I was hastening out after her, when my mother signed to me to stop. She
read the words written on the paper. While they fell slowly, one by one,
from her lips, she pointed toward the open door.

"Light gray eyes, with a droop in the left eyelid. Flaxen hair, with a
gold-yellow streak in it. White arms, with a down upon them. Little,
lady's hand, with a rosy-red look about the finger nails. The Dream Woman,
Francis! The Dream Woman!"

Something darkened the parlor window as those words were spoken. I looked
sidelong at the shadow. Alicia Warlock had come back! She was peering in
at us over the low window blind. There was the fatal face which had first
looked at me in the bedroom of the lonely inn. There, resting on the
window blind, was the lovely little hand which had held the murderous
knife. I _had_ seen her before we met in the village. The Dream Woman! The
Dream Woman!


XI

I expect nobody to approve of what I have next to tell of myself. In three
weeks from the day when my mother had identified her with the Woman of the
Dream, I took Alicia Warlock to church, and made her my wife. I was a man
bewitched. Again and again I say it--I was a man bewitched!

During the interval before my marriage, our little household at the
cottage was broken up. My mother and my aunt quarreled. My mother,
believing in the Dream, entreated me to break off my engagement. My aunt,
believing in the cards, urged me to marry.

This difference of opinion produced a dispute between them, in the course
of which my aunt Chance--quite unconscious of having any superstitious
feelings of her own--actually set out the cards which prophesied
happiness to me in my married life, and asked my mother how anybody but "a
blinded heathen could be fule enough, after seeing those cairds, to
believe in a dream!" This was, naturally, too much for my mother's
patience; hard words followed on either side; Mrs. Chance returned in
dudgeon to her friends in Scotland. She left me a written statement of my
future prospects, as revealed by the cards, and with it an address at
which a post-office order would reach her. "The day was not that far off,"
she remarked, "when Francie might remember what he owed to his aunt
Chance, maintaining her ain unbleemished widowhood on thratty punds a
year."

Having refused to give her sanction to my marriage, my mother also refused
to be present at the wedding, or to visit Alicia afterwards. There was no
anger at the bottom of this conduct on her part. Believing as she did in
this Dream, she was simply in mortal fear of my wife. I understood this,
and I made allowances for her. Not a cross word passed between us. My one
happy remembrance now--though I did disobey her in the matter of my
marriage--is this: I loved and respected my good mother to the last.

As for my wife, she expressed no regret at the estrangement between her
mother-in-law and herself. By common consent, we never spoke on that
subject. We settled in the manufacturing town which I have already
mentioned, and we kept a lodging-house. My kind master, at my request,
granted me a lump sum in place of my annuity. This put us into a good
house, decently furnished. For a while things went well enough. I may
describe myself at this time of my life as a happy man.

My misfortunes began with a return of the complaint with which my mother
had already suffered. The doctor confessed, when I asked him the question,
that there was danger to be dreaded this time. Naturally, after hearing
this, I was a good deal away at the cottage. Naturally also, I left the
business of looking after the house, in my absence, to my wife. Little by
little, I found her beginning to alter toward me. While my back was
turned, she formed acquaintances with people of the doubtful and
dissipated sort. One day, I observed something in her manner which forced
the suspicion on me that she had been drinking. Before the week was out,
my suspicion was a certainty. From keeping company with drunkards, she had
grown to be a drunkard herself.

I did all a man could do to reclaim her. Quite useless! She had never
really returned the love I felt for her: I had no influence; I could do
nothing. My mother, hearing of this last worse trouble, resolved to try
what her influence could do. Ill as she was, I found her one day dressed
to go out.

"I am not long for this world, Francis," she said. "I shall not feel easy
on my deathbed, unless I have done my best to the last to make you happy.
I mean to put my own fears and my own feelings out of the question, and go
with you to your wife, and try what I can do to reclaim her. Take me home
with you, Francis. Let me do all I can to help my son, before it is too
late."

How could I disobey her? We took the railway to the town: it was only half
an hour's ride. By one o'clock in the afternoon we reached my house. It
was our dinner hour, and Alicia was in the kitchen. I was able to take my
mother quietly into the parlor and then to prepare my wife for the visit.
She had drunk but little at that early hour; and, luckily, the devil in
her was tamed for the time.

She followed me into the parlor, and the meeting passed off better than I
had ventured to forecast; with this one drawback, that my mother--though
she tried hard to control herself--shrank from looking my wife in the face
when she spoke to her. It was a relief to me when Alicia began to prepare
the table for dinner.

She laid the cloth, brought in the bread tray, and cut some slices for us
from the loaf. Then she returned to the kitchen. At that moment, while I
was still anxiously watching my mother, I was startled by seeing the same
ghastly change pass over her face which had altered it in the morning
when Alicia and she first met. Before I could say a word, she started up
with a look of horror.

"Take me back!--home, home again, Francis! Come with me, and never go back
more!"

I was afraid to ask for an explanation; I could only sign her to be
silent, and help her quickly to the door. As we passed the bread tray on
the table, she stopped and pointed to it.

"Did you see what your wife cut your bread with?" she asked.

"No, mother; I was not noticing. What was it?"

"Look!"

I did look. A new clasp knife, with a buckhorn handle, lay with the loaf
in the bread tray. I stretched out my hand to possess myself of it. At the
same moment, there was a noise in the kitchen, and my mother caught me by
the arm.

"The knife of the Dream! Francis, I'm faint with fear--take me away before
she comes back!"

I couldn't speak to comfort or even to answer her. Superior as I was to
superstition, the discovery of the knife staggered me. In silence, I
helped my mother out of the house; and took her home.

I held out my hand to say good-by. She tried to stop me.

"Don't go back, Francis! don't go back!".

"I must get the knife, mother. I must go back by the next train." I held
to that resolution. By the next train I went back.


XII

My wife had, of course, discovered our secret departure from the house.
She had been drinking. She was in a fury of passion. The dinner in the
kitchen was flung under the grate; the cloth was off the parlor table.
Where was the knife?

I was foolish enough to ask for it. She refused to give it to me. In the
course of the dispute between us which followed, I discovered that there
was a horrible story attached to the knife. It had been used in a
murder--years since--and had been so skillfully hidden that the
authorities had been unable to produce it at the trial. By help of some of
her disreputable friends, my wife had been able to purchase this relic of
a bygone crime. Her perverted nature set some horrid unacknowledged value
on the knife. Seeing there was no hope of getting it by fair means, I
determined to search for it, later in the day, in secret. The search was
unsuccessful. Night came on, and I left the house to walk about the
streets. You will understand what a broken man I was by this time, when I
tell you I was afraid to sleep in the same room with her!

Three weeks passed. Still she refused to give up the knife; and still that
fear of sleeping in the same room with her possessed me. I walked about at
night, or dozed in the parlor, or sat watching by my mother's bedside.
Before the end of the first week in the new month, the worst misfortune of
all befell me--my mother died. It wanted then but a short time to my
birthday. She had longed to live till that day. I was present at her
death. Her last words in this world were addressed to me. "Don't go back,
my son--don't go back!"

I was obliged to go back, if it was only to watch my wife. In the last
days of my mother's illness she had spitefully added a sting to my grief
by declaring she would assert her right to attend the funeral. In spite of
all that I could do or say, she held to her word. On the day appointed for
the burial she forced herself, inflamed and shameless with drink, into my
presence, and swore she would walk in the funeral procession to my
mother's grave.

This last insult--after all I had gone through already--was more than I
could endure. It maddened me. Try to make allowances for a man beside
himself. I struck her.

The instant the blow was dealt, I repented it. She crouched down, silent,
in a corner of the room, and eyed me steadily. It was a look that cooled
my hot blood in an instant. There was no time now to think of making
atonement. I could only risk the worst, and make sure of her till the
funeral was over. I locked her into her bedroom.

When I came back, after laying my mother in the grave, I found her sitting
by the bedside, very much altered in look and bearing, with a bundle on
her lap. She faced me quietly; she spoke with a curious stillness in her
voice--strangely and unnaturally composed in look and manner.

"No man has ever struck me yet," she said. "My husband shall have no
second opportunity. Set the door open, and let me go."

She passed me, and left the room. I saw her walk away up the street. Was
she gone for good?

All that night I watched and waited. No footstep came near the house. The
next night, overcome with fatigue, I lay down on the bed in my clothes,
with the door locked, the key on the table, and the candle burning. My
slumber was not disturbed. The third night, the fourth, the fifth, the
sixth, passed, and nothing happened. I lay down on the seventh night,
still suspicious of something happening; still in my clothes; still with
the door locked, the key on the table, and the candle burning.

My rest was disturbed. I awoke twice, without any sensation of uneasiness.
The third time, that horrid shivering of the night at the lonely inn, that
awful sinking pain at the heart, came back again, and roused me in an
instant. My eyes turned to the left-hand side of the bed. And there stood,
looking at me--

The Dream Woman again? No! My wife. The living woman, with the face of the
Dream--in the attitude of the Dream--the fair arm up; the knife clasped in
the delicate white hand.

I sprang upon her on the instant; but not quickly enough to stop her from
hiding the knife. Without a word from me, without a cry from her, I
pinioned her in a chair. With one hand I felt up her sleeve; and there,
where the Dream Woman had hidden the knife, my wife had hidden it--the
knife with the buckhorn handle, that looked like new.

What I felt when I made that discovery I could not realize at the time,
and I can't describe now. I took one steady look at her with the knife in
my hand. "You meant to kill me?" I said.

"Yes," she answered; "I meant to kill you." She crossed her arms over her
bosom, and stared me coolly in the face. "I shall do it yet," she said.
"With that knife."

I don't know what possessed me--I swear to you I am no coward; and yet I
acted like a coward. The horrors got hold of me. I couldn't look at her--I
couldn't speak to her. I left her (with the knife in my hand), and went
out into the night.

There was a bleak wind abroad, and the smell of rain was in the air. The
church clocks chimed the quarter as I walked beyond the last house in the
town. I asked the first policeman I met what hour that was, of which the
quarter past had just struck.

The man looked at his watch, and answered, "Two o'clock." Two in the
morning. What day of the month was this day that had just begun? I
reckoned it up from the date of my mother's funeral. The horrid parallel
between the dream and the reality was complete--it was my birthday!

Had I escaped, the mortal peril which the dream foretold? or had I only
received a second warning? As that doubt crossed my mind I stopped on my
way out of the town. The air had revived me--I felt in some degree like my
own self again. After a little thinking, I began to see plainly the
mistake I had made in leaving my wife free to go where she liked and to do
as she pleased.

I turned instantly, and made my way back to the house. It was still dark.
I had left the candle burning in the bedchamber. When I looked up to the
window of the room now, there was no light in it. I advanced to the house
door. On going away, I remembered to have closed it; on trying it now, I
found it open.

I waited outside, never losing sight of the house till daylight. Then I
ventured indoors--listened, and heard nothing--looked into the kitchen,
scullery, parlor, and found nothing--went up at last into the bedroom. It
was empty.

A picklock lay on the floor, which told me how she had gained entrance in
the night. And that was the one trace I could find of the Dream Woman.


XIII

I waited in the house till the town was astir for the day, and then I went
to consult a lawyer. In the confused state of my mind at the time, I had
one clear notion of what I meant to do: I was determined to sell my house
and leave the neighborhood. There were obstacles in the way which I had
not counted on. I was told I had creditors to satisfy before I could
leave--I, who had given my wife the money to pay my bills regularly every
week! Inquiry showed that she had embezzled every farthing of the money I
had intrusted to her. I had no choice but to pay over again.

Placed in this awkward position, my first duty was to set things right,
with the help of my lawyer. During my forced sojourn in the town I did two
foolish things. And, as a consequence that followed, I heard once more,
and heard for the last time, of my wife.

In the first place, having got possession of the knife, I was rash enough
to keep it in my pocket. In the second place, having something of
importance to say to my lawyer, at a late hour of the evening, I went to
his house after dark--alone and on foot. I got there safely enough.
Returning, I was seized on from behind by two men, dragged down a passage
and robbed--not only of the little money I had about me, but also of the
knife. It was the lawyer's opinion (as it was mine) that the thieves were
among the disreputable acquaintances formed by my wife, and that they had
attacked me at her instigation. To confirm this view I received a letter
the next day, without date or address, written in Alicia's hand. The first
line informed me that the knife was back again in her possession. The
second line reminded me of the day when I struck her. The third line
warned me that she would wash out the stain of that blow in my blood, and
repeated the words, "I shall do it with the knife!"

These things happened a year ago. The law laid hands on the men who had
robbed me; but from that time to this, the law has failed completely to
find a trace of my wife.

My story is told. When I had paid the creditors and paid the legal
expenses, I had barely five pounds left out of the sale of my house; and I
had the world to begin over again. Some months since--drifting here and
there--I found my way to Underbridge. The landlord of the inn had known
something of my father's family in times past. He gave me (all he had to
give) my food, and shelter in the yard. Except on market days, there is
nothing to do. In the coming winter the inn is to be shut up, and I shall
have to shift for myself. My old master would help me if I applied to
him--but I don't like to apply: he has done more for me already than I
deserve. Besides, in another year who knows but my troubles may all be at
an end? Next winter will bring me nigh to my next birthday, and my next
birthday may be the day of my death. Yes! it's true I sat up all last
night; and I heard two in the morning strike: and nothing happened. Still,
allowing for that, the time to come is a time I don't trust. My wife has
got the knife--my wife is looking for me. I am above superstition, mind! I
don't say I believe in dreams; I only say, Alicia Warlock is looking for
me. It is possible I may be wrong. It is possible I may be right. Who can
tell?




THE THIRD NARRATIVE




THE STORY CONTINUED BY PERCY FAIRBANK


XIV

We took leave of Francis Raven at the door of Farleigh Hall, with the
understanding that he might expect to hear from us again.

The same night Mrs. Fairbank and I had a discussion in the sanctuary of
our own room. The topic was "The Hostler's Story"; and the question in
dispute between us turned on the measure of charitable duty that we owed
to the hostler himself.

The view I took of the man's narrative was of the purely matter-of-fact
kind. Francis Raven had, in my opinion, brooded over the misty connection
between his strange dream and his vile wife, until his mind was in a state
of partial delusion on that subject. I was quite willing to help him with
a trifle of money, and to recommend him to the kindness of my lawyer, if
he was really in any danger and wanted advice. There my idea of my duty
toward this afflicted person began and ended.

Confronted with this sensible view of the matter, Mrs. Fairbank's romantic
temperament rushed, as usual, into extremes. "I should no more think of
losing sight of Francis Raven when his next birthday comes round," says my
wife, "than I should think of laying down a good story with the last
chapters unread. I am positively determined, Percy, to take him back with
us when we return to France, in the capacity of groom. What does one man
more or less among the horses matter to people as rich as we are?" In this
strain the partner of my joys and sorrows ran on, perfectly impenetrable
to everything that I could say on the side of common sense. Need I tell my
married brethren how it ended? Of course I allowed my wife to irritate me,
and spoke to her sharply.

Of course my wife turned her face away indignantly on the conjugal pillow,
and burst into tears. Of course upon that, "Mr." made his excuses, and
"Mrs." had her own way.

Before the week was out we rode over to Underbridge, and duly offered to
Francis Raven a place in our service as supernumerary groom.

At first the poor fellow seemed hardly able to realize his own
extraordinary good fortune. Recovering himself, he expressed his gratitude
modestly and becomingly. Mrs. Fairbank's ready sympathies overflowed, as
usual, at her lips. She talked to him about our home in France, as if the
worn, gray-headed hostler had been a child. "Such a dear old house,
Francis; and such pretty gardens! Stables! Stables ten times as big as
your stables here--quite a choice of rooms for you. You must learn the
name of our house--Maison Rouge. Our nearest town is Metz. We are within a
walk of the beautiful River Moselle. And when we want a change we have
only to take the railway to the frontier, and find ourselves in Germany."

Listening, so far, with a very bewildered face, Francis started and
changed color when my wife reached the end of her last sentence.
"Germany?" he repeated.

"Yes. Does Germany remind you of anything?"

The hostler's eyes looked down sadly on the ground. "Germany reminds me of
my wife," he replied.

"Indeed! How?"

"She once told me she had lived in Germany--long before I knew her--in the
time when she was a young girl."

"Was she living with relations or friends?"

"She was living as governess in a foreign family."

"In what part of Germany?"

"I don't remember, ma'am. I doubt if she told me."

"Did she tell you the name of the family?"

"Yes, ma'am. It was a foreign name, and it has slipped my memory long
since. The head of the family was a wine grower in a large way of
business--I remember that."

"Did you hear what sort of wine he grew? There are wine growers in our
neighborhood. Was it Moselle wine?"

"I couldn't say, ma'am, I doubt if I ever heard."

There the conversation dropped. We engaged to communicate with Francis
Raven before we left England, and took our leave. I had made arrangements
to pay our round of visits to English friends, and to return to Maison
Rouge in the summer. On the eve of departure, certain difficulties in
connection with the management of some landed property of mine in Ireland
obliged us to alter our plans. Instead of getting back to our house in
France in the Summer, we only returned a week or two before Christmas.
Francis Raven accompanied us, and was duly established, in the nominal
capacity of stable keeper, among the servants at Maison Rouge.

Before long, some of the objections to taking him into our employment,
which I had foreseen and had vainly mentioned to my wife, forced
themselves on our attention in no very agreeable form. Francis Raven
failed (as I had feared he would) to get on smoothly with his
fellow-servants They were all French; and not one of them understood
English. Francis, on his side, was equally ignorant of French. His
reserved manners, his melancholy temperament, his solitary ways--all told
against him. Our servants called him "the English Bear." He grew widely
known in the neighborhood under his nickname. Quarrels took place, ending
once or twice in blows. It became plain, even to Mrs. Fairbank herself,
that some wise change must be made. While we were still considering what
the change was to be, the unfortunate hostler was thrown on our hands for
some time to come by an accident in the stables. Still pursued by his
proverbial ill-luck, the poor wretch's leg was broken by a kick from a
horse.

He was attended to by our own surgeon, in his comfortable bedroom at the
stables. As the date of his birthday drew near, he was still confined to
his bed.

Physically speaking, he was doing very well. Morally speaking, the surgeon
was not satisfied. Francis Raven was suffering under some mysterious
mental disturbance, which interfered seriously with his rest at night.
Hearing this, I thought it my duty to tell the medical attendant what was
preying on the patient's mind. As a practical man, he shared my opinion
that the hostler was in a state of delusion on the subject of his Wife and
his Dream. "Curable delusion, in my opinion," the surgeon added, "if the
experiment could be fairly tried."

"How can it be tried?" I asked. Instead of replying, the surgeon put a
question to me, on his side.

"Do you happen to know," he said, "that this year is Leap Year?"

"Mrs. Fairbank reminded me of it yesterday," I answered. "Otherwise I
might _not_ have known it."

"Do you think Francis Raven knows that this year is Leap Year?"

(I began to see dimly what my friend was driving at.)

"It depends," I answered, "on whether he has got an English almanac.
Suppose he has _not_ got the almanac--what then?"

"In that case," pursued the surgeon, "Francis Raven is innocent of all
suspicion that there is a twenty-ninth day in February this year. As a
necessary consequence--what will he do? He will anticipate the appearance
of the Woman with the Knife, at two in the morning of the twenty-ninth of
February, instead of the first of March. Let him suffer all his
superstitious terrors on the wrong day. Leave him, on the day that is
really his birthday, to pass a perfectly quiet night, and to be as sound
asleep as other people at two in the morning. And then, when he wakes
comfortably in time for his breakfast, shame him out of his delusion by
telling him the truth."

I agreed to try the experiment. Leaving the surgeon to caution Mrs.
Fairbank on the subject of Leap Year, I went to the stables to see Mr.
Raven.


XV

The poor fellow was full of forebodings of the fate in store for him on
the ominous first of March. He eagerly entreated me to order one of the
men servants to sit up with him on the birthday morning. In granting his
request, I asked him to tell me on which day of the week his birthday
fell. He reckoned the days on his fingers; and proved his innocence of all
suspicion that it was Leap Year, by fixing on the twenty-ninth of
February, in the full persuasion that it was the first of March. Pledged
to try the surgeon's experiment, I left his error uncorrected, of course.
In so doing, I took my first step blindfold toward the last act in the
drama of the Hostler's Dream.

The next day brought with it a little domestic difficulty, which
indirectly and strangely associated itself with the coming end.

My wife received a letter, inviting us to assist in celebrating the
"Silver Wedding" of two worthy German neighbors of ours--Mr. and Mrs.
Beldheimer. Mr. Beldheimer was a large wine grower on the banks of the
Moselle. His house was situated on the frontier line of France and
Germany; and the distance from our house was sufficiently considerable to
make it necessary for us to sleep under our host's roof. Under these
circumstances, if we accepted the invitation, a comparison of dates showed
that we should be away from home on the morning of the first of March.
Mrs. Fairbank--holding to her absurd resolution to see with her own eyes
what might, or might not, happen to Francis Raven on his birthday--flatly
declined to leave Maison Rouge. "It's easy to send an excuse," she said,
in her off-hand manner.

I failed, for my part, to see any easy way out of the difficulty. The
celebration of a "Silver Wedding" in Germany is the celebration of
twenty-five years of happy married life; and the host's claim upon the
consideration of his friends on such an occasion is something in the
nature of a royal "command." After considerable discussion, finding my
wife's obstinacy invincible, and feeling that the absence of both of us
from the festival would certainly offend our friends, I left Mrs. Fairbank
to make her excuses for herself, and directed her to accept the invitation
so far as I was concerned. In so doing, I took my second step, blindfold,
toward the last act in the drama of the Hostler's Dream.

A week elapsed; the last days of February were at hand. Another domestic
difficulty happened; and, again, this event also proved to be strangely
associated with the coming end.

My head groom at the stables was one Joseph Rigobert. He was an
ill-conditioned fellow, inordinately vain of his personal appearance, and
by no means scrupulous in his conduct with women. His one virtue consisted
of his fondness for horses, and in the care he took of the animals under
his charge. In a word, he was too good a groom to be easily replaced, or
he would have quitted my service long since. On the occasion of which I am
now writing, he was reported to me by my steward as growing idle and
disorderly in his habits. The principal offense alleged against him was,
that he had been seen that day in the city of Metz, in the company of a
woman (supposed to be an Englishwoman), whom he was entertaining at a
tavern, when he ought to have been on his way back to Maison Rouge. The
man's defense was that "the lady" (as he called her) was an English
stranger, unacquainted with the ways of the place, and that he had only
shown her where she could obtain some refreshments at her own request. I
administered the necessary reprimand, without troubling myself to inquire
further into the matter. In failing to do this, I took my third step,
blindfold, toward the last act in the drama of the Hostler's Dream.

On the evening of the twenty-eighth, I informed the servants at the
stables that one of them must watch through the night by the Englishman's
bedside. Joseph Rigobert immediately volunteered for the duty--as a means,
no doubt, of winning his way back to my favor. I accepted his proposal.

That day the surgeon dined with us. Toward midnight he and I left the
smoking room, and repaired to Francis Raven's bedside. Rigobert was at his
post, with no very agreeable expression on his face. The Frenchman and the
Englishman had evidently not got on well together so far. Francis Raven
lay helpless on his bed, waiting silently for two in the morning and the
Dream Woman.

"I have come, Francis, to bid you good night," I said, cheerfully.
"To-morrow morning I shall look in at breakfast time, before I leave home
on a journey."

"Thank you for all your kindness, sir. You will not see me alive to-morrow
morning. She will find me this time. Mark my words--she will find me this
time."

"My good fellow! she couldn't find you in England. How in the world is she
to find you in France?"

"It's borne in on my mind, sir, that she will find me here. At two in the
morning on my birthday I shall see her again, and see her for the last
time."

"Do you mean that she will kill you?"

"I mean that, sir, she will kill me--with the knife."

"And with Rigobert in the room to protect you?"

"I am a doomed man. Fifty Rigoberts couldn't protect me."

"And you wanted somebody to sit up with you?"

"Mere weakness, sir. I don't like to be left alone on my deathbed."

I looked at the surgeon. If he had encouraged me, I should certainly, out
of sheer compassion, have confessed to Francis Raven the trick that we
were playing him. The surgeon held to his experiment; the surgeon's face
plainly said--"No."

The next day (the twenty-ninth of February) was the day of the "Silver
Wedding." The first thing in the morning, I went to Francis Raven's room.
Rigobert met me at the door.

"How has he passed the night?" I asked.

"Saying his prayers, and looking for ghosts," Rigobert answered. "A
lunatic asylum is the only proper place for him."

I approached the bedside. "Well, Francis, here you are, safe and sound, in
spite of what you said to me last night."

His eyes rested on mine with a vacant, wondering look.

"I don't understand it," he said.

"Did you see anything of your wife when the clock struck two?"

"No, sir."

"Did anything happen?"

"Nothing happened, sir."

"Doesn't _this_ satisfy you that you were wrong?"

His eyes still kept their vacant, wondering look. He only repeated the
words he had spoken already: "I don't understand it."

I made a last attempt to cheer him. "Come, come, Francis! keep a good
heart. You will be out of bed in a fortnight."

He shook his head on the pillow. "There's something wrong," he said. "I
don't expect you to believe me, sir. I only say there's something
wrong--and time will show it."

I left the room. Half an hour later I started for Mr. Beldheimer's house;
leaving the arrangements for the morning of the first of March in the
hands of the doctor and my wife.


XVI

The one thing which principally struck me when I joined the guests at the
"Silver Wedding" is also the one thing which it is necessary to mention
here. On this joyful occasion a noticeable lady present was out of
spirits. That lady was no other than the heroine of the festival, the
mistress of the house!

In the course of the evening I spoke to Mr. Beldheimer's eldest son on the
subject of his mother. As an old friend of the family, I had a claim on
his confidence which the young man willingly recognized.

"We have had a very disagreeable matter to deal with," he said; "and my
mother has not recovered the painful impression left on her mind. Many
years since, when my sisters were children, we had an English governess in
the house. She left us, as we then understood, to be married. We heard no
more of her until a week or ten days since, when my mother received a
letter, in which our ex-governess described herself as being in a
condition of great poverty and distress. After much hesitation she had
ventured--at the suggestion of a lady who had been kind to her--to write
to her former employers, and to appeal to their remembrance of old times.
You know my mother: she is not only the most kind-hearted, but the most
innocent of women--it is impossible to persuade her of the wickedness that
there is in the world. She replied by return of post, inviting the
governess to come here and see her, and inclosing the money for her
traveling expenses. When my father came home, and heard what had been
done, he wrote at once to his agent in London to make inquiries, inclosing
the address on the governess' letter. Before he could receive the agent's
reply the governess, arrived. She produced the worst possible impression
on his mind. The agent's letter, arriving a few days later, confirmed his
suspicions. Since we had lost sight of her, the woman had led a most
disreputable life. My father spoke to her privately: he offered--on
condition of her leaving the house--a sum of money to take her back to
England. If she refused, the alternative would be an appeal to the
authorities and a public scandal. She accepted the money, and left the
house. On her way back to England she appears to have stopped at Metz. You
will understand what sort of woman she is when I tell you that she was
seen the other day in a tavern, with your handsome groom, Joseph
Rigobert."

While my informant was relating these circumstances, my memory was at
work. I recalled what Francis Raven had vaguely told us of his wife's
experience in former days as governess in a German family. A suspicion of
the truth suddenly flashed across my mind. "What was the woman's name?" I
asked.

Mr. Beldheimer's son answered: "Alicia Warlock."

I had but one idea when I heard that reply--to get back to my house
without a moment's needless delay. It was then ten o'clock at night--the
last train to Metz had left long since. I arranged with my young
friend--after duly informing him of the circumstances--that I should go by
the first train in the morning, instead of staying to breakfast with the
other guests who slept in the house.

At intervals during the night I wondered uneasily how things were going on
at Maison Rouge. Again and again the same question occurred to me, on my
journey home in the early morning--the morning of the first of March. As
the event proved, but one person in my house knew what really happened at
the stables on Francis Raven's birthday. Let Joseph Rigobert take my place
as narrator, and tell the story of the end to You--as he told it, in times
past, to his lawyer and to Me.




FOURTH (AND LAST) NARRATIVE





STATEMENT OF JOSEPH RIGOBERT: ADDRESSED TO THE ADVOCATE WHO DEFENDED HIM
AT HIS TRIAL




Respected Sir,--On the twenty-seventh of February I was sent, on business
connected with the stables at Maison Rouge, to the city of Metz. On the
public promenade I met a magnificent woman. Complexion, blond.
Nationality, English. We mutually admired each other; we fell into
conversation. (She spoke French perfectly--with the English accent.) I
offered refreshment; my proposal was accepted. We had a long and
interesting interview--we discovered that we were made for each other. So
far, Who is to blame?

Is it my fault that I am a handsome man--universally agreeable as such to
the fair sex? Is it a criminal offense to be accessible to the amiable
weakness of love? I ask again, Who is to blame? Clearly, nature. Not the
beautiful lady--not my humble self.

To resume. The most hard-hearted person living will understand that two
beings made for each other could not possibly part without an appointment
to meet again.

I made arrangements for the accommodation of the lady in the village near
Maison Rouge. She consented to honor me with her company at supper, in my
apartment at the stables, on the night of the twenty-ninth. The time fixed
on was the time when the other servants were accustomed to retire--eleven
o'clock.

Among the grooms attached to the stables was an Englishman, laid up with a
broken leg. His name was Francis. His manners were repulsive; he was
ignorant of the French language. In the kitchen he went by the nickname of
the "English Bear." Strange to say, he was a great favorite with my master
and my mistress. They even humored certain superstitious terrors to which
this repulsive person was subject--terrors into the nature of which I, as
an advanced freethinker, never thought it worth my while to inquire.

On the evening of the twenty-eighth the Englishman, being a prey to the
terrors which I have mentioned, requested that one of his fellow servants
might sit up with him for that night only. The wish that he expressed was
backed by Mr. Fairbank's authority. Having already incurred my master's
displeasure--in what way, a proper sense of my own dignity forbids me to
relate--I volunteered to watch by the bedside of the English Bear. My
object was to satisfy Mr. Fairbank that I bore no malice, on my side,
after what had occurred between us. The wretched Englishman passed a night
of delirium. Not understanding his barbarous language, I could only gather
from his gesture that he was in deadly fear of some fancied apparition at
his bedside. From time to time, when this madman disturbed my slumbers, I
quieted him by swearing at him. This is the shortest and best way of
dealing with persons in his condition.

On the morning of the twenty-ninth, Mr. Fairbank left us on a journey.
Later in the day, to my unspeakable disgust, I found that I had not done
with the Englishman yet. In Mr. Fairbank's absence, Mrs. Fairbank took an
incomprehensible interest in the question of my delirious fellow servant's
repose at night. Again, one or the other of us was to watch at his
bedside, and report it, if anything happened. Expecting my fair friend to
supper, it was necessary to make sure that the other servants at the
stables would be safe in their beds that night. Accordingly, I volunteered
once more to be the man who kept watch. Mrs. Fairbank complimented me on
my humanity. I possess great command over my feelings. I accepted the
compliment without a blush.

Twice, after nightfall, my mistress and the doctor (the last staying in
the house in Mr. Fairbank's absence) came to make inquiries. Once _before_
the arrival of my fair friend--and once _after_. On the second occasion
(my apartment being next door to the Englishman's) I was obliged to hide
my charming guest in the harness room. She consented, with angelic
resignation, to immolate her dignity to the servile necessities of my
position. A more amiable woman (so far) I never met with!

After the second visit I was left free. It was then close on midnight. Up
to that time there was nothing in the behavior of the mad Englishman to
reward Mrs. Fairbank and the doctor for presenting themselves at his
bedside. He lay half awake, half asleep, with an odd wondering kind of
look in his face. My mistress at parting warned me to be particularly
watchful of him toward two in the morning. The doctor (in case anything
happened) left me a large hand bell to ring, which could easily be heard
at the house.

Restored to the society of my fair friend, I spread the supper table. A
pГўtГ©, a sausage, and a few bottles of generous Moselle wine, composed our
simple meal. When persons adore each other, the intoxicating illusion of
Love transforms the simplest meal into a banquet. With immeasurable
capacities for enjoyment, we sat down to table. At the very moment when I
placed my fascinating companion in a chair, the infamous Englishman in the
next room took that occasion, of all others, to become restless and noisy
once more. He struck with his stick on the floor; he cried out, in a
delirious access of terror, "Rigobert! Rigobert!"

The sound of that lamentable voice, suddenly assailing our ears, terrified
my fair friend. She lost all her charming color in an instant. "Good
heavens!" she exclaimed. "Who is that in the next room?"

"A mad Englishman."

"An Englishman?"

"Compose yourself, my angel. I will quiet him."

The lamentable voice called out on me again, "Rigobert! Rigobert!"

My fair friend caught me by the arm. "Who is he?" she cried. "What is his
name?"

Something in her face struck me as she put that question. A spasm of
jealousy shook me to the soul. "You know him?" I said.

"His name!" she vehemently repeated; "his name!"

"Francis," I answered.

"Francis--_what_?"

I shrugged my shoulders. I could neither remember nor pronounce the
barbarous English surname. I could only tell her it began with an "R."

She dropped back into the chair. Was she going to faint? No: she
recovered, and more than recovered, her lost color. Her eyes flashed
superbly. What did it mean? Profoundly as I understand women in general, I
was puzzled by _this_ woman!

"You know him?" I repeated.

She laughed at me. "What nonsense! How should I know him? Go and quiet the
wretch."

My looking-glass was near. One glance at it satisfied me that no woman in
her senses could prefer the Englishman to Me. I recovered my self-respect.
I hastened to the Englishman's bedside.

The moment I appeared he pointed eagerly toward my room. He overwhelmed me
with a torrent of words in his own language. I made out, from his gestures
and his looks, that he had, in some incomprehensible manner, discovered
the presence of my guest; and, stranger still, that he was scared by the
idea of a person in my room. I endeavored to compose him on the system
which I have already mentioned--that is to say, I swore at him in _my_
language. The result not proving satisfactory, I own I shook my fist in
his face, and left the bedchamber.

Returning to my fair friend, I found her walking backward and forward in a
state of excitement wonderful to behold. She had not waited for me to fill
her glass--she had begun the generous Moselle in my absence. I prevailed
on her with difficulty to place herself at the table. Nothing would induce
her to eat. "My appetite is gone," she said. "Give me wine."

The generous Moselle deserves its name--delicate on the palate, with
prodigious "body." The strength of this fine wine produced no stupefying
effect on my remarkable guest. It appeared to strengthen and exhilarate
her--nothing more. She always spoke in the same low tone, and always, turn
the conversation as I might, brought it back with the same dexterity to
the subject of the Englishman in the next room. In any other woman this
persistency would have offended me. My lovely guest was irresistible; I
answered her questions with the docility of a child. She possessed all the
amusing eccentricity of her nation. When I told her of the accident which
confined the Englishman to his bed, she sprang to her feet. An
extraordinary smile irradiated her countenance. She said, "Show me the
horse who broke the Englishman's leg! I must see that horse!" I took her
to the stables. She kissed the horse--on my word of honor, she kissed the
horse! That struck me. I said. "You _do_ know the man; and he has wronged
you in some way." No! she would not admit it, even then. "I kiss all
beautiful animals," she said. "Haven't I kissed _you_?" With that charming
explanation of her conduct, she ran back up the stairs. I only remained
behind to lock the stable door again. When I rejoined her, I made a
startling discovery. I caught her coming out of the Englishman's room.

"I was just going downstairs again to call you," she said. "The man in
there is getting noisy once more."

The mad Englishman's voice assailed our ears once again. "Rigobert!
Rigobert!"

He was a frightful object to look at when I saw him this time. His eyes
were staring wildly; the perspiration was pouring over his face. In a
panic of terror he clasped his hands; he pointed up to heaven. By every
sign and gesture that a man can make, he entreated me not to leave him
again. I really could not help smiling. The idea of my staying with _him_,
and leaving my fair friend by herself in the next room!

I turned to the door. When the mad wretch saw me leaving him he burst out
into a screech of despair--so shrill that I feared it might awaken the
sleeping servants.

My presence of mind in emergencies is proverbial among those who know me.
I tore open the cupboard in which he kept his linen--seized a handful of
his handkerchiefs--gagged him with one of them, and secured his hands with
the others. There was now no danger of his alarming the servants. After
tying the last knot, I looked up.

The door between the Englishman's room and mine was open. My fair friend
was standing on the threshold--watching _him_ as he lay helpless on the
bed; watching _me_ as I tied the last knot.

"What are you doing there?" I asked. "Why did you open the door?"

She stepped up to me, and whispered her answer in my ear, with her eyes
all the time upon the man on the bed:

"I heard him scream."

"Well?"

"I thought you had killed him."

I drew back from her in horror. The suspicion of me which her words
implied was sufficiently detestable in itself. But her manner when she
uttered the words was more revolting still. It so powerfully affected me
that I started back from that beautiful creature as I might have recoiled
from a reptile crawling over my flesh.

Before I had recovered myself sufficiently to reply, my nerves were
assailed by another shock. I suddenly heard my mistress's voice calling to
me from the stable yard.

There was no time to think--there was only time to act. The one thing
needed was to keep Mrs. Fairbank from ascending the stairs, and
discovering--not my lady guest only--but the Englishman also, gagged and
bound on his bed. I instantly hurried to the yard. As I ran down the
stairs I heard the stable clock strike the quarter to two in the morning.

My mistress was eager and agitated. The doctor (in attendance on her) was
smiling to himself, like a man amused at his own thoughts.

"Is Francis awake or asleep?" Mrs. Fairbank inquired.

"He has been a little restless, madam. But he is now quiet again. If he is
not disturbed" (I added those words to prevent her from ascending the
stairs), "he will soon fall off into a quiet sleep."

"Has nothing happened since I was here last?"

"Nothing, madam."

The doctor lifted his eyebrows with a comical look of distress. "Alas,
alas, Mrs. Fairbank!" he said. "Nothing has happened! The days of romance
are over!"

"It is not two o'clock yet," my mistress answered, a little irritably.

The smell of the stables was strong on the morning air. She put her
handkerchief to her nose and led the way out of the yard by the north
entrance--the entrance communicating with the gardens and the house. I was
ordered to follow her, along with the doctor. Once out of the smell of the
stables she began to question me again. She was unwilling to believe that
nothing had occurred in her absence. I invented the best answers I could
think of on the spur of the moment; and the doctor stood by laughing. So
the minutes passed till the clock struck two. Upon that, Mrs. Fairbank
announced her intention of personally visiting the Englishman in his room.
To my great relief, the doctor interfered to stop her from doing this.

"You have heard that Francis is just falling asleep," he said. "If you
enter his room you may disturb him. It is essential to the success of my
experiment that he should have a good night's rest, and that he should own
it himself, before I tell him the truth. I must request, madam, that you
will not disturb the man. Rigobert will ring the alarm bell if anything
happens."

My mistress was unwilling to yield. For the next five minutes, at least,
there was a warm discussion between the two. In the end Mrs. Fairbank was
obliged to give way--for the time. "In half an hour," she said, "Francis
will either be sound asleep, or awake again. In half an hour I shall come
back." She took the doctor's arm. They returned together to the house.

Left by myself, with half an hour before me, I resolved to take the
Englishwoman back to the village--then, returning to the stables, to
remove the gag and the bindings from Francis, and to let him screech to
his heart's content. What would his alarming the whole establishment
matter to _me_ after I had got rid of the compromising presence of my
guest?

Returning to the yard I heard a sound like the creaking of an open door on
its hinges. The gate of the north entrance I had just closed with my own
hand. I went round to the west entrance, at the back of the stables. It
opened on a field crossed by two footpaths in Mr. Fairbank's grounds. The
nearest footpath led to the village. The other led to the highroad and the
river.

Arriving at the west entrance I found the door open--swinging to and fro
slowly in the fresh morning breeze. I had myself locked and bolted that
door after admitting my fair friend at eleven o'clock. A vague dread of
something wrong stole its way into my mind. I hurried back to the stables.

I looked into my own room. It was empty. I went to the harness room. Not a
sign of the woman was there. I returned to my room, and approached the
door of the Englishman's bedchamber. Was it possible that she had remained
there during my absence? An unaccountable reluctance to open the door made
me hesitate, with my hand on the lock. I listened. There was not a sound
inside. I called softly. There was no answer. I drew back a step, still
hesitating. I noticed something dark moving slowly in the crevice between
the bottom of the door and the boarded floor. Snatching up the candle from
the table, I held it low, and looked. The dark, slowly moving object was a
stream of blood!

That horrid sight roused me. I opened the door. The Englishman lay on his
bed--alone in the room. He was stabbed in two places--in the throat and in
the heart. The weapon was left in the second wound. It was a knife of
English manufacture, with a handle of buckhorn as good as new.

I instantly gave the alarm. Witnesses can speak to what followed. It is
monstrous to suppose that I am guilty of the murder. I admit that I am
capable of committing follies: but I shrink from the bare idea of a crime.
Besides, I had no motive for killing the man. The woman murdered him in my
absence. The woman escaped by the west entrance while I was talking to my
mistress. I have no more to say. I swear to you what I have here written
is a true statement of all that happened on the morning of the first of
March.