Part 6

I observed a change in him. Something of his inner life was reflected in his face, the expression upon which was stern and moody. It softened a little when he shook me by the hand. I asked him if he was well, and he answered yes, but troubled by a strange presentiment of evil. He remarked that he was on the eve of momentous circumstances in his life which boded ill. I did not encourage him to indulge in this vein, but proceeded to relate as much of my interview with Mrs. Fortress as I deemed it wise and necessary to impart. He listened to me patiently and reflectively, and when I had finished, said:

"You have given me food for reflection. I have in you a confidence so perfect that I place myself unreservedly in your hands. I will be guided completely by your counsels; my confidence in myself is much shaken. What do you advise?"

"This is the study," I said, "which your father used to occupy?"

"It is," he replied; "and no person was allowed to enter it without his permission."

"After his death you searched in it for his private papers?"

"I did, and found very little to satisfy me. I hoped to discover something which would throw light upon the strange habits of our life and home. I was disappointed."

At my request he showed me the method by which the safe was opened, and the ingenuity of the device caused me to wonder that he had found nothing of importance within its walls. I was, however, convinced that there was in the study some clue to the mystery of Carew's boyhood's home--although I could not help admitting to myself that it needed but faith in Mrs. Fortress's statement to arrive at a correct solution. But I required further evidence, and I resolved to search for it.

"As you have placed yourself in my hands," I said, "you will not object to comply with two or three slight requests."

"There is little you can ask," was his response, "that I am not ready to accede to."

"Invite me to remain here as your guest for a few days."

"I do."

"Allow me to occupy this room alone until I retire to bed."

"Willingly."

"And promise me that you will not leave the house without first acquainting me of your intention."

"I promise."

A little while afterwards he left me to myself, saying that if I wished to see him I should find him with his wife. When he revealed to me the secret method by which the safe was worked, he did not close the panel; it remained open for my inspection, and I now made an examination of the interior without finding so much as a scrap of paper. This was as I expected; if Gabriel Carew's father left documents behind him, they must be searched for elsewhere. A careful study of the room led me to the conclusion that the massive writing-table was the most likely depository. The working of the safe was a process much too tedious for a man who wished for easy access to his papers; the writing-table offered the means of this, and I turned my attention to it. I do not wish to be prolix, and I therefore omit a description of the painfully careful examination of every point in this massive piece of furniture. Suffice it that, after at least an hour's search, my endeavours were rewarded. In one of the legs of the table on the inner side, quite undiscoverable without a light, I felt a depression just large enough to receive the ball of my thumb. I pressed hard, and although there was no immediate result, I fancied I detected a slight yielding, such as might occur when pressing upon a firm spring which had been disused for many years. I pressed harder, with all my strength, and I suddenly heard a sharp click. I found that this proceeded from the skirting of oak immediately above the leg I was manipulating. I had carefully examined the skirting all round the table without being able to discover any signs of a drawer. Now, however, one had started forward, and I had no difficulty in pulling it open. My heart beat more quickly as I drew from it a manuscript book and a few loose sheets of foolscap paper. The writing was large and plain; ink of such a quality had been used that the lapse of years had had but a slight effect upon it. In less than a minute I satisfied myself that the handwriting was that of Gabriel Carew's father.

The book first. I read it attentively through. It was a record of the circumstances of the married life of Gabriel Carew's parents, and such of it as bore upon Mrs. Fortress's statement confirmed its truth in every particular. Before I came to the end of this record I heard Gabriel Carew calling to me outside. I hastily concealed the book and papers, and went to the door.

"I would not come upon you unawares," he said, "but it has occurred to me that to leave you even partially in the dark would not be ingenuous, and might frustrate the end we both have in view. Before I was married I wrote what may be regarded as a history of my life up to that period. There are in it no reservations or concealments of any kind whatever. Not alone my outer but my inner life is laid bare therein; it is an absolutely faithful and truthful record. Since I wrote the last words of this personal history I have not glanced at it. I hand it now to you with one stipulation. So long as I am alive you will not reveal what I have written. Should I die before you I leave it to your discretion to deal with it as you please. Another thing. I ought to more frankly explain why I put you in possession of secrets which no man, unless under unusual and extraordinary circumstances, would impart to another. I have been all my life animated by a strong spirit of justice to others as well as to myself. By this inclusion of myself I mean that I should be as ready to condemn myself and to mete out to myself a penalty I may consciously or unconsciously have incurred as I would to any ordinary person. I am also animated by a sincere and devoted love for my wife and child. Were I asked to express the dearest wish of my heart I should answer, the wish for their happiness. But even this must not be purchased at the expense of a possible wrong to another human being. There exists between your son and my daughter an affection which has been allowed to ripen into love. Whether we have been wise time will prove. You have, equally with myself, the welfare of your child at heart. You have doubts; let them be fully resolved. I need say no more than that I am convinced that these feeble words of mine--which to strangers would be inexplicable--will help us to understand each other."

He left me alone once more, not waiting for me to speak, and I felt for him as deep a sentiment of pity and admiration as had ever been excited within me. He had also magnetised me into sharing his belief that momentous circumstances were about to occur in his life which would affect mine and my son's. It could not be otherwise in the light of the love which Reginald bore for Mildred.

I did not resume the perusal of the record made by Carew's father; I held my curiosity in check both as regards that and what was written on the two sheets of foolscap paper. Commencing to read the personal history which Gabriel Carew had composed, I became so fascinated by it that I could not leave it. Mrs. Carew sent to ask me to join them at dinner, but I begged to be excused, and wine and food were brought to me in the study. I remained there undisturbed, engrossed in Gabriel Carew's narrative, and it was late in the night when I reached the end. Then with feelings which it is impossible for me to describe, I turned to the record made by Carew's father, and finished it. No opinions were therein expressed; there was no indulgence in theory or speculation; it was a simple statement of fact. The conclusions arrived at by Carew's father were set down on the sheets of foolscap, which next claimed my attention. They ran as follows:--

XX.

"It is my intention, as an act of justice, before I die, to make my son Gabriel acquainted with the mystery of my married life. It is due to him and to myself that he should not pass his life in ignorance of the sad events and circumstances which shadowed his home. The journal which I have written, and in which he will find a record of facts, will put him in possession of the melancholy circumstances of his parents' lives. Without additional words from me he would understand the explanation I have given, but something more is necessary from me to him.

"When I married his mother I had no knowledge that there was in her blood an inherited disease. Had I suspected it I should not have married her. It would have been a transgression against the laws of God and man. To bring into the world human beings who are not responsible for their actions, and who are driven to crime by the promptings of a demoniac force born within them and growing stronger with their own growth to strong manhood, is to be the creator of a race of monsters. It matters not how fair and beautiful the outside may be; simply to think of the evil forces sleeping within, urging to sin and crime and cruelty, is sufficient to make a just man shudder. Madness assumes many phases, but not one more dreadful than the phase in which it presented itself in my wife's nature. Her conscious, waking life was a life of gentleness and kindness; her unconscious, sleeping life, but for the restraints I placed upon her, would have been a life of crime. The fault was not hers, but it fell to her lot to bear the burden of her curse. I, at least, by rendering her existence a misery to herself and those around her, kept her free from crime. One she committed before my eyes were opened, but its consequences were not fatal. To this hour she does not know that she attempted the life of a human being, and it is possible, because of my treatment of her, that she thinks of me as a monster of cruelty. It is for me to bear this burden, in addition to others which have come to me unaware. I do not bemoan, but my life might have been bright and honoured had I not married my wife. The one consolation I have is that I have endeavoured to perform my duty. My son Gabriel must perform his, though his heart bleed in its performance. Should the worst befall, all that I can do is to implore his forgiveness for having been the cause of his living. There have been times when I have debated with myself whether it would not be the more merciful course to put him out of the world, but I have never had the courage to execute the sentence which my sense of stern justice dictated. There is, however, one chance in life for him, although I most solemnly adjure him never to marry, never to link his life with that of an innocent being. If his heart is moved to love he must pluck the sentiment out by the roots, must fly from it as from a horror which blenches the cheek to contemplate. Our race must die with him; not one must live after him to perpetuate it. I lay this injunction most solemnly upon him; if he violate it he will be an incredible monster--as I should have been had I married his mother knowing what taint was in her blood. For his guidance I may say that I have consulted the most eminent authorities in Europe, and this is their verdict. Let him pay careful heed to it, for in my judgment it is incontrovertible.

"Reference to my journal will show him that the first visible manifestation of his mother's disease was exhibited about five months before he was born. We were then inhabiting a house in Switzerland, and on the night her fatal inheritance took active shape and form we had been entertaining a party of friends--one of whom was a foul villain--and my wife had been singing many times a Tyrolean air of which she was passionately fond. I copy the music of the air here, praying to God that my son may not be familiar with it."

(Here followed a few bars of music, which I had no doubt formed the air to which Mrs. Fortress had referred in her statement, and mention of which will also be found in the record of his life made by Gabriel Carew.)

"After the almost tragic events of that night my wife was continually singing this air; I have heard her hum it in her sleep. When my son was born she suckled the child--an error I deeply deplore. The physicians I consulted are of one opinion. If my son Gabriel inherits in its worst form his mother's disease, the ghost of this air will haunt him from time to time. It may not be so clear to his senses that he could sing it aloud, but he would indubitably recognise it if he heard it by accident. It is for a test that I copy the music; it is for my son to apply it. Should the air be entirely unfamiliar to him, should it fail to recall any sensations through which he has passed, the inheritance transmitted to him by his mother--if it ever assume practical shape--will exhibit itself in a milder and less ruthless form. The physicians aver that at some time or other, if Gabriel live long, some such manifestation will most surely take place, and that if it occur in its worst phase, the key-note to the occurrence may be found in the affections.

"This is as much as I can at present find strength to set down. I shall take an opportunity to confer with my son upon this gloomy matter, but I have a reluctance to approach the subject personally with him during the lifetime of his mother. It will need an almost superhuman courage on my part to speak of such a matter to my own son, but I must nerve my soul to the task. If he reproach me, if he curse me, I must bear it humbly. Once more I implore his forgiveness."

XXI.

The papers lay before me, and I was still under the spell of the fatal revelation when the clock struck two. The chiming of the hour awoke me as it were, and my mind became busy with thought of my own concerns. Reginald's doom was pronounced. Never must he and Gabriel Carew's daughter be allowed to wed. Death were preferable.

The house was very still; for hours I had not heard a sound, even the chiming of the clock falling dead upon my ears, so engrossed had I been in the papers I had perused. But now, surely, outside the room I heard a sound of soft footsteps--very, very soft--as of some one creeping cautiously along. I do not know why, when I opened the study door, I should do so quietly and stealthily, in imitation of the caution displayed by the person in the passage; but I did so. The moment, if not propitious, was well timed. As I opened the door Gabriel Carew reached it. He was completely dressed; his eyes were open; upon his face was an expression of watchfulness so earnest, so intent, so thorough, that it was clear to me that his mental powers were on the alert, and were dictating and controlling his movements. In his hand he held a dagger.

His eyes shone upon me, and had he been awake he could not have failed to recognise me, and would surely have spoken. But he made no sign. He paused for scarce an instant, and passed on, brushing my sleeve as he crossed me. Here before me was the fatal proof of the working of his unhappy inheritance.

My first impulse was to follow him, for the dagger in his hand boded danger; and I should have done so had it not been for another occurrence almost as startling.

With a loose morning gown thrown over her, Mrs. Carew glided to my side, and put her hand upon my arm. Her feet were bare, there was a distressful look in her eyes, she was trembling like an aspen. So pallid was her face and her lips were quivering so convulsively, that I feared she was about to faint; but an inward strength sustained her.

"You saw him?" she said.

"Yes," I answered, and then said "Hush! Draw aside."

He was returning. The open door of the study, and the lights within, had produced an impression upon him, and were evidently the cause of his return. He entered the study, and traversed it, examining every corner to convince himself that the person upon whom his mind was intent was not in the room. Satisfied with the result of his search, he left the room slowly and walked onward to the stairs which led to the front door of the house.

"I must follow him--I must follow him," murmured Mrs. Carew.

I restrained her. "You are not in a fit state," I said. "Let me do so in your place."

"Yes," she said, "it will be best, perhaps. You are a man, and have a man's strength. How can I thank you? Go--quickly, quickly!"

"A moment," I said, my head inclined from her; I was listening to the sounds of Carew's movements; "he has not yet reached the lower door. There are bolts to draw aside, locks to unfasten, a chain to set loose. What do you fear?"

"If he and Emilius meet there will be murder done!" She spoke rapidly and feverishly; it was no time for evasion or disguise. "Since Mr. Carew left you in the study," she said, "he has been greatly excited. The gardener brought us news of Emilius. He has been seen prowling about the grounds and examining the doors and windows of the house to discover a means of entering it when we were asleep."

"That is not the conduct of an honest man," I said, shaken by the information in the opinion I had formed of Emilius.

To my astonishment she cried, wringing her hands, "He is justified, he is justified! We have been denied to him, and he has come here with a fixed purpose, which he is bent upon carrying out."

"And you wish me to understand that he is justified in so doing?"

"Yes, I have said it, and it is true. Were you he, you would do as he is doing. Unhappy woman that I am! Do not ask me to explain. There is no time now. Hark! I hear the bolts of the door being drawn aside. Go down quickly, if you are sincere in your wish to serve me. For my sake, for Mildred's, for Reginald's!"

She was exhausted; she had not strength to utter another word. It may be that I was not merciful in addressing her after this evidence of exhaustion and prostration, but I was impelled to speak.

"I shall be down in time to prevent what you dread. You ask me to serve you for the sake of Mildred and Reginald. My son is all in all to me; he is my life, my happiness, and knowing what I now know I see before him nothing but misery. It is this fatherly concern for his sake that urges me to extract a promise from you that you will explain at a more fitting moment the meaning of your words. You will do so?"

She nodded, and I left her and went down the stairs. Carew had opened the door, and was peering out. It was a clear night; there was no moon, but the stars were shining. I was quite close to Carew, but he took no notice of me; he was not conscious of my presence. Had he left the house and closed the front door behind him, he would have been unable to re-enter it unobserved; the door could not be opened from the outside. With singular foresight he stooped and selected a stone, and fixed it at the bottom of the door so that it could not close itself of its own volition. Having thus secured an entrance, he went out into the open.

I followed him at a distance of a few yards, neither adopting special precautions to keep concealed, nor taking steps to obtrude myself on his notice. Had it not been that I was wound up to a pitch of intense excitement I might have risked a rude awakening of him, but I was impressed by a conviction that there was still something for me to learn which, were he awake, might be hidden from me. Therefore, I contented myself with watching his movements. It was a wonder to me that he made no mistakes in the paths he traversed, that he did not stumble or falter. He walked with absolute confidence and precision, avoiding low-hanging branches of trees which would have struck him in the face had he been unaware of their immediate vicinity. Nothing of the kind occurred; there was not the slightest obstruction that he did not intelligently avoid; he did not once have occasion to retrace his steps. And yet he was asleep to all intents and purposes but one--that upon which his mind was fixed. When I saw him two or three times pause, with a slight upraising of the dagger, which he clutched firmly in his hand, I knew what that purpose was--I knew that, had he seen Emilius, he would have leapt upon him and stabbed him to the heart, and that then, unconscious of the crime, he would have returned to his bed with an easy conscience. Strange indeed was the double life of this man--the life of sweetness, kindness, justice in his waking moments, of relentless, cruel purpose while he slept. In alliance with the proceedings of which I was at that time a witness, came to my mind the pronouncement of the skilled authorities whom Carew's father had consulted--that should the fatal inheritance transmitted to him take its worst form, the key-note might be found in the affections. It was demonstrated now. Emilius, his enemy, had found his way to his home; the safety and happiness of his wife and child were threatened; and he, prompted by his love for them, was on the watch to guard them, animated by a stern resolve to remove, by an unconscious crime, his enemy from his path. I thought of the tragic occurrences which had taken place in Nerac while he was courting the pure, the innocent maiden Lauretta, and I was weighed down by the reflection that justice had erred, and that the innocent had suffered for the guilty. It was a terrible thought, and it was strange that it did not inspire me with a horror of the man whose footsteps I was following. I felt for him nothing but compassion.

For quite an hour did Carew remain in the grounds searching for his foe without success. To all outward appearance only Carew and I were present. He saw no stranger, nor did I. On three occasions, however, he paused close to a copse where the undergrowth, more than man high, was thick. On each occasion he stood in a listening attitude, passing his left hand over his brow as though he were doubtful and perplexed, and on each occasion he moved away with lingering steps, not entirely convinced that he was not leaving danger behind him. The bright blade of his dagger shone in the light as he stood on the watch; there was something of the tiger in his bearing. Short would have been the shrift of his enemy had he made his presence known on any one of these occasions. A fierce, sure leap, a thrust, another and another if needed, and all would have been over.

At length the search was ended, at length Carew was satisfied of the safety of his beloved ones. He returned slowly to the house.

Had I been aware of his intention I should have slipped in before him, but I was not conscious of it until he stood by the door, and I a dozen yards in his rear. It was too late then for me to attempt to precede him. He stooped and removed the stone which he had fixed in the door to keep it free, stood upon the threshold for the briefest space, confronting me, and, with a sigh of relief, passed in and closed the door behind him. I heard the key slowly and softly turned, heard the bolts as slowly and softly pushed into their sockets, heard the chain put up. Then silence.

What was I to do? There was, within my knowledge, no other way into the house. To knock and arouse those within would have brought exposure upon me. There was nothing for me to do but to wait for daylight. Disconsolately I walked about the grounds, disturbed by the thought that I had left the study open, and the papers I had read loose upon the writing-table. I found myself by the copse at which Carew had three times paused in doubt, and was startled by the sudden emergence of a man from the undergrowth. By an inspiration I leapt at the truth.

"You are Emilius," I said.

"I am Emilius," was his reply.

XXII.