Great G.o.d!

He turns. The coa.r.s.e face of M. Gardinois, surrounded by a travelling-cap with ear-pieces, is before him.

"I am not mistaken, it is Monsieur Risler. Are you going to Ma.r.s.eilles by the express? I am not going far."

He explains to Frantz that he has missed the Orleans train, and is going to try to connect with Savigny by the Lyon line; then he talks about Risler Aine and the factory.

"It seems that business hasn't been prospering for some time. They were caught in the Bonnardel failure. Ah! our young men need to be careful.

At the rate they're sailing their ship, the same thing is likely to happen to them that happened to Bonnardel. But excuse me, I believe they're about to close the gate. Au revoir."

Frantz has hardly heard what he has been saying. His brother's ruin, the destruction of the whole world, nothing is of any further consequence to him. He is waiting, waiting.

But now the gate is abruptly closed like a last barrier between him and his persistent hope. Once more the station is empty. The uproar has been transferred to the line of the railway, and suddenly a shrill whistle falls upon the lover's ear like an ironical farewell, then dies away in the darkness.

The ten o'clock train has gone!

He tries to be calm and to reason. Evidently she missed the train from Asmeres; but, knowing that he is waiting for her, she will come, no matter how late it may be. He will wait longer. The waiting-room was made for that.

The unhappy man sits down on a bench. The prospect of a long vigil brings to his mind a well-known room in which at that hour the lamp burns low on a table laden with humming-birds and insects, but that vision pa.s.ses swiftly through his mind in the chaos of confused thoughts to which the delirium of suspense gives birth.

And while he thus lost himself in thought, the hours pa.s.sed. The roofs of the buildings of Mazas, buried in darkness, were already beginning to stand out distinctly against the brightening sky. What was he to do? He must go to Asnieres at once and try to find out what had happened. He wished he were there already.

Having made up his mind, he descended the steps of the station at a rapid pace, pa.s.sing soldiers with their knapsacks on their backs, and poor people who rise early coming to take the morning train, the train of poverty and want.

In front of one of the stations he saw a crowd collected, rag-pickers and countrywomen. Doubtless some drama of the night about to reach its denouement before the Commissioner of Police. Ah! if Frantz had known what that drama was! but he could have no suspicion, and he glanced at the crowd indifferently from a distance.

When he reached Asnieres, after a walk of two or three hours, it was like an awakening. The sun, rising in all its glory, set field and river on fire. The bridge, the houses, the quay, all stood forth with that matutinal sharpness of outline which gives the impression of a new day emerging, luminous and smiling, from the dense mists of the night. From a distance he descried his brother's house, already awake, the open blinds and the flowers on the window-sills. He wandered about some time before he could summon courage to enter.

Suddenly some one hailed him from the sh.o.r.e:

"Ah! Monsieur Frantz. How early you are today!"

It was Sidonie's coachman taking his horses to bathe in the river.

"Has anything happened at the house?" inquired Frantz tremblingly.

"No, Monsieur Frantz."

"Is my brother at home?"

"No, Monsieur slept at the factory."

"No one sick?"

"No, Monsieur Frantz, no one, so far as I know."

Thereupon Frantz made up his mind to ring at the small gate. The gardener was raking the paths. The house was astir; and, early as it was, he heard Sidonie's voice as clear and vibrating as the song of a bird among the rose-bushes of the facade.

She was talking with animation. Frantz, deeply moved, drew near to listen.

"No, no cream. The 'cafe parfait' will be enough. Be sure that it's well frozen and ready at seven o'clock. Oh! about an entree--let us see--"

She was holding council with her cook concerning the famous dinner-party for the next day. Her brother-in-law's sudden appearance did not disconcert her.

"Ah! good-morning, Frantz," she said very coolly. "I am at your service directly. We're to have some people to dinner to-morrow, customers of the firm, a grand business dinner. You'll excuse me, won't you?"

Fresh and smiling, in the white ruffles of her trailing morning-gown and her little lace cap, she continued to discuss her menu, inhaling the cool air that rose from the fields and the river. There was not the slightest trace of chagrin or anxiety upon that tranquil face, which was a striking contrast to the lover's features, distorted by a night of agony and fatigue.

For a long quarter of an hour Frantz, sitting in a corner of the salon, saw all the conventional dishes of a bourgeois dinner pa.s.s before him in their regular order, from the little hot pates, the sole Normande and the innumerable ingredients of which that dish is composed, to the Montreuil peaches and Fontainebleau grapes.

At last, when they were alone and he was able to speak, he asked in a hollow voice:

"Didn't you receive my letter?"

"Why, yes, of course."

She had risen to go to the mirror and adjust a little curl or two entangled with her floating ribbons, and continued, looking at herself all the while:

"Yes, I received your letter. Indeed, I was charmed to receive it.

Now, should you ever feel inclined to tell your brother any of the vile stories about me that you have threatened me with, I could easily satisfy him that the only source of your lying tale-bearing was anger with me for repulsing a criminal pa.s.sion as it deserved. Consider yourself warned, my dear boy--and au revoir."

As pleased as an actress who has just delivered a telling speech with fine effect, she pa.s.sed him and left the room smiling, with a little curl at the corners of her mouth, triumphant and without anger. And he did not kill her!

CHAPTER XVII. AN ITEM OF NEWS

In the evening preceding that ill-omened day, a few moments after Frantz had stealthily left his room on Rue de Braque, the ill.u.s.trious Delobelle returned home, with downcast face and that air of la.s.situde and disillusionment with which he always met untoward events.

"Oh! mon Dieu, my poor man, what has happened?" instantly inquired Madame Delobelle, whom twenty years of exaggerated dramatic pantomime had not yet surfeited.

Before replying, the ex-actor, who never failed to precede his most trivial words with some facial play, learned long before for stage purposes, dropped his lower lip, in token of disgust and loathing, as if he had just swallowed something very bitter.

"The matter is that those Rislers are certainly ingrates or egotists, and, beyond all question, exceedingly ill-bred. Do you know what I just learned downstairs from the concierge, who glanced at me out of the corner of his eye, making sport of me? Well, Frantz Risler has gone! He left the house a short time ago, and has left Paris perhaps ere this, without so much as coming to shake my hand, to thank me for the welcome he has received here. What do you think of that? For he didn't say good-by to you two either, did he? And yet, only a month ago, he was always in our rooms, without any remonstrance from us."

Mamma Delobelle uttered an exclamation of genuine surprise and grief.

Desiree, on the contrary, did not say a word or make a motion. She was always the same little iceberg.

Oh! wretched mother, turn your eyes upon your daughter. See that transparent pallor, those tearless eyes which gleam unwaveringly, as if their thoughts and their gaze were concentrated on some object visible to them alone. Cause that poor suffering heart to open itself to you.

Question your child. Make her speak, above all things make her weep, to rid her of the burden that is stifling her, so that her tear-dimmed eyes can no longer distinguish in s.p.a.ce that horrible unknown thing upon which they are fixed in desperation now.

For nearly a month past, ever since the day when Sidonie came and took Frantz away in her coupe, Desiree had known that she was no longer loved, and she knew her rival's name. She bore them no ill-will, she pitied them rather. But, why had he returned? Why had he so heedlessly given her false hopes? How many tears had she devoured in silence since those hours! How many tales of woe had she told her little birds! For once more it was work that had sustained her, desperate, incessant work, which, by its regularity and monotony, by the constant recurrence of the same duties and the same motions, served as a balance-wheel to her thoughts.

Lately Frantz was not altogether lost to her. Although he came but rarely to see her, she knew that he was there, she could hear him go in and out, pace, the floor with restless step, and sometimes, through the half-open door, see his loved shadow hurry across the landing. He did not seem happy. Indeed, what happiness could be in store for him? He loved his brother's wife. And at the thought that Frantz was not happy, the fond creature almost forgot her own sorrow to think only of the sorrow of the man she loved.

She was well aware that it was impossible that he could ever love her again. But she thought that perhaps she would see him come in some day, wounded and dying, that he would sit down on the little low chair, lay his head on her knees, and with a great sob tell her of his suffering and say to her, "Comfort me."

That forlorn hope kept her alive for three weeks. She needed so little as that.