CHAPTER XV.
"Silvain, Kristel, and Avicia, accompanied by her father, rowed fromthe lighthouse to the shore. The villagers saw but little of them;they passed out of the village, and Avicia's father returned alone tothe lighthouse. Kristel loved Avicia with all the passion of a hot,imperious, and intense nature. He looked upon her as his, and had hesuspected that Silvain would have fallen in love with her, it canreadily be understood that he would have been the last man to bringthem into association with each other. But so it happened.
"When Kristel and Avicia met in the Tyrol, Kristel was buoyed up withhopes that she reciprocated the love she had inspired in his breast.He had some reason for this hope, for at his request, when he askedher to become his wife and said that he could not marry without hisfather's consent, she had written home to _her_ father with respect tothe young gentleman's proposal, thereby leading him to believe thatshe was ready to accept him. It appeared, however, that there was noreal depth in her feelings for him; and, indeed, it may be pardonedher if she supposed that his fervid protestations were prompted byfeelings as light and as little genuine as her own. Unsophisticated asshe was in the ways of the world, the fact of his making thehonourable accomplishment of his love for her dependent upon the fiatof another person could not but have lessened the value of hisdeclarations--more especially when she had not truly given him herheart. It was given to Silvain upon the occasion of their firstmeeting, and it was not long before they found the opportunity toexchange vows of affection--a circumstance of which I and every personbut themselves were entirely ignorant. But love is cunning.
"It was because of Avicia's fear of her father that this love was keptsecret; he held her completely in control, and--first favouringKristel and then Silvain, playing them against each other, as it were,to his own advantage in the way of gifts--filled her withapprehension.
"'Looking back,' Silvain said in his statement to me, 'upon thehistory of those days of happiness and torture, I can see now that Iwas wrong in not endeavouring to arrive at a frank understanding withmy brother; but indeed I had but one thought--Avicia. As Kristelbelieved her to be his, so did I believe her to be mine, and the ideaof losing her was sufficient to make my life a life of despair. Andafter all, it was for Avicia to decide. Absorbing as was my love forher, I should have had no choice but to retire and pass my days inmisery had she decided in favour of Kristel.'
"The base conduct of Avicia's father was to a great extent the causeof turning brotherly love to hate. Seeing their infatuation, hebargained with each secretly, saying, in effect, 'What will you giveme 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 daughteralso in like manner, promising that she should have the one she loved.Silvain was the more liberal of the two, and signed papers, pledginghimself to pay to the avaricious father a large sum of money within acertain time after his union with Avicia. So cunningly did the keeperof the lighthouse conduct these base negotiations, that, even on thatlast day when they all rowed together to the village, neither of thebrothers knew that matters were to be brought then and there to anirrevocable 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 himon an errand for Avicia which would render necessary an absence ofmany hours. That done, he said to Silvain and Avicia, 'Everything isarranged. This day will see you man and wife. Come with me to thepriest.'
"'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, hehad a sneaking regard himself for my daughter, and he thought he wouldfeel more comfortable, and you and Avicia too, if he were not presentat the ceremony. He bade me give you his blessing.'
"Satisfied with this--being, indeed, naturally only too willing to besatisfied--the marriage ceremony took place, and Silvain and Aviciabecame man and wife. They departed on their honeymoon, and instructedthe keeper of the lighthouse to inform Kristel of their route, inorder that he might be able to join them at any point he pleased.
"Then came the interview between Avicia's father and Kristel, in whichthe young man was informed that he had lost Avicia. Kristel wasdismayed and furious at what he believed to be the blackest treacheryon the part of his brother. He swore to be revenged, and asked theroad they had taken. Avicia's father sent him off in an entirelyopposite direction, and he set out in pursuit. Needless to say that hesoon found out how he had been tricked, and that it infuriated him themore. Not knowing where else to write to Silvain, he addressed aletter to him at their home in Germany; he himself did not proceedthither, judging that his best chance of meeting the married couplelay near the village by the sea, to which he felt convinced Silvainand Avicia would soon return. Therefore he lurked in the vicinity ofthe village, and watched by day and night the principal avenues bywhich it was to be approached. But his judgment was at fault; they didnot return.
"In the meantime the lovers were enjoying their honeymoon. In order tokeep faith with Avicia's father in the bargain made between him andSilvain--which rendered necessary the payment of a substantial sum ofmoney by a given time--it was imperative that Silvain should visit hisboyhood's home, to obtain his share of the inheritance left to him andKristel by their father. The happy couple dallied by the way, and itwas not until three months after their marriage that they arrived atSilvain's birthplace.
"'Perhaps we shall meet Kristel there,' said Silvain.
"Instead of meeting his brother, Silvain received the letter whichKristel had written to him. It breathed the deepest hate, and Silvainhad 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 lifewith black despair. Had I suspected it at the time I would havestrangled you. But your fate is only postponed; revenge is mine, and Ihold it in my soul as a sacred trust which I shall fulfil. You shalldie by my hands. Never in this world or in the next will I forgiveyou! My relentless hate shall haunt and pursue you, and you shall notescape it!'
"And then the writer recorded an awful oath that, while life remainedwithin him, his one sole aim should be to compass his revenge. It wasa lengthy letter, and strong as is my description of it, it fallsshort of the intense malignity which pervaded every line. Kristellaunched a curse so terrible against his brother that Silvain's hairrose up in horror and fear as he read it. These are Silvain's ownwords to me:
"'After reading Kristel's letter,' he said, 'I felt that I wasaccursed, and that it was destined that he should kill me.'
"How to escape the terrible doom--though he had scarcely a hope ofaverting it--how to prevent the crime of blood-guiltiness lying uponKristel's soul: this was thereafter the object of Silvain's life. Itafforded him no consolation to know that for the intense hate withwhich Kristel's heart was filled Avicia's father was partlyresponsible.
"In its delineation of the trickery by which Kristel had been robbedof Avicia the letter was not truthful, for there had occurred betweenthe brothers a conversation in which Silvain had revealed his love forher. Kristel's over-wrought feelings probably caused him to forgetthis--or it may have been a perversion of fact adopted to givesanction to hate.
"Kristel's letter was not the only despairing greeting which awaitedSilvain in the home of his boyhood. By some unhappy means theinheritance left by his father had melted away, and he found himself abeggar. Thus he was unable to carry out the terms of the bargainAvicia's father had made with him. This part of his misfortune did notgreatly trouble him; it was but a just punishment to a grasping,avaricious man; but with beggary staring him in the face, and hisbrother's curse and awful design weighing upon him, his situation wasmost dreadful and pit
iable.
"It was his intention to keep Kristel's letter from the knowledge ofAvicia, but she secretly obtained possession of it, and it filled hersoul with an agonising fear. They decided that it was impossible toreturn to the village by sea.
"'It is there my brother waits for us,' said Silvain.
"So from that time they commenced a wandering life, with the onedominant desire to escape from Kristel.
"I cannot enter now into a description of the years that followed.They crept from place to place, picking up a precarious existence, andenduring great privations. One morning Silvain awoke, trembling andafraid. 'I have seen Kristel,' he said.
"She did not ask him how and under what circumstances he had seen hisbrother.
"'He has discovered that we are here, and is in pursuit of us,'Silvain continued. 'We must fly without delay.'
"This was an added grief to Avicia. The place in which Silvain's dreamof his brother had been dreamt had afforded them shelter and securityfor many weeks, and she had begun to indulge in the hope that theywere safe. Vain hope! They must commence their wanderings again. Fromthat period, at various times, Silvain was visited by dreams in whichhe was made acquainted with Kristel's movements in so far as theyaffected him and Avicia and the mission of vengeance upon whichKristel was relentlessly bent. They made their way to foreigncountries, and even there Kristel pursued them. And so through thedays and years continued the pitiful flight and the merciless pursuit.In darkness they wandered often, the shadow of fate at their heels, inAvicia's imagination lurking in the solitudes through which theypassed, amidst thickets of trees, in hollows and ravines, waiting,waiting, waiting to fall upon and destroy them! An appalling life, thefull terrors of which the mind can scarcely grasp.
"At length, when worldly circumstances pressed so heavily upon themthat they hardly knew where to look for the next day's food, Aviciawhispered to her husband that she expected to become a mother, andthat she was possessed by an inexpressible longing that her childshould be born where she herself first drew breath. After the lapse ofso many years it appeared to Silvain that the lighthouse would be thelikeliest place of safety, and, besides, it was Avicia's earnest wish.They were on the road thither when I chanced upon them in the forest."