What whisperest thou? Nay, why Name the dead hours? I mind them well:
Their ghosts in many darkened doorways dwell
With desolate eyes to know them by.
—Dante Gabriel Rossetti.
Michael Kestyon had paid no heed to the noise of this last arrival. Indeed he had heard nothing since that one awful noise, the departure of the coach which bore her away from him. How long ago that was he could not say. It might have been a moment or a cycle of years. Just before it he had had his last glimpse of her. She crossed the room in company with her father, who had come up to fetch her. She was wrapped from head to foot in cloak and hood; all that he could see of her was her torn wedding gown.
 
He made no movement as she walked past him, and though his whole soul called out her name, his lips uttered no sound. What were the use? If she did not hear the silent call of love, no words could move her.
 
"Even his memory hath faded from my ken."
 
Michael vaguely remembering the sacred tale told him in his childhood by his mother of how God had hurled His sinful angels from Heaven down to Hell, could not recall that in His anger He had used words that were quite so cruel.
 
Well, that page in life had been written, the book was closed. One brief glimpse at possible happiness, one tiny chink open in the gates of paradise, and then once more[236] the weary tramp along the road which leads to misery on this earth, to perdition hereafter.
 
The gambler had staked his all upon one venture and had lost. But Michael Kestyon was not made of the mould which rots in a suicide's grave or harbours a brain which goes crazy with grief.
 
A weaker man would have felt regrets, a better man would have been racked with remorse. Michael with her words ringing in his ears thought only of redemption.
 
"My father and mother, who loved you as their son, will never again hold their heads high among their kind—for a dishonoured daughter is a lasting curse upon a house. That is your work, stranger—it is writ on the front page in the book of the recording angel, and all the tears which you may shed, all the blood and all the atonement could not now wipe that front page clean."
 
The gambler in losing all had, it seems, involved others in his ruin; innocent people who had loved and trusted him. The debt which he had thus contracted would have to be paid to them, not in the coin which Michael had tendered—since it had been dross in their sight—but in coin which would compensate them for all that they had lost.
 
And it was because of the future redemption of that great debt, because of all that there was yet to do, that Michael held such a tight rein over his reason, the while it almost tottered beneath the crushing blow. Nor did he allow the thought of suicide to dwell in his mind. Yet madness and death—the twin phantoms born of cowardice—lurked within the dark shadows of the low-raftered room, after Rose Marie's last passage along the uneven floor when her torn wedding gown swept over the boards with a sighing and swishing sound, which would reverberate in Michael's heart throughout eternity.
 
[237] From beneath the lintel of that oaken door which had clanged to behind her, the spectre of madness grinned into the deserted room, and beckoned to the man who stood there in utter loneliness; and on the window-sill whereat she had sat awhile ago the gaunt shadow of suicide whispered the alluring words: Rest! Forgetfulness! Rest! Forgetfulness!
 
Michael did not flee from the twin demons. He called them to his side and looked fully and squarely at their hideous, alluring forms.
 
Madness and Death! Destruction of the mind or of the body. Both would blot her image from his soul. Madness enticed by drink would mean the bestial forgetfulness of heavy sleep and addled intellect. Death would mean infinite peace.
 
The struggle 'twixt devils and the man was fierce and short. Anon the crouching spectres vanished into the night; and the man stood there in splendid isolation with the memory of a great crime and of a brief joy for sole companion of his loneliness. But the man was a man for all that; body and mind were still the slaves of his will, not for the carving of his own fortune now, not for the spinning of the web of Fate, but bound and fettered under the heel of an iron determination to wipe out the writing on that front page in the book of the recording angel; not by tears, not by blood and cringing atonement, but by deeds and acts dark if necessary, heroic always, by vanquishing the wrongs of the past with the triumphant redemption to come.
 
In this mood the good landlady of the "Three Archangels" found him and marvelled at British indifference in the face of a love tragedy. And he was still in this selfsame mood half an hour or so later when my lord of[238] Stowmaries and his friends came upon the solitary watcher in the night.
 
Michael had not eaten, nor had he relinquished his place by the open window, for it seemed to his over-sensitive mind as if the sound of those wheels which bore his snowdrop further and further away from him echoed against the distant bank of storm-portending clouds, and though the heartrending sound reverberated within him like unto the grinding of the rack which tears the limbs and martyrizes the body, yet it still seemed something of her, the last memory, the final farewell.
 
It was past ten o'clock now, and of a surety Michael thought that he must have fallen asleep, dreaming by that open window, when the sudden noise of several familiar voices, a loud if somewhat forced laugh, and the peremptory throwing open of the door brought the dreamer back to the exigencies of the moment.
 
The aspect of the room was almost weird, dark and gloomy with only the slanting moonbeams to touch with pale and capricious light the tall, solitary figure in the window embrasure.
 
For a moment the three men paused beneath the lintel, their volatile imagination strangely gripped by the picture before them, that dark silhouette against the moonlit landscape beyond, the total air of desolation and loneliness which seemed to hang like a pall even in the gloom.
 
Sir John Ayloffe was the first to shake himself free from this unwonted feeling of superstitious awe:
 
"Friend Michael, by the Mass!" he shouted with somewhat forced jocoseness. "Still astir, and like the love-sick poet contemplating the moon."
 
The loud words broke the spell of subtle and weird magic which seemed to pervade the place. Michael Kest[239]yon gave a start and turned abruptly away from the window.
 
"Are we welcome, Michael?" added Lord Rochester pleasantly. "Or do we intrude?"
 
Michael whose surprise at seeing the three men had been quite momentary, now came forward with outstretched hands.
 
"Not in the least," he said cordially, "and ye are right welcome. I had thoughts of going to bed and yet was longing for merry company, little guessing that it would thus unexpectedly fall from heaven. And may I ask what procures St. Denis the honour of this tardy visit from so distinguished a company?"
 
"The desire to see you, Cousin," here interposed Lord Stowmaries, "and if you'll allow us, to sup with you, for we were not invited to your wedding feast, remember, and have not enjoyed the worthy tailor's good cheer."
 
"We have not tasted food since the middle of the day," added Ayloffe, "and that was none of the best."
 
"But mayhap Michael hath supped," suggested Lord Rochester, who contrary to his usual freedom of manner and speech seemed unaccountably reticent for the nonce.
 
"Nay, nay! And if I had I could sup again in such elegant company," rejoined Michael. "But I was dreaming indeed since I was forgetting that we were still in the dark. Our amiable host must bring us light as well as food. It will give me much pleasure to see your amiable faces more clearly."
 
Even as he spoke he went to the door, and soon his calls to Mme. Blond for lights and supper echoed pleasantly through the house.
 
The three others were left staring at one another in blank surprise. They had not thought of putting questions to[240] mine host on their arrival, but had merely and somewhat peremptorily ordered M. Blond to show them up to the room occupied by their friend, the English milor. They, therefore, knew nothing of what had happened, but all three of them vaguely felt—by a curious, unexplainable instinct—that something was amiss, and knew that Michael's attitude of serene indifference was only an assumed r?le.
 
"Strike me dead but there's something almost uncanny about the man," said Lord Rochester, forcing a laugh.
 
"Something has happened of course," rejoined Ayloffe, "but nothing to concern us. Mayhap an early quarrel with the bride."
 
"'Tis strange, forsooth, to find the bridegroom alone at this hour," added Stowmaries, whilst the refrain of a ribald song rose somewhat affectedly to his lips.
 
But Rochester quickly checked him, for Michael's footstep was heard on the landing. The latter now entered, closely followed by M. Blond who carried a couple of candelabra of heavy metal and fitted with tallow candles.
 
These he soon lighted and the flickering yellow flames quickly dispersed the gloom which lingered in the corners of the room. They threw into full relief the faces of the four men, three of whom retained an expression of great bewilderment, whilst the fourth looked serene and placid, as if the entertaining of his friends was for nonce the most momentous thing in his existence.
 
Michael went to the window and with a quick, impatient gesture he pulled the curtains together, shutting out the moonlit landscape and the silhouette of the trees, whose soft sighs had been the accompaniment to the murmur of her voice; mayhap he had a thought of shutting out at the same time the very remembrance of the past.
 
Then he turned once more to the others and his face now[241] was a perfect mirror of jovial good-humour as he said gaily:
 
"I hope, gentlemen, that you are anhungered. As for me I could devour a wilderness of frogs, so be it that it is the only food of which this remarkable country can boast. I pray you sit. Supper will not be long—and in the meanwhile tell me, pray, the latest gossip in London."
 
The company settled itself around the table. Every one was glad enough to be rid of the uncanny sensation of awhile ago. M. Blond in the meanwhile had bustled out of the room but he soon reappeared bearing platters and spoons, and, what was more to the purpose, pewter mugs and huge tankards of good red wine. Close behind him came his portly spouse holding aloft with massive, outstretched arms, the monumental tureen whence escaped the savoury fumes of her famous cro?te-au-pot.
 
Loud cheers greeted the arrival of the worthy pair. Mme. Blond quickly fell to, distributing the soup with no niggardly hand, the while her man made the round, filling the mugs with excellent wine.
 
Gossip became general. Rochester as usual was full of anecdotes, bits of scandal and gossip, retailed with a free tongue and an inexhaustible fund of somewhat boisterous humour. The soup was beyond reproach and the wine more than drinkable.
 
"Gad's 'ounds," he cried presently when Blond and his wife had retired, leaving the English company to itself, "this is a feast fit for the gods! Michael Kestyon, our amiable host, I raise my glass to thee! Gentlemen, our host!"
 
He raised his glass, Stowmaries following suit; but Ayloffe checked them both with a peremptory lifting of his hand.
 
[242] "Nay, nay!" he said, "my lord Rochester you do forget—and you, too, gentlemen! Fie on you, fie, I say! Not a drop shall pass your lips until you have pledged me as you should. 'Tis I will give you the first toast of the evening. Gentlemen, the bride!"
 
There was loud clapping of mugs against the table, then lusty shouts of "The bride! the bride!" The three men raised their bumpers and drained them to the last drop, honouring the toast to the full. Sir John looked keenly at Michael, but even his sharp, observant eyes could not detect the slightest change in the calm and serene face. Michael, too, had raised his mug, but Ayloffe noted that he did not touch the wine with his lips.
 
Shrewd Sir John ever alive to his own interests fell to speculating as to what had gone amiss, and whether any event had been likely to occur which would affect his own prospects in any way. Mistress Peyton's twelve thousand pounds had not yet—remember,—been transferred to Cousin John's pocket, and no one was more profoundly aware of the truth of the old dictum that "there's many a slip—" than was Sir John Ayloffe himself. But there was naught to read on Michael Kestyon's placid face, only the vague suspicion of carefully concealed weariness; and in Ayloffe's practical mind there was something distinctly unnatural in the serene calm of a man who was richer to-day by one hundred and twenty thousand pounds, not even to mention an excessively pretty and well-dowered bride.
 
Sir John, relying on his own powers of observation, had every intention of probing this matter to the bottom, but in the meanwhile he thought it best not to let the others see, too clearly, what he himself had only vaguely guessed, therefore it was he again who shouted more lustily even than before:
 
[243] "Now the bridegroom, gentlemen! I give you the bridegroom! Long live! Long live I say!"
 
He was on his feet waving his mug with ev............