CHAPTER III.

THE WOLF.

The day wore on, and Charlie Sandilands did not come. I was standing at the window towards evening, wondering at his absence, and blaming my folly in having spoken to him as I did, when I perceived the white hat and red cherries of Miss Markham bobbing up the street. I had taken quite an aversion to this woman. I had detected her in so much falsehood and exaggeration, and I knew her to be so malicious and ill-natured, that I avoided her company whenever it was possible to do so. I should have been obliged, however, to live in my bedroom had I contrived to elude her altogether; for hardly a morning passed without her spending two or three hours at our house. The only days she did not honour us were those on which she knew that Mr. Charteris would be shooting in the forest. On his fishing excursions she was almost sure to track and follow him. When her dear friend, Mrs. Carolus, had told me that her conduct with this gentleman was a scandal, I had been quite unable to believe that any woman of middle age and mediocre attractions could possibly be so foolish as to think herself capable of touching the heart of a young, handsome, worldly man like Cave Charteris. But it was easy for any one to believe it now.

I had seen Mr. Charteris laugh at or repulse her, just as the humour took him; but, apparently impervious to either ridicule or rudeness, she still pursued him, indoors or out of doors, although he often put on his hat as soon as she appeared, and left the house by the back way. To Tessie, and Ange, and myself, Miss Markham had become a perfect nuisance, for, wherever she might be, she monopolised the conversation, which always ran in the most egotistical manner on herself, her admirers, and her triumphs. Mr. Lovett was the only creature who welcomed her; and whether it was that they were equally vain, self-seeking, and fond of flattery I know not, but they always seemed to get on together. The old man continued to affirm that Miss Markham was one of the most intelligent and agreeable ladies he knew, and she never lost an opportunity of lauding his personal merits and his talents, or of rebuking the girls for not paying him sufficient attention. Until at last I began to fear whether she might not turn the foolish old man’s brain to that extent that he would really imagine his daughters were not as devoted and loving and obedient as they possibly could be.

It had become a joke with Tessie and Ange and me to give Mr. Charteris warning of Sophy Markham’s approach, but I was angry with him and angry with myself that evening, and I watched the bobbing cherries draw nearer and nearer without saying a word. So she was flung into the midst of us like a grenade.

‘How d’ye do! how d’ye do! to everybody,’ she exclaimed, nodding to the company in general, and then she pounced upon the unhappy Cave in particular. ‘Ah! you naughty fellow, come and make confession of your sins at once! What did you mean by cutting me this morning after that fashion? I’ve a great mind to give you a dreadful penance, one that you will not forget in a hurry; only you mustn’t make those saucy eyes at me, or I shall forget all about it.’

‘Cutting _you_, Miss Markham,’ he replied with serio-comic gravity. ‘How _can_ you think so? Where was it, and when?’

‘Where indeed?—why, close by the _Grotte de S. Jean_, of course. Now don’t pretend you didn’t see me, because I know you did. You began to run directly I turned the corner.’

‘That must be a mistake! I never run.’

‘Well, you walked very fast then, so fast that I couldn’t overtake you. And you dropped a rose-bud from your button-hole in your flight, and I picked it up, and here it is,’—displaying it in the bosom of her dress—‘and you shan’t have it back again,’ with infantine fervour, ‘no! not if you begged on your bended knees for it, you naughty boy! So there—there!’ ended Miss Markham playfully, as she struck his face two or three times with the flower which she had taken in her hand.

‘I believe you’ve put my eye out,’ he said quite crossly, as he covered the injured member with his hand.

‘Oh, poor little eye! let me see,’ cried Miss Markham, as she bent over his chair. ‘Shall I try and make it well again?’

‘No! leave me alone!’ he answered, in a tone which caused even her unsensitive cheek to grow red as she attempted to cover her confusion by addressing herself to the rest of the party. ‘Dear Mr. Lovett! I have not spoken to you yet. But I always keep the best to the last, you know. You’re my _bong bouche_! How tired you look this evening. Tessie, you should take more care of your papa! I don’t at all hold with running after poor people and forgetting those at home.’

‘I hope we don’t do that. Do we, papa?’ said Tessie, with her quiet smile.

‘No, my dear! certainly not! But I think I overwalked myself a little this morning. These warm days in autumn are more enervating sometimes than those of summer.’

‘But you shouldn’t overwalk yourself, dear Mr. Lovett, and you should have broth or something good prepared for you against your return. Do you have broth made for your father, Tessie?’

‘Papa has everything he requires, thank you, Miss Markham,’ replied Ange, briskly. ‘If he asked for the Coliseum at Rome, Tessie would get it for him if she could.’

‘Ah! but you mustn’t wait till he asks for it. You should anticipate his wishes. That is not a very tidy fashion of wearing your hair, Ange. It is half-way down your back.’

‘I know it is,’ said Ange, bluntly.

‘Go and put it up, my dear! go and put it up!’ said her father, with kindly authority.

And the girl, little pleased at an order which had originated with Miss Markham, left the room with a lingering step and a grimace.

‘I passed you last evening, Miss Marsh,’ continued our visitor; ‘but you appeared to be so _deeply_ engaged that I wouldn’t stop to speak, for fear of spoiling sport.’

‘You were wise, perhaps,’ was my reply.

‘Not that I envied you your admirer, you know; he, he, he! He was rather too bucolic-looking for my taste. I should say he had never been farther than a turnip-field in his life before.’

‘You’re quite right, Miss Markham, as you always are.’

‘Well, my penetration is not often in fault.’

‘I am sure of it! Considering that Mr. Sandilands is a regular cockney and has lived in London all his life, you have made a first-rate shot!’

She reddened somewhat and began to sniff, after a peculiar manner she had whenever she found herself in the wrong.

‘Ah, well! his looks belie the fact, that’s all! if it _is_ a fact. Is that little black monkey off your back yet, Mr. Charteris?’

‘I am not aware it was ever there, Miss Markham.’

‘Never mind; we won’t say anything more about it, but make it up next time we are alone. Have you heard the last rumour about those dreadful Johnstones, Mr. Lovett? They actually say that she was nothing but a milliner’s apprentice, whom he picked up in the streets carrying a bandbox in her hands. What shall we come to next, I wonder, when such creatures are permitted to move about society without being labelled?’

At this juncture I slipped out of the room to put on my hat and see if I could shake off some of the unholy influence this woman shed around her, in the open air. As I passed through the garden and quietly unlatched the gate, a figure started up from the shadow of the wall as if to join me. It was Mr. Charteris.

‘May I walk a little way with you, Hilda, and smoke my cigar in your company?’ he asked.

‘No, thank you,’ I replied abruptly.’ I would rather not.’

‘Yet you spent two or three hours in Mr. Sandilands’ society yesterday,’ he said, with a reproachful air.

‘I know I did; but I had not seen him for some time, and we had much to talk of. To-night I would rather be alone.’

‘As you will. I have no desire to intrude my company upon you. _Bon voyage!_’

I saw he was offended, but I could not help it. The conversation we had held that morning was too fresh in both our minds. He would have renewed the subject, which, as far as I was concerned, was exhausted. I had nothing more to say about it, and I feared lest in discussion I might be led to betray my past regard for him. Besides, although I wished him no harm, I did not consider that Mr. Charteris’s behaviour to me entitled him to rank as one of my friends. He had proved himself false, fickle, and cold-hearted. No man can have worse attributes for any position in life. He was not worthy of any woman’s confidence or regard, and I was quite sure he could never have more from me than my acquaintance.

It was a luscious, balmy evening, with just sufficient coolness to make walking a pleasure. To leave the clang of that woman’s tongue behind me, and to encounter the soft stilly atmosphere, was like entering a church from a public-house. I breathed more freely as I found myself alone, at liberty to think without disturbance. It was but just six o’clock. The shadows had not yet fallen to blot out the beautiful, delicate hues of the wild-flowers that bordered the roadway; nor to hush the evening hymns of the birds that were singing from every bough.

I would not take my favourite walk, which led towards the Château des Roses, because I was alone, and a silly fear of ridicule from Tessie and her sister always made me avoid anything that looked like a desire to meet the Baron de Nesselrode. So, as soon as the house I had quitted was out of sight, I struck up a side-path which led in the opposite direction and towards the forest of Piron. This forest, which has been rendered so celebrated by poets and writers of romance, is still the great point to which the eyes of all sportsmen in the Wallon are lovingly directed, although the march of civilisation has here, as everywhere else, driven the larger game farther and farther back into the recesses of their covert, until it is now as difficult to find them as it was once to extirpate them.

Many stories had been told me of the difficulties encountered even by the royal sportsmen of the realm, in their desire to obtain good specimens of wolves, boars and wild turkeys from the forest of Piron; and Armand de Nesselrode had been quoted in my presence as the most successful hunter that had been known to penetrate it. The floor of his hall at the château was covered with wolf-skins, the contemplation of which had more than once made me shudder as I thought of the risks he must have run in procuring them.

Cave Charteris and he were constantly together at this time, shooting on horseback and on foot, and the bags of small game which the former used to bring home for our table proved that there were plenty of other marks in the forest besides those dangerous wolves and thrice dangerous wild boars.

I knew the road to it well. It was lonely; but we never associated danger with loneliness at St. Pucelle; and at one point of it there stood a wayside shrine, a pretty, romantic, ruined piece of architecture, that I had sketched more than once, and from which a narrow path led through fields of grass and turnips back to my home again.

The Piron road had not much in it to attract the eye before this little shrine was reached, and I walked along its side-path rapidly, as was my custom to walk when alone, with my eyes cast down and my brain working away as fast as it could go, at every subject that passed through it.

I had left St. Pucelle a mile—perhaps a mile and a half—behind me, when something, I knew not what, impelled me suddenly to look up and scan the surrounding landscape. I had reached the centre of a long straight road, on either side of which ran a narrow footpath, fringed by the smallest of hedges, in many places trampled down by feet passing over it into the fields beyond. Not a tree sheltered the road anywhere, it was simply a highway to the next town. The dark mass of trees composing the forest loomed in the distance, but so far off as to appear like one clump against the greyish-blue sky of evening; behind me lay St. Pucelle, but I had placed a hill between us, and could only see the top of the spire of St. Marie and the wreaths of smoke that ascended from a little factory at the bottom of the town. I cast my eyes again in front. What was that dark figure advancing to meet me, that was sometimes in the light and sometimes in the shade, and seemed so uncertain in its movements and designs? Could it be a donkey? I smiled as the idea crossed my mind.

How could a donkey slouch in that absurd manner, and move with a shuffling, trotting gait, as though its shoulders were higher than its head! But the next moment I had turned as pale as death, and my heart almost stopped its beating from terror. Could it be—was it possible it could be—_a wolf_?

Directly I had conceived the thought I felt sure that I was right. Here, in the gloaming, without shelter of any kind, alone and unarmed, I was to meet one of these fearful beasts out of the forest, whose very names were sufficient to fill my breast with terror.

I don’t think I ever felt so frightened in my life as I did at that moment. Where should I run? What could I do?

I looked across the fields on either side. They were sown with turnips, and stood upon a slope. If I attempted to plod my way through them I should only be impeding my progress, and making my presence more conspicuously apparent to the animal than it was now.

Was I deceiving myself through fear? I strained my sight again to make sure what it was that advanced upon me.

Oh! there was no doubt about it! I could distinguish the brute’s appearance perfectly as he shambled along the pathway. And he was coming faster. He had broken into a swinging trot, with his nose to the ground. He had scented me, there was no hope but in flight.

All this, which takes so long to write, had taken but a second to flash through my brain, and in another I had turned, and was running back to St. Pucelle as fast as ever my legs could carry me. I dared not stop to look round, but in my terror I fancied I heard the breathing of the animal close behind me, and his steps gaining upon mine. After a quarter of a mile, perhaps, I had run myself out of breath; each step seemed as if it would choke me, and I believed that I was lost, and must succumb. ‘I shall never see St. Pucelle again,’ I thought sobbingly, as I flew along. ‘I shall be torn to pieces in the most horrible manner, and no one will even hear of my fate. I shall never know if Armand and Tessie are happy—or if——’

But here some great obstacle interposed itself between my blinded eyes and the pathway, and I fell with a loud scream of terror into the very arms of Monsieur de Nesselrode.

‘Mademoiselle Marsh!’ he exclaimed, in accents of the greatest surprise. ‘What is the matter? who has dared to frighten you?’

‘The wolf! the wolf!’ I cried, struggling with him. ‘Let me go—save yourself—it is close upon us!’

‘A wolf—and here! _Mais, mademoiselle, c’est impossible!_ it is not to be credited. Some one has been wicked enough to frighten you without cause.’

His words and manner somewhat reassured me, but I was still very much alarmed.

‘Indeed—indeed I am right. Look up the road for yourself! It is coming fast from the forest.’

Without relinquishing his hold of me, I saw him glance from right to left, over my shoulder, trying to distinguish the cause of my fear.

‘_Sacré_, Mademoiselle! you are correct. Something does advance this way.’

‘I told you so!’ I exclaimed, in a fresh paroxysm of terror. ‘Oh! leave me, monsieur, leave me! Run for your life—it is impossible both of us can be saved.’

‘_Je ne veux pas te quitter_,’ he answered, using the soft personal pronoun that with a Frenchman means so much; and then he shouted aloud: ‘_Hillo! hillo! à bas la! Hillo!_’

‘You cannot frighten it away,’ I said imploringly. ‘Oh, go—for my sake! Armand, pray go!’

‘It is not a wolf at all, mademoiselle,’ he replied calmly. ‘I see it now plainly, but I do not wonder at your taking it for one.’

‘What is it, then?’

‘One of our half-bred sheep-dogs finding his way home to his master. See! here he comes. He is about to pass us. Do not tremble any longer, mademoiselle. Your enemy has just trotted by, looking like a veritable wolf indeed, and very much ashamed of himself for doing so.’

I glanced up, and there, shambling along the road peaceably enough, but looking very dangerous notwithstanding, with his huge size, rough coat and glaring red eyes, was one of those creatures, half wolf, half dog, which the shepherds of the Piron prize so much as guardians of their flocks against the very animals from which they sprung.

‘What must you think of me?’ I said, as the huge brute shuffled out of sight, and I remembered what an exhibition I had made of myself.

‘I think that you are a brave woman who would have persuaded me to save myself, and leave you to what you believed would prove a terrible death.’

‘I hope I said nothing absurd—I entirely forget what I did say,’ I stammered, with vivid consciousness that I had called him by his Christian name. ‘And all for a stupid sheep-dog, too; I am so ashamed of myself.’

‘But you are trembling still, and you must sit down for a little while before you attempt to return to St. Pucelle. Do you often take such solitary walks, mademoiselle?’

‘Yes, I like to walk alone, and I did not think there could be any danger.’

‘Neither is there. These dogs look very formidable, but they have never been known to attack anybody unprovoked. The next time you meet one, all you have to do is to stand aside and let him pass.’

‘Oh! I hope I shall not meet another,’ I said, shuddering. ‘I do not like them. We have no such dogs in England, and I shall never forget the fright it gave me.’

Monsieur de Nesselrode had selected a grassy knoll by the roadside for me to rest upon, and my heart was beating more in its proper time. What a difference a few seconds had effected in my feelings! A minute ago I firmly believed myself to be in the jaws of death. Now it seemed as if nothing could have the power to hurt or alarm me. I turned towards Armand de Nesselrode gratefully.

‘I wish you would not look so pale,’ he observed; ‘you are not still frightened, I hope?’

‘Oh no! that is all passed away, and I am quite at my ease again. How good it was of you, monsieur, to stand by me as you did.’

He smiled at me. His was such a beautiful smile. It came rarely, but when it did, it lighted up all his features like a glory. There was no mirth in it—I think self-reproach at that period had chased away from his spirit all the merriment which later I saw shine forth—but it was thoroughly appreciative and genuine. On the present occasion his smile seemed to say much more than he chose his lips should utter.

‘You will not let me thank you,’ I continued, ‘but I must. Thank God! my fears were not well founded, and we did not both perish. For I feel you would have died sooner than let me be torn from your grasp.’

‘Of course I would!’

‘Oh! I think a brave man is the most wonderful and beautiful thing God ever made. Why should you have sacrificed your life for me, of whom you know nothing?’

‘It would have been my duty to lay it down under such circumstances, mademoiselle, for any woman—and of all women——’

But here he stopped short, as though ignorant how to finish his sentence, and I did not see the way to help him. Presently he began again:

‘You were good enough to say once, mademoiselle, that it would interest you to hear the means by which I was brought down to my present position. Shall I tell you the story now?’

‘Do, monsieur,’ I said, turning my eyes upon him.

He was seated at a little distance from me, with both his hands between his knees, digging up the earth under his feet with the light cane he usually carried. His eyes were downcast, and I noticed the length of the dark lashes that lay upon his cheek, and contrasted with the grave pallor that seemed suddenly to have overspread his countenance. Whatever this story might be, it was evidently hard to tell, and I prepared myself to hear a confession of much folly and evil, and perhaps—dishonour. Should I like him the less, I asked myself, when his tale was finished?

I did not believe I should like him the less. I felt so confident that whatever his sins might have been, Armand de Nesselrode possessed the power of rising above them.

[Illustration: [Fleuron]]