Subsequently I discovered that the violent blow on my head, received in the accident, had produced such an effect on my brain as to render oblivious all the events of my past. From that moment I commenced a second life. One of my fellow-pa.s.sengers, noticing my injury, was endeavouring to steal the box of bullion, when I shot him dead with my revolver. Afterwards, when I had recovered consciousness, I opened the box, and, secreting part of the money in my pockets, tried to get away un.o.bserved. But I was arrested, tried for murder, and transported. The rest is known.
At my trial I refused to give any account of myself, for the simple reason that I remembered nothing. My mind was an absolute blank. I had lived an entirely different life for ten years, until I accidentally struck my head a violent blow against the corner of a mantelshelf in my drawing-room, causing the memory of my earlier life to return as suddenly as it had fled, and thus leaving a gap of ten years for me to fill.
Mine was an extraordinary case; but, as I afterwards discovered, my duality of brain was by no means unprecedented. Such vagaries of the mind, although rare, are known to medical science.
When, a week afterwards, I returned to Johannesburg--that dusty, noisy City of Mammon--Lena welcomed me warmly. The same evening, after I had explained to her the cause of my sudden disappearance and apparent insanity, she went to her room, and on her return handed me a faded blue envelope, secured by the official seal of the Bank of England.
"This," she said, "you asked me to keep for you, on the day we were married."
I glanced at the superscription, and recognised the handwriting. It contained the lost bank-notes!
Placing them in the fire, I watched the flames consume them, and from that night I commenced life afresh.
Jean is my secretary no longer. I effected a compromise with him, and at the present moment, owing to his shrewd business tact, combined with successful speculation, he is one of the most prosperous promoters of the South African mining companies in the City of London.
CHAPTER ELEVEN.
DEATH-KISSES.
The scene was composed of a bit of everything. An October evening, a dull sky, a fierce cold wind, and a woman. Yet the dreamy experience, where everything went at will, bears but little resemblance to reality.
The woman was sweet and tender; the interview pa.s.sionate, yet innocent; and the words exchanged _naive_ as the questions of a child.
The recollection of it leaves no poison of deception; only indelible remorse.
It was a chill, windy afternoon. In the morning a great thirst for fresh air had taken possession of me, and I joyfully left Brussels, counting on stopping at a little station I knew.
I think my journey terminated about four o"clock. Cutting across the fields, I entered a narrow path, paying but little attention to the way, and strolling aimlessly. I seemed to be in an incredibly careless and absent mood that day. I am not even certain that I got out at the right station, so drunk was I with the frenzy to communicate with nature.
Picture to yourself a rolling plain under a cheerless sky; with empty roads, cut in the brown earth, here and there made green with tender shoots; a few solitary and distant houses, and occasional stumps of leafless trees, red and melancholy-looking.
A flight of crows sailed slowly overhead, talking among themselves with little continuous croakings, flying always towards the setting sun. The day was grey, with deeper shades towards the horizon, stamping everything with a uniform tint. Children"s voices sounded in the field.
Suddenly three appeared, a boy and two girls, returning from school.
They grew silent when they saw me, eyed me cautiously and crossed the path with quickened step. Soon I reached an isolated cross-road. A step further, and I encountered a strolling mountebank, with his wheeled home beside him. At my request he furnished me with a slight repast.
Then, without saying a dozen words, I set off again, leaving the astonished man gaping at the money in his hand.
You say that I was mad.
Perhaps. At any rate, I was quite calm, but something evidently dominated and guided me. For of the three roads that spread out before me, why should I have chosen that one?
I a.s.sure you I have no spiritualistic tendencies, but there are times when I believe in a distinct influence.
The night had fallen, or rather, a sort of twilight, singularly lasting.
A fine, cold rain, driven by a brisk wind, beat noisily upon my umbrella. I wandered slowly on. Holding it against the wind, I walked without effort. I think I must have slept, as I have only a vague recollection of that dreary promenade.
When I became aware of things around me, I was in front of a good fire.
There was a dim consciousness of realising that the storm had redoubled its fury, that I had seen a light and knocked at a cottage door. As I recovered from the stupor, it seemed as if I had entered with some trivial formula of politeness; that I had seated myself in front of the genial flame as if I were in my own home.
A young woman, pale, but very beautiful, was sitting beside me. I glanced slowly around the room. We were alone. Little by little I remembered. It was she who had opened the door to me. Behold! even the card I gave her still in her hand. Were it not for her light breathing and the movement of her eyelids, I should say she was of wax.
She was older than myself, two or three years perhaps; tall and slight, with a gentle and melancholy grace. Her mouth, clear and tender, was near enough to the delicate nose to give her a slight appearance of a scolded child; the eyes were not large, but soft and pleading, and the oval of her face stretched the length of her blanched cheeks. Though sad, the face pleased me.
"How charming!" I exclaimed involuntarily, under my breath.
She must have heard the words, for she turned towards me and smiled.
"You are just as complimentary as of old--always the same Theophile."
In that voice I found an air of recognition. Instantly I remembered a half-forgotten period, like a pleasant dream; a name was upon my lips, but I could not utter it; I stammered a question.
"Well, well," she said. "They tell me I have altered, yet--why, don"t you know Mariette?"
Mariette!
Mariette! only this thought, and I fell on my knees beside her; our hands touched, and I kissed her dainty white fingers. Why was I certain in all my life never to know a like moment?
Ah! never shall I experience the same mad joy; the delight of holding in mine the thin hands of my childhood"s friend. It was that childhood I embraced; that other time, so free and pure, with its pretty welcoming air.
"Do you remember when last we met?" I asked earnestly.
She heaved a slight sigh, so like those of other days that tears rose to my eyes.
"Yes," she murmured. "But--there, don"t speak of it. Such memories must be painful to both of us."
"If to you, none the less to me, Mariette," I replied, looking in her sad, sweet face.
Her lips quivered, and a tear stole down her cheek.
During a whole hour it was nothing but expressions of surprise and vain regrets. To the depths of our being we felt the force of these recollections, causing us to live over an almost forgotten period.
I found in looking at her, in listening to her, my great soul and little body of that sweet other time.
Once more I felt the immensity of the fields and of the sky; the fine smell of the leaves enthralled my senses, and the least sound was melody. Once more I lived the old free life over again. It was before I went to stay at Brussels, when I resided under the paternal roof on the edge of the dense Soignes forest, that Mariette and I were playmates and afterwards lovers.
How well I recollect one halcyon day, the memory of which now comes before me in all its vividness. It was autumn. We were walking alone in the wood. The leaves floated down noiselessly upon the chill November air, leaving the naked branches like black lace against a grey, snow-laden sky. That day she admitted that she loved me, that she would be my wife.
And all around us there was infinite s.p.a.ce, coloured by the joyful imaginings of happy youth.
We were speaking of it, when suddenly she withdrew her hand from mine, and a red flush mounted to her forehead.
"But you soon forgot me when you went away," she said reproachfully. "I waited months, but you never wrote; then I heard how an actress had infatuated you. Yet--you are rich now, and the world looks leniently upon what it calls a wealthy man"s folly."
I could not prevent myself from frowning.
"You mean Clementine Sucaret? People coupled our names without cause,"
I replied coldly, almost cruelly. Yet I knew she spoke the truth.
"And I--I am mad," she whispered.