Cesarine, perceiving that her confederate was edging gradually toward the rifle which Antonino had been shooting with and which had been removed from the drawing-room, where the guest for a day had too many opportunities to be alone with it. To cover his inspection, she suggested that Rebecca should afford the company a final pleasure, a kind of swan's song, and went and opened the cottage-piano for her. The Jewess did not refuse the invitation and began Gounod's "Medje" in a voice which Von Sendlingen had room to admit had improved in tone and volumn, and would make her as worthy of the grand opera house as it had, five years before, of the Harmonista and its cla.s.s. Daniels quietly left the room, loth to disturb Clemenceau, whom that voice enthralled and who became more and more deeply submerged in the thoughts it engendered. He suffered pain from the need to liberate his sorrows, confide his spirit and communicate his dreams. And was not this singer the very one created to comfort him and lull him to rest? Must he remain heroic and ridiculous in the indissoluble bond, and endure silently. On Antonino he rested his mind and on Rebecca, the daughter of the eternally persecuted, he longed to rest his soul.

The greatness of this man and the purity of this gifted creature were so clearly made for one another that everybody divined and understood the unspoken, immaterial love.

What an oversight to have let Cesarine abduct him when it was Rebecca to whom chance had shown that he ought to belong! If he had remained free till this second meeting, she would have been his wife, his companion his seventh day repose, and the mother of his earthly offspring instead of the immortal twins, genius and glory, which poorly consoled the childless husband! As it was, the powers const.i.tuted would not allow them to dwell near each other. She could only be the bride in the second life--for eternity. She loved him as few women had ever loved, because he was good, great and just--and because he was unhappy. No man existed in her eyes superior to him. Nothing but death would set him free from the woman who had not appreciated him properly. She had let pa.s.s the greatest bliss a woman can know on earth--the love of a true heart and the protection of a great intellect. If death struck them before the wife, Felix would behold Rebecca on the threshold of the unknown land where they would be united tor infinity. Her creed did not warrant such a hope--his said that in heaven there were no marriages, but her heart did not heed such sayings, and her feelings told her that thus things would come to pa.s.s.

She had concluded the piece of music. She rose and, for the first time, gave Cesarine her hand.

"Farewell!" she said.

"Why say it now?" answered Madame Clemenceau, surprised. "You are not going till to-morrow morning."

"To-night! I may not see you again, we have so many preparations to make."

"Well, as you did not come here to see me, it is of no consequence.

Farewell!"

"I am your servant, madame," said the Jewess, bowing.

"Ah, Hagar!" hissed she, "unmasked."

"Farewell, Sarah!" retorted Rebecca, stung out of her equanimity by this sudden dart of the viper, but Cesarine said no more, and she proceeded steadily toward the door.

Clemenceau had preceded her thither.

"What did she say?" he inquired.

"Nothing worth repeating. Beware of her as well as of that man!" but she saw that he would not follow her glance and draw a serious inference from the way in which the wife and the unwelcome guest had drawn closely together. "Fulfil your destiny," she continued solemnly. "Work! remain firm, pure and great! Be useful to mankind. Above transient things, in the unalterable, I will await you. Do not keep me lonely too long," was wrung from her in a doleful sob.

He could not speak, it was useless, for she knew already everything that he night say.

"At last!" e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed Von Sendlingen in relief, when all had gone out, as he sprang on the rifle and feverishly fingered it. "This is the rifle of their latest finish. What an odd arrangement! Where the deuce is the hammer--the trigger--and all that goes toward making up the good old rifle of our fathers? Oh, Science, Science! what liberties are taken in your name!" he cried in drollery too bitter not to be intended to cover his vexation. "Mind, this rifle is included in our contract?"

"Everything," she answered in a fever, looking toward the doorway, where her husband had disappeared with the Jewess. "Be easy! The rifle, the cannon, the happiness, the honor and the lives of all here--myself as well! If there is anything more you long for, say so!"

"Talk sensibly!" said he severely and gripping her wrist.

Restored by the pressure, she drew a long breath and said in a low voice:

"One way or another, things will come to a head to-night. This Jewish intriguante and the old fox her father are going away by the railway at nine o'clock, and Felix will escort them. Antonino will be alone here, and I mean to make him my a.s.sistant as he has been my husband's."

"Better trust n.o.body! it is risky, and, besides, with an accomplice, the reward becomes less by his share."

"How much is all? Will you pay five million marks?"

"That's too much. Put it two millions--half when you hand over the cipher, half when we hold the working drawings and Antonino's ammunition."

"Be it so," she answered after a brief pause, during which both listened. "If Antonino will help me, so much the better for him. It would be delightful to see Italy with a native! Now go away. We must not be seen conversing together."

"If the young man turns restive?" suggested the prudent spy.

"Impossible! he is charmed. However, remember this: Return to-night after the party has gone to the station, secrete yourself in the grounds where you can watch the drawing-room windows. If one opens and I call, run up to aid me. If none open to you, hasten away. The danger with which I contend will be one which you could not overcome!"

CHAPTER XX.

ON THE EVE.

The evening was calm and clear over Montmorency, where there was even grandeur in the stillness. Nature--the discreet confident and inexhaustible counsellor, always ready to intermediate between G.o.d and man--nature was appeasing pa.s.sion and misery in all bosoms but Felix Clemenceau's, as he strolled in the garden which he did not expect long to possess. Rebecca was going away and Cesarine had come, two sufficient reasons for him to detest the place. He had called upon the scene to give him advice on his course, and he hoped to understand clearly what it had commanded to him in the hour of grief tempered with faith. He had not the resources of others; he could not consult the shades of his parents; his mother's tomb was not one to be pointed out with pride, any more than his father's.

It seemed to him that he was ordered to continue struggling till he vanquished; this he had always tried. Work and seek out! And yet his mind wavered and his resolve was unsettled. It was the ever dulcet voice of that Circe which sufficed to agitate and obscure his soul in spite of his having believed it was forever detached from her. But these umbrageous and odoriferous hills, knew how deeply he loved her, for he had spoken of his thraldom to them when he might not speak to her under pain of shame and debas.e.m.e.nt.

Had he not undergone enough and pardoned as far as could be expected?

But she had disdained condonation, mocked at it and trampled it under foot.

Again she came to entangle him in her love. No; her wiles and witchery, for she was not a woman to love anyone or anything. Unable to love her own flesh and blood, she was an alien to humanity, as well as to love.

To such a mother, he owed solely indifference.

Such a woman was only a human form, less to him than the least of the patient, laborious animals useful to man.

As the stars grew darkened by clouds above the impa.s.sible horizon, his reflections turned more gloomy and deadly. Was it impious for him to arrogate the right to subst.i.tute his justice for that supreme, and wield its dreadful sword? But he shrank from acting as his father had done, and mainly because he saw that, if ever the world knew that he loved Rebecca, it would say that he had slain his wife to clear the path to the altar for his second marriage.

Cesarine had hinted of repentance, her return portended the same. The world would side with her. Yes; he would give her another chance. After the guests departed, he would let Antonino also go, he would resign himself to being coupled again with this chain-companion in the galleys of life!

"If it is true," he concluded, "I will endeavor to lead her to the light and truth, although her soul is full of shadows and the divine spark is clogged with ashes. Oh, heaven, may she be filled with the temptation to do good and mayest thou receive her in thy endless mercifulness!"

The squeaking of the gravel under a regular and heavy step induced him to look round, and a burly shape loomed up in the darkness between the plane trees. It was the so-called Cantagnac, who bowed, with his hat off.

"I have been hunting for you everywhere," he said jovially. "I want to say good-bye without company by, for it makes me timid, ha, ha! though you would not think it. Nice wholesome air, here! cool, decidedly cool, but wholesome. Doing a solitary smoke over a new invention?"

"No, monsieur, I was conversing."

"Eh! but I do not see anybody!"

"I was conversing with Nature."

"Oh, what the poet-fellows call musing, eh?"

"A kind of prayer."

"I see! well, his church is always open and you can go to service anytime, and day or night! and no collection-plate, ha, ha!"

"I make it a practice every day, if only briefly."

"Quite right! quite! I am inclined that way myself, since I lost my wife and our boy. He said something about hoping to meet me one day up there!" and he flourished his handkerchief about his eyes and toward the clouds. "Blessed relief to pray and do you really get an answer now and then? in time, no doubt, for it's a great way off!"

"Do you not believe in heaven, M. Cantagnac?" demanded Clemenceau, bluntly.