Tales from Blackwood Volume Viii Part 15

"No one will ever attack yours, my dear baron," said Fatello. "I only hope you will always keep what has pa.s.sed between us this morning as profound a secret as I, for my own sake, certainly shall do. I am by no means disposed to boast of my part in the affair."

Steinfeld bowed politely, and the two men exchanged, with smiles upon their faces, a cordial grasp of the hand.

"Out of evil cometh good," said the banker, sententiously, subsiding upon the silken cus.h.i.+ons of a _causeuse_ that extended its arms invitingly at the chimney-corner. "I am delighted to find that the leaden bullet I antic.i.p.ated exchanging with you is likely to be converted into a golden ring, establis.h.i.+ng so near a connection between us as to render our fighting a duel one of the least probable things in the world. My dear baron, I shall rejoice to call you brother-in-law."

"It would be a great honour for me," replied Steinfeld, "but you overrate the probability of my enjoying it. Nothing has pa.s.sed between Mademoiselle Gonfalon and myself to warrant my reckoning on her preference."

"Tush, tus.h.!.+ baron," said Fatello, apparently not heeding, or not noticing the somewhat supercilious turn of Steinfeld's phrases, "you forget the new and not very creditable occupation to which the demons of jealousy and suspicion last night condemned me. You forget that I tracked you in the promenade, and lay in ambush by the fountain, or you would hardly put me off with such tales as these."

The baron winced imperceptibly on being thus reminded how closely his movements had been watched.

"You are evidently new at the profession of a scout," said he, jestingly, "or you would have caught more correctly my conversation with your amiable sister-in-law. Mademoiselle Gonfalon is a charming person; the mask gives a certain license to flirtation, and a partial hearing of what pa.s.sed between us has evidently misled you as to its precise import."

"Not a bit of it!" cried Fatello, with an odd laugh--"I heard better than you think, I a.s.sure you; and what I did hear quite satisfied me that you are a smitten man, and that Sebastiana is well disposed to favour your suit."

"I must again protest," said Steinfeld, expressing himself with some embarra.s.sment, "that the thought of becoming Mademoiselle Gonfalon's husband, great as the honour would be, has never yet been seriously entertained by me; and that, however you may have been misled by the s.n.a.t.c.hes of our conversation you overheard, nothing ever pa.s.sed between us exceeding the limits of allowable flirtation--the not unnatural consequence of Mademoiselle Sebastiana's fascinating vivacity, and of the agreeable footing of intimacy on which, for the last three months, I have found admittance at your hospitable house."

Sigismund Fatello preserved, whilst the baron waded through the intricacies of his artificial and complicated denial, a half-smile of polite but total incredulity.

"My dear baron," said he gravely, when Steinfeld at last paused, "I am sure you are too honourable a man to trifle with the affections of any woman. I know you as the very opposite character to those heartless and despicable male coquets, who ensnare susceptible hearts for the cruel pleasure of bruising or breaking them, and sacrificing, in their vile egotism, the happiness of others to the indulgence of a paltry vanity.

I detect the motives of your present reserve, and, believe me, I appreciate their delicacy. Rumour, that eternal and impertinent gossip, has a.s.serted that Baron Ernest von Steinfeld has impaired, by his open hand and pursuit of pleasure, the heritage of his forefathers. I do not mean that this has become matter of common report; but we bankers have opportunities of knowing many things, and can often read in our bill-books and ledgers the histories of families and individuals. In short, it is little matter how I know that your affairs, my dear baron, are less flouris.h.i.+ng than they might be, or than you could wish. But this, after all, is an unimportant matter. The dirty acres are still there--the Schloss Steinfeld still stands firm upon its foundation, and though there be a bit of a mortgage on the domain, and some trouble with refractory Jews, it is nothing, I am sure, but what a clear head and a little ready cash will easily dispose of."

It was natural to suppose that a lover, whose position on the brink of ruin made him scruple to ask the hand of his mistress of her nearest male relative and protector, and who found his embarra.s.sments suddenly smoothed over and made light of by the very person who might be expected to exaggerate them, would be the last man to place fresh stumbling-blocks on the path to happiness thus unexpectedly cleared before him. Steinfeld, however, appeared little disposed to chime in with the banker's emollient view of his disastrous financial position. With an eagerness that bespoke either the most honourable punctiliousness, or very little anxiety to become the husband of Mademoiselle Gonfalon, he set Fatello right.

"I heartily wish," said he, "matters were no worse than you suppose.

You quite underrate my real embarra.s.sments. My estate is mine only nominally; not a farthing it produces comes into my pocket; the very castle and its furniture are pledged; some houses in Vienna, and a few thousand florins of Austrian _rentes_, derived from my mother, melted away years ago; I am deeply in debt, and hara.s.sed on all sides by duns and extortioners. I calculated my liabilities the other day--why I know not, for I have no chance of clearing them--and I found it would require three hundred thousand florins to release my lands and pay my debts. You see, my dear M. Fatello, I am not a very likely match for an heiress."

Fatello had listened with profound attention to the insolvent balance-sheet exhibited by the baron.

"Three hundred thousand florins--six hundred thousand francs," said he, musingly--"allowing for usury and overcharges, might doubtless be got rid of for a hundred thousand less. Well, baron, when Sebastiana marries she will have more than that tacked to her ap.r.o.n. Her father left her something like half a million, and I have not let the money lie idle.

She is a richer woman by some thousand louis d'ors than she was at his death. I don't carry her account in my head, but I daresay her fortune would clear your lands, and leave a nice nest-egg besides. And although she certainly might find a husband in better plight as regards money matters, yet, as you are so much attached to each other, and happiness, after all, is before gold, I shall make no difficulties. I noticed the girl was absent and sentimental of late, but never guessed the real cause. Ah, baron! you fascinating dogs have much to answer for!"

Whilst Fatello thus ran on, with, as usual, more bluntness than good breeding, Steinfeld was evidently on thorns; and at the first appearance of a pause in the banker's discourse, he impatiently struck in.

"I must beg your attention, M. Fatello," said he, "whilst I repeat what you evidently have imperfectly understood--that it has never entered my head to gain Mademoiselle Gonfalon's affections, and that I have no reason to believe I should succeed in the attempt. I again repeat, that nothing but the most innocent and unimportant flirtation has pa.s.sed between us. I am deeply sensible of your kind intentions--grateful for your generous willingness to overlook my unfortunate circ.u.mstances, and to promote my marriage with your sister-in-law; but, flattering and advantageous as such a union would be to me, I am not certain it would lead to that happiness which you justly deem preferable to wealth. I doubt whether my disposition and that of Mademoiselle Sebastiana would exactly harmonise. Moreover, necessitous though I am, it goes against my pride to owe everything to my wife. It would pain me to see her dowry swallowed up by my debts. Let us drop the subject, I entreat you.

To-morrow you will appreciate and rejoice at my hesitation. I fully comprehend the generous impulse that prompts you. Having done me an injustice, you would compensate me beyond my merits. Thanks, my good friend; but believe me, if happiness resides not in wealth, neither is it found in hasty or ill-a.s.sorted unions. And, to tell you the truth, however politic a rich marriage might be in the present critical state of my affairs, I long ago made a vow against matrimony, which I still hesitate to break."

"You are the best judge of your own motives," said Fatello, stiffly, "but you quite misconstrue mine. It never entered my head to view you as a victim, or to think myself called upon to atone, by providing you with a rich and handsome wife, for the jealousy you so successfully proved groundless. Such compensation would be excessive for so slight an injury. No, no, baron--you have quite mistaken me. As the nearest connection and natural guardian of Mademoiselle Gonfalon, it is my duty to watch over her, and not to allow her feelings to be trifled with. For some time past I have suspected her affections were engaged, but it never occurred to me they were fixed upon you. Well--last night I go to a ball, and, actuated by suspicions to which it is unnecessary to recur, I listen to your conversation with my sister-in-law. To a plain man like myself, it bore but one interpretation--that you have sought and won her heart. You deny this, and a.s.sert your language to have been that of common gallantry and compliment, such as may be addressed to any woman without her inferring serious intentions. Here, then, we are gravely at issue. You maintain my ears deceived me; I persist in crediting their evidence. Fortunately, an arbiter is easily found. I shall now return home, see my sister-in-law, and confess to her my eavesdropping, keeping its real motive and my visit to you profoundly secret. From her I shall learn how matters really stand. If her account agree with Baron Steinfeld's, I shall ever more mistrust my hearing; if the contrary, and that the baron, himself a sworn foe to marriage, has compromised the happiness of a young and confiding woman, why, then, he will not be surprised if I seek of him, for so grave an offence, the reparation which a short time ago I was ready to afford him for one comparatively insignificant." And Fatello bowed formally, and with severe countenance moved towards the door. But before he could leave the room, Steinfeld, who had stood for a moment thoughtful and perplexed, hurried to intercept him, and laid his hand upon the lock.

"You are really too hasty, Fatello," said he, "and not altogether reasonable. What ill weed have you trodden upon, that makes you so captious this morning? Own that our conversation has taken an odd turn!

Would any one believe that you, Fatello the millionnaire press a marriage between your sister, the wealthy Mademoiselle Gonfalon, and myself, the needy Baron Steinfeld--and that it is I, the ruined spendthrift, from whom the obstacles to the match proceed? Neither in romance nor in real life has the case a precedent. And you may be a.s.sured the world will not applaud your wisdom, nor Mademoiselle Sebastiana feel grateful for your zeal."

"For the world's applause I care not that," replied Fatello, snapping his fingers. "As to my sister, I have neither will nor power to constrain her. I do but afford her the protection she is ent.i.tled to at my hands. I press her upon no man, but neither do I suffer her to be trifled with. Sebastiana Gonfalon does not lack suitors, I can a.s.sure you."

"Unquestionably," said Steinfeld, with an absent air; "Mademoiselle Gonfalon is indeed a most charming person, and, were she penniless, would still be a prize to any man. I only wish I enjoyed the place in her good opinion you so erroneously imagine me to occupy."

"Well, well," said Fatello, striving to get at the door, before which the baron had planted himself, "since error there is, it will soon be cleared up. You cannot blame me, baron, for preferring, in so delicate an affair, the testimony of my own ears to that of any one person. But if two unite against me, I shall think myself crazed or bewitched, and shall at least be silenced and confounded, if not entirely convinced."

"Answer me one question," said Steinfeld. "If yesterday, before you overheard a part of my conversation with your sister, I had asked of you her hand, exposing to you at the same time the state of my fortunes, or rather of my misfortunes, would you then have sanctioned my suit and pleaded my cause with Mademoiselle Gonfalon? Would you, and will you now--for, believe me, I need it more than you think--add the weight of your arguments and advocacy to the prepossession you persist in thinking your sister has in my favour, a prepossession of whose existence I hardly dare flatter myself?"

"Why not?" said Fatello, with an air of straightforward cordiality. "Why not? You are not rich, certainly, but Sebastiana is rich enough for both. You have high birth, talents, interest with the Emperor, and, once married, with your debts paid, and your wild oats sown, you may take ambition instead of pleasure for a mistress, and aspire to high employment. Why not return to diplomacy, for which you are so admirably qualified, and come back to us as Austrian amba.s.sador? Believe me, baron, there is a fine career before you, if you will but pursue it."

"Perhaps," said Steinfeld, smiling to himself, like a man to whom a bright perspective is suddenly thrown open; "and, as you say, the first step would be a suitable marriage, which, by ridding me of all enc.u.mbrance, might enable me to climb lightly and steadily the hill of wealth and honours."

"And a millionaire brother-in-law to give you an occasional push by the way," added Fatello, with one of his heavy, purse-proud smiles; "pushes you may repay in kind, for diplomatist and financier should ever hunt in couples."

"My dear Fatello," said Steinfeld, "the prospect is too charming to be lightly relinquished. You must think strangely of my first reluctance to avail myself of your friendly disposition in my favour; but I so little suspected it, I was so bewildered by its sudden revelation, so embarra.s.sed by my own difficulties--and then pride, you know--a morbid fear of being thought mercenary; in short, you will make allowance for my strange way of meeting your kind encouragement. I can only say, that since you deem me worthy of her, and if you can obtain her consent (a more difficult task, I fear, than you imagine), I shall be the happiest of men as the husband of the adorable Sebastiana."

"That is speaking to the purpose," said Fatello; "and, for my part, I repeat that I shall be happy to call you brother-in-law. I will do my best for you with Sebastiana, to whom I will at once communicate your formal demand in marriage. But, pshaw! you rogue," added he, with a clumsy attempt at archness, "you have made pretty sure of her consent, and need no brotherly advocate."

"Indeed you are mistaken," replied Steinfeld, earnestly. "I only wish I were as confident, and with good reason, as you think me."

"Well, well, no matter," said the banker. "You shall shortly hear your fate."

"I shall be on thorns till I learn it," said the baron. "And, my dear Fatello," said he, detaining the banker, who, after shaking hands with him, was about to leave the room, "it is perhaps not necessary to refer--at least not weigh upon--our conversation at last night's masquerade. It might vex Mademoiselle Gonfalon--to learn that she had been overheard--or--she might doubt your having heard, and think I had been confiding to you a presumptuous and unfounded belief of her partiality for myself. Women, you know, are susceptible on these points; it might indispose her towards me, and lessen my chance. In short," he added, with a smile, "if you will be guided by an _ex-roue_, now reformed, but who has some little experience of the female heart, you will confine yourself to the communication of my proposals, without reference to anything past, and apply all your eloquence to induce Mademoiselle Sebastiana to receive them as favourably as yourself."

Fatello nodded knowingly.

"Ay, ay," said he, "I see I need not despair of my ears. They do not serve me so badly. But never fear, baron--I will know nothing, except that you are desperately in love, and that your life depends on your suit's success. That is the established formula, is it not?"

When the baron--after escorting Fatello, in spite of his resistance, to the door of the pavilion, where the banker's carriage awaited him--re-entered the breakfast-room, the joyous and hopeful expression his countenance had worn during the latter part of his conversation with his visitor was exchanged for one of anxiety and doubt. Instead of returning to the breakfast, of which he had scarcely eaten a mouthful, he drew his arm-chair to the fire, threw himself into it, and fell into a brown study. The attentive valet, who came in full of concern for his master's interrupted meal, was sharply dismissed, with an order to admit no callers. After a short time, however, Steinfeld's cogitations apparently a.s.sumed a rosier hue. The wrinkles on his brow relaxed their rigidity, he ceased to gnaw his mustache, and at length a smile dawned upon his features, and grew till it burst into a laugh. Something or other inordinately tickled the baron's fancy; for he lay back in his chair and laughed heartily, but silently, with the eyes rather than the mouth, for nearly a minute. Then getting up, and lounging pensively through the room, he indulged in a soliloquy of muttered and broken sentences, which, like the secret cipher of a band of conspirators, were unintelligible without a key. Their obscurity was increased by a style of metaphor borrowed from the card-table, and which a man of such correct taste as Steinfeld would doubtless have scrupled to employ in conversation with any one but himself.

"What an odd caprice of fate!" he said. "A strange turn in the game, indeed! The card I most feared turns up trumps! It rather deranges my calculations; but perhaps it is as good a card as the other. Decidedly as sure a one. What certainty that yonder pedantic b.o.o.by is right in his prognostics? And then there was no avoiding it. Provided, only, Fatello is silent about last night. If not, all is spoilt. And if she makes a scene! Your Spanish dames are reputed fiery as Arabs; but I take her for one of the milder sort--rather a pining than a storming beauty. What if I were to miss both, by some infernal _quiproquo_ or other? Query, too, whether Sebastiana accepts; but I think, with Fatello to back me, I need not fear much on that score. I detect his motives. To your rich upstart, money is dirt compared with descent, connection, t.i.tle. He would like to be an amba.s.sador's brother-in-law, the near connection of a family dating from Charlemagne--he, the man of nothing, with plebeian written on his front. Upwards of half a million. Seven hundred thousand, I daresay. I had reckoned on nearly double, and now I may lose both. Well, _a la grace du diable_. I will go take a gallop."

And in another half hour the aspirant to the hand and fortune of Sebastiana Gonfalon was cantering round the Bois de Boulogne, followed at the prescribed distance by Celestin, who, mounted on a fine English horse, near sixteen hands high, bore no slight resemblance to an ape exalted on an elephant.

CHAPTER IV.

THE CAPTAIN'S ROOM.

The hotel of the Northern Eagle, situated in one of the most respectable of the numerous small streets between the Rue St Honore and the Rue Neuve des Pet.i.ts Champs, is one of several hundred establishments of the cla.s.s, scattered over Paris, and which, although bearing the ambitious t.i.tle of "_hotel_," differ in no essential respect from what in London are styled third or fourth rate lodging-houses. It is a tall, narrow, melancholy-looking edifice, entered through an archway, which devours a great part of the ground-floor, and is closed at night by a heavy coach-door, and in the day-time by a four-foot palisade, painted a bright green, with a gate in the middle, and a noisy bell that rings whenever the gate is opened. Under the archway, and in the little paved court that terminates it, there is always a strong smell of blacking in the morning, and an equally strong smell of soup in the afternoon; the former arising from the labours of Jean, a strapping, broad-shouldered native of Picardy, who makes beds, cleans boots, and carries water for the entire hotel; the latter emanating from a small, smoky den, not unlike a s.h.i.+p's caboose, where a dingy cookmaid prepares the diurnal _pot-au-feu_ for the mistress of the hotel, her son and husband, and for a couple of pensioners, who, in consideration of the moderate monthly payment of fifty francs each, are admitted to share the frugal ragouts of Madame Duchambre's dinner-table. By an architectural arrangement, common enough in old Paris houses, and which seems designed to secure a comfortable gush of cold air through the crevices of every door in the building, the foot of the staircase is in the court, open to all weathers--a circ.u.mstance most painful to Jean, who takes pride in the polish of his stairs, and is to be seen, whenever his other avocations leave him a moment's leisure, busily repairing, with a brush buckled on his foot, and a bit of wax in a cleft stick, the damage done to their l.u.s.tre by the muddy boots of the lodgers. The hotel contains about five-and-twenty rooms, all let singly, with the exception of the first floor, divided into two "_appartemens_" of two rooms and a cupboard each, for which Madame Duchambre obtains the extravagant rent of ninety and one hundred francs per month. Above the first floor the rooms are of various quality--from the commodious chamber which, by the French system of an alcove for the bed, is converted in the day-time into a very tolerable imitation of a parlour--to the comfortless attic, an oven in summer, an ice-house in winter, dearly paid at five francs a-week by some struggling artisan who works hard enough in the day to sleep anywhere at night.

At the period referred to by this narrative, a room upon the third floor of the hotel of the Northern Eagle was occupied, as might be ascertained by inspection of a lithographed visiting-card, stuck upon the door with a wafer, by G.o.dibert Carca.s.sonne, captain in the 1st African Cha.s.seurs, known emphatically amongst the permanent tenants of the hotel as "The Captain." Not that military occupants were a rarity under the wings of the Northern Eagle; captains were common enough there--majors not very scarce--and it was upon record that more than one colonel had occupied the yellow _salon_ upon the first floor. But none of these warriors bore comparison with Captain Carca.s.sonne in the estimation of Madame Duchambre, an elderly lady with a game leg, and a singularly plain countenance, who had seen better days, and had a strong sense of the proprieties of life. In general she professed no great affection for men of the sword, whom she considered too much addicted to strong drink and profane oaths, and who did not always, she said, respect _la pudeur de la maison_. The captain, however, had completely won her heart--not by any particular meekness or abstinence, for he consumed far more cognac than spring water, had a voice like a deep-mouthed mastiff, and swore, when incensed, till the very rafters trembled. Nevertheless he had somehow or other gained her affections; partly, perhaps, by the regularity with which, upon all his visits to Paris during the previous fifteen years, he had lodged in her house and paid his bills; partly, doubtless, by the engaging familiarity with which he helped himself from her snuff-box, and addressed her as "Maman Duchambre."

It was eight o'clock at night, and, contrary to his wont, Captain Carca.s.sonne, instead of contesting a pool at billiards in his accustomed cafe, or occupying a stall at his favourite Palais Royal theatre, was seated in his room alone, a coffee-cup and a bottle on the table beside him, the amber mouth-piece of a huge meerschaum pipe disappearing under his heavy dark mustache, smoking steadily, and reading the _Sentinelle de l'Armee_. He was a powerful active man, about forty years of age, with a red-brown complexion, martial features, and a cavalier air, in whom Algerine climate and fatigues had mitigated, if it had not wholly checked, that tendency to corpulence early observable in many French cavalry officers, for the most part a sedentary and full-feeding race.

Of a most gregarious disposition, no slight cause would have induced the captain to pa.s.s in slow solitude those evening hours, which, according to his creed, ought invariably, in Paris, to dance merrily by in the broad light of gas, and in the excitement of a theatre or coffee-house.

Neither was it, in his eyes, a trifle that had placed him, as he expressed it, under close arrest for the evening. He was paying a small instalment of a debt of grat.i.tude, which many would have held expunged by lapse of time, but which Carca.s.sonne still remembered and willingly acknowledged. Many years previously--within a twelvemonth after his promotion from a sergeantcy in a crack hussar regiment to a cornetcy in a corps of cha.s.seurs, newly formed for African service, and in which he had since sabred his way to the command of a troop--G.o.dibert Carca.s.sonne, when on leave of absence at Paris, had been led, by thoughtlessness and by evil a.s.sociates, rather than by innate vice, into a sc.r.a.pe which threatened to blast his prospects in the army, and consequently in life, and of his extrication from which there was no possibility, unless he could immediately procure five thousand francs.

The sum was trifling, but to him it seemed immense, for he estimated it by the difficulty of obtaining it. Driven to desperation, thoughts of suicide beset him, when at that critical moment a friend came to the rescue. By the merest chance he stumbled upon a former school-fellow, a native of the same department as himself, and his accomplice in many a boyish frolic. They had not seen each other for years. When Carca.s.sonne was taken by the conscription, his schoolmate had already departed to seek fortune at Paris, the Eldorado of provincials, and there, whilst the smart but penniless young soldier was slowly working his way to a commission, he had taken root and prospered. He was not yet a wealthy man, but neither was he a needy or a n.i.g.g.ardly one; for, on hearing the tale of his friend's difficulties, he offered him, after a few moments'

internal calculation, the loan of the sum on which his fate depended, and gruffly cut short the impetuous expression of grat.i.tude with which the generous offer was joyfully accepted. The loan was in fact a gift; for when, sometime afterwards, Carca.s.sonne remitted to his friend a small instalment of his debt, sc.r.a.ped together by a pinching economy that did him honour, out of his slender pay, the little draft was returned to him, with the words, "You shall pay me when you are colonel." And as all subsequent attempts were met by the same answer, the money was still unpaid. But never did loan bear better interest of grat.i.tude. Carca.s.sonne had never forgotten the obligation, was never weary of seeking opportunities of requiting it. These were hard to find, for his friend was now a rich man, and there was little the dragoon could do for him beyond choosing his horses, and giving his grooms valuable veterinary hints, derived from his long experience of the chevaline race in the stables of the 1st Cha.s.seurs. Once only was he fortunate enough to hear his benefactor slightingly spoken of at a public table in Paris. That was a happy day for Carca.s.sonne, and a sad one for the offender, who was taken home a few hours afterwards with a pistol bullet in his shoulder.

The object of this devoted attachment, on the part of the rough but honest-hearted soldier, was not insensible to the sincerity and value of such friends.h.i.+p, and returned it after his own fas.h.i.+on, that is to say, somewhat as the owner of a n.o.ble dog permits its demonstrations of affection, and requites them by an occasional caress. When Carca.s.sonne came to Paris, which he did as often as he could get leave of absence from his duties in Africa, his first visit was always for his benefactor, who invariably got up a dinner for him--not at his own house, which the dragoon would have considered a tame proceeding, but at some renowned restaurant--a regular _bamboche_, as the African styled it, where champagne corks flew and punch flamed from six in the evening till any hour after midnight. Then, the civilian's occupations being numerous, and his sphere of life quite different from that of the soldier, the two saw but little of each other, except through a casual meeting in the rich man's stables, or on the boulevard, or when--but this was very rare--Carca.s.sonne was surprised in his room, at the Northern Eagle, by an unexpected but most welcome visit from his friend, come to smoke a pa.s.sing cigar, and have ten minutes' chat over boyish days and reminiscences.

These visits were a great treat to the captain; and it was the antic.i.p.ation of one of them that now kept him in his room. To his astonishment, he had received that morning a note from his friend, requesting him to remain at home in the evening, as he would call upon and crave a service of him. Carca.s.sonne was delighted at the intimation, and not feeling quite certain when evening might be said to begin, he shut himself up in his room at four o'clock, ordered in dinner from a neighbouring _traiteur_, sipped his coffee in contented solitude, and now awaited, with the dutiful patience of a soldier on sentry, the promised coming of his friend. At last a cough and a heavy footstep were heard upon the stairs; the captain took up a candle, opened the door, and, stepping out into the gloomy corridor, the light fell upon the tall ungainly figure and sullen features of Sigismund Fatello.

"Come in, my dear fellow," cried Carca.s.sonne, in his stentorian tones, and with a soldier's oath. "I've expected you these three hours.

What--wet? Snow? Come to the fire, and take a sup of cognac till the punch is made."

It snowed heavily outside, and the banker's upper-coat had caught a few large flakes in crossing the court. He heeded them not, but putting down, untasted, the gla.s.s of brandy handed to him by the captain, he took a chair, and motioned Carca.s.sonne to another.