CHAPTER X

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IN THE LAST RESORT.

It was Marian, who came quickly forward, her cheeks aglow with pleasurable excitement.

"Papa, what do think? There are a couple of Neapolitan _pifferari_ on the lawn, and I have told them to come round here. You should have seen how delighted they were when I spoke to them in Italian. I knew you would be pleased to hear them play a few of their simple airs. It will seem like old times come back again, will it not?"

"Old times, forsooth!" exclaimed Drelincourt with his most riant air. "You talk, _mignonne_, as if this were your fiftieth birthday instead of your eighteenth. But where are these vagabonds of yours? I suppose I must submit to having my ears tortured, since you will it so." Then, as the girl turned away, the shadow swept over his face again, and under his breath he murmured: "Rodd--Rodd--whip and spur!--whip and spur!"

Marian had flitted on to the lawn, and was beckoning to the _pifferari_, who presently came slouching along, and took up a position a little way removed from one of the long windows.

"Poor fellows! Their clothes seem little more than tatters," remarked Marian, as she reëntered the room. "And yet how picturesque they look!"

"And how very far from clean!" Added Walter in a low voice. "It would be a charity to make them a present of a bar of soap--if one could feel sure of their using it."

Then they began to play. The air, although set to waltz time, was a wild and plaintive one, and not at all like conventional dance music.

After listening for a couple of minutes, Marian clapped her hands and cried excitedly: "Papa, don't you remember?"

"Remember what, my dear?"

"The air they are playing. It's called '_La Strega_,' which"--with a glance at Walter--"being interpreted for the behoof of illiterate people, means 'The Sorceress.'"

"So kind of you to enlighten my ignorance!" murmured the young man.

Marian turned to her father.

"It's the same tune two wandering minstrels played one day ever so long ago on the terrace at Bordighera. And that day you were so gay and light-hearted that you and I danced to it together. Oh, I have not forgotten! And now it's my birthday, and we will dance to it again."

"_I_ dance! Madness!"

"It's a very delightful kind of madness. Am I not queen today? Do you dare, sir, to dispute any of my behests?"

"There's Walter."

"It is you, papa, whom I am going to dance with, not that boy. I won't listen to another word. Come! Let us try for a little while to fancy ourselves back in Italy."

"What it is to be a slave of a tyrant in petticoats!"

He offered no further resistance, but slid an arm round his daughter's waist, and the pair began to waltz to the music. Walter stood looking on from the embrasure of one of the windows. Twice had they gyrated the length of the room and back, when Drelincourt caught sight of Roden Marsh's pale face peering at him through an opening in the portière. The latter had approached unseen and unheard by either of the young folk. For a couple of minutes longer the dancers kept revolving to the music, then, as they again drew near the window where Walter was lounging, Drelincourt beckoned to him to take his place, which the young man did, nothing loath. A second later Drelincourt had disappeared through the portière.

"Your news?" said Drelincourt to Roden Marsh, the moment they were alone.

"Found guilty and sentenced to death."

"So now the curtain is rung up for the last act!"

Rodd grasped one of his foster brother's hands in both his, and for a few moments the two stood looking into each other's eyes.

Then Drelincourt said, "Come," and with that he led the way to his own room, where there was less likelihood of their being intruded upon.

"And of course the judge held out no hope of mercy?" he recommenced, as soon as he had seated himself and motioned Rodd to another chair.

"None whatever. The fact of Gumley having confessed to the robbery seemed to be accepted both by judge and jury as conclusive evidence that he must be guilty of the other crime."

"His counsel----"

"Urged every point in his favor that could be urged, but to no purpose.

"Poor devil! What must his sensations have been when he heard his doom pronounced! But in a little while, as at the wave of a necromancer's wand, the weight of that dread sentence shall be lifted off his heart, and life shall once more taste sweet in his mouth."

"Felix! What would you do?"

"Can you ask? I thought it was long ago understood between us what my course was to be should the worst ever come to pass. The worst _has_ come to pass--as I have felt all along it would surely do some day--and it has now, to be faced. Could anything be more simple?"

"But consider, Felix, consider! This fellow who was sentenced today is a low, brutal, besotted wretch, who--as was proved against him by the police--has already served two terms of penal servitude for other crimes; who, as I have ascertained, has not a single tie to bind him to life, and of whom, when he dies--and the sooner the better--the world will be well rid. No sane man would seriously think of sacrificing himself for such a scoundrel. Let him hang! Such _canaille_ as he are fit fruit for the gallows."

"My dear Rodd, how strangely you must have misread me all these years, if you think it possible that, deliberately and knowingly, I could allow this man to pay the penalty of a crime of which he is as innocent as you are! Granting him to be all that you say he is--assuming him to be the vilest wretch that crawls--his life is the one sacred thing he can call his own till he himself shall forfeit it, and all the unseen powers forbid that I should rob him of it! The thing done by me twenty years ago concerns me, and me only, and I swear that this man's blood shall not lie at my door!"

Then, in a changed voice:

"Rodd, you remember what we agreed upon long ago in case of emergency? Have you the vial still by you which I gave at that time into your keeping?"

"I have."

"That is well--that is very well. Fetch it me now--at once."

A groan broke from Rodd's lips; too well he knew how futile any further remonstrance on his part would have been. There was that about Drelincourt which brooked no denial. All his life Rodd had done his foster brother's bidding, and he did it now.

"How strangely calm I feel now that the suspense is over and I know the worst!" mused Drelincourt, when Rodd had left the room. "My pulse beats as evenly as an infant's. Tonight I shall sleep as I have not slept for weeks. Now that my doom stares me straight in the face, now that I hear a footstep on the threshold audible to myself alone, of what little consequence the world and its business have all at once become to me! Already life and the things which make life sweet have put on an altogether different aspect; already I find myself regarding them almost as impersonally as if I were a denizen of another plant, and had no part or parcel in them. It is a novel experience, and did time allow, I might endeavor to analyze it."

His unspoken soliloquy was brought to an end by the return of Rodd.

"Have you found the vial?" he asked, with restrained eagerness.

"I have." He came slowly forward. "Felix, once more----"

"Give it me. Not another word!" Drelincourt held out his hand, and Rodd had no choice save to do as he was told. Drelincourt's features were lighted up by a faint smile. "Why this childish puling?" he asked. "Why this sudden faint heartedness? You know well how it was agreed between us years ago that this should be my way of escape when none other was left me."

Rodd resumed his seat without replying, and letting his elbows rest on the table, covered his face with his hands. Drelincourt held the vial up to the light.

"Even in the tiny compass of this the Great Destroyer finds room to lurk. 'Swift and painless,' were the words of the Italian _savant_ when he put it into my hands. Swift--and--painless. It is well. Now I am prepared."

Rodd turned on him a face charged with tragic intensity.

"You will not do this thing just yet--if it must be done at all?" he pleaded.

"Not today certainly--nor yet tomorrow. I have much to see to first. Besides, this is my daughter's _festa_, and no faintest shadow of a cloud shall mar its brightness. In years to come, when she is a happy wife, and when the trouble which is now closing round her shall be nothing but a memory, I would fain have her be able to look back on this day as one of unclouded happiness."

"And Mrs. Drelincourt?"

"Ah! Now you stab me. Now you all but unman me. Why did you mention her name?"

He got up abruptly, his hands clinched, his features working. Scarcely ever before had Rodd seen him so moved.

"Leave me now," he went on, after a brief pause. "I must be alone for a little while. I will see you again later. But not a word to my wife about the verdict. Should she question you, tell her that the trial will not be finished till tomorrow. How strangely you look at me! Go, and fear nothing."

Sadly and lingeringly Rodd left the room. "There is one door of escape for him, and it rests with me to open it," he said to himself as he went. "He saved my life when we were boys; why should I not make an effort to save his now? Felix--Felix--dearer to me than any brother could have been--had I a dozen lives I would willingly sacrifice them all to save yours!"

Left alone, Drelincourt crossed to one of the windows which fronted the west, and flung wide the casement.

"Yes, to leave her--my Madeline--will in very truth be to drain death's bitter cup to the lees. If she and I could but walk hand in hand into yonder sunset, and so vanish forever from mortal ken--that would indeed be well!"

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