The House of the White Shadows. B. L. Farjeon
to learn.
"For the dead white trout," answered the boy. "Whenever a priest dies it floats upon the lake."
In the lower heights, where the fir-trees stretched their feathery tips to the clouds, they found the flower they were in search of, and the children were wild with delight. The sun was setting when they returned to the hut, tired and gratified with their day's wanderings. The peasant's wife smiled as she saw the edelweiss.
"A lucky love-flower," she said to Christian Almer.
These simple words proved to him how hard was the lesson of forgetfulness he was striving to learn; he was profoundly agitated by them.
Night fell, and the clouds grew black.
"The wind is rising," said the peasant; "an ill night for travellers. Here is one coming towards us."
It proved to be a guide who lived in the nearest post village, and who, duly commissioned for the service, brought to Christian Almer the letters of the Advocate and his wife.
"A storm is gathering," said the guide; "I must find shelter on the heights to-night."
In his lonely room Christian Almer broke the seals, and by the dull light of a single candle read the lines written by friend to friend, by lover to lover.
The thunder rolled over the mountains; the lightning flashed through the small window; the storm was upon him.
He read the letters once only, but every word was impressed clearly upon his brain. For an hour he sat in silence, gazing vacantly at the edelweiss on the table, the lucky love-flower.
The peasant's wife called to him, and asked if he wanted anything.
"Nothing," he replied, in a voice that sounded strange to him.
"I will leave the bread and milk on the table," she said. "Good-night."
He did not answer her, nor did he respond to the children's good-night. Their voices, the children's especially, seemed to his ears to come from a great distance.
A drop of rain fell from the roof upon the candle, and extinguished the light. For a long while he remained in darkness, until all in the hut were sleeping; then he went out into the wild night, clutching the letters tight in his hand.
He staggered almost blindly onwards, and in the course of half an hour found himself standing on a narrow and perilous bridge, from which the few travellers who passed that way could obtain a view of a torrent which dashed with sublime and terrific force over a precipice upon the rocks below, a thousand feet down.
"If I were to grow dizzy now!" he muttered, with a reckless laugh; and he tempted fate by leaning over the narrow bridge, and gazing downwards into the dark depths.
Indistinct shapes grew out of the mighty and eternal waterfall. Of hosts of angry men battling with each other; of rushing horses; of armies of vultures swooping down for prey; of accusing and beautiful faces; of smiling mouths and white teeth flashing; and, amidst the whirl, sounds of shrieks and laughter.
Suddenly he straightened himself, and tearing Adelaide's letter into a thousand pieces, flung the evidence of a treacherous love into the furious torrent of waters; and as he did so he thought that there were times in a man's life when death were the best blessing which Heaven could bestow upon him!
CHAPTER XIII
THE TRIAL OF GAUTRAN
The trial of Gautran was proceeding, and the court was thronged with an excited gathering of men and women, upon whom not a word in the story of the tragic drama was thrown away. Impressed by the great powers of the Advocate who had undertaken to appear for the accused, the most effective measures had been adopted to prove Gautran's guilt, and obtain a conviction.
It was a legal battle, fought with all the subtle weapons at the disposal of the law.
Gautran's prosecutors fought with faces unmasked, and with their hands displayed; the Advocate, on the contrary, was pursuing a course which none could fathom; nor did he give a clue to it. Long before the case was closed the jury were ready to deliver their verdict; but, calm and unmoved, the Advocate, with amazing patience, followed out his secret theory, the revelation of which was awaited, by those who knew him best and feared him most, with intense and painful curiosity.
Every disreputable circumstance in Gautran's life was raked up to display the odiousness of his character; his infamous career was tracked from his childhood to the hour of his arrest. A creature more debased, with features more hideous, it would have been difficult to drag forward from the worst haunts of crime and shame. Degraded he was born, degraded he had lived, degraded he stood before his judges. It was a horror to gaze upon his face as he stood in the dock, convulsively clutching the rails.
For eight days had he so stood, execrated and condemned by all. For eight days he had endured the anguish of a thousand deaths, of a myriad agonising fears. His soul had been harrowed by the most awful visions--visions of which none but himself had any conception. In his cell with the gaolers watching his every movement; in the court with the glare of daylight upon him; in the dusky corridors he traversed morning and evening he saw the phantom of the girl with whose murder he was charged, and by her side the phantom of himself standing on the threshold of a future in which there was no mercy or pity.
No communication passed between him and the lawyer who was fighting for him; not once did the Advocate turn to the prisoner or address a word to him; it was as though he were battling for a victory in which Gautran was in no wise concerned. But if indeed he desired to win, he adopted the strangest tactics to accomplish his desire. Not a question he asked the witnesses, not an observation he made to the judge, but tended to fix more surely the prisoner's degradation, and gradually there stole into Gautran's heart a deadly hatred and animosity against his defender.
"He defends me to ruin me," this was Gautran's thought; "he is seeking to destroy me, body and soul."
His own replies to the questions put to him by the judge were sufficient to convict him. He equivocated and lied in the most barefaced manner, and when he was exposed and reproved, evinced no shame--preserving either a dogged silence, or obstinately exclaiming that the whole world was leagued against him. Apart from the question whether he was lying or speaking the truth, there was a certain consistency in his method which would have been of service to him had his cause been good. This was especially noticeable when he was being interrogated with respect to his relations with the murdered girl.
"You insist," said the judge, "that Madeline accepted you as her lover?"
"Yes," replied Gautran, "I insist upon it."
"Evidence will be brought forward to prove that it was not so. What, then, will you answer?"
"That whoever denies it is a liar."
"And if a dozen or twenty deny it?"
"They lie, the lot of them."
"What should make them speak falsely instead of truly?"
"Because they are all against me."
"There is no other evidence except your bare statement that Madeline and you were affianced."
"That is my misfortune. If she were alive she could speak for me."
"It is a safe remark, the poor child being in her grave. It is the rule for young girls to love men whose appearance is not repulsive."
"Is this," cried Gautran, smiting his face with his fist, "to stand as a witness against me, too?"
"No; but