CHAPTER XXIIA SETTLEMENT REFUSEDCaptain Stewart had good reason to look depressed on that fresh and beautiful morning when Ste. Marie happened upon him beside the rose gardens. Matters had not gone well with him of late. He was ill and he was frightened, and he was much nearer than is agreeable to a complete nervous breakdown.It seemed to him that perils beset him upon every side: perils both seen and unseen. He felt like a man who is hunted in the dark, hard pressed until his strength is gone and he can go no farther. He imagined himself to be that man shivering in the gloom in a strange place, hiding eyes and ears lest he see or hear something from which he cannot escape. He imagined the morning light to come very slow and cold and grey, and in it he saw round about him a silent ring of enemies, the men who had pursued him and run him down. He saw them standing there in the pale dawn, motionless, waiting for the day, and he knew that at last the chase was over and he was done for.Crouching alone in the garden with the scent of roses in his nostrils, he wondered with a great and bitter amazement at that madman—himself of only a few months ago—who had sat down deliberately, in his proper senses, to play at cards with Fate, the great winner of all games. He wondered if, after all, he had been in his proper senses, for the deed now loomed before him gigantic and hideous in its criminal folly. His mind went drearily back to the beginning of it all, to the tremendous debts which had hounded him day and night; to his fear to speak of them with his father, who had never had the least mercy upon gamblers. He remembered, as if it were yesterday, the afternoon upon which he learnt of young Arthur's quarrel with his grandfather, old David's senile anger, and the boy's tempestuous exit from the house, vowing never to return. He remembered his talk with old David later on about the will, in which he learnt that he was now to have Arthur's share under certain conditions. He remembered how that very evening, three days after his disappearance, the lad had come secretly to the Rue du Faubourg St. Honoré, begging his uncle to take him in for a few days, and how, in a single instant that was like a lightning flash, the Great Idea had come to him.What gigantic and appalling madness it had all been! And yet, for a time, how easy of execution. For a time. Now ... He gave another quick shiver, for his mind came back to what beset him and compassed him round about. Perils seen and hidden.The peril seen was ever before his eyes. Against the light of day it loomed a gigantic and portentous shadow, and it threatened him—the figure of Ste. Mariewho knew. His reason told him that, if due care were used, this danger need not be too formidable, and indeed in his heart he rather despised Ste. Marie as an individual; but the man's nerve was broken and, in these days, fear swept wave-like over reason and had its way with him. Fear looked up to this looming portentous shadow, and saw there youth and health and strength, courage and hopefulness, and (best of all armours) a righteous cause. How was an ill and tired and wicked old man to fight against these? It became an obsession, the figure of this youth: it darkened the sun at noonday, and at night it stood beside Captain Stewart's bed in the darkness and watched him and waited, and the very air he breathed came chill and dark from its silent presence there.But there were perils unseen as well as seen. He felt invisible threads drawing round him, weaving closer and closer, and he dared not even try how strong they were lest they prove to be cables of steel. He was almost certain that his niece knew something or at the least suspected. As has already been pointed out, the two saw very little of each other, but on the occasions of their last few meetings it had seemed to him that the girl watched him with a strange stare, and tried always to be in her grandfather's chamber when he called to make his inquiries. Once, stirred by a moment's bravado, he asked her if M. Ste. Marie had returned from his mysterious absence, and the girl said—"No. He has not come back yet, but I expect him soon now—with news of Arthur. We shall all be very glad to see him, grandfather and Richard Hartley and I."It was not a very consequential speech, and to tell the truth it was what, in the girl's own country, would be termed pure "bluff," but to Captain Stewart it rang harsh and loud with evil significance, and he went out of that room cold at heart. What plans were they perfecting among them? What invisible nets for his feet?And there was another thing still. Within the past two or three days he had become convinced that his movements were being watched. (And that would be Richard Hartley at work, he said to himself.) Faces vaguely familiar began to confront him in the street, in restaurants and cafés. Once he thought his rooms had been ransacked during his absence at La Lierre, though his servant stoutly maintained that they had never been left unoccupied save for a half-hour's marketing. Finally, on the day before this morning by the rose gardens, he was sure that as he came out from the city in his car he was followed at a long distance by another motor. He saw it behind him after he had left the city gate, the Porte de Versailles, and he saw it again after he had left the main route at Issy, and entered the little Rue Barbes which led to La Lierre. Of course he promptly did the only possible thing under the circumstances. He dashed on past the long stretch of wall, swung into the main avenue beyond and continued, through Clamart, to the Meudon wood, as if he were going to St. Cloud. In the labyrinth of roads and lanes there he came to a halt, and after a half-hour's wait ran slowly back to La Lierre.There was no further sign of the other car, the pursuer, if so it had been; but he passed two or three men on bicycles and others walking, and what one of these might not be a spy paid to track him down?It had frightened him badly, that hour of suspense and flight, and he determined to remain at La Lierre for at least a few days, and wrote to his servant in the Rue du Faubourg to forward his letters there under the false name by which he had hired the place.He was thinking very wearily of all these things as he sat on the fallen tree trunk in the garden and stared unseeing across tangled ranks of roses. And after awhile his thoughts, as they were wont to do, returned to Ste. Marie—that looming shadow which darkened the sunlight, that incubus of fear which clung to him night and day. He was so absorbed that he did not hear sounds which might otherwise have roused him. He heard nothing, saw nothing, save that which his fevered mind projected, until a voice spoke his name.He looked over his shoulder thinking that O'Hara had sought him out. He turned a little on the tree trunk to see more easily, and the image of his dread stood there a living and very literal shadow against the daylight.Captain Stewart's overstrained nerves were in no state to bear a sudden shock. He gave a voiceless, whispering cry, and he began to tremble very violently so that his teeth chattered. All at once he got to his feet and began to stumble away backwards, but a projecting limb of the fallen tree caught him and held him fast. It must be that the man was in a sort of frenzy. He must have seen through a red mist just then, for when he found that he could not escape his hand went swiftly to his coat pocket, and in his white and contorted face there was murder, plain and unmistakable.[image]"His hand went swiftly to his coat pocket."Ste. Marie was too lame to spring aside or to dash upon the man across intervening obstacles and defend himself. He stood still in his place and waited. And it was characteristic of him that at that moment he felt no fear, only a fine sense of exhilaration. Open danger had no terrors for him. It was secret peril that unnerved him, as in the matter of the poison a week before.Captain Stewart's hand fell away empty and Ste. Marie laughed."Left it at the house?" said he. "You seem to have no luck, Stewart. First the cat drinks the poison and then you leave your pistol at home. Dear! dear! I'm afraid you're careless."Captain Stewart stared at the younger man under his brows. His face was grey and he was still shivering, but the sudden agony of fear, which had been after all only a jangle of nerves, was gone away. He looked upon Ste. Marie's gay and untroubled face with a dull wonder, and he began to feel a grudging admiration for the man who could face death without even turning pale. He pulled out his watch and looked at it."I did not know," he said, "that this was your hour out of doors." As a matter of fact he had quite forgotten that the arrangement existed. When he had first heard of it he had protested vigorously, but had been overborne by O'Hara with the plea that they owed their prisoner something for having come near to poisoning him, and Stewart did not care to have any further attention called to that matter: it had already put a severe strain upon the relations at La Lierre."Well," observed Ste. Marie, "I told you you were careless. That proves it. Come! Can't we sit down for a little chat? I haven't seen you since I was your guest at the other address—the town address. It seems to have become a habit of mine, doesn't it? being your guest." He laughed cheerfully, but Captain Stewart continued to regard him without smiling."If you imagine," said the elder man, "that this place belongs to me you are mistaken. I came here to-day to make a visit." But Ste. Marie sat down at one end of the tree trunk and shook his head."Oh, come, come!" said he. "Why keep up the pretence? You must know that I know all about the whole affair Why, bless you, I know it all—even to the provisions of the will. Did you think I stumbled in here by accident? Well, I didn't, though I don't mind admitting to you that I remained by accident." He glanced over his shoulder towards the one-eyed Michel, who stood near by regarding the two with some alarm.Captain Stewart looked up sharply at the mention of the will, and he wetted his dry lips with his tongue. But after a moment's hesitation he sat down upon the tree trunk, and he seemed to shrink a little together, when his limbs and shoulders had relaxed, so that he looked small and feeble, like a very tired old man. He remained silent for a few moments, but at last he spoke without raising his eyes. He said—"And now that you—imagine yourself to know so very much, what do you expect to do about it?" Ste. Marie laughed again."Ah, that would be telling!" he cried. "You see, in one way I have the advantage (though outwardly all the advantage seems to be with your side): I know all about your game. I may call it a game? Yes? But you don't know mine. You don't know what I—what we may do at any moment. That's where we have the better of you.""It would seem to me," said Captain Stewart wearily, "that since you are a prisoner here and very unlikely to escape, we know with great accuracy what you will do—and what you will not.""Yes," admitted Ste. Marie. "It would seem so. It certainly would seem so. But you never can tell, can you?" And at that the elder man frowned and looked away. Thereafter another brief silence fell between the two, but at its end Ste. Marie spoke in a new tone, a very serious tone. He said—"Stewart, listen a moment!" and the other turned a sharp gaze upon him."You mustn't forget," said Ste. Marie, speaking slowly as if to choose his words with care—"you mustn't forget that I am not alone in this matter. You mustn't forget that there's Richard Hartley—and that there are others too. I'm a prisoner, yes, I'm helpless here for the present—perhaps—perhaps, but they are not,and they know, Stewart. They know."Captain Stewart's face remained grey and still, but his hands twisted and shook upon his knees until he hid them."I know well enough what you're waiting for," continued Ste. Marie. "You're waiting—you've got to wait, for Arthur Benham to come of age, or, better yet, for your father to die." He paused and shook his head."It's no good. You can't hold out as long as that—not by half. We shall have won the game long before. Listen to me! Do you know what would occur if your father should take a serious turn for the worse to-night—or at any time? Do you? Well, I'll tell you. A piece of information would be given him that would make another change in that will just as quickly as a pen could write the words. That's what would happen.""That is a lie!" said Captain Stewart in a dry whisper. "A lie." And Ste. Marie contented himself with a slight smile by way of answer. He was by no means sure that what he said was true, but he argued that since Hartley suspected or, perhaps by this time, knew so much, he would certainly not allow old David to die without doing what he could do in an effort to save young Arthur's fortune from a rascal. In any event, true or false, the words had had the desired effect. Captain Stewart was plainly frightened by them."May I make a suggestion?" asked the younger man. The other did not answer him and he made it."Give it up!" said he. "You're riding for a tremendous fall, you know. We shall smash you completely in the end. It'll mean worse than ruin—much worse. Give it up, now, before you're too late. Help me to send for Hartley, and we'll take the boy back to his home. Some story can be managed that will leave you out of the thing altogether, and those who know will hold their tongues. It's your last chance, Stewart. I advise you to take it."Captain Stewart turned his grey face slowly and looked at the other man with a sort of dull and apathetic wonder."Are you mad?" he asked in a voice which was altogether without feeling of any kind. "Are you quite mad?""On the contrary," said Ste. Marie, "I am quite sane, and I'm offering you a chance to save yourself before it's too late."Don't misunderstand me!" he said. "I am not urging this out of any sympathy for you. I urge it because it will bring about what I wish a little more quickly, also because it will save your family from the disgrace of your smash-up. That's why I'm making my suggestion."Captain Stewart was silent for a little while, but after that he got heavily to his feet."I think you must be quite mad," said he, as before, in a voice altogether devoid of expression. "I cannot talk with madmen." He beckoned to the old Michel, who stood near-by leaning upon his carbine, and when the gardener had approached, he said—"Take this—prisoner back to his room!"Ste. Marie rose with a little sigh. He said—"I'm sorry, but you'll admit I have done my best for you. I've warned you. I shan't do it again. We shall smash you now, without mercy.""Take him away!" cried Captain Stewart in a sudden loud voice, and the old Michel touched his charge upon the shoulder. So Ste. Marie went without further words. From a little distance he looked back, and the other man still stood by the fallen tree trunk, bent a little, his arms hanging lax beside him, and his face, Ste. Marie thought fancifully, was like the face of a man damned.CHAPTER XXIIITHE LAST ARROW—AND A PROMISEThe one bird-like eye of the old Michel regarded Ste. Marie with a glance of mingled cunning and humour. It might have been said to twinkle."To the east, monsieur?" inquired the old Michel."Precisely!" said Ste. Marie. "To the east,mon vieux." It was the morning of the fourth day after that talk with Captain Stewart beside the rose gardens.The two bore to the eastward, down among the trees, and presently came to the spot where a certain trespasser had once leapt down from the top of the high wall and had been shot for his pains. The old Michel halted and leant upon the barrel of his carbine. With an air of complete detachment, an air vague and aloof as of one in a reverie, he gazed away over the tree-tops of the ragged park; but Ste. Marie went in under the row of lilac shrubs which stood close against the wall, and a passer-by might have thought the man looking for figs on thistles—for lilacs in late July. He had gone there with eagerness, with flushed cheeks and bright eyes; he emerged, after some moments, moving slowly, with downcast head."There are no lilac blooms now, monsieur," observed the old Michel, and his prisoner said in a low voice—"No,mon vieux. No. There are none." He sighed and drew a long breath. So the two stood for some time silent, Ste. Marie a little pale, his eyes fixed upon the ground, his hands chafing together behind him: the gardener with his one bright eye upon his charge. But in the end Ste. Marie sighed again and began to move away, followed by the gardener. They went across the broad park, past the double row of larches, through that space where the chestnut trees stood in straight close rows, and so came to the west wall which skirted the road to Clamart. Ste. Marie felt in his pocket and withdrew the last of the four letters—the last there could be, for he had no more stamps. The others he had thrown over the wall, one each morning, beginning with the day after he had made the first attempt to bribe old Michel. As he had expected, twenty-four hours of avaricious reflection had proved too much for that gnome-like being.One each day he had thrown over the wall, weighted with a pebble tucked loosely under the flap of the improvised envelope in such a manner that it would drop out when the letter struck the ground beyond. And each following day he had gone with high hopes to the appointed place under the cedar-tree to pick figs of thistles, lilac blooms in late July. But there had been nothing there."Turn your back, Michel!" said Ste. Marie. And the old man said from a little distance—"It is turned, monsieur. I see nothing. Monsieur throws little stones at the birds to amuse himself. It does not concern me."Ste. Marie slipped a pebble under the flap of the envelope and threw his letter over the wall. It went like a soaring bird, whirling horizontally, and it must have fallen far out in the middle of the road near the tramway. For the third time that morning the prisoner drew a sigh. He said—"You may turn round now, my friend," and the old Michel faced him."We have shot our last arrow," said he. "If this also fails, I think—well, I think thebon Dieuwill have to help us then."Michel," he inquired, "do you know how to pray?""Sacred thousand swine, no!" cried the ancient gnome in something between astonishment and horror. "No, monsieur.Pas mon metier, ça!" He shook his head rapidly from side to side like one of those toys in a shop window whose heads oscillate upon a pivot. But all at once a gleam of inspiration sparkled in his lone eye."There is the old Justine!" he suggested. "Toujours sur les genoux, cette imbécile la.""In that case," said Ste. Marie, "you might ask the lady to say one little extra prayer for—the pebble I threw at the birds just now.Hein?" He withdrew from his pocket the last two louis d'or, and Michel took them in a trembling hand. There remained but the note of fifty francs and some silver."The prayer shall be said, monsieur," declared the gardener. "It shall be said. She shall pray all night or I will kill her.""Thank you!" said Ste. Marie. "You are kindness itself. A gentle soul."They turned away to retrace their steps, and Michel rubbed the side of his head with a reflective air."The old one is a madman," said he. The "old one" meant Captain Stewart. "A madman. Each day he is madder, and this morning he struck me—here on the head, because I was too slow. Eh! a little more of that, and—who knows? Just a little more, a small little! Am I a dog, to be beaten?Hein?Je ne le crois pas.Hè!" He called Captain Stewart two unprintable names, and, after a moment's thought, he called him an animal, which is not so much of an anti-climax as it may seem, because to call anybody an animal in French is a serious matter.The gardener was working himself up into something of a quiet passion, and Ste. Marie said—"Softly, my friend! Softly!" It occurred to him that the man's resentment might be of use, later on, and he said—"You speak the truth. The old one is an animal, and he is also a great rascal." But Michel betrayed the makings of a philosopher. He said with profound conviction—"Monsieur, all men are great rascals. It is I who say it." And at that Ste. Marie had to laugh.He had not consciously directed his feet, but without direction they led him round the corner of the rose gardens and towards therond point. He knew well whom he would find there. She had not failed him during the past three days. Each morning he had found her in her place, and, for his allotted hour—which more than once stretched itself out to nearly two hours, if he had but known—they had sat together on the stone bench or, tiring of that, had walked under the trees beyond.Long afterwards Ste. Marie looked back upon these hours with, among other emotions, a great wonder, at himself and at her. It seemed to him then one of the strangest relationships—intimacies, for it might well be so called—that ever existed between a man and a woman, and he was amazed at the ease, the unconsciousness with which it had come about.But during this time he did not allow himself to wonder or to examine—scarcely even to think. The hours were golden hours, unrelated, he told himself, to anything else in his life or in his interest. They were like pleasant dreams, very sweet while they endured, but to be put away and forgotten upon the waking. Only, in that long afterwards, he knew that they had not been put away, that they had been with him always, that the morning hour had remained in his thoughts all the rest of the long day, and that he had waked upon the morrow with a keen and exquisite sense of something sweet to come.It was a strange fool's paradise that the man dwelt in, and in some small vague measure he must, even at the time, have known it, for it is certain that he deliberately held himself away from thought—realisation; that he deliberately shut his eyes, held his ears, lest he should hear or see.That he was not faithless to his duty has been shown. He did his utmost there, but he was for the time helpless save for efforts to communicate with Richard Hartley, and those efforts could consume no more than ten minutes out of the weary day.So he drifted, wilfully blind to bearings, wilfully deaf to sound of warning or peril, and he found a companionship sweeter and fuller and more perfect than he had ever before known in all his life, though that is not to say very much, because sympathetic companionships between men and women are very rare indeed, and Ste. Marie had never experienced anything which could fairly be called by that name. He had had, as has been related, many flirtations and not a few so-called love affairs; but neither of these two sorts of intimacies are of necessity true intimacies at all: men often feel varying degrees of love for women without the least true understanding or sympathy or real companionship.He was wondering as he bore round the corner of the rose gardens, on this day, in just what mood he would find her. It seemed to him that in their brief acquaintance he had seen her in almost all the moods there are, from bitter gloom to the irrepressible gaiety of a little child. He had told her once that she was like an organ, and she had laughed at him for being pretentious and high-flown, though she could upon occasion be quite high-flown enough herself for all ordinary purposes.He reached the cleared margin of therond point, and a little cold fear stirred in him when he did not hear her singing under her breath, as she was wont to do when alone, but he went forward, and she was there in her place upon the stone bench. She had been reading, but the book lay forgotten beside her and she sat idle, her head laid back against the thick stems of shrubbery which grew behind, her hands in her lap. It was a warm still morning with the promise of a hot afternoon, and the girl was dressed in something very thin and transparent and cool-looking, open in a little square at the throat and with sleeves which came only to her elbows. The material was pale and dull yellow with very vaguely defined green leaves in it, and against it the girl's dark and clear skin glowed rich and warm and living, as pearls glow and seem to throb against the dead tints of the fabric upon which they are laid.She did not move when he came before her, but looked up to him gravely without stirring her head.[image]"She did not move when he came before her.""I didn't hear you come," said she. "You don't drag your left leg any more. You walk almost as well as if you had never been wounded.""I'm almost all right again," he answered. "I suppose I couldn't run or jump, but I certainly can walk very much like a human being. May I sit down?"Mlle. O'Hara put out one hand and drew the book closer to make a place for him on the stone bench, and he settled himself comfortably there, turned a little so that he was facing towards her.It was indicative of the state of intimacy into which the two had grown that they did not make polite conversation with each other, but indeed were silent for some little time after Ste. Marie had seated himself. It was he who spoke first. He said—"You look vaguely classical to-day. I have been trying to guess why and I cannot. Perhaps it's because your—what does one say: frock, dress, gown? because it is cut out square at the throat.""If you mean by classical, Greek," said she, "it wouldn't be square at the neck at all. It would be pointed—V-shaped. And it would be very different in other ways too. You are not an observing person after all.""For all that," insisted Ste. Marie, "you look classical. You look like some lady one reads about in Greek poems—Helen or Iphigenia or Medea or somebody.""Helen had yellow hair, hadn't she?" objected Mlle. O'Hara. "I should think I probably look more like Medea: Medea in Colchis before Jason——" She seemed suddenly to realise that she had hit upon an unfortunate example, for she stopped short in the middle of her sentence, and a wave of colour swept up over her throat and face. For a moment Ste. Marie did not understand, then he gave a low exclamation, for Medea certainly had been an unhappy name. He remembered something that Richard Hartley had said about that lady a long time before.He made another mistake, for to lessen the moment's embarrassment he gave speech to the first thought which entered his mind. He said—"Some one once remarked that you looked like the young Juno—before marriage. I expect it's true too."She turned upon him swiftly."Who said that?" she demanded. "Who has ever talked to you about me?""I beg your pardon!" he said. "I seem to be singularly stupid this morning. A mild lunacy. You must forgive me, if you can. To tell you what you ask would be to enter upon forbidden ground, and I mustn't do that.""Still, I should like to know," said the girl watching him with sombre eyes."Well then," said he, "it was a little Jewish photographer in the Boulevard de la Madeleine." And she said—"Oh!" in a rather disappointed tone and looked away."We seem to be making conversation chiefly about my personal appearance," she said presently. "There must be other topics, if one should try hard to find them. Tell me stories! You told me stories yesterday; tell me more! You seem to be in a classical mood. You shall be Odysseus, and I will be Nausicaa, the interesting laundress. Tell me about wanderings and things! Have you any more islands for me?""Yes!" said Ste. Marie, nodding at her slowly. "Yes, Nausicaa, I have more islands for you. The seas are full of islands. What kind do you want?""A warm one," said the girl. "Even on a hot day like this I choose a warm one, because I hate the cold." She settled herself more comfortably, with a little sigh of content that was exactly like a child's happy sigh when stories are going to be told before the fire."I know an island," said Ste. Marie, "that I think you would like because it is warm and beautiful and very far away from troubles of all kinds. As well as I could make out when I went there nobody on the island had ever even heard of trouble. Oh yes, you'd like it. The people there are brown, and they're as beautiful as their own island. They wear hibiscus flowers stuck in their hair and they very seldom do any work.""I want to go there!" cried Mlle. Coira O'Hara. "I want to go there now, this afternoon, at once! Where is it?""It's in the South Pacific," said he, "not so very far from Samoa and Fiji and other groups that you will have heard about, and its name is Vavau. It's one of the Tongans. It's a high, volcanic island, not a flat, coral one like the southern Tongans. I came to it one evening, sailing north from Nukualofa and Haapai, and it looked to me like a single big mountain jutting up out of the sea, black-green against the sunset. It was very impressive. But it isn't a single mountain, it's a lot of high broken hills covered with a tangle of vegetation and set round a narrow bay, a sort of fjord, three or four miles long, and at the inner end of this are the village and the stores of the few white traders."I'm afraid," said Ste. Marie, shaking his head—"I'm afraid I can't tell you about it, after all. I can't seem to find the words. You can't put into language—at least I can't—those slow hot island days that are never too hot because the trades blow fresh and strong, or the island nights that are more like black velvet with pearls sewed on it than anything else. You can't describe the smell of orange-groves and the look of palm-trees against the sky. You can't tell about the sweet simple natural hospitality of the natives. They're like little unsuspicious children."In short," said he, "I shall have to give it up, after all, just because it's too big for me. I can only say that it's beautiful and unspeakably remote from the world, and that I think I should like to go back to Vavau and stay a long time, and let the rest of the world go hang."Mlle. O'Hara stared across the park of La Lierre with wide and shadowy eyes, and her lips trembled a little."Oh, I want to go there!" she cried again. "I want to go there—and rest—and forget everything!"She turned upon him with a sudden bitter resentment."Why do you tell me things like that?" she cried. "Oh yes, I know. I asked you, but—— Can't you see?"To hide oneself away in a place like that!" she said. "To let the sun warm you and the trade winds blow away—all that had ever tortured you! Just to rest and be at peace!"She turned her eyes to him once more."You needn't be afraid that you have failed to make me see your island! I see it. I feel it. It doesn't need many words. I can shut my eyes, and I am there. But it was a little cruel. Oh, I know, I asked for it."It's like the garden of the Hesperides, isn't it?""Very like it," said Ste. Marie, "because there are oranges—groves of them. (And they were the golden apples, I take it.) Also it is very far away from the world, and the people live in complete and careless ignorance of how the world goes on. Emperors and kings die, wars come and go; but they hear only a little faint echo of it all, long afterwards, and even that doesn't interest them.""I know," she said. "I understand. Didn't you know I'd understand?""Yes," said he, nodding. "I suppose I did. We—feel things rather alike, I suppose. We don't have to say them all out.""I wonder," she said in a low voice, "if I'm glad or sorry." She stared under her brows at the man beside her."For it is very probable that when we have left La Lierre you and I shall never meet again. I wonder if I'm——" For some obscure reason she broke off there and turned her eyes away, and she remained without speaking for a long time. Her mind, as she sat there, seemed to go back to that southern island and to its peace and loveliness, for Ste. Marie, who watched her, saw a little smile come to her lips, and he saw her eyes half close and grow soft and tender, as if what they saw were very sweet to her. He watched many different expressions come upon the girl's face and go again, but at last he seemed to see the old bitterness return there and struggle with something wistful and eager."I envy you your wide wanderings," she said presently. "Oh, I envy you more than I can find any words for. Your will is the wind's will. You go where your fancy leads you, and you're free—free."We have wandered, you know," said she, "my father and I. I can't remember when we ever had a home to live in. But that is—that is different—a different kind of wandering.""Yes," said Ste. Marie. "Yes, perhaps." And within himself he said, with sorrow and pity: "Different indeed!"As if at some sudden thought the girl looked up at him quickly."Did that sound regretful?" she asked. "Did what I say sound—disloyal to my father? I didn't mean it to. I don't want you to think that I regret it. I don't. It has meant being with my father. Wherever he has gone I have gone with him, and if anything ever has been—unpleasant, I was willing, oh, I was glad, glad to put up with it for his sake and because I could be with him. If I have made his life a little happier by sharing it, I am glad of everything. I don't regret.""And yet," said Ste. Marie gently, "it must have been hard sometimes." He pictured to himself that roving existence lived among such people as O'Hara must have known, and it sent a hot wave of anger and distress over him from head to foot. But the girl said—"I had my father. The rest of it didn't matter in the face of that."After a little silence she said—"M. Ste. Marie!" And the man said—"What is it, mademoiselle?""You spoke the other day," she said, hesitating over her words, "about my aunt, Lady Margaret Craith. I suppose I ought not to ask you more about her, for my father quarrelled with his people very long ago, and he broke with them altogether. But—surely it can do no harm—just for a moment—just a very little! Could you tell me a little about her, M. Ste. Marie? What she is like and—and how she lives—and things like that?"So Ste. Marie told her all that he could of the old Irishwoman who lived alone in her great house and ruled with a slack Irish hand, a sweet Irish heart, over tenants and dependants. And when he had come to an end the girl drew a little sigh and said—"Thank you! I am so glad to hear of her. I—wish everything were different, so that——I——think I should love her very much if I might.""Mademoiselle," said Ste. Marie, "will you promise me something?"She looked at him with her sombre eyes, and after a little she said—"I am afraid you must tell me first what it is. I cannot promise blindly." He said—"I want you to promise me that if anything ever should happen—any difficulty, trouble—anything to put you in the position of needing care or help or sympathy——"But she broke in upon him with a swift alarm, crying—"What do you mean? You're trying to hint at something that I don't know. What difficulty or trouble could happen to me? Please tell me just what you mean.""I'm not hinting at any mystery," said Ste. Marie. "I don't know of anything that is going to happen to you, but—will you forgive me for saying it?—your father is, I take it, often exposed to danger of various sorts. I'm afraid I can't quite express myself, only, if any trouble should come to you, mademoiselle, will you promise me to go to Lady Margaret, your aunt, and tell her who you are, and let her care for you?""There was an absolute break," she said. "Complete." But the man shook his head, saying—"Lady Margaret won't think of that. She'll think only of you—that she can mother you, perhaps save you grief—and of herself, that in her old age she has a daughter. It would make a lonely old woman very happy, mademoiselle."The girl bent her head away from him, and Ste. Marie saw, for the first time since he had known her, tears in her eyes. After a long time she said—"I promise then."But," she said, "it is very unlikely that it should ever come about—for more than one reason. Very unlikely.""Still, mademoiselle," said he, "I am glad you have promised. This is an uncertain world. One never can tell what will come with the to-morrows.""I can," the girl said with a little tired smile that Ste. Marie did not understand. "I can tell. I can see all the to-morrows—a long, long row of them. I know just what they're going to be like—to the very end."But the man rose to his feet and looked down upon her as she sat before him. And he shook his head."You are mistaken," he said. "Pardon me, but you are mistaken. No one can see to-morrow—or the end of anything. The end may surprise you very much.""I wish it would!" cried Mlle. O'Hara. "Oh, I wish it would!"CHAPTER XXIVTHE JOINT IN THE ARMOURSte. Marie put down a book as O'Hara came into the room and rose to meet his visitor."I'm compelled," said the Irishman, "to put you on your honour to-day if you are to go out as usual. Michel has been sent on an errand, and I am busy with letters. I shall have to put you on your honour not to make any effort to escape. Is that agreed to? I shall trust you altogether. You could manage to scramble over the wall somehow, I suppose, and get clean away; but I think you won't try it if you give your word.""I give my word gladly," said Ste. Marie. "And thanks very much. You've been uncommonly kind to me here. I—regret more than I can say that we—that we find ourselves on opposite sides, as it were. I wish we were fighting for the same cause."The Irishman looked at the younger man sharply for an instant, and he made as if he would speak, but seemed to think better of it. In the end he said—"Yes, quite so! Quite so! Of course you understand that any consideration I have used towards you has been by way of making amends for—for an unfortunate occurrence."Ste. Marie laughed."The poison!" said he. "Yes, I know. And, of course, I know who was at the bottom of that. By the way, I met Stewart in the garden the other day. Did he tell you? He was rather nervous and tried to shoot me, but he had left his revolver at the house—at least, it wasn't in his pocket when he reached for it."O'Hara's hard face twitched suddenly, as if in anger, and he gave an exclamation under his breath, so the younger man inferred that "old Charlie" had not spoken of their encounter. And after that the Irishman once more turned a sharp, frowning glance upon his prisoner as if he were puzzled about something. But, as before, he stopped short of speech and at last turned away."Just a moment!" said the younger man. He asked—"Is it fair to inquire how long I may expect to be confined here? I don't want to presume upon your good nature too far, but if you could tell me I should be glad to know."The Irishman hesitated a moment, and then said—"I don't know why I shouldn't answer that. It can't help you, so far as I can see, to do anything which would hinder us. You'll stay until Arthur Benham comes of age, which will be in about two months from now.""Yes," said the other. "Thanks! I thought so. Until young Arthur comes of age and receives his patrimony, or until old David Stewart dies. Of course, that might happen at any hour."The Irishman said—"I don't quite see what—Ah, yes, to be sure! Yes, I see. Well, I should count upon eight weeks, if I were you. In eight weeks the boy will be independent of them all, and we shall go to England for the wedding.""The wedding?" cried Ste. Marie. "What wedding?—Ah!""Arthur Benham and my daughter are to be married," said O'Hara, "so soon as he reaches his majority. I thought you knew that."In a very vague fashion he realised that he had expected it. And still the definite words came to him with a shock which was like a physical blow, and he turned his back with a man's natural instinct to hide his feeling. Certainly that was the logical conclusion to be drawn from known premises. That was to be the O'Haras' reward for their labour. To Stewart the great fortune, to the O'Haras a good marriage for the girl and an assured future. That was reward enough surely for a few weeks of angling and decoying and luring and lying. That was what she had meant, on the day before, by saying that she could see all the to-morrows. He realised that he must have been expecting something like this, but the thought turned him sick nevertheless. He could not forget the girl as he had come to know her during the past week. He could not face with any calmness the thought of her as the adventuress who had lured poor Arthur Benham on to destruction. It was an impossible thought. He could have laughed at it in scornful anger, and yet—What else was she?He began to realise that his action in turning his back upon the other man in the middle of a conversation must look very odd, and he faced round again trying to drive from his expression the pain and distress which he knew must be there plain to see. But he need not have troubled himself, for the other man was standing before the sext window and looking out into the morning sunlight, and his hard bony face had so altered that Ste. Marie stared at him with open amazement. He thought O'Hara must be ill."I want to see her married!" cried the Irishman suddenly. And it was a new voice, a voice Ste. Marie did not know. It shook a little with an emotion that sat uncouthly upon this grim stern man."I want to see her married and safe!" he said. "I want her to be rid of this damnable, roving, cheap existence. I want her to be rid of me and my rotten friends and my rotten life." He chafed his hands together before him, and his tired eyes fixed themselves upon something that he seemed to see out of the window, and glared at it fiercely."I should like," said he, "to die on the day after her wedding, and so be out of her way for ever. I don't want her to have any shadows cast over her from the past. I don't want her to open closet doors and find skeletons there. I want her to be free—free to live the sort of life she was born to and has a right to."He turned sharply upon the younger man."You've seen her!" he cried. "You've talked to her, you know her! Think of that girl dragged about Europe with me ever since she was a little child! Think of the people she's had to know, the things she's had to see! Do you wonder that I want to have her free of it all, married and safe and comfortable and in peace? Do you? I tell you it has driven me as nearly mad as a man can be. But I couldn't go mad because I had to take care of her. I couldn't even die because she'd have been left alone, without any one to look out for her."She wouldn't leave me! I could have settled her somewhere in some quiet place where she'd have been quit at least of shady rotten people, but she wouldn't have it. She's stuck to me always through good times and bad. She's kept my heart up when I'd have been ready to cut my throat if I'd been alone. She's been the—bravest and faithfullest—Well I—And look at her! Look at her now! Think of what she's had to see and know—the people she's had to live with—and look at her! Has any of it stuck to her? Has it cheapened her in any littlest way? No, by God! She has come through it all like a—like a Sister of Charity through a city slum—like an angel through the dark!"The Irishman broke off speaking, for his voice was beyond control, but after a moment he went on again more calmly—"This boy, this young Benham, is a fool, but he's not a mean fool. She'll make a man of him. And, married to him, she'll have the comforts that she ought to have and the care and—freedom. She'll have a chance to live the life that she had a right to, among the sort of people she has a right to know. I'm not afraid for her. She'll do her part and more. She'll hold up her head among duchesses, that girl. I'm not afraid for her."He said this last sentence over several times, standing before the window and staring out at the sun upon the treetops. "I'm not afraid for her.... I'm not afraid for her." He seemed to have forgotten that the younger man was in the room, for he did not look towards him again or pay him any attention for a long while. He only gazed out of the window into the fresh morning sunlight, and his face worked and quivered and his lean hands chafed restlessly together before him.But at last he seemed to realise where he was, for he turned with a sudden start, and he stared at Ste. Marie frowning as if the younger man were some one he had never seen before. He said—"Ah, yes, yes! You were wanting to go out into the garden. Yes, quite so! I—I was thinking of something else. I seem to be absent-minded of late. Don't let me keep you here!" He seemed a little embarrassed and ill at ease, and Ste. Marie said—"Oh, thanks! There's no hurry. However, I'll go, I think. It's after eleven. I understand that I'm on my honour not to climb over the wall or burrow under it or batter it down. That's understood. I——"He felt that he ought to say something in acknowledgment of O'Hara's long speech about his daughter; but he could think of nothing to say, and besides, the Irishman seemed not to expect any comment upon his strange outburst. So, in the end, Ste. Marie nodded and went out of the room without further ceremony.He had been astonished almost beyond words at that sudden and unlooked-for breakdown of the other man's impregnable reserve, and dimly he realised that it must have come out of some very extraordinary nervous strain; but he himself had been in no state to give the Irishman's words the attention and thought that he would have given them at another time. His mind, his whole field of mental vision had been full of one great fact—the girl was to be married to young Arthur Benham. The thing loomed gigantic before him, and, in some strange way, terrifying. He could neither see nor think beyond it. O'Hara's burst of confidence had reached his ears very faintly, as if from a great distance—poignant but only half comprehended words, to be reflected upon later in their own time.He stumbled down the ill-lighted stair with fixed, wide, unseeing eyes, and he said one sentence over and over aloud—as the Irishman standing beside the window had said another."She is going to be married! She is going to be married!"It would seem that he must have forgotten his previous half knowledge of the fact. It would seem to have remained, as at the first hearing, a great and appalling shock—thunderous out of a blue sky.Below in the open his feet led him mechanically straight down under the trees, through the tangle of shrubbery beyond, and so to the wall under the cedar. Arrived there he awoke all at once to his task, and with a sort of frowning anger shook off the dream which enveloped him. His eyes sharpened and grew keen and eager. He said—"The last arrow! God send it reached home!" And so went in under the lilac shrubs.He was there longer than usual: unhampered now he may have made a larger search, but when at last he emerged Ste. Marie's hands were over his face, and his feet dragged slowly like an old man's feet.Without knowing that he had stirred he found himself some distance away, standing still beside a chestnut tree. A great wave of depression and fear and hopelessness swept him, and he shivered under it. He had an instant's wild panic, and mad, desperate thoughts surged upon him. He saw utter failure confronting him. He saw himself as helpless as a little child, his feeble efforts already spent for naught, and, like a little child, he was afraid. He would have rushed at that grim encircling wall and fought his way up and over it, but even as the impulse raced to his feet the momentary madness left him and he turned away. He could not do a dishonourable thing even for all he held dearest.He walked on in the direction which lay before him, but he took no heed of where he went; and Mlle. Coira O'Hara spoke to him twice before he heard or saw her.
CHAPTER XXII
A SETTLEMENT REFUSED
Captain Stewart had good reason to look depressed on that fresh and beautiful morning when Ste. Marie happened upon him beside the rose gardens. Matters had not gone well with him of late. He was ill and he was frightened, and he was much nearer than is agreeable to a complete nervous breakdown.
It seemed to him that perils beset him upon every side: perils both seen and unseen. He felt like a man who is hunted in the dark, hard pressed until his strength is gone and he can go no farther. He imagined himself to be that man shivering in the gloom in a strange place, hiding eyes and ears lest he see or hear something from which he cannot escape. He imagined the morning light to come very slow and cold and grey, and in it he saw round about him a silent ring of enemies, the men who had pursued him and run him down. He saw them standing there in the pale dawn, motionless, waiting for the day, and he knew that at last the chase was over and he was done for.
Crouching alone in the garden with the scent of roses in his nostrils, he wondered with a great and bitter amazement at that madman—himself of only a few months ago—who had sat down deliberately, in his proper senses, to play at cards with Fate, the great winner of all games. He wondered if, after all, he had been in his proper senses, for the deed now loomed before him gigantic and hideous in its criminal folly. His mind went drearily back to the beginning of it all, to the tremendous debts which had hounded him day and night; to his fear to speak of them with his father, who had never had the least mercy upon gamblers. He remembered, as if it were yesterday, the afternoon upon which he learnt of young Arthur's quarrel with his grandfather, old David's senile anger, and the boy's tempestuous exit from the house, vowing never to return. He remembered his talk with old David later on about the will, in which he learnt that he was now to have Arthur's share under certain conditions. He remembered how that very evening, three days after his disappearance, the lad had come secretly to the Rue du Faubourg St. Honoré, begging his uncle to take him in for a few days, and how, in a single instant that was like a lightning flash, the Great Idea had come to him.
What gigantic and appalling madness it had all been! And yet, for a time, how easy of execution. For a time. Now ... He gave another quick shiver, for his mind came back to what beset him and compassed him round about. Perils seen and hidden.
The peril seen was ever before his eyes. Against the light of day it loomed a gigantic and portentous shadow, and it threatened him—the figure of Ste. Mariewho knew. His reason told him that, if due care were used, this danger need not be too formidable, and indeed in his heart he rather despised Ste. Marie as an individual; but the man's nerve was broken and, in these days, fear swept wave-like over reason and had its way with him. Fear looked up to this looming portentous shadow, and saw there youth and health and strength, courage and hopefulness, and (best of all armours) a righteous cause. How was an ill and tired and wicked old man to fight against these? It became an obsession, the figure of this youth: it darkened the sun at noonday, and at night it stood beside Captain Stewart's bed in the darkness and watched him and waited, and the very air he breathed came chill and dark from its silent presence there.
But there were perils unseen as well as seen. He felt invisible threads drawing round him, weaving closer and closer, and he dared not even try how strong they were lest they prove to be cables of steel. He was almost certain that his niece knew something or at the least suspected. As has already been pointed out, the two saw very little of each other, but on the occasions of their last few meetings it had seemed to him that the girl watched him with a strange stare, and tried always to be in her grandfather's chamber when he called to make his inquiries. Once, stirred by a moment's bravado, he asked her if M. Ste. Marie had returned from his mysterious absence, and the girl said—
"No. He has not come back yet, but I expect him soon now—with news of Arthur. We shall all be very glad to see him, grandfather and Richard Hartley and I."
It was not a very consequential speech, and to tell the truth it was what, in the girl's own country, would be termed pure "bluff," but to Captain Stewart it rang harsh and loud with evil significance, and he went out of that room cold at heart. What plans were they perfecting among them? What invisible nets for his feet?
And there was another thing still. Within the past two or three days he had become convinced that his movements were being watched. (And that would be Richard Hartley at work, he said to himself.) Faces vaguely familiar began to confront him in the street, in restaurants and cafés. Once he thought his rooms had been ransacked during his absence at La Lierre, though his servant stoutly maintained that they had never been left unoccupied save for a half-hour's marketing. Finally, on the day before this morning by the rose gardens, he was sure that as he came out from the city in his car he was followed at a long distance by another motor. He saw it behind him after he had left the city gate, the Porte de Versailles, and he saw it again after he had left the main route at Issy, and entered the little Rue Barbes which led to La Lierre. Of course he promptly did the only possible thing under the circumstances. He dashed on past the long stretch of wall, swung into the main avenue beyond and continued, through Clamart, to the Meudon wood, as if he were going to St. Cloud. In the labyrinth of roads and lanes there he came to a halt, and after a half-hour's wait ran slowly back to La Lierre.
There was no further sign of the other car, the pursuer, if so it had been; but he passed two or three men on bicycles and others walking, and what one of these might not be a spy paid to track him down?
It had frightened him badly, that hour of suspense and flight, and he determined to remain at La Lierre for at least a few days, and wrote to his servant in the Rue du Faubourg to forward his letters there under the false name by which he had hired the place.
He was thinking very wearily of all these things as he sat on the fallen tree trunk in the garden and stared unseeing across tangled ranks of roses. And after awhile his thoughts, as they were wont to do, returned to Ste. Marie—that looming shadow which darkened the sunlight, that incubus of fear which clung to him night and day. He was so absorbed that he did not hear sounds which might otherwise have roused him. He heard nothing, saw nothing, save that which his fevered mind projected, until a voice spoke his name.
He looked over his shoulder thinking that O'Hara had sought him out. He turned a little on the tree trunk to see more easily, and the image of his dread stood there a living and very literal shadow against the daylight.
Captain Stewart's overstrained nerves were in no state to bear a sudden shock. He gave a voiceless, whispering cry, and he began to tremble very violently so that his teeth chattered. All at once he got to his feet and began to stumble away backwards, but a projecting limb of the fallen tree caught him and held him fast. It must be that the man was in a sort of frenzy. He must have seen through a red mist just then, for when he found that he could not escape his hand went swiftly to his coat pocket, and in his white and contorted face there was murder, plain and unmistakable.
[image]"His hand went swiftly to his coat pocket."
[image]
[image]
"His hand went swiftly to his coat pocket."
Ste. Marie was too lame to spring aside or to dash upon the man across intervening obstacles and defend himself. He stood still in his place and waited. And it was characteristic of him that at that moment he felt no fear, only a fine sense of exhilaration. Open danger had no terrors for him. It was secret peril that unnerved him, as in the matter of the poison a week before.
Captain Stewart's hand fell away empty and Ste. Marie laughed.
"Left it at the house?" said he. "You seem to have no luck, Stewart. First the cat drinks the poison and then you leave your pistol at home. Dear! dear! I'm afraid you're careless."
Captain Stewart stared at the younger man under his brows. His face was grey and he was still shivering, but the sudden agony of fear, which had been after all only a jangle of nerves, was gone away. He looked upon Ste. Marie's gay and untroubled face with a dull wonder, and he began to feel a grudging admiration for the man who could face death without even turning pale. He pulled out his watch and looked at it.
"I did not know," he said, "that this was your hour out of doors." As a matter of fact he had quite forgotten that the arrangement existed. When he had first heard of it he had protested vigorously, but had been overborne by O'Hara with the plea that they owed their prisoner something for having come near to poisoning him, and Stewart did not care to have any further attention called to that matter: it had already put a severe strain upon the relations at La Lierre.
"Well," observed Ste. Marie, "I told you you were careless. That proves it. Come! Can't we sit down for a little chat? I haven't seen you since I was your guest at the other address—the town address. It seems to have become a habit of mine, doesn't it? being your guest." He laughed cheerfully, but Captain Stewart continued to regard him without smiling.
"If you imagine," said the elder man, "that this place belongs to me you are mistaken. I came here to-day to make a visit." But Ste. Marie sat down at one end of the tree trunk and shook his head.
"Oh, come, come!" said he. "Why keep up the pretence? You must know that I know all about the whole affair Why, bless you, I know it all—even to the provisions of the will. Did you think I stumbled in here by accident? Well, I didn't, though I don't mind admitting to you that I remained by accident." He glanced over his shoulder towards the one-eyed Michel, who stood near by regarding the two with some alarm.
Captain Stewart looked up sharply at the mention of the will, and he wetted his dry lips with his tongue. But after a moment's hesitation he sat down upon the tree trunk, and he seemed to shrink a little together, when his limbs and shoulders had relaxed, so that he looked small and feeble, like a very tired old man. He remained silent for a few moments, but at last he spoke without raising his eyes. He said—
"And now that you—imagine yourself to know so very much, what do you expect to do about it?" Ste. Marie laughed again.
"Ah, that would be telling!" he cried. "You see, in one way I have the advantage (though outwardly all the advantage seems to be with your side): I know all about your game. I may call it a game? Yes? But you don't know mine. You don't know what I—what we may do at any moment. That's where we have the better of you."
"It would seem to me," said Captain Stewart wearily, "that since you are a prisoner here and very unlikely to escape, we know with great accuracy what you will do—and what you will not."
"Yes," admitted Ste. Marie. "It would seem so. It certainly would seem so. But you never can tell, can you?" And at that the elder man frowned and looked away. Thereafter another brief silence fell between the two, but at its end Ste. Marie spoke in a new tone, a very serious tone. He said—
"Stewart, listen a moment!" and the other turned a sharp gaze upon him.
"You mustn't forget," said Ste. Marie, speaking slowly as if to choose his words with care—"you mustn't forget that I am not alone in this matter. You mustn't forget that there's Richard Hartley—and that there are others too. I'm a prisoner, yes, I'm helpless here for the present—perhaps—perhaps, but they are not,and they know, Stewart. They know."
Captain Stewart's face remained grey and still, but his hands twisted and shook upon his knees until he hid them.
"I know well enough what you're waiting for," continued Ste. Marie. "You're waiting—you've got to wait, for Arthur Benham to come of age, or, better yet, for your father to die." He paused and shook his head.
"It's no good. You can't hold out as long as that—not by half. We shall have won the game long before. Listen to me! Do you know what would occur if your father should take a serious turn for the worse to-night—or at any time? Do you? Well, I'll tell you. A piece of information would be given him that would make another change in that will just as quickly as a pen could write the words. That's what would happen."
"That is a lie!" said Captain Stewart in a dry whisper. "A lie." And Ste. Marie contented himself with a slight smile by way of answer. He was by no means sure that what he said was true, but he argued that since Hartley suspected or, perhaps by this time, knew so much, he would certainly not allow old David to die without doing what he could do in an effort to save young Arthur's fortune from a rascal. In any event, true or false, the words had had the desired effect. Captain Stewart was plainly frightened by them.
"May I make a suggestion?" asked the younger man. The other did not answer him and he made it.
"Give it up!" said he. "You're riding for a tremendous fall, you know. We shall smash you completely in the end. It'll mean worse than ruin—much worse. Give it up, now, before you're too late. Help me to send for Hartley, and we'll take the boy back to his home. Some story can be managed that will leave you out of the thing altogether, and those who know will hold their tongues. It's your last chance, Stewart. I advise you to take it."
Captain Stewart turned his grey face slowly and looked at the other man with a sort of dull and apathetic wonder.
"Are you mad?" he asked in a voice which was altogether without feeling of any kind. "Are you quite mad?"
"On the contrary," said Ste. Marie, "I am quite sane, and I'm offering you a chance to save yourself before it's too late.
"Don't misunderstand me!" he said. "I am not urging this out of any sympathy for you. I urge it because it will bring about what I wish a little more quickly, also because it will save your family from the disgrace of your smash-up. That's why I'm making my suggestion."
Captain Stewart was silent for a little while, but after that he got heavily to his feet.
"I think you must be quite mad," said he, as before, in a voice altogether devoid of expression. "I cannot talk with madmen." He beckoned to the old Michel, who stood near-by leaning upon his carbine, and when the gardener had approached, he said—
"Take this—prisoner back to his room!"
Ste. Marie rose with a little sigh. He said—
"I'm sorry, but you'll admit I have done my best for you. I've warned you. I shan't do it again. We shall smash you now, without mercy."
"Take him away!" cried Captain Stewart in a sudden loud voice, and the old Michel touched his charge upon the shoulder. So Ste. Marie went without further words. From a little distance he looked back, and the other man still stood by the fallen tree trunk, bent a little, his arms hanging lax beside him, and his face, Ste. Marie thought fancifully, was like the face of a man damned.
CHAPTER XXIII
THE LAST ARROW—AND A PROMISE
The one bird-like eye of the old Michel regarded Ste. Marie with a glance of mingled cunning and humour. It might have been said to twinkle.
"To the east, monsieur?" inquired the old Michel.
"Precisely!" said Ste. Marie. "To the east,mon vieux." It was the morning of the fourth day after that talk with Captain Stewart beside the rose gardens.
The two bore to the eastward, down among the trees, and presently came to the spot where a certain trespasser had once leapt down from the top of the high wall and had been shot for his pains. The old Michel halted and leant upon the barrel of his carbine. With an air of complete detachment, an air vague and aloof as of one in a reverie, he gazed away over the tree-tops of the ragged park; but Ste. Marie went in under the row of lilac shrubs which stood close against the wall, and a passer-by might have thought the man looking for figs on thistles—for lilacs in late July. He had gone there with eagerness, with flushed cheeks and bright eyes; he emerged, after some moments, moving slowly, with downcast head.
"There are no lilac blooms now, monsieur," observed the old Michel, and his prisoner said in a low voice—
"No,mon vieux. No. There are none." He sighed and drew a long breath. So the two stood for some time silent, Ste. Marie a little pale, his eyes fixed upon the ground, his hands chafing together behind him: the gardener with his one bright eye upon his charge. But in the end Ste. Marie sighed again and began to move away, followed by the gardener. They went across the broad park, past the double row of larches, through that space where the chestnut trees stood in straight close rows, and so came to the west wall which skirted the road to Clamart. Ste. Marie felt in his pocket and withdrew the last of the four letters—the last there could be, for he had no more stamps. The others he had thrown over the wall, one each morning, beginning with the day after he had made the first attempt to bribe old Michel. As he had expected, twenty-four hours of avaricious reflection had proved too much for that gnome-like being.
One each day he had thrown over the wall, weighted with a pebble tucked loosely under the flap of the improvised envelope in such a manner that it would drop out when the letter struck the ground beyond. And each following day he had gone with high hopes to the appointed place under the cedar-tree to pick figs of thistles, lilac blooms in late July. But there had been nothing there.
"Turn your back, Michel!" said Ste. Marie. And the old man said from a little distance—
"It is turned, monsieur. I see nothing. Monsieur throws little stones at the birds to amuse himself. It does not concern me."
Ste. Marie slipped a pebble under the flap of the envelope and threw his letter over the wall. It went like a soaring bird, whirling horizontally, and it must have fallen far out in the middle of the road near the tramway. For the third time that morning the prisoner drew a sigh. He said—
"You may turn round now, my friend," and the old Michel faced him.
"We have shot our last arrow," said he. "If this also fails, I think—well, I think thebon Dieuwill have to help us then.
"Michel," he inquired, "do you know how to pray?"
"Sacred thousand swine, no!" cried the ancient gnome in something between astonishment and horror. "No, monsieur.Pas mon metier, ça!" He shook his head rapidly from side to side like one of those toys in a shop window whose heads oscillate upon a pivot. But all at once a gleam of inspiration sparkled in his lone eye.
"There is the old Justine!" he suggested. "Toujours sur les genoux, cette imbécile la."
"In that case," said Ste. Marie, "you might ask the lady to say one little extra prayer for—the pebble I threw at the birds just now.Hein?" He withdrew from his pocket the last two louis d'or, and Michel took them in a trembling hand. There remained but the note of fifty francs and some silver.
"The prayer shall be said, monsieur," declared the gardener. "It shall be said. She shall pray all night or I will kill her."
"Thank you!" said Ste. Marie. "You are kindness itself. A gentle soul."
They turned away to retrace their steps, and Michel rubbed the side of his head with a reflective air.
"The old one is a madman," said he. The "old one" meant Captain Stewart. "A madman. Each day he is madder, and this morning he struck me—here on the head, because I was too slow. Eh! a little more of that, and—who knows? Just a little more, a small little! Am I a dog, to be beaten?Hein?Je ne le crois pas.Hè!" He called Captain Stewart two unprintable names, and, after a moment's thought, he called him an animal, which is not so much of an anti-climax as it may seem, because to call anybody an animal in French is a serious matter.
The gardener was working himself up into something of a quiet passion, and Ste. Marie said—
"Softly, my friend! Softly!" It occurred to him that the man's resentment might be of use, later on, and he said—
"You speak the truth. The old one is an animal, and he is also a great rascal." But Michel betrayed the makings of a philosopher. He said with profound conviction—
"Monsieur, all men are great rascals. It is I who say it." And at that Ste. Marie had to laugh.
He had not consciously directed his feet, but without direction they led him round the corner of the rose gardens and towards therond point. He knew well whom he would find there. She had not failed him during the past three days. Each morning he had found her in her place, and, for his allotted hour—which more than once stretched itself out to nearly two hours, if he had but known—they had sat together on the stone bench or, tiring of that, had walked under the trees beyond.
Long afterwards Ste. Marie looked back upon these hours with, among other emotions, a great wonder, at himself and at her. It seemed to him then one of the strangest relationships—intimacies, for it might well be so called—that ever existed between a man and a woman, and he was amazed at the ease, the unconsciousness with which it had come about.
But during this time he did not allow himself to wonder or to examine—scarcely even to think. The hours were golden hours, unrelated, he told himself, to anything else in his life or in his interest. They were like pleasant dreams, very sweet while they endured, but to be put away and forgotten upon the waking. Only, in that long afterwards, he knew that they had not been put away, that they had been with him always, that the morning hour had remained in his thoughts all the rest of the long day, and that he had waked upon the morrow with a keen and exquisite sense of something sweet to come.
It was a strange fool's paradise that the man dwelt in, and in some small vague measure he must, even at the time, have known it, for it is certain that he deliberately held himself away from thought—realisation; that he deliberately shut his eyes, held his ears, lest he should hear or see.
That he was not faithless to his duty has been shown. He did his utmost there, but he was for the time helpless save for efforts to communicate with Richard Hartley, and those efforts could consume no more than ten minutes out of the weary day.
So he drifted, wilfully blind to bearings, wilfully deaf to sound of warning or peril, and he found a companionship sweeter and fuller and more perfect than he had ever before known in all his life, though that is not to say very much, because sympathetic companionships between men and women are very rare indeed, and Ste. Marie had never experienced anything which could fairly be called by that name. He had had, as has been related, many flirtations and not a few so-called love affairs; but neither of these two sorts of intimacies are of necessity true intimacies at all: men often feel varying degrees of love for women without the least true understanding or sympathy or real companionship.
He was wondering as he bore round the corner of the rose gardens, on this day, in just what mood he would find her. It seemed to him that in their brief acquaintance he had seen her in almost all the moods there are, from bitter gloom to the irrepressible gaiety of a little child. He had told her once that she was like an organ, and she had laughed at him for being pretentious and high-flown, though she could upon occasion be quite high-flown enough herself for all ordinary purposes.
He reached the cleared margin of therond point, and a little cold fear stirred in him when he did not hear her singing under her breath, as she was wont to do when alone, but he went forward, and she was there in her place upon the stone bench. She had been reading, but the book lay forgotten beside her and she sat idle, her head laid back against the thick stems of shrubbery which grew behind, her hands in her lap. It was a warm still morning with the promise of a hot afternoon, and the girl was dressed in something very thin and transparent and cool-looking, open in a little square at the throat and with sleeves which came only to her elbows. The material was pale and dull yellow with very vaguely defined green leaves in it, and against it the girl's dark and clear skin glowed rich and warm and living, as pearls glow and seem to throb against the dead tints of the fabric upon which they are laid.
She did not move when he came before her, but looked up to him gravely without stirring her head.
[image]"She did not move when he came before her."
[image]
[image]
"She did not move when he came before her."
"I didn't hear you come," said she. "You don't drag your left leg any more. You walk almost as well as if you had never been wounded."
"I'm almost all right again," he answered. "I suppose I couldn't run or jump, but I certainly can walk very much like a human being. May I sit down?"
Mlle. O'Hara put out one hand and drew the book closer to make a place for him on the stone bench, and he settled himself comfortably there, turned a little so that he was facing towards her.
It was indicative of the state of intimacy into which the two had grown that they did not make polite conversation with each other, but indeed were silent for some little time after Ste. Marie had seated himself. It was he who spoke first. He said—
"You look vaguely classical to-day. I have been trying to guess why and I cannot. Perhaps it's because your—what does one say: frock, dress, gown? because it is cut out square at the throat."
"If you mean by classical, Greek," said she, "it wouldn't be square at the neck at all. It would be pointed—V-shaped. And it would be very different in other ways too. You are not an observing person after all."
"For all that," insisted Ste. Marie, "you look classical. You look like some lady one reads about in Greek poems—Helen or Iphigenia or Medea or somebody."
"Helen had yellow hair, hadn't she?" objected Mlle. O'Hara. "I should think I probably look more like Medea: Medea in Colchis before Jason——" She seemed suddenly to realise that she had hit upon an unfortunate example, for she stopped short in the middle of her sentence, and a wave of colour swept up over her throat and face. For a moment Ste. Marie did not understand, then he gave a low exclamation, for Medea certainly had been an unhappy name. He remembered something that Richard Hartley had said about that lady a long time before.
He made another mistake, for to lessen the moment's embarrassment he gave speech to the first thought which entered his mind. He said—
"Some one once remarked that you looked like the young Juno—before marriage. I expect it's true too."
She turned upon him swiftly.
"Who said that?" she demanded. "Who has ever talked to you about me?"
"I beg your pardon!" he said. "I seem to be singularly stupid this morning. A mild lunacy. You must forgive me, if you can. To tell you what you ask would be to enter upon forbidden ground, and I mustn't do that."
"Still, I should like to know," said the girl watching him with sombre eyes.
"Well then," said he, "it was a little Jewish photographer in the Boulevard de la Madeleine." And she said—
"Oh!" in a rather disappointed tone and looked away.
"We seem to be making conversation chiefly about my personal appearance," she said presently. "There must be other topics, if one should try hard to find them. Tell me stories! You told me stories yesterday; tell me more! You seem to be in a classical mood. You shall be Odysseus, and I will be Nausicaa, the interesting laundress. Tell me about wanderings and things! Have you any more islands for me?"
"Yes!" said Ste. Marie, nodding at her slowly. "Yes, Nausicaa, I have more islands for you. The seas are full of islands. What kind do you want?"
"A warm one," said the girl. "Even on a hot day like this I choose a warm one, because I hate the cold." She settled herself more comfortably, with a little sigh of content that was exactly like a child's happy sigh when stories are going to be told before the fire.
"I know an island," said Ste. Marie, "that I think you would like because it is warm and beautiful and very far away from troubles of all kinds. As well as I could make out when I went there nobody on the island had ever even heard of trouble. Oh yes, you'd like it. The people there are brown, and they're as beautiful as their own island. They wear hibiscus flowers stuck in their hair and they very seldom do any work."
"I want to go there!" cried Mlle. Coira O'Hara. "I want to go there now, this afternoon, at once! Where is it?"
"It's in the South Pacific," said he, "not so very far from Samoa and Fiji and other groups that you will have heard about, and its name is Vavau. It's one of the Tongans. It's a high, volcanic island, not a flat, coral one like the southern Tongans. I came to it one evening, sailing north from Nukualofa and Haapai, and it looked to me like a single big mountain jutting up out of the sea, black-green against the sunset. It was very impressive. But it isn't a single mountain, it's a lot of high broken hills covered with a tangle of vegetation and set round a narrow bay, a sort of fjord, three or four miles long, and at the inner end of this are the village and the stores of the few white traders.
"I'm afraid," said Ste. Marie, shaking his head—"I'm afraid I can't tell you about it, after all. I can't seem to find the words. You can't put into language—at least I can't—those slow hot island days that are never too hot because the trades blow fresh and strong, or the island nights that are more like black velvet with pearls sewed on it than anything else. You can't describe the smell of orange-groves and the look of palm-trees against the sky. You can't tell about the sweet simple natural hospitality of the natives. They're like little unsuspicious children.
"In short," said he, "I shall have to give it up, after all, just because it's too big for me. I can only say that it's beautiful and unspeakably remote from the world, and that I think I should like to go back to Vavau and stay a long time, and let the rest of the world go hang."
Mlle. O'Hara stared across the park of La Lierre with wide and shadowy eyes, and her lips trembled a little.
"Oh, I want to go there!" she cried again. "I want to go there—and rest—and forget everything!"
She turned upon him with a sudden bitter resentment.
"Why do you tell me things like that?" she cried. "Oh yes, I know. I asked you, but—— Can't you see?
"To hide oneself away in a place like that!" she said. "To let the sun warm you and the trade winds blow away—all that had ever tortured you! Just to rest and be at peace!"
She turned her eyes to him once more.
"You needn't be afraid that you have failed to make me see your island! I see it. I feel it. It doesn't need many words. I can shut my eyes, and I am there. But it was a little cruel. Oh, I know, I asked for it.
"It's like the garden of the Hesperides, isn't it?"
"Very like it," said Ste. Marie, "because there are oranges—groves of them. (And they were the golden apples, I take it.) Also it is very far away from the world, and the people live in complete and careless ignorance of how the world goes on. Emperors and kings die, wars come and go; but they hear only a little faint echo of it all, long afterwards, and even that doesn't interest them."
"I know," she said. "I understand. Didn't you know I'd understand?"
"Yes," said he, nodding. "I suppose I did. We—feel things rather alike, I suppose. We don't have to say them all out."
"I wonder," she said in a low voice, "if I'm glad or sorry." She stared under her brows at the man beside her.
"For it is very probable that when we have left La Lierre you and I shall never meet again. I wonder if I'm——" For some obscure reason she broke off there and turned her eyes away, and she remained without speaking for a long time. Her mind, as she sat there, seemed to go back to that southern island and to its peace and loveliness, for Ste. Marie, who watched her, saw a little smile come to her lips, and he saw her eyes half close and grow soft and tender, as if what they saw were very sweet to her. He watched many different expressions come upon the girl's face and go again, but at last he seemed to see the old bitterness return there and struggle with something wistful and eager.
"I envy you your wide wanderings," she said presently. "Oh, I envy you more than I can find any words for. Your will is the wind's will. You go where your fancy leads you, and you're free—free.
"We have wandered, you know," said she, "my father and I. I can't remember when we ever had a home to live in. But that is—that is different—a different kind of wandering."
"Yes," said Ste. Marie. "Yes, perhaps." And within himself he said, with sorrow and pity: "Different indeed!"
As if at some sudden thought the girl looked up at him quickly.
"Did that sound regretful?" she asked. "Did what I say sound—disloyal to my father? I didn't mean it to. I don't want you to think that I regret it. I don't. It has meant being with my father. Wherever he has gone I have gone with him, and if anything ever has been—unpleasant, I was willing, oh, I was glad, glad to put up with it for his sake and because I could be with him. If I have made his life a little happier by sharing it, I am glad of everything. I don't regret."
"And yet," said Ste. Marie gently, "it must have been hard sometimes." He pictured to himself that roving existence lived among such people as O'Hara must have known, and it sent a hot wave of anger and distress over him from head to foot. But the girl said—
"I had my father. The rest of it didn't matter in the face of that."
After a little silence she said—
"M. Ste. Marie!" And the man said—
"What is it, mademoiselle?"
"You spoke the other day," she said, hesitating over her words, "about my aunt, Lady Margaret Craith. I suppose I ought not to ask you more about her, for my father quarrelled with his people very long ago, and he broke with them altogether. But—surely it can do no harm—just for a moment—just a very little! Could you tell me a little about her, M. Ste. Marie? What she is like and—and how she lives—and things like that?"
So Ste. Marie told her all that he could of the old Irishwoman who lived alone in her great house and ruled with a slack Irish hand, a sweet Irish heart, over tenants and dependants. And when he had come to an end the girl drew a little sigh and said—
"Thank you! I am so glad to hear of her. I—wish everything were different, so that——I——think I should love her very much if I might."
"Mademoiselle," said Ste. Marie, "will you promise me something?"
She looked at him with her sombre eyes, and after a little she said—
"I am afraid you must tell me first what it is. I cannot promise blindly." He said—
"I want you to promise me that if anything ever should happen—any difficulty, trouble—anything to put you in the position of needing care or help or sympathy——"
But she broke in upon him with a swift alarm, crying—
"What do you mean? You're trying to hint at something that I don't know. What difficulty or trouble could happen to me? Please tell me just what you mean."
"I'm not hinting at any mystery," said Ste. Marie. "I don't know of anything that is going to happen to you, but—will you forgive me for saying it?—your father is, I take it, often exposed to danger of various sorts. I'm afraid I can't quite express myself, only, if any trouble should come to you, mademoiselle, will you promise me to go to Lady Margaret, your aunt, and tell her who you are, and let her care for you?"
"There was an absolute break," she said. "Complete." But the man shook his head, saying—
"Lady Margaret won't think of that. She'll think only of you—that she can mother you, perhaps save you grief—and of herself, that in her old age she has a daughter. It would make a lonely old woman very happy, mademoiselle."
The girl bent her head away from him, and Ste. Marie saw, for the first time since he had known her, tears in her eyes. After a long time she said—
"I promise then.
"But," she said, "it is very unlikely that it should ever come about—for more than one reason. Very unlikely."
"Still, mademoiselle," said he, "I am glad you have promised. This is an uncertain world. One never can tell what will come with the to-morrows."
"I can," the girl said with a little tired smile that Ste. Marie did not understand. "I can tell. I can see all the to-morrows—a long, long row of them. I know just what they're going to be like—to the very end."
But the man rose to his feet and looked down upon her as she sat before him. And he shook his head.
"You are mistaken," he said. "Pardon me, but you are mistaken. No one can see to-morrow—or the end of anything. The end may surprise you very much."
"I wish it would!" cried Mlle. O'Hara. "Oh, I wish it would!"
CHAPTER XXIV
THE JOINT IN THE ARMOUR
Ste. Marie put down a book as O'Hara came into the room and rose to meet his visitor.
"I'm compelled," said the Irishman, "to put you on your honour to-day if you are to go out as usual. Michel has been sent on an errand, and I am busy with letters. I shall have to put you on your honour not to make any effort to escape. Is that agreed to? I shall trust you altogether. You could manage to scramble over the wall somehow, I suppose, and get clean away; but I think you won't try it if you give your word."
"I give my word gladly," said Ste. Marie. "And thanks very much. You've been uncommonly kind to me here. I—regret more than I can say that we—that we find ourselves on opposite sides, as it were. I wish we were fighting for the same cause."
The Irishman looked at the younger man sharply for an instant, and he made as if he would speak, but seemed to think better of it. In the end he said—
"Yes, quite so! Quite so! Of course you understand that any consideration I have used towards you has been by way of making amends for—for an unfortunate occurrence."
Ste. Marie laughed.
"The poison!" said he. "Yes, I know. And, of course, I know who was at the bottom of that. By the way, I met Stewart in the garden the other day. Did he tell you? He was rather nervous and tried to shoot me, but he had left his revolver at the house—at least, it wasn't in his pocket when he reached for it."
O'Hara's hard face twitched suddenly, as if in anger, and he gave an exclamation under his breath, so the younger man inferred that "old Charlie" had not spoken of their encounter. And after that the Irishman once more turned a sharp, frowning glance upon his prisoner as if he were puzzled about something. But, as before, he stopped short of speech and at last turned away.
"Just a moment!" said the younger man. He asked—
"Is it fair to inquire how long I may expect to be confined here? I don't want to presume upon your good nature too far, but if you could tell me I should be glad to know."
The Irishman hesitated a moment, and then said—
"I don't know why I shouldn't answer that. It can't help you, so far as I can see, to do anything which would hinder us. You'll stay until Arthur Benham comes of age, which will be in about two months from now."
"Yes," said the other. "Thanks! I thought so. Until young Arthur comes of age and receives his patrimony, or until old David Stewart dies. Of course, that might happen at any hour."
The Irishman said—
"I don't quite see what—Ah, yes, to be sure! Yes, I see. Well, I should count upon eight weeks, if I were you. In eight weeks the boy will be independent of them all, and we shall go to England for the wedding."
"The wedding?" cried Ste. Marie. "What wedding?—Ah!"
"Arthur Benham and my daughter are to be married," said O'Hara, "so soon as he reaches his majority. I thought you knew that."
In a very vague fashion he realised that he had expected it. And still the definite words came to him with a shock which was like a physical blow, and he turned his back with a man's natural instinct to hide his feeling. Certainly that was the logical conclusion to be drawn from known premises. That was to be the O'Haras' reward for their labour. To Stewart the great fortune, to the O'Haras a good marriage for the girl and an assured future. That was reward enough surely for a few weeks of angling and decoying and luring and lying. That was what she had meant, on the day before, by saying that she could see all the to-morrows. He realised that he must have been expecting something like this, but the thought turned him sick nevertheless. He could not forget the girl as he had come to know her during the past week. He could not face with any calmness the thought of her as the adventuress who had lured poor Arthur Benham on to destruction. It was an impossible thought. He could have laughed at it in scornful anger, and yet—What else was she?
He began to realise that his action in turning his back upon the other man in the middle of a conversation must look very odd, and he faced round again trying to drive from his expression the pain and distress which he knew must be there plain to see. But he need not have troubled himself, for the other man was standing before the sext window and looking out into the morning sunlight, and his hard bony face had so altered that Ste. Marie stared at him with open amazement. He thought O'Hara must be ill.
"I want to see her married!" cried the Irishman suddenly. And it was a new voice, a voice Ste. Marie did not know. It shook a little with an emotion that sat uncouthly upon this grim stern man.
"I want to see her married and safe!" he said. "I want her to be rid of this damnable, roving, cheap existence. I want her to be rid of me and my rotten friends and my rotten life." He chafed his hands together before him, and his tired eyes fixed themselves upon something that he seemed to see out of the window, and glared at it fiercely.
"I should like," said he, "to die on the day after her wedding, and so be out of her way for ever. I don't want her to have any shadows cast over her from the past. I don't want her to open closet doors and find skeletons there. I want her to be free—free to live the sort of life she was born to and has a right to."
He turned sharply upon the younger man.
"You've seen her!" he cried. "You've talked to her, you know her! Think of that girl dragged about Europe with me ever since she was a little child! Think of the people she's had to know, the things she's had to see! Do you wonder that I want to have her free of it all, married and safe and comfortable and in peace? Do you? I tell you it has driven me as nearly mad as a man can be. But I couldn't go mad because I had to take care of her. I couldn't even die because she'd have been left alone, without any one to look out for her.
"She wouldn't leave me! I could have settled her somewhere in some quiet place where she'd have been quit at least of shady rotten people, but she wouldn't have it. She's stuck to me always through good times and bad. She's kept my heart up when I'd have been ready to cut my throat if I'd been alone. She's been the—bravest and faithfullest—Well I—And look at her! Look at her now! Think of what she's had to see and know—the people she's had to live with—and look at her! Has any of it stuck to her? Has it cheapened her in any littlest way? No, by God! She has come through it all like a—like a Sister of Charity through a city slum—like an angel through the dark!"
The Irishman broke off speaking, for his voice was beyond control, but after a moment he went on again more calmly—
"This boy, this young Benham, is a fool, but he's not a mean fool. She'll make a man of him. And, married to him, she'll have the comforts that she ought to have and the care and—freedom. She'll have a chance to live the life that she had a right to, among the sort of people she has a right to know. I'm not afraid for her. She'll do her part and more. She'll hold up her head among duchesses, that girl. I'm not afraid for her."
He said this last sentence over several times, standing before the window and staring out at the sun upon the treetops. "I'm not afraid for her.... I'm not afraid for her." He seemed to have forgotten that the younger man was in the room, for he did not look towards him again or pay him any attention for a long while. He only gazed out of the window into the fresh morning sunlight, and his face worked and quivered and his lean hands chafed restlessly together before him.
But at last he seemed to realise where he was, for he turned with a sudden start, and he stared at Ste. Marie frowning as if the younger man were some one he had never seen before. He said—
"Ah, yes, yes! You were wanting to go out into the garden. Yes, quite so! I—I was thinking of something else. I seem to be absent-minded of late. Don't let me keep you here!" He seemed a little embarrassed and ill at ease, and Ste. Marie said—
"Oh, thanks! There's no hurry. However, I'll go, I think. It's after eleven. I understand that I'm on my honour not to climb over the wall or burrow under it or batter it down. That's understood. I——"
He felt that he ought to say something in acknowledgment of O'Hara's long speech about his daughter; but he could think of nothing to say, and besides, the Irishman seemed not to expect any comment upon his strange outburst. So, in the end, Ste. Marie nodded and went out of the room without further ceremony.
He had been astonished almost beyond words at that sudden and unlooked-for breakdown of the other man's impregnable reserve, and dimly he realised that it must have come out of some very extraordinary nervous strain; but he himself had been in no state to give the Irishman's words the attention and thought that he would have given them at another time. His mind, his whole field of mental vision had been full of one great fact—the girl was to be married to young Arthur Benham. The thing loomed gigantic before him, and, in some strange way, terrifying. He could neither see nor think beyond it. O'Hara's burst of confidence had reached his ears very faintly, as if from a great distance—poignant but only half comprehended words, to be reflected upon later in their own time.
He stumbled down the ill-lighted stair with fixed, wide, unseeing eyes, and he said one sentence over and over aloud—as the Irishman standing beside the window had said another.
"She is going to be married! She is going to be married!"
It would seem that he must have forgotten his previous half knowledge of the fact. It would seem to have remained, as at the first hearing, a great and appalling shock—thunderous out of a blue sky.
Below in the open his feet led him mechanically straight down under the trees, through the tangle of shrubbery beyond, and so to the wall under the cedar. Arrived there he awoke all at once to his task, and with a sort of frowning anger shook off the dream which enveloped him. His eyes sharpened and grew keen and eager. He said—
"The last arrow! God send it reached home!" And so went in under the lilac shrubs.
He was there longer than usual: unhampered now he may have made a larger search, but when at last he emerged Ste. Marie's hands were over his face, and his feet dragged slowly like an old man's feet.
Without knowing that he had stirred he found himself some distance away, standing still beside a chestnut tree. A great wave of depression and fear and hopelessness swept him, and he shivered under it. He had an instant's wild panic, and mad, desperate thoughts surged upon him. He saw utter failure confronting him. He saw himself as helpless as a little child, his feeble efforts already spent for naught, and, like a little child, he was afraid. He would have rushed at that grim encircling wall and fought his way up and over it, but even as the impulse raced to his feet the momentary madness left him and he turned away. He could not do a dishonourable thing even for all he held dearest.
He walked on in the direction which lay before him, but he took no heed of where he went; and Mlle. Coira O'Hara spoke to him twice before he heard or saw her.