Little Nobody

The dark eyes sparkled with eager joy.

"Ah, how pleasant it is to have a friend!" she said, naïvely. "First you saved me, now I am going to save you. I heard everything she said to you. Oh, how cruel and wicked she is! And it must be dreadful," shuddering, "to starve! I can fancy some of its horrors, for, do you know, Monsieur Van Zandt, I am very hungry now? I have had no supper nor breakfast."

"Poor child!" he exclaimed, and glanced at a covered waiter on a stand that contained the remains of his late breakfast. He drew off the dainty napkin, and she saw delicate rolls, broiled chicken, cold ham, preserves, fresh strawberries, chocolate and coffee, the whole flanked by a bottle of sherry.

"I had no appetite for my breakfast, and Mima did not come back to remove the tray," he said. "Dare I offer you the remains of the repast? The chocolate is cold, but I drank none of it; I preferred coffee. Likewise, the broiled chicken is untouched—in fact, I eat nothing but a roll."

"You shall see that I will do more justice to the fare than that," she laughed; and sitting down by the tray, she made a substantial meal, after which she declared herself much strengthened.

It was very pleasant to have this bright, hopeful young creature with him, in lieu of the loneliness and the cruel fate to which Mme. Lorraine had doomed him. He listened with interest to her pretty plans for his release. She told him how, in her drugged sleep, she had beheld him in this very room, attended by the big, ugly, but skillful Mima.

"Heaven must have sent you that vision," he said, with fervent gratitude. "Oh, how glad I am that I shall go free again into the world! I have sweet, young sisters little older than you, my child, who would grieve for me were I to die like this. Are you sure, quite sure, that you possess the secret of the opening of the hidden door?"

Marie started.

"It must be the same as that of the outside—must it not, monsieur?" she queried, with a confident air.

"I am not sure, but I hope it is," he replied, with a sudden dawning anxiety.

"I will go and see at once," she exclaimed, starting toward the door.

"No, no," he said, and held her back.

"But why?" she asked, turning on him her pretty, puzzled face.

With a smile, he answered:

"Do you not see that it would not be safe to venture to open the door while our enemies remain in the house? We must wait patiently here until night—until they are gone away. Then we shall be able to effect our escape unmolested."

He spoke more cheerfully than he felt. A strange dread was upon him. What if they should not be able to open the door at the head of the cellar stair-way?

What if he were indeed hopelessly immured within this prison, the life of the girl forfeited to the bravery and daring that had led her to seek and save him?

"Oh, I could bear it like a man, alone, but for her to perish under the slow agony of starvation—Heaven forbid it!" he groaned, but breathed not a word of his fears to the girl who was full of hope and eager expectancy, looking eagerly forward to the hour of their release.

In spite of his anxiety, he spent a not unpleasant day in the society of Marie. She was so lovely and so unique, in her total ignorance of the world, that she had a subtle charm for the man inured to the conventionalities of society. Then, too, she was constantly exciting his wonder by the general correctness of her language, although he knew that she was totally uneducated. But he easily accounted for this by recalling the fact that she had been brought up in constant contact with Mme. Lorraine and her visitors, and so unconsciously acquired the habit of correct speaking.

"What a contrast she is to that wicked woman!" he thought, looking admiringly at the eager, earnest, mobile face, so innocently frank, all the feelings of her pure soul mirrored in her limpid eyes. Recalling madame's story that the girl was low-born, he frowned, and said angrily to himself:

"I do not believe it. She has nothing low about her. There is some mystery about her origin, and Madame Lorraine does not choose to reveal it, that is all."

Certainly, no girl born with the blood of a hundred earls in her veins could have had better instincts or more innate refinement than this Little Nobody. She was innocently frank, but she was also charmingly shy and modest. She was child and woman exquisitely blended:

"Standing with reluctant feetWhere the brook and river meet,Womanhood and childhood flee."

Although she had been overjoyed at finding the reported dead man alive, she had been very undemonstrative in her joy. She had not offered him a single caress, such as one so young might have done; she had not even seated herself near him. She contented herself with looking at him across the breadth of the room, not as one afraid, but with a perfectly natural reserve, and she preserved this frank, unembarrassed demeanor throughout the whole day, which did not seem long to either, although dinner and supper were among the things that were not. Neither one remembered it, neither one was conscious of any sensation of hunger.

"But how are we to know when night comes? It is always night down here," he said.

"It was about midday when I followed Madame Lorraine down here. Have you a watch?" she asked.

"Yes; and I have never permitted it to run down since I came here. It is now twenty minutes to four o'clock," he said.

"Then it is now afternoon. By and by, when the watch tells us it is nightfall, I will creep up the steps and listen for sounds in the hall. When I hear them go away, it will be the signal for us to open the secret door and escape," she said.

At eight o'clock, with her ear pressed against the secret paneled door, she heard mistress and maid going through the hall to the front door. It opened and shut. Marie heard distinctly the loud click of the key in the lock outside. They had gone, leaving their victim to perish, as they thought, by the slow pangs of starvation.

Van Zandt was close by her side; she turned to him eagerly.

"I have been feeling the door in the dark for a knob like that on the outside, but I can not find it," she said. "The surface seems perfectly smooth, not carved as on the outside. Will you bring the lamp, monsieur, and let us search for it?"

With a sinking heart, he obeyed her request, detaching the swinging-lamp from its bronze frame and taking it up the dark stair-way in his hand. Even then, in his eager anxiety, his artistic eye took note of the gleam of the light on the girl's picturesque masses of red-gold hair, as it waved in silken luxuriance over her shoulders.

CHAPTER XX

Marie did not see Van Zandt's eyes looking admiringly at her beautiful hair.

She was gazing with eager eyes at the narrow door that had shut her in with him whom she had dared so much to find and save.

She saw with some dismay that its inner surface was just what it had appeared when she had moved her fingers over it in the dark—perfectly smooth, without seam, knob, or lock, and no apparent way of moving it from its place.

Van Zandt gave her the lamp to hold, and put his shoulder to the immovable door, but his whole strength availed nothing against its grim solidity.

Then he spent an anxious hour trying the steps and the sides of the door in an effort to find its mysterious open sesame.

Not an iota of success rewarded his frantic efforts.

But he would not give way to despair.

"I shall have to cut our way out," he said. "But, as I have no hatchet, it will be slow work with my jack-knife. You may have to hold that lamp for hours, ma'amselle, while I whittle a hole in the door big enough for you to creep through."

"That is nothing. I shall not be tired," she replied, bravely.

But she was not called upon for this exhibition of patience.

The first few strokes of the knife revealed to him the appalling fact that the inside of the door was not of wood, but iron—iron so heavily coated with thick paint that it had cleverly deceived the superficial touch.

Then indeed she caught a gleam of trouble in his eyes—trouble that was almost despair. Her own face paled, and a sigh of dismay escaped her lips.

When he heard it, he forced a smile.

"Do not be frightened; we will find some other way," he said.

And they went back to the room and searched the walls carefully to see if there was any weak spot by which they might effect an escape. Windows there were none, and the ventilation of the room had been cleverly effected by pipes that were let into the ceiling above. The walls around were damp and cool, showing that they were built into the earth; but they were thick and heavy, and Van Zandt's jack-knife made no impression on the heavy oaken planks beneath the handsome wall-papering.

Two hours were spent in this vain quest for means of egress from their prison, and drops of dew beaded the young man's face. He was weak from his illness and from the fast that had lasted all day, and sat down at last to rest and to think what he should do next.

"Oh, how tired and weak you must be! I am so sorry I eat your breakfast! I shouldn't have done so, but I thought we should get out of here directly!" exclaimed the girl, regretfully.

She brought him the wine and poured out a glass, which she forced him to taste. It ran warmly through his veins, and courage returned to him again.

"Now, no more for me," he said, pressing back the little hand that offered the second glass. "Drink that yourself ma'amselle, and we must keep the rest for you, for we can not tell how long it may be before we get out of this."

"I do not need it; I am strong enough without it," she replied, and replaced the untouched glass on the stand. Then she saw him looking at her with a hopeful gleam in his eyes.

"I have a new thought," he said. "Perhaps if we could make ourselves heard from down here, some one might come to our relief. Let us halloo, ma'amselle, with all our might."

It would have been ludicrous if it had not been so pitiful to hear them shouting in concert at the top of their voices. Indeed, they paused now and then to look at each other with laughing eyes, and to pant with exhaustion from their efforts, but the shouting was kept up at intervals until Van Zandt's watch recorded the hour of midnight.

Then he said, wearily:

"There is no help for it. We shall have to pass the night here, I suppose."

He opened the door and began to push his sofa out into the narrow little passage.

"What are you going to do?" Marie asked him, with large eyes of wonder.

"I am simply converting this passage into a temporary bedroom for myself," he answered. "Good-night, Ma'amselle Marie; I leave you my room and bed. Lie down and rest, and in the morning we will try to devise some new plan for our escape."

He opened and shut the door, and Marie was alone. She threw herself wearily on the luxurious bed, and in spite of hunger and thirst and terror, slept heavily for hours.

When she awakened, she felt sure that day must be far advanced. She found a large pitcher of water and poured out some into a basin and bathed her face and hands. Then she peeped out into the dark passage for Van Zandt.

He was sitting up composedly on his sofa, as if he had been awake for hours.

"Oh, dear, monsieur, I have kept you out in the dark for hours! Come in," she exclaimed; and he accepted the invitation with alacrity, pushing in his convenient sofa before him.

Laughingly, he said:

"I began to think you were a second Rip Van Winkle, Ma'amselle Marie;" and, holding out his watch to her, she saw that it was near the middle of the day.

"Oh, how lazy I have been! Forgive me!" she cried, vexed with herself. "You must have been very tired waiting out there in the dark?"

"No, for I was at work trying to find the secret spring of the iron door, but I only wasted my time and strength," he replied, sadly.

"Oh, what are we going to do?" she burst out, in sudden terror.

"That is what I was asking myself at intervals all through the night," said Eliot Van Zandt. "Oh, my child—my brave little girl! what would I not give if only you had not followed Madame Lorraine into this fatal prison! I could suffer alone with a man's fortitude, but for you to share my fate is too dreadful!"

His voice broke and his eyes grew strangely dim. She answered, with pretty gravity:

"It was through your goodness to me that you were first betrayed into her power; and if you have to suffer for it, I want to suffer, too. We are friends, you know. But we must not give up hope yet. I am more sorry than ever that I eat your breakfast; but take a little of the wine, and it will strengthen you."

"After you," he replied, seeing that she would not be satisfied without seeing him take some. He held the glass to her lips, and she swallowed a few drops under protest. He went through the same form, saying to himself that he must save it all for her, for there was nothing else between her and utter starvation.

"What shall we do next? Halloo again?" she asked, with a smile.

"I do not believe my lungs are strong enough to go over that ordeal again. The wound in my breast is not quite healed over yet," he said. "But suppose we sing instead?"

"I do not know how to sing," she answered.

"Very well; I shall have to do all the singing," he replied, good-humoredly. "And, do you know, I think it is a rather good idea to sing, for who knows but it may penetrate to the street, and if it be known that Madame Lorraine be gone away, curiosity may lead some one to investigate into the cause of the mysterious noise, and then we may be found."

"Oh, how clever you are! Do begin at once!" she exclaimed, with a hopeful light in her dark eyes.

"I will," he replied; and somehow the first song that came to his mind was a sweet, sad love song he had been used to sing with his fair young sisters in the far-off Northern home he loved so well:

"In days of old, when knights were bold,And barons held their sway,A warrior bold, with spurs of gold,Sung merrily his lay:'My love is young and fair,My love hath golden hair,And eyes so bright and heart so trueThat none with her compare;So what care I, tho' death be nigh,I'll live for love or die!'"So this brave knight, in armor bright,Went gayly to the fray;He fought the fight, but ere the nightHis soul had passed away.The plighted ring he woreWas crushed and wet with gore;Yet ere he died he bravely cried:'I've kept the vow I swore;So what care I, tho' death be nigh,I've fought for love, and die—For love I die!'"

The girl's beautiful eyes looked at the singer, dark and grave with the strange emotions swelling at her heart. She had heard Mme. Lorraine and the men from the Jockey Club sing their best, but it had not affected her like this. A strange, sweet awe stole over her, mixed with a buoyancy and lightness that was thrilling and yet solemn. With the strange, new sensation there came to her a sudden memory of the chapel at Le Bon Berger, and the soft, murmuring voices of the nuns at prayer. She felt like praying.

He looked at her curiously, and she said, with child-like directness:

"I can not sing, but the nuns at the convent taught me how to pray. I will pray to the good God, and perhaps He will hear me and save us."

The next minute she had thrown herself down by a chair, bowed her golden head on her hands, and a low, soft murmur of prayer filled the room. He hesitated a moment, then went and knelt down by her side, and his deeper, stronger voice filled the room with a strong, manly petition for help and pity.

Then he did not feel like singing again for awhile, so sweet and deep an awe pervaded his mind. Marie sat opposite, her tiny hands folded in her lap, a lovely seriousness on her piquant face.

By and by he sung again, but this time it was one of the solemn chants, such as might be heard in the choirs of the old cathedrals.

The day wore on like this, and the night fell again, with no sign that the persistent singing had attracted any attention from the outer world.

Sadly enough, and with many grim forebodings, Van Zandt wheeled his sofa again into the narrow passage for his night's rest. As he bid her good-night, Marie said, sadly:

"The oil is getting low in the lamp. I will extinguish it to-night if you have a match to light it in the morning."

He was fortunate enough to find a little match-case in his pocket filled with matches that he carried for lighting his cigars; so Marie extinguished the lamp until morning, and they turned on a very dim light that day, for they feared that they should soon be left in total darkness. To-day, also, the last of the wine was used, Marie insisting that they should share alike, for both began to feel the deathly weakness of hunger paralyzing their energies. The singing at intervals was still persevered in, although Van Zandt's voice began to fail strangely from the weakness of hunger and illness. Hope failed him, too, as this, the third day of their mutual imprisonment waned to a close, and he regretted bitterly that he had allowed Marie to force him to take a share of the precious sherry.

Faint and fainter waxed the light, and the two victims of Mme. Lorraine's malignity began to realize that the horrors of Cimmerian darkness were about to be added to those of starvation and isolation.

"Sing something," said Marie, from the depths of the arm-chair where she was resting.

He fancied that her voice sounded strange and faint, and his heart sunk heavily. He wished again that the poor child had never ventured into this horrible trap from which there seemed to be no release but death. But he had already wished it a hundred times before—alas, to no avail!

"Sing," she murmured again, sadly. "See, the light is almost gone, but it will not seem so dreary when you sing."

He said to himself that he would be willing to sing until the last breath left his lips, could he but lighten one pang of the suffering girl whose devotion to him had brought down such a cruel fate upon her head.

So, although his throat was sore, his head dizzy, and his heart like lead in his breast, he sung feebly, but bravely, a song that yesterday she had said she liked. It was sweet; but sad. He had no heart for gay ones now:

"Out in the country, close to the road-side,One little daisy there chanced to grow;It was so happy there in the sunshine—No one the daisy's joy could know;Watching the white clouds, hearing a song there,List'ning in wonder all day long.'Oh,' said the daisy, 'had I a song-voice,Yonder forever I'd send my song.'"It was a lark that sung in the heaven,While all the world stood still to hear,Many a maiden looked from her knitting,And in her heart there crept a tear.Down came the lark and sung to the daisy,Sung to it only songs of love;Till in the twilight slumbered the daisy,Turning its sweet face to heaven above."Ah! for the morrow bringeth such sorrow,Captured the lark, and life grew dim,There, too, the daisy, torn from the way-side,Prisoned and dying, wept for him.Once more the lark sung; fainter his voice grew;Her little song was hushed and o'er;Two little lives gone out of the sunshine,Out of this bright world for evermore."

He paused and looked at her in the dim light. The young face was very pale, the dark eyes hollow with purple rings around them.

"I would give the world, were it mine, for food for this dying child!" he thought, in bitter anguish.

With a languid smile and in childish innocence, she said:

"I like your little song, Monsieur Van Zandt. Do you know, I think it suits us two? You are the lark, and I the little daisy. And—and—we need not hope any longer, I am afraid. We will soon be gone out of life, like the lark and the little daisy."

The last words were so faint as to be scarcely audible. Her eyes had closed while she uttered them, and now the golden head fell languidly against the back of her chair.

With a cry of alarm, Eliot Van Zandt sprung to her side, and discovered, to his dismay, that she was quite unconscious.

CHAPTER XXI

"Unconscious, and not a drop of wine or water with which to revive her—not even a breath of fresh air, though the whole world is so full of it!" he murmured, in despair.

He flew to the water-pitcher in a wild hope, and found there a few spoonfuls which he had begged her to drink in the morning. She had pretended to do so, but here it was untouched. So terrible was his own thirst that his heart leaped at sight of it, but not for worlds would he have appropriated even one small drop from his companion in misery.

Hastily pouring it into a glass, he pressed it against her lips, moistening them gently until they parted, and a few drops of the precious fluid passed between them and down her parched throat. A sigh heaved her breast, and her eyes unclosed.

Eliot Van Zandt cried out in joy and relief, and laying her head back against his arm, he gently forced her to swallow the remainder of the water. It acted like a charm, for withdrawing her head from his arm, she sat upright, and said, in a weak voice:

"I kept the water for you; I did not want to drink it."

"Nonsense, child; I am strong, and did not need it," lightly. "But do you feel better now?"

"Much better; but I think I will lie down, monsieur, I feel so tired. Is it bed-time yet?" trying to smile.

He looked at his watch by the light that was so feeble now that he could scarcely see the hands moving across its face.

"Yes, it is bed-time. It is past ten o'clock," he said; then, with hesitation: "Are you not too sick for me to leave you, child? I can sit here and watch you while you sleep."

Within himself he thought sadly that the conventionalities of the world were out of place now, when both were hovering on the border of the Unknown Land. Why not sit beside the dying girl and soothe her last sad hours?

But with a pensive smile she answered:

"No; go to your rest, dear friend. I shall do very well alone, but if I feel ill again I will call you."

Thus dismissed, he wheeled his sofa, as usual, into the dark and gloomy little passage outside the door. Then, lingering to press the little hand and say good-night more tenderly than ever in the presentiment that weighed upon him, she startled him by a shrill, frightened cry:

"Oh!"

The light had given one expiring flare and gone out, leaving them in darkness.

"Are you afraid? Shall I leave my door ajar?" he asked, gently.

"No, no," she answered, quickly.

"Very well, then; but I shall not go to sleep. I shall lie awake to guard you from any fancied danger," he said; and sighed, knowing that there was nothing to fear save the grim, gaunt hunger-wolf.

He struck a match that he might smile once more, sadly but tenderly, into the pale, patient face. She smiled bravely in return.

"My good friend, good-night," she said gently; and with a sigh he left her to hold a patient, wakeful vigil outside her door.

Hours passed without a sound from the dark, inner chamber, where Marie lay huddled among the pillows in feverish sleep. At last, dizziness and weariness fairly conquered him; his head drooped to the arm of the sofa, and he, too, slept.

It seemed scarce a minute since his heavy eyes had shut before he started up with a confused cry. Had some one called his name?

Some sort of a sound certainly echoed in his ears; it resolved itself into her voice.

Marie's voice calling out loud and strange and incessant, with incoherent words. He tore open the door wildly and struck one of his precious matches.

She lay there among the pillows, with vacant, wide-open eyes fixed on the ceiling, babbling in wild delirium of cool springs and fountains, of summer showers, of falling dew, her parched lips panting with fever.

"Oh, my God! if the world were mine, I would give it for one draught of water for my suffering little darling!" he cried aloud, with the agony of a man's heart driven to bay.

The dim flame of the match died into darkness again, and he stood by the bed, holding her hot little hand in his, listening in agony to her delirious ravings.

"This is the cruelest hour of my life!" he muttered. "Death, when it comes, will not be half so bitter."

By the aid of another match he looked at his watch. It was five o'clock, and outside he knew that the day was near its dawn; but within the chamber where he watched by the side of the dying girl all was thick darkness and gloom, and his stock of matches was running so low that he dared not light one as often as he wished.