Read Ebook: The Woman of Mystery by Leblanc Maurice Matzke Albert Illustrator

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Ebook has 800 lines and 30249 words, and 16 pages

by prying eyes. The terminus is in the open air here, instead of underground, as it is down there; but at least the quarries, the work-yards, the barracks, the garrison, the villa belonging to the staff, the garden, the stables, all this military organization is surrounded by walls and no doubt guarded on the outside by sentries. That explains why one is able to move about so freely inside."

At that moment, a second motor-car set down three officers and then joined the other in the coach-house.

"There's a dinner-party on," said Bernard.

They resolved to approach as near as they could, under cover of the thick clumps of shrubs planted along the carriage-drive which surrounded the house.

They waited for some time; and then, from the sound of voices and laughter that came from the ground-floor, at the back, they concluded that this must be the scene of the banquet and that the guests were sitting down to dinner. There were bursts of song, shouts of applause. Outside, nothing stirred. The garden was deserted.

"The place seems quiet," said Paul. "I shall ask you to give me a leg up and to keep hidden yourself."

"You want to climb to the ledge of one of the windows? What about the shutters?"

"I don't expect they're very close. You can see the light shining through the middle."

"Well, but why are you doing it? There is no reason to bother about this house more than any other."

"Yes, there is. You yourself told me that one of the wounded prisoners said Prince Conrad had taken up his quarters in a villa outside ?brecourt. Now this one, standing in the middle of a sort of entrenched camp and at the entrance to the tunnel, seems to me marked out. . . ."

"Not to mention this really princely dinner-party," said Bernard, laughing. "You're right. Up you go."

They crossed the walk. With Bernard's assistance, Paul was easily able to grip the ledge above the basement floor and to hoist himself to the stone balcony.

"That's it," he said. "Go back to where we were and whistle in case of danger."

After bestriding the balustrade, he carefully loosened one of the shutters by passing first his fingers and then his hand through the intervening space; and he succeeded in unfastening the bolt. The curtains, being crossed inside, enabled him to move about unseen; but they were open at the top, leaving an inverted triangle through which he could see by climbing on to the balustrade.

He did so and then bent forward and looked.

The sight that met his eyes was such and gave him so horrible a blow that his legs began to shake beneath him. . . .

PRINCE CONRAD MAKES MERRY

A table running parallel with the three windows of the room. An incredible collection of bottles, decanters and glasses, hardly leaving room for the dishes of cake and fruit. Ornamental side-dishes flanked by bottles of champagne. A basket of flowers surrounded by liqueur-bottles.

Twenty persons were seated at table, including half-a-dozen women in low-necked dresses. The others were officers, covered with gold lace and orders.

In the middle, facing the window, sat Prince Conrad, presiding over the banquet, with a lady on his right and another on his left. And it was the sight of these three, brought together in the most improbable defiance of the logic of things, that caused Paul to undergo a torture which was renewed from moment to moment.

That one of the two women should be there, on the prince's right, sitting stiff-backed in her plum-colored stuff gown, with a black-lace scarf half-hiding her short hair, was easy to understand. But the other woman, to whom Prince Conrad kept turning with a clumsy affectation of gallantry, that woman whom Paul contemplated with horror-struck eyes and whom he would have liked to strangle where she sat, what was she doing there? What was ?lisabeth doing in the midst of those tipsy officers and dubious German women, beside Prince Conrad and beside the monstrous creature who was pursuing her with her hatred?

The Comtesse Hermine d'Andeville! ?lisabeth d'Andeville! The mother and the daughter! There was no plausible argument that would allow Paul to apply any other description to the prince's two companions. And something happened to give this description its full value of hideous reality when, a moment later, Prince Conrad rose to his feet, with a glass of champagne in his hand, and shouted:

She took up a glass, emptied it at a draught and began to make a speech which Paul could not hear, while the others did their best to listen with a fervent attention which was all the more meritorious in view of their copious libations.

And ?lisabeth also sat and listened. She was wearing a gray gown which Paul knew well, quite a simple frock, cut very high in the neck and with sleeves that came down to her wrists. But from her throat a wonderful necklace, consisting of four rows of large pearls, hung over her bodice; and this necklace Paul did not know.

"The wretch! The wretch!" he spluttered.

She was smiling. Yes, he saw on the younger woman's lips a smile provoked by something that Prince Conrad said as he bent over her. And the prince gave such a boisterous laugh that the Comtesse Hermine, who was still speaking, called him to order by tapping him on the hand with her fan.

The whole scene was a horrible one for Paul; and he suffered such scorching anguish that his one idea was to get away, to see no more, to abandon the struggle and to drive this hateful wife of his out of his life and out of his memory.

"She is a true daughter of the Comtesse Hermine," he thought, in despair.

He was on the point of going, when a little incident held him back. ?lisabeth raised to her eyes a handkerchief which she held crumpled in the hollow of her hand and furtively wiped away a tear that was ready to flow. At the same time he perceived that she was terribly pale, not with a factitious pallor, which until then he had attributed to the crudeness of the light, but with a real and deathly pallor. It was as though all the blood had fled from her poor face. And, after all, what a melancholy smile was that which had twisted her lips in response to the prince's jest!

"But then what is she doing here?" Paul asked himself. "Am I not entitled to regard her as guilty and to suppose that her tears are due to remorse? She has become cowardly through fear, threats and the wish to live; and now she is crying."

He continued to insult her in his thoughts; but gradually he felt a great pity steal over him for the woman who had not had the strength to endure her intolerable trials.

?lisabeth had put her elbows on the table and her hands before her face, as though trying to isolate herself from her surroundings. But the prince, still standing and bawling, took her two arms and brutally forced them apart:

"None of your monkey-tricks, pretty one!"

She gave a movement of repulsion which threw him beside himself.

"What's all this? Sulking? And blubbering? A nice thing! And, bless my soul, what do I see? Madame's glass is full!"

He took the glass and, with a shaky hand, put it to ?lisabeth's lips:

"Drink my health, child! The health of your lord and master! What's this? You refuse? . . . Ah, I see, you don't like champagne! Quite right! Down with champagne! What you want is hock, good Rhine wine, eh, baby? You're thinking of one of your country's songs: 'We held it once, your German Rhine! It babbled in our brimming glass!' Rhine wine, there!"

With one movement, the officers rose and started shouting:

"They shall not have our German Rhine, Tho' like a flock of hungry crows They shriek their lust . . ."

"No, they shan't have it," rejoined the prince, angrily, "but you shall drink it, little one!"

Another glass had been filled. Once more he tried to force ?lisabeth to lift it to her lips; and, when she pushed it away, he began to whisper in her ear, while the wine dribbled over her dress.

Everybody was silent, waiting to see what would happen. ?lisabeth turned paler than ever, but did not move. The prince, leaning over her, showed the face of a brute who alternately threatens, pleads, commands and insults. It was a heart-rending sight. Paul would have given his life to see ?lisabeth yield to a fit of disgust and stab her insulter. Instead of that, she threw back her head, closed her eyes and half-swooning, accepted the chalice and swallowed a few mouthfuls.

The prince gave a shout of triumph as he waved the glass on high; then he put his lips, avidly, to the place at which she had drunk and emptied it at a draught.

"'The Rhine, the free, the German Rhine They shall not have while gallant boys Still tell of love to slender maids. . . .'

"?lisabeth, I have drunk Rhine wine from your glass. ?lisabeth, I know what you are thinking. Her thoughts are of love, my comrades! I am the master! Oh, Parisienne! . . . You dear little Parisienne! . . . It's Paris we want! . . . Oh, Paris, Paris! . . ."

His foot slipped. The glass fell from his hand and smashed against the neck of a bottle. He dropped on his knees on the table, amid a crash of broken plates and glasses, seized a flask of liqueur and rolled to the floor, stammering:

The uproar suddenly stopped. The Comtesse Hermine's imperious voice was raised in command:

"Go away, all of you! Go home! And be quick about it, gentlemen, if you please."

The officers and the ladies soon made themselves scarce. Outside, on the other side of the house, there was a great deal of whistling. The cars at once drove up from the garage. A general departure took place.

Meanwhile the Countess had beckoned to the servants and, pointing to Prince Conrad, said:

"Carry him to his room."

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