," said the doctor; "I'll wait where I am."

Jenkins returned with deep concern on his face. "Mr Courtney's compliments, sir," said he, "and he is very sorry he cannot see you to-night. It is a pity, sir," he added, in a burst of confidence, "for he don't seem well. He's a-settin' there with the lamp turned down, and his face in his hands."

"Is he alone, then?" asked the doctor.

"Oh yes, sir," answered Jenkins, in manifest surprise.

"Has n.o.body been to see him since he came in?"

"No, sir, n.o.body," said Jenkins, in wider surprise than before.

It appeared to Lefevre that his friend must be sitting alone with the terrible discovery he had that night made of himself. His heart, therefore, urged him to go in and take him by the hand, and give what help and comfort he could.

"I think," said he to Jenkins, "I'll try and have a word with him."

"Yes, sir," said Jenkins, and led the way to the study. He tapped at the door, and then turned the handle; but the door remained closed.

"Who is there?" asked a weary voice within, which scarce sounded like the voice of Julius.

"I--Lefevre," said the doctor, putting Jenkins aside. "May not I come in? I want a friendly word with you."

"Forgive me, Lefevre," said the voice, "that I do not let you in. I am very busy at present."

"You are alone," said Lefevre, "are you not?"

"Alone," said Julius; "yes, all alone!" There was a melting note of sadness in the words which went to the doctor's heart.

"My dear Julius," said he, "I think I know what's troubling you. Don't you think a talk with me might help you?"

"You are very good, Lefevre." (That was an unusual form of speech to come from Julius.) "I shall come to your house in a few minutes, if you will allow me."

"Do," answered Lefevre, for the moment completely satisfied. "Do!" And he turned away.

But when Jenkins had closed the outer door upon him, doubts arose. Ought he not to have insisted on seeing whether Julius was in truth alone in the study? And why could they not have had their talk there as well as in Savile Row? These doubts, however, he thrust down with the promise to himself that, if Julius did not come to him within half an hour, he would return to him. Yet he had not gone many steps before an unworthy suspicion shot up and arrested him: Suppose Julius had got rid of him to have the opportunity of sending a mysterious companion away unseen? But Jenkins had said he had let no one in, and it was shameful to suspect both master and man of lying. Yet Lady Mary Fane had distinctly recognised the man who pa.s.sed into the Albany courtyard: had he merely pa.s.sed through on his unceasing pursuit of something unknown? or were father and son somehow aware of each other? Between this and that his mind became a jumble of the wildest conjectures. He imagined many things, but never conceived that which soon showed itself to be the fact.

Chapter IX.

An Apparition and a Confession.

He let himself in with his latch-key, went into his dining-room, and sat down dressed as he was to wait. He listened through minute after minute for the expected step. The window was open (for the midsummer night was warm), and all the sounds of belated and revelling London floated vaguely in the air. Twelve o'clock boomed softly from Westminster, and made the heavy atmosphere drowsily vibrate with the volume of the strokes. The reverberation of the last had scarcely died away when a light, measured footfall made him sit up. It came nearer and nearer, and then, after a moment's hesitation, sounded on his own doorstep. With that there came the tap of a cane on the window. With thought and expectation resolutely suspended, Lefevre swung out of the room and to the hall-door. He opened it, and stood and gazed. The light of the hall-lamp fell upon a figure, the sight of which sent the blood in a gush to his heart, and pierced him with horror. He expected Julius, and he looked on the man whom he had followed on the crowded pavements some weeks before,--the man whom the police had long sought for ineffectually!

"Won't you let me in, Lefevre?" said the man.

The doctor stood speechless, with his eyes fixed: the face and dress of the person before him were those of Hernando Courtney, but the voice was the voice of Julius, though it sounded strange and distant, and bore an accent as of death. Lefevre was involved in a wild turmoil and horror of surmise, too appalling to be exactly stated to himself; for he shrank with all his energy from the conclusion to which he was being forced. He turned, however, upon the request for admission, and led the way into the dining-room, letting his visitor close the door and follow.

"Lefevre," said the strange voice, "I have come to show myself to you, because I know you are a true-hearted friend, and because I think you have that exquisite charity that can forgive all things."

"_Show myself!_" ... As Lefevre listened to the strange voice and looked at the strange person, the suspicion came upon him--What if he were but regarding an Illusion? He had read in some of his mystical and magical writers, that men gifted with certain powers could project to a distance eidola or phantasms of varying likeness to themselves: might not this be such a mocking phantasm of Julius? He drew his hand across his eyes, and looked again: the figure still sat there. He put out his hand to test its substantiality, and the voice cried in a keen pitch of terror--

"Don't touch me!--for your own sake!... Why, Lefevre, do you look so amazed and overcome? Is not my wretched secret written in my face?"

"And you are really Julius Courtney?" asked Lefevre, at length finding utterance, with measured emphasis, and in a voice which he hardly recognised as his own.