Jezebel’s Daughter by Wilkie Collins (page 5)

was trifling. But the risk to Minna involved nothing less than the breaking off of the marriage. She decided on keeping up appearances, at any sacrifice, until the marriage released her from the necessities of disguise.

So it came back again to the question of how the money was to be found.

Had she any reasonable hope of success, if she asked for a few days’ leave of absence, and went to Wurzburg? Would the holder of the bill allow her to renew it for a fortnight?

She got up, and consulted her glass–and turned away from it again, with a sigh. “If I was only ten years younger!” she thought.

The letter which she received from Wurzburg had informed her that the present holder of the bill was “a middle-aged man.” If he had been very young, or very old, she would have trusted in the autumn of her beauty, backed by her ready wit. But experience had taught her that the fascinations of a middle-aged woman are, in the vast majority of cases, fascinations thrown away on a middle-aged man. Even if she could hope to be one of the exceptions that prove the rule, the middle-aged man was an especially inaccessible person, in this case. He had lost money by her already–money either paid, or owing, to the spy whom he had set to watch her. Was this the sort of man who would postpone the payment of his just dues?

She opened one of the drawers in the toilette table, and took out the pearl necklace. “I thought it would come to this,” she said quietly. “Instead of paying the promissory note, Mr. Keller will have to take the necklace out of pledge.”

The early evening darkness of winter had set in. She dressed herself for going out, and left her room, with the necklace in its case, concealed under her shawl.

Poor puzzled Minna was waiting timidly to speak to her in the corridor. “Oh mamma, do forgive me! I meant it for the best.”

The widow put one arm (the other was not at liberty) round her daughter’s waist. “You foolish child,” she said, “will you never understand that your poor mother is getting old and irritable? I may think you have made a great mistake, in sacrificing yourself to the infirmities of an asthmatic stranger at Munich; but as to being ever really angry with you—-! Kiss me, my love; I never was fonder of you than I am now. Lift my veil. Oh, my darling, I don’t like giving you to anybody, even to Fritz.”

Minna changed the subject–a sure sign that she and Fritz were friends again. “How thick and heavy your veil is!” she said.

“It is cold out of doors, my child, to-night.”

“But why are you going out?”

“I don’t feel very well, Minna. A brisk walk in the frosty air will do me good.”

“Mamma, do let me go with you!”

“No, my dear. You are not a hard old woman like me–and you shall not run the risk of catching cold. Go into my room, and keep the fire up. I shall be back in half an hour.

“Where is my necklace, mamma?”

“My dear, the bride’s mother keeps the bride’s necklace–and, when we do try it on, we will see how it looks by daylight.”

In a minute more, Madame Fontaine was out in the street, on her way to the nearest jeweler.

CHAPTER IX

The widow stopped at a jeweler’s window in the famous street called the Zeil. The only person in the shop was a simple-looking old man, sitting behind the counter, reading a newspaper.

She went in. “I have something to show you, sir,” she said, in her softest and sweetest tones. The simple old man first looked at her thick veil, and then at the necklace. He lifted his hands in amazement and admiration. “May I examine these glorious pearls?” he asked–and looked at them through a magnifying glass, and weighed them in his hand. “I wonder you are not afraid to walk out alone in the dark, with such a necklace as this,” he said. “May I send to my foreman, and let him see it?”

Madame Fontaine granted his request. He rang the bell which communicated with the work-rooms. Being now satisfied that she was speaking to the proprietor of the shop, she risked her first inquiry.

“Have you any necklace of imitation pearls which resembles my necklace?” she asked.

The old gentleman started, and looked harder than ever at the impenetrable veil. “Good heavens–no!” he exclaimed. “There is no such thing in all Frankfort.

“Could an imitation be made, sir?”

The foreman entered the shop–a sullen, self-concentrated man. “Fit for a queen,” he remarked, with calm appreciation of the splendid pearls. His master repeated to him Madame Fontaine’s last question. “They might do it in Paris,” he answered briefly. “What time could you give them, madam?”

“I should want the imitation sent here before the thirteenth of next month.”

The master, humanely pitying the lady’s ignorance, smiled and said nothing. The foreman’s decision was rough and ready. “Nothing like time enough; quite out of the question.”

Madame Fontaine had no choice but to resign herself to circumstances. She had entered the shop with the idea of exhibiting the false necklace on the wedding-day, whilst the genuine pearls were pledged for the money of which she stood in need. With the necklace in pawn, and with no substitute to present in its place, what would Minna say, what would Mr. Keller think? It was useless to pursue those questions–some plausible excuse must be found. No matter what suspicions might be excited, the marriage would still take place. The necklace was no essential part of the ceremony which made Fritz and Minna man and wife–and the money must be had.

“I suppose, sir, you grant loans on valuable security–such as this necklace?” she said.

“Certainly, madam.”

“Provided you have the lady’s name and address,” the disagreeable foreman suggested, turning to his master.

The old man cordially agreed. “Quite true! quite true! And a reference besides–some substantial person, madam, well known in this city. The responsibility is serious with such pearls as these.”

“Is the reference absolutely necessary?” Madame Fontaine asked.

The foreman privately touched his master behind the counter. Understanding the signal, the simple old gentleman closed the jewel-case, and handed it back. “Absolutely necessary,” he answered.

Madame Fontaine went out again into the street. “A substantial reference” meant a person of some wealth and position in Frankfort–a person like Mr. Keller, for example. Where was she to find such a reference? Her relatives in the city had deliberately turned their backs on her. Out of Mr. Keller’s house, they were literally the only “substantial” people whom she knew. The one chance left seemed to be to try a pawnbroker.

At this second attempt, she was encountered by a smart young man. The moment _he_ saw the necklace, he uttered a devout ejaculation of surprise and blew a whistle. The pawnbroker himself appeared–looked at the pearls–looked at the veiled lady–and answered as the jeweler had answered, but less civilly. “I’m not going to get myself into a scrape,” said the pawnbroker; “I must have a good reference.”

Madame Fontaine was not a woman easily discouraged. She turned her steps towards the noble medieval street called the Judengasse–then thickly inhabited; now a spectacle of decrepit architectural old age, to be soon succeeded by a new street.

By twos and threes at a time, the Jews in this quaint quarter of the town clamorously offered their services to the lady who had come among them. When the individual Israelite to whom she applied saw the pearls, he appeared to take leave of his senses. He screamed; he clapped his hands; he called upon his wife, his children, his sisters, his lodgers, to come and feast their eyes on such a necklace as had never been seen since Solomon received the Queen of Sheba.

The first excitement having worn itself out, a perfect volley of questions followed. What was the lady’s name? Where did she live? How had she got the necklace? Had it been given to her? and, if so, who had given it? Where had it been made? Why had she brought it to the Judengasse? Did she want to sell it? or to borrow money on it? Aha! To borrow money on it. Very good, very good indeed; but–and then the detestable invitation to produce the reference made itself heard once more.

Madame Fontaine’s answer was well conceived. “I will pay you good interest, in place of a reference,” she said. Upon this, the Jewish excitability, vibrating between the desire of gain and the terror of consequences, assumed a new form. Some of them groaned; some of them twisted their fingers frantically in their hair; some of them called on the Deity worshipped by their fathers to bear witness how they had suffered, by dispensing with references in other cases of precious deposits; one supremely aged and dirty Jew actually suggested placing an embargo on the lady and her necklace, and sending information to the city authorities at the Town Hall. In the case of a timid woman, this sage’s advice might actually have been followed. Madame Fontaine preserved her presence of mind, and left the Judengasse as freely as she had entered it. “I can borrow the money elsewhere,” she said haughtily at parting. “Yes,” cried a chorus of voices, answering, “you can borrow of a receiver of stolen goods.”

It was only too true! The extraordinary value of the pearls demanded, on that account, extraordinary precautions on the part of moneylenders of every degree. Madame Fontaine put back the necklace in the drawer of her toilette-table. The very splendor of Minna’s bridal gift made it useless as a means of privately raising money among strangers.

And yet, the money must be found–at any risk, under any circumstances, no matter how degrading or how dangerous they might be.

With that desperate resolution, she went to her bed. Hour after hour she heard the clock strike. The faint cold light of the new day found her still waking and thinking, and still unprepared with a safe plan for meeting the demand on her, when the note became due. As to resources of her own, the value of the few jewels and dresses that she possessed did not represent half the amount of her debt.

It was a busy day at the office. The work went on until far into the evening.

Even when the household assembled at the supper-table, there was an interruption. A messenger called with a pressing letter, which made it immediately necessary to refer to the past correspondence of the firm. Mr. Keller rose from the table. “The Abstracts will rake up less time to examine,” he said to Mrs. Wagner; “you have them in your desk, I think?” She at once turned to Jack, and ordered him to produce the key. He took it from his bag, under the watchful eyes of Madame Fontaine, observing him from the opposite side of the table. “I should have preferred opening the desk myself,” Jack remarked when Mr. Keller had left the room; “but I suppose I must give way to the master. Besides, he hates me.”

The widow was quite startled by this strong assertion. “How can you say so?” she exclaimed. “We all like you, Jack. Come and have a little wine, out of my glass.”

Jack refused this proposal. “I don’t want wine,” he said; “I am sleepy and cold–I want to go to bed.”

Madame Fontaine was too hospitably inclined to take No for an answer. “Only a little drop,” she pleaded. “You look so cold.”

“Surely you forget what I told you?” Mrs. Wagner interposed. “Wine first excites, and then stupefies him. The last time I tried it, he was as dull and heavy as if I had given him laudanum. I thought I mentioned it to you.” She turned to Jack. “You look sadly tired, my poor little man. Go to bed at once.”

“Without the key?” cried Jack indignantly. “I hope I know my duty better than that.”

Mr. Keller returned, perfectly satisfied with the result of his investigation. “I knew it!” he said. “The mistake is on the side of our clients; I have sent them the proof of it.”

He handed back the key to Mrs. Wagner. She at once transferred it to Jack. Mr. Keller shook his head in obstinate disapproval. “Would you run such a risk as that?” he said to Madame Fontaine, speaking in French. “I should be afraid,” she replied in the same language. Jack secured the key in his bag, kissed his mistress’s hand, and approached the door on his way to bed. “Won’t you wish me good-night?” said the amiable widow. “I didn’t know whether German or English would do for you,” Jack answered; “and I can’t speak your unknown tongue.

He made one of his fantastic bows, and left the room. “Does he understand French?” Madame Fontaine asked. “No,” said Mrs. Wagner; “he only understood that you and Mr. Keller had something to conceal from him.”

In due course of time the little party at the supper-table rose, and retired to their rooms. The first part of the night passed as tranquilly as usual. But, between one and two in the morning, Mrs. Wagner was alarmed by a violent beating against her door, and a shrill screaming in Jack’s voice. “Let me in! I want a light–I’ve lost the keys!”

She called out to him to be quiet, while she put on her dressing-gown, and struck a light. They were fortunately on the side of the house occupied by the offices, the other inhabited bedchambers being far enough off to be approached by a different staircase. Still, in the silence of the night, Jack’s reiterated cries of terror and beatings at the door might possibly reach the ears of a light sleeper. She pulled him into the room and closed the door again, with an impetuosity that utterly confounded him. “Sit down there, and compose yourself!” she said sternly. “I won’t give you the light until you are perfectly quiet. You disgrace _me_ if you disturb the house.”

Between cold and terror, Jack shuddered from head to foot. “May I whisper?” he asked, with a look of piteous submission.

Mrs. Wagner pointed to the last living embers in the fireplace. She knew by experience the tranquilizing influence of giving him something to do. “Rake the fire together,” she said; “and warm yourself first.”

He obeyed, and then laid himself down in his dog-like way on the rug. A quarter of an hour, at least, passed before his mistress considered him to be in a fit state to tell his story. There was little or nothing to relate. He had put his bag under his pillow as usual; and (after a long sleep) he had woke with a horrid fear that something had happened to the keys. He had felt in vain for them under the pillow, and all over the bed, and all over the floor. “After that,” he said, “the horrors got hold of me; and I am afraid I went actually mad, for a little while. I’m all right now, if you please. See! I’m as quiet as a bird with its head under its wing.”

Mrs. Wagner took the light, and led the way to his little room, close by her own bedchamber. She lifted the pillow–and there lay the leather bag, exactly where he had placed it when he went to bed.

Jack’s face, when this discovery revealed itself, would have pleaded for mercy with a far less generous woman than Mrs. Wagner. She took his hand. “Get into bed again,” she said kindly; “and the next time you dream, try not to make a noise about it.”

No! Jack refused to get into bed again, until he had been heard in his own defense. He dropped on his knees, and held up his clasped hands, as if he was praying.

“When you first taught me to say my prayers,” he answered, “you said God would hear me. As God hears me now Mistress, I was wide awake when I put my hand under the pillow–and the bag was not there. Do you believe me?”

Mrs. Wagner was strongly impressed by the simple fervor of this declaration. It was no mere pretense, when she answered that she did believe him. At her suggestion, the bag was unstrapped and examined. Not only the unimportant keys (with another one added to their number) but the smaller key which opened her desk were found safe inside. “We will talk about it to-morrow,” she said. Having wished him good-night, she paused in the act of opening the door, and looked at the lock. There was no key in it, but there was another protection in the shape of a bolt underneath. “Did you bolt your door when you went to bed?” she asked.

“No.”

The obvious suspicion, suggested by this negative answer, crossed her mind.

“What has become of the key of your door?” she inquired next.

Jack hung his head. “I put it along with the other keys,” he confessed, “to make the bag look bigger.”

Alone again in her own room, Mrs. Wagner stood by the reanimated fire, thinking.

While Jack was asleep, any person, with a soft step and a delicate hand, might have approached his bedside, when the house was quiet for the night, and have taken his bag. And, again, any person within hearing of the alarm that he had raised, some hours afterwards, might have put the bag back, while he was recovering himself in Mrs. Wagner’s room. Who could have been near enough to hear the alarm? Somebody in the empty bedrooms above? Or somebody in the solitary offices below? If a theft had really been committed, the one likely object of it would be the key of the desk. This pointed to the probability that the alarm had reached the ears of the thief in the offices. Was there any person in the house, from the honest servants upwards, whom it would be reasonably possible to suspect of theft? Mrs. Wagner returned to her bed. She was not a woman to be daunted by trifles–but on this occasion her courage failed her when she was confronted by her own question.

CHAPTER X

The office hours, in the winter-time, began at nine o’clock. From the head-clerk to the messenger, not one of the persons employed slept in the house: it was Mr. Keller’s wish that they should all be absolutely free to do what they liked with their leisure time in the evening: “I know that I can trust them, from the oldest to the youngest man in my service,” he used to say; “and I like to show it.”

Under these circumstances, Mrs. Wagner had only to rise earlier than usual, to be sure of having the whole range of the offices entirely to herself. At eight o’clock, with Jack in attendance, she was seated at her desk, carefully examining the different objects that it contained.

Nothing was missing; nothing had been moved out of its customary place. No money was kept in the desk. But her valuable watch, which had stopped on the previous day, had been put there, to remind her that it must be sent to be cleaned. The watch, like everything else, was found in its place. If some person had really opened her desk in the night, no common thief had been concerned, and no common object had been in view.

She took the key of the iron safe from its pigeon-hole, and opened the door. Her knowledge of the contents of this repository was far from being accurate. The partners each possessed a key, but Mr. Keller had many more occasions than Mrs. Wagner for visiting the safe. And to make a trustworthy examination more difficult still, the mist of the early morning was fast turning into a dense white fog.

Of one thing, however, Mrs. Wagner was well aware–a certain sum of money, in notes and securities, was always kept in this safe as a reserve fund. She took the tin box in which the paper money was placed close to the light, and counted its contents. Then, replacing it in the safe, she opened the private ledger next, to compare the result of her counting with the entry relating to the Fund.

Being unwilling to cause surprise, perhaps to excite suspicion, by calling for a candle before the office hours had begun, she carried the ledger also to the window. There was just light enough to see the sum total in figures. To her infinite relief, it exactly corresponded with the result of her counting. She secured everything again in its proper place; and, after finally locking the desk, handed the key to Jack. He shook his head, and refused to take it. More extraordinary still, he placed his bag, with all the other keys in it, on the desk, and said, “Please keep it for me; I’m afraid to keep it myself.”

Mrs. Wagner looked at him with a first feeling of alarm, which changed instantly to compassion. The tears were in his eyes; his sensitive vanity was cruelly wounded. “My poor boy,” she said gently, “what is it that troubles you?”

The tears rolled down Jack’s face. “I’m a wretched creature,” he said; “I’m not fit to keep the keys, after letting a thief steal them last night. Take them back, Mistress–I’m quite broken-hearted. Please try me again, in London.”

“A thief?” Mrs. Wagner repeated. “Haven’t you seen me examine everything? And mind, if there _had_ been any dishonest person about the house last night, the key of my desk is the only key that a thief would have thought worth stealing. I happen to be sure of that. Come! come! don’t be down-hearted. You know I never deceive you–and I say you are quite wrong in suspecting that your bag was stolen last night.”

Jack solemnly lifted his hand, as his custom was in the great emergencies of his life. “And _I_ say,” he reiterated, “there is a thief in the house. And you will find it out before long. When we are back in London again, I will be Keeper of the Keys. Never, never, never more, here!”

It was useless to contend with him; the one wise course was to wait until his humor changed. Mrs. Wagner locked up his bag, and put the key of the desk back in her pocket. She was not very willing to own it even to herself–Jack’s intense earnestness had a little shaken her.

After breakfast that morning, Minna lingered at the table, instead of following her mother upstairs as usual. When Mr. Keller also had left the room, she addressed a little request of her own to Mrs. Wagner.

“I have got a very difficult letter to write,” she said, “and Fritz thought you might be kind enough to help me.”

“With the greatest pleasure, my dear. Does your mother know of this letter?”

“Yes; it was mamma who said I ought to write it. But she is going out this morning; and, when I asked for a word of advice, she shook her head. ‘They will think it comes from me,’ she said, ‘and the whole effect of it will be spoilt.’ It’s a letter, Mrs. Wagner, announcing my marriage to mamma’s relations here, who have behaved so badly to her–and she says they may do something for me, if I write to them as if I had done it all out of my own head. I don’t know whether I make myself understood?”

“Perfectly, Minna. Come to my writing-room, and we will see what we can do together.”

Mrs. Wagner led the way out. As she opened the door, Madame Fontaine passed her in the hall, in walking costume, with a small paper-packet in her hand.

“There is a pen, Minna. Sit down by me, and write what I tell you.”

The ink-bottle had been replenished by the person charged with that duty; and he had filled it a little too full. In a hurry to write the first words dictated, Minna dipped her pen too deeply in the bottle. On withdrawing it she not only blotted the paper but scattered some of the superfluous ink over the sleeve of Mrs. Wagner’s dress. “Oh, how awkward I am!” she exclaimed. “Excuse me for one minute. Mamma has got something in her dressing-case which will take out the marks directly.”

She ran upstairs, and returned with the powder which her mother had used, in erasing the first sentences on the label attached to the blue-glass bottle. Mrs. Wagner looked at the printed instructions on the little paper box, when the stains had been removed from her dress, with some curiosity. “Macula Exstinctor,” she read, “or Destroyer of Stains. Partially dissolve the powder in a teaspoonful of water; rub it well over the place, and the stain will disappear, without taking out the color of the dress. This extraordinary specific may also be used for erasing written characters without in any way injuring the paper, otherwise than by leaving a slight shine on the surface.”

“Is this to be got in Frankfort?” asked Mrs. Wagner. “I only know lemon-juice as a remedy against ink-marks, when I get them on my dress or my fingers.”

“Keep it, dear Mrs. Wagner. I can easily buy another box for mamma where we got this one, at a chemist’s in the Zeil. See how easily I can take off the blot that I dropped on the paper! Unless you look very close, you can hardly see the shine–and the ink has completely disappeared.”

“Thank you, my dear. But your mother might meet with some little accident, and might want your wonderful powder when I am out of the way. Take it back when we have done our letter. And we will go to the chemist together and buy another box in a day or two.”

On the thirtieth of December, after dinner, Mr. Keller proposed a toast–“Success to the adjourned wedding-day!” There was a general effort to be cheerful, which was not rewarded by success. Nobody knew why; but the fact remained that nobody was really merry.

On the thirty-first, there was more hard work at the office. The last day of the old year was the day on which the balance was struck.

Towards noon, Mr. Keller appeared in Mrs. Wagner’s office, and opened the safe.

“We must see about the Reserve Fund,” he said; “I will count the money, if you will open the ledger and see that the entry is right. I don’t know what you think, but my idea is that we keep too much money lying idle in these prosperous times. What do you say to using half of the customary fund for investment? By the by, our day for dividing the profits is not your day in London. When my father founded this business, the sixth of January was the chosen date–being one way, among others, of celebrating his birthday. We have kept to the old custom, out of regard for his memory; and your worthy husband entirely approved of our conduct. I am sure you agree with him?”

“With all my heart,” said Mrs. Wagner. “Whatever my good husband thought, I think.”

Mr. Keller proceeded to count the Fund. “Fifteen thousand florins,” he announced. “I thought it had been more than that. If poor dear Engelman had been here–Never mind! What does the ledger say?”

“Fifteen thousand florins,” Mrs. Wagner answered.

“Ah, very well, my memory must have deceived me. This used to be Engelman’s business; and you are as careful as he was–I can say no more.”

Mr. Keller replaced the money in the safe, and hastened back to his own office.

Mrs. Wagner raised one side of the ledger off the desk to close the book–stopped to think–and laid it back again.

The extraordinary accuracy of Mr. Keller’s memory was proverbial in the office. Remembering the compliment which he had paid to her sense of responsibility as Mr. Engelman’s successor, Mrs. Wagner was not quite satisfied to take it for granted that he had made a mistake–even on the plain evidence of the ledger. A reference to the duplicate entry, in her private account-book, would at once remove even the shadow of a doubt.

The last day of the old year was bright and frosty; the clear midday light fell on the open page before her. She looked again at the entry, thus recorded in figures–“15,000 florins”–and observed a trifling circumstance which had previously escaped her.

The strokes which represented the figures “15” were unquestionably a little, a very little, thicker than the strokes which represented the three zeros or “noughts” that followed. Had a hair got into the pen of the head-clerk, who had made the entry? or was there some trifling defect in the paper, at that particular part of the page?

She once more raised one side of the ledger so that the light fell at an angle on the writing. There was a difference between that part of the paper on which the figures “15” were written, and the rest of the page–and the difference consisted in a slight shine on the surface.

The side of the ledger dropped from her hand on the desk. She left the office, and ran upstairs to her own room. Her private account-book had not been wanted lately–it was locked up in her dressing-case. She took it out, and referred to it. There was the entry as she had copied it, and compared it with the ledger–“20,000 florins.”

“Madame Fontaine!” she said to herself in a whisper.

CHAPTER XI

The New Year had come.

On the morning of the second of January, Mrs. Wagner (on her way to the office at the customary hour) was stopped at the lower flight of stairs by Madame Fontaine–evidently waiting with a purpose.

“Pardon me,” said the widow, “I must speak to you.”

“These are business hours, madam; I have no time to spare.”

Without paying the slightest heed to this reply–impenetrable, in the petrifying despair that possessed her, to all that looks, tones, and words could say–Madame Fontaine stood her ground, and obstinately repeated, “I must speak to you.”

Mrs. Wagner once more refused. “All that need be said between us has been said,” she answered. “Have you replaced the money?”

“That is what I want to speak about?”

“Have you replaced the money?”

“Don’t drive me mad, Mrs. Wagner! As you hope for mercy yourself, at the hour of your death, show mercy to the miserable woman who implores you to listen to her! Return with me as far as the drawing-room. At this time of day, nobody will disturb us there. Give me five minutes!”

Mrs. Wagner looked at her watch.

“I will give you five minutes. And mind, I mean five minutes. Even in trifles, I speak the truth.”

They returned up the stairs, Mrs. Wagner leading the way.

There were two doors of entrance to the drawing-room–one, which opened from the landing, and a smaller door, situated at the farther end of the corridor. This second entrance communicated with a sort of alcove, in which a piano was placed, and which was only separated by curtains from the spacious room beyond. Mrs. Wagner entered by the main door, and paused, standing near the fire-place. Madame Fontaine, following her, turned aside to the curtains, and looked through. Having assured herself that no person was in the recess, she approached the fire-place, and said her first words.

“You told me just now, madam, that _you_ spoke the truth. Does that imply a doubt of the voluntary confession—-?”

“You made no voluntary confession,” Mrs. Wagner interposed. “I had positive proof of the theft that you have committed, when I entered your room. I showed you my private account-book, and when you attempted to defend yourself, I pointed to the means of falsifying the figures in the ledger which lay before me in your own dressing-case. What do you mean by talking of a voluntary confession, after that?”

“You mistake me, madam. I was speaking of the confession of my motives–the motives which, in my dreadful position, forced me to take the money, or to sacrifice the future of my daughter’s life. I declare that I have concealed nothing from you. As you are a Christian woman, don’t be hard on me!”

Mrs. Wagner drew back, and eyed her with an expression of contemptuous surprise.

“Hard on you?” she repeated. “Do you know what you are saying? Have you forgotten already how I have consented to degrade myself? Must I once more remind you of _my_ position? I am bound to tell Mr. Keller that his money and mine has been stolen; I am bound to tell him that he has taken into his house, and has respected and trusted, a thief. There is my plain duty–and I have consented to trifle with it. Are you lost to all sense of decency? Have you no idea of the shame that an honest woman must feel, when she knows that her unworthy silence makes her–for the time at least–the accomplice of your crime? Do you think it was for your sake–not to be hard on You–that I have consented to this intolerable sacrifice? In the instant when I discovered you I would have sent for Mr. Keller, but for the sweet girl whose misfortune it is to be your child. Once for all, have you anything to say which it is absolutely necessary that I should hear? Have you, or have you not, complied with the conditions on which I consented–God help me!–to be what I am?”

Her voice faltered. She turned away proudly to compose herself. The look that flashed out at her from the widow’s eyes, the suppressed fury struggling to force its way in words through the widow’s lips, escaped her notice. It was the first, and last, warning of what was to come–and she missed it.

“I wished to speak to you of your conditions,” Madame Fontaine resumed, after a pause. “Your conditions are impossibilities. I entreat you, in Minna’s interests–oh! not in mine!–to modify them.”

The tone in which those words fell from her lips was so unnaturally quiet, that Mrs. Wagner suddenly turned again with a start, and faced her.

“What do you mean by impossibilities? Explain yourself.”

“You are an honest woman, and I am a thief,” Madame Fontaine answered, with the same ominous composure. “How can explanations pass between you and me? Have I not spoken plainly enough already? In my position, I say again, your conditions are impossibilities–especially the first of them.”

There was something in the bitterly ironical manner which accompanied this reply that was almost insolent. Mrs. Wagner’s color began to rise for the first time. “Honest conditions are always possible conditions to honest people,” she said.

Perfectly unmoved by the reproof implied in those words, Madame Fontaine persisted in pressing her request. “I only ask you to modify your terms,” she explained. “Let us understand each other. Do you still insist on my replacing what I have taken, by the morning of the sixth of this month?”

“I still insist.”

“Do you still expect me to resign my position here as director of the household, on the day when Fritz and Minna have become man and wife?”

“I still expect that.”

“Permit me to set the second condition aside for awhile. Suppose I fail to replace the five thousand florins in your reserve fund?”

“If you fail, I shall do my duty to Mr. Keller, when we divide profits on the sixth of the month.”

“And you will expose me in this way, knowing that you make the marriage impossible–knowing that you doom my daughter to shame and misery for the rest of her life?”

“I shall expose you, knowing that I have kept your guilty secret to the last moment–and knowing what I owe to my partner and to myself. You have still four days to spare. Make the most of your time.”

“I can do absolutely nothing in the time.”

“Have you tried?”

The suppressed fury in Madame Fontaine began to get beyond her control.

“Do you think I should have exposed myself to the insults that you have heaped upon me if I had _not_ tried?” she asked. “Can I get the money back from the man to whom it was paid at Wurzburg, when my note fell due on the last day of the old year? Do I know anybody who will lend me five thousand florins? Will my father do it? His house has been closed to me for twenty years–and my mother, who might have interceded for me, is dead. Can I appeal to the sympathy and compassion (once already refused in the hardest terms) of my merciless relatives in this city? I have appealed! I forced my way to them yesterday–I owned that I owed a sum of money which was more, far more, than I could pay. I drank the bitter cup of humiliation to the dregs–I even offered my daughter’s necklace as security for a loan. Do you want to know what reply I received? The master of the house turned his back on me; the mistress told me to my face that she believed I had stolen the necklace. Was the punishment of my offense severe enough, when I heard those words? Surely I have asserted some claim to your pity, at last? I only want more time. With a few months before me–with my salary as housekeeper, and the sale of my little valuables, and the proceeds of my work for the picture-dealers–I can, and will, replace the money. You are rich. What is a loan of five thousand florins to you? Help me to pass through the terrible ordeal of your day of reckoning on the sixth of the month! Help me to see Minna married and happy! And if you still doubt my word, take the pearl necklace as security that you will suffer no loss.”

Struck speechless by the outrageous audacity of this proposal, Mrs. Wagner answered by a look, and advanced to the door. Madame Fontaine instantly stopped her.

Wait!” cried the desperate creature. “Think–before you refuse me!”

Mrs. Wagner’s indignation found its way at last into words. “I deserved this,” she said, “when I allowed you to speak to me. Let me pass, if you please.”

Madame Fontaine made a last effort–she fell on her knees. “Your hard words have roused my pride,” she said; “I have forgotten that I am a disgraced woman; I have not spoken humbly enough. See! I am humbled now–I implore your mercy on my knees. This is not only _my_ last chance; it is Minna’s last chance. Don’t blight my poor girl’s life, for my fault!”

“For the second time, Madame Fontaine, I request you to let me pass.

“Without an answer to my entreaties? Am I not even worthy of an answer?”

“Your entreaties are an insult. I forgive you the insult.”

Madame Fontaine rose to her feet. Every trace of agitation disappeared from her face and her manner. “Yes,” she said, with the unnatural composure that was so strangely out of harmony with the terrible position in which she stood–“Yes, from your point of view, I can’t deny that it may seem like an insult. When a thief, who has already robbed a person of money, asks that same person to lend her more money, by way of atoning for the theft, there is something very audacious (on the surface) in such a request. I can’t fairly expect you to understand the despair which wears such an insolent look. Accept my apologies, madam; I didn’t see it at first in that light. I must do what I can, while your merciful silence still protects me from discovery–I must do what I can between this and the sixth of the month. Permit me to open the door for you.” She opened the drawing-room door, and waited.

Mrs. Wagner’s heart suddenly quickened its beat.

Under what influence? Could it be fear? She was indignant with herself at the bare suspicion of it. Her face flushed deeply, under the momentary apprehension that some outward change might betray her. She left the room, without even trusting herself to look at the woman who stood by the open door, and bowed to her with an impenetrable assumption of respect as she passed out.

Madame Fontaine remained in the drawing-room.

She violently closed the door with a stroke of her hand–staggered across the room to a sofa–and dropped on it. A hoarse cry of rage and despair burst from her, now that she was alone. In the fear that someone might hear her, she forced her handkerchief into her mouth, and fastened her teeth into it. The paroxysm passed, she sat up on the sofa, and wiped the perspiration from her face, and smiled to herself. “It was well I stopped here,” she thought; “I might have met someone on the stairs.”

As she rose to leave the drawing-room, Fritz’s voice reached her from the far end of the corridor.

“You are out of spirits, Minna. Come in, and let us try what a little music will do for you.”

The door leading into the recess was opened. Minna’s voice became audible next, on the inner side of the curtains.

“I am afraid I can’t sing to-day, Fritz. I am very unhappy about mamma. She looks so anxious and so ill; and when I ask what is troubling her, she puts me off with an excuse.”

The melody of those fresh young tones, the faithful love and sympathy which the few simple words expressed, seemed to wring with an unendurable pain the whole being of the mother who heard them. She lifted her hands above her head, and clenched them in the agony which could only venture to seek that silent means of relief. With swift steps, as if the sound of her daughter’s voice was unendurable to her, she made for the door. But her movements, on ordinary occasions the perfection of easy grace, felt the disturbing influence of the agitation that possessed her. In avoiding a table on one side, as she passed it, she struck against a chair on the other.

Fritz instantly opened the curtains, and looked through. “Why, here is mamma!” he exclaimed, in his hearty boyish way.

Minna instantly closed the piano, and hastened to her mother. When Madame Fontaine looked at her, she paused, with an expression of alarm. “Oh, how dreadfully pale and ill you look!” She advanced again, and tried to throw her arms round her mother, and kiss her. Gently, very gently, Madame Fontaine signed to her to draw back.

“Mamma! what have I done to offend you?”

“Nothing, my dear.”

“Then why won’t you let me come to you?”

“No time now, Minna. I have something to do. Wait till I have done it.”

“Not even one little kiss, mamma?”

Madame Fontaine hurried out of the room without answering and ran up the stairs without looking back. Minna’s eyes filled with tears. Fritz stood at the open door, bewildered.

“I wouldn’t have believed it, if anybody had told me,” he said; “your mother seems to be afraid to let you touch her.”

Fritz had made many mistaken guesses in his time–but, for once, he had guessed right. She _was_ afraid.

CHAPTER XII

As the presiding genius of the household, Madame Fontaine was always first in the room when the table was laid for the early German dinner. A knife with a speck on the blade, a plate with a suspicion of dirt on it, never once succeeded in escaping her observation. If Joseph folded a napkin carelessly, Joseph not only heard of it, but suffered the indignity of seeing his work performed for him to perfection by the housekeeper’s dexterous hands.

On the second day of the New Year, she was at her post as usual, and Joseph stood convicted of being wasteful in the matter of wine.

He had put one bottle of Ohligsberger on the table, at the place occupied by Madame Fontaine. The wine had already been used at the dinner and the supper of the previous day. At least two-thirds of it had been drunk. Joseph set down a second bottle on the opposite side of the table, and produced his corkscrew. Madame Fontaine took it out of his hand.

“Why do you open that bottle, before you are sure it will be wanted?” She asked sharply. “You know that Mr. Keller and his son prefer beer.”

“There is so little left in the other bottle,” Joseph pleaded; “not a full tumbler altogether.”

“It may be enough, little as it is, for Mrs. Wagner and for me.” With that reply she pointed to the door. Joseph retired, leaving her alone at the table, until the dinner was ready to be brought into the room.

In five minutes more, the family assembled at their meal.

Joseph performed his customary duties sulkily, resenting the housekeeper’s reproof. When the time came for filling the glasses, he had the satisfaction of hearing Madame Fontaine herself give him orders to draw the cork of a new bottle, after all.

Mrs. Wagner turned to Jack, standing behind her chair as usual, and asked for some wine. Madame Fontaine instantly took up the nearly empty bottle by her side, and, half-filling a glass, handed it with grave politeness across the table. “If you have no objection,” she said, “we will finish one bottle, before we open another.”

Mrs. Wagner drank her small portion of wine at a draught. “It doesn’t seem to keep well, after it has once been opened, she remarked, as she set down her glass. “The wine has quite lost the good flavor it had yesterday.”

“It ought to keep well,” said Mr. Keller, speaking from his place at the top of the table. “It’s old wine, and good wine. Let me taste what is left.”

Joseph advanced to carry the remains of the wine to his master. But Madame Fontaine was beforehand with him. “Open the other bottle directly,” she said–and rose so hurriedly to take the wine herself to Mr. Keller, that she caught her foot in her dress. In saving herself from falling, she lost her hold of the bottle. It broke in two pieces, and the little wine left in it ran out on the floor.

“Pray forgive me,” she said, smiling faintly. “It is the first thing I have broken since I have been in the house.”

The wine from the new bottle was offered to Mrs. Wagner. She declined to take any: and she left her dinner unfinished on her plate.

“My appetite is very easily spoilt,” she said. “I dare say there might have been something I didn’t notice in the glass–or perhaps my taste may be out of order.”

“Very likely,” said Mr. Keller. “You didn’t find anything wrong with the wine yesterday. And there is certainly nothing to complain of in the new bottle,” he added, after tasting it. “Let us have your opinion, Madame Fontaine.”

He filled the housekeeper’s glass. “I am a poor judge of wine,” she remarked humbly. “It seems to me to be delicious.”

She put her glass down, and noticed that Jack’s eyes were fixed on her, with a solemn and scrutinizing attention. “Do you see anything remarkable in me?” she asked lightly.

“I was thinking,” Jack answered.

“Thinking of what?”

“This is the first time I ever saw you in danger of tumbling down. It used to be a remark of mine, at Wurzburg, that you were as sure-footed as a cat. That’s all.”

“Don’t you know that there are exceptions to all rules?” said Madame Fontaine, as amiably as ever. “I notice an exception in You,” she continued, suddenly changing the subject. “What has become of your leather bag? May I ask if you have taken away his keys, Mrs. Wagner?”

She had noticed Jack’s pride in his character as “Keeper of the Keys.” There would be no fear of his returning to the subject of what he had remarked at Wurzburg, if she stung him in _that_ tender place. The result did not fail to justify her anticipations. In fierce excitement, Jack jumped up on the hind rail of his mistress’s chair, eager for the most commanding position that he could obtain, and opened his lips to tell the story of the night alarm. Before he could utter a word, Mrs. Wagner stopped him, with a very unusual irritability of look and manner. “The question was put to _me,”_ she said. “I am taking care of the keys, Madame Fontaine, at Jack’s own request. He can have them back again, whenever he chooses to ask for them.”

“Tell her about the thief,” Jack whispered.

“Be quiet!”

Jack was silenced at last. He retired to a corner. When he followed Mrs. Wagner as usual, on her return to her duties in the office he struck his favorite place on the window seat with his clenched fist. “The devil take Frankfort!” he said.

“What do you mean?”

“I hate Frankfort. You were always kind to me in London. You do nothing but lose your temper with me here. It’s really too cruel. Why shouldn’t I have told Mrs. Housekeeper how I lost my keys in the night? Now I come to think of it, I believe she was the thief.”

“Hush! hush! you must not say that. Come and shake hands, Jack, and make it up. I do feel irritable–I don’t know what’s the matter with me. Remember, Mr. Keller doesn’t like your joining in the talk at dinner-time–he thinks it is taking a liberty. That was one reason why I stopped you. And you might have said something to offend Madame Fontaine–that was another. It will not be long before we go back to our dear old London. Now, be a good boy, and leave me to my work.”

Jack was not quite satisfied; but he was quiet again.

For awhile he sat watching Mrs. Wagner at her work. His thoughts went back to the subject of the keys. Other people–the younger clerks and the servants, for example–might have observed that he was without his bag, and might have injuriously supposed that the keys had been taken away from him. Little by little, he reached the conclusion that he had been in too great a hurry perhaps to give up the bag. Why not prove himself to be worthier of it than ever, by asking to have it back again, and taking care always to lock the door of his bedroom at night? He looked at Mrs. Wagner, to see if she paused over her work, so as to give him an opportunity of speaking to her.

She was not at work; she was not pausing over it. Her head hung down over her breast; her hands and arms lay helpless on the desk.

He got up and crossed the room on tiptoe, to look at her.

She was not asleep.

Slowly and silently, she turned her head. Her eyes stared at him awfully. Her mouth was a little crooked. There was a horrid gray paleness all over her face.

He dropped terrified on his knees, and clasped her dress in both hands. “Oh, Mistress, Mistress, you are ill! What can I do for you?”

She tried to reassure him by a smile. Her mouth became more crooked still. “I’m not well,” she said, speaking thickly and slowly, with an effort. “Help me down. Bed. Bed.”

He held out his hands. With another effort, she lifted her arms from the desk, and turned to him on the high office-stool.

“Take hold of me,” she said.

“I have got hold of you, Mistress! I have got your hands in my hands. Don’t you feel it?”

“Press me harder.”

He closed his hands on hers with all his strength. Did she feel it now?

Yes; she could just feel it now.

Leaning heavily upon him, she set her feet on the floor. She felt with them as if she was feeling the floor, without quite understanding that she stood on it. The next moment, she reeled against the desk. “Giddy,” she said, faintly and thickly. “My head.” Her eyes looked at him, cold and big and staring. They maddened the poor affectionate creature with terror. The frightful shrillness of the past days in Bedlam was in his voice, as he screamed for help.

Mr. Keller rushed into the room from his office, followed by the clerks.

“Fetch the doctor, one of you,” he cried. “Stop.”

He mastered himself directly, and called to mind what he had heard of the two physicians who had attended him, during his own illness. “Not the old man,” he said. “Fetch Doctor Dormann. Joseph will show you where he lives.” He turned to another of the clerks, supporting Mrs. Wagner in his arms while he spoke. “Ring the bell in the hall–the upstairs bell for Madame Fontaine!”

CHAPTER XIII

Madame Fontaine instantly left her room. Alarmed by the violent ringing of the bell, Minna followed her mother downstairs. The door of the office was open; they both saw what had happened as soon as they reached the hall. In sending for Madame Fontaine, Mr. Keller had placed a natural reliance on the experience and presence of mind of a woman of her age and character. To his surprise, she seemed to be as little able to control herself as her daughter. He was obliged to summon the assistance of the elder of the female servants, in carrying Mrs. Wagner to her room. Jack went with them, holding one of his mistress’s helpless hands.

His first paroxysm of terror had passed away with the appearance of Mr. Keller and the clerk, and had left his weak mind stunned by the shock that had fallen on it. He looked about him vacantly. Once or twice, on the slow sad progress up the stairs, they heard him whispering to himself, “She won’t die–no, no, no; she won’t die.” His only consolation seemed to be in that helpless confession of faith. When they laid her on the bed, he was close at the side of the pillow. With an effort, her eyes turned on him. With an effort she whispered, “The Key!”

He understood her–the desk downstairs had been left unlocked.

“I’ll take care of the key, Mistress; I’ll take care of them all,” he said.

As he left the room, he repeated his comforting words, “She won’t die–no, no, no; she won’t die.” He locked the desk and placed the key with the rest in his bag.

Leaving the office with the bag slung over his shoulder, he stopped at the door of the dining-room, on the opposite side of the hall. His head felt strangely dull. A sudden suspicion that the feeling might show itself in his face, made him change his mind and pause before he ascended the stairs. There was a looking-glass in the dining-room. He went straight to the glass, and stood before it, studying the reflection of his face with breathless anxiety. “Do I look stupid-mad?” he asked himself. “They won’t let me be with her; they’ll send me away, if I look stupid-mad.”

He turned from the glass, and dropped on his knees before the nearest chair. “Perhaps God will keep me quiet,” he thought, “if I say my prayers.”

Repeating his few simple words, the poor creature’s memory vaguely recalled to him the happy time when his good mistress had first taught him his prayers. The one best relief that could come to him, came–the relief of tears. Mr. Keller, descending to the hall in his impatience for the arrival of the doctor, found himself unexpectedly confronted by Mrs. Wagner’s crazy attendant.

“May I go upstairs to Mistress?” Jack asked humbly. “I’ve said my prayers, sir, and I’ve had a good cry–and my head’s easier now.”

Mr. Keller spoke to him more gently than usual. “You had better not disturb your mistress before the doctor comes.”

“May I wait outside her door, sir? I promise to be very quiet.”

Mr. Keller consented by a sign. Jack took off his shoes, and noiselessly ascended the stairs. Before he reached the first landing, he turned and looked back into the hall. “Mind this!” he announced very earnestly; “I say she won’t die–_I_ say that!”

He went on up the stairs. For the first time Mr. Keller began to pity the harmless little man whom he had hitherto disliked. “Poor wretch!” he said to himself, as he paced up and down the hall, “what will become of him, if she does die?”

In ten minutes more, Doctor Dormann arrived at the house.

His face showed that he thought badly of the case, as soon as he looked at Mrs. Wagner. He examined her, and made all the necessary inquiries, with the unremitting attention to details which was part of his professional character. One of his questions could only be answered generally. Having declared his opinion that the malady was paralysis, and that some of the symptoms were far from being common in his medical experience, he inquired if Mrs. Wagner had suffered from any previous attack of the disease. Mr. Keller could only reply that he had known her from the time of her marriage, and that he had never (in the course of a long and intimate correspondence with her husband) heard of her having suffered from serious illness of any kind. Doctor Dormann looked at his patient narrowly, and looked back again at Mr. Keller with unconcealed surprise.

“At her age,” he said, “I have never seen any first attack of paralysis so complicated and so serious as this.”

“Is there danger?” Mr. Keller asked in a whisper.

“She is not an old woman,” the doctor answered; “there is always hope. The practice in these cases generally is to bleed. In this case, the surface of the body is cold; the heart’s action is feeble–I don’t like to try bleeding, if I can possibly avoid it.”

After some further consideration, he directed a system of treatment which, in some respects, anticipated the practice of a later and wiser time. Having looked at the women assembled round the bed–and especially at Madame Fontaine–he said he would provide a competent nurse, and would return to see the effect of the remedies in two hours.

Looking at Madame Fontaine, after the doctor had gone away, Mr. Keller felt more perplexed than ever. She presented the appearance of a woman who was completely unnerved. “I am afraid you are far from well yourself,” he said.

“I have not felt well, sir, for some time past,” she answered, without looking at him.

“You had better try what rest and quiet will do for you,” he suggested.

“Yes, I think so.” With that reply–not even offering, for the sake of appearances, to attend on Mrs. Wagner until the nurse arrived–she took her daughter’s arm, and went out.

The woman-servant was fortunately a discreet person. She remembered the medical instructions, and she undertook all needful duties, until the nurse relieved her. Jack (who had followed the doctor into the room, and had watched him attentively) was sent away again for the time. He would go no farther than the outer side of the door. Mr. Keller passed him, crouched up on the mat, biting his nails. He was apparently thinking of the doctor. He said to himself, “That man looked puzzled; that man knows nothing about it.”

In the meantime, Madame Fontaine reached her room.

“Where is Fritz?” she asked, dropping her daughter’s arm.

“He has gone out, mamma. Don’t send me away! You seem to be almost as ill as poor Mrs. Wagner–I want to be with you.”

Madame Fontaine hesitated. “Do you love me with all your heart and soul?” she asked suddenly. “Are you worthy of any sacrifice that a mother can make for her child?”

Before the girl could answer, she spoke more strangely still.

“Are you just as fond of Fritz as ever? would it break your heart if you lost him?”

Minna placed her mother’s hand on her bosom.

“Feel it, mamma,” she said quietly. Madame Fontaine took her chair by the fire-side–seating herself with her back to the light. She beckoned to her daughter to sit by her. After an interval, Minna ventured to break the silence.

“I am very sorry for Mrs. Wagner, mamma; she has always been so kind to me. Do you think she will die?” Resting her elbows on her knees, staring into the fire, the widow lifted her head–looked round–and looked back again at the fire.

“Ask the doctor,” she said. “Don’t ask me.”

There was another long interval of silence. Minna’s eyes were fixed anxiously on her mother. Madame Fontaine remained immovable, still looking into the fire.

Afraid to speak again, Minna sought refuge from the oppressive stillness in a little act of attention. She took a fire-screen from the chimney-piece, and tried to place it gently in her mother’s hand.

At that light touch, Madame Fontaine sprang to her feet as if she had felt the point of a knife. Had she seen some frightful thing? had she heard some dreadful sound? “I can’t bear it!” she cried–“I can’t bear it any longer!”

“Are you in pain, mamma? Will you lie down on the bed?” Her mother only looked at her. She drew back trembling, and said no more.

Madame Fontaine crossed the room to the wardrobe. When she spoke next, she was outwardly quite calm again. “I am going out for a walk,” she said.

“A walk, mamma? It’s getting dark already.”

“Dark or light, my nerves are all on edge–I must have air and exercise.”

“Let me go with you?”

She paced backwards and forwards restlessly, before she answered. “The room isn’t half large enough!” she burst out. “I feel suffocated in these four walls. Space! space! I must have space to breathe in! Did you say you wished to go out with me? I want a companion, Minna. Don’t you mind the cold?”

“I don’t even feel it, in my fur cloak.”

“Get ready, then, directly.”

In ten minutes more, the mother and daughter were out of the house.

CHAPTER XIV

Doctor Dormann was punctual to his appointment. He was accompanied by a stranger, whom he introduced as a surgeon. As before, Jack slipped into the room, and waited in a corner, listening and watching attentively.

Instead of improving under the administration of the remedies, the state of the patient had sensibly deteriorated. On the rare occasions when she attempted to speak, it was almost impossible to understand her. The sense of touch seemed to be completely lost–the poor woman could no longer feel the pressure of a friendly hand. And more ominous still, a new symptom had appeared; it was with evident difficulty that she performed the act of swallowing. Doctor Dormann turned resignedly to the surgeon.

“There is no other alternative,” he said; “you must bleed her.”

At the sight of the lancet and the bandage, Jack started out of his corner. His teeth were fast set; his eyes glared with rage. Before he could approach the surgeon Mr. Keller took him sternly by the arm and pointed to the door. He shook himself free–he saw the point of the lancet touch the vein. As the blood followed the incision, a cry of horror burst from him: he ran out of the room.

“Wretches! Tigers! How dare they take her blood from her! Oh, why am I only a little man? why am I not strong enough to fling the brutes out of the window? Mistress! Mistress! is there nothing I can do to help you?”

These wild words poured from his lips in the solitude of his little bedchamber. In the agony that he suffered, as the sense of Mrs. Wagner’s danger now forced itself on him, he rolled on the floor, and struck himself with his clenched fists. And, again and again, he cried out to her, “Mistress! Mistress! is there nothing I can do to help you?”

The strap that secured his keys became loosened, as his frantic movements beat the leather bag, now on one side, and now on the other, upon the floor. The jingling of the keys rang in his ears. For a moment, he lay quite still. Then, he sat up on the floor. He tried to think calmly. There was no candle in the room. The nearest light came from a lamp on the landing below. He got up, and went softly down the stairs. Alone on the landing, he held up the bag and looked at it. “There’s something in my mind, trying to speak to me,” he said to himself. “Perhaps, I shall find it in here?”

He knelt down under the light, and shook out the keys on the landing.

One by one he ranged them in a row, with a single exception. The key of the desk happened to be the first that he took up. He kissed it–it was _her_ key–and put it back in the bag. Placing the others before him, the duplicate key was the last in the line. The inscription caught his eye. He held it to the light and read “Pink-Room Cupboard.”

The lost recollection now came back to him in intelligible form. The “remedy” that Madame Fontaine had locked up–the precious “remedy” made by the wonderful master who knew everything–was at his disposal. He had only to open the cupboard, and to have it in his own possession.

He threw the other keys back into the bag. They rattled as he ran down the lower flight of stairs. Opposite to the offices, he stopped and buckled them tight with the strap. No noise! Nothing to alarm Mrs. Housekeeper! He ascended the stairs in the other wing of the house, and paused again when he approached Madame Fontaine’s room. By this time, he was in the perilous fever of excitement, which was still well remembered among the authorities of Bedlam. Suppose the widow happened to be in her room? Suppose she refused to let him have the “remedy”?

He looked at the outstretched fingers of his right hand. “I am strong enough to throttle a woman,” he said, “and I’ll do it.”

He opened the door without knocking, without stopping to listen outside. Not a creature was in the room.

In another moment the fatal dose of “Alexander’s Wine,” which he innocently believed to be a beneficent remedy, was in his possession.

As he put it into the breast-pocket of his coat, the wooden chest caught his eye. He reached it down and tried the lid. The lid opened in his hand, and disclosed the compartments and the bottles placed in them. One of the bottles rose higher by an inch or two than any of the others. He drew that one out first to look at it, and discovered–the “blue-glass bottle.”

From that moment all idea of trying the effect on Mrs. Wagner of the treacherous “remedy” in his pocket vanished from his mind. He had secured the inestimable treasure, known to him by his own experience. Here was the heavenly bottle that had poured life down his throat, when he lay dying at Wurzburg! This was the true and only doctor who had saved Mr. Keller’s life, when the poor helpless fools about his bed had given him up for lost! The Mistress, the dear Mistress, was as good as cured already. Not a drop more of her precious blood should be shed by the miscreant, who had opened his knife and wounded her. Oh, of all the colors in the world, there’s no color like blue! Of all the friends in the world, there never was such a good friend as this! He kissed and hugged the bottle as if it had been a living thing. He jumped up and danced about the room with it in his arms. Ha! what music there was in the inner gurgling and splashing of the shaken liquid, which told him that there was still some left for the Mistress! The striking of the clock on the mantelpiece sobered him at the height of his ecstasy. It told him that time was passing. Minute by minute, Death might be getting nearer and nearer to her; and there he was, with Life in his possession, wasting the time, far from her bedside.

On his way to the door, he stopped. His eyes turned slowly towards the inner part of the room. They rested on the open cupboard–and then they looked at the wooden chest, left on the floor.

Suppose the housekeeper should return, and see the key in the cupboard, and the chest with one of the bottles missing?

His only counselor at that critical moment was his cunning; stimulated into action by the closely related motive powers of his inbred vanity, and his devotion to the benefactress whom he loved.

The chance of being discovered by Madame Fontaine never entered into his calculations. He cared nothing whether she discovered him or not–he had got the bottle, and woe to her if she tried to take it away from him! What he really dreaded was, that the housekeeper might deprive him of the glory of saving Mrs. Wagner’s life, if she found out what had happened. She might follow him to the bedside; she might claim the blue-glass bottle as her property; she might say, “I saved Mr. Keller; and now I have saved Mrs. Wagner. This little man is only the servant who gave the dose, which any other hand might have poured out in his place.”

Until these considerations occurred to him, his purpose had been to announce his wonderful discovery publicly at Mrs. Wagner’s bedside. This intention he now abandoned, without hesitation. He saw a far more inviting prospect before him. What a glorious position for him it would be, if he watched his opportunity of administering the life-giving liquid privately–if he waited till everybody was astonished at the speedy recovery of the suffering woman–and then stood up before them all, and proclaimed himself as the man who had restored her to health!

He replaced the chest, and locked the cupboard; taking the key away with him. Returning to the door, he listened intently to make sure that nobody was outside, and kept the blue-glass bottle hidden under his coat when he ventured at last to leave the room. He reached the other wing of the house, and ascended the second flight of stairs, without interruption of any kind. Safe again in his own room, he watched through the half-opened door.

Before long, Doctor Dormann and the surgeon appeared, followed by Mr. Keller. The three went downstairs together. On the way, the Doctor mentioned that he had secured a nurse for the night.

Still keeping the bottle concealed, Jack knocked softly at the door, and entered Mrs. Wagner’s room.

He first looked at the bed. She lay still and helpless, noticing nothing; to all appearance, poor soul, a dying woman. The servant was engaged in warming something over the fire. She shook her head gloomily, when Jack inquired if any favorable change had place in his absence. He sat down, vainly trying to discover how he might find the safe opportunity of which he was in search.

The slow minutes followed each other. After a little while the woman-servant looked at the clock. “It’s time Mrs. Wagner had her medicine,” she remarked, still occupied with her employment at the fire. Jack saw his opportunity in those words. “Please let me give the medicine,” he said.

“Bring it here,” she answered; “I mustn’t trust anybody to measure it out.

“Surely I can give it to her, now it’s ready?” Jack persisted.

The woman handed the glass to him. “I can’t very well leave what I am about,” she said. “Mind you are careful not to spill any of it. She’s as patient as a lamb, poor creature. If she can only swallow it, she won’t give you any trouble.”

Jack carried the glass round to the farther side of the bed, so as to keep the curtains as a screen between himself and the fire-place. He softly dropped out the contents of the glass on the carpet, and filled it again from the bottle concealed under his coat. Waiting a moment after that, he looked towards the door. What if the housekeeper came in, and saw the blue-glass bottle? He snatched it up–an empty bottle now–and put it in the side-pocket of his coat, and arranged his handkerchief so as to hide that part of it which the pocket was not deep enough to conceal. “Now!” he thought to himself, “now I may venture!” He gently put his arm round Mrs. Wagner, and raised her on the pillow.

“Your medicine, dear Mistress,” he whispered. “You will take it from poor Jack, won’t you?”

The sense of hearing still remained. Her vacant eyes turned towards him by slow degrees. No outward expression answered to her thought; she could show him that she submitted, and she could do no more.

He dashed away the tears that blinded him. Supported by the firm belief that he was saving her life, he took the glass from the bedside-table and put it to her lips.

With painful efforts, with many intervals of struggling breath, she swallowed the contents of the glass, by a few drops at a time. He held it up under the shadowed lamplight, and saw that it was empty.

As he laid her head back on the pillows, he ventured to touch her cold cheek with his lips. “Has she taken it?” the woman asked. He was just able to answer “Yes”–just able to look once more at the dear face on the pillow. The tumult of contending emotions, against which he had struggled thus far, overpowered his utmost resistance. He ran to hide the hysterical passion in him, forcing its way to relief in sobs and cries, on the landing outside.

In the calmer moments that followed, the fear still haunted him that Madame Fontaine might discover the empty compartment in the medicine-chest–might search every room in the house for the lost bottle–and might find it empty. Even if he broke it, and threw the fragments into the dusthole, the fragments might be remarked for their beautiful blue color, and the discovery might follow. Where could he hide it?

While he was still trying to answer that question, the hours of business came to an end, and the clerks were leaving the offices below. He heard them talking about the hard frost as they went out. One of them said there were blocks of ice floating down the river already. The river! It was within a few minutes’ walk of the house. Why not throw the bottle into the river?

He waited until there was perfect silence below, and then stole downstairs. As he opened the door, a strange man met him, ascending the house-steps, with a little traveling bag in his hand.

“Is this Mr. Keller’s?” asked the strange man.

He was a jolly-looking old fellow with twinkling black eyes and a big red nose. His breath was redolent of the smell of wine, and his thick lips expanded into a broad grin, when he looked at Jack.

“My name’s Schwartz,” he said; “and here in this bag are my sister’s things for the night.”

“Who is your sister?” Jack inquired.

Schwartz laughed. “Quite right, little man, how should you know who she is? My sister’s the nurse. She’s hired by Doctor Dormann, and she’ll be here in an hour’s time. I say! that’s a pretty bottle you’re hiding there under your coat. Is there any wine in it?”

Jack began to tremble. He had been discovered by a stranger. Even the river might not be deep enough to keep his secret now!

“The cold has got into my inside,” proceeded the jolly old man. “Be a good little fellow–and give us a drop!”

“I haven’t got any wine in it,” Jack answered.

Schwartz laid his forefinger confidentially along the side of his big red nose. “I understand,” he said, “you were just going out to get some. He put his sister’s bag on one of the chairs in the hall, and took Jack’s arm in the friendliest manner. “Suppose you come along with me?” he suggested. “I am the man to help you to the best tap of wine in Frankfort. Bless your heart! you needn’t feel ashamed of being in my company. My sister’s a most respectable woman. And what do you think I am? I’m one of the city officers. Ho! ho! just think of that! I’m not joking, mind. The regular Night Watchman at the Deadhouse is ill in bed, and they’re obliged to find somebody to take his place till he gets well again. I’m the Somebody. They tried two other men–but the Deadhouse gave them the horrors. My respectable sister spoke for me, you know. “The regular watchman will be well in a week,” she says; “try him for a week.” And they tried me. I’m not proud, though I am a city officer. Come along–and let me carry the bottle.”

“The bottle” again! And, just as this intrusive person spoke of it, Joseph’s voice was audible below, and Joseph’s footsteps gave notice that he was ascending the kitchen stairs. In the utter bewilderment of the moment, Jack ran out, with the one idea of escaping the terrible possibilities of discovery in the hall. He heard the door closed behind him–then heavy boots thumping the pavement at a quick trot. Before he had got twenty yards from the house, the vinous breath of Schwartz puffed over his shoulder, and the arm of the deputy-night-watchman took possession of him again.

“Not too fast–I’m nimble on my legs for a man of my age–but not too fast,” said his new friend. “You’re just the sort of little man I like. My sister will tell you I take sudden fancies to people of your complexion. My sister’s a most respectable woman. What’s your name?–Jack? A capital name! Short, with a smack in it like the crack of a whip. _Do_ give me the bottle!” He took it this time, without waiting to have it given to him. “There! might drop it, you know,” he said. “It’s safe in my friendly hands. Where are you going to? You don’t deal, I hope, at the public-house up that way? A word in your ear–the infernal scoundrel waters his wine. Here’s the turning where the honest publican lives. I have the truest affection for him. I have the truest affection for you. Would you like to see the Deadhouse, some night? It’s against the rules; but that don’t matter. The cemetery overseer is a deal too fond of his bed to turn out these cold nights and look after the watchman. It’s just the right place for me. There’s nothing to do but to drink, when you have got the liquor; and to sleep, when you haven’t. The Dead who come our way, my little friend, have one great merit. We are supposed to help them, if they’re perverse enough to come to life again before they’re buried. There they lie in our house, with one end of the line tied to their fingers, and the other end at the spring of the alarm-bell. And they have never rung the bell yet–never once, bless their hearts, since the Deadhouse was built! Come and see me in the course of the week, and we’ll drink a health to our quiet neighbors.”

They arrived at the door of the public-house.

“You’ve got some money about you, I suppose?” said Schwartz.

Madame Fontaine’s generosity, when she gave Jack the money to buy a pair of gloves, had left a small surplus in his pocket. He made a last effort to escape from the deputy-watchman. “There’s the money, he said. “Give me back the bottle, and go and drink by yourself.”

Schwartz took him by the shoulder, and surveyed him from head to foot by the light of the public-house lamp. “Drink by myself?” he repeated. “Am I a jolly fellow, or am I not? Yes, or No?”

“Yes,” said Jack, trying hard to release himself.

Schwartz tightened his hold. “Did you ever hear of a jolly fellow, who left his friend at the public-house door?” he asked.

“If you please, sir, I don’t drink,” Jack pleaded.

Schwartz burst into a great roar of laughter, and kicked open the door of the public-house. “That’s the best joke I ever heard in my life,” he said. “We’ve got money enough to fill the bottle, and to have a glass a-piece besides. Come along!”

He dragged Jack into the house. The bottle was filled; the glasses were filled. “My sister’s health! Long life and prosperity to my respectable sister! You can’t refuse to drink the toast.” With those words, he put the fatal glass into his companion’s hand.

Jack tasted the wine. It was cool; it was good. Perhaps it was not so strong as Mr. Keller’s wine? He tried it again–and emptied the glass.

An hour later, there was a ring at the door of Mr. Keller’s house.

Joseph opened the door, and discovered a red-nosed old man, holding up another man who seemed to be three parts asleep, and who was quite unable to stand on his legs without assistance. The light of the hall lamp fell on this helpless creature’s face, and revealed–Jack.

“Put him to bed,” said the red-nosed stranger. “And, look here, take charge of the bottle for him, or he’ll break it. Somehow, the wine has all leaked out. Where’s my sister’s bag?”

“Do you mean the nurse?”

“Of course I do! I defy the world to produce the nurse’s equal. Has she come?”

Joseph held up his hand with a gesture of grave reproof.

“Not so loud,” he said. “The nurse has come too late.”

“Has the lady got well again?”

“The lady is dead.”

CHAPTER XV

Doctor Dormann had behaved very strangely.

He was the first person who made the terrible discovery of the death. When he came to the house, on his evening visit to his patient, Mr. Keller was in the room. Half an hour before, Mrs. Wagner had spoken to him. Seeing a slight movement of her lips, he had bent over her, and had just succeeded in hearing her few last words, “Be kind to Jack.” Her eyelids dropped wearily, after the struggle to speak. Mr. Keller and the servant in attendance both supposed that she had fallen asleep. The doctor’s examination was not only prolonged beyond all customary limits of time in such cases–it was the examination (judging by certain expressions which escaped him) of a man who seemed to be unwilling to trust his own experience. The new nurse arrived, before he had definitely expressed his opinion; and the servant was instructed to keep her waiting downstairs. In expectation of the doctor’s report, Mr. Keller remained in the bedroom. Doctor Dormann might not have noticed this circumstance, or might not have cared to conceal what was passing in his mind. In either case, when he spoke at last, he expressed himself in these extraordinary terms:–

“The second suspicious illness in this house! And the second incomprehensible end to it!”

Mr. Keller at once stepped forward, and showed himself.

“Did you mean me to hear what you have just said?” he asked.

The doctor looked at him gravely and sadly. “I must speak to you privately, Mr. Keller. Before we leave the room, permit me to send for the nurse. You may safely trust her to perform the last sad duties.”

Mr. Keller started. “Good God!” he exclaimed, “is Mrs. Wagner dead?”

“To my astonishment, she is dead.” He laid a strong emphasis on the first part of his reply.

The nurse having received her instructions, Mr. Keller led the way to his private room. “In my responsible position,” he said, “I may not unreasonably expect that you will explain yourself without reserve.”

“On such a serious matter as this,” Doctor Dormann answered, “it is my duty to speak without reserve. The person whom you employ to direct the funeral will ask you for the customary certificate. I refuse to give it.”

This startling declaration roused a feeling of anger, rather than of alarm, in a man of Mr. Keller’s resolute character. “For what reason do you refuse?” he asked sternly.

“I am not satisfied, sir, that Mrs. Wagner has died a natural death. My experience entirely fails to account for the suddenly fatal termination of the disease, in the case of a patient of her healthy constitution, and at her comparatively early age.”

“Doctor Dormann, do you suspect there is a poisoner in my house?”

“In plain words, I do.”

“In plain words on my side, I ask why?”

“I have already given you my reason.”

“Is your experience infallible? Have you never made a mistake?”

“I made a mistake, Mr. Keller (as it appeared at the time), in regard to your own illness.”

“What! you suspected foul play in my case too?”

“Yes; and, by way of giving you another reason, I will own that the suspicion is still in my mind. After what I have seen this evening–and only after that, observe–I say the circumstances of your recovery are suspicious circumstances in themselves. Remember, if you please, that neither I nor my colleague really understood what was the matter with you; and that you were cured by a remedy, not prescribed by either of us. You were rapidly sinking; and your regular physician had left you. I had to choose between the certainty of your death, and the risk of letting you try a remedy, with the nature of which (though I did my best to analyze it) I was imperfectly acquainted. I ran the risk. The result has justified me–and up to this day, I have kept my misgivings to myself. I now find them renewed by Mrs. Wagner’s death–and I speak.”

Mr. Keller’s manner began to change. His tone was sensibly subdued. He understood the respect which was due to the doctor’s motives at last.

“May I ask if the symptoms of my illness resembled the symptoms of Mrs. Wagner’s illness?” he said.

“Far from it. Excepting the nervous derangement, in both cases, there was no other resemblance in the symptoms. The conclusion, to my mind, is not altered by this circumstance. It simply leads me to the inference that more than one poison may have been used. I don’t attempt to solve the mystery. I have no idea why your life has been saved, and Mrs. Wagner’s life sacrificed–or what motives have been at work in the dark. Ask yourself–don’t ask me–in what direction suspicion points. I refuse to sign the certificate of death; and I have told you why.”

“Give me a moment,” said Mr. Keller, “I don’t shrink from my responsibility; I only ask for time to compose myself.”

It was the pride of his life to lean on nobody for help. He walked to the window; hiding all outward betrayal of the consternation that shook him to the soul. When he returned to his chair, he scrupulously avoided even the appearance of asking Doctor Dormann for advice.

“My course is plain,” he said quietly. “I must communicate your decision to the authorities; and I must afford every assistance in my power to the investigation that will follow. It shall be done, when the magistrates meet to-morrow morning.”

“We will go together to the town-hall, Mr. Keller. It is my duty to inform the burgomaster that this is a case for the special safeguards, sanctioned by the city regulations. I must also guarantee that there is no danger to the public health, in the removal of the body from your house.”

“The immediate removal?” Mr. Keller asked.

“No! The removal twenty-four hours after death.”

“To what place?”

“To the Deadhouse.”

CHAPTER XVI

Acting on the doctor’s information, the burgomaster issued his order. At eight o’clock in the evening, on the third of January, the remains of Mrs. Wagner were to be removed to the cemetery-building, outside the Friedberg Gate of Frankfort.

Long before the present century, the dread of premature interment–excited by traditions of persons accidentally buried alive–was a widely-spread feeling among the people of Germany. In other cities besides Frankfort, the municipal authorities devised laws, the object of which was to make this frightful catastrophe impossible. In the early part of the present century, these laws were re-enacted and revised by the City of Frankfort. The Deadhouse was attached to the cemetery, with a double purpose. First, to afford a decent resting-place for the corpse, when death occurred among the crowded residences of the poorer class of the population. Secondly, to provide as perfect a safeguard as possible against the chances of premature burial. The use of the Deadhouse (strictly confined to the Christian portion of the inhabitants) was left to the free choice of surviving relatives or representatives–excepting only those cases in which a doctor’s certificate justified the magistrate in pronouncing an absolute decision. Even in the event of valid objections to the Deadhouse as a last resting-place on the way to the grave, the doctor in attendance on the deceased person was subjected to certain restrictions in issuing his certificate. He was allowed to certify the death informally, for the purpose of facilitating the funeral arrangements. But he was absolutely forbidden to give his written authority for the burial, before the expiration of three nights from the time of the death; and he was further bound to certify that the signs of decomposition had actually begun to show themselves. Have these multiplied precautions, patiently applied in many German cities, through a long lapse of years, ever yet detected a case in which Death has failed to complete its unintelligible work? Let the answer be found in the cells of the dead. Pass, with the mourners, through the iron gates–hear and see!

On the evening of the third, as the time approached for the arrival of the hearse, the melancholy stillness in the house was only broken by Mr. Keller’s servants, below-stairs. Collecting together in one room, they talked confidentially, in low voices. An instinctive horror of silence, in moments of domestic distress, is, in all civilized nations, one of the marked characteristics of their class.

“In ten minutes,” said Joseph, “the men from the cemetery will be here to take her away. It will be no easy matter to carry her downstairs on the couch.”

“Why is she not put in her coffin, like other dead people?” the housemaid asked.

“Because the crazy creature she brought with her from London is allowed to have his own way in the house,” Joseph answered irritably. “If I had been brought to the door drunk last night, I should have been sent away this morning. If I had been mad enough to screech out, ‘She isn’t dead; not one of you shall put her in a coffin!’–I should have richly deserved a place in the town asylum, and I should have got my deserts. Nothing of the sort for Master Jack. Mr. Keller only tells him to be quiet, and looks distressed. The doctor takes him away, and speaks to him in another room–and actually comes back converted to Jack’s opinion!”

“You don’t mean to tell us,” exclaimed the cook, “that the doctor said she wasn’t dead?”

“Of course not. It was he who first found out that she _was_ dead–I only mean that he let Jack have his own way. He asked me for a foot rule, and he measured the little couch in the bedroom. ‘It’s no longer than the coffin’ (he says); ‘and I see no objection to the body being laid on it, till the time comes for the burial.’ Those were his own words; and when the nurse objected to it, what do you think he said?–‘Hold your tongue! A couch is a pleasanter thing all the world over than a coffin.’ ”

“Blasphemous!” said the cook–“that’s what I call it.”

“Ah, well, well!” the housemaid remarked, “couch or coffin, she looks beautiful, poor soul, in her black velvet robe, with the winter flowers in her pretty white hands. Who got the flowers? Madame Fontaine, do you think?”

“Bah! Madame Fontaine, indeed! Little Crazybrains went out (instead of eating the good dinner I cooked for him), and got the flowers. He wouldn’t let anybody put them into her hands but himself–at least, so the nurse said. Has anybody seen Madame Housekeeper? Was she downstairs at dinner to-day, Joseph?”

“Not she! You mark my words,” said Joseph, “there’s some very serious reason for her keeping her room, on pretense of being ill.”

“Can you give any guess what it is?”

“You shall judge for yourself,” Joseph answered. “Did I tell you what happened yesterday evening, before Jack was brought home by the nurse’s brother? I answered a ring at the door-bell–and there was Mr. Fritz in a towering passion, with Miss Minna on his arm looking ready to drop with fatigue. They rang for some wine; and I heard what he said to his father. It seems that Madame Fontaine had gone out walking in the dark and the cold (and her daughter with her), without rhyme or reason. Mr. Fritz met them, and insisted on taking Miss Minna home. Her mother didn’t seem to care what he said or did. She went on walking by herself, as hard as she could lay her feet to the ground. And what do you suppose her excuse was? Her nerves were out of order! Mr. Fritz’s notion is that there is something weighing on her mind. An hour afterwards she came back to the house–and I found reason to agree with Mr. Fritz.”

“Tell us all about it, Joseph! What did she do?”

“You shall hear. It happened, just after I had seen crazy Jack safe in his bed. When I heard the bell, I was on my way downstairs, with a certain bottle in my hand. One of you saw the nurse’s brother give it to me, I think? How he and Crazybrains came into possession of it, mind you, is more than I know.”

“It looked just like the big medicine-bottle that cured Mr. Keller,” said the cook.

“It _was_ the bottle; and, what is more, it smelt of wine, instead of medicine, and it was empty. Well, I opened the door to Madame Housekeeper, with the bottle in my hand. The instant she set eyes on it, she snatched it away from me. She looked–I give you my word of honor, she looked as if she could have cut my throat. “You wretch!”–nice language to use to a respectable servant, eh?–“You wretch” (she says), “how did you come by this?” I made her a low bow. I said, “Civility costs nothing, ma’am; and sometimes buys a great deal” (severe, eh?). I told her exactly what had happened, and exactly what Schwartz had said. And then I ended with another hard hit. “The next time anything of yours is put into my hands,” I said, “I shall leave it to take care of itself.” I don’t know whether she heard me; she was holding the bottle up to the light. When she saw it was empty–well! I can’t tell you, of course, what was passing in her mind. But this I can swear; she shivered and shuddered as if she had got a fit of the ague; and pale as she was when I let her into the house, I do assure you she turned paler still. I thought I should have to take _her_ upstairs next. My good creatures, she’s made of iron! Upstairs she went. I followed her as far as the first landing, and saw Mr. Keller waiting–to tell her the news of Mrs. Wagner’s death, I suppose. What passed between them I can’t say. Mr. Fritz tells me she has never left her room since; and his father has not even sent a message to know how she is. What do you think of that?”

“I think Mr. Fritz was mistaken, when he told you she had never left her room,” said the housemaid. “I am next to certain I heard her whispering, early this morning, with crazy Jack. Do you think she will follow the hearse to the Deadhouse, with Mr. Keller and the doctor?”

“Hush!” said Joseph. As he spoke, the heavy wheels of the hearse were heard in the street. He led the way to the top of the kitchen stairs. “Wait here,” he whispered, “while I answer the door–and you will see.”

Upstairs, in the drawing-room, Fritz and Minna were alone. Madame Fontaine’s door, closed to everyone, was a closed door even to her daughter.

Fritz had refused to let Minna ask a second time to be let in. “It will soon be your husband’s privilege, my darling, to take care of you and comfort you,” he said. “At this dreadful time, there must be no separation between you and me.”

His arm was round her; her head rested on his shoulder. She looked up at him timidly.

“Are you not going with them to the cemetery?” she asked.

“I am going to stay with you, Minna.”

“You were angry yesterday, Fritz, when you met me with my mother. Don’t think the worse of her, because she is ill and troubled in her mind. You will make allowances for her as I do–won’t you?”

“My sweet girl, there is nothing I won’t do to please you! Kiss me, Minna. Again! again!”

On the higher floor of the house, Mr. Keller and the doctor were waiting in the chamber of death.

Jack kept his silent watch by the side of the couch, on which the one human creature who had befriended him lay hushed in the last earthly repose. Still, from time to time, he whispered to himself the sad senseless words, “No, no, no–not dead, Mistress! Not dead yet!”

There was a soft knock at the door. The doctor opened it. Madame Fontaine stood before him. She spoke in dull monotonous tones–standing in the doorway; refusing, when she was invited by a gesture, to enter the room.

“The hearse has stopped at the door,” she said. “The men wish to ask you if they can come in.”

It was Joseph’s duty to make this announcement. Her motive for forestalling him showed itself dimly in her eyes. They were not on Mr. Keller; not on the doctor; not on the couch. From the moment when the door had been opened to her, she fixed her steady look on Jack. It never moved until the bearers of the dead hid him from her when they entered the room.

The procession passed out. Jack, at Mr. Keller’s command, followed last. Standing back at the doorway, Madame Fontaine caught him by the arm as he came out.

“You were half asleep this morning,” she whispered. “You are not half asleep now. How did you get the blue-glass bottle? I insist on knowing.”

“I won’t tell you!”

Madame Fontaine altered her tone.

“Will you tell me who emptied the bottle? I have always been kind to you–it isn’t much to ask. Who emptied it?”

His variable temper changed; he lifted his head proudly. Absolutely sure of his mistress’s recovery, he now claimed the merit that was his due.

_”I_ emptied it!”

“How did you empty it?” she asked faintly. “Did you throw away what was in it? Did you give it to anybody?”

He seized her in his turn–and dragged her to the railing of the corridor. “Look there!” he cried, pointing to the bearers, slowly carrying their burden down the stairs. “Do you see her, resting on her little sofa till she recovers? I gave it to her!”

He left her, and descended the stairs. She staggered back against the wall of the corridor. Her sight seemed to be affected. She groped for the stair-rail, and held by it. The air was wafted up through the open street-door. It helped her to rally her energies. She went down steadily, step by step, to the first landing–paused, and went down again. Arrived in the hall, she advanced to Mr. Keller, and spoke to him.

“Are you going to see the body laid in the Deadhouse?”

“Yes.”

“Is there any objection to my seeing it too?”

“The authorities have no objection to admitting friends of the deceased person,” Mr. Keller answered. He looked at her searchingly, and added, “Do _you_ go as a friend?”

It was rashly said; and he knew it. The magistrates had decided that the first inquiries should be conducted with the greatest secrecy. For that day, at least, the inmates of the house were to enjoy their usual liberty of action (under private superintendence), so that no suspicion might be excited in the mind of the guilty person. Conscious of having trifled with the serious necessity of keeping a guard over his tongue, Mr. Keller waited anxiously for Madame Fontaine’s reply.

Not a word fell from her lips. There was a slight hardening of her face, and no more. In ominous silence, she turned about and ascended the stairs again.

CHAPTER XVII

The departure from the house was interrupted by an unforeseen cause of delay.

Jack refused to follow the hearse, with Doctor Dormann and Mr. Keller. “I won’t lose sight of her!” he cried–“no! not for a moment! Of all living creatures, I must be the first to see her when she wakes.”

Mr. Keller turned to the doctor. “What does he mean?”

The doctor, standing back in the shadow of the house, seemed to have some reason for not answering otherwise than by gesture. He touched his forehead significantly; and, stepping out into the road, took Jack by the hand. The canopy of the hearse, closed at the sides, was open at either end. From the driver’s seat, the couch became easily visible on looking round. With inexhaustible patience the doctor quieted the rising excitement in Jack, and gained him permission to take his place by the driver’s side. Always grateful for kindness, he thanked Doctor Dormann, with the tears falling fast over his cheeks. “I’m not crying for _her,”_ said the poor little man; “she will soon be herself again. But it’s so dreadful, sir, to go out driving with her in such a carriage as this!”

The hearse moved away.

Doctor Dormann, walking with Mr. Keller, felt his arm touched, and, looking round, saw the dimly-outlined figure of a woman beckoning to him. He drew back, after a word of apology to his companion, who continued to follow the hearse. The woman met him half way. He recognized Madame Fontaine.

“You are a learned man,” she began abruptly. “Do you understand writing in cipher?”

“Sometimes.”

“If you have half an hour to spare this evening, look at that–and do me the favor of telling me what it means.”

She offered something to him, which appeared in the dim light to be only a sheet of paper. He hesitated to take it from her. She tried to press it