A Dead Reckoning. T. W. Speight
landlady's gaze followed hers through the window. "Do you mean that little fellow on the grass plat who is throwing crumbs to the birds? He's a mountebank's son, as you may see by his dress. His father is having some bread-and-cheese in the kitchen. What a shame it is that such a dear little mite should have to earn his living by turning head over heels in the streets."
For several moments Stephanie stood motionless, her eyes fixed on the child. Then, without turning her head, she said: "Thank you. I require nothing more at present. When I do, I will ring." The tones in which the words were spoken conveyed more than the words themselves. Mrs. Purvis bridled like a peacock, shook her cap-ribbons, and marched out of the room, slamming the door behind her with unnecessary violence.
There were two doors to the room, one by which the landlady had made her exit, and another which led into the garden. This second door Stephanie now opened, and at the sound the boy raised his eyes. She beckoned to him, and he came forward. It may be that he had visions of more fruit and sugared biscuits.
Stephanie drew him a little way into the room, and going down on one knee, she passed an arm round his waist. It was evident that she was full of suppressed emotion. The conversation that ensued was carried on in French.
"Tell me your name, cheri."
"Henri Picot, mademoiselle."
She had known what the answer would be; but for a moment or two her lips blanched, while she murmured something the boy could not hear.
"And your father?" she said at last.
"He is here, indoors. Poor papa was tired; he is resting himself."
"Does your papa treat you kindly, Henri?"
The boy stared at her. "Papa always treats me kindly.--Why should he not?"
"And your mamma?" said Stephanie with bated breath.
Henri shook his head. "I have no mamma," he answered with a ring of childish pathos in his voice. "She has gone a long, long journey, and no one knows when she will come back. Papa does not like me to talk about her--it makes him so sad. But sometimes I see her in my sleep, and then she looks beautiful, and smiles at me. Some day, perhaps, she will come back to papa and me."
She kissed him passionately, to the boy's wonderment. Then with a half-sob in her voice, she said: "But you have a sister, have you not?"
Henri's large eyes grew larger. "No; I have no sister," he answered with a shake of his head.
"But you had one once, had you not? Does your papa never speak of her?"
"No; never. I had a mamma, but I never had a sister."
For a moment or two Stephanie buried her face on the child's shoulder. What thoughts, what memories of the past, rushed through her brain as she did so? "Cast off and forgotten!" was the mournful cry wrung from her heart.
Suddenly a voice outside was heard calling, "Henri, Henri, où es tu?" followed by a note or two on the pipes and a tap on the drum.
"Papa is calling me; I must go," said the boy.
Stephanie started to her feet, and lifting him in her arms, kissed him wildly again and again. Then setting him down, she pressed some money into his hand and turned away without another word. Henri darted off.
"He is gone--gone--and perhaps I shall never see him again!" She sank on her knees and buried her face in the cushions of the window-seat. Her whole frame shook with the sobs that would no longer be suppressed.
Five minutes later George Crofton entered the room. For a few seconds he paused in utter amazement; then going forward, he laid a hand on the girl's shoulder. "Steph," he said, "Steph--why, what's amiss?" As he spoke his eyes rested for a moment on Picot and Henri, who were crossing the grass-plat hand in hand.
CHAPTER IV.
"Pardon. I hope I do not intrude?" said M. Karovsky, addressing himself to Mrs. Brooke with the suave assurance of a thorough man of the world. "I saw through the window that Mr. Brooke had returned, and as my time here is limited--me voici." Then advancing a few steps and holding out his hand to Gerald, he added: "It is five years, mon ami, since we last met. Confess now, I am one of the last men in the world whom you thought to see here?"
"You are indeed, Karovsky," responded Gerald as he shook his visitor's proffered hand, but with no great show of cordiality.--"Have you been long in England?"
"Not long. I am a bird of passage. I come and go, and obey the orders that are given me. That is all."
"My wife, Mrs. Brooke. But you have seen her already.--Clara, Monsieur Karovsky is a gentleman whose acquaintance I had the honour of making during the time I was living abroad."
"May we hope to have the pleasure of Monsieur Karovsky's company to dinner?" asked Clara in her most gracious manner, while at the same time hoping in her heart that the invitation would not be accepted.
"Merci, madame," responded the Russian, for such he was. "I should be delighted, if the occasion admitted of it; but, as I said before, my time is limited. I must leave London by the night-mail. I am due in Paris at ten o'clock tomorrow."
"For the present, then, I must ask you to excuse me," said Clara.
Karovsky hastened to open the door for her, and bowed low as she swept out of the room.
"That man is the bearer of ill news, and Gerald knows it," was the young wife's unspoken thought as she left the two together.
M. Karovsky was a tall, well-built man, to all appearance some few years over thirty in point of age. His short black hair was parted carefully down the middle; his black eyes were at once piercing and brilliant; he had a long and rather thin face, a longish nose, a mobile and flexible mouth, and a particularly fine arrangement of teeth. He wore neither beard nor moustache, and his complexion had the faint yellow tint of antique ivory. He was not especially handsome; but there was something striking and out of the common in his appearance, so that people who were introduced to him casually in society wanted to know more about him. An enigma is not without its attractions for many people, and Karovsky had the air of being one whether he was so in reality or not. He was a born linguist, as so many of his countrymen are, and spoke the chief European languages with almost equal fluency and equal purity of accent.
"Fortune has been kind to you, my friend, in finding for you so charming a wife," he said, as he lounged across the room with his hands in his pockets, after closing the door behind Mrs. Brooke. "But Fortune has been kind to you in more ways than one."
"Karovsky, you have something to tell me," said Brooke a little grimly. "You did not come here to pay compliments, nor without a motive. But will you not be seated?"
Karovsky drew up a chair. "As you say--I am not here without a motive," he remarked. Then, with a quick expressive gesture, which was altogether un-English, he added: "Ah, bah! I feel like a bird of ill-omen that has winged its way into Paradise with a message from the nether world."
"Whatever your message may be, pray do not hesitate to deliver it."
But apparently the Russian did hesitate. He got up, crossed the room to one of the windows, looked out for half a minute, then went back and resumed his seat. "Eight years have come and gone, Gerald Brooke," he began in an impressive tone, "since you allied yourself by some of the most solemn oaths possible for a man to take to that Sacred Cause to which I also have the honour of being affiliated."
"Do you think that I have forgotten! At that time I was an impetuous and enthusiastic boy of eighteen, with no knowledge of the world save what I had gathered from books, and with a head that was full of wild, vague dreams of Liberty and Universal Brotherhood."
"The fact of your becoming one of Us is the best of all proofs that the cause of Liberty at that time was dear to your heart."
"But when as a boy I joined the Cause, I was ignorant