"Will you go? Will you go now, at once, or shall I wake Mlle. Annaik, and tell her what I have seen – and from what I believe I have saved her?"
"No, you need not wake her, nor tell her any thing. I know she has never even given me a thought."
Suddenly the man bowed his head. A sob burst through the dark.
Alan put his hand on his shoulder.
"Judik! Judik Kerbastiou! I am sorry for you from my heart. But go … go now, at once. Nothing shall be said of this. No one shall know any thing. If you wish me to tell my cousin, I will. Then she can see you or not, as she may wish."
"I go. But … yes, tell her. To-morrow. Tell her to-morrow. Only I would not have hurt her. Tell her that. I go now. Adiou."
With that Judik Kerbastiou lifted his shaggy head, and turned his great black, gypsy-wild eyes upon Alan.
"She loves you," he said simply. Then he stepped lightly over the path, passed between the cypresses, and moved out across the glade. Alan watched his dark figure slide through the moonlight. He traversed the glade to the right of the thorn. For nearly half a mile he was visible; then he turned and entered the forest.
An hour later two figures moved, in absolute silence, athwart the sand-dunes beyond the cypress alley.
Hand in hand they moved. Their faces were in deep shadow, for the moonlight was now obscured by a league-long cloud.
When they emerged from the scattered pines to the seaward of the château, the sentinel peacocks saw them, and began once more their harsh, barbaric screams.
The twain unclasped their hands, and walked steadily forward, speaking no word, not once looking one at the other.
As they entered the yew-close at the end of the old garden of the château they were as shadows drowned in night. For some minutes they were invisible; though, from above, the moon shone upon their white faces and on their frozen stillness. The peacocks sullenly ceased.
Once more they emerged into the moon-dusk. As they neared the ivied gables of the west wing of the Manor the cloud drifted from the moon, and her white flood turned the obscurity into a radiance wherein every object stood forth as clear as at noon.
Alan's face was white as are the faces of the dead. His eyes did not once lift from the ground. But in Annaik's face was a flush, and her eyes were wild and beautiful as falling stars.
It was not an hour since she had wakened from her trance; not an hour, and yet already had Alan forgotten – forgotten her, and Ynys, and the storm, and the after calm. Of one thing he thought only, and that was of what Daniel Darc had once said to him laughingly: "If the old fables of astrology were true, your horoscope would foretell impossible things."
In absolute silence they moved up the long flight of stone stairs that led to the château; in absolute silence, they entered by the door which old Matieu had left ajar; in silence, they passed that unconscious sleeper; in silence, they crossed the landing where the corridors diverged.
Both stopped, simultaneously. Alan seemed about to speak, but his lips closed again without utterance.
Abruptly he turned. Without a word he passed along the corridor to the right, and disappeared in the obscurity.
Annaik stood a while, motionless, silent. Then she put her hand to her heart. On her impassive face the moonlight revealed nothing; only in her eyes there was a gleam as of one glad unto death.
Then she too passed, noiseless and swift as a phantom. Outside, on the stone terrace, Ys, the blind peacock, strode to and fro, uttering his prolonged, raucous screams. When, at last, he was unanswered by the peacocks in the cypress alley, his clamant voice no longer tore the silence.
The moon trailed her flood of light across the earth. It lay upon the waters, and was still a glory there when, through the chill quietudes of dawn, the stars waned one by one in the soft graying that filtered through the morning dusk. The new day was come.
CHAPTER VI
VIA OSCURA
The day that followed this quiet dawn marked the meridian of spring. Thereafter the flush upon the blossoms would deepen; the yellow pass out of the green; and a deeper green involve the shoreless emerald sea of verdure which everywhere covered the brown earth, and swelled and lapsed in endlessly receding billows of forest and woodland. Up to that noon-tide height Spring had aspired, ever since she had shaken the dust of snow from her primrose-sandals; now, looking upon the way she had come, she took the hand of Summer – and both went forth as one, so that none should tell which was still the guest of the greenness.
This was the day when Alan and Ynys walked among the green alleys of the woods of Kerival, and when, through the deep gladness that was his for all the strange, gnawing pain in his mind, in his ears echoed the haunting line of Rimbaud, "Then, in the violet forest all a-bourgeon, Eucharis said to me: 'It is Spring.'"
Through the first hours of the day Alan had been unwontedly silent. Ynys had laughed at him with loving eyes, but had not shown any shadow of resentment. His word to the effect that his journey had tired him, and that he had not slept at all, was enough to account for his lack of buoyant joy.
But, in truth, Ynys did not regret this, since it had brought a still deeper intensity of love into Alan's eyes. When he looked at her, there was so much passion of longing, so pathetic an appeal, that her heart smote her. Why should she be the one chosen to evoke a love such as this, she wondered; she, who was but Ynys, while Alan was a man whom all women might love, and had genius that made him as one set apart from his fellows, and was brow-lit by a starry fate?
And yet, in a sense she understood. They were so much at one, so like in all essential matters, and were in all ways comrades. It would have been impossible for each not to love the other. But, deeper than this, was the profound and intimate communion of the spirit. In some beautiful, strange way, she knew she was the flame to his fire. At that flame he lit the torch of which Daniel Darc and others had spoken. She did not see why or wherein it was so, but she believed, and indeed at last realized the exquisite actuality.
In deep love, there is no height nor depth between two hearts, no height nor depth, no length nor breadth. There is simply love.
The birds of Angus Ogue are like the wild-doves of the forest: when they nest in the heart they are as one. And her life, and Alan's, were not these one?
Nevertheless, Ynys was disappointed as the day went on, and her lover did not seem able to rouse himself from his strange despondency.
Doubtless this was due largely to what was pending. That afternoon he was to have his long anticipated interview with the Marquise, and would perhaps learn what might affect his whole life. On the other hand, each believed that nothing would be revealed which was not of the past solely.
Idly, Ynys began to question her companion about the previous night. What had he done, since he had not slept; had he read, or dreamed at the window, or gone out, as had once been his wont on summer nights, to walk in the cypress alley or along the grassy dunes? Had he heard a nightingale singing in the moonlight? Had he noticed the prolonged screaming of the peacocks – unusually prolonged, now that she thought of it, Ynys added.
"I wonder, dear, if you would love me whatever happened – whatever I was, or did?"
It was an inconsequent question. She looked up at him, half perturbed, half pleased.
"Yes, Alan."
"But do you mean what you say, knowing that you are not only using a phrase?"
"I have no gift of expression, dearest. Words come to me without their bloom and their fragrance, I often think. But … Alan, I love you."
"That is sweetest music for me, Ynys, my fawn. All words from you have both bloom and fragrance, though you may not know it, shy flower. But tell me again, do you mean what you say, absolutely?"
"Absolutely. In every way, in all things, at all times. Dear, how could any thing come between us? It is possible, of course, that circumstances might separate us. But nothing could really come between us. My heart is yours."
"What about Andrik de Morvan?"
"Ah, you are not in earnest, Alan!"
"Yes; I am more than half in earnest, Ynys, darling. Tell me!"
"You cannot possibly believe that I care, that I could care, for Andrik as I care for you, Alan."
"Why not?"
"Why not? Oh, have you so little belief, then, in women – in me? Alan, do you not know that what is perhaps possible for a man, though I cannot conceive it, is impossible for a woman. That is the poorest sophistry which says a woman may love two men at the same time. That is, if by love is meant what you and I mean. Affection, the deepest affection, is one thing; the love of man and woman, as we mean it, is a thing apart!"
"You love Andrik?"
"Yes."
"Could you wed your life with his?"
"I could have done so … but for you."
"Then, by your true heart, is there no possibility that he can in any way ever come between us?"
"None."
"Although he is nominally your betrothed, and believes in you as his future wife?"
"That is not my fault. I drifted into that conditional union, as you know. But after to-day he and every one shall know that I can wed no man but you. But why do you ask me these things, Alan?"
"I want to know. I will explain later. But tell me; could you be happy with Andrik? You say you love him?"
"I love him as a friend, as a comrade."
"As an intimately dear comrade?"
"Alan, do not let us misunderstand each other. There can only be one supreme comrade for a woman, and that is the man whom she loves supremely. Every other affection, the closest, the dearest, is as distinct from that as day from night."
"If by some malign chance you and Andrik married – say, in the event of my supposed death – would you still be as absolutely true to me as you are now?"
"What has the accident of marriage to do with truth between a man and a woman, Alan?"
"It involves intimacies that would be a desecration otherwise. Oh, Ynys, do you not understand?"
"It is a matter of the inner life. Men so rarely believe in the hidden loyalty of the heart. It is possible for a woman to fulfil a bond and yet not be a bondswoman. Outer circumstances have little to do with the inner life, with the real self."
"In a word, then, if you married Andrik you would remain absolutely mine, not only if I were dead, but if perchance the rumor were untrue and I came back, though too late?"
"Yes."
"Absolutely?"
"Absolutely."
"And you profoundly know, Ynys, that in no conceivable circumstances can Andrik be to you what I am, or any thing for a moment approaching it?"
"I do know it."
"Although he were your husband?"
"Although he were my husband."
The worn lines that were in Alan's face were almost gone. Looking into his eyes Ynys saw that the strange look of pain which had alarmed her was no longer there. The dear eyes had brightened; a new hope seemed to have arisen in them.
"Do you believe me, Alan, dear?" she whispered.
"If I did not, it would kill me, Ynys."
And he spoke truth. The bitter sophistications of love play lightly with the possibilities of death. Men who talk of suicide are likely to be long-livers; lovers whose hearts are easily broken can generally recover and astonish themselves by their heroic endurance. The human heart is like a wave of the sea; it can be lashed into storm, it can be calmed, it can become stagnant – but it is seldom absorbed from the ocean till in natural course the sun takes up its spirit in vapor. Yet, ever and again, there is one wave among a myriad which a spiral wind-eddy may suddenly strike. In a moment it is whirled this way and that; it is involved in a cataclysm of waters; and then cloud and sea meet, and what a moment before had been an ocean wave is become an idle skyey vapor.
Alan was of the few men of whom that wave is the symbol. To him, death could come at any time, if the wind-eddy of a certain unthinkable sorrow struck him at his heart.
In this sense, his life was in Ynys's hands as absolutely as though he were a caged bird. He knew it, and Ynys knew it.
There are a few men, a few women, like this. Perhaps it is well that these are so rare. Among the hills of the north, at least, they may still be found; in remote mountain valleys and in lonely isles, where life and death are realized actualities and not the mere adumbrations of the pinions of that lonely fugitive, the human mind, along the endless precipices of Time.
Alan knew well that both he and Ynys were not so strong as each believed. Knowing this, he feared for both. And yet, there was but one woman in the world for him – Ynys; as for her, there was but one man – Alan. Without her, he could do nothing, achieve nothing. She was his flame, his inspiration, his strength, his light. Without her, he was afraid to live; with her, death was a beautiful dream. To her, Alan was not less. She lived in him and for him.
But we are wrought of marsh-fire as well as of stellar light. Now, as of old, the gods do not make of the fairest life a thornless rose. A single thorn may innocently convey poison; so that everywhere men and women go to and fro perilously, and not least those who move through the shadow and shine of an imperious passion.
For a time, thereafter, Alan and Ynys walked slowly onward, hand in hand, each brooding deep over the thoughts their words had stirred.
"Do you know what Yann says, Alan?" Ynys asked in a low voice, after both had stopped instinctively to listen to a thrush leisurely iterating his just learned love carol, where he swung on a greening spray of honeysuckle under a yellow-green lime. "Do you know what Yann says?.. He says that you have a wave at your feet. What does that mean?"
"When did he tell you that, Ynys, mo-chree?"
"Ah, Alan, dear, how sweet it is to hear from your lips the dear Gaelic we both love so well! And does that not make you more than ever anxious to learn all that you are to hear this afternoon?"
"Yes … but that, that Ian Macdonald said; what else did he say?"
"Nothing. He would say no more. I asked him in the Gaelic, and he repeated only, 'I see a wave at his feet.'"
"What Ian means by that I know well. It means I am going on a far journey."
"Oh, no, Alan, no!"
"He has the sight upon him, at times. Ian would not say that thing, did he not mean it. Tell me, my fawn, has he ever said any thing of this kind about you?"
"Yes. Less than a month ago. I was with him one day on the dunes near the sea. Once, when he gave no answer to what I asked, I looked at him, and saw his eyes fixt. 'What do you see, Yann?' I asked.
"'I see great rocks, strange caverns. Sure, it is well I am knowing what they are. They are the Sea-caves of Rona.'
"There were no rocks visible from where we stood, so I knew that Ian was in one of his visionary moods. I waited, and then spoke again, whisperingly:
"'Tell me, Ian MacIain, what do you see?'
"'I see two whom I do not know. And they are in a strange place, they are. And on the man I see a shadow, and on the woman I see a light. But what that shadow is, I do not know; nor do I know what that light is. But I am for thinking that it is of the Virgin Mary, for I see the dream that is in the woman's heart, and it is a fair wonderful dream that.'
"That is all Yann said, Alan. As I was about to speak, his face changed.
"'What is it, Ian?' I asked.
"At first he would answer nothing. Then he said: 'It is a dream. It means nothing. It was only because I was thinking of you and Alan MacAlasdair.'"
"Oh, Ynys!" – Alan interrupted with an eager cry – "that is a thing I have long striven to know; that which lies in the words 'Alan MacAlasdair.' My father, then, was named Alasdair! And was it Rona, you said, was the place of the Sea-caves? Rona … that must be an island. The only Rona I know of is that near Skye. It may be the same. Now, indeed, I have a clew, lest I should learn nothing to-day. Did Ian say nothing more?"
"Nothing. I asked him if the man and woman he saw were you and I, but he would not speak. I am certain he was about to say yes, but refrained."
For a while they walked on in silence, each revolving many speculations aroused by the clew given by the words of "Yann the Dumb." Suddenly Ynys tightened her clasp of Alan's hand.
"What is it, dear?"
"Alan, some time ago you asked me abruptly what I knew about the forester, Judik Kerbastiou. Well, I see him in that beech-covert yonder, looking at us."
Alan started. Ynys noticed that for a moment he grew pale as foam. His lips parted, as though he were about to call to the woodlander: when Judik advanced, making at the same time a sign of silence.
The man had a wild look about him. Clearly, he had not slept since he and Alan had parted at midnight. His dusky eyes had a red light in them. His rough clothes were still damp; his face, too, was strangely white and dank.
Alan presumed that he came to say something concerning Annaik. He did not know what to do to prevent this, but while he was pondering, Judik spoke in a hoarse, tired voice:
"Let the Lady Ynys go back to the château at once. She is needed there."
"Why, what is wrong, Judik Kerbastiou?"
"Let her go back, I say. No time for words now. Be quick. I am not deceiving you. Listen …" and with that he leaned toward Alan, and whispered in his ear.
Alan looked at him with startled amaze. Then, turning toward Ynys, he asked her to go back at once to the château.
CHAPTER VII
"DEIREADH GACH COGAIDH, SITH" (THE END OF ALL WARFARE, PEACE)
Alan did not wait till Ynys was out of sight, before he demanded the reason of Judik's strange appearance and stranger summons.
"Why are you here again, Judik Kerbastiou? What is the meaning of this haunting of the forbidden home domain? And what did you mean by urging Mlle. Ynys to go back at once to the château?"
"Time enough later for your other questions, young sir. Meanwhile come along with me, and as quick as you can."
Without another word the woodlander turned and moved rapidly along a narrow path through the brushwood.
Alan saw it would be useless to ask further questions at the moment; moreover, he was now vaguely alarmed. What could all this mystery mean? Could an accident have happened to the Marquis Tristran? It was hardly likely, for he seldom ventured into the forest, unless when the weather had dried all the ways: for he had to be wheeled in his chair, and, as Alan knew, disliked to leave the gardens or the well-kept yew and cypress alleys near the château.
In a brief while, however, he heard voices. Judik turned, and waved to him to be wary. The forester bent forward, stared intently, and then beckoned to Alan to creep up alongside.
"Who is it? What is it, Judik?"
"Look!"
Alan disparted a bough of underwood which made an effectual screen. In the glade beyond were four figures.
One of these he recognized at once. It was the Marquis de Kerival. He was, as usual, seated in his wheeled chair. Behind him, some paces to the right, was Raif Kermorvan, the steward of Kerival. The other two men Alan had not seen before.
One of these strangers was a tall, handsome man, of about sixty. His close-cropped white hair, his dress, his whole mien, betrayed the military man. Evidently a colonel, Alan thought, or perhaps a general; at any rate an officer of high rank, and one to whom command and self-possession were alike habitual. Behind this gentleman, one of the most distinguished and even noble-looking men he had ever seen, and again some paces to the right, was a man, evidently a groom, and to all appearances an orderly in mufti.
The first glance revealed that a duel was imminent. The duellists, of course, were the military stranger and the Marquis de Kerival.
"Who is that man?" Alan whispered to Kerbastion. "Do you know?"
"I do not know his name. He is a soldier – a general. He came to Kerival to-day; an hour or more ago. I guided him through the wood, for he and his man had ridden into one of the winding alleys and had lost their way. I heard him ask for the Marquis de Kerival. I waited about in the shrubbery of the rose garden to see if … if … some one for whom I waited … would come out. After a time, half an hour or less, this gentleman came forth, ushered by Raif Kermorvan, the steward. His man brought around the two horses again. They mounted, and rode slowly away. I joined them, and offered to show them a shorter route than that which they were taking. The General said they wished to find a glade known as Merlin's Rest. Then I knew what he came for, I knew what was going to happen." "What, Judik?"
"Hush! not so loud. They will hear us! I knew it was for a duel. It was here that Andrik de Morvan, the uncle of him whom you know, was killed by a man – I forget his name."
"Why did the man kill Andrik de Morvan?"
"Oh, who knows? Why does one kill any body? Because he was tired of enduring the Sieur Andrik longer; he bored him beyond words to tell, I have heard. Then, too, the Count, for he was a count, loved Andrik's wife."
Alan glanced at Judik. For all his rough wildness, he spoke on occasion like a man of breeding. Moreover, at no time was he subservient in his manner. Possibly, Alan thought, it was true what he had heard: that Judik Kerbastiou was by moral right Judik de Kerival.
While the onlookers were whispering, the four men in the glade had all slightly shifted their position. The Marquis, it was clear, had insisted upon this. The light had been in his eyes. Now the antagonists and their seconds were arranged aright. Kermorvan, the steward, was speaking slowly: directions as to the moment when to fire.
Alan knew it would be worse than useless to interfere. He could but hope that this was no more than an affair of honor of a kind not meant to have a fatal issue; a political quarrel, perhaps; a matter of insignificant social offence.
Before Raif Kermorvan – a short, black-haired, bull-necked man, with a pale face and protruding light blue eyes – had finished what he had to say, Alan noticed what had hitherto escaped him: that immediately beyond the glade, and under a huge sycamore, already in full leaf, stood the Kerival carriage. Alain, the coachman, sat on the box, and held the two black horses in rein. Standing by the side of the carriage was Georges de Rohan, the doctor of Kerloek, and a personal friend of the Marquis Tristran.
Suddenly Kermorvan raised his voice.
"M. le Général, are you ready?"
"I am ready," answered a low, clear voice.
"M. le Marquis, are you ready?"
Tristran de Kerival did not answer, but assented by a slight nod.
"Then raise your weapons, and fire the moment I say 'thrice.'"
Both men raised their pistols.
"You have the advantage of me, sir," said the Marquis coldly, in a voice as audible to Alan and Judik as to the others. "I present a good aim to you here. Nevertheless, I warn you once more that you will not escape me … this time."
The General smiled; scornfully, Alan thought. Again, when suddenly he lowered his pistol and spoke, Alan fancied he detected if not a foreign accent, at least a foreign intonation.
"Once more, Tristran de Kerival, I tell you that this duel is a crime; a crime against me, a crime against Mme. la Marquise, a crime against your daughters, and a crime against…"
"That will do, General. I am ready. Are you?"
Without further word the stranger slowly drew himself together. He raised his arm, while his opponent did the same.
"Once! Twice! Thrice!" There was a crack like that of a cattle-whip. Simultaneously some splinters of wood were blown from the left side of the wheeled chair.
The Marquis Tristran smiled. He had reserved his fire. He could aim now with fatal effect
"It is murder!" muttered Alan, horrified; but at that moment the Marquis spoke. Alan leaned forward, intent to hear.
"At last!" That was all. But in the words was a concentrated longing for revenge, the utterance of a vivid hate.
Tristran de Kerival slowly and with methodical malignity took aim. There was a flash, the same whip-like crack.
For a moment it seemed as though the ball had missed its mark. Then, suddenly, there was a bubbling of red froth at the mouth of the stranger. Still, he stood erect.
Alan looked at the Marquis de Kerival. He was leaning back, deathly white, but with the bitter, suppressed smile which every one at the château knew and hated.
All at once the General swayed, lunged forward, and fell prone.
Dr. de Rohan ran out from the sycamore, and knelt beside him. After a few seconds he looked up.
He did not speak, but every one knew what his eyes said. To make it unmistakable, he drew out his handkerchief and put it over the face of the dead man.
Alan was about to advance when Judik Kerbastiou plucked him by the sleeve.
"Hst! M'sieur Alan! There is Mamzelle Ynys returning! She will be here in another minute. She must not see what is there."
"You are right, Judik. I thank you."
With that he turned and moved swiftly down the leaf-hid path which would enable him to intercept Ynys.
"What is it, Alan?" she asked, with wondering eyes, the moment he was at her side. "What is it? Why are you so pale?"
"It is because of a duel that has been fought here. You must go back at once, dear. There are reasons why you…"
"Is my father one of the combatants? I know he is out of the château. Tell me quick! Is he wounded? Is he dead?"
"No, no, darling heart! He is unhurt. But I can tell you nothing more just now. Later … later. But why did you return here?"
"I came with a message from my mother. She is in sore trouble, I fear. I found her, on her couch in the Blue Salon, with tears streaming down her face and sobs choking her."
"And she wants me … now?"
"Yes. She told me to look for you, and bring you to her at once."
"Then go straightway back, dear, and tell her that I shall be with her immediately. Yes, go – go – at once."
But by the time Ynys had moved into the alley which led her to the château, and Alan had returned to the spot where he had left Judik, rapid changes had occurred.
The wheeled chair had gone. Alan could see it nearing the South Yews; with the Marquis Tristran in it, leaning backward and with head erect. At its side walked Raif Kermorvan. He seemed to be whispering to the Seigneur. The carriage had disappeared; with it Georges de Rohan, the soldier orderly, and, presumably, the dead man.
Alan stood hesitant, uncertain whether to go first to the Marquise, or to follow the man whom he regarded now with an aversion infinitely deeper than he had ever done hitherto; with whom, he felt, he never wished to speak again, for he was a murderer, if ever man was, and, from Alan's standpoint, a coward as well. Tristran de Kerival was the deadliest shot in all the country-side, and he must have known that, when he challenged his victim, he gave him his death sentence.
It did not occur to Alan that possibly the survivor was the man challenged. Instinctively he knew that this was not so.
Judik suddenly touched his arm.
"Here," he said; "this is the name of the dead man. I got the servant to write it down for me."
Alan took the slip of paper. On it was: "M. le Général Carmichael."