RUTS ON MORLEY. CHAP. VIII. BY JAMES B. STEPHENS. It seemed well that I had taken my measures so promptly; for on the same evening on which I had had the interview with M. Mounier, just related, I received a second note from M. Biot, requesting me to call on him in the course of the following afternoon. I did so, and, trembling like a guilty traitor, was ushered into his presence by my former friend of the poignard. Though I still cowered before him with the unconquerable feeling of being suspected, I felt, notwithstanding, that much of the mysterious influence that had formerly made his presence to me so august and imposing, had vanished before the revelation of M. Mounierthat the arch-schemer himself was a suspected man, and that the toils were secretly, but surely, weaving around him. I felt a mingling of pity, too, when he received me with evidently unsuspecting cordiality, as I looked at his noble and gentlemanly bearing, and thought how well he was fitted to represent authority, instead of to undermine it by means that could only lead to death or exile. "I have kept you waiting longer than I thought would have been necessary," said M. Biot, after we had interchanged a few irrelevant sentiments. "Several unforeseen circumstances have prevented some of our confrères and myself from acting in concert till within these few days. Now that all is settled we must lose no further time. You will set out to-morrow." "It will depend, of course, considerably on the consent of the gentleman in whose family I am residing. How long shall I require to be absent ?" "If you start to-morrow morning, you will be in London the same evening. You will require a little time next day (Wednesday) to get your passport, which will throw you too late for the express train; so that, for convenience' sake, you might wait till Thursday, and be here on that evening. You may detach yourself from Cassiano as soon as you arrive in Paris, and go straight to your present home; so that altogether you will require no more than a three days' leave. You are aware the thing must be carried through, whether your employer's consent be given or not; though of course it will be better to have all things peaceably arranged, in case of any awkward interruption. Your situation is a matter of small importance when you consider the reward that is awaiting your success in this." "How shall I find out Cassiano?" "He will meet you at Temple Bar on Wednesday morning, at nine o'clock precisely. I have sent him a minute description of your person. He will know you, and will address you by name. By the way, I see you have adopted a moustache since I last saw you; but, as that was not an item in my description, you will do well to leave it behind you." I was glad to conclude, from the detailed manner in which he entered into the subject, that he had no suspicion of my defection from the cause. He next reiterated his former directions regarding the management of the passports, and concluded by informing me, in his usual cool manner, that he would have some one waiting at the station, to ascertain whether or not I did set out as agreed; and that my not doing so would be taken by him as a sign of treachery, which he would be compelled to act upon at once. As he bade me farewell, he put a purse in my hand; which, I judged from the weight, contained much more than was necessary to defray the expenses of the journey. I refused, however, to take a single superfluous franc; and, having pretty well calculated beforehand what I would require, I took out the sum I had fixed upon, and laid the purse with the rest on the table. He would have been pleased to see me make myself still more his creature by receiving his guilty gold. As it was, I left him frowning. I found it an easy matter to obtain a three days' leave of absence from the generoushearted Mr. Delby. Though I did not even state the nature of the "necessary business in London" which I pleaded, he, with his usual kindness, was only solicitous lest I should be inconveniencing myself by limiting my absence to so short a time. How little did he know that I felt his kindness like coals of fire heaped upon my head! more strange than my own. Unnoticed, save by one. All happened as M. Biot had said. Antonio Cassiano (I believe this was not his real name; but no matter!) had nothing about his appearance which would have suggested his nation. Though his hair was dark as jet, and his eyes no less so, his complexion was unusually fair for an Italian. His features seemed to have been formed on some eclectic principle, as they belonged to no class in particular. Had I known him to be of gentle birth, I might have found some indication of nobility in the delicate curve of the open nostril. Had I known him to be ignobly born, and grossly bred, I could easily have traced a brutal sensuality in the protruding upper lip. It was a face that might indicate anything or nothing. It threw no light on the subject in question, having in it no evident regard to conspiracy. The usual typical Why should I linger on the long and wearisome journey of the next day? Under other circumstances how my heart would have bounded with wild delight as the iron distance that hid me from the view of my native land glided away beneath me! As it was, I tried to bury my thoughts in the oblivion of sleep; but in vain. Even when now and again the senses were gradually yielding to the drowsy influence, my half-waking dreams assumed forms so much more terrible than the reality of my position, that a sudden start would send me back again to my own dreary consciousness. I changed carriages several times, the small-talk of my fellow-travellers so irritated me; but wherever I went, I found myself a black shadow in the midst of laughing, sandwich-eating annoy-face of the Italian brigand would have been in ances. consistent sequence with all I had heard regardBoulogne again! Not so lightsome, certainly, ing him. Such as it was, the face struck me as as before; but still cheerful down about the a gross incongruity. Cassiano was a man of beach. A steamer in waiting, speaking the middle size; of a slight, but firmly-knit frame; English language! How nice it would have exhibiting in every motion a cat-like lithesomebeen but for the contents of the last six chap-ness of limb. I guessed him to be somewhat ters! A franc to a Commissaire to run and upwards of thirty years of age. fetch me a "permission of embarkation." Said Very few words passed between us. He adpermission delivered, I enter, just as the gangway dressed me by name, and I replied by likewise is being pulled ashore; and we are again in mo- naming him. He then asked in English when tion. Customary number of contributors to the I intended to start for Paris, and, on being inunrejecting deep clinging to leeward. Cus-formed, begged to know if M. Biot had given tomary number also of those who, after having contributed their all, do, nevertheless, continue to go through the form, with much pain to themselves. The white cliffs once more! Some are around me who have not seen them for years, and whose eyes are full of tears of joy. Can I weep no welcome at the sight of them? I am again in my own land. The honest manhood and the kindly womanhood of England are speaking all around me. Everything seems so happy, so solid, so truthful! Can I not throw off the feelings that make me a stranger among my own people, and drag me ever into the prison of my own unhappy self? Alas, no. How horrible to think that, even in my own happy home, my presence would be as a shadow and a blight! Once in the crooked path, where is the exit? I am in London; and within all its wide circuit there is no one who shrinks more coweringly than myself from the face of man. The safest refuge is sleep: and yet the inexorable dawn will break, and the light will stream in, and rouse me to the strange and awful duty before me of decoying a miscreant into the path of doom. me any money for him. He seemed angrily disappointed when I assured him that I had nothing for him beyond the sum requisite for his travelling expenses, which sum I told him I intended to keep in my own charge. This last clause elicited a fresh scowl. I then asked him if he had made all his preparations for leaving; to which he replied, with a coarse laugh, that he had no preparations to make, but if I would lend him a sovereign, he thought he could manage to discover a few wants. I did so, and read at once in the look with which he regarded the money, that the whole soul of the fool was a thing of hire. "Do you require anything further of me today?" he asked, when I had returned my purse to my pocket. being punctual to-morrow?" "Ha, ha, ha! I should think so, when a mint of money depends on it!" "Well," said I, "you will come first of all to the Hotel, and I will give you a small portmanteau of mine to carry. You know the part you are to play, and you had better assume it at the very outset." "All right, sir. Good morning, sir!" And, touching his hat, in the true valet style, by way of rehearsal, Cassiano disappeared into the fathomless depths of London. I obtained my passport easily enough, and At nine o'clock I was standing at Temple Bar, found myself with an aimless day before me. an unnoticed item among the thousands that For a while I walked the streets, a prey to my were sweeping this way and that; each one bear-own thoughts, which were hourly growing ing his own story along with him: surely none darker. All at once a terrible suspicion shot, like a poisoned arrow, through my brain. No: this was too terrible to think! I would not think at all! I was reeling like a drunken man, and would have fallen (I cannot help the well-known proximity of the sublime to the ridiculous) but for the strong and timely arm of X 17. However, the functionary thus labelled had none of the "insolence of office," and, at once believing my statement that my present condition was the result of anxiety, he kindly assisted me to a cab. The Polytechnic was the only place that suggested itself to my mind, and thither I was driven. The effect was a success; so I spent the day in uninterrupted sight-seeing, winding it up with "Othello" and "Buried Alive." Next day, at two p. m., Cassiano and I arrived at Boulogne. I followed M. Biot's instructions to the letter, and in an hour we were on our way to Paris, our passport describing us as master and servant. The night was very dark when we arrived in Paris; but the streets shone with their accustomed brightness and their exhaustless gaiety. When we got to the Boulevards, I spoke to Cassiano for the first time since we had left Boulogne. I asked him if he intended to go at once to M. Biot's. "I would prefer, first of all," replied he, "to go to the Hôtel to secure a room for the night. M. Biot directed me to go to that hotel. I believe it is in the neighbourhood of the Palais Royal." "It is. Do you know the way?" "No." "Then I will go with you so far." And so we proceeded, each wrapt in his own meditations; I doubting within myself what course to pursue next; he, probably, gilding his expectations with a brighter and brighter hue, as he believed himself approaching the promised reward. When he returned to me he apologized for having kept me waiting, saying that the lady he had just left was a countrywoman of his own and an old friend. "She has an odd way with her," he said, picking up the portmanteau, and trying to laugh, by way of lessening the significance of her salutation to mere eccentricity. I said nothing in reply; but saw him to the door of his hotel, and then, having relieved him of his burden, parted with him, desiring him to say to M. Biot, on my part, that I would wait further instructions before calling on him. With a weary heart I turned from him, and bent my steps towards the house of my generous employer. M. Biot had promised to place Stephanie under my charge as soon as Cassiano should have arrived in Paris; but in consideration of the counter-workings of the police, as revealed by M. Mounier, I had made up my mind, on the way between Boulogne and Paris, not to press my claim, but to abstain as much as possible from any communication with M. Biot, believing that Stephanie was safe under the plighted guardianship of M. Mounier, and that it would be better to receive her on her own true footing, and of her own free accord, when she came forth unscathed from the trial that was awaiting her. I had reached the Rue de Rivoli, and was under its piazzas, when I felt an arm slip lightly under my own. I looked down and saw the same wild creature that we had left a few minutes before in the Rue Richelieu. Beautiful. as she was, I tried in disgust to shake her off; but she clung to me firmly. As I looked at her, I saw in her eyes what was either the light of madness, or the inspiration of a better spirit, and I felt as if I could not but listen to her. "The Signore may thrust me away," she said, in her own beautiful tongue, "but he does not know how much he stands in need of a friend at this moment. I will be that friend. I am to see Guiseppe to-night again. He has only told me a little; but in a few hours I shall know all. I will be on the front steps of the Madeleine tomorrow night at eight. I shall wait a whole hour for the signore; but if he does not come, I will think that he does not believe me, and I will let him die." We were just turning into the Rue Richelieu, when we were met by four or five flaunting denizens of Rougedom, who stepped slightly aside to allow us room to pass. We were only a few steps beyond them, when one, detaching herself from the rest, brushed hastily past us, and, taking her stand by a lamp-post a little way on, turned towards us, and waited till we had so far advanced that the light fell full on She looked up in my face, and then, as she our faces. She then, to my extreme astonish-bounded from me, I caught another glimpse of ment, burst into a wild laugh, which continued till we were close upon her, when she pointed her finger at Cassiano, exclaiming, in Italian: "Guiseppe, my brave lad, is your head still on your shoulders?" Cassiano suddenly dropping my portmanteau, turned fiercely round, and I saw under the light that he was deadly pale. He caught the woman rudely by the arm, and, dragging her into the middle of the street beyond my hearing, talked with her for several minutes, during which she remained perfectly silent, only exclaiming, as he turned away from her, loud enough to be heard by me: "Well, then, in two hours exactly." that mysterious light in her strangely beautiful eyes. The next moment she was lost in shadow, and again I was alone. Fatigued and encumbered as I was, I felt that it would be a vain thing to follow her. What was all this to end in? Had I not yet reached "the very sea-mark of my utmost sail?" Had I become so worthless that the very refuse of society could weigh the question of my life, and lay me under obligation? Could not a shout-a single shout-bring all Paris around me, to take the burden of my secret, and turn its oppressive darkness into the blaze of day? Ah, Stephanie! my beautiful, my own! If, during these few days, thine image has slum bered, it is not because the thought of thee was less dear to me, but because I had need to be strong for thy sake! But for thee, and the fear of harming one hair of thy dear head, how easily could I break these fetters, and startle the open streets with the terrible truth-ay, even if I should die for it! A little longer, and surely the danger will be past. In a few moments I was once more a member of the kind and worthy family, whose confidence and generosity I was treating so lightly. Mr. Delby hailed my return as if it had been an era in the family history. My irrepressible melancholy was attributed to fatigue. Christian charity threw a gloss over all my unworthiness, and covered a multitude of sins-the covering, however, only adding to their oppressiveness. CHAP. IX. I was hovering round the Madeleine long before the appointed time. I was somehow convinced that the worst had come; and the perpetual balancing in my mind of many possible evils was more terrible to bear than the reality of any one of them. I was therefore impatient to front the utmost issue in some definite shape. Philosophy is powerless against suspense. Until it be found where the wound is, the healing balsam has merely a potential virtue. I was glad to see that some special service was being performed in the church. Anxious to find some method of "killing the time," and yet to be near the place of rendezvous, I entered, and mingled with the worshippers. At such a moment how strongly I felt the allurement, so tempting to frail humanity, of that splendid, world-adapted ceremonial! Exciting and yet narcotic, soul-stirring and yet soul-soothing, how easy to resign oneself to the potent influence, and, amid the breath of incense and the gush of music, to lapse into a sensuous beatitude! How delightful to think that, though my iniquities were crying out for judgment, this great peal of harmony was filling the ear of the Almighty-that I was hid even by the very glare of many dazzling lights from the eye that cannot look upon sin-that above my corruption hung the cloudy fragrance, a sweet smelling savour to God, and thus, sin-oblivious, selfoblivious, find rest for my soul under the wing of a universal mother church! How enticing a great organization-a mighty and visible whole ! What a load of uncomfortable individual accountability flies off to the winds when we cast the care of our souls on an all-protecting system, and sink them in an all-responsible unity! What are petty doctrinal wranglings compared with this? Is not this the visible representation of the glory of God to the world that walks, and must walk by sight? A priest approached me with something like a smoking-cap in his hand, open to receive the contributions of the worshippers. As he chinked the money to attract attention, lest the praying devotees should be so wrapt in spirit as to forget that this was only the world after all, the sound sent such a rush of real history through my mind as swept me at once from my new heaven, and fortunately stranded me safe on the old earth just as the clock was indicating eight. Paying little heed to the generous obtrusion of a brush dipped in holy-water, which the faithful were expected to touch, I passed out into the air, and stood on the broad flight of steps, looking round me for my mysterious friend. Coming suddenly as I did from a blaze of lustre into the night, a few moments elapsed before I was able to separate from the obscurity a figure, like hers, leaning against one of the pillars. I approached it, and knew by the fascinating eye that was flashing in the darkness that it was she whom I sought. "Let us go," she said hurriedly, as soon as I was within whispering range of her; and, slipping her arm under mine, she pointed in the direction of the Place de la Concorde. I obeyed her signal, and we proceeded down the Rue Royale in perfect silence. It was impossible to restrain my curiosity to obtain a more perfect examination of her appearance; and, by the aid of the lights, I could see that her face was as the face of a beautiful demon! The features were exquisitely moulded- a very miniature of beauty. The complexion was dark, even for an Italian, yet the skin of a softness that seemed too delicate for any pressure save that of loving lips. But the eyes, with their wild lightning, spoke of tempest and horror within. They seemed her whole soul. Her lips were utterly expressionless. Nothing in the shape of any of her features indicated anything beyond mere material beauty; and the soul might as well have dweit unbetokened in cold and faultless marble, but for the flashing of her restless eye. How different from Stephanie! Though the eye was the prevailing power in each, what had the angel light of my darling's glance to do with the anticipated glare of unquenchable fire? Her figure was very slight and diminutive, and, as we walked together, the light pressure of her hand on my arm, and her noiseless motion by my side, were more like revelations of spirit-land than realities of earth and Paris. For the rest, she was dressed entirely in black; and, simple as was her attire, not a lady in the land could have better exemplified that mysterious adaptability of drapery which, in all the successive stages of investiture still continues to express the very form which it is meant to conceal. I was interrupted in my examination by her suddenly gazing up into my face. Perhaps mine wore an expression of admiration at the time, as hers was suddenly lit up with a gleam of pleasure; and over her hitherto inanimate features there flashed a sudden life. But it was only a momentary gleam-a meteor-flash in her inward night. The next moment I felt that a tremor was passing over her slender frame; and, when I again looked down on her, she put her |