"'But one, Silvain. Have you any children?'
"'None. The babe that Avicia will soon press to her breast will be our first-born.'
"To matters upon which I saw he was then unwilling to converse, I made no further reference. He engaged a light cart and horse, and a man to drive them to the village by the sea. Then he woke Avicia, and I said farewell to them, and gazed after them till they were out of sight.
"As he had promised, I received from him before the end of the week a statement of his adventures. It is now among my papers in Nerac, and I remember perfectly all the salient particulars necessary to my story, which is now drawing to a conclusion. I will narrate them in my own way, asking you to recall the day upon which the brothers were last seen in the village by the sea."
CHAPTER XV
"Silvain, Kristel, and Avicia, accompanied by her father, rowed from the lighthouse to the shore. The villagers saw but little of them; they passed out of the village, and Avicia's father returned alone to the lighthouse. Kristel loved Avicia with all the passion of a hot, imperious, and intense nature. He looked upon her as his, and had he suspected that Silvain would have fallen in love with her, it can readily be understood that he would have been the last man to bring them into association with each other. But so it happened.
"When Kristel and Avicia met in the Tyrol, Kristel was buoyed up with hopes that she reciprocated the love she had inspired in his breast. He had some reason for this hope, for at his request, when he asked her to become his wife and said that he could not marry without his father's consent, she had written home to her father with respect to the young gentleman's proposal, thereby leading him to believe that she was ready to accept him. It appeared, however, that there was no real depth in her feelings for him; and, indeed, it may be pardoned her if she supposed that his fervid protestations were prompted by feelings as light and as little genuine as her own. Unsophisticated as she was in the ways of the world, the fact of his making the honourable accomplishment of his love for her dependent upon the fiat of another person could not but have lessened the value of his declarations-more especially when she had not truly given him her heart. It was given to Silvain upon the occasion of their first meeting, and it was not long before they found the opportunity to exchange vows of affection-a circumstance of which I and every person but themselves were entirely ignorant. But love is cunning.
"It was because of Avicia's fear of her father that this love was kept secret; he held her completely in control, and-first favouring Kristel and then Silvain, playing them against each other, as it were, to his own advantage in the way of gifts-filled her with apprehension.
"'Looking back,' Silvain said in his statement to me, 'upon the history of those days of happiness and torture, I can see now that I was wrong in not endeavouring to arrive at a frank understanding with my brother; but indeed I had but one thought-Avicia. As Kristel believed her to be his, so did I believe her to be mine, and the idea of losing her was sufficient to make my life a life of despair. And after all, it was for Avicia to decide. Absorbing as was my love for her, I should have had no choice but to retire and pass my days in misery had she decided in favour of Kristel.'
"The base conduct of Avicia's father was to a great extent the cause of turning brotherly love to hate. Seeing their infatuation, he bargained with each secretly, saying, in effect, 'What will you give me if I give you my daughter's hand? – for she will not, and cannot, marry without my consent.'
"And to the other, 'What will you give me?'
"He bound them to secrecy by a solemn oath, and bound his daughter also in like manner, promising that she should have the one she loved. Silvain was the more liberal of the two, and signed papers, pledging himself to pay to the avaricious father a large sum of money within a certain time after his union with Avicia. So cunningly did the keeper of the lighthouse conduct these base negotiations, that, even on that last day when they all rowed together to the village, neither of the brothers knew that matters were to be brought then and there to an irrevocable end.
"The village by the sea lay behind them some six or eight miles. Then, upon a false pretext, Avicia's father got rid of Kristel, sending him on an errand for Avicia which would render necessary an absence of many hours. That done, he said to Silvain and Avicia, 'Everything is arranged. This day will see you man and wife. Come with me to the priest.'
"'But where is Kristel?' asked Silvain, his heart throbbing with joy. 'Does he not know?'
"'Yes, he knows,' replied Avicia's father, 'but, as you are aware, he had a sneaking regard himself for my daughter, and he thought he would feel more comfortable, and you and Avicia too, if he were not present at the ceremony. He bade me give you his blessing.'
"Satisfied with this-being, indeed, naturally only too willing to be satisfied-the marriage ceremony took place, and Silvain and Avicia became man and wife. They departed on their honeymoon, and instructed the keeper of the lighthouse to inform Kristel of their route, in order that he might be able to join them at any point he pleased.
"Then came the interview between Avicia's father and Kristel, in which the young man was informed that he had lost Avicia. Kristel was dismayed and furious at what he believed to be the blackest treachery on the part of his brother. He swore to be revenged, and asked the road they had taken. Avicia's father sent him off in an entirely opposite direction, and he set out in pursuit. Needless to say that he soon found out how he had been tricked, and that it infuriated him the more. Not knowing where else to write to Silvain, he addressed a letter to him at their home in Germany; he himself did not proceed thither, judging that his best chance of meeting the married couple lay near the village by the sea, to which he felt convinced Silvain and Avicia would soon return. Therefore he lurked in the vicinity of the village, and watched by day and night the principal avenues by which it was to be approached. But his judgment was at fault; they did not return.
"In the meantime the lovers were enjoying their honeymoon. In order to keep faith with Avicia's father in the bargain made between him and Silvain-which rendered necessary the payment of a substantial sum of money by a given time-it was imperative that Silvain should visit his boyhood's home, to obtain his share of the inheritance left to him and Kristel by their father. The happy couple dallied by the way, and it was not until three months after their marriage that they arrived at Silvain's birthplace.
"'Perhaps we shall meet Kristel there,' said Silvain.
"Instead of meeting his brother, Silvain received the letter which Kristel had written to him. It breathed the deepest hate, and Silvain had the unhappiness of reading the outpourings of a relentless, vindictive spirit, driven to despair by disappointed love.
"'You have robbed me,' the letter said; 'hour by hour, day by day, have you set yourself deliberately to ensnare me and to fill my life with black despair. Had I suspected it at the time I would have strangled you. But your fate is only postponed; revenge is mine, and I hold it in my soul as a sacred trust which I shall fulfil. You shall die by my hands. Never in this world or in the next will I forgive you! My relentless hate shall haunt and pursue you, and you shall not escape it!'
"And then the writer recorded an awful oath that, while life remained within him, his one sole aim should be to compass his revenge. It was a lengthy letter, and strong as is my description of it, it falls short of the intense malignity which pervaded every line. Kristel launched a curse so terrible against his brother that Silvain's hair rose up in horror and fear as he read it. These are Silvain's own words to me:
"'After reading Kristel's letter,' he said, 'I felt that I was accursed, and that it was destined that he should kill me.'
"How to escape the terrible doom-though he had scarcely a hope of averting it-how to prevent the crime of blood-guiltiness lying upon Kristel's soul: this was thereafter the object of Silvain's life. It afforded him no consolation to know that for the intense hate with which Kristel's heart was filled Avicia's father was partly responsible.
"In its delineation of the trickery by which Kristel had been robbed of Avicia the letter was not truthful, for there had occurred between the brothers a conversation in which Silvain had revealed his love for her. Kristel's over-wrought feelings