Chapter 72

IN PRISON.

Gualtier was driven back to the villa, quite in ignorance as to his final destination. He was on the front seat, not bound at all, and there was one moment when there seemed a last chance of escape. It was at a time when Zillah had noticed Obed's wound, and began to question him about it with eager sympathy, while Obed tried to assure her that it was nothing. But Zillah would not be satisfied. She insisted on binding it up. She took her handkerchief, and, though she knew no more about such things than a child, prepared to do what she could. Obed soon saw her ignorance, and proceeded to give her directions. At last he took her handkerchief and tore it into several strips, with a laughing promise to tear his up some day for her. At this moment he was quite intent on Zillah, and she was absorbed in her work. It seemed to Gualtier that he was forgotten. The carriage, also, was ascending the hill. On each side were lofty trees overshadowing it, while beyond them lay a deep forest. All this Gualtier saw. Here was a last chance. Now or never might he escape. He watched for an instant. Obed was showing Zillah how to make the knot, when suddenly, with a quick leap, Gualtier sprang from the carriage seat out into the road. He stumbled and fell forward as his feet touched the road, but in an instant he recovered himself. The road-side was a steep bank, which ascended before him, covered with forests. Beyond this were the wild woods, with rocks and underbrush. If he could but get there he might find a refuge. Thither he fled with frantic haste. He rushed up the steep ascent, and in among the trees. For some distance the wood was open, and the trees rose on high at wide distances with no underbrush. Beyond that there was a denser growth. Through this he ran, stimulated by this new chance for life, and wishing that he had once again that revolver whose shots he had wasted.

As he leaped from the carriage Zillah had given a loud cry, and in another moment Obed had divined the cause and had sprung out in pursuit. Gualtier's start did not amount to more than a dozen paces. Obed also was armed. His chance of escape was therefore small indeed. Small as it was, however, it was enough to stimulate him, and he hurried onward, hearing at every pace the step of his pursuer. At length he reached the thicker part of the wood. He turned and doubled here like a fox. He did not know where to go, but sought to gain some slight advantage. He thought that he might find some place where for a few moments he might baffle his pursuer. This was the hope that now remained. Turning and doubling, therefore, and winding, he continued his flight; but the pursuer still maintained his pursuit, and as yet Gualtier had gained no advantage. In fact, he had lost ground gradually, and the underbrush had not delayed the progress of Obed. Gualtier felt this, but still strove to attain his purpose.

At last he saw a place where there was a steep precipice, thickly wooded up to its very margin and then descending abruptly. Toward this he fled, thinking that some place might show itself where he might descend, and where his pursuer might fear to follow. He bounded along in a winding direction, trying to conceal his purpose. At length he reached the edge of the precipice. At the point to which he had come the descent was abrupt, but ledges jutted out from the side of the cliff, and seemed to afford a chance for a descent to one who was bold enough to venture. There was no time for examination or for hesitation. Swiftly Gualtier ran on till he reached what seemed a favorable place, and then, throwing himself over, his feet caught a projecting ledge, and he reached down his hand to secure a grasp of a rock, so as to let himself down further. He looked down hurriedly so as to see the rock which he wished to grasp, when at that very instant his arm was seized, and a low, stern voice said:

"No go! up with you, you scoundrel! and thank the Lord I don't blow your brains out."

He was dragged up, flung on the ground, and his hands bound tightly behind him with Obed's handkerchief. After this he was dragged back to the carriage.

So failed his last hope.

"You couldn't have done it," said Obed. "I saw it all the time. I could have shot you fifty times, but, as I knew I was going to catch you, I didn't touch my pistol. I don't blame you for making the trial. I'd have done the same. But you see now that you have got your hands tied up by way of punishment. You can't say but that I've treated you on the square, any how."

Gualtier said nothing, but was taken back and put in the carriage once more. Zillah saw that his hands were tied, and felt more secure as to the result of this second capture.

The carriage now soon reached the villa. Here Obed handed out Zillah, and gave orders to the servants to make ready the brougham. He informed Zillah that he himself intended to take Gualtier to the city and hand him over to the authorities; and that she might make her mind easy as to his capture this time, for he would not allow even an attempt at an escape again.

During these preparations Obed stood waiting near the carriage, while Gualtier sat there with his hands bound. Gladly would he have availed himself of any other chance, however desperate, but there was none. His hands were bound, his enemy was watchful and armed. Under such circumstances there remained no hope. His last attempt had been made boldly and vigorously, but it had failed. So he gave himself up to despair.

The brougham was soon ready. Obed put Gualtier inside and got in himself after him. Then they drove away. Lord Chetwynde was expected that afternoon, and he might meet him on the road. He had made up his mind, however, not to recognize him, but to let him learn the great event from Zillah herself. After giving information to his sister as to the time at which he expected to be back he drove off; and soon the brougham with its occupants was moving swiftly onward out of the villa park, down the descending road, and on toward Florence.

Obed rode inside along with Gualtier all the way. During that drive his mind found full occupation for itself. The discovery and the capture of this man made a startling revelation of several most important yet utterly incomprehensible facts.

First, he recognized in his prisoner the man who had once visited him in New York for the purpose of gaining information about Lady Chetwynde. That information he had refused to give for certain reasons of his own, and had very unceremoniously dismissed the man that had sought it.

Secondly, this was the same man who in disguise had penetrated into his villa with all the air and manner of a spy, and who, by thus following him, showed that he must have been on his track for a long time.

Thirdly, this very man had turned out to be the long-sought Gualtier --the one who had betrayed Miss Lorton to a death from which she had only been saved by a mere accident. This was the man who had won the affections of Miss Lorton's friend, Hilda, who had induced her to share his villainy and his crime; the man who had for so long a time baffled the utmost efforts of the chief European police, yet who had at last been captured by himself.

Now about this man there were circumstances which to Obed were utterly incomprehensible.

It was conceivable that the man who had sought him in New York should track him to Florence. He might have an interest in this affair of Lady Chetwynde deep enough to inspire so pertinacious a search, so that the difficulty did not consist in this. The true difficulty lay in the fact that this man who had come to him first as the inquirer after Lady Chetwynde should now turn out to be the betrayer of Miss Lorton. And this made his present purpose the more unintelligible. What was it that had brought him across Obed's path? Was he still seeking after information about Lady Chetwynde? or, rather, was he seeking to renew his former attempt against Miss Lorton? To this latter supposition Obed felt himself drawn. It seemed to him most probable that Gualtier had somehow found out about the rescue of Zillah, and was now tracking her with the intention of consummating his work. This only could account for his twofold disguise, and his persistence in coming toward the villa after the punishment and the warning which he had once received. To think that he should run such a risk in order to prosecute his inquiry after Lady Chetwynde was absurd; but to suppose that he did it from certain designs on Miss Lorton seemed the most natural thing in the world for a villain in his position.

But behind all this there was something more; and this became to Obed the most difficult problem. It was easy to conjecture the present motive of this Gualtier--the motive which had drawn him out to the villa, to track them, to spy them, and to hover about the place; but there was another thing to which it was not so easy to give an answer. It was the startling fact of the identity between the man who had once come to him in order to investigate about Lady Chetwynde and the one who had betrayed Miss Lorton. How did it happen that the same man should have taken part in each? What should have led him to America for the purpose of questioning him about that long-forgotten tragedy, and afterward have made him the assassin which he was? It seemed as though this Gualtier was associated with the two chief tragedies of Obed's life, for this of Miss Lorton was certainly not inferior in its effect upon his feelings to that old one of Lady Chetwynde. Yet how was it that he had become thus associated with two such events as these? By what strange fatality had he and Obed thus found a common ground of interest in one another--a ground where the one was the assailant and betrayer, the other the savior and defender?

Such thoughts as these perplexed Obed, and he could not find an answer to them. An answer might certainly have been given by the man himself at his side, but Obed did not deign to question him; for, somehow, he felt that at the bottom of all this lay that strange secret which Miss Lorton had so studiously preserved. Part of it she had revealed, but only part, and that, too, in such general outlines that any discovery of the rest was impossible. Had Obed questioned Gualtier he might have discovered the truth; that is, if Gualtier would have answered his questions, which, of course, he would not have done. But Obed did not even try him. He asked nothing and said nothing during all that long drive. He saw that there was a secret, and he thought that if Miss Lorton chose to keep it he would not seek to find it out. He would rather leave it to her to reveal; and if she did not choose to reveal it, then he would not care to know it. She was the only one who could explain this away, and he thought that it would be, in some sort, an act of disloyalty to make any investigations on his own account with reference to her private affairs. Perhaps in this he might have been wrong; perhaps he might have strained too much his scruples, and yielded to a sense of honor which was too high wrought; yet, at the same time, such was his feeling, and he could not help it; and, after all, it was a noble feeling, which took its rise out of one of the purest and most chivalrous feelings of the heart.

While Obed was thus silent, thoughtful, and preoccupied, Gualtier was equally so, and at the same time there was a deep anxiety in his heart, to which the other was a stranger. To him, at that moment, situated as he was--a prisoner, under such circumstances, and in company with his watchful, grim, and relentless captor--there were many thoughts, all of which were bitter enough, and full of the darkest forebodings for the future. He, too, had made discoveries on that eventful day far darker, far more fearful, far more weighty, and far more terrible than any which Obed could have made--discoveries which filled him with horror and alarm for himself, and for another who was dearer than himself. The first of these was the great, the inexplicable fact that Zillah was really and truly alive. This at once accounted for the phantom which had appeared and stricken terror to him and to Hilda. Alive, but how? Had he not himself made assurance doubly sure? had he not with his own hands scuttled that schooner in which she was? had he not found her asleep in her cabin as he prepared to leave? had he not felt the water close up to the deck before he left the sinking yacht? had he not been in that boat on the dark midnight sea for a long time before the mutinous crew would consent to row away, so near to the vessel that any noise would have necessarily come to his ears? He had. How, then, was this? That yacht _must_ have gone down, and she _must_ have gone down with it--drowned in her cabin, suffocated there by the waters, without power to make one cry. So it must have been; but still here she was, alive, strong, vengeful. It could not be a case of resemblance; for this woman had penetrated his disguise, had recognized him, and at the recognition had started to her feet with wild exclamations, hounding on her companion to pursuit.

But in addition to this there was something still more strange. However she may have escaped--as she must have done--by what wonderful concurrence of circumstances had she met with Obed Chute, and entered into this close friendship with him? That man was familiar with a dark past, to which she was related in some strange way. How was it, then, that of all men in the world, this one had become her friend and protector?

But, even so, there was another mystery, so strange, so dark, so inexplicable, that the others seemed as nothing. For he had discovered in her the one whom Lord Chetwynde was seeking with such zeal, and such passion, and such unfailing constancy. How was it that Lord Chetwynde had found her, and where had he found her? and if he had found her, how had he known her? Was he not living with Hilda on terms at least of respect, and acting toward her as though he believed her to be his wife? What could be the cause that had brought him into connection with Obed Chute? Obed Chute had been the confidant of Lady Chetwynde, and knew the story of her shame. How was it that the son of such a mother could associate so habitually with the man who so well knew the history of that mother? If he were not acquainted with his mother's history himself, how could he have found out Obed Chute for his friend? and if he were acquainted with it, how could he have tolerated him as such? From either point of view the question was unanswerable, and the problem insoluble. Yet the fact remained that Lord Chetwynde was in the habit of making constant visits to the house of the man, the very man, to whom the history of Lord Chetwynde's mother was known as a story of shame, and who himself had been the chief agent in helping her, as it appeared, from the ruin to which she had flung herself.

Then, again, there arose the question as to what might be the position of Zillah. How did she happen to be living with Obed Chute? In what way was she living? How did it happen that Lord Chetwynde was carrying on a series of clandestine visits to a woman who was his own wife? Hilda's story of that passionate interview in the kiosk at the Villa Rinalci was now intelligible in one sense. It was no phantom that had terrified her, but the actual form of the living Zillah herself. Yet, making allowance for this, it became more unintelligible than ever. For what could have been the meaning of that scene? If Zillah were alive and his wife, why should Lord Chetwynde arrange so elaborately this interview in the kiosk? why should he be at once so passionate and so despairing? why should he vow his vows of eternal love, and at the same time bid her an eternal farewell? What was the meaning of his information about that "other I whom he hated worse than death," which Hilda had felt like a stroke of death? And why should Lord Chetwynde remain with his false wife, whom he hated, while his true wife, whom he loved, was so near? Why, in the name of Heaven, should he treat the one with even civility, and only visit the other by means of clandestine meetings and stolen interviews? Could such questions be answered at all? Were they not all mad together, or were he and Hilda madder than these? What could be the solution of these insoluble problems?

Such were the questions which filled Gualtier's mind as he drove along--questions which bewildered his brain, and to which he could not find an answer. At one time he tried to think that all these--Zillah. Lord Chetwynde, and Obed Chute--were in alliance; that they understood one another perfectly, and Hilda also; and that they were weaving together some deep plot which was to be her ruin. But this also seemed absurd. For, if they understood her, and knew who she was, why should they take any trouble to weave plots for her? That trouble they could spare themselves, and could arrest her at once whenever they chose. Why did Lord Chetwynde spare her if he knew all? Was it out of gratitude because she had saved him from death? Impossible; for he habitually neglected her now, and gave up all his thoughts and his time to Zillah. Was it possible that Zillah could have been saved, found out her husband, and was now inciting him to this strange course from some desire to get fresh proof against Hilda? No; that was impossible, for she must already have found out proof enough. The withdrawal of her money would of itself be enough to show Hilda's complicity; but her assumption of the role of Lady Chetwynde was too audacious for a true wife to bear unmoved or unconvinced.

But these things were inexplicable. He could not find even a plausible solution for such difficult problems. His excited brain reeled beneath the weight of puzzles so intricate and so complicated. He was compelled to dismiss them all from his thoughts. But though he dismissed such thoughts as these, there were others which gave occupation to his whole mind, and these at last excited his chief interest. First among these was the thought of Hilda. That very afternoon she might be coming out to carry out her plan of visiting Obed Chute, and confounding Lord Chetwynde. She would go out knowing nothing of that one whom she had doomed to death, but who was now there to confront her. She would go out, and for what? What? Could it be aught else than ruin, utter and absolute?

This was his last dark terror--all fear for himself had passed away. He feared for her, and for her alone. His love for her, and his devotion to her, which had been so often and so conspicuously tested, which had sent him on such tedious and such perilous enterprises, now, when all was over with himself, and not a ray of hope remained, made him rise above self and selfish considerations, and regard her prospects and her safety alone. The thought of her going out to the villa in utter ignorance of this new and terrific truth was intolerable. Yet what could he do? Nothing; and the fact of his own utter helplessness was maddening at such a time as this. He watched through the window, scanning all the passers-by with feverish anxiety, which was so manifest that at length Obed noticed it, and, supposing that he was meditating some new plan of escape nearer the city, sternly reprimanded him, and drew the blinds so that nothing could be seen. And thus, with close-drawn blinds and in silence, they drove toward the city; so that if Hilda had gone along the road, Gualtier could not have seen her.

At the same time Obed, in thus shutting out Gualtier from all sight of the outside world, shut out himself also. And though Lord Chetwynde may have passed on his way to the villa, yet he could not have been seen by the occupants of the brougham, nor could he have seen them.

At last they reached Florence, and Obed drove up to the prefecture of the police. There he made his statement, and Gualtier was handed over to the authorities, and put in prison on a charge of attempted murder committed in Italian waters.

Gualtier was put into a small chamber, with whitewashed walls, narrow iron-grated window, and solid oaken doors, in which there was a small round opening. There was an iron bed here and a chair. Gualtier flung himself upon the bed, and buried his head in his hands. He felt as if he had reached the verge of despair; yet,-even at that moment, it was not of himself that he thought. Far above his distress and his despair arose the power of his love, and thus turned his thoughts toward Hilda. Was she on her way out? Was she going to ruin? Or was she still at her hotel? She had not said for certain that she was going to the villa on that day; she said that she was going on that day or the next. Perhaps she had postponed it, and reserved her visit for the next. It seemed probable. If it were indeed so, then there was yet time to make an effort to save her. How could he make such an effort? How could he gain communication with her?

He rose from his bed, and watched through the opening of his door. There was a guard outside, who paced backward and forward solemnly. Gualtier's knowledge of human nature, and of Italian human nature in particular, suggested to him a way by which he might send a message. After some delay he signaled to the guard, who, after looking around cautiously, came up to his door.

"I want to send a message," said Gualtier, in the best Italian that he could muster. "It is very important. It is to a friend. I will pay well."

The guard looked interested.

"Where is your friend?" he asked.

"In the city. Can I have the message sent? I will pay two hundred piastres if I get an answer."

The guard hesitated.

"Wait," said he, after a few moments' thought; "I will see."

He went away, and was gone for about twenty minutes. When he returned he exchanged a glance of profound intelligence with Gualtier, and said:

"I think it can be done, signore."

At this Gaultier went back, and, tearing a leaf out of his pocket-book, penciled the following words:

"A miracle has happened. _She has come to life again_. It was no phantom, but _herself_ that appeared to you and me. I am in prison. Do not go out to the villa. Fly and save yourself."

Folding this up, he took it to the guard.

"If you bring back an answer to this," said he, "you shall have two hundred piastres. If you don't find the person, you shall have fifty."

Gualtier then told him the name and address of Hilda, and wrote it out for his information, charging him that it must be delivered to herself, and no other. The guard said that he could not go himself, but would send his younger brother. This satisfied Gualtier, and the guard again departed.

After some time he returned, and paced up and down as before. An hour passed. Gualtier became impatient. Then two hours elapsed.

He then beckoned to the guard.

"He is gone a long time," said he.

"Perhaps he is waiting," said the guard; "if it is possible he will deliver the message."

Gualtier waited.

Three hours passed.

The guard at last came back to his door. He handed back to Gualtier the letter which he had written.

"The lady," said he, "was not at home. She had gone away. My brother waited all this time, but she did not return. Shall he go back and wait?"

"No," said Gualtier.

He gave a hundred piastres to the guard. He took his note, and tore it up. All hope faded away within him, and despair, black and dark, settled down upon his soul.