one loves him I daresay!” I said.
“Some one loves him!” echoed Lucio with inimitable disdain—“Bah! Three ballet girls live on him if that is what you mean. His mother loved him,—but she is dead,—he broke her heart. He is no good I tell you,—let him pay his debt in full, even to the soul he staked so lightly. If I were the devil now, and had just won the strange game we played to-night, I suppose according to priestly tradition, I should be piling up the fire for Lynton in high glee,—but being what I am, I say let the man alone to make his own destiny,—let things take their course,—and as he chose to risk everything, so let him pay everything.”
We were by this time walking slowly into Pall Mall,—I was on the point of making some reply, when catching sight of a man’s figure on the opposite side of the way, not far from the Marlborough Club, I uttered an involuntary exclamation.
“Why there he is!” I said—“there is Viscount Lynton!”
Lucio’s hand closed tightly on my arm.
“You don’t want to speak to him now, surely!”
“No. But I wonder where he’s going? He walks rather unsteadily.”
“Drunk, most probably!”
And Lucio’s face presented the same relentless expression of scorn I had so often seen and marvelled at.
We paused a moment, watching the Viscount strolling aimlessly up and down in front of the clubs,—till all at once he seemed to come to a sudden resolution, and stopping short, he shouted,
“Hansom!”
A silent-wheeled smart vehicle came bowling up immediately. Giving some order to the driver, he jumped in. The cab approached swiftly in our direction,—just as it passed us the loud report of a pistol crashed on the silence.
“Good God!” I cried reeling back a step or two—“He has shot himself!”
The hansom stopped,—the driver sprang down,—club-porters, waiters, policemen and no end of people starting up from Heaven knows where, were on the scene on an instant,—I rushed forward to join the rapidly gathering throng, but before I could do so, Lucio’s strong arm was thrown round me, and he dragged me by main force away.
“Keep cool, Geoffrey!” he said—“Do you want to be called up to identify? And betray the club and all its members? Not while I am here to prevent you! Check your mad impulses, my good fellow,—they will lead you into no end of difficulties. If the man’s dead he’s dead, and there’s an end of it.”
“Lucio! You have no heart!” I exclaimed, struggling violently to escape from his hold—“How can you stop to reason in such a case! Think of it! I am the cause of all the mischief!—it is my cursed luck at baccarat this evening that has been the final blow to the wretched young fellow’s fortunes,—I am convinced of it!—I shall never forgive myself—”
“Upon my word, Geoffrey, your conscience is very tender!” he answered, holding my arm still more closely and hurrying me away despite myself—“You must try and toughen it a little if you want to be successful in life. Your ‘cursed luck’ you think, has caused Lynton’s death? Surely it is a contradiction in terms to call luck ‘cursed,’—and as for the Viscount, he did not need that last game at baccarat to emphasise his ruin. You are not to blame. And for the sake of the club, if for nothing else, I do not intend either you or myself to be mixed up in a case of suicide. The coroner’s verdict always disposes of these incidents comfortably in two words—‘Temporary insanity.’”
I shuddered. My soul sickened as I thought that within a few yards of us was the bleeding corpse of the man I had so lately seen alive and spoken with,—and notwithstanding Lucio’s words I felt as if I had murdered him.
“‘Temporary insanity’”—repeated Lucio again, as if speaking to himself—“all remorse, despair, outraged honour, wasted love, together with the scientific modern theory of Reasonable Nothingness—Life a Nothing, God a Nothing,—when these drive the distracted human unit to make of himself also a nothing, ‘temporary insanity’ covers up his plunge into the infinite with an untruthful pleasantness. However, after all, it is as Shakespeare says, a mad world!”
I made no answer. I was too overcome by my own miserable sensations. I walked along almost unconscious of movement, and as I stared bewilderedly up at the stars they danced before my sight like fireflies whirling in a mist of miasma. Presently a faint hope occurred to me.
“Perhaps,” I said, “he has not really killed himself? It may be only an attempt?”
“He was a capital shot”—returned Lucio composedly,—“That was his one quality. He has no principles,—but he was a good marksman. I cannot imagine his missing aim.”
“It is horrible! An hour ago alive, … and now … I tell you, Lucio, it is horrible!”
“What is? Death? It is not half so horrible as Life lived wrongly,”—he responded, with a gravity that impressed me in spite of my emotion and excitement—“Believe me, the mental sickness and confusion of a wilfully degraded existence are worse tortures than are contained in the priestly notions of Hell. Come come, Geoffrey, you take this matter too much to heart,—you are not to blame. If Lynton has given himself the ‘happy dispatch’ it is really the best thing he could do,—he was of no use to anybody, and he is well out of it. It is positively weak of you to attach importance to such a trifle. You are only at the beginning of your career–”
“Well, I hope that career will not lead me into any more such tragedies as the one enacted to-night,”—I said passionately—“If it does, it will be entirely against my will!”
Lucio looked at me curiously.
“Nothing can happen to you against your will”—he replied; “I suppose you wish to imply that I am to blame for introducing you to the club? My good fellow, you need not have gone there unless you had chosen to do so! I did not bind and drag you there! You are upset and unnerved,—come into my room and take a glass of wine,—you will feel more of a man afterwards.”
We had by this time reached the hotel, and I went with him passively. With equal passiveness I drank what he gave me, and stood, glass in hand, watching him with a kind of morbid fascination as he threw off his fur-lined overcoat and confronted me, his pale handsome face strangely set and stern, and his dark eyes glittering like cold steel.
“That last stake of Lynton’s, … to you—” I said falteringly—“His soul–”
“Which he did not believe in, and which you do not believe in!” returned Lucio, regarding me fixedly. “Why do you now seem to tremble at a mere sentimental idea? If fantastic notions such as God, the Soul, and the Devil were real facts, there would perhaps be cause for trembling, but being only the brainsick imaginations of superstitious mankind, there is nothing in them to awaken the slightest anxiety or fear.”
“But you”—I began—“you say you believe in the soul?”
“I? I am brainsick!” and he laughed bitterly—“Have you not found that out yet? Much learning hath driven me mad, my friend! Science has led me into such deep wells of dark discovery, that it is no wonder if my senses sometimes reel,—and I believe—at such insane moments—in the Soul!”
I sighed heavily.
“I think I will go to bed,” I answered. “I am tired out,—and
