"No, I do not guess. Oh! leave me, leave me!"

"The 'unfortunate' was Fleur-de-Marie."

"Oh! merciful powers!"

"And you do not guess who was Fleur-de-Marie, irreproachable mother?"

"Kill me! oh! kill me!"

"She was La Goualeuse--your daughter!" cried Rudolph, with a heartrending emotion. "Yes, this unfortunate, whom I had rescued from the violence of a liberated galley-slave, was my own child--mine--Rudolph of Gerolstein's!

Oh! there was something in this encounter with my child, whom I saved without knowing her, something terrible, providential; a recompense for the man who seeks to succor his fellow-men, a punishment for the parricide."

"I die cursed and condemned," murmured Sarah, falling back in her chair and concealing her face in her hands.

"Then," continued Rudolph, with difficulty restraining his feelings, and wishing, in vain, to suppress his sobs, which almost choked him, "when I had rescued her from the hands of her a.s.sailant, struck with the inexpressible sweetness of her voice, the angelic expression of her features, it had been impossible not to have become interested in her. With what profound emotion have I listened to the touching recital of her life of abandonment, of sorrow, and misery; for, do you see, there have been frightful pa.s.sages in the life of your daughter, madame. Oh! you must know the tortures that your child suffered; yes, my lady, while in the midst of your opulence you were dreaming of a crown, your child--your own little child, covered with rags, went at night to beg in the streets, suffering with cold and hunger. During the winter nights, she shivered on a little straw in the corner of a garret, and then, when the horrible woman who abused her was tired of beating the poor little thing, only thinking how she could torture her, do you know what she did, madame? She drew out some of her teeth!"

"Oh! would that I could die! this is bitter agony!"

"Listen again. Escaping at length from the hands of La Chouette, wandering without bread, without shelter, hardly eight years of age, she was arrested as a vagabond, and put in prison. Oh! these were the happiest days of your daughter, madame. Yes, in the prison-house, each night she thanked G.o.d that she suffered no more from cold and hunger, and was beaten no more. And it was in a prison that she spent the most precious years of a young girl's life, those years which a tender mother always surrounds with so jealous and pious a solicitude; yes, instead of being protected with maternal care, your daughter has only known the brutal indifference of jailers; and then one day, society, in its cruel carelessness, cast her, innocent and pure, beautiful and ingenuous, into the filth and mire of this great city.

Unhappy child, abandoned, without support, without advice, delivered to all the chances of misery and vice! Oh!" cried Rudolph, giving free vent to the sobs which overpowered him; "your heart is hardened, your selfishness cruel, but you would have wept--yes, _you_ would have wept, on hearing the touching story of your child. Poor girl! sullied, but not corrupted, still chaste in the midst of this horrible degradation, which was for her a frightful dream; for each word told her horror for the life to which she was so fatally enchained! Oh! if you knew how at each moment were revealed the most adorable instincts--how much goodness--how much touching charity; yes, for it was to relieve an unfortunate more wretched than herself, the poor little thing had spent the little money she had, and which then separated her from the abyss of infamy into which she was plunged. Yes! for the day came--a frightful day--when, without work, without bread, without shelter--horrible women met her, exhausted from weakness--from hunger--and--"

Rudolph could not finish, but cried in a heartrending voice:

"And this was my daughter! my child!"

"Imprecations on my head!" murmured Sarah, concealing her face in her hands, as if she had feared the light of day.

"Yes," cried Rudolph, "imprecations on you! for it is your abandonment of this child which has caused all these horrors. Maledictions on you! for when, rescuing her from this filth, I had placed her in a peaceable retreat, you had her torn away by your miserable accomplices. Maledictions on you! for this again placed her in the power of Jacques Ferrand."

At this name, Rudolph stopped suddenly. He shuddered as if he had p.r.o.nounced it for the first time. It was because he now p.r.o.nounced this name for the first time since he had known that his daughter was the victim of that monster. The features of the prince a.s.sumed then a frightful expression of rage and hatred. Silent, immovable, he remained, as it were, crushed by this thought--that the murderer of his child still lived. Sarah, notwithstanding her increasing weakness, was struck by his sinister look; she feared for herself.

"Alas! what is the matter with you?" she murmured, in a trembling voice.

"Is it not enough of suffering?"

"No; it is not enough!" cried Rudolph, responding to his own thoughts. "I have never before experienced--never! such a desire for vengeance--a thirst for blood--a calm, reflecting rage! When I did not know that one of the victims of the monster was my own child, I said to myself, the death of this man will be sterile, while his life will be fertile, if, to redeem it, he accept the conditions which I impose. To condemn him to be charitable, to expiate his crimes, appeared to me just; and then, life without gold, life without sensuality, would be for him a long and double torture. But it is my child whom he has delivered to all the horrors of infamy and misery!

but it is my daughter whom he has murdered! I will kill this man!"

And the prince sprung toward the door.

"Where are you going? Do not abandon me!" cried Sarah, half rising, and extending toward Rudolph her supplicating hands. "Do not leave me alone! I am dying!"

"Alone! no! no! I leave you with the specter of your daughter, whose death you have caused!"

Sarah, frantic, threw herself on her knees, uttering a cry of affright, as if an alarming phantom had appeared to her. "Pity! I die!"

"Die, then, accursed!" answered Rudolph, frightful with rage. "Now I must have the life of your accomplice, for it is you who delivered your daughter to her executioner!"

And Rudolph ordered his coach to be rapidly driven to the house of Jacques Ferrand.

CHAPTER XVI.

FURENS AMORIS.

Night closed in while Rudolph was on his way to the notary's. The pavilion occupied by Jacques Ferrand was buried in profound obscurity. The wind howled, the rain fell as during that gloomy night when Cecily fled forever from the notary's house. Extended on a bed in his sleeping apartment, feebly lighted by a lamp, Jacques Ferrand was dressed in black trousers and vest; one of the sleeves of his shirt was turned back, and a ligature around his attenuated arm announced that he had just been bled. Polidori was standing near the bed, with one hand on the bolster, and appeared to regard the features of his accomplice with inquietude.

Nothing could be more hideously frightful than the face of Ferrand, who was then plunged into that torpor which ordinarily succeeds violent attacks. Of a mortal pallor, strongly relieved by the shadows of the alcove, his face, streaming with a cold sweat, announced the last stage of consumption; his closed eyelids were so swollen and injected with blood, that they appeared like two reddish lobes in the middle of this visage of cadaverous lividity.

"One more attack like the last, and all is over," said Polidori, in a low tone, and, retiring from the bed, he commenced walking slowly up and down the room.

"Just now," he resumed, "during the attack which nearly proved fatal, I thought myself in a dream, as I heard him describe all the monstrous hallucinations which I crossed his brain. His sense of hearing was of a sensibility so incredibly painful that, although I spoke to him as low as possible, yet it seemed to him, he said, that his head was a bell, and that an enormous clapper of bra.s.s, set in motion by the least sound, struck against it from time to time with a deafening and horrid noise."

Polidori again drew near the bed, and remained in a contemplative att.i.tude.

The tempest raged without; it soon burst forth in violent gusts of wind and rain, which shook all the windows of the dilapidated mansion.

Notwithstanding his audacious wickedness, Polidori was superst.i.tious; dark presentiments agitated him; he felt an indefinable uneasiness; the howlings of the storm, which alone disturbed the mournful silence of the night, inspired him with an alarm against which he struggled in vain. To drive away these gloomy thoughts, he again examined the features of his accomplice.

"Now," said he, leaning over him, "his eyelids fill with blood. What sufferings! how protracted! and under what varied forms! Oh!" added he, with a bitter smile, "when nature becomes cruel, and plays the part of tormentor, she defies the most ferocious combinations of men. Oh! this face is frightful. These frequent convulsions which overspread it contract it, and at times render it fearful." Without, the tempest redoubled its fury.

"What a storm!" said Polidori, throwing himself into a chair, and leaning his face on his hands. "What a night! what a night! Nothing could be more fatal for the situation of Jacques."

After a long silence, Polidori resumed, "When I think of the past, when I think of the ambitious projects which, in concert with Sarah, I founded on the youth and inexperience of the prince--how many events! by what degrees have I fallen into the state of criminal degradation in which I live! I, who had thought to effeminate this prince, and make him the docile instrument of the advancement of which I had dreamed! From preceptor I expected to become minister. And notwithstanding my learning, my mind, from misdeed to misdeed I have attained the last degree of infamy. Behold me, in fine, the jailer of my accomplice. Oh, yes! the prince is without pity.

Better a thousand times for Jacques Ferrand to have placed his head on the block; better a thousand times the wheel, fire, the molten lead which burns and sinks into the flesh, than the torments this wretch endures. As I see him suffer, I begin to be alarmed for my own fate. What will they do with me--what is reserved for me, the accomplice of Jacques? To be his jailer will not suffice for the vengeance of the prince. He has not saved me from the scaffold to let me live. Perhaps an eternal prison awaits me in Germany. Better that than death. I can only place myself blindly at the discretion of the prince; it is my sole chance of safety."

At this moment the storm was at its height; a chimney, blown down by the violence of the wind, fell on the roof and into the court with a noise like thunder. Jacques Ferrand, suddenly aroused from his state of torpor, moved on the bed. A hollow groan attracted the attention of Polidori.

"He is awaking from his stupor," said he, approaching him slowly.

"Polidori," murmured Jacques Ferrand, still stretched on the bed, and with his eyes closed. "Polidori, what noise was that?"

"A chimney has fallen down," answered Polidori, in a low tone; "a frightful hurricane shakes the house to its foundations. The night is horrible, horrible!"

The notary did not hear, and half turning his head, whispered, "Polidori, are you there?"

"Yes, yes, I am here," said Polidori, in a louder voice; "but I answered softly, fearing to affect your hearing, as I did a few moments ago."

"No, now your voice reaches my ear without causing me those painful sufferings; for it seemed to me, at the least noise, as if a thunderbolt had broken in my head. And yet, in the midst of all this noise, of these sufferings without name, I distinguished the voice of Cecily calling me."

"Always this infernal woman--always. But drive away these thoughts, they will kill you."

"Drive them away!" cried Jacques Ferrand; "oh! never, never!"

"What mad fury! It alarms me."

"Hold, now," said the notary, in a husky voice, with his eyes fixed on an obscure corner of the alcove. "I see already--like a living thing--a shape appearing--there--there!"

And he pointed with his bony finger in the direction of the vision.