CHAPTER V

CONTINUING FOR THE PROSECUTION

When Floriot swore that the story of the wreck of his life should never be told until Judgment Day he did not know that the only man to whom he could possibly have poured out his grief was alive, and he could not foresee that one day he would be so near to collapse that he would be forced to seek the relief of confession. It is rarely that high-strung, sensitive men can put into words such a story as that which Floriot was about to confide to his friend. That is why they call upon the gunsmith instead of the divorce court for aid in "cleansing their honor."

But now the need of counsel and comfort was strong upon him. Noel's refusal to agree with him, coming with the recollection of his owns wavering before his pleading wife, shook his faith in himself. He was willing to live again the terrible drama of his wrongs, and his grief to harden his bitter resolution and make a sure ally of Noel. The latter, when he was invited to sit down and listen, looked uncertainly at his friend's drawn face for a moment and then slowly settled back in the big chair, shading his eyes with his hands, until the other could barely tell whether they were open or closed. Floriot did not sit. He paced slowly up and down the room in silence as if preparing himself for the ordeal; and then he began.

"Noel, my friend," he said, in low steady tones, "there is no man--or woman--alive excepting you, to whom I could talk as I'm going to do. I have no one left in the world but you and my boy and, God knows, I need both of you--if there is a God," he added bitterly.

"You were about to defend her just now without question. You said that she was most to be pitied. I know why--you knew her before she was married. That was five years ago. Marriage develops people"--there was the bitter note again--"and she developed into a woman that you never knew and never dreamed could live in the same body with her. She had the happiness of a home and the life's happiness of two--and possibly three--persons in her hands. For the sake of a vicious intrigue which she now sees could never bring her anything but misery, she sacrificed her boy and me. And there is no consolation for me in the thought that she was caught in the ruins of the home that she pulled down!"

Noel stirred in his chair but did not speak. In spite of his breezy humor and love of light conversation he had been blessed with the divine power of silence.

"Her misery is no consolation to me," Floriot went on, his voice trembling slightly, "because I--I--old man, I still love her! And she loved me--for a year! Oh, Noel, that is the worst of the hell that I have lived in for two years! She loved me--for a year!"

He paused in his walk and wiped his forehead with his handkerchief. Noel watched him silently.

"But I am not weak enough nor cowardly enough to let that weigh with me. The boy must be protected. He must never know that she is alive--never know what she did." He seemed to be talking more to himself than to his friend. "If she came back there is no knowing how long she would stay!" He clenched his fists end cried bitterly:

"The man who said that a woman who was untrue to one man would be untrue to two or a dozen knew her and her kind!"

Noel was motionless; and, after a few more turns up and down the room, Floriot went on:

"I know that she must have loved me, or why should she have married me? If she wanted position she could have married men farther up in the world than I was--than I am now. If she wanted money she could have married a bigger bank account than mine. No! She loved me--for a year. You said she was not naturally wicked. She was nothing else. Her love is a passion that bums itself out in a year and she will probably have a dozen lovers before she dies!"

There was a restless movement in the chair that Floriot did not notice.

"Noel, you can't realize the happiness of my life until I--I--learned that I was a fool! For the first year I pitied the whole world because it couldn't be as utterly happy as I was. It didn't seem possible that a man could be more completely filled with joy and content. Then our boy was born, and after that it seemed that before I had been miserable by contrast!" Anguish choked him and he was silent until he recovered control.

"Before that time I thought that I had fully the average man's capacity for work and then it was doubled. I was in my office early and late--every moment that I could tear myself away from my home. I even worked in my study at night so that I could be near her and our baby and still be struggling for them. And my spirit was always with her--at her feet--God! How I worshipped her!" he groaned, his hands pressed to his face. Again there was a silence in which Noel could hear his friend's heavy breathing.

"Noel," he went on at last, "if I had not lost belief in everything but hell, I would believe that God Himself must have destroyed my happiness because He envied me, and could promise me none in heaven to equal that I had on earth! It was too great, too complete, for this life!

"I had set my eyes on the position I now hold as the first big step in my climb, and I was tireless in my work for it. I was as sure that I would win as I was of the sanctity of my home. Then came the scandal in the Finance Department."

"Did you hear anything about it? Do you remember? Some rather big men were convicted."

Noel nodded almost imperceptibly.

"There was one brilliant young fellow in the lot, of whom you may not have heard--thanks to my efforts. Lescelles--Albert Lescelles. I was morally certain before I had been working on the case three days that he was innocent. The older and dishonest cabal had carefully prepared a chain of circumstantial evidence that would lead to Lescelles. None of my associates agreed with me, and that made my work harder; but I finally proved my theory to be the sound one, and you remember the sensation it created when the net of lies was finally ripped and some of our most respected public officers were dragged into the scandal.

"It was a great triumph for me, though my part in it was not generally known beyond official circles. Lescelles knew it and tried to kill me with gratitude. The day that he was discharged we were both drunk with excitement, and I insisted that he should come home to dinner with me that evening."

Floriot paused again in his tramp to and fro to wipe his moist brow.

"It was a merry dinner the three of us had that night! Lescelles was a brilliant young fellow and I never knew Jacqueline to be wittier or more entertaining. For the few months preceding she had been a little more contained and reserved, but she blossomed out into her old self.

"After dinner I left them together and went to my study to attend to some urgent matters that were to come up the next day, and I can remember now how I smiled to hear the laughter coming up to me. If the wine had poisoned him!" he groaned....

"He came to see us often after that. He was alone in the world and seemed to have such a good time with us that I was always glad to have him. I could see that Jacqueline liked him and that was enough for me. He never tired of thanking me for what I had done for him, and his face would light with pleasure whenever he saw me.

"How was I to suspect anything? As his visits became more frequent and my work grew more absorbing, I encouraged him to escort Jacqueline to the races and the other places of amusement of which she was always so fond. I seldom had time to go with her. But in spite of this friendship Jacqueline grew more affectionate to me every day and pleaded with me constantly to go about with her and let my work take care of itself. I showed her time and again how impossible this was, and then she would pout until Lescelles came, and I would tell him to take her somewhere.

"What a blind fool I was!" he cried with a harsh laugh. "I can see it all now. And what an actress she was! The more guilty she grew with Lescelles the more affection she displayed for me to prevent any hint of suspicion.

"One day I told her that I would be unusually busy--would dine at a café and would not be home until very late. But, as it happened, when I returned to my office after dinner, I found there was nothing of importance and so I went home."

He stopped again and the other could see that he was fighting to retain his composure as he reached the climax of the story. Noel did not speak or stir, but the hand that had but rested on the arm of the chair gripped it tightly.

"Noel!" There was unspeakable anguish in his voice. "Noel! In the blackness of these two years I've suffered so that I've sometimes wished that I had not gone home that night until I was expected! It was raining a little and when I reached the front door I let myself in without making any noise. I wanted to surprise Jacqueline and----Oh, God! I did--I did--I did!" And with a sobbing groan he sank into a chair and bowed his head on his arms.

It was a long time before he could continue, and when he began again his voice was hoarse with the effort he made to speak calmly.

"My friend, God grant that you may never know what I felt when I opened the door of the room where they were and found them--together! For you will never know till you have been--as I was! I think the shock must have unbalanced my mind in the moment that I saw them as I opened the door, for I leaned against the door-post and stared at them as if paralyzed. They leaped up and were staring back at me, and their faces--! They probably thought that I was enjoying a moment of bitter joy before I killed them both, and do you know what was passing in my mind? I was thinking that a chair just behind her was too close to the divan, and that if she leaned back in it, it would probably strike and scar the furniture. My mind refused to grasp the horror that my eyes had seen.

"And then in some dim, vague way the idea worked into my benumbed brain--I must shock them! I turned away from the door and stumble down the hall toward my study. I didn't have any desire to kill them in any way--at that moment I didn't even think that I ought to do it. But it seemed to me that I must kill them, and with a revolver--in the same way that a man would go through a distasteful social function.

"I was some little time finding my revolver, but that did not seem at the time to make any difference. I came back with it in my hand, fully expecting to find them there, waiting to be shot--but the room was empty!

"And then the paralysis passed from my brain and I went mad with fury. I rushed through every room in the house, cursing them at the top of my voice. Fortunately, none of the servants was at home.

"Then I ran bareheaded out into the rain and dashed down the street aimlessly, in the hope that I had taken the right direction and might come up with them. Before I had gone a hundred feet I ran into someone and nearly shot him accidentally. He yelled with fright and ran. I had just sense enough to put the revolver in my outside coat pocket, and with my hand still gripping it, I hurried on."

He paused again to mop his brow, but his voice I grew firmer and higher as the story of his wrongs worked him from grief to rage.

"I don't remember much of the rest of that night. I was only conscious of the rain on my face and that I was walking always at top speed without any goal. Now I was along the quays, then I remember peering into a few cafés. It seems to me that I was stopped several times by gendarmes, who released me when I showed them my card, but I never heard of it afterward. I think I passed through the Bois once, but when dawn came I was in some vile street in Montmartre. And with the daylight came some sort of calm.

"I started back toward my house, and after a short walk found a cab. In that drive I became, as I thought, complete master of myself again. I know now that I was practically a somnambulist. I thought the whole thing over in an almost impersonal way, and decided I would devote the rest of my life to vengeance. I would hunt both of them down and kill them, and I would begin the hunt systematically that day.

"When I reached home my clothes were soaking wet and my collar and necktie were gone. I had probably tom them off and thrown them away. Rose met me in the hall, and it did not strike me as being at all strange that she asked no questions. I went up to my room, took a bath and dressed in the most faultless style that my wardrobe would permit. With the pistol in my pocket I started, out again, first sending word that I would not, probably, be in my office for several days.

"All that day I haunted the cafés and clubs that I knew Lescelles frequented. I did not intend to kill him there unless he saw me. My plan was to follow him to whatever place he had taken Jacqueline, and kill them together.

"No one had seen him and I went home early in the morning, bitterly disappointed. I sat in my study most of the day planning, imagining, devising the most delightful ways in which to commit the double murder, as I did not intend to use the revolver unless it became necessary. The way that struck me as being best would be to find them asleep and waken them with one hand on the throat of each. Those throats haunted me. A dozen times that night I felt the joy of sinking my fingers into them, slowly squeezing out their lives as they stared up at me with eyes pleading for mercy.

"I was setting out again that evening when I met Rose a few steps outside my door. I think she was waiting for me--and she had the baby in her arms." His voice wavered and sank as if the rest were too terrible to tell.

"Noel," he went on at last in a strained, uncertain voice, "up to that moment I had not felt the slightest grief. I was apparently rational, but I was as insane as any man that ever lived. Fury and the lust of vengeance left no room for any other emotion. And," the voice dropped with horror until it was barely more than a hoarse whisper, "for a fraction of a moment I felt an impulse to kill the baby because it was hers!" Again he stopped, unable to go on. Noel could not repress a shudder but his hand shaded his features and he made no other sign that he had heard. Then Floriot spoke again.

"Noel! Noel!" he half-sobbed. "I thought the next moment that I was dying and--if it had only been true! For then for the first time came the realization of what I had lost. I must have staggered into my room and locked the door before I fainted, for light was coming in the window when I recovered consciousness and I was lying across my bed. With consciousness came the suffering hat has not ceased for two years!...

"I will not try to tell you what the next few days were. I lost track of time. I could not eat or drink or sleep. My revolver lay on the table and a dozen times I picked it up to blow out my brains, but the thought of the baby stopped me. I wept because I couldn't do it. She was so completely part of me that I did not see how I could live any longer.

"Finally, I made up my mind that no matter how dreary and empty my life might be, I must; live for the boy's sake, and with that resolution I locked up the revolver, burned every letter and photograph of her that I had, I held them in the fire, one by one, until the flames burned my fingers! Then I came into the world again.

"I fled to work like a man running away from something and the work brought--success! Success!"--And he ended with a grating laugh.

Then he turned his white, drawn face and feverish eyes on the still figure in the chair.

"Now," he demanded, "my friend, which of us deserves the most pity?"