We were gathered round the wood fire after dinner (for the October evenings grew chilly as they closed in); I don't know how it was that Forrester began telling us about their flight.

"You ought to have seen Bella's baggage," he said, at last; "it was so compact. You can't fancy any thing so tiny as the _sac de nuit_. A courier's moneybag would make two of it. Then a vast cloak, and that's all. Quite in light marching order."

"I wonder you are not ashamed to talk about baggage," his wife retorted.

"When we got to Dover, there was his servant with four immense portmanteaus and a dressing-case nearly as large, waiting for us. Was it not romantic?"

"Bah!" Charley said. "A man must have his comforts, even if he is eloping. I am sure I arranged every thing superbly. I don't know how I did it--an undeveloped talent for intrigue, I suppose."

"Was it not kind of him to take so much trouble?" Isabel asked, quite innocently, and in perfect good faith, I am sure; but her husband pinched the little pink ear that was within his reach.

"She means to be sarcastic," he said. "You've spoiled her, Guy. If I had had time to deliberate, though, I don't think I should ever have come to the post. I wonder how any one stands the training."

"I'll tell you what would have suited you exactly," Livingstone remarked--"to have been one of those men in the Arabian Nights, who wake and find themselves at a strange city's gate, 10,000 leagues from home, to whom there comes up a venerable vizier, saying, 'My son, heaven has blessed me with one daughter, a very pearl of beauty; many have sought her in marriage, but in vain. Your appearance pleases me, and I would have you for my son-in-law.'"

"Exactly," said Forrester. "I should not have minded turning out somebody else's child eventually--(they all did that, didn't they?)--for such a piece of luck as to be taken in and done for off-hand, without the trouble of thinking about it."

Instead of looking vexed, Isabel laughed merrily, and her eyes glittered as they rested on him, full of a proud, loving happiness.

"The best of it was," Charley went on, "she was in the most dreadful state of alarm and excitement all the way to Dover, looking out at every station, under the impression that she should see the bridegroom there, 'dangling his bonnet and plume' (though how he was to have got ahead of us, unless he came by electric telegraph, does not appear). What sport it would have been! I should have liked so to have seen the 'laggard in love' once more."

"He was not quite _that_," Isabel interrupted, rather mischievously.

"Ah! I dare say you kept him up to the traces," her husband remarked, languidly. "You have a talent that way. What 'pa.s.sages,' as Varney called them, there must have been, eh! Guy? We won't hear your confession now, Puss. In pity to Mademoiselle Aglae's eyes (which are very fine), if not to your own (which are very useful), I think you had better go to bed. That ferocious vetturino will have us up at unholy hours, and is not to be mitigated."

We sat talking for a little while after Isabel left us; then Forrester rose and strolled to the window. The flood of light that poured in when he drew the curtain was quite startling, making the three beaked oil lamps look smoky and dim.

"I shall smoke my last cigar _al fresco_," Charley said; "I suppose it's the correct thing to do, with such a moon as that. Won't you come, Guy?

I must not tempt you out into the night air, Hammond."

"Not to-night," Livingstone answered. "I am not in the humor for admiring any thing. I should be rather in your way."

One of his gloomy fits was coming over him, at which times he always chose to be alone.

"Well, I shall go and consume the 'humble, but not wholly heart-broken weed of every-day life,' as Tyrrell used to say. (Don't you remember his double-barreled adjectives?) If you hear any one singing _very_ sweetly, don't be alarmed; you'll know it is the harmless lunatic who now addresses you; the fit won't last more than an hour. We shall be in Rome to-morrow. The only thing on my mind now is whether I shall find any thing there to carry me across the Campagna. K---- has a very fair pack, I understand, and no end of foxes."

Have you ever watched the completion of a photograph, when the nitrate of silver (or whatever the last lotion may be) is applied? First one feature comes out, that you may indulgently mistake for a tree, or a gable-end, or a mountain top; then another, till the whole picture stands out in clear, brilliant relief.

Just so when I recall that scene--little heed as I took at the time of them--every gesture, and look, and tone of Forrester's becomes as distinct as if he stood in the body before me now. I can see him standing in the shadow of the doorway, the red glare from the blazing wood with which he was lighting his cigar falling over his delicate features and bright chestnut hair--I can hear his kind soft voice as he speaks these last two words, "_Al rivederci_."

Whether that wish will be accomplished hereafter, G.o.d alone can tell; if so, it must be beyond the grave. In life we never saw him any more.

CHAPTER x.x.xIII.

"But time at length makes all things even, And if we do but bide the hour, There never yet was human power That could evade, if unforgiven, The patient search and vigil long Of him who treasures up a wrong."

Three quarters of an hour later, Guy was sitting in his room, gazing at the embers on the hearth, in the att.i.tude of moody thought that of late he was apt to fall into. Suddenly there came a timid knock at his door.

When he opened it, his cousin stood on the threshold--ghost-like, against the background of darkness, with her white dressing-gown, pale cheeks, and long hair unbound.

"Guy, don't be angry," she said; "it's very foolish of me, I know; but Charley has not come in yet, and just now I am certain there was a shot quite near. Aglae heard nothing, but I did. You know he always carries a pistol. I made him do so. It is nothing, I am sure; but I am so frightened. If you would--"

She tried to smile, but that ghastly look of terror that he had seen once before, long ago, in the library at Kerton Manor, again swept over, and possessed all her face like a white chill mist.

"Don't be absurd, you silly child," Guy said, kindly. "Of course I'll go out directly, and bring him in in five minutes, to laugh at you. Now go back to your room; there's nothing on earth to be alarmed about."

But the instant she had gone, I heard his voice quick and stern: "Frank, come here." There was a door of communication between our rooms, and, though it was closed, I had caught some words of this conversation, so I was ready nearly as soon as he. Guy only staid to take a short lance-wood club, headed with a spiked steel head, which was his constant traveling companion--a very simple weapon, but deadly in his hands as the axe of Richard the King--and then we sallied out, taking our servants and some other men that were below, with torches, in case the moon should fail us unexpectedly.

Twice, three times, when we had gone a short distance, Livingstone shouted Forrester's name. His powerful voice rang far through the ravines, and struck against the rocks, rolling and reverberating in their hollows like a blast fired in a deep mine; but no answer came.

I looked at my companion very nervously. He never spoke, but I saw him gnaw his under lip till the blood ran down.

We had gone a hundred paces or so farther along a narrow path outside the town. On our right the cliff fell almost abruptly toward the river.

Guy was a few paces in front, when suddenly there broke from his lips such a sound as I have never heard from those of any mortal before or since.

It is impossible to describe it. It was utterly involuntary, as if some spirit had spoken within the man--a cry of horror and of unspeakable wrath, such as might have burst from the chest of one of the Old-World giants, when the rock fell from heaven that crushed him like a worm. The Italians, used to every tone that can express pa.s.sion, shrunk and cowered back in terror.

Our eyes all followed the direction of his, that were staring down upon a flat open s.p.a.ce, clear from brush-wood, down in the hollow on our right. Our search was ended, and we knew it. The moon, that flickered and quivered elsewhere through bough and brake, settled there steadily on a single white spot.

In all the world there is but one object on which she can cast so ghastly a reflection--a dead man's face.

Guy recovered himself first, and plunged recklessly down the cliff side.

When we reached him, he was supporting on his knee the head of poor Charley Forrester, stone dead, and foully murdered.

The first glance told how unavailing all human aid must be. One small deep wound just above the left temple must have been fatal instantly.

Close by his side lay the instrument of the slaughter--a thin, triangular piece of granite--and, ten paces off, his pistol, one barrel discharged. His watch and (as we afterward found) his purse were gone, but an emerald ring of great value was still untouched on his finger.

I staggered back, heart-sick and faint. When I recovered I saw dimly the group of men, awe-stricken and whispering, and Guy still gazing down at the face that rested on his knee, as if it fascinated his eyes. I could not bear to look upon the piteous sight. All through the bright hair the dark blood had soaked, and a slow stream was stealing through it still; the fair features were all defaced and deformed with the wrath and agony of the last mortal struggle. Yet I do remember that, if any one definite expression still lingered there, it was bitter contempt and scorn.

"In G.o.d's name, sir, what is to be done?" It was Hardy who spoke, poor Forrester's own servant, the only Englishman among our attendants. He was choking, and could hardly gasp out the words.

Livingstone rose slowly, first pillowing the mangled head on a soft tuft of moss, tenderly as if it were conscious still. His nature was such that no shock, or pain, or sorrow to which humanity is liable, could bend or quell it, so as to deprive him, beyond a brief instant, of self-possession and calmness. It was not insensibility now, and hardly stoicism, but an elasticity of resistance and strength of endurance that, in my own knowledge, have never been matched. In history or in Indian life you might find many parallels.

He answered quite steadily, though in a low tone, as if reverencing the presence of the dead.

"There is no hope. It is useless to send for a surgeon. Hardy, you will take all the men whom you can collect and scour the country. Send to the _sbirri_ immediately; they will go with you. There must be traces of the murderer. Frank, will you see that--he--is brought carefully to the house? I will"--he stopped, and drew a long, hard breath--"I will go and break it to Isabel." His hand, that happened to touch mine as he spoke, was damp and icy cold.

In his life Guy Livingstone had done and dared more than most men, but he never ventured on any thing so thoroughly brave, and valiant, and strong-hearted as when he left me, without another word, on that errand. For myself, though weak both in body and nerve, I swear I would rather have gone up the breach at Badajoz with the forlorn hope, than up that bank with the certainty before me of what awaited him.

Trees overhanging, and high walls on either side, and the change from the bright moonlight, made it so dark just as you approached the inn that Guy scarcely saw a white figure crouching down a few paces from the door till he was close upon it.

He threw his arm round Isabel Forrester's waist before she could pa.s.s him. Half his task was done; there was nothing to break to her now. She understood all when she saw him come back alone.

For a few moments, there they stood in the dark, no word pa.s.sing between them; the only sound was her quick panting, as she struggled in his grasp, battling to get free.

"Isabel," he said, at last, gravely, "come in; I must speak to you."