CHAPTER XLVIII

THE DOUBLE MURDER

Iris, concealed in the path, had followed Bertha and Arnold from the beginning of their conversation until they entered the châlet. The thick clumps of box and holly concealed the Bohemian from all eyes. It was she who had started the kid and made it dart forth in the path before Bertha. After having cautiously approached the pavilion, Iris closed and double-locked the door, and then, triumphant, went to seek De Brévannes, who was waiting for her at some distance.

If chance had not served the diabolical design of Iris in bringing Bertha and Arnold together, she would have had recourse to the ruse she had planned for inducing Bertha to go to the châlet under the pretext of meeting Pierre Raimond.

De Brévannes was armed with a double-barrelled gun, and dressed in a shooting costume. The selection of that weapon took away every idea of premeditation; and nothing could be apparently more natural than his conduct. On returning from his sport he had _surprised_ his wife and M. de Hansfeld shut up together in a lone pavilion at nightfall: he killed them. Who could say there was no guilt in their interview? No one. Who could say that the door was closed on the outside? No one.

In spite of his resolution, De Brévannes shuddered at the sight of Iris. The decisive moment had arrived. The Bohemian dissembled her ferocious joy, and said to him in a tone of deep grief,--

"I have followed them unsuspected, as I have done by your orders ever since they came here. They are talking in a low tone, and their lips almost touched. _He_ had his arm round your wife's waist; they suddenly entered the chalet, and then I closed the door, and came to you."

De Brévannes made no reply; there was nothing heard but the jarring click of the two locks of his gun as he primed them, and his hasty steps as they trampled on the dry leaves which bestrewed the avenue.

The night was dark. It was nearly a quarter of an hour's walk to the pavilion.

We should say at this moment that this man was as much excited to the murder by the fury of jealousy as the infamous and mad calculations of killing De Hansfeld that he might subsequently marry his widow. He believed Bertha and the prince to be guilty. At this moment De Brévannes was drunk with passion, and his temples throbbed with agony.

After a longish walk he saw at the end of the path the faint reflection thrown by the flames of the fire in the châlet through the window trellised with lead. He quickened his pace. The rain and hail fell in torrents.

As he approached the pavilion, he felt himself alternately bathed in a cold perspiration, or burning with all the fire of fever. At length he arrived, advancing slowly and with caution, and looked in at the green window.

By the expiring light of the fire he recognised the kind of white cloak, with a hood to it, that Bertha usually wore. Seated on a cushion, the young lady's back was to him. She was pressing her lips on the forehead of a man kneeling at her feet, with both his arms round her.

With a movement more rapid than thought, De Brévannes opened the door, entered, aimed his gun between the shoulders of his victim, and fired. She fell without a cry on the shoulders of the individual who embraced her.

"And now it is your turn, beau prince!--a double shot!" exclaimed De Brévannes, turning the barrel of his gun to the head of the man who was trying to rise.

At the moment he was about to fire the door of the second chamber of the châlet opened violently behind him. Some one whom he did not see turned aside the gun, and prevented him from committing a second crime. De Brévannes, too, looked round, and saw--De Hansfeld!

At this moment the man who had been kneeling before the female rose up, and rushing on De Brévannes, exclaimed,--"Assassin!"

"De Morville!" cried De Brévannes, recognising him by the light of the fire, which threw out a momentary blaze.

"You have murdered Madame de Hansfeld, assassin!" repeated De Morville.

De Brévannes retreated a step or two, still holding his gun in his hand, his hair bristling on his head with affright. He then rushed towards the female whose body had slid upon the ground, but whose head still reclined on the sofa. He recognised Paula.

When he saw his fatal mistake, which rendered him guilty of an assassination which nothing could justify,--when he found De Morville with the woman by whom he believed himself passionately beloved, a furious vertigo seized upon De Brévannes, who burst into a fit of savage laughter, and disappeared. The prince and De Morville, overwhelmed by this horrid scene, did not attempt to oppose his departure. A few seconds afterwards they heard a report of fire-arms. De Brévannes had shot himself.