The Three Eyes Part 30

We at once darted along the narrow path which ran up the hill, cutting across the winding forest-road. When we were half-way up, the cries broke out again; and a woman's figure came into view among the crumbling stones of the old castle.

"Berangere!" I cried, increasing my pace.

She did not see me. She was running, as though she had some one in pursuit of her, and taking advantage of every bit of shelter that the ruins offered. Presently a man appeared, looking for her and threatening her with a revolver which he carried in his hand.

"It's he!" I stammered. "It's Velmot!"

One after the other they entered the huddle of ruins, from which we were now separated by forty yards at most. We covered the distance in a few seconds and I rushed ahead towards the place through which Berangere had slipped.

As I arrived, a shot rang out, some little way off, and I heard moans.

Despite my efforts, I could get no farther forward, because the pa.s.sage was blocked by brambles and trails of ivy. My companion and I struggled desperately against the branches which were cutting our faces. At length we emerged on a large platform, where at first we saw no one among the tall gra.s.s and the moss-grown rocks. Still, there was that shot . . . and those cries of pain quite close to where we stood.

Suddenly the count, who was searching a short distance in front of me, exclaimed:

"There she is! . . . Berangere! Are you hurt?"

I leapt towards him. Berangere lay outstretched in a tangle of leaves and herbage.

She was so pale that I had not a doubt but that she was dead; and I felt very clearly that I should not be able to survive her. I even completed my thought by saying, aloud:

"I will avenge her first. The murderer shall die by my hand, I swear it."

But the count, after a hurried inspection, declared.

"She's not dead, she's breathing."

And I saw her open her eyes.

I fell on my knees besides her and, lifting her fair and sorrow-stricken face in my hands, asked her:

"Where are you hurt, Berangere? Tell me, darling."

"I'm not hurt," she whispered. "It's the exertion, the excitement."

"But surely," I insisted, "he fired at you?"

"No, no," she said, "it was I who fired."

"Do you mean that? You fired?"

"Yes, with his revolver."

"But you missed him. He has made his escape."

"I did not miss him. I saw him fall . . . quite close to this . . . on the edge of the ravine."

This ravine was a deep cut in the ground, on our right. The count went to the spot and called to me. When I was standing beside him, he showed me the body of a man lying head downwards, his face covered with blood. I approached and recognized Velmot. He was dead.

CHAPTER XIX

THE FORMULA

Velmot dead, Berangere alive: the joy of it! The sudden sense of security! This time, the evil adventure was over, since the girl whom I loved had nothing more to fear. And my thoughts at once harked back to Noel Dorgeroux: the formula in which the great secret was summed up was saved. With the clues and the means of action which existed elsewhere, mankind was now in a position to continue my uncle's work.

Berangere called me back:

"He's dead, isn't he?"

I felt intuitively that I ought not to tell her a truth which was too heavy for her to bear and which she was afraid of hearing and I declared:

"Not at all. . . . We haven't seen him. . . . He must have got away.

My answer seemed to relieve her; and she whispered:

"In any case, he is wounded. . . . I know I hit him."

"Rest, my darling," I said, "and don't worry any more about anything."

She did as she was told; and she was so weary that she soon fell asleep.

Before taking her home, the count and I went back to the body and lowered it down the slope of the ravine, which we followed to the wall that surrounded the estate. As there was a breach at this spot, the count gave it as his opinion that Velmot could not have entered anywhere but here. And in fact a little lower down, at the entrance to a lonely forest-road we discovered his car. We lifted the body into it, placed the revolver on the seat, drove the car to a distance of half a mile and left it at the entrance to a clearing. We met n.o.body on the road. The death would beyond a doubt be ascribed to suicide.

An hour later, Berangere, now back to the lodge and lying on her bed, gave me her hand, which I covered with kisses. We were alone, with no more enemies around us. There was no hideous shape prowling in the dark. No one was any longer able to thwart our rightful happiness.

"The nightmare has pa.s.sed," I said. "There is no obstacle left between you and me. You will no longer try to run away, will you?"

I watched her with an emotion in which still lingered no small anxiety. Dear little girl, she was still, to me, a creature full of mystery and the unknown; and there were many secrets hidden in the shadowy places of that soul into which I had never entered. I told her as much. She in her turn looked at me for a long time, with her tired and fevered eyes, so different from the careless, laughing eyes which I had loved long ago, and she whispered:

"Secrets? My secrets? No. There is only one secret in me; and that one secret is the cause of everything."

"May I hear it?"

"I love you."

I felt a thrill of joy. Often I had experienced a profound intuition of this love of hers, but it had been spoilt by so much distrust, suspicion and resentment. And now Berangere was confessing it to me, gravely and frankly.

"You love me," I repeated. "You love me. Why did you not tell me earlier? How many misfortunes would have been avoided! Why didn't you?"

"I couldn't."

"And you can now, because there is no longer any obstacle between us?"

"There is the same obstacle as ever."