The Eye of Dread Part 48

"Child, child! He is playing a desperate game, and taking an ign.o.ble part. He is doing a dastardly thing, and the burden is laid on you to confess to the secret you have been hiding and tell the truth."

Bertrand spoke very sadly, and Betty's heart smote her for his sorrow; yet she felt the thing was impossible for Richard to do, and that she must hold the secret a little longer--all the more because even her father seemed now to credit the terrible accusation. She threw her arms about his neck and implored him.

"Oh, father, dear! Take me to the jail to see him, and after that I will try to do what is right. I can think clearer after I have seen him."

"I don't know if that will be allowed--but--"

"It will have to be allowed. How can I say if it is Richard until I see him. It may not be Richard. The Elder is too blinded to even go near him, and dear Mrs. Craigmile is not here. Some one ought to go in fairness to Richard--who loves--" She choked and could say no more.

"I will talk to your mother first. There is another thing that should soften your heart to the Elder. All over the country there is financial trouble. Banks are going to pieces that never were in trouble before, and Elder Craigmile's bank is going, he fears. It will be a terrible crash, and we fear he may not outlive the blow. I tell you this, even though you may not understand it, to soften your heart toward him. He considers it in the nature of a disgrace."

"Yes. I understand, better than you think." Betty's voice was sad, and she looked weary and spent. "If the bank breaks, it breaks the Elder's heart. All the rest he could stand, but not that. The bank, the bank!

He tried to sacrifice Peter Junior to that bank. He would have broken Peter's heart for that bank, as he has his wife's; for if it had not been for Peter's quarrel with his father, first of all, over it, I don't believe all the rest would have happened. Peter told me a lot. I know."

"Betty, did you never love Peter Junior? Tell father."

"I thought I did. I thought I knew I did,--but when Richard came home--then--I--I--knew I had made a terrible mistake; but, father, I meant to stand by Peter--and never let anybody know until--Oh, father, need I tell any more?"

"No, my dear. You would better talk with your mother."

Bertrand Ballard left the studio more confused in his mind, and yet both sadder and wiser then he had ever been in his life. He had seen a little way into his small daughter's soul, and conceived of a power of spirit beyond him, although he considered her both unreasonable and wrong. He grieved for her that she had carried such a great burden so bravely and so long. How great must have been her love, or her infatuation! The pathetic knowledge hardened his heart toward the young man in the jail, and he no longer tried to defend him in his thoughts.

He sent Mary up to talk with Betty, and that afternoon they all walked over to the jail; for Mary could get no nearer her little daughter's confidence, and no deeper into the heart of the matter than Betty had allowed her father to go.

CHAPTER x.x.xI

ROBERT KATER'S SUCCESS

"Halloo! So it's here!" Robert Kater stood by a much-littered table and looked down on a few papers and envelopes which some one had laid there during his absence. All day long he had been wandering about the streets of Paris, waiting--pa.s.sing the time as he could in his impatience--hoping for the communication contained in one of these very envelopes. Now that it had come he felt himself struck with a singular weakness, and did not seize it and tear it open. Instead, he stood before the table, his hands in his pockets, and whistled softly.

He made the tour of the studio several times, pausing now and then to turn a canvas about, apparently as if he would criticize it, looking at it but not regarding it, only absently turning one and another as if it were a habit with him to do so; then returning to the table he stirred the envelopes apart with one finger and finally separated one from the rest, bearing an official seal, and with it a small package carefully secured and bearing the same seal, but he did not open either. "Yes, it's here, and that's the one," he said, but he spoke to himself, for there was no one else in the room.

He moved wearily away, keeping the packet in his hand, but leaving the envelope on the table, and hung his hat upon a point of an easel and wiped his damp brow. As he did so, he lifted the dark brown hair from his temple, showing a jagged scar. Quickly, as if with an habitual touch, he rearranged the thick, soft lock so that the scar was covered, and mounting a dais, seated himself on a great thronelike chair covered with a royal tiger skin. The head of the tiger, mounted high, with glittering eyes and fangs showing, rested on the floor between his feet, and there, holding the small packet in his hand, with elbows resting on the arms of the throne, he sat with head dropped forward and shoulders lifted and eyes fixed on the tiger's head.

For a long time he sat thus in the darkening room. At last it grew quite dark. Only the great skylight over his head showed a defined outline. The young man had had no dinner and no supper, for his pockets were empty and his last sou gone. If he had opened the envelopes, he would have found money, and more than money, for he would have learned that the doors of the Salon had opened to him and the highest medal awarded him, and that for which he had toiled and waited and hoped,--for which he had staked his last effort and sacrificed everything, was won. He was recognized, and all Paris would quickly know it, and not Paris only, but all the world. But when he would open the envelope, his hands fell slack, and there it still lay on the table concealed by the darkness.

Down three flights of stairs in the court a strange and motley group were collecting, some bearing candles, all masked, some fantastically dressed and others only concealed by dominoes. The stairs went up on the outer wall of this inner court, past the windows of the bas.e.m.e.nt occupied by the concierge and his wife and pretty daughter, and entered the building on the first floor above. By this arrangement the concierge could always see from his window who mounted them.

"Look, mamma." The pretty daughter stood peering out, her face framed in the white muslin curtains. "Look. See the students. Ah, but they are droll!"

"Come away, ma fille."

"But the owl and the ape, there, they seem on very good terms. I wonder if they go to the room of Monsieur Kater! I think so; for one--the ghost in white, he is a little lame like the Englishman who goes always to the room of Monsieur.--Ah, bah! Imbecile! Away with you! Pig!"

The ape had suddenly approached his ugly face close to the face framed in the white muslin curtains on the other side of the window, and made exaggerated motions of an embrace. The wife of the concierge s.n.a.t.c.hed her daughter away and drew the curtains close.

"Foolish child! Why do you stand and watch the rude fellows? This is what you get by it. I have told you to keep your eyes within."

"But I love to see them, so droll they are."

Stealthily the fantastic creatures began to climb the stairs, one, two, three flights, traversing a long hall at the end of each flight and turning to climb again. The expense of keeping a light on each floor for the corridors was not allowed in this building, and they moved along in the darkness, but for the flickering light of the few candles carried among them. As they neared the top they grew more stealthy and kept close together on the landing outside the studio door. One stooped and listened at the keyhole, then tried to look through it. "Not there?" whispered another.

"No light," was the whispered reply. They spoke now in French, now in English.

"He has heard us and hid himself. He is a strange man, this Scotchman.

He did not attend the 'Vernissage,' nor the presentation of prizes, yet he wins the highest." The owl stretched out an arm, bare and muscular, from under his wing and tried the door very gently. It was not locked, and he thrust his head within, then reached back and took a candle from the ghost. "This will give light enough. Put out the rest of yours and make no noise."

Thus in the darkness they crept into the studio and gathered around the table. There they saw the unopened envelopes.

"He is not here. He does not know," said one and another.

"Where then can he be?"

"He has taken a panic and fled. I told you so," said the ghost.

"Ah, here he is! Behold! The Hamlet of our ghost! Wake, Hamlet; your father's spirit has arrived," cried one in English with a very French accent.

They now gathered before the dais, shouting and cheering in both English and French. One brought the envelopes on a palette and presented them. The young man gazed at them, stupidly at first, then with a feverish gleam in his eyes, but did not take them.

"Yes, I found them when I came in--but they are--not for me."

"They are addressed to you, Robert Kater, and the news is published and you leave them here unopened."

"He does not know--I told you so."

"You have the packet in your hand. Open it. Take it from him and decorate him. He is in a dream. It is the great medal. We will wake him."

They began to cheer and cheer again, each after the manner of the character he had a.s.sumed. The a.s.s brayed, the owl hooted, the ghost groaned. The ape leaped on the back of the throne whereon the young man still sat, and seized him by the hair, chattering idiotically after the manner of apes, and began to wag his head back and forth. In the midst of the uproar Demosthenes stepped forward and took the envelopes from the palette, and, tearing them open, began reading them aloud by the light of a candle held for him by Lady Macbeth, who now and then interrupted with the remark that "her little hand was stained with blood," stretching forth an enormous, hairy hand for their inspection. But as Demosthenes read on the uproar ceased, and all listened with courteous attention. The ape leaped down from the back of the throne, the owl ceased hooting, and all were silent until the second envelope had been opened and the contents made known--that his exhibit had been purchased by the Salon.

"Robert Kater, you are at the top. We congratulate you. To be recognized by the 'Salon des Artistes Francaises' is to be recognized and honored by all the world."

They all came forward with kindly and sincere words, and the young man stood to receive them, but reeling and swaying, weary with emotion, and faint with hunger.

"Were you not going to the mask?"

"I was weary; I had not thought."

"Then wake up and go. We come for you."

"I have no costume."

"Ah, that is nothing. Make one; it is easy."

"He sits there like his own Saul, enveloped in gloom. Come, I will be your David," cried one, and s.n.a.t.c.hed a guitar and began strumming it wildly.