The Mesmerist's Victim

“Well, my lord, I grant that for the 31st of May; but you use a subterfuge: you have seen my sister since.”

Balsamo wavered but he said:

“True: I have seen her.” And his brow clouded with terrible memories.

“But, granting that I have seen her, what does that prove against me?”

“You did it to plunge her into that inexplicable sleep which she has felt three times at your approach and which you took advantage of to commit a crime.”

“Again, who says this?”

“My sister!”

“How could she know, being asleep?”

“Ah, you confess that she was put to sleep?”

“More than that, I put her to sleep.”

“In what end – to dishonor her?”

“In what end, alas!” said the mesmerist, letting his head fall on his breast. “To have her reveal a secret more precious than life. And during that night – ”

“My sister is a mother!”

“True,” exclaimed Balsamo, “I remember I omitted to awaken her. And some villain profited by her sleep on that dreadful night – dreadful for all of us.”

“You are mocking at me?”

“No, I will convince you. Take me to your sister. I have committed an oversight, but I am pure of crime. I left the girl in a magnetic slumber. In compensation of this fault, which it is just to pardon me, I will give up to you the malefactor’s name.”

“Tell it, tell it!”

“I know it not, but your sister does.”

“But she has refused to name him.”

“Refused you, but not me. Will you believe her if she accuses someone?”

“Yes; for she is an angel of purity.”

Balsamo called his man and ordered the horses to be harnessed to his carriage.

“You will tell me the guilty man’s name,” said Philip.

“My friend,” said the count, “your sword was broken in my house; let me replace it with another.” He took off the wall a magnificent rapier with a chiselled hilt which he placed in the officer’s sheath.

“And you?”

“I have no need of a weapon,” he continued, “my defense is at Trianon and my defender will be yourself when your sister shall have spoken.”

CHAPTER XXXVII

THE GUILTY ONE

DRIVEN by Fritz, the count’s excellent team covered the ground swiftly.

Philip was silent if not patient during the ride, for he felt that he was not the superior power which could persuade or domineer over this wonderful man.

When they had passed the palace gates and were near the chapel, he stopped.

“A last word, my lord,” he said; “I do not know what question you were to put to my sister; at least, spare her the incidents of the horrible scene passing during her unconsciousness. Spare the purity of the soul since the reverse befell the virginity of the body.”

“Captain,” replied Balsamo, “mark this well. I never came into these gardens farther than the hedges you see yonder fronting the line of buildings where your sister is lodged. As for the scene which you fear the effect of on her mind, the effect will be for yourself alone, and on a sleeping person; for I will at the present send your sister into the mesmeric sleep.”

He made a halt folding his arms and turning towards the house where Andrea dwelt, he stood quiet for a space, frowning, with an expression of will strong on his face.

“It is done – she is asleep,” he said. “You doubt? To prove that I can command her at a distance, I order her to come and meet you at the foot of the stairs where took place our last interview.”

“When I see that, I shall believe,” said the officer.

They went and stood in the grove and Balsamo held out his hand towards the chapel. A sound made them start in the next cluster of trees.

“Look out, there is a man!” said Balsamo.

“I see – it is Gilbert, one of the gardeners here, but he used to be a retainer of ours,” said Philip.

“Have you anything to fear from him?”

“No, I should think not: but never mind, stay. If he is up already to work, others may be about.”

During this time, Gilbert fled frightened, for seeing Philip with Balsamo, he instinctively comprehended that he was lost.

“My lord,” said Philip, yielding to the charm the magnetiser exercised on everybody, “if really your power is great enough to bring my sister hither, manifest it by some sign, without having her out to a place so public as this where any passer may see and hear.”

“You spoke in time,” was the other’s answer, grasping his arm and pointing to Andrea’s white figure, appearing at the corridor window as she was obeying the supernatural mandate.

He held his palm open towards her and she stopped short.

Then, like a statue revolved on the pedestal, she wheeled round, and returned into her room.

Some instants afterwards the two gentlemen were in the same place.

But rapid as had been their movement, time was given for a third person to glide into the house and hide in Nicole’s room, for he understood that his life depended on this interview.

It was Gilbert.

Philip had taken his sister in his arms and placed her in a chair while the count shut the door. Then he took up a candle and passed it to and fro before her eyes, without the flame causing her lids to blink.