Night and Morning Part 44

"Jean! my poor Jean!" said the woman, and the words and the voice took back her hardening heart to the fresh fields and tender thoughts of the past time. And she walked up to the bed, and he leaned his temples, damp with livid dews, upon her breast.

"I have been a sad burden to you, Marie; we should not have married so soon; but I thought I was stronger. Don't cry; we have no little ones, thank G.o.d. It will be much better for you when I am gone."

And so, word after word gasped out--he stopped suddenly, and seemed to fall asleep.

The wife then attempted gently to lay him once more on his pillow--the head fell back heavily--the jaw had dropped--the teeth were set--the eyes were open and like the stone--the truth broke on her!

"Jean--Jean! My G.o.d, he is dead! and I was unkind to him at the last!"

With these words she fell upon the corpse, happily herself insensible.

Just at that moment a human face peered in at the window. Through that aperture, after a moment's pause, a young man leaped lightly into the room. He looked round with a hurried glance, but scarcely noticed the forms stretched on the pallet. It was enough for him that they seemed to sleep, and saw him not. He stole across the room, the door of which Marie had left open, and descended the stairs. He had almost gained the courtyard into which the stairs had conducted, when he heard voices below by the porter's lodge.

"The police have discovered a gang of coiners!"

"Coiners!"

"Yes, one has been shot dead! I have seen his body in the kennel; another has fled along the roofs--a desperate fellow! We were to watch for him. Let us go up-stairs and get on the roof and look out."

By the hum of approval that followed this proposition, Morton judged rightly that it had been addressed to several persons whom curiosity and the explosion of the pistols had drawn from their beds, and who were grouped round the porter's lodge. What was to be done?--to advance was impossible: and was there yet time to retreat?--it was at least the only course left him; he sprang back up the stairs; he had just gained the first flight when he heard steps descending; then, suddenly, it flashed across him that he had left open the window above--that, doubtless, by that imprudent oversight the officer in pursuit had detected a clue to the path he had taken. What was to be done?--die as Gawtrey had done!--death rather than the galleys. As he thus resolved, he saw to the right the open door of an apartment in which lights still glimmered in their sockets. It seemed deserted--he entered boldly and at once, closing the door after him. Wines and viands still left on the table; gilded mirrors, reflecting the stern face of the solitary intruder; here and there an artificial flower, a knot of riband on the floor, all betokening the gaieties and graces of luxurious life--the dance, the revel, the feast--all this in one apartment!--above, in the same house, the pallet--the corpse--the widow--famine and woe! Such is a great city!

such, above all, is Paris! where, under the same roof, are gathered such antagonist varieties of the social state! Nothing strange in this; it is strange and sad that so little do people thus neighbours know of each other, that the owner of those rooms had a heart soft to every distress, but she did not know the distress so close at hand. The music that had charmed her guests had mounted gaily to the vexed ears of agony and hunger. Morton pa.s.sed the first room--a second--he came to a third, and Eugenie de Merville, looking up at that instant, saw before her an apparition that might well have alarmed the boldest. His head was uncovered--his dark hair shadowed in wild and disorderly profusion the pale face and features, beautiful indeed, but at that moment of the beauty which an artist would impart to a young gladiator--stamped with defiance, menace, and despair. The disordered garb--the fierce aspect--the dark eyes, that literally shone through the shadows of the room-all conspired to increase the terror of so abrupt a presence.

"What are you?--What do you seek here?" said she, falteringly, placing her hand on the bell as she spoke. Upon that soft hand Morton laid his own.

"I seek my life! I am pursued! I am at your mercy! I am innocent! Can you save me?"

As he spoke, the door of the outer room beyond was heard to open, and steps and voices were at hand.

"Ah!" he exclaimed, recoiling as he recognised her face. "And is it to you that I have fled?"

Eugenie also recognised the stranger; and there was something in their relative positions--the suppliant, the protectress--that excited both her imagination and her pity. A slight colour mantled to her cheeks--her look was gentle and compa.s.sionate.

"Poor boy! so young!" she said. "Hus.h.!.+"

She withdrew her hand from his, retired a few steps, lifted a curtain drawn across a recess--and pointing to an alcove that contained one of those sofa-beds common in French houses, added in a whisper,--

"Enter--you are saved."

Morton obeyed, and Eugenie replaced the curtain.

CHAPTER XIII.

GUIOMAR.

"Speak! What are you?"

RUTILIO.

"Gracious woman, hear me. I am a stranger: And in that I answer all your demands."

Custom of the Country.

Eugenie replaced the curtain. And scarcely had she done so ere the steps in the outer room entered the chamber where she stood. Her servant was accompanied by two officers of the police.

"Pardon, madame," said one of the latter; "but we are in pursuit of a criminal. We think he must have entered this house through a window above while your servant was in the street. Permit us to search?"

"Without doubt," answered Eugenie, seating herself. "If he has entered, look in the other apartments. I have not quitted this room."

"You are right. Accept our apologies."

And the officers turned back to examine every corner where the fugitive was not. For in that, the scouts of Justice resembled their mistress: when does man's justice look to the right place?

The servant lingered to repeat the tale he had heard--the sight he had seen. When, at that instant, he saw the curtain of the alcove slightly stirred. He uttered an exclamation-sprung to the bed--his hand touched the curtain--Eugenie seized his arm. She did not speak; but as he turned his eyes to her, astonished, he saw that she trembled, and that her cheek was as white as marble.

"Madame," he said, hesitating, "there is some one hid in the recess."

"There is! Be silent!"

A suspicion flashed across the servant's mind. The pure, the proud, the immaculate Eugenie!

"There is!--and in madame's chamber!" he faltered unconsciously.

Eugenie's quick apprehensions seized the foul thought. Her eyes flashed--her cheek crimsoned. But her lofty and generous nature conquered even the indignant and scornful burst that rushed to her lips.

The truth!--could she trust the man? A doubt--and the charge of the human life rendered to her might be betrayed. Her colour fell--tears gushed to her eyes.

"I have been kind to you, Francois. Not a word."

"Madame confides in me--it is enough," said the Frenchman, bowing, with a slight smile on his lips; and he drew back respectfully.

One of the police officers re-entered.

"We have done, madame; he is not here. Aha! that curtain!"

"It is madame's bed," said Francois. "But I have looked behind."

"I am most sorry to have disarranged you," said the policeman, satisfied with the answer; "but we shall have him yet." And he retired.

The last footsteps died away, the last door of the apartments closed behind the officers, and Eugenie and her servant stood alone gazing on each other.

"You may retire," said she at last; and taking her purse from the table, she placed it in his hands.

The man took it, with a significant look. "Madame may depend on my discretion."

Eugenie was alone again. Those words rang in her ear,--Eugenie de Merville dependent on the discretion of her lackey! She sunk into her chair, and, her excitement succeeded by exhaustion, leaned her face on her hands, and burst into tears. She was aroused by a low voice; she looked up, and the young man was kneeling at her feet.

"Go--go!" she said: "I have done for you all I can."

"You heard--you heard--my own hireling, too! At the hazard of my own good name you are saved. Go!"

"Of your good name!"--for Eugenie forgot that it was looks, not words, that had so wrung her pride--"Your good name," he repeated: and glancing round the room--the toilette, the curtain, the recess he had quitted--all that bespoke that chastest sanctuary of a chaste woman, which for a stranger to enter is, as it were, to profane--her meaning broke on him. "Your good name--your hireling! No, madame,--no!" And as he spoke, he rose to his feet. "Not for me, that sacrifice! Your humanity shall not cost you so dear. Ho, there! I am the man you seek."