Page:Once a Week Volume 7.djvu/574

566 means burdened with my sins (if they are sins) committed through you. I make one proposition to you, and no more. If you agree to it, you and I leave Cannstatt, leave Germany together, and live happily, and without cares for the future. Your life with me, may be after your own pattern. You shall have an indulgent husband so long as you are a forbearing wife. Think well over it. If you will not consent, do not hope for a quiet future—do not hope anything from me.”

He led her out a few steps beyond the portico, and whispered in her ear. Arm-in-arm the two paced backwards and forwards together, till the clock struck eleven.

“I must go,” she whispered hurriedly.

“Yes, or no?” asked M. Talobre, in a determined voice.

“Give me at least a few hours to consider of it,” she whispered entreatingly; “that is surely but little to ask. I cannot, cannot tell you now.”

“You must tell me now. There is no chance of my conveying a message to you without fear of detection. You and I are watched already. No, no. You must make up your mind before we part to-night. Come, I will give you ten minutes, during which we will walk beneath these orange-trees.”

There was no sound but the low ominous west wind whirling the dead orange blossoms round their feet. The little town, with its white bath-houses and gleaming river, lay on their right, the dense shades of the royal park of Stuttgart on their left. Beyond rose ridges of hills and vineyards, through which curled the broad road to freedom, to luxury, to pleasure. All was dark around her. The darkness pressed on her heart like a heavy hand, and no thought of the future could raise it.

“I love you,” whispered M. Pierre.

Having no other light for her guidance, she accepted this.

and his wife Maria, a jolly, pleasant-faced, merry-hearted couple, living in the Eschenheimer Strasse, Frankfort-on-the-MaineMain [sic], and letting all the upper rooms of their house, or rather cigar-shop, are one morning busily discussing the affairs of a new lodger, when it behoves us to make their acquaintance.

“Her husband is coming to-night, and that is why she has sent out for a bottle of Moselle,” said rosy Frau Schmidt. “She knows how men love their palates.”

“I don’t fancy he will come,” added her husband, wisely; “there is something in her face of a woman who is accustomed to expect in vain.”

“All husbands are wretches,” added Frau Maria, with a comfortable sigh.

“All women are saints in their own opinion, and sinners when they get the chance,” returned the Herr Schmidt.

Just then the new lodger passed out of their front door into the street. Customers entering the shop deterred the master and mistress from observing that she turned down into the Zeil. We follow her till she stops at the Poste Restante.

“Any letters for Mrs. Carey?” she asked in a quick, anxious voice.

The man handed her one, and, without waiting to thank him, she turned away. With the letter crushed in her hand, she rushed onwards till she came to a side street leading off the crowded Zeil, where she stopped, and turning her face towards a shop window, tore open the letter.

It bore no date or address, and only the following words:

“,—If you don’t see me in a day or two, slip away quietly to Paris, alone. It is not my own fault that I have delayed to come.”

Norah Malone, for it was she, tore the paper into twenty fragments, and scattered them in the street. Her eyes flashed with an anger that might have been terrible then, to the man who had deceived her. Drawing her veil close over her face, she rushed on and never stopped till she reached a solitary spot in the Eschenheimer pleasure-garden. There, she threw herself on an empty seat, and cried as an ordinary woman cries when her heart is breaking.

For this, then, she had sacrificed so much? For disappointment, for deception, for betrayal she had sold her peace of mind, her good conscience, her all that was dear to woman.

Fool, fool that she had been to trust him again. Was she not rightly served?

An hour passed, before the first vehemence of her passion was over. When she grew calmer she rose and walked on—on through the pretty gardens where happy children danced and laughed amid the falling leaves,—on through the fresh Grüneburgweg, with its white villas and neat gardens, so many cozy birds-nests for peaceful souls;—on through the open corn-fields till she passed the Rothschild mansion, and the grey old Eschenheimer Thor and Dom were all that pointed to the city she had left behind.

The sun had set now and the mists were rising fast. She did not return home wildly and recklessly as she had come. Choosing the nearest way, and walking with steady haste, she reached the cigar-shop just as the Herr and Frau Schmidt were sitting down to tea.

The Frau came into the passage to meet her.

“A gentleman is up-stairs waiting to see you. He has travelled from a distance, and is very impatient,” she said with a bow.

A hope, strong and bright, of joy unexpected, lighted up her whole being. The desolation and the cruel delay were both forgotten. In an instant she stood on the threshold.

“God bless you, Pierre!” she cried, and held out both her trembling hands.

But a touch stranger and colder than her husband’s had ever been, was laid upon her shoulder.

“In the name of Wilhelm, King of Wirtemberg, I arrest you for having stolen two thousand florins, the property of Paul Jansiewich, in trust for his grand-daughter Alexandrina—”

The voice paused, then, and gathered fresh severity and fresh force, as it added:

“And for the murder of Paul Jansiewich on