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Page 74
"Karl!"
The sight of Hildegarde at this moment neither angered nor pleased him.
He permitted her hand to lay upon his arm.
"My head aches," he said, as if replying to the unspoken question in
her eyes.
"Karl, why not give it up?" she pleaded.
"Give it up? What! when I have come this far, when I have gone through
what I have? Oh, no! Do not think so little of me as that."
"But it is a dream!"
He shook off her hand angrily. "If there is to be any reckoning I
shall pay, never fear. But it will not, _shall_ not fail!"
She would have liked to weep for him. "I would gladly give you my
eyes, Karl, if you might see it all as I see it. Ruin, ruin! Can you
touch this money without violence? Ah, my God, what has blinded you to
the real issues?"
"I have not asked you to share the difficulties."
"No. You have not been that kind to me."
To-night there were no places in his armor for any sentiment but his
own. "I want nothing but revenge."
"I think I can read," her own bitterness getting the better of her
tongue. "Miss Killigrew has declined."
"You have been listening?" with a snarl.
"It has not been necessary to listen; I needed only to watch."
"Well, what is it to you?"
"Take care, Karl! You can not talk to me like that."
"Don't drive me, then. Oh," with a sudden turn of mind, "I am sorry
that you can not understand."
"If I hadn't I should never have given you my promise not to speak.
There was a time when you had right on your side, but that time ceased
to be when you lied to me. How little you understood me! Had you
spoken frankly and generously at the start, God knows I shouldn't have
refused you. But you set out to walk over my heart to get that
miserable slip of paper. Ah! had I but known! I say to you, you will
fail utterly and miserably. You are either blind or mad!"
Without a word in reply to this prophecy he turned and left her; and as
soon as he had vanished she kissed the spot on the rail where his hand
had rested and laid her own there. When at last she raised it, the
rail was no longer merely damp, it was wet.
"Now there," began Fitzgerald, taking M. Ferraud firmly by the sleeve,
"I have come to the end of my patience. What has Breitmann to do with
all this business?"
"Will you permit me to polish my spectacles?" mildly asked M. Ferraud.
"It's the deuce of a job to get you into a corner," Fitzgerald
declared. "But I have your promise, and you should recollect that I
know things which might interest Mr. Breitmann."
"_Croyez-vous qu'il pleuve? Il fait bien du vent_," adjusting his
spectacles and viewing the clear sky and the serene bosom of the
Mediterranean. Then M. Ferraud turned round with: "Ah, Mr. Fitzgerald,
this man Breitmann is what you call 'poor devil,' is it not? At dinner
to-night I shall tell a story, at once marvelous past belief and
pathetic. I shall tell this story against my best convictions because
I wish him no harm, because I should like to save him from black ruin.
But, attend me; my efforts shall be as wind blowing upon stone; and I
shall not save him. An alienist would tell you better than I can.
Listen. You have watched him, have you not? To you he seems like any
other man? Yes? Keen-witted, gifted, a bit of a musician, a good deal
of a scholar? Well, had I found that paper first, there would have
been no treasure hunt. I should have torn it into one thousand pieces;
I should have saved him in spite of himself and have done my duty also.
He is mad, mad as a whirlwind, as a tempest, as a fire, as a sandstorm."
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