Paul Desfrayne

“ Gilardoni looked at him with that furtive glance Captain Desfrayne had already noticed; but replied, without seeming to hesitate:
“From Florence, sir.”
“Ah! Have you any relatives living?”
“None, sir. Not one. My father and mother died when I was a young child, leaving me to the care of a distant relative, who has since died, and I never had either brothers or sisters.”
The faint suspicion that had arisen in Paul Desfrayne’s mind that the brilliant prima donna might be this fellow’s sister, was then negatived. ”

“ Had the earth yawned suddenly open at his feet, Paul Desfrayne could not have expressed more utter amazement than was depicted in his face and in his entire attitude on hearing the declaration made by Leonardo Gilardoni. He stared as if confounded.
“Your wife!” he repeated, at length.
“Certainly. My wife,” answered the valet.
“Then—then——Great heavens, your wife! But it is impossible.”
“Why should it be impossible?” almost angrily demanded the Italian. “Do you mean it is impossible that the famous star of the lyrical stage should be the wife of a poor, penniless fellow like myself? ”

“ Oh! no. Would to Heaven she had done so, and saved me these years of bitter hate and regret!”
“Is she your sister?” demanded Paul Desfrayne, startled by the overthrow of the supposition he had so readily built up.
“No. She is the only woman I have ever loved, or can ever love again.”
“Do you still love her, or do you hate her for being so far beyond you?”
Gilardoni regarded his master with a strange, inexplicable look, and then broke into a low, savagely bitter laugh. ”

“ Missionary priests are sometimes slain in obscure places, or die of hunger on toilsome journeys, and are never heard of more,” Captain Desfrayne said.
He knew full well that it was in reality her luckless marriage with himself that fixed the bar.
“Sir,” Leonardo said, “I think I have earned the right to ask how this cross—my first gift to her—came from her hands into your possession.”
This was a home-thrust.
“She fancied I was the rich milord who might one day place a coronet on her brow,” said Paul Desfrayne, very slowly. “I was one of her most ardent admirers at Florence.” ”

“ It was hardly worth the trouble of talking to the fellow; and Paul Desfrayne felt half-enraged with himself for having done so. But now that he wished the conversation ended, or, rather, that he had not begun it, Gilardoni seemed determined to continue it.
“Idle gossip all, I doubt not,” Captain Desfrayne said carelessly. “You, who come from her native village, would be more likely than anybody else to guess who the lucky individual might happen to be, and where he might be found; for if she had married any one after she quitted her village, it would have been somebody of importance.” ”

“ Paul Desfrayne’s eyes had not deceived him. He had really and truly seen Lucia Guiscardini hurrying away from the scene of her murderous treachery.
A woman of insatiable ambition, she had resolved to let nothing stand in the way of her advancement to the highest dignities she could hope to reach. ”

“ Truly, times, places, and things had altered since those days at Turin, the recollection of which seemed to bring scant pleasure to Paul Desfrayne’s weary heart.
“Some fatal secret has become ingrained with that man’s life,” said the young lawyer, as he closed the door upon his visitor. “Great heavens! that Lois Turquand should spurn my love, and be thrown, perhaps, into the unwilling arms of a man like this, with such a hunted, half-guilty look in his eyes! It shall not be—it cannot be! Fate could not be so cruel!” ”

“ Not the faintest sound issued from the pallid lips. Not a movement showed the smallest sign of life.
Paul Desfrayne at last placed the palm of his hand upon the temples of the apparently sleeping man. They were almost ice-cold.
The young officer caught the hands lying outstretched on either side the silent, rigid form, and felt for the pulse, his heart throbbing so violently as well-nigh to suffocate him.
With a groan of despair, he dropped the cold hands. Leonardo Gilardoni was dead. ”

“ So that, altogether, her ladyship felt she had a reason to rely on being defended from all adversities which might happen to the body, and all evil thoughts which might assault and hurt the soul.
Lady Quaintree was nearly asleep when a liveried servant drew aside the velvet portière, and announced:
“Captain Desfrayne and Mr. Amberley!”
Paul Desfrayne’s glance swept the suite of apartments, as if in search of the girl who unconsciously held the threads of his destiny in her hands; but, to his relief, she was not to be seen. ”

“ He seems, though, to have pleasant, kindly eyes, from the hasty glance I had.”
Paul Desfrayne moved away as if from the vicinity of the plague.
“Confound it!” he muttered, going he hardly knew whither. “What bewitchingly lovely eyes that girl has, though she is so cold and formal; what magnificent hair, and the grace of a queen! I wish her better luck. Why couldn’t the old man have left his money rationally, and not make such a silly, preposterous, aggravating muddle behind him! Well, after all, I have nobody to blame but myself. My sins be on my own head ”

“ The eve of the day when the signor was to come for his answer found her as resolute as at first to follow the course pointed out to her by his selfish hand—found me as doggedly determined to keep her from destroying her own peace and mine.”
“You did not think you were flinging away a fortune?” said Paul Desfrayne.
[Pg 160]
“All I thought of was that they asked me to scatter my happiness to the winds,” replied Gilardoni. “What did we want with fortune when we had enough for our needs? The signor came. He must have learned that this young girl was married, but he made no sign. ”

“ As he was a friend of Paul Desfrayne’s, he must inevitably within a few hours learn the damning fact of the death of the man Gilardoni.
“They will set people to work,” she said to herself; “and they will find out that I was with him yesterday. Not the cleverest chemist on earth will be able to trace the poison, but they may trap me, for all that.”
This idea raced through her brain like lightning, so that she seemed only to have time to unlink her arms [Pg 223] from about Frank Amberley, place her hands to her forehead as if in horror, and then fall back in an admirably simulated swoon. ”

“ Women have crushed others before for less cause.”
The consequence was, that when Paul Desfrayne called at the house so strangely contiguous to that in which his mother dwelt, he was informed that madam was not in town.
“Not in town?” he repeated, with amazement.
Further inquiries elicited that madam had gone away rather suddenly—gone to Paris, the man believed, and had not left word when she might return.
With a sense of almost relief, Paul turned away. Just then he was glad of a reprieve, for he felt little equal to much more violent emotion. ”

“ Her eyes flashed, and she stopped, as if afraid of rousing her indomitable temper did she proceed. One sentence [Pg 76] might ruin her. She abruptly curbed herself, and swept another curtsy.
“I have the honor to wish Captain Desfrayne good morning, and shall be ready to receive his promised—his threatened visit——”
“On Monday afternoon,” Paul Desfrayne said sharply, as if in positive pain. “I can endure this slavery—this horrible bondage—no longer in silence.” ”

“ Too well he knew beforehand that she would flatly deny her marriage with Leonardo Gilardoni—would probably deny that she had now or ever had had a brother at all. She would either laugh in his face, or storm with rage, as the humor suited her.
To seek out the priest would demand an immense outlay, and if, after all, the search should prove unavailing, or he should be dead, then he, Paul Desfrayne, would be left penniless, and possibly heavily in debt.
Would it be well to send Gilardoni on the quest? No [Pg 170] one would seek as he should. ”

“ It was with the utmost bitterness of spirit that he had seen the girl apparently removed from the possibility of his being able to pay court to her; and at the same time not only delivered into the sole charge of a probable rival, but bound by the most stringent injunctions to marry a young, handsome, and in every way attractive, man—a man whom he judged, in his own distrustful humility, [Pg 36] much more likely to seize the fancy of a young beauty than he himself was.
Paul Desfrayne’s thoughts were utterly confused. ”

“ Vere Gardiner had expressed a profound respect for Captain Desfrayne, and had several times declared that he owed his uprise in life to a special act of kindness received from him.
“How very extraordinary!” Mrs. Desfrayne softly exclaimed, [Pg 15] at length. “He scarcely knew you, yet trusts this young girl and her large fortune to your sole charge. Flattering, but, as you say, embarrassing. Two hundred and sixty thousand pounds!” she murmured. “A girl of nineteen. If she is a beauty”—she slightly shrugged her dimpled shoulders—“your position will be an onerous one, indeed.” ”

“ Captain Desfrayne asked, with a slight smile at his mother’s fastidious alarm. “And if she is nineteen now, I suppose my responsibility would cease in two years?”
“Perhaps. Some crotchety old men make very singular wills. I wonder how it happened that he had no business friend in whom he could confide?—why he must choose a stranger, and entrust to that stranger such a large sum? I wish I knew what the girl’s name is, and what she is like, and what possible position she may occupy? ”

“ To her girlish mind the explanation of his coldness was easy enough.
“He loves another, and is probably annoyed as much as I can be by the painfully embarrassing bargain made between us by the kind old man who has been the benefactor of us both,” she thought.
It did not occur to her that perhaps Captain Desfrayne, while not base enough to seek to win the splendid fortune in view by marrying one girl when he loved another, might yet desire to save the part promised to him by driving her to refuse to fulfil the contract. ”

“ Then, if they do not succeed in inducing you to receive the trust, see the girl, and judge for yourself what would be best. Perhaps she has no friend but you, and she might run the risk of losing her fortune. Perhaps she is sorely in need of some protector—perhaps even of money. Where does she live?”
“As I told you before,” Captain Desfrayne replied, with more asperity than seemed at all necessary under the circumstances, “I did not know even of her existence before receiving that letter, and I now know not one solitary fact more than you do. I know nothing of the girl, or of her money. ”

“ Gilardoni cried, his eyes flashing with a strange light. “If she had married a poor man——”
He stopped suddenly; Captain Desfrayne laughed.
“Yes,” he said. “If she had married a poor man, she would have hated and despised him. ”

“ In no very enviable frame of mind, Captain Desfrayne returned to his waiting fly, to continue his broken journey to the barracks.
“Did you find her, sur?” asked the flyman.
The young man shook his head, too much dejected, and even physically exhausted, to be able to otherwise reply.
At length he reached his quarters, when he dismissed the vehicle in which he had come. To-morrow he meant to seek once again for evidence as to whether the lady dressed in black had been seen by any other than himself. ”

“ Desmond yawned extensively as he spoke, and pushed aside his little pile of red books with a promising gesture of distaste. "What's your dissipated programme?"
"An hour in the Diploma Gallery, and a stroll in the Park," Paul replied with admirable unconcern. "D'you feel like coming?"
"I feel like chucking all these into the waste-paper basket! When England takes it into her capricious head to do this sort of thing in May, how the devil can a human man keep his nose to the grindstone? Come on!" ”

“ But intimate speech played a minor part in the friendship of these two men. The very depth and strength of their feeling for each other constrained them to a particular reticence in the matter of self-expression.
On the first occasion of Paul's dining at the blue bungalow, after his return from Murree, Desmond spoke a few words of apology for the absence of wine and cigars.
"Sorry to treat you shabbily, old man," he said, when they were alone. "Just a little necessary economy. It won't last long."
Paul nodded, smiling, and quietly proffered his own cigar-case. ”

“ George Delphin was not often given to serious thought—his nature was too frivolous and unstable; but to-day he felt that there must be a reckoning, and on the very verge of the sea he threw himself on the sand, which was now warmed by the afternoon sun. At first his thoughts surged like the billows over which he gazed. He was furious with Pastor Martens. Who could have believed that he, George Delphin, should have suffered himself to be supplanted by a chaplain, and, more than that, a widower? And Madeleine! how could she have accepted him? ”

“ He broke off short, and there was a moment of strained silence. But the real Desmond was awake at last, and he forced himself to add: "Women change sometimes—once they know. Have you never been tempted to try again?"
"No; and never shall be, for a very good reason. There's some one in the way—some other man——"
Desmond drew in his breath sharply.
"Good Lord!" he muttered in a low dazed voice, as if thinking aloud. "But where the deuce is he? Why hasn't he come forward? He must be a rotten sort of chap——"
[Pg 337]
Paul caressed his moustache to hide a smile. "Not necessarily Theo. ”