The Sword of Damocles Part 23

"Uncle, what is it?" sprang involuntarily to his lips. But Mr. Sylvester betraying by a sudden backward movement an instinctive desire to escape scrutiny, he bethought himself, and with hasty utterance offered some words of consolation that sounded strangely hollow and superficial in that dim and silent corridor. "Is there nothing I can do for you?" he finally asked.

"Everything is being done," exclaimed his uncle in a strained and altered voice; "Robert is here." And a silence fell over the hall, that Bertram dared not break.

"I have help for everything but--" He did not say what, it seemed as if something rose up in his throat that choked him.

"Bertram," said he at last in a more natural tone, "come with me."

He led him into an adjoining room and shut the door. It was a room from which the suns.h.i.+ne had not been excluded and it seemed as if they could both breathe more easily.

"Sit down," said his uncle, pointing to a chair. The young man did so, but Mr. Sylvester remained standing. Then without preamble, "Have you seen her?"

There was no grief in the question, only a quiet respect. Death clothes the most volatile with a garment of awe. Bertram slowly shook his head.

"No," said he, "I came at once up stairs."

"There is no mark on her white body, save the least little discolored dent here," continued his uncle, pointing calmly to his temple. "She had one moment of fear while the horses ran, and then--" He gave a quick shudder and advancing towards Bertram, laid his hand on his nephew's shoulder in such a way as to prevent him from turning his head.

"Bertram," said he, "I have no son. If I were to call upon you to perform a son's work for me; to obey and ask no questions, would you comply?"

"Can you ask?" sprang from the young man's lips; "you know that you have only to command for me to be proud to obey. Anything you can require will find me ready."

The hand on his shoulder weighed heavier. "It seems a strange time to talk about business, Bertram, but necessity knows no law. There is a matter in which you can afford me great a.s.sistance if you will undertake to do immediately what I ask."

"Can you doubt--"

"Hush, it is this. On this paper you will find a name; below it a number of addresses. They are all of places down town and some of them not very reputable I fear. What I desire is for you to seek out the man whose name you here see, going to these very places after him, beginning with the first, and continuing down the list until you find him. When you come upon him, he will ask you for a card. Give him one on which you will scrawl before his eyes, a circle, so. It is a token which he should instantly understand. If he does, address him with freedom and tell him that your employer--you need make use of no names--re-demands the papers made over to him this morning. If he manifests surprise or is seen to hesitate, tell him your orders are imperative. If he declares ruin will follow, inform him that you are not to be frightened by words; that your employer is as fully aware of the position of affairs as he. Whatever he says, bring the papers."

Bertram nodded his head and endeavored to rise, but his uncle's hand rested upon him too heavily.

"He is a small man; you need have no dread of him physically. The sooner you find him and acquit yourself of your task, the better I shall be pleased." And then the hand lifted.

On his way down stairs Bertram encountered Paula. She was standing in the hall and accosted him with a very trembling tone in her voice. All her questions were in regard to Mr. Sylvester.

"Have you seen him?" she asked. "Does he speak--say anything? No one has heard him utter a word since he came in from down town and saw her lying there."

"Yes, certainly; he spoke to me; he has been giving me some commissions to perform. I am on my way now to attend to them."

She drew a deep breath. "O!" she cried, "would that he had a son, a daughter, a child, some one!"

This exclamation following what had taken place above struck Bertram forcibly. "He has a son in me, Paula. Love as well as duty binds me to him. All that a child could do will I perform with pleasure. You can trust me for that."

She threw him a glance of searching inquiry. "His need is greater than it seems," whispered she. "He was deeply troubled before this terrible accident occurred. I am afraid the arrow is poisoned that has made this dreadful wound. I cannot explain myself," she went on hurriedly, "but if you indeed regard him as a father, be ready with any comfort, any help, that affection can bestow, or his necessities require. Let me feel that he has near him some stay that will not yield to pressure."

There was so much pa.s.sion in this appeal that Bertram involuntarily bowed his head. "He has two friends," said he, "and here is my hand that I will never forsake him."

"I do not need to offer mine," she returned, "He is great and good enough to do without my a.s.sistance." But nevertheless she gave her hand to Bertram and with a glow of her lip and eye that made her beauty, supreme at all times, something almost supernatural in its character.

"I dared not tell him," she whispered to herself as the front door closed with the dull slow thud proper to a house of mourning. "I dare not tell any one, but--"

What lay beyond that but?

When Mr. Sylvester came in at six o'clock in the morning, Paula had risen from the bed on which she had been sitting, but not to make preparation for rest, for she could not rest. The vague shadow of some surrounding evil or threatened catastrophe was upon her, and though she forced herself to change her dress for a warmer and more suitable one, she did not otherwise break her vigil, though the necessity for it seemed to be at an end. It was a midwinter morning and the sun had not yet risen, so being chilly as well as restless, she began to pace the floor, stopping now and then to glance out of the window, in the hopes of detecting some signs of awakening day in the blank and solemn east.

Suddenly as she was thus consulting the horizon, a light flashed up from below, and looking down upon the face of the extension that ran along at right angles to her window, she perceived that the shades were up in Mrs. Sylvester's boudoir. They had doubtless been left so the evening before, and Mr. Sylvester upon turning up the gas had failed to observe the fact. Instantly she felt her heart stand still, for the house being wide and the extension narrow, all that went on in that boudoir, or at least in that portion of it which Mr. Sylvester at present occupied, was easily observable from the window at which she stood; and that something was going on of a serious and important nature, was sufficiently evident from the expression of Mr. Sylvester's countenance. He was standing with his face bent towards some one seated out of sight, his wife undoubtedly, though what could have called her from her dreams--and was busily engaged in talking. The subject whatever it was, absorbed him completely. If Paula had allowed herself the thought, she would have described him as pleading and that with no ordinary vehemence. But suddenly while she gazed half fascinated and but little realizing what she was doing, he started back and a fierce change swept over his face, a certain incredulity, that presently gave way to a glance of horror and repugnance, which the quick action of his out-thrown palm sufficiently emphasized. He was pus.h.i.+ng something from him, but what? A suggestion or a remembrance? It was impossible to determine.

The countenance of Mrs. Sylvester who that moment appeared in sight sailing across the floor in her azure wrapper, offered but little a.s.sistance in the way of explanation. Immovable under most circ.u.mstances, it was simply at this juncture a trifle more calm and cold than usual, presenting to Paula's mind the thought of a white and icy barrier, against which the most glowing of arrows must fall chilled and powerless.

"O for a woman's soul to inform that breast if but for a moment!" cried Paula, lost in the pa.s.sion of this scene, while so little understanding its import. When as if in mockery to this invocation, the haughty form upon which she was gazing started rigidly erect, while the lip acquired a scorn and the eye a menace that betrayed the serpent ever in hiding under this white rose.

Paula could look no longer. This last revelation had awakened her to the fact that she was gazing upon a scene sacred to the husband and wife engaged in it. With a sense of shame she rushed to the bed and threw herself upon it, but the vision of what she had beheld would not leave her so easily. Like letters of fire upon a black ground, the panorama of looks and gestures to which she had just been witness, floated before her mind's eye, awakening a train of thought so intense that she did not know which was worse, to be there in the awful dawn dreaming over this episode of the night, or to rise and face again the reality. The fascination which all forbidden sights insensibly exert over the minds of the best of us, finally prevailed, and she slowly crept to the window to catch a parting glimpse of Mr. Sylvester's tall form hurrying blindly from the boudoir followed by his wife's cold glance. The next minute the exposed condition of the room seemed to catch that lady's attention, and with an anxious look into the dull gray morn, Mrs. Sylvester drew down the shades, and the episode was over.

Or so Paula thought; but when she was returning up stairs after her solitary breakfast--Mrs. Sylvester was too tired and Mr. Sylvester too much engaged to eat, as the attentive Samuel informed her--the door of Ona's room swung ajar, and she distinctly heard her give utterance to the following exclamation:

"What! give up this elegant home, my horses and carriage, the friends I have had such difficulty in obtaining, and the position which I was born to adorn? I had rather die!" And Paula feeling as if she had received the key to the enigma of the last night's unaccountable manifestations, was about to rush away to her own apartment, when the door swayed open again and she heard his voice respond with hard and bitter emphasis,

"And it might be better that you should. But since you will probably live, let it be according to your mind. I have not the courage--"

There the door swung to.

An hour from that Mr. Sylvester left the house with a small valise in his hand, and Mrs. Sylvester dressed in her showiest costume, entered her carriage for an early shopping excursion.

And so when Paula whispered to herself, "I did not dare to tell him; I did not dare to tell any one, but--" she thought of those terrible words, "Die? It might be better, perhaps, that you should!" and then remembered the ghastly look of immeasurable horror with which a few hours later, he staggered away from that awful burden, whose rigid lines would never again melt into mocking curves, and to whom the morning's wide soaring hopes, high reaching ambitions and boundless luxuries were now no more than the shadows of a vanished world; life, love, longing, with all their demands, having dwindled to a noisome rest between four close planks, with darkness for its present portion and beyond--what?

XXI.

DEPARTURE.

"Forever and forever, farewell Ca.s.sius.

If we do meet again, why we shall smile; If not, why then, this parting was well made."

--JULIUS CaeSAR.

Samuel had received his orders to admit Mr. Bertram Sylvester to his uncle's room, at whatever hour of the day or night he chose to make his appearance. But evening wore away and finally the night, before his well-known face was seen at the door. Proceeding at once to the apartment occupied by Mr. Sylvester, he anxiously knocked. The door was opened immediately.

"Ah, Bertram, I have been expecting you all night." And from the haggard appearance of both men, it was evident that neither of them had slept.

"I have sat down but twice since I left you, and then only in conveyances. I have been obliged to go to Brooklyn, to--"

"But you have found him?"

"Yes, I found him."

His uncle glanced inquiringly at his hands; they were empty.

"I shall have to sit down," said Bertram; his brow was very gloomy, his words came hesitatingly. "I had rather have knocked my head against the wall, than have disappointed you," he murmured after a moment's pause.

"But when I did find him, it was too late."