Chapter 19

It was indeed a terrible ordeal which he had to face. By a strange irony of fate, all his skilfully conceived plans were imperilled at the very moment when his success seemed absolutely certain. As he had foreseen, M. Moriaz was not at first inclined to consent to the marriage; but Antoinette soon won her father over, and when Count Larinski called at their charming villa at Cormeilles, on the outskirts of Paris, he had as warm a welcome as the most ardent of suitors could desire.

"We must introduce you, my dear Count, to all our friends," said M. Moriaz. "We are giving a party to-morrow evening for the purpose. Of course you will be able to attend?"

"Naturally," said Larinski, "I am looking forward with the greatest eagerness to making the acquaintance of all Antoinette's friends. The only thing I regret is that none of my old comrades in the great struggle against Russia can be at my side at the happiest moment of my life. Alas! many are working in fetters in the mines of Siberia, and the rest are scattered over the face of the globe."

_III.--Samuel Brohl Comes to Life_

But, though none of Count Larinski's friends was able to appear at Cormeilles, one of Samuel Brohl's old acquaintances came to the party.

On entering the drawing-room, he saw an old, ugly, sharp-faced woman, talking in a corner with Camille Langis. It was Princess Gulof. It seemed to him as if the four walls of the room were rocking to and fro, and that the floor was slipping from under his feet like the deck of a ship in a wild storm. By a great effort of will, he recovered himself.

"Never mind, Samuel Brohl," he said to himself. "Let us see the game through. After all she is very shortsighted, and you may have changed in the last four years."

Antoinette presented him to the Princess, who examined him with her little, blinking eyes, and smiled on him kindly and calmly.

"What luck! What amazing luck!" he thought. "She is now as blind as an owl. If only I can escape from talking to her, I'm safe."

Unfortunately, Antoinette asked him to take the Princess in to dinner. He offered her his arm, and led her to the table, in absolute silence. She, too, did not speak; but when they sat down, she began to talk gaily to the priest of the parish, who was sitting on her right. Her sight was so bad that she had to bend over her wineglasses to find the one she wanted. Seeing this, Samuel Brohl recovered his self-confidence.

"She can't have recognised me," he thought; "my voice, my accent, my bearing, everything has changed. Poland has entered into my blood. I am no longer Samuel, I am Larinski."

Boldly entering into the general conversation, he related with a melancholy grace a story of the Polish insurrection, shaking his lion-like mane of hair, and speaking with tears in his voice. It was impossible to be more of a Larinski than he was at that moment. When he finished, a murmur of admiration ran round the table.

"Although we are mortal enemies, Count," said the Princess Gulof, "allow me to congratulate you. I hear you have won the hand of Mlle. Moriaz."

"Mortal enemies?" he said, in a low, troubled voice. "Why are we mortal enemies; my dear Princess?"

"Because I am a Russian and you are a Pole," she replied. "But we shall not have time to quarrel. I am leaving for London at seven o'clock to-morrow morning. What is the date of your wedding?"

"If I dared hope that you would do me the honour to attend it," he said, skilfully evading answering her question, "I might put it off until your return from England."

"You are too kind," said the Princess. "I would not think of delaying the happy event to which Mile. Moriaz so eagerly looks forward. What a beautiful girl she is! I dare not ask you what is her fortune. You are, I can see, an idealist. You do not trouble yourself with matters of money. But oh, you poor idealists," she whispered, leaning over him with a friendly air, "you always come to grief in the end!"

"How is that?" he said with a smile.

"You dream with your eyes open, my dear Count Larinski, and your awakening is sometimes sudden and unpleasant."

Then, advancing her head towards her companion, her little eyes flaming like a viper's, she whispered: "Samuel Brohl, I knew you all along. Your dream has come to an end."

A cold sweat broke out on the forehead of the adventurer. Leaning over the Princess, his face convulsed with hatred, he murmured:

"Samuel Brohl is not the sort of man to put up with an injury. Some years ago, he received two letters from you. If ever he is attacked, he will publish them."

Rising up, he made her a low bow, and took leave of Mlle. Moriaz and her father, and left the house. At first, he was utterly downcast, and inclined to give up the game; but as he tramped back to Paris in the moonlight, his courage returned. He had two letters which the Princess had written to him when she was engaged in Paris on a political mission of great importance, and they contained some amazing indiscretions in regard to the private lives of several august personages.

"No," he said to himself, "she will think twice before she interferes in my affairs. I can ruin her as easily as she can ruin me."

As a matter of fact, Princess Gulof was unable to sleep all that night. She was torn between the desire for vengeance and the fear of reprisals.

_IV.--The Partnership is Dissolved_

The next morning, after breakfast, Mlle. Moriaz was surprised to receive a visit from Princess Gulof.

"I have come to see you about your marriage," said the Princess.

"You are very kind," replied Mlle. Moriaz, "but I do not understand...."

"You will understand in a minute," said the Princess. "There's a story I want to tell you, and I think you will find it interesting. Fourteen years ago I was passing through a village in Gallicia, and the bad weather forced me to put up at a dirty inn kept by a Jew called Brohl. This Jew had a son, Samuel, a youngster with strange green eyes and a handsome figure. Finding that he was an intelligent lad, I paid for him to study at the University, and later on, I kept him as my private secretary. But about four years ago Samuel Brohl ran off with all my jewellery."

"You were indeed badly rewarded for your kindness, Madame." interrupted Antoinette; "but I do not see what Samuel Brohl has to do with my marriage."

"I was going to tell you," said the Princess. "I had the pleasure of meeting him here last night. He has got on since I lost sight of him. He is not content with changing from a Jew into a Pole; he is now a great nobleman. He calls himself Count Abel Larinski, and he is engaged to be married to Mlle. Moriaz. She is now wearing a Persian bracelet he stole from me."

"Madame," cried Antoinette, her cheeks flushing with anger, "will you dare to tell Count Larinski, in my presence, that he is this Samuel Brohl you speak of?"

"I have no desire to do so," said the Princess. "Indeed, I want you to promise me never to tell him that it was I who showed him up. Wait! I have thought of something. The middle plate of my Persian bracelet used to open with a secret spring. Open yours and if you find my name there, well, you will know where it came from."

"Unless you are willing to repeat in the presence of myself and Count Larinski all that you have just said," exclaimed Antoinette haughtily, "there is only one thing I can promise you. I shall certainly never relate to the man to whom I have the honour to be betrothed, a single word of the silly, wicked slanders that you have uttered."

Princess Gulof rose up brusquely, and stood for a while looking at Antoinette in silence.

"So, you do not believe me," she said in an ironic tone, blinking her little eyes. "You are right. Old women, you know, seldom talk sense. Samuel Brohl never existed, and I had the pleasure of dining last night with the most authentic of all the Larinskis. Pardon me, and accept my best wishes for the life-long happiness of the Count and Countess."

Thereupon she made a mocking curtsey, and turned on her heels and disappeared.

"The woman is absolutely mad," said Antoinette. "Abel will be here in a few minutes, and he will tell me what is the matter with her. I supposed they quarrelled last night about Poland. Oh dear, what funny old women there are in the world!"

As she was waiting for her lover to appear, Camille Langis came to the house. Naturally, she was not desirous of talking with her rejected suitor at that moment, and she gave him a rather frigid welcome.

"I see you don't want me," said Camille sadly, turning away.

"Of course I want you," she said, touched by the feeling he showed. "You are my oldest and dearest friend."

For a few minutes, they sat talking together, and Camille noticed the strange bracelet on her wrist, and praised its curious design. Antoinette, struck by a sudden idea, took off the Persian ornament, and gave it to Camille, saying:

"One of these plates, I believe, opens by a secret spring. You are an engineer, can you find this spring for me?"

"The middle plate is hollow," said Langis, tapping it with a pen-knife, "the other two are solid gold. Oh, what a clumsy fool I am! I have broken it open."

"Is there any writing?" said Antoinette. "Let me look."

Yes, there was a long list of dates, and at the end of the dates were written: "Nothing, nothing, nothing, that is all. Anna Gulof."

Antoinette became deathly pale; something seemed to break in her head; she felt that if she did not speak, her mind would give way. Yes, she could trust Camille, but how should she begin? She felt that she was stifling, and could not draw in enough air to keep breathing.

"What is the matter with you, dear Antoinette?" said Camille, alarmed by her pallor and her staring eyes.

She began to speak in a low, confused and broken voice, and Camille at first could not understand what she was saying. But at last he did so, and his soul was then divided between an immense pity for the grief that overwhelmed her, and a ferocious joy at the thought of the utter rout of his successful rival. Suddenly a step was heard on the garden path.

"Here he is," said Antoinette. "No, stay in here. I will call you if I want you. In spite of all I have said I shall never believe that he has deceived me unless I read the lie in his very eyes."

Instead of waiting for the visitor to be shown into her room, she ran out, and met him in the garden. He came up to her smiling, thinking that with the departure of Princess Gulof, all danger had vanished. But when he saw the white face and burning eyes of Antoinette, he guessed that she knew everything. He determined, however, to try and carry it off by sheer audacity.

"I am sorry I left so early last evening," he said, "but that mad Russian woman, whom I took into dinner, made me almost as crazy as she was herself. She ought to be in an asylum. But the night repaid me for all the worries of the evening. I dreamt of the Engadine, its emerald lakes, its pine-trees, and its edelweiss."

"I, too, had a dream last night," said Antoinette slowly. "I dreamt that this bracelet which you gave me belonged to the mad Russian woman, and that she had engraved her name inside it." She threw the bracelet at him. He picked it up, and turned it round and round in his trembling fingers, looking at the plate which had been forced open.

"Can you tell me what I ought to think of Samuel Brohl?" she asked.

The name fell on him like a mass of lead; he reeled under the blow; then, striking his head with his two fists, he answered:

"Samuel Brohl is a man worthy of your pity. If you only knew all that he has suffered, all he has dared to do, you could not help pitying him, yes, and admiring him. Samuel Brohl is an unfortunate ..."

"Scoundrel," she said in a terrible voice. "Madame Brohl!"--she began to laugh hysterically--"Madame Brohl! No, I can't become Madame Brohl. Ah! that poor Countess Larinski."

"You did not love the man," he said bitterly; "only the Count."

"The man I loved did not tell lies," she replied.

"Yes, I lied to you," he said, panting like a hunted animal, "and I take all the shame of it gladly. I lied because I loved you to madness; and I lied because you are dearer to me than honour; I lied because I despaired of touching your heart, and I did not care by what means I won you. Why did I ever meet you? Why couldn't I have passed you by, without you becoming the dream of my whole life? I have lied. Who would not lie to be loved by you?"

Never had Samuel Brohl appeared so beautiful. Despair and passion lighted up his strange green eyes with a sombre flame. He had the sinister charm of a fallen archangel, and he fixed on Antoinette a wild, fascinating glance, that said:

"What do my name, my deceptions and the rest, matter to you? My face at least is not a mask, and the man who moved you, the man who won you, was I."

Mlle. Moriaz, however, divined the thought in the eyes of Samuel Brohl.

"You are a good actor," she said between her teeth. "But it is time that this comedy came to an end."

He threw himself on the grass at her feet, and then sprang up, and tried to clasp her in his arms.

"Camille! Camille!" she cried, "save me from this man."

Langis darted out after Brohl, and the Jew took to his heels. Langis would have followed him as gladly as a hound follows a fox, but he saw Antoinette's strength had given way, and running up to her, he caught her in his arms as she reeled, and tenderly carried her into the house. That evening, Count Abel Larinski disappeared from the world. Samuel Brohl rose up from his grave at Bucharest, and took the name of Kicks, and emigrated to America some time before the marriage of Mlle. Moriaz to M. Camille Langis was announced in the "Figaro."

* * * * *

WILKIE COLLINS

No Name

William Wilkie Collins was born in London on January 8, 1824. From the age of eight to fifteen he resided with his parents in Italy, and on their return to England young Collins was apprenticed to a firm of tea-merchants, abandoning that business four years later for the law. This profession also failed to appeal to him, although what he learned in it proved extremely useful to him in his literary career. His first published book was a "Life" of his father, William Collins, R.A., in 1847. The success of the work gave him an incentive towards writing, and three years later he published an historical romance, "Antonina, or The Fall of Rome." About this time he made the acquaintance of Charles Dickens, who was then editor of "Household Words," to which periodical he contributed some of his most successful fiction. "No Name," published in 1862, depended less upon dramatic situations and more upon analysis of character and the solution of a problem. That he was successful in his purpose is chiefly evidenced by the wide popularity the story received on its appearance. "The main object of the story," he wrote in the introduction to the first edition, "is to appeal to the reader's interest in a subject which has been the theme of some of the greatest writers, living and dead, but which has never been, and can never be, exhausted, because it is a subject eternally interesting to all mankind. A book that depicts the struggle of a human creature under those opposing influences of Good and Evil which we have all felt, which we have all known." Like others of Collins' stories, "No Name" was successfully presented on the stage. Wilkie Collins died on September 23, 1889.

_I.--Nobody's Children_

A letter from America, bearing a New Orleans stamp, had an extraordinary effect on the spirits of the Vanstone family as they sat round the breakfast table at Coome-Raven, in West Somersetshire.

"An American letter, papa!" exclaimed Magdalen, the youngest daughter, looking over her father's shoulder. "Who do you know at New Orleans?"

Mrs. Vanstone, sitting propped up with cushions at the other end of the table, started and looked eagerly at her husband. Mr. Vanstone said nothing, but his air of preoccupation and his unusual seriousness, which not even Magdalen's playfulness affected, proved clearly that something was wrong. The mystery of the letter puzzled both Magdalen and her elder sister Norah, and in particular aroused a feeling of uneasiness, impossible to explain, in the mind of the old family friend and governess, Miss Garth.

Though neither Mr. nor Mrs. Vanstone offered any explanation, Miss Garth felt more than ever certain that something unusual had occurred, when, on the following day, they announced their intention of going to London on private business. For nearly a month they stayed away, and at the end of that period returned without offering any account of what they had done on their mysterious visit.

Life at Coome-Raven went on as usual in a round of pleasant distractions. Concerts, dances, and private theatricals, in which Magdalen cut a great figure, winning even the praise of the professional manager, who begged her to call on him if ever she should require a real engagement, passed the weeks rapidly by.

To Magdalen also, the return of Frank Clare, the son of a very old friend of Mr. Vanstone's, provided an interesting interlude. As his father put it, "Frank had turned up at home again like a bad penny, and was now lurking after the manner of louts." Though Mr. Clare's estimate of his son was frankly truthful, Magdalen loved him with all the passionate warmth of her nature, and when Frank, in order to escape being sent to a business appointment in China, proposed marriage to her, she accepted him joyfully. She urged her father to consent to their immediate union.

"I must consult Frank's father, of course," he said, in conclusion. "We must not forget that Mr. Clare's consent is still wanting to settle this matter. And as we don't know what difficulties he may raise, the sooner I see him the better."

In a state of obvious dejection, he walked over to the house which Mr. Clare occupied. When, after some hours, he returned once more to Coome-Raven, he informed his daughter that Frank was to have another year's trial in London. If he proved himself capable, he should be rewarded at the end of that time with Magdalen's hand.

Both the girl and Frank were delighted, but Mr. Vanstone did not reflect their good spirits. He wired to his lawyer, Mr. Pendril, to come down from town at once to Coome-Raven. So anxious was he to see his lawyer that he drove over to the local station and took the train to the neighbouring junction where Mr. Pendril would have to change.

Hours went by, and he did not return. As the evening closed down a message was brought to Miss Garth that a man wished to speak to her. She hurried out, and found herself face to face with a porter from the junction, who explained that there had been an accident to the down train at 1.50.

"God help us!" exclaimed the governess. "The train Mr. Vanstone travelled by?"

"The same. There are seven passengers badly hurt, and two------"

The next word failed on his lips; he raised his hand in the dead silence. With eyes that opened wide in horror he pointed over Miss Garth's shoulder. She turned to see her mistress standing on the threshold with staring, vacant eyes. With a dreadful stillness in her voice, she repeated the man's last words, "Seven passengers badly hurt, and two------"

Then she sank swooning into Miss Garth's arms.

From the shock of her husband's death, Mrs. Vanstone never recovered.

Heartbroken by the death of their parents, Norah and Magdalen had yet to learn the full extent of the tragedy. That was first made clear to Miss Garth by the lawyer.

Mr. Andrew Vanstone in his youth had joined the army and gone to Canada. There he had been entrapped by a woman, whom he had married--a woman so utterly vile and unprincipled that he was forced to leave her and return to England. Shortly afterwards his father died, and, having been estranged from his elder son, Michael Vanstone, bequeathed all his property to Andrew.

Andrew Vanstone passed his life in a round of vicious pleasures, but as his better nature had almost been destroyed by a woman, so now it was retrieved by a woman. He fell in love, told the girl of his heart the truth about himself, and she, out of the love she bore him, determined to pass the rest of her life by his side, and Norah and Magdalen were the children of their union.

"Tell me," said Miss Garth, in a voice faint with emotion, as the lawyer laid bare the sad story, "why did they go to London?"

"They went to London to be married," cried Mr. Pendril.

In the letter from New Orleans, Mr. Vanstone had heard of the death of his wife, and he had at once taken the necessary steps to make the woman who had so long been his wife in the eyes of God his wife in the eyes of the law. The story would never have been known had it not been for Frank's engagement to Magdalen. The soul of honour, Mr. Vanstone thought it his duty to inform Mr. Clare fully regarding his relations with Mrs. Vanstone. His old friend proved himself deeply sympathetic, and then, being a cautious man of business, inquired what steps Mr. Vanstone had taken to provide for his daughters. The master of Coombe-Raven replied that he had long ago made a will leaving them all he possessed. When Mr. Clare pointed out that his recent marriage automatically destroyed the effect of this testament, he was greatly distressed, and, hastening home, had at once telegraphed to Mr. Pendril to come to Coome-Raven to draw up another will without any loss of time. His tragic death had prevented the execution of this plan, and the inability of Mrs. Vanstone to sign any document before she died had resulted in Norah and Magdalen being left absolutely penniless, and the estates passing to Michael Vanstone.

"How am I to tell them?" exclaimed Miss Garth.

"There is no need to tell them," said a voice behind her. "They know it already. Mr. Vanstone's daughters are 'nobody's children,' and the law leaves them helpless at their uncle's mercy!"

It was Magdalen who spoke--Magdalen, with a changeless stillness on her white face, and an icy resignation in her steady, grey eyes. From under the open window of the room in which Mr. Pendril had told his story this girl of eighteen had heard every word, and never once betrayed herself.

"I understand that my late brother"--so ran Michael Vanstone's letter of instruction to his solicitor--"has left two illegitimate children, both of them young women who are of an age to earn their own livelihood. Be so good as to tell them that neither you nor I have anything to do with questions of mere sentiment. Let them understand that Providence has restored to me the inheritance that ought always to have been mine, and I will not invite retribution on my own head by assisting those children to continue the imposition which their parents practised, and by helping them to take a place in the world to which they are not entitled."

"Norah," said Magdalen, turning to her sister, "if we both live to grow old, and if ever you forget all we owe to Michael Vanstone--come to me, and I will remind you."

_II.--Tricked into Marriage_

By fair means or foul, Magdalen, who, with Norah, had now made her home with Miss Garth in London, had sworn to herself that she would win back the property of which she had been robbed by Michael Vanstone. Selling all her jewellery and dresses, she managed to secure two hundred pounds, and with this sum in her pocket she secretly left home. The theatrical manager, who had offered her an engagement should she ever require it, had moved to York, and it was to that city that Magdalen hastened.