第66章

I RETURNED at the top of my speed to the village where I had left the mules, had the animals saddled immediately, and succeeded in getting back to Fondi a little before sunset.

While ascending the stairs of our hotel, I suffered under the most painful uncertainty as to how I should best communicate the news of my discovery to Alfred.If I could not succeed in preparing him properly for my tidings, the results, with such an organization as his, might be fatal.On opening the door of his room, I felt by no means sure of myself; and when I confronted him, his manner of receiving me took me so much by surprise that, for a moment or two, I lost my self-possession altogether.

Every trace of the lethargy in which he was sunk when I had last seen him had disappeared.His eyes were bright, his cheeks deeply flushed.As I entered, he started up, and refused my offered hand.

"You have not treated me like a friend," he said, passionately;"you had no right to continue the search unless I searched with you--you had no right to leave me here alone.I was wrong to trust you; you are no better than all the rest of them."I had by this time recovered a little from my first astonishment, and was able to reply before he could say anything more.It was quite useless, in his present state, to reason with him or to defend myself.I determined to risk everything, and break my news to him at once.

"You will treat me more justly, Monkton, when you know that Ihave been doing you good service during my absence," I said.

"Unless I am greatly mistaken, the object for which we have left Naples may be nearer attainment by both of us than--"The flush left his cheeks almost in an instant.Some expression in my face, or some tone in my voice, of which I was not conscious, had revealed to his nervously-quickened perception more than I had intended that he should know at first.His eyes fixed themselves intently on mine; his hand grasped my arm; and he said to me in an eager whisper:

"Tell me the truth at once.Have you found him?"It was too late to hesitate.I answered in the affirmative.

"Buried or unburied?"

His voice rose abruptly as he put the question, and his unoccupied hand fastened on my other arm.

"Unburied."

I had hardly uttered the word before the blood flew back into his cheeks; his eyes flashed again as they looked into mine, and he burst into a fit of triumphant laughter, which shocked and startled me inexpressibly.

"What did I tell you? What do you say to the old prophecy now?"he cried, dropping his hold on my arms, and pacing backward and forward in the room."Own you were wrong.Own it, as all Naples shall own it, when once I have got him safe in his coffin!"His laughter grew more and mere violent.I tried to quiet him in vain.His servant and the landlord of the inn entered the room, but they only added fuel to the fire, and I made them go out again.As I shut the door on them, I observed lying on a table near at hand the packet of letters from Miss Elmslie, which my unhappy friend preserved with such care, and read and re-read with such unfailing devotion.Looking toward me just when Ipassed by the table, the letters caught his eye.The new hope for the future, in connection with the writer of them, which my news was already awakening in his heart, seemed to overwhelm him in an instant at sight of the treasured memorials that reminded him of his betrothed wife.His laughter ceased, his face changed, he ran to the table, caught the letters up in his hand, looked from them to me for one moment with an altered expression which went to my heart, then sank down on his knees at the table, laid his face on the letters, and burst into tears.I let the new emotion have its way uninterruptedly, and quitted the room without saying a word.

When I returned after a lapse of some little time, I found him sitting quietly in his chair, reading one of the letters from the pack et which rested on his knee.

His look was kindness itself; his gesture almost womanly in its gentleness as he rose to meet me, and anxiously held out his hand.

He was quite calm enough now to hear in detail all that I had to tell him.I suppressed nothing but the particulars of the state in which I had found the corpse.I assumed no right of direction as to the share he was to take in our future proceedings, with the exception of insisting beforehand that he should leave the absolute superintendence of the removal of the body to me, and that he should be satisfied with a sight of M.Foulon's paper, after receiving my assurance that the remains placed in the coffin were really and truly the remains of which we had been in search.

"Your nerves are not so strong as mine," I said, by way of apology for my apparent dictation, "and for that reason I must beg leave to assume the leadership in all that we have now to do, until I see the leaden coffin soldered down and safe in your possession.After that I shall resign all my functions to you.""I want words to thank you for your kindness," he answered."No brother could have borne with me more affectionately, or helped me more patiently than you."He stopped and grew thoughtful, then occupied himself in tying up slowly and carefully the packet of Miss Elmslie's letters, and then looked suddenly toward the vacant wall behind me with that strange expression the meaning of which I knew so well.Since we had left Naples I had purposely avoided exciting him by talking on the useless and shocking subject of the apparition by which he believed himself to be perpetually followed.Just now, however, he seemed so calm and collected--so little likely to be violently agitated by any allusion to the dangerous topic, that I ventured to speak out boldly.

"Does the phantom still appear to you," I asked, "as it appeared at Naples?"He looked at me and smiled.