Miserrimus Dexter looked up from his gla.s.s. The generous stimulant was beginning to do its work. I saw the color rising in his face. I saw the bright intelligence flashing again in his eyes. The Burgundy _had_ roused him! The good wine stood my friend, and offered me a last chance!

"No story," I said. "I want to talk to you, Mr. Dexter. I am not in the humor for a story."

"Not in the humor?" he repeated, with a gleam of the old impish irony showing itself again in his face. "That's an excuse. I see what it is!

You think my invention is gone--and you are not frank enough to confess it. I'll show you you're wrong. I'll show you that Dexter is himself again. Silence, you Ariel, or you shall leave the room! I have got it, Mrs. Valeria, all laid out here, with scenes and characters complete."

He touched his forehead, and looked at me with a furtive and smiling cunning before he added his next words. "It's the very thing to interest you, my fair friend. It's the story of a Mistress and a Maid. Come back to the fire and hear it."

The Story of a Mistress and a Maid? If that meant anything, it meant the story of Mrs. Beauly and her maid, told in disguise.

The t.i.tle, and the look which had escaped him when he announced it, revived the hope that was well-nigh dead in me. He had rallied at last.

He was again in possession of his natural foresight and his natural cunning. Under pretense of telling Ariel her story, he was evidently about to make the attempt to mislead me for the second time. The conclusion was irresistible. To use his own words--Dexter was himself again.

I took Benjamin's arm as we followed him back to the fire-place in the middle of the room.

"There is a chance for me yet," I whispered. "Don't forget the signals."

We returned to the places which we had already occupied. Ariel cast another threatening look at me. She had just sense enough left, after emptying her goblet of wine, to be on the watch for a new interruption on my part. I took care, of course, that nothing of the sort should happen. I was now as eager as Ariel to hear the story. The subject was full of snares for the narrator. At any moment, in the excitement of speaking, Dexter's memory of the true events might show itself reflected in the circ.u.mstances of the fiction. At any moment he might betray himself.

He looked around him, and began.

"My public, are you seated? My public, are you ready?" he asked, gayly. "Your face a little more this way," he added, in his softest and tenderest tones, motioning to me to turn my full face toward him.

"Surely I am not asking too much? You look at the meanest creature that crawls--look at Me. Let me find my inspiration in your eyes. Let me feed my hungry admiration on your form. Come, have one little pitying smile left for the man whose happiness you have wrecked. Thank you, Light of my Life, thank you!" He kissed his hand to me, and threw himself back luxuriously in his chair. "The story," he resumed. "The story at last!

In what form shall I cast it? In the dramatic form--the oldest way, the truest way, the shortest way of telling a story! t.i.tle first. A short t.i.tle, a taking t.i.tle: 'Mistress and Maid.' Scene, the land of romance--Italy. Time, the age of romance--the fifteenth century. Ha!

look at Ariel. She knows no more about the fifteenth century than the cat in the kitchen, and yet she is interested already. Happy Ariel!"

Ariel looked at me again, in the double intoxication of the wine and the triumph.

"I know no more than the cat in the kitchen," she repeated, with a broad grin of gratified vanity. "I am 'happy Ariel!' What are you?"

Miserrimus Dexter laughed uproariously.

"Didn't I tell you?" he said. "Isn't she fun?--Persons of the Drama."

he resumed: "three in number. Women only. Angelica, a n.o.ble lady; n.o.ble alike in spirit and in birth. Cunegonda, a beautiful devil in woman's form. Damoride, her unfortunate maid. First scene: a dark vaulted chamber in a castle. Time, evening. The owls are hooting in the wood; the frogs are croaking in the marsh.--Look at Ariel! Her flesh creeps; she shudders audibly. Admirable Ariel!"

My rival in the Master's favor eyed me defiantly. "Admirable Ariel!"

she repeated, in drowsy accents. Miserrimus Dexter paused to take up his goblet of Burgundy--placed close at hand on a little sliding table attached to his chair. I watched him narrowly as he sipped the wine. The flush was still mounting in his face; the light was still brightening in his eyes. He set down his gla.s.s again, with a jovial smack of his lips--and went on:

"Persons present in the vaulted chamber: Cunegonda and Damoride.

Cunegonda speaks. 'Damoride!' 'Madam?' 'Who lies ill in the chamber above us?' 'Madam, the n.o.ble lady Angelica.' (A pause. Cunegonda speaks again.) 'Damoride!' 'Madam?' 'How does Angelica like you?' 'Madam, the n.o.ble lady, sweet and good to all who approach her, is sweet and good to me.' 'Have you attended on her, Damoride?' 'Sometimes, madam, when the nurse was weary.' 'Has she taken her healing medicine from your hand.'

'Once or twice, madam, when I happened to be by.' 'Damoride, take this key and open the casket on the table there.' (Damoride obeys.) 'Do you see a green vial in the casket?' 'I see it, madam.' 'Take it out.'

(Damoride obeys.) 'Do you see a liquid in the green vial? can you guess what it is?' 'No, madam.' 'Shall I tell you?' (Damoride bows respectfully ) 'Poison is in the vial.' (Damoride starts; she shrinks from the poison; she would fain put it aside. Her mistress signs to her to keep it in her hand; her mistress speaks.) 'Damoride, I have told you one of my secrets; shall I tell you another?' (Damoride waits, fearing what is to come. Her mistress speaks.) 'I hate the Lady Angelica. Her life stands between me and the joy of my heart. You hold her life in your hand.' (Damoride drops on her knees; she is a devout person; she crosses herself, and then she speaks.) 'Mistress, you terrify me.

Mistress, what do I hear?' (Cunegonda advances, stands over her, looks down on her with terrible eyes, whispers the next words.) 'Damoride! the Lady Angelica must die--and I must not be suspected. The Lady Angelica must die--and by your hand.'"

He paused again. To sip the wine once more? No; to drink a deep draught of it this time.

Was the stimulant beginning to fail him already?

I looked at him attentively as he laid himself back again in his chair to consider for a moment before he went on.

The flush on his face was as deep as ever; but the brightness in his eyes was beginning to fade already. I had noticed that he spoke more and more slowly as he advanced to the later dialogue of the scene. Was he feeling the effort of invention already? Had the time come when the wine had done all that the wine could do for him?

We waited. Ariel sat watching him with vacantly staring eyes and vacantly open mouth. Ben jamin, impenetrably expecting the signal, kept his open note-book on his knee, covered by his hand. Miserrimus Dexter went on:

"Damoride hears those terrible words; Damoride clasps her hands in entreaty. 'Oh, madam! madam! how can I kill the dear and n.o.ble lady?

What motive have I for harming her?' Cunegonda answers, 'You have the motive of obeying Me.' (Damoride falls with her face on the floor at her mistress's feet.) 'Madam, I cannot do it! Madam, I dare not do it!' Cunegonda answers, 'You run no risk: I have my plan for diverting discovery from myself, and my plan for diverting discovery from you.'

Damoride repeats, 'I cannot do it! I dare not do it!' Cunegonda's eyes flash lightnings of rage. She takes from its place of concealment in her bosom--"

He stopped in the middle of the sentence, and put his hand to his head--not like a man in pain, but like a man who had lost his idea.

Would it be well if I tried to help him to recover his idea? or would it be wiser (if I could only do it) to keep silence?

I could see the drift of his story plainly enough. His object, under the thin disguise of the Italian romance, was to meet my unanswerable objection to suspecting Mrs. Beauly's maid--the objection that the woman had no motive for committing herself to an act of murder. If he could practically contradict this, by discovering a motive which I should be obliged to admit, his end would be gained. Those inquiries which I had pledged myself to pursue--those inquiries which might, at any moment, take a turn that directly concerned him--would, in that case, be successfully diverted from the right to the wrong person. The innocent maid would set my strictest scrutiny at defiance; and Dexter would be safely shielded behind her.

I determined to give him time. Not a word pa.s.sed my lips.

The minutes followed each other. I waited in the deepest anxiety. It was a trying and a critical moment. If he succeeded in inventing a probable motive, and in shaping it neatly to suit the purpose of his story, he would prove, by that act alone, that there were reserves of mental power still left in him which the practiced eye of the Scotch doctor had failed to see. But the question was--would he do it?

He did it! Not in a new way; not in a convincing way; not without a painfully evident effort. Still, well done or ill done, he found a motive for the maid.

"Cunegonda," he resumed, "takes from its place of concealment in her bosom a written paper, and unfolds it. 'Look at this,' she says.

Damoride looks at the paper, and sinks again at her mistress's feet in a paroxysm of horror and despair. Cunegonda is in possession of a shameful secret in the maid's past life. Cunegonda can say to her, 'Choose your alternative. Either submit to an exposure which disgraces you and--disgraces your parents forever--or make up your mind to obey Me.'

Damoride might submit to the disgrace if it only affected herself. But her parents are honest people; she cannot disgrace her parents. She is driven to her last refuge--there is no hope of melting the hard heart of Cunegonda. Her only resource is to raise difficulties; she tries to show that there are obstacles between her and the crime. 'Madam! madam!' she cries; 'how can I do it, when the nurse is there to see me?' Cunegonda answers, 'Sometimes the nurse sleeps; sometimes the nurse is away.'

Damoride still persists. 'Madam! madam! the door is kept locked, and the nurse has got the key.'"

The key! I instantly thought of the missing key at Gleninch. Had he thought of it too? He certainly checked himself as the word escaped him.

I resolved to make the signal. I rested my elbow on the arm of my chair, and played with my earring. Benjamin took out his pencil and arranged his note-book so that Ariel could not see what he was about if she happened to look his way.

We waited until it pleased Miserrimus Dexter to proceed. The interval was a long one. His hand went up again to his forehead. A duller and duller look was palpably stealing over his eyes. When he did speak, it was not to go on with the narrative, but to put a question.

"Where did I leave off?" he asked.

My hopes sank again as rapidly as they had risen. I managed to answer him, however, without showing any change in my manner.

"You left off," I said, "where Damoride was speaking to Cunegonda--"

"Yes, yes!" he interposed. "And what did she say?"

"She said, 'The door is kept locked, and the nurse has got the key.'"

He instantly leaned forward in his chair.

"No!" he answered, vehemently. "You're wrong. 'Key?' Nonsense! I never said 'Key.'"

"I thought you did, Mr. Dexter."

"I never did! I said something else, and you have forgotten it."

I refrained from disputing with him, in fear of what might follow. We waited again. Benjamin, sullenly submitting to my caprices, had taken down the questions and answers that had pa.s.sed between Dexter and myself. He still mechanically kept his page open, and still held his pencil in readiness to go on. Ariel, quietly submitting to the drowsy influence of the wine while Dexter's voice was in her ears, felt uneasily the change to silence. She glanced round her restlessly; she lifted her eyes to "the Master."