The House of Whispers Part 32

Was it really true what Flockart had told her? Did Walter actually wish to see her again? At one moment she believed in her lover's strong, pa.s.sionate devotion to her, for had she not seen it displayed in a hundred different ways? But the next she recollected how that man Flockart had taken advantage of her youth and inexperience in the past, how he had often lied so circ.u.mstantially that she had believed his words to be the truth. Once, indeed, he had openly declared to her that one of his maxims was never to tell the truth unless obliged. After dinner, a simple meal served in the poky little dining-room, she made an excuse to go to her room, and there sat for a long time, deeply reflecting. Should she write to Walter? Would it be judicious to explain Flockart's visit, and how he had urged their reconciliation? If she wrote, would it lower her dignity in her lover's eyes? That was the great problem which now troubled her. She sat staring before her undecided. She recalled all that Flockart had told her. He was the emissary of Lady Heyburn without a doubt. The girl had told him openly of her decision to speak the truth and expose him, but he had only laughed at her. Alas! she knew his true character, unscrupulous and pitiless. But she placed him aside.

Recollection of Walter--the man who had held her so often in his arms and pressed his hot lips to hers, the man who was her father's firm friend and whose uprightness and honesty of purpose she had ever admired--crowded upon her. Should she write to him? Rigid and staring, she sat in her chair, her little white hands clenched, as she tried to summon courage. It had been she who had written declaring that their secret engagement must be broken, she who had condemned herself.

Therefore, had she not a right to satisfy that longing she had had through months, the longing to write to him once again. The thought decided her; and, going to the table whereon the lamp was burning, she sat down, and after some reflection, penned a letter as follows:--

"MY SWEETHEART, MY DARLING, MY OWN, MY SOUL--MINE--ONLY MINE,--I am wondering how and where you are! True, I wrote you a cruel letter; but it was imperative, and under the force of circ.u.mstance. I am full of regrets, and I only wish with all my heart that I might kiss you once again, and press you in my arms as I used to do.

"But how are you? I have had you before my eyes to-night, and I feel quite sure that at this very moment you are thinking of me. You must know that I love you dearly. You gave me your heart, and it shall not belong to any other. I have tried to be brave and courageous; but, alas!

I have failed. I love you, my darling, and I must see you soon--very soon.

"Mr. Flockart came to see me to-day and says that you expressed to him a desire to meet me again. Gratify that desire when you will, and you will find your Gabrielle just the same--longing ever to see you, living with only the memories of your dear face.

"Can you doubt of my great, great love for you? You never wrote in reply to my letter, though I have waited for months. I know my letter was a cruel one, and to you quite unwarranted; but I had a reason for writing it, and the reason was because I felt that I ought not to deceive you any longer.

"You see, darling, I am frank and open. Yes, I have deceived you. I am terribly ashamed and downhearted. I have tried to conceal my grief, even from you; but it is impossible. I love you as much as I ever loved you, and I swear to you that I have never once wavered.

"Grim circ.u.mstance forced me to write to you as I did. Forgive me, I beg of you. If it is true what Mr. Flockart says, then send me a telegram, and come here to see me. If it be false, then I shall know by your silence.

"I love you, my own, my well-beloved! _Au revoir_, my dearest heart. I look at your photograph which to-night smiles at me. Yes, you love me!

"With many fond and sweet kisses like those I gave you in the well-remembered days of our happiness.

"My love--My king!"

She read the letter carefully through, placed it in an envelope, and, marking it private, addressed it to Walter's chambers in the Temple, whence she knew it must be forwarded if he were away. Then, putting on her tam o' shanter, she went out to the village grocer's, where she posted it, so that it left by the early morning mail. When would his welcome telegram arrive? She calculated that he would get the letter by mid-day, and by one o'clock she could receive his reply--his rea.s.surance of love.

So she went to her bed, with its white dimity hangings, more calm and composed than for months before. For a long time she lay awake, thinking of him, listening hour by hour to the chiming bells of the old Norman church. They marked the pa.s.sing of the night. Then she dropped off to sleep, to be awakened by the sun streaming into the room.

That same morning, away up in the Highlands at Glencardine, Sir Henry had groped his way across the library to his accustomed chair, and Hill had placed before him one of the shallow drawers of the cabinet of seal-impressions.

There were fully half a dozen which had been sent to him by the curator of the museum at Norwich, sulphur-casts of seals recently acquired by that inst.i.tution.

The blind man had put aside that morning to examine them, and settled himself to his task with the keen and pleasurable antic.i.p.ation of the expert.

They were very fine specimens. The blind man, sitting alone, selected one, and, fingering it very carefully for a long time, at last made out its design and the inscription upon it.

"The seal of Abbot Simon de Luton, of the early thirteenth century," he said slowly to himself. "The wolf guards the head of St. Edmund as it does in the seal of the Benedictine Abbey of Bury St. Edmunds, while the Virgin with the Child is over the canopy. And the verse is indeed curious for its quaintness:"

+ VIRGO . DEUM . FERT . DUX . CAPUD . AUFERT . QUOD . LUPUS . HIC . FERT +

Then he again retraced the letters with his sensitive fingers to rea.s.sure himself that he had made no mistake.

The next he drew towards him proved to be the seal of the Vice-Warden of the Grey Friars of Cambridge, a pointed one used about the year 1244, which to himself he declared, in heraldic language, to bear the device of "a cross raguly debruised by a spear, and a crown of thorns in bend dexter, and a sponge on a staff in bend sinister, between two threefold _flagella_ in base"--surely a formidable array of the instruments used in the Pa.s.sion.

Deeply interested, and speaking to himself aloud, as was his habit when alone, he examined them one after the other. Among the collection were the seals of Berengar de Brolis, Pleba.n.u.s of Pacina (in Syracuse), and those of the Commune of Beauvais (1228); Mathilde (or Mahaut), daughter of Henri Duke of Brabant (1265); the town of Oudenbourg in West Flanders, and of the Vicar-Provincial of the Carmelite Order at Palermo (1350); Jacobus de Gnapet, Bishop of Rennes (1480); and of Bondi Marquis of Sasolini of Bologna (1323).

He had almost concluded when Goslin, the grey-bearded Frenchman, having breakfasted alone in the dining-room, entered. "Ah, _mon cher_ Sir Henry!" he exclaimed, "at work so early! The study of seals must be very fascinating to you, though I confess that, for myself, I could never see in them very much to interest one."

"No. To the ordinary person, my dear Goslin, it appears no doubt, a most dryasdust study, but to a man afflicted like myself it is the only study that he can pursue, for with his finger tips he can learn the devices and decipher the inscriptions," the blind Baronet declared. "Take, for instance, only this little collection of a dozen or so impressions which they have so kindly sent to me from Norwich. Each one of them tells me something. Its device, its general character, its heraldry, its inscription, are all highly instructive. For the collector there are opportunities for the study of the historical allusions, the emblematology and imagery, the hagiology, the biographical and topographical episodes, and the other peculiarities and idiosyncrasies in all the seals he possesses."

Goslin, like most other people, had been many times bored by the old man's technical discourses upon his hobby. But he never showed it. He, just the same as other people, made pretence of being interested. "Yes,"

he remarked, "they must be most instructive to the student. I recollect seeing a great quant.i.ty in the Bargello at Florence."

"Ah, a very fine collection--part of the Medici collection, and contains some of the finest Italian and Spanish specimens," remarked the blind connoisseur. "Birch of the British Museum is quite right in declaring that the seal, portable and abounding in detail, not difficult of acquisition nor hard to read if we set about deciphering the story it has to tell, takes us back as we look upon it to the very time of its making, and sets us, as it were, face to face with the actual owners of the relic."

The Frenchman sighed. He saw he was in for a long dissertation; and, moving uneasily towards the window, changed the topic of conversation by saying, "I had a long letter from Paris this morning. Krail is back again, it appears."

"Ah, that man!" cried the other impatiently. "When will his extraordinary energies be suppressed? They are watching him carefully, I suppose."

"Of course," replied the Frenchman. "He left Paris about a month ago, but unfortunately the men watching him did not follow. He took train for Berlin, and has been absent until now."

"We ought to know where he's been, Goslin," declared the elder man.

"What fool was it who, keeping him under surveillance, allowed him to slip from Paris?"

"The Russian Tchernine."

"I thought him a clever fellow, but it seems that he's a bungler after all."

"But while we keep Krail at arm's length, as we are doing, what have we to fear?" asked Goslin.

"Yes, but how long can we keep him at arm's length?" queried Sir Henry.

"You know the kind of man--one of the most extraordinarily inventive in Europe. No secret is safe from him. Do you know, Goslin," he added, in a changed voice, "I live nowadays somehow in constant apprehension."

"You've never possessed the same self-confidence since you found Mademoiselle Gabrielle with the safe open," he remarked.

"No. Murie, or some other man she knows, must have induced her to do that, and take copies of those doc.u.ments. Fortunately, I suspected an attempt, and baited the trap accordingly."

"What caused you to suspect?"

"Because more than once both Murie and the girl seemed to be seized by an unusual desire to pry into my business."

"You don't think that our friend Flockart had anything to do with the affair?" the Frenchman suggested.

"No, no. Not in the least. I know Flockart too well," declared the old man. "Once I looked upon him as my enemy, but I have now come to the conclusion that he is a friend--a very good friend."

The Frenchman pulled a rather wry face, and remained silent.

"I know," Sir Henry went on, "I know quite well that his constant a.s.sociation with my wife has caused a good deal of gossip; but I have dismissed it all with the contempt that such attempted scandal deserves.

It has been put about by a pack of women who are jealous of my wife's good looks and her _chic_ in dress."

"Are not Flockart and mademoiselle also good friends?" inquired Goslin.

"No. I happen to know that they are not, and that very fact in itself shows me that Gabrielle, in trying to get at the secret of my business, was not aided by Flockart, for it was he who exposed her."

"Yes," remarked the Frenchman, "so you've told me before. Have you heard from mademoiselle lately?"

"Only twice since she has left here," was the old man's bitter reply, "and that was twice too frequently. I've done with her, Goslin--done with her entirely. Never in all my life did I receive such a crushing blow as when I found that she, in whom I reposed the utmost confidence, had played her own father false, and might have ruined him!"

"Yes," remarked the other sympathetically, "it was a great blow to you, I know. But will you not forgive mademoiselle?"