Part 13

"Moving as if in obedience to some power external or at least foreign to herself, as a mechanical figure might move, steadily, deliberately, and yet blindly, Kate had advanced directly towards the narrow chasm, and when I first beheld her she already seemed balancing on the brink. Before I could cover half the distance that separated us, she had set foot on the long beam which spanned the abyss, and had begun to walk along it. By the time I reached the hither end, she was halfway over, stepping as unconsciously as if she were on an ordinary sidewalk, though the slightest deflection from a straight course would have sent her down a hundred feet to the jagged boulders below.

"Standing on the hither verge, every nerve so tensely strung that I seemed to hear the blood humming through my brain, I watched the passage of those small feet, which I had admired that morning as they peeped coquettishly from beneath her dress in the railway carriage--I watched them pass, step after step, along that awful beam. I suppose the transit must have been accomplished in less than a minute, but it seemed to me that I was watching it for hours. I uttered no sound, lest it might rouse her from her trance and insure the catastrophe that else she might escape; I did not attempt to overtake her, fearful lest the beam should fail to support our united weight. I saw her pass on, rigid, unbending, but sure of foot as a rope-dancer; and at last I saw her reach the opposite side, and stand once more on solid earth, preserved from death as it seemed by a miracle. I have no distinct recollection of how I followed; I only know that a few seconds afterwards I was standing beside her, with my arm round her waist.

"I led her forwards a few paces out of sight of the ravine, the mere thought of which now turned me sick, and brought her to a plot of soft turf, beneath a tree with low spreading branches. The trance was evidently passing away; her limbs no longer had that unnatural rigidity; her eyelids drooped heavily, and her jaw relaxed. A violent trembling seized upon her; she sank down on the turf as if all power of self-support had gone out of her. At that moment I fancied I heard a slight crackle among the shrubbery not far off; I looked quickly up, and saw--or thought I saw--a short ungainly figure obscurely stealing away through the underbush. Almost immediately he vanished amidst the trees, leaving me in doubt whether my eyesight had not after all played me false.

"As I turned again to Kate, she was sitting up against the trunk of the tree, the diamonds flashing at her throat and ears, and a puzzled questioning expression on her face.

"'What makes you look so strange?' she murmured. 'Where is your hat! How did we come here, Tom? I thought----'

"She stopped abruptly, and rose slowly to her feet. Her eyes were cast down shamefacedly, and she bit her lip. She lifted her hand to her throat, and felt the diamonds there. Then, with an apprehensive, almost a cowering glance, she peered stealthily round through the trees, as though expecting to see something that she dreaded. Finally she turned again, appealingly, to me, but said nothing.

"I thought I partly understood the significance of this dumb-show. She was subject to these somnambulistic trances, and was ashamed of them. She knew not, on this occasion, what extravagance she might have committed in the presence of me, her lover. She feared the construction I might put upon it, yet was too timid--or, it might be, too proud--to speak. But her misgiving did me injustice. Shocked and grieved though I was, I loved her more than ever.

"'You were faint, my dear, that's all,' I said, cheerfully and affectionately. 'I brought you under this tree, and now you're all right.'

"She shook her head, with a piteous smile. 'I know what has been the matter with me, Mr. Gainsborough,' she said, with an attempt at reserve and coldness in her tone. 'I had hoped I might have parted from you before you knew, but--it was not to be so! It is very good of you to pretend to ignore it, and I thank you--I thank you. Here,' she added, nervously unclasping the necklace and removing the earrings, 'I have worn these too long. Take them, please.'

"'Kate, you shall wear them forever!' cried I, passionately.

"'I must not begin yet, at all events,' she returned more firmly. 'Take them, please, or you will make me feel more humiliated than I do now.' She put them in my unwilling hands. 'And now we'll get our hats and go back to the hotel,' she continued, with a smile which was pathetic in its effort to seem indifferent and unconstrained. 'Where are they? Ah!'

"She had just caught sight of her white hat lying beside the stump on the farther side of the gorge. The suppressed scream and the start indicated that she now for the first time realised by what a perilous path she had come hither. She remained for a moment gazing at the beam with a sort of fascination; then, moving forward to the brink, looked down the sheer precipice to the rocks below.

"'I wish I had fallen!' she said, almost below her breath; 'or,' she added, after a short pause, in a tone still lower, but of intense emphasis, 'I wish he had!'

"'You wish I had?'

"'I did not know you were so near,' she answered, drawing back from the verge. 'No, no--not you! Come, we must walk round this place. Tell me,' she said, facing me suddenly, 'did you see anyone?'

"'I think not. I fancied I heard----'

"'We must get back to the hotel,' she interrupted excitedly; 'at least, I must get back. I don't like to be here. I wish you would leave me. I would rather say good-bye to you here than there.'

"'I never mean to say good-bye to you at all, Kate. If this is the trouble you hinted at, you overrate it entirely. Why, two people out of every seven are somnambulists. It is as common as to have black hair. Besides, you will outgrow it in a few years; it is only a nervous affection, which any doctor can cure.'

"'It is not that; you don't understand,' she said, with a sigh.

"'Whatever it is, I'm determined not to lose you. I shall tell your father, when I see him, that I love you, and that wherever he takes you I shall follow. No one can or shall keep us apart.'

"The resolution with which I spoke seemed to impress her somewhat. 'You can speak to him if you will. But, oh! it is no use. It cannot be; you don't understand. Let me go; good-bye. No, do not come with me; please do not! I have a reason for asking it. I will see you once more--to-morrow, before we leave. But let me go alone now, if you love me.'

"She went, walking quickly away through the wood. I watched her for a few moments, and then returned to the grass plot beneath the tree, and threw myself down there in a very dissatisfied frame of mind. The sun had set before I returned to the hotel.

V.

"I saw nothing more of Kate that day; but I came across Slurk several times, and there was a peculiar look on the fellow's countenance which made me renew my longing to chastise him. I was anxious to know whether Mr. Birchmore had returned; but, as I could not bring myself to make any inquiries of his valet, and did not care to let him see me asking anyone else, I was obliged to remain in ignorance. However, as I sat out under the trees at dusk, a tall figure, with a lighted cigar in his mouth, appeared in the doorway of the hotel, and, on my saluting him, he sauntered up to my table, and complied with my invitation to sit down.

"The waiter brought us coffee; and under its stimulus I ventured to introduce the subject which lay nearest my heart to Mr. Birchmore's notice. No doubt I put my best foot foremost, and spoke as eloquently as was consistent with my downright earnestness and sincerity. Mr. Birchmore heard me almost in silence, only giving evidence by an occasional word or interjection that he was giving me his attention. Once or twice, too, I was aware of his having given me one of those sharp icy glances for which he was remarkable. When I had spoken, he fingered the pointed beard on his chin meditatively, and puffed his cigar.

"'This is a very fair and honourable offer that you make, Gainsborough,' he said at length. 'I liked you before; I like you better now. You take it for granted, I suppose, that I'm pretty well off. There, you needn't say anything; I've no doubt of your disinterestedness; but these matters would have to be mentioned, sooner or later, if the affair went on. I say "if," because--I may as well tell you at once; it will save us all pain--because it can't go on: it must stop right here; and I can only regret, for both your sakes, that it has gone so far.'

"'Mr. Birchmore, I cannot take this for an answer. You have given me no reasons. If you want confirmation of my account of myself, I can----'

"'I want nothing of the sort; on the contrary, I feel complimented that you should accept _us_, not only without confirmation, but without question. But you can't marry my daughter, Gainsborough, much as I like you, and much as I daresay she does. When you are older, you will understand that men cannot always follow that course in the world which appears to them most desirable.'

"'However young or old I may be, Mr. Birchmore, I am old enough to know my own mind, and to require good reasons for changing it. If you have any such reasons, I wish you'd show your liking for me by telling me what they are.'

"'Do you remember a talk we once had in Paris, when you hinted that I should accompany you on your jaunt? I told you then that the past life of a man sometimes had a hold over his present, constraining his freedom, whether he would or no. And can't you imagine that those circumstances, however cogent they may be, or, very likely, just because they are so cogent, might be very inconvenient to talk about? To speak plainly, Gainsborough, I don't see how your loving my daughter obliges me to tell you all the secrets of my life.'

"'I don't want to know your secrets, sir; I wish to marry Miss Birchmore.'

"Mr. Birchmore laughed.

"'Well, you're a pretty determined wooer,' said he. 'I can't give my consent to the match, because--well, because I cannot; but if you won't take No for an answer, nor profit by the warning I hereby give you, I'll tell you what I will do. I will allow you yourself to discover and acknowledge the causes which make your marriage with Kate impossible. You must not blame me if the discovery gives you pain, and the acknowledgment causes you mortification. I have given you fair warning. And I will only add, sir, that the pain and mortification won't be all on your side. I could not give you a stronger pledge of my friendship and liking for you than in thus letting you find out what has hitherto been hidden from all the world. And I only demand one condition--that you promise, when you have made your discovery, and left us, never to mention to any human being what our secret was.'

"'I give that promise with pleasure. As to my leaving you of my own free will, that is--begging your pardon--impossible and absurd.'

"He laughed again, and shot another of his startling looks at me. 'Very well, young sir, I've nothing more to say. Come with us to the farmhouse to-morrow; there's plenty of room there, and they are used to being accommodating. Stay with us until you're satisfied, and then--don't forget your promise!'

"He rose as he finished speaking, and flung away the remains of his cigar.

"'Good-night!' he said, holding out his large well-shaped hand.

"'Good-night! and thanks for your confidence, which you will never regret, Mr. Birchmore.'

"'Qui vivra, verra!' was all his answer, as he walked away, with his hands in his coat-pockets and his singular short steps. He was an enigma sure enough, and yet my belief in him was as intuitive and inalienable as in Kate herself. His mysterious hints and warnings were powerless to disturb me: I trusted in the ability of us three combined to overthrow any antagonist. I sat late beneath the trees, smoking, and brooding over my passion, as young men will, and ever and anon glancing up at a certain window, behind the lamp-illumined curtain of which I had reason to suppose my darling was. Was she thinking of me now? Even as I asked myself this, and gazed upwards, a shadow fell upon the curtain; it was pushed aside, and the window was swung back on its hinges.

"With a throb of the heart I sprang to my feet and wafted a kiss from my finger-tips towards the face that peeped out upon me. Stay! was it Kate's face after all? The arms and shoulders now appeared, and the form leant upon the window-sill. A lucifer-match flashed, and I had the pleasure of beholding the sinister visage of Mr. Slurk lit up by a sulphurous gleam, as he leisurely lit his pipe and stared down at me.

"'Schöne gute Nacht, Herr Gainsborough!'

VI.

"We made a late start the next morning, and did not reach the farmhouse before four o'clock. I had little opportunity of speaking to Kate on the way; in fact, the presence of Slurk, who sat on the box of the vehicle, and once in a while threw a glance at us over his shoulder, irritated me to such a degree that more tender sentiments were temporarily pushed into the background. Kate herself, though she attempted to appear cheerful, betrayed signs of inward anxiety and nervousness; while Mr. Birchmore conversed with a volubility and discursiveness greater than I had ever remarked in him before.

"The farmhouse stood quite alone, on an unfrequented by-road, in a little angle of the hills. It was not exactly a picturesque building, with its four walls covered with rough plaster and pierced with dozens of small windows, and its enormous red-tiled roof, with those quaint narrow apertures, like half-opened eyes, disclosing a single pane of glass, which do duty as dormers. It stood flush with the road, as German houses are fond of doing; but behind was a large enclosed farmyard, roughly paved with round stones and well walled in. The front door, though rather pretentiously painted and ornamented, with some religious versicle or other written up on the lintel, was not used as a means of entrance or exit. It was, as I afterwards discovered, not only locked and bolted, but actually screwed up on the inside; and the only way of getting into the house was by a side door opening into the courtyard. As the courtyard itself was provided with a heavy gate, you will see that the farmhouse, close to the road though it was, was by no means so easy of ingress or egress as it appeared, supposing, of course, that it was the humour of the inmates to declare a state of siege. I mention these particulars merely by the way: they are common to three houses out of five in this region.

"The Birchmores' luggage had, it appeared, already been carried over from the hotel; but a man, in rough peasant's costume, who announced himself as the master of the house, now came out to take charge of my trunk. I was, or fancied myself (as you may have noticed), a quick judge of faces, and this peasant's face failed to commend itself to me. It was at once heavy and gloomy, while a scar at one corner of his mouth caused that feature to twist itself into a perfunctory grimace, grotesquely at variance with his normal expression. In person he was much above the common size, and to judge by the ease with which he slung my heavy trunk over his shoulder, he must have been as strong as Augustus the Stark himself, whose brazen statue domineers over the market-place in Dresden.

"'Guten Morgen, Herr Rudolph!' said Slurk, hailing this giant affably. The two seemed to be on some sort of terms of comradeship, having, perhaps, struck up an acquaintance during the previous negotiations for lodgings. I must say they looked to me to be a not ill-matched pair.

"We alighted, and were welcomed in with surly courtesy by Herr Rudolph. Kate, confessing to a headache, went at once to her room, whence she did not again emerge; Slurk disappeared into the kitchen regions with the landlord; Mr. Birchmore presently went out for a stroll before dinner: and I, finding myself thrown temporarily on my own resources, decided to make a virtue of my loneliness by writing some letters which had been long owing. I accordingly groped my way up the darksome stone staircase, and so along an eccentric passage to my room.

"I did not know then, nor could I, even now, accurately describe the arrangement of rooms in that farmhouse. There were at least three separate passages, not running at right angles to one another, but seeming to wander about irregularly, now and then turning awkward corners, descending or ascending short flights of steps, or eddying into a little _cul-de-sac_, with, perhaps, only a closet door at the end of it. The consequence was, it was nearly impossible to say whose room adjoined whose. It might be a long distance from one to another, measured along the passage, and yet they might actually be separated only by the thickness of a wall. Where the farmer and his family slept I know not, but I have reason to believe that all our party, including Slurk, were accommodated upon the same floor.

"On opening the door of my room, I found someone already there. This person was a comely young woman, the farmer's daughter evidently, busy in the benevolent occupation of putting things in order. She had moved my trunk beneath the window, she had put fresh water in the ewer, she had straightened out the slips of drugget on the rough-board floor, she had placed some flowers in the window, and she was now engaged in tucking a clean sheet on the bed. I said she was comely; on second looks she was better than that. She was positively pretty, with the innocent blonde prettiness of some German peasant-girls. Her fair hair, smoothed compactly over her small head, and wound up in a funny little pug behind, possessed a faint golden lustre; her eyes were of as pure and serene a blue as any I ever looked upon; her smooth cheeks, slightly browned by much sunshine which had rested on them, were tinged with healthful bloom; her mouth might have been smaller, but the full lips were well-shaped, and there were white even teeth behind them. Her figure, like that of most Saxon peasant-girls of her age, was robust and vigorous; she wore a simple bodice and skirt, and her feet and legs were bare. Altogether I thought her a very agreeable apparition.

"'Good-morning, honoured Herr Gainsborough,' she said gravely, in German, as I entered.

"'Good-morning, pretty maiden,' returned I gallantly. 'You seem to know my name, though I don't know yours: what is it?'

"'I am called Christina--Christina Rudolph. It is some time that I have known Herr Gainsborough's name,' she added.

"'Really! how comes that?' I asked, by no means displeased.

"'The honoured Herr has been kind to a relation of mine--a very near relation,' replied Christina, with the same gravity.

"'Have I? I'm glad to hear it! Was she as pretty as thou?' inquired I, venturing upon the familiar form of address.

"She blushed, and answered: 'It was not a woman--it was my brother.'

"'Oh, thy brother! And where did I meet thy brother?'

"'In Paris, Herr Gainsborough.'

"'In Paris! Rudolph! What, art thou the sister of Heinrich Rudolph, who lives in the Latin Quarter, and is considered the cleverest jeweller in the city?'

"'Yes, honoured Herr,' returned Christina, smiling for the first time, and showing her pretty teeth and a dimple on either cheek. 'My brother Heinrich cut and arranged the diamonds in the parure of the honoured Herr's mother.'

"'So he did, Christina, and he did it better than anyone except him could have done it. And so thou art really his sister! How did he tell thee of me?'

"'He wrote to me while you were still in Paris, and described the pretty stones, and told how Herr Gainsborough used to come and sit with him, and see him work, and talk a great deal with him.'

"'Yes, he was well worth talking with! And I remember now that he said he was born in this neighbourhood, and that he had a sister and a father living here. It was stupid of me not to have thought of that when I heard your name. Well, Christina, I'm afraid I wasn't of much use to him after all. I tried to get him customers, but I knew very few people in Paris; and the only person I did succeed in introducing to him--by the way! it was this gentleman who is with me now.'

"'Herr Birchmore; yes, my brother spoke also of him,' said Christina, her gravity returning. 'But he did not speak of the young lady, or of the servant.'

"'No, I believe they weren't with him at the time. I only met them myself since I came to Schandau.'

"'The young lady is Herr Birchmore's--wife?'

"'His wife? Dear heavens, no! His daughter, of course, Christina.'

"Christina said nothing, being occupied in neatly smoothing out the pillow, and laying the wadded counterpane over the sheet.

"'Will Herr Gainsborough stay with us long?' she asked, after a pause.

"'As long as Herr Birchmore does, I suppose,' said I carelessly.

"'And Herr Birchmore's daughter?' subjoined Christina, with a twinkle of mischief so demure that I could hardly be sure whether she meant it or not.

"'Thou art as clever as thy brother, Christina,' I laughed, colouring a little too however, I daresay, 'It is true I have not known them long, but--but people see a good deal of one another in travelling together.'

"'I have heard it said that travelling makes people acquainted with----' she paused, and looked down thoughtfully at her bare feet. Presently she lifted her blue eyes straight to mine and asked:

"'Herr Gainsborough has his diamonds with him?'

"'Undoubtedly! They are never away from me.'

"'In going about this place, the Herr should be cautious. Some of these hills and valleys are very lonely. There are spots, not far from here, where no one goes for sometimes many months.'

"'Well, I'll be very careful, Christinchen,' I rejoined laughing, and in truth not a little amused at the care my friends took of me. 'But thou must remember that no one in Germany, except Herr Birchmore, and his daughter, and thyself, knows that any such diamonds as these are in existence--much less that they are in my pocket!'

"Christina raised her finger to her lips, as if to caution me to speak lower. 'There is at least one other who knows--the man Slurk!' she said.

"'Well, perhaps he may,' I replied, somewhat struck by her observation; 'and as I see thou hast taken a dislike to the fellow, I will confide to thee that I consider him an atrocious brute. But brute though he is, there's no harm in him of _that_ kind. He is an old servant of Herr Birchmore, I believe, and would of course be dismissed at once if there were anything serious against him.'

"'Naturally!' was all Christina's answer; she made no pretence of arguing the point with me. 'Adieu, honoured sir!' she said at the door. But with her hand upon the latch she paused, turned round, and added rather confusedly:

"'Will Herr Gainsborough go on any expedition with his friends to-day?'

"'Why, I hardly think so, Christina.'

"'But to-morrow, perhaps?' she persisted, lifting her blue eyes to mine again.

"'Perhaps,' I admitted, with a smile.

"'Then--if he can trust me--would the Herr mind leaving the diamonds with me, until he comes back again?'

"'Nay, Christinchen, I cannot give them up, even to thee--and although I trust thee as much as thy brother, or myself. But thou mightst lose them--and if they are to be lost at all, I would rather the responsibility should be mine. Besides,' I continued, showing my revolver, 'I go always with this. But I thank thee all the same, Christinchen, and I would like to do something--to----'

"I stepped towards her: the fact is, I suppose I meant to kiss her. But her expression changed in a manner not encouraging to such an advance; she looked both grave and hurt, and I paused.

"'I was going to say--if thou wouldst like to see the diamonds, it would give me great pleasure to show them to thee.'