.. -*- encoding: utf-8 -*-

.. meta::
   :PG.Id: 43527
   :PG.Title: The Quest
   :PG.Released: 2013-08-21
   :PG.Rights: Public Domain
   :PG.Producer: Al Haines
   :DC.Creator: Justus Miles Forman
   :MARCREL.ill: \W. Hatherell
   :DC.Title: The Quest
              A Romance
   :DC.Language: en
   :DC.Created: 1909
   :coverpage: images/img-cover.jpg

=========
THE QUEST
=========

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   .. _`"He fell on his knees at her feet"`:

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      :alt: "He fell on his knees at her feet" (Page 312).

      "He fell on his knees at her feet" (Page `312`_).

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      THE QUEST

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      A Romance

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      By

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      JUSTUS MILES FORMAN

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      *Author of "The Garden of Lies," "Tommy Carteret," etc*

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      *ILLUSTRATED BY \W. HATHERELL, \R.\I.*

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      WARD, LOCK & CO., LIMITED
      LONDON, MELBOURNE AND TORONTO
      1909

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   CONTENTS

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   CHAP.

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I  `Ste. Marie Hears of a Mystery and Meets a Dark Lady`_
II  `The Ladder to the Stars`_
III  `Ste. Marie makes a Vow, but a Pair of Eyes haunt Him`_
IV  `Old David Stewart`_
V  `Ste. Marie sets forth upon the Great Adventure`_
VI  `A Brave Gentleman Receives a Hurt, but Volunteers in a Good Cause`_
VII  `Captain Stewart makes a Kindly Offer`_
VIII  `Ste. Marie Meets with a Misadventure and Dreams a Dream`_
IX  `Ste. Marie goes upon a Journey and Richard Hartley Pleads for Him`_
X  `Captain Stewart Entertains`_
XI  `A Golden Lady Enters—The Eyes again`_
XII  `The Name of the Lady with the Eyes—Evidence heaps up Swiftly`_
XIII  `The Road to Clamart`_
XIV  `In the Garden`_
XV  `A Conversation at La Lierre`_
XVI  `The Black Cat`_
XVII  `A Conversation Overheard`_
XVIII  `Those who were Left Behind`_
XIX  `The Invalid takes the Air`_
XX  `The Stone Bench at the Rond Point`_
XXI  `A Mist Dims the Shining Star`_
XXII  `A Settlement Refused`_
XXIII  `The Last Arrow—and a Promise`_
XXIV  `The Joint in the Armour`_
XXV  `Coira goes over to the Enemy`_
XXVI  `"I won't go!"`_
XXVII  `The Night's Work`_
XXVIII  `Coira's Little Hour`_
XXIX  `The Scales of Injustice`_
XXX  `Journey's End`_

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   Illustrations

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`"He fell on his knees at her feet"`_ . . . *Frontispiece* (Page `312`_)

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`"It seemed to him that her eyes called him."`_

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`"'I fancy I know who the man was.'"`_

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`"'You're twenty-two.  Have you ever fallen in love?'"`_

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`"He turned and went out of the room."`_

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`"'Don't refuse a helping hand!' said Captain Stewart, looking
up once more.  'Don't be overproud!'"`_

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`"So for an hour or more he stood in the open window staring
into the fragrant night."`_

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`"He saw Captain Stewart moving among them."`_

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`"Captain Stewart lay huddled and writhing upon the floor."`_

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`"There appeared two young people."`_

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`"'Michel is busy,' said Coira O'Hara, 'so I have brought your coffee.'"`_

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`"'Ste. Marie has disappeared?  How very extraordinary!'"`_

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`"'What can we do, Richard?  What can we do?'"`_

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`"'Tell me about him, this Ste. Marie!  Do you know anything about him?'"`_

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`"Mlle. Coira O'Hara sat alone upon the stone bench."`_

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`"His hand went swiftly to his coat pocket."`_

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`"She did not move when he came before her."`_

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`"The girl fumbled desperately with the clumsy key."`_

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`"Walking there in the tender moonlight."`_

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.. _`STE. MARIE HEARS OF A MYSTERY AND MEETS A DARK LADY`:

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   CHAPTER I


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   STE. MARIE HEARS OF A MYSTERY AND MEETS A DARK LADY

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From Ste. Marie's little flat which overlooked
the gardens they drove down the quiet Rue
du Luxembourg, and, at the Place St. Sulpice,
turned to the left.  They crossed the Place
St. Germain des Prés, where lines of homebound
working people stood waiting for places in the electric
trams, and groups of students from the Beaux Arts
or from Julien's sat under the awnings of the Deux
Magots, and so, beyond that busy square, they came
into the long and peaceful stretch of the Boulevard
St. Germain.  The warm sweet dusk gathered
round them as they went, and the evening air was
fresh and aromatic in their faces.  There had been
a little gentle shower in the late afternoon, and
roadway and pavement were still damp with it.
It had wet the new-grown leaves of the chestnuts
and acacias that bordered the street.  The scent
of that living green blended with the scent of laid
dust and the fragrance of the last late-clinging
chestnut blossoms: it caught up a fuller richer
burden from the overflowing front of a florist's
shop: it stole from open windows a savoury whiff
of cooking, a salt tang of wood smoke, and the soft
little breeze—the breeze of coming summer—mixed
all together and tossed them and bore them down
the long quiet street; and it was the breath of
Paris, and it shall be in your nostrils and mine, a
keen agony of sweetness, so long as we may live and
so wide as we may wander—because we have known
it and loved it: and in the end we shall go back to
breathe it when we die.

The strong white horse jogged evenly along over
the wooden pavement, its head down, the little
bell at its neck jingling pleasantly as it went.  The
cocher, a torpid purplish lump of gross flesh,
pyramidal, pear-like, sat immobile in his place.  The
protuberant back gave him an extraordinary effect
of being buttoned into his fawn-coloured coat
wrong-side-before.  At intervals he jerked the reins like
a large strange toy and his strident voice said—

"*Hè!*" to the stout white horse, which paid no
attention whatever.  Once the beast stumbled and
the pear-like lump of flesh insulted it, saying—

"*Hè! veux, tu, cochon!*"

Before the War Office a little black slip of a
milliner's girl dodged under the horse's head, saving
herself and the huge box slung to her arm by a
miracle of agility, and the cocher called her the
most frightful names, without turning his head,
and in a perfunctory tone quite free from passion.

Young Hartley laughed and turned to look at
his companion, but Ste. Marie sat still in his place,
his hat pulled a little down over his brows, and his
handsome chin buried in the folds of the white silk
muffler with which, for some obscure reason, he had
swathed his neck.

"This is the first time in many years," said the
Englishman, "that I have known you to be silent
for ten whole minutes.  Are you ill or are you making
up little epigrams to say at the dinner party?"

Ste. Marie waved a despondent glove.

"I 'ave," said he, "w'at you call ze blue.  *Papillons
noirs*—clouds in my soul."  It was a species
of jest with Ste. Marie—and he seemed never to
tire of it—to pretend that he spoke English very
brokenly.  As a matter of fact he spoke it quite
as well as any Englishman and without the slightest
trace of accent.  He had discovered a long time
before this—it may have been while the two were
at Eton together—that it annoyed Hartley very
much, particularly when it was done in company
and before strangers.  In consequence he became
at such occasions a sort of comic-paper caricature
of his race, and by dint of much practice, added to
a naturally alert mind, he became astonishingly
ingenious in the torture of that honest but
unimaginative gentleman whom he considered his best friend.
He achieved the most surprising expressions
by the mere literal translation of French idiom,
and he could at any time bring Hartley to a crimson
agony by calling him "my dear" before other
men, whereas at the equivalent "*mon cher*" the
Englishman would doubtless never, as the phrase
goes, have batted an eye.

"Ye—es," he continued sadly, "I 'ave ze blue.
I weep.  Weez ze tears full ze eyes.  Yes."  He
descended into English.  "I think something's going
to happen to me.  There's calamity—or something—in
the air.  Perhaps I'm going to die."

"Oh, I know what you are going to do, right
enough," said the other man, "you're going to meet
the most beautiful woman—girl—in the world at
dinner, and of course you are going to fall in love
with her."

"Ah, the Miss Benham!" said Ste. Marie with
a faint show of interest.  "I remember now, you
said that she was to be there.  I had forgotten.
Yes, I shall be glad to meet her.  One hears so
much.  But why am I of course going to fall in
love with her?"

"Well, in the first place," said Hartley, "you
always fall in love with all pretty women as a matter
of habit, and, in the second place, everybody—well,
I suppose you—no one could help falling in
love with her, I should think."

"That's high praise to come from you," said the
other, and Hartley said with a short, not very
mirthful laugh—

"Oh, I don't pretend to be immune.  We all—everybody
who knows her——  You'll understand
presently."

Ste. Marie turned his head a little and looked
curiously at his friend, for he considered that he
knew the not very expressive intonations of that
young gentleman's voice rather well, and this was
something unusual.  He wondered what had been
happening during his six months' absence from
Paris.

"I dare say that's what I feel in the air, then,"
he said after a little pause.  "It's not calamity.
It's love.

"Or maybe," he said quaintly, "it's both.  *L'un
n'empéche pas l'autre.*"  And he gave an odd little
shiver, as if that something in the air had suddenly
blown chill upon him.

They were passing the corner of the Chamber of
Deputies which faces the Pont de la Concorde.
Ste. Marie pulled out his watch and looked at it.

"Eight-fifteen," said he.  "What time are we
asked for?  Eight-thirty?  That means nine.
It's an English house and nobody will be in time.
It's out of fashion to be prompt nowadays."

"I should hardly call the Marquis de Saulnes
English, you know!" objected Hartley.

"Well, his wife is," said the other, "and they're
altogether English in manner.  Dinner won't be
before nine.  Shall we get out and walk across the
bridge and up the Champs Elysées?  I should like
to, I think.  I like to walk at this time of the
evening—between the daylight and the dark."

Hartley nodded a rather reluctant assent, and
Ste. Marie prodded the pear-shaped cocher in the back
with his stick.  So they got down at the approach to
the bridge.  Ste. Marie gave the cocher a piece of
two francs and they turned away on foot.  The
pear-shaped one looked at the coin in his fat hand
as if it was something unclean and contemptible,
something to be despised.  He glanced at the dial
of his taximeter, which had registered one franc
twenty-five, and pulled the flag up.  He spat
gloomily out into the street and his purple lips
moved in words.  He seemed to say something
like: "*Sale diable de métier!*" which, considering
the fact that he had just been overpaid, appears
unwarrantably pessimistic in tone.  Thereafter he
spat again, picked up his reins and jerked them,
saying—

"Hè, Jean Baptiste!  Uip, uip!"  The
unemotional white horse turned up the boulevard,
trotting evenly at its steady pace, head down, the
little bell at its neck jingling pleasantly as it went.
It occurs to me that the white horse was probably
unique.  I doubt that there was another horse in
Paris rejoicing in that extraordinary name.

But the two young men walked slowly on across
the Pont de la Concorde.  They went in silence, for
Hartley was thinking still of Miss Helen Benham
and Ste. Marie was thinking of Heaven knows what.
His gloom was unaccountable unless he had really
meant what he said about feeling calamity in the
air.  It was very unlike him to have nothing to
say.  Midway of the bridge he stopped and turned
to look out over the river, and the other man halted
beside him.  The dusk was thickening almost
perceptibly, but it was yet far from dark.  The swift
river ran leaden beneath them, and the river boats,
mouches and hirondelles, darted silently under
the arches of the bridge, making their last trips for
the day.  Away to the west, where their faces were
turned, the sky was still faintly washed with colour,
lemon and dusky orange and pale thin green.  A
single long strip of cirrus cloud was touched with
pink, a lifeless old rose, such as is popular among
decorators for the silk hangings of a woman's
boudoir.  And black against this pallid wash of colours
the *Tour Eiffel* stood high and slender and rather
ghostly.  By day it is an ugly thing, a preposterous
iron finger upthrust by man's vanity against God's
serene sky, but the haze of evening drapes it in a
merciful semi-obscurity, and it is beautiful.

Ste. Marie leant upon the parapet of the bridge,
arms folded before him and eyes afar.  He began
to sing, *à demi voix*, a little phrase out of *Louise*,—an
invocation to Paris—and the Englishman stirred
uneasily beside him.  It seemed to Hartley that
to stand on a bridge, in a top hat and evening clothes,
and sing operatic airs while people passed back and
forth behind you, was one of the things that are
not done.  He tried to imagine himself singing in
the middle of Westminster Bridge at half-past
eight of an evening, and he felt quite hot all over at
the thought.  It was not done at all he said to
himself.  He looked a little nervously at the people
who were passing, and it seemed to him that they
stared at him and at the unconscious Ste. Marie,
though in truth they did nothing of the sort.  He
turned back and touched his friend on the arm,
saying—

"I think we'd best be getting along, you know,"
but Ste. Marie was very far away and did not hear.
So then he fell to watching the man's dark and
handsome face, and to thinking how little the years
at Eton and the year or two at Oxford had set any
real stamp upon him.  He would never be anything
but Latin in spite of his Irish mother and his public
school.  Hartley thought what a pity that was.
As Englishmen go he was not illiberal, but, no more
than he could have altered the colour of his eyes,
could he have believed that anything foreign would
not be improved by becoming English.  That was
born in him, as it is born in most Englishmen, and
it was a perfectly simple and honest belief.  He
felt a deeper affection for this handsome and volatile
young man, whom all women loved and who bade
fair to spend his life at their successive feet—for
he certainly had never shown the slightest desire
to take up any sterner employment—he felt a
deeper affection for Ste. Marie than for any other
man he knew, but he had always wished that
Ste. Marie were an Englishman, and he had always felt
a slight sense of shame over his friend's un-English
ways.

After a moment he touched him again on the
arm, saying—

"Come along!  We shall be late, you know.
You can finish your little concert another time."

"Eh!" cried Ste. Marie.  "*Quoi, donc?*"  He
turned with a start.

"Oh yes!" said he.  "Yes, come along!  I
was mooning.  *Allons*!  *Allons*, my old!"  He
took Hartley's arm and began to shove him along
at a rapid walk.

"I will moon no more," he said.  "Instead,
you shall tell me about the wonderful Miss
Benham whom everybody is talking of.  Isn't there
something odd connected with the family?  I
vaguely recall something unusual, some mystery
or misfortune or something.

"But first a moment!  One small moment, my
old.  Regard me that!"  They had come to the
end of the bridge and the great Place de la Concorde
lay before them.

"In all the world," said Ste. Marie—and he spoke
the truth—"there is not another such square.
Regard it, *mon brave*!  Bow yourself before it!
It is a miracle."

The great bronze lamps were alight, and they
cast reflections upon the still damp pavement about
them.  To either side the trees of the Tuileries
gardens and of the Cours la Reine and the Champs
Elysées lay in a solid black mass.  In the middle
the obelisk rose slender and straight, its pointed top
black against the sky, and beneath the water of the
Nereid fountains splashed and gurgled.  Far
beyond, the gay lights of the Rue Royale shone in a
yellow cluster and, beyond these still, the tall
columns of the Madeleine ended the long vista.
Pedestrians and cabs crept across that vast space,
and seemed curiously little, like black insects, and
round about it all the eight cities of France sat atop
their stone pedestals and looked on.  Ste. Marie gave
a little sigh of pleasure, and the two moved forward,
bearing to the left, towards the Champs Elysées.

"And now," said he, "about these Benhams.
What is the thing I cannot quite recall?  What
has happened to them?"

"I suppose," said the other man, "you mean
the disappearance of Miss Benham's young brother,
a month ago, before you returned to Paris.  Yes,
that was certainly very odd.  That is, it was either
very odd or very commonplace.  And in either
case the family is terribly cut up about it.  The
boy's name was Arthur Benham, and he was rather
a young fool but not downright vicious, I should
think.  I never knew him at all well, but I know
he spent his time chiefly at the Café de Paris and
at the Olympia and at Longchamps and at *Henry's
Bar*.  Well, he just disappeared, that is all.  He
dropped completely out of sight between two days,
and though the family has had a small army of
detectives on his trail, they've not discovered the
smallest clue.  It's deuced odd altogether.  You
might think it easy to disappear like that but it's not."

"No—no," said Ste. Marie thoughtfully.  "No,
I should fancy not.

"This boy," he said after a pause, "I think I
had seen him—had him pointed out to me—before
I went away.  I think it was at *Henry's Bar* where
all the young Americans go to drink strange
beverages.  I am quite sure I remember his face.  A
weak face but not quite bad."

And after another little pause he asked—

"Was there any reason why he should have gone
away?  Any quarrel or that sort of thing?"

"Well," said the other man, "I rather think
there was something of the sort.  The boy's
uncle—Captain Stewart, middle-aged, rather prim old
party—you'll have met him, I dare say—he
intimated to me one day, that there had been some
trivial row.  You see the lad isn't of age yet, though
he is to be in a few months, and so he has had to
live on an allowance doled out by his grandfather,
who's the head of the house—the boy's father is
dead.  There's a quaint old beggar, if you like!—the
grandfather.  He was rather a swell in the
diplomatic, in his day it seems—rather an important
swell.  Now he's bedridden.  He sits all day in
bed and plays cards with his granddaughter or with
a very superior valet, and talks politics with the
men who come to see him.  Oh yes, he's a quaint
old beggar.  He has a great quantity of white hair
and an enormous square white beard, and the fiercest
eyes I ever saw, I should think.  Everybody's
frightened out of their wits of him.  Well, he sits
up there and rules his family in good old patriarchal
style, and it seems he came down a bit hard on the
poor boy one day over some folly or other, and there
was a row and the boy went out of the house swearing
he'd be even."

"Ah well, then," said Ste. Marie, "the matter
seems simple enough.  A foolish boy's foolish pique.
He is staying in hiding somewhere to frighten his
grandfather.  When he thinks the time favourable
he will come back and be wept over and forgiven."

The other man walked a little way in silence.

"Ye—es," he said at last.  "Yes, possibly.
Possibly you are right.  That's what the grandfather
thinks.  It's the obvious solution.  Unfortunately
there is more or less against it.  The boy went
away with—so far as can be learned—almost no
money, almost none at all.  And he has already
been gone a month.  Miss Benham—his sister—is
sure that something has happened to him, and
I'm a bit inclined to think so too.  It's all very
odd.  I should think he might have been kidnapped
but that no demand has been made for money."

"He was not," suggested Ste. Marie—"not the
sort of young man to do anything desperate—make
away with himself?"

Hartley laughed.

"O Lord, no!" said he.  "Not that sort of
young man at all.  He was a very normal type of
rich and spoilt and somewhat foolish American boy."

"Rich?" inquired the other quickly.

"Oh yes! they're beastly rich.  Young Arthur
is to come into something very good at his majority,
I believe, from his father's estate, and the old
grandfather is said to be indecently rich—rolling in
it!  There's another reason why the young idiot
wouldn't be likely to stop away of his own accord.
He wouldn't risk anything like a serious break with
the old gentleman.  It would mean a loss of
millions to him, I dare say; for the old beggar is quite
capable of cutting him off, if he takes the notion.  Oh,
it's a bad business, all through."  And after they
had gone on a bit he said it again, shaking his head—

"It's a bad business!  That poor girl you know—it's
hard on her.  She was fond of the young ass
for some reason or other.  She's very much broken
up over it."

"Yes," said Ste. Marie, "it is hard for her—for
all the family, of course.  A bad business, as you
say."  He spoke absently, for he was looking ahead
at something which seemed to be a motor accident.
They had, by this time, got well up the Champs
Elysées and were crossing the Rond Point.  A
motor-car was drawn up alongside the kerb just
beyond, and a little knot of people stood about it
and seemed to look at something on the ground.

"I think some one has been run down," said
Ste. Marie.  "Shall we have a look?"  They quickened
their pace and came to where the group of people
stood in a circle looking upon the ground, and two
gendarmes asked many questions and wrote
voluminously in their little books.  It appeared that a
delivery boy mounted upon a tricycle cart had
turned into the wrong side of the avenue, and had
got himself run into and overturned by a
motor-car going at a moderate rate of speed.  For once
the sentiment of those mysterious birds of prey
which flock instantaneously from nowhere round
an accident, was against the victim and in favour
of the frightened and gesticulating chauffeur.

Ste. Marie turned an amused face from this voluble
being to the other occupants of the patently hired
car, who stood apart adding very little to the
discussion.  He saw a tall and bony man with very
bright blue eyes and what is sometimes called a
guardsman's moustache—the drooping walruslike
ornament which dates back a good many years now.
Beyond this gentleman he saw a young woman
in a long grey silk coat and a motoring veil.  He
was aware that the tall man was staring at him
rather fixedly and with a half-puzzled frown, as
though he thought that they had met before and
was trying to remember when, but Ste. Marie gave
the man but a swift glance.  His eyes were upon the
dark face of the young woman beyond, and it
seemed to him that she called aloud to him in an
actual voice that rang in his ears.  The young
woman's very obvious beauty he thought had
nothing to do with the matter.  It seemed to him
that her eyes called him.  Just that.  Something
strange and very potent seemed to take sudden and
almost tangible hold upon him—a charm, a spell,
a magic—something unprecedented, new to his
experience.  He could not take his eyes from hers
and he stood staring.

.. _`"It seemed to him that her eyes called him."`:

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   :alt: "It seemed to him that her eyes called him."

   "It seemed to him that her eyes called him."

As before, on the Pont de la Concorde, Hartley
touched him on the arm, and abruptly the chains
that had bound him were loosened.

"We must be going on, you know," the Englishman
said, and Ste. Marie said rather hurriedly—

"Yes! yes, to be sure.  Come along!"  But
at a little distance he turned once more to look
back.  The chauffeur had mounted to his place, the
delivery boy was upon his feet again, little the
worse for his tumble, and the knot of bystanders
had begun to disperse, but it seemed to Ste. Marie
that the young woman in the long silk coat stood
quite still where she had been, and that her face was
turned towards him watching.

"Did you notice that girl?" said Hartley as they
walked on at a brisker pace.  "Did you see her
face?  She was rather a tremendous beauty, you
know, in her gipsyish fashion.  Yes, by Jove, she was!"

"Did I see her?" repeated Ste. Marie.  "Yes.
Oh yes.  She had very strange eyes.  At least I
think it was the eyes.  I don't know.  I've never
seen any eyes quite like them.  Very odd!"

He said something more in French which Hartley
did not hear, and the Englishman saw that he was
frowning.

"Oh well, I shouldn't have said there was
anything strange about them," Hartley said, "but
they certainly were beautiful.  There's no denying
that.  The man with her looked rather Irish I
thought."

They came to the Etoile and cut across it towards
the Avenue Hoche.  Ste. Marie glanced back once
more, but the motor-car and the delivery boy and
the gendarmes were gone.

"What did you say?" he asked idly.

"I said the man looked Irish," repeated his friend.
All at once Ste. Marie gave a loud exclamation—

"Sacred thousand devils!  Fool that I am!
Dolt!  Why didn't I think of it before?"  Hartley
stared at him and Ste. Marie stared down the
Champs Elysées like one in a trance.

"I say," said the Englishman, "we really must
be getting on, you know, we're late."  And as they
went along down the Avenue Hoche, he demanded—

"Why are you a dolt and whatever else it was?
What struck you so suddenly?"

"I remembered all at once," said Ste. Marie,
"where I had seen that man before, and with whom
I last saw him.  I'll tell you about it later.
Probably it's of no importance, though."

"You're talking rather like a mild lunatic," said
the other.  "Here we are at the house!"





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.. _`THE LADDER TO THE STARS`:

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   CHAPTER II


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   THE LADDER TO THE STARS

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Miss Benham was talking wearily to a
strange fair youth with an impediment in
his speech, and was wondering why the youth had
been asked to this house, where in general one was
sure of meeting only interesting people, when some
one spoke her name, and she turned with a little
sigh of relief.  It was Baron de Vries, the Belgian
First Secretary of Legation, an old friend of her
grandfather's, a man made gentle and sweet by
infinite sorrow.  He bowed civilly to the fair youth
and bent over the girl's hand.

"It is very good," he said, "to see you again in
the world.  We have need of you, *nous autres*.
Madame your mother is well, I hope—and the
bear?"  He called old Mr. Stewart "the bear"
in a sort of grave jest, and that fierce octogenarian
rather liked it.

"Oh yes," the girl said, "we're all fairly well.
My mother had one of her headaches to-night and
so didn't come here, but she's as well as usual, and
'the bear'—yes, he's well enough physically, I
should think, but he has not been quite the same
since—during the past month.  It has told upon
him, you know.  He grieves over it much more than
he will admit."

"Yes," said Baron de Vries gravely.  "Yes,
I know."  He turned about towards the fair young
man, but that youth had drifted away and joined
himself to another group.  Miss Benham looked
after him and gave a little exclamation of relief.

"That person was rather terrible," she said.  "I
can't think why he is here.  Marian so seldom
has dull people."

"I believe," said the Belgian, "that he is some
connexion of de Saulnes'.  That explains his
presence."  He lowered his voice.

"You have heard no—news?  They have found no trace?"

"No," said she.  "Nothing.  Nothing at all.
I'm rather in despair.  It's all so hideously
mysterious.  I am sure, you know, that something has
happened to him.  It's—very very hard.  Sometimes
I think I can't bear it.  But I go on.  We
all go on."

Baron de Vries nodded his head strongly.

"That, my dear child, is just what you must do,"
said he.  "You must go on.  That is what needs
the real courage and you have courage.  I am not
afraid for you.  And sooner or later you will hear
of him—from him.  It is impossible nowadays to
disappear for very long.  You will hear from him."  He
smiled at her, his slow grave smile that was not
of mirth but of kindness and sympathy and cheer.

"And if I may say so," he said, "you are doing
very wisely to come out once more among your
friends.  You can accomplish no good by brooding at
home.  It is better to live one's normal life—even
when it is not easy to do it.  I say so who know."

The girl touched Baron de Vries' arm for an
instant with her hand—a little gesture that seemed
to express thankfulness and trust and affection.

"If all my friends were like you!" she said
to him.  And after that she drew a quick breath
as if to have done with these sad matters, and she
turned her eyes once more towards the broad room
where the other guests stood in little groups, all
talking at once very rapidly and in loud voices.

"What extraordinarily cosmopolitan affairs these
dinner parties in new Paris are!" she said.  "They're
like diplomatic parties, only we have a better time
and the men don't wear their orders.  How many
nationalities should you say there are in this room now?"

"Without stopping to consider," said Baron de
Vries, "I say ten."  They counted, and out of
fourteen people there were represented nine races.

"I don't see Richard Hartley," Miss Benham said.
"I had an idea he was to be here.  Ah!" she
broke off, looking towards the doorway.

"Here he comes now!" she said.  "He's rather
late.  Who is the Spanish-looking man with him, I
wonder?  He's rather handsome, isn't he?"

Baron de Vries moved a little forward to look,
and exclaimed in his turn.  He said—

"Ah, I did not know he was returned to Paris.
That is Ste. Marie."  Miss Benham's eyes followed
the Spanish-looking young man as he made his way
through the joyous greetings of friends towards his
hostess.

"So that is Ste. Marie!" she said, still watching
him.  "The famous Ste. Marie!"  She gave a
little laugh.

"Well, I don't wonder at the reputation he
bears for—gallantry and that sort of thing.  He
looks the part, doesn't he?"

"Ye—es," admitted her friend.  "Yes, he is
sufficiently *beau garçon*.  But—yes, well, that
is not all, by any means.  You must not get the
idea that Ste. Marie is nothing but a genial and
romantic young squire-of-dames.  He is much
more than that.  He has very fine qualities.  To be
sure he appears to possess no ambition in particular,
but I should be glad if he were my son.  He comes of
a very old house, and there is no blot upon the history
of that house—nothing but faithfulness and gallantry
and honour.  And there is, I think, no blot upon
Ste. Marie himself.  He is fine gold."

The girl turned and stared at Baron de Vries
with some astonishment.

"You speak very strongly," said she.  "I have
never heard you speak so strongly of any one, I
think."

The Belgian made a little deprecatory gesture
with his two hands, and he laughed.

"Oh well, I like the boy.  And I should hate to
have you meet him for the first time under a
misconception.  Listen, my child!  When a young
man is loved equally by both men and women, by
both old and young, that young man is worthy of
friendship and trust.  Everybody likes Ste. Marie.
In a sense that is his misfortune.  The way is made
too easy for him.  His friends stand so thick about
him that they shut off his view of the heights.  To
waken ambition in his soul he has need of solitude
or misfortune or grief.

"Or," said the elderly Belgian, laughing gently,
"or perhaps the other thing might do it best—the
more obvious thing?"

The girl's raised eyebrows questioned him and,
when he did not answer, she said—

"What thing then?"

"Why, love," said Baron de Vries.  "Love, to
be sure.  Love is said to work miracles, and I
believe that to be a perfectly true saying.
Ah! he is coming here."

The Marquise de Saulnes, who was a very pretty
little Englishwoman with a deceptively doll-like
look, approached, dragging Ste. Marie in her wake.
She said—

"My dearest dear, I give you of my best.  Thank
me, and cherish him!  I believe he is to lead you
to the place where food is, isn't he?"  She beamed
over her shoulder, and departed, and Miss
Benham found herself confronted by the
Spanish-looking man.

Her first thought was that he was not as
handsome as he had seemed at a distance but
something much better.  For a young man she
thought his face was rather oddly weather-beaten,
as if he might have been very much at sea, and
it was too dark to be entirely pleasing.  But she
liked his eyes, which were not brown or black, as
she had expected, but a very unusual dark
grey—a sort of slate colour.

And she liked his mouth too.  It was her habit—and
it is not an unreliable habit—to judge people
by their eyes and mouth.  Ste. Marie's mouth
pleased her because the lips were neither thin
nor thick, they were not drawn into an
unpleasant line by unpleasant habits, they did not
pout as so many Latin lips do, and they had at one
corner a humorous expression which she found
curiously agreeable.

"You are to cherish me," Ste. Marie said.
"Orders from headquarters.  How does one cherish
people?"  The corner of his very expressive mouth
twitched and he grinned at her.  Miss Benham
did not approve of young men who began an
acquaintance in this very familiar manner.  She thought
that there was a certain preliminary and more
formal stage which ought to be got through with
first, but Ste. Marie's grin was irresistible.  In spite
of herself she found that she was laughing.

"I don't quite know," she said.  "It sounds
rather appalling, doesn't it?  Marian has such an
extraordinary fashion of hurling people at each
other's heads.  She takes my breath away at times."

"Ah well," said Ste. Marie, "perhaps we can
settle upon something when I've led you to the
place where food is.  And, by the way, what are we
waiting for?  Are we not all here?  There's an
even number."  He broke off with a sudden
exclamation of pleasure, and, when Miss Benham
turned to look, she found Baron de Vries, who had
been talking to some friends, had once more come
up to where she stood.  She watched the greeting
between the two men, and its quiet affection
impressed her very much.  She knew Baron de Vries
well, and she knew that it was not his habit to show
or to feel a strong liking for young and idle men.
This young man must be very worth while to have
won the regard of that wise old Belgian.

Just then Hartley, who had been barricaded
behind a cordon of friends, came up to her in an
abominable temper over his ill luck, and, a few
moments later, the dinner procession was formed
and they went in.

At table Miss Benham found herself between
Ste. Marie and the same strange fair youth who had
afflicted her in the drawing-room.  She looked
upon him now with a sort of dismayed terror, but it
developed that there was nothing to fear from the
fair youth.  He had no attention to waste upon
social amenities.  He fell upon his food with a
wolfish passion extraordinary to see and also,
alas! to hear.  Miss Benham turned from him to meet
Ste. Marie's delighted eye.

"Tell him for me," begged that gentleman,
"that soup should be seen—not heard."  But Miss
Benham gave a little shiver of disgust.

"I shall tell him nothing whatever," she said.
"He's quite too dreadful really.  People shouldn't
be exposed to that sort of thing.  It's not only the
noises.  Plenty of very charming and estimable
Germans, for example, make strange noises at table.
But he behaves like a famished dog over a bone.
I refuse to have anything to do with him.  You
must make up the loss to me, M. Ste. Marie.  You
must be as amusing as two people."  She smiled
across at him in her gravely questioning fashion.

"I'm wondering," she said, "if I dare ask you a
very personal question.  I hesitate because I don't
like people who presume too much upon a short
acquaintance—and our acquaintance has been
very very short, hasn't it? even though we may
have heard a great deal about each other
beforehand.  I wonder."

"Oh, I should ask it, if I were you!" said
Ste. Marie at once.  "I'm an extremely good-natured
person.  And besides I quite naturally feel flattered
at your taking interest enough to ask anything
about me."

"Well," said she, "it's this.  Why does everybody
call you just 'Ste. Marie'?  Most people are spoken
of as Monsieur this or that—if there isn't a more
august title—but they all call you Ste. Marie
without any Monsieur.  It seems rather odd."

Ste. Marie looked puzzled.

"Why," he said, "I don't believe I know, just.
I'd never thought of that.  It's quite true, of course.
They never do use a Monsieur or anything, do they?
How cheeky of them!  I wonder why it is.  I'll
ask Hartley."

He did ask Hartley later on and Hartley didn't
know either.  Miss Benham asked some other
people, who were vague about it, and in the end she
became convinced that it was an odd and quite
inexplicable form of something like endearment.  But
nobody seemed to have formulated it to himself.

"The name is really 'de Ste. Marie'," he went on,
"and there's a title that I don't use, and a string
of Christian names that one employs.  My people
were Bearnais, and there's a heap of ruins on top of a
hill in the Pyrenees where they lived.  It used to
be Ste. Marie de Mont-les-Roses, but afterwards,
after the Revolution, they called it Ste. Marie de
Mont Perdu.  My great-grandfather was killed
there, but some old servants smuggled his little son
away and saved him."

He seemed to Miss Benham to say that in exactly
the right manner, not in the cheap and scoffing
fashion which some young men affect in speaking of
ancestral fortunes or misfortunes, nor with too
much solemnity.  And when she allowed a little
silence to occur at the end he did not go on with his
family history, but turned at once to another subject.
It pleased her curiously.

The fair youth at her other side continued to
crouch over his food, making fierce and animal-like
noises.  He never spoke or seemed to wish to be
spoken to, and Miss Benham found it easy to ignore
him altogether.  It occurred to her once or twice
that Ste. Marie's other neighbour might desire an
occasional word from him, but after all, she said to
herself, that was his affair and beyond her control.
So these two talked together through the entire
dinner period, and the girl was aware that she was
being much more deeply affected by the simple
magnetic charm of a man than ever before in her
life.  It made her a little angry, because she was
unfamiliar with this sort of thing and distrusted
it.  She was a rather perfect type of that
phenomenon before which the British and Continental
world stands in mingled delight and exasperation—the
American unmarried young woman, the creature
of extraordinary beauty and still more extraordinary
poise, the virgin with the bearing and *savoir faire*
of a woman of the world, the fresh-cheeked girl
with the calm mind of a *savant* and the cool
judgment, in regard to men and things, of an ambassador.
The European world says she is cold, and that may
be true; but it is well enough known that she can
love very deeply.  It says that, like most queens,
and for precisely the same set of reasons, she later
on makes a bad mother; but it is easy to point to
queens who are the best of mothers.  In short, she
remains an enigma, and like all other enigmas
forever fascinating.

Miss Benham reflected that she knew almost nothing
about Ste. Marie, save for his reputation as a
carpet knight, and Baron de Vries' good opinion,
which could not be despised.  And that made her
the more displeased when she realised how promptly
she was surrendering to his charm.  In a moment of
silence she gave a sudden little laugh which seemed
to express a half-angry astonishment.

"What was that for?" Ste. Marie demanded.
The girl looked at him for an instant and shook
her head.

"I can't tell you," said she.  "That's rude,
isn't it, and I'm sorry.  Perhaps I will tell you one
day when we know each other better."

But inwardly she was saying: "Why, I suppose
this is how they all begin: all these regiments of
women who make fools of themselves about him!
I suppose this is exactly what he does to them all!"

It made her angry and she tried quite unfairly
to shift the anger, as it were, to Ste. Marie—to put
him somehow in the wrong.  But she was by nature
very just and she could not quite do that, particularly
as it was evident that the man was using no cheap
tricks.  He did not try to flirt with her and he did not
attempt to pay her veiled compliments—though
she was often aware that when her attention was
diverted for a few moments his eyes were always upon
her, and that is a compliment that few women
can find it in their hearts to resent.

"You say," said Ste. Marie, "'when we know
each other better.'  May one twist that into a
permission to come and see you—I mean, really
see you, not just leave a card at your door
to-morrow by way of observing the formalities?"

"Yes," she said.  "Oh yes, one may twist it
into something like that without straining it unduly,
I think.  My mother and I shall be very glad to see
you.  I'm sorry she is not here to-night to say it
herself."

Then the hostess began to gather together her
flock, and so the two had no more speech.  But
when the women had gone and the men were left
about the dismantled table, Hartley moved up
beside Ste. Marie and shook a sad head at him.
He said—

"You're a very lucky being.  I was quietly
hoping, on the way here, that I should be the
fortunate man, but you always have all the luck.
I hope you're decently grateful."

"*Mon vieux*," said Ste. Marie, "my feet are
upon the stars."

"No!"  He shook his head as if the figure
displeased him.  "No, my feet are upon the ladder
to the stars.  Grateful?  What does a foolish word
like grateful mean?  Don't talk to me.  You are not
worthy to trample among my magnificent thoughts.
I am a god upon Olympus."

"You said just now," objected the other man
practically, "that your feet were on a ladder.  There
are no ladders from Olympus to the stars."

"Ho!" said Ste. Marie.  "Ho! aren't there,
though?  There shall be ladders all over Olympus
if I like.  What do you know about gods and
stars?  I shall be a god climbing to the heavens,
and I shall be an angel of light, and I shall be a
miserable worm grovelling in the night here below,
and I shall be a poet, and I shall be anything else
I happen to think of, all of them at once, if I choose.
And you, you shall be the tongue-tied son of
perfidious Albion that you are, gaping at my splendours
from a fog bank—a November fog bank in May.
Who is the dessicated gentleman bearing down upon us?"





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.. _`STE. MARIE MAKES A VOW, BUT A PAIR OF EYES HAUNT HIM`:

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   CHAPTER III


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   STE. MARIE MAKES A VOW, BUT A PAIR OF EYES HAUNT HIM

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Hartley looked over his shoulder and gave
a little exclamation of distaste.

"It's Captain Stewart, Miss Benham's uncle,"
he said, lowering his voice.  "I'm off.  I shall
abandon you to him.  He's a good old soul but
he bores me."  Hartley nodded to the man who
was approaching, and then made his way to the
end of the table where their host sat discussing
Aero-Club matters with a group of the other men.

Captain Stewart dropped into the vacant chair,
saying—

"May I recall myself to you, M. Ste. Marie?
We met, I believe, once or twice, a couple of years
ago.  My name's Stewart."

Captain Stewart—the title was vaguely believed
to have been won some years before in the
American service, but no one appeared to know much
about it—was not an old man.  He could not
have been, at this time, much more than fifty, but
English-speaking acquaintances often called him
"old Stewart" and others "*ce vieux* Stewart."  Indeed,
at a first glance, he might have passed for
anything up to sixty, for his face was a good deal
more lined and wrinkled than it should have been
at his age.  Ste. Marie's adjective had been rather
apt.  The man had a dessicated appearance.  Upon
examination, however, one saw that the blood was
still red in his cheeks and lips, and, although his
neck was thin and withered like an old man's, his
brown eyes still held their fire.  The hair was almost
gone from the top of his large round head, but it
remained at the sides, stiff colourless hair with a
hint of red in it.  And there were red streaks in
his grey moustache, which was trained outwards
in two loose tufts like shaving brushes.  The
moustache and the shallow chin under it gave him an
odd cat-like appearance.  Hartley, who rather
disliked the man, used to insist that he had heard
him mew.

Ste. Marie said something politely non-committal,
though he did not at all remember the alleged
meeting two years before, and he looked at Captain
Stewart with a real curiosity and interest, in his
character as Miss Benham's uncle.  He thought
it very civil of the elder man to make these friendly
advances when it was in no way incumbent upon
him to do so.

"I noticed," said Captain Stewart, "that you
were placed next my niece, Helen Benham, at dinner.
This must be the first time you two have met, is
it not?  I remember speaking of you to her some
months ago, and I am quite sure she said that she
had not met you.  Ah! yes, of course, you have
been away from Paris a great deal since she and
her mother—her mother is my sister, that is to say,
my half-sister—have come here to live with my
father."  He gave a little gentle laugh.

"I take an elderly uncle's privilege," he said,
"of being rather proud of Helen.  She is called
very pretty and she certainly has great poise."

Ste. Marie drew a quick breath and his eyes
began to flash as they had done a few moments
before when he told Hartley that his feet were upon
the ladder to the stars.

"Miss Benham," he cried.  "Miss Benham
is——"  He hung poised so for a moment, searching,
as it were, for words of sufficient splendour, but in
the end he shook his head, and the gleam faded
from his eyes.  He sank back in his chair sighing.

"Miss Benham," said he, "is extremely
beautiful."  And again her uncle emitted his little gentle
laugh which may have deceived Hartley into
believing that he had heard the man mew.  The
sound was as much like mewing as it was like
anything else.

"I am very glad," Captain Stewart said, "to
see her come out once more into the world.  She
needs distraction.  We—you may possibly have
heard that the family is in great distress of mind
over the disappearance of my young nephew.
Helen has suffered particularly because she is
convinced that the boy has met with foul play.  I
myself think it very unlikely, very unlikely indeed.
The lack of motive, for one thing, and for
another——  Ah well, a score of reasons!  But Helen refuses to
be comforted.  It seems to me much more like a
boy's prank—his idea of revenge for what he
considered unjust treatment at his grandfather's hands.
He was always a headstrong youngster, and he
has been a bit spoilt.  Still, of course, the
uncertainty is very trying for us all—very wearing."

"Of course," said Ste. Marie gravely.  "It is
most unfortunate.  Ah, by the way!"  He looked
up with a sudden interest.  "A rather odd thing
happened," he said, "as Hartley and I were coming
here this evening.  We walked up the Champs
Elysées from the Concorde, and on the way Hartley
had been telling me of your nephew's disappearance.
Near the Rond Point we came upon a
motor-car which was drawn up at the side of the
street—there had been an accident of no consequence,
a boy tumbled over but not hurt.  Well, one of the
two occupants of the motor-car was a man whom
I used to see about Maxim's and the Café de Paris
and the Montmartre places too, some time
ago—a rather shady character whose name I've
forgotten.  The odd part of it all was that at the last
occasion or two on which I saw your nephew he
was with this man.  I think it was in *Henry's Bar*.
Of course it means nothing at all.  Your nephew
doubtless knew scores of people, and this man is
no more likely to have information about his present
whereabouts than any of the others.  Still, I
should have liked to ask him.  I didn't remember
who he was till he had gone."

Captain Stewart shook his head sadly, frowning
down upon the cigarette from which he had knocked
the ash.

"I am afraid poor Arthur did not always choose
his friends with the best of judgment," said he.
"I am not squeamish, and I would not have boys
kept in a glass case, but——  Yes, I'm afraid Arthur
was not always too careful."  He replaced the
cigarette neatly between his lips.

"This man now, this man whom you saw to-night,
what sort of looking man will he have been?"

"Oh, a tall lean man," said Ste. Marie.  "A
tall man with blue eyes and a heavy old-fashioned
moustache.  I just can't remember the name."

The smoke stood still for an instant over Captain
Stewart's cigarette, and it seemed to Ste. Marie
that a little contortion of anger fled over the man's
face and was gone again.  He stirred slightly in
his chair.

After a moment he said—

"I fancy—from your description I fancy I
know who the man was.  If it is the man I am
thinking of, the name is—Powers.  He is, as you
have said, a rather shady character, and I more
than once warned my nephew against him.  Such
people are not good companions for a boy.  Yes, I
warned him."

.. _`"'I fancy I know who the man was.'"`:

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   :alt: "'I fancy I know who the man was.'"

   "'I fancy I know who the man was.'"

"Powers," said Ste. Marie, "doesn't sound
right to me, you know.  I can't say the fellow's
name myself, but I'm sure—that is, I think—it's
not Powers."

"Oh yes," said Captain Stewart with an elderly
man's half-querulous certainty.  "Yes, the name
is Powers.  I remember it well.  And I remember——  Yes,
it was odd, was it not, your meeting him
like that just as you were talking of Arthur.
You—oh, you didn't speak to him, you say?  No! no,
to be sure.  You didn't recognise him at once.
Yes, it was odd.  Of course, the man could have
had nothing to do with poor Arthur's disappearance.
His only interest in the boy at any time
would have been for what money Arthur might
have, and he carried none, or almost none, away
with him when he vanished.  Eh, poor lad!  Where
can he be to-night, I wonder?  It's a sad business,
M. Ste. Marie.  A sad business."

Captain Stewart fell into a sort of brooding
silence, frowning down at the table before him and
twisting with his thin fingers the little liqueur
glass and the coffee cup which were there.  Once
or twice, Ste. Marie thought, the frown deepened
and twisted into a sort of scowl, and the man's
fingers twitched on the cloth of the table, but
when at last the group at the other end of the
board rose and began to move towards the
door, Captain Stewart rose also and followed them.

At the door he seemed to think of something,
and touched Ste. Marie upon the arm.

"This, ah, Powers," he said in a low tone, "this
man whom you saw to-night.  You said he was
one of two occupants of a motor-car.  Yes?  Did
you by any chance recognise the other?"

"Oh, the other was a young woman," said
Ste. Marie.  "No, I never saw her before.  She was
very handsome."

Captain Stewart said something under his breath
and turned abruptly away.  But an instant later
he faced about once more, smiling.  He said, in
a man-of-the-world manner which sat rather oddly
upon him—

"Ah well, we all have our little love affairs.  I
dare say this shady fellow has his."  And for some
obscure reason Ste. Marie found the speech
peculiarly offensive.

In the drawing-room he had opportunity for no
more than a word with Miss Benham, for Hartley,
enraged over his previous ill success, cut in ahead
of him and manoeuvred that young lady into a
corner, where he sat before her turning a square
and determined back to the world.  Ste. Marie
listlessly played bridge for a time, but his attention
was not upon it, and he was glad when the others
at the table settled their accounts and departed
to look in at a dance somewhere.  After that he
talked for a little with Marian de Saulnes, whom
he liked and who made no secret of adoring him.
She complained loudly that he was in a vile
temper, which was not true: he was only restless and
distrait and wanted to be alone; and so, at last,
he took his leave without waiting for Hartley.

Outside in the street he stood for a moment
hesitating, and an expectant fiacre drew up before
the house, the cocher raising an interrogative
whip.  In the end Ste. Marie shook his head and
turned away on foot.  It was a still sweet night
of soft airs and a moonless starlit sky, and the
man was very fond of walking in the dark.  From
the Etoile he walked down the Champs Elysées,
but presently turned towards the river.  His eyes
were upon the mellow stars, his feet upon the
ladder thereunto.  He found himself crossing the
Pont des Invalides, and halted midway to rest and
look.  He laid his arms upon the bridge's parapet
and turned his face outwards.  Against it bore
a little gentle breeze that smelt of the purifying
water below and of the night and of green things
growing.  Beneath him the river ran black as
flowing ink, and across its troubled surface the
coloured lights of the many bridges glittered very
beautifully—swirling arabesques of gold and
crimson.  The noises of the city—beat of hoofs upon
wooden pavements, horn of tram or motor-car,
jingle of bell upon cab horse—came here faintly
and as if from a great distance.  Above the dark
trees of the Cours la Reine the sky glowed softly
golden, reflecting the million lights of Paris.

Ste. Marie closed his eyes and, against darkness,
he saw the beautiful head of Helen Benham, the
clear-cut exquisite modelling of feature and
contour, the perfection of form and colour.  Her eyes
met his eyes, and they were very serene and calm
and confident.  She smiled at him, and the new
contours into which her face fell with the smile
were more perfect than before.  He watched the
turn of her head, and the grace of the movement
was the uttermost effortless grace one dreams
that a queen should have.  The heart of Ste. Marie
quickened in him and he would have gone down
upon his knees.

He was well aware that with the coming of this
girl something unprecedented, wholly new to his
experience had befallen him—an awakening to a
new life.  He had been in love a very great many
times.  He was usually in love.  And each time
his heart had gone through the same sweet and
bitter anguish, the same sleepless nights had come
and gone upon him, the eternal and ever-new
miracle had wakened spring in his soul, had passed
its summer solstice, had faded through autumnal
regrets to winter's death; but through it all
something within him had waited asleep.

He found himself wondering dully what it was,
wherein lay the great difference, and he could not
answer the question he asked.  He knew only
that whereas before he had loved, he now went
down upon prayerful knees to worship.  In a
sudden poignant thrill the knightly fervour of his
forefathers came upon him, and he saw a sweet
and golden lady set far above him upon a throne.
Her clear eyes gazed afar, serene and untroubled.
She sat wrapped in a sort of virginal austerity,
unaware of the base passions of men.  The other
women whom Ste. Marie had, as he was pleased to
term it, loved, had certainly come at least halfway
to meet him, and some of them had come a good
deal farther than that.  He could not, by the
wildest flight of imagination, conceive this girl
doing anything of that sort.  She was to be won
by trial and high endeavour, by prayer and
self-purification, not captured by a warm eye glance,
a whispered word, a laughing kiss.  In fancy he
looked from the crowding cohorts of these others
to that still sweet figure set on high, wrapt in
virginal pride, calm in her serene perfection, and
his soul abased itself before her.  He knelt in an
awed and worshipful adoration.

So, before quest or tournament or battle, must
those elder Ste. Maries—Ste. Maries of
Mont-les-Roses—have knelt, each knight at the feet of his
lady, each knightly soul aglow with the chaste
ardour of chivalry.

The man's hands tightened upon the parapet
of the bridge, he lifted his face again to the shining
stars whereamong, as his fancy had it, she sat
enthroned.  Exultingly he felt under his feet the
rungs of the ladder, and in the darkness he swore
a great oath to have done for ever with blindness
and grovelling, to climb and climb, forever to
climb, until at last he should stand where she
was—cleansed and made worthy by long endeavour—at
last meet her eyes and touch her hand.

It was a fine and chivalric frenzy, and Ste. Marie
was passionately in earnest about it, but his
guardian angel, indeed Fate herself, must have laughed
a little in the dark, knowing what manner of man
he was in less exalted hours.

It was an odd freak of memory that at last
recalled him to earth.  Every man knows that when
a strong and, for the moment, unavailing effort
has been made to recall something lost to mind,
the memory, in some mysterious fashion, goes on
working long after the attention has been
elsewhere diverted, and sometimes hours afterwards,
or even days, produces quite suddenly and inappropriately
the lost article.  Ste. Marie had turned
with a little sigh to take up once more his walk
across the Pont des Invalides, when seemingly
from nowhere, and certainly by no conscious effort,
a name flashed into his mind.  He said it aloud——

"O'Hara!  O'Hara.  That tall thin chap's name
was O'Hara, by Jove!  It wasn't Powers at all."  He
laughed a little as he remembered how very
positive Captain Stewart had been.  And then he
frowned, thinking that the mistake was an odd
one since Stewart had evidently known a good
deal about this adventurer.  Captain Stewart
though, Ste. Marie reflected, was exactly the sort
to be very sure he was right about things.  He
had just the neat and precise and semi-scholarly
personality of the man who always knows.  So
Ste. Marie dismissed the matter with another
brief laugh, but a cognate matter was less easy to
dismiss.  The name brought with it a face, a dark
and splendid face with tragic eyes that called.
He walked a long way thinking about them, and
wondering.  The eyes haunted him.  It will have
been reasonably evident that Ste. Marie was a
fanciful and imaginative soul.  He needed but a
chance word, the sight of a face in a crowd, the
glance of an eye, to begin story building, and he
would go on for hours about it and work himself
up to quite a passion with his imaginings.  He
should have been a writer of fiction.

He began forthwith to construct romances about
this lady of the motor-car.  He wondered why
she should have been with the shady Irishman—if
Irishman he was—O'Hara, and with some anxiety
he wondered what the two were to each other.
Captain Stewart's little cynical jest came to his
mind, and he was conscious of a sudden desire to
kick Miss Benham's middle-aged uncle.

The eyes haunted him.  What was it they
suffered?  Out of what misery did they call?—and
for what?  He walked all the long way home
to his little flat overlooking the Luxembourg
Gardens, haunted by those eyes.  As he climbed
his stair it suddenly occurred to him that they
had quite driven out of his mind the image of his
beautiful lady who sat amongst the stars, and the
realisation came to him with a shock.





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.. _`OLD DAVID STEWART`:

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   CHAPTER IV


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   OLD DAVID STEWART

.. vspace:: 2

It was Miss Benham's custom upon returning
home at night from dinner parties or other
entertainments to look in for a few minutes on
her grandfather before going to bed.  The old
gentleman, like most elderly people, slept lightly,
and often sat up in bed very late into the night
reading or playing piquet with his valet.  He
suffered hideously at times from the malady which
was killing him by degrees, but when he was free
from pain the enormous recuperative power, which
he had preserved to his eighty-six years, left him
almost as vigorous and clear-minded as if he had
never been ill at all.  Hartley's description of
him had not been altogether a bad one—"a quaint
old beggar ... a great quantity of white hair and
an enormous square white beard and the fiercest
eyes I ever saw——"  He was a rather "quaint old
beggar" indeed!  He had let his thick white
hair grow long, and it hung down over his brows
in unparted locks as the ancient Greeks wore their
hair.  He had very shaggy eyebrows, and the
deep-set eyes under them gleamed from the shadow
with a fierceness which was rather deceptive but
none the less intimidating.  He had a great beak
of a nose, but the mouth below could not be seen.
It was hidden by the moustache and the enormous
square beard.  His face was colourless, almost
as white as hair and beard: there seemed to be
no shadow or tint anywhere except the cavernous
recesses from which the man's eyes gleamed and
sparkled.  Altogether he was certainly "a quaint
old beggar."

He had, during the day and evening, a good
many visitors, for the old gentleman's mind was
as alert as it ever had been, and important men
thought him worth consulting.  The names which
the admirable valet, Peters, announced from time
to time were names which meant a great deal in
the official and diplomatic world of the day.  But
if old David felt flattered over the unusual fashion
in which the great of the earth continued to come
to him he never betrayed it.  Indeed it is quite
probable that this view of the situation never
once occurred to him.  He had been thrown with
the great of the earth for more than half a century,
and he had learnt to take it as a matter of course.

On her return from the Marquise de Saulnes'
dinner party Miss Benham went at once to her
grandfather's wing of the house, which had its
own street entrance, and knocked lightly at his
door.  She asked the admirable Peters, who opened
to her—

"Is he awake?"  And being assured that he
was, went into the vast chamber, dropping her
cloak on a chair as she entered.  David Stewart
was sitting up in his monumental bed behind a
sort of invalid's table which stretched across his
knees without touching them.  He wore over
his night-clothes a Chinese Mandarin's jacket of
old red satin, wadded with down, and very
gorgeously embroidered with the cloud and bat designs
and with large round panels of the Imperial
five-clawed dragon in gold.  He had a number of these
jackets, they seemed to be his one vanity in things
external, and they were so made that they could be
slipped about him without disturbing him in his
bed, since they hung down only to the waist or
thereabouts.  They kept the upper part of his body,
which was not covered by the bedclothes, warm,
and they certainly made him a very impressive figure.

He said—

"Ah, Helen!  Come in!  Come in!  Sit down
on the bed there and tell me what you have been
doing!"  He pushed aside the pack of cards
which was spread out on the invalid's table before
him, and with great care counted a sum of money
in francs and half-francs and nickel twenty-five
centime pieces.

"I've won seven francs fifty from Peters
to-night," he said, chuckling gently.  "That is a
very good evening indeed.  Very good.  Where
have you been, and who were there?"

"A dinner party at the de Saulnes'," said Miss
Benham, making herself comfortable on the side of
the great bed.  "It's a very pleasant place.  Marian
is, of course, a dear, and they're quite English
and unceremonious.  You can talk to your
neighbour at dinner instead of addressing the house
from a platform, as it were.  French dinner parties
make me nervous."

Old David gave a little growling laugh.

"French dinner parties at least keep people up
to the mark in the art of conversation," said he.
"But that is a lost art anyhow, nowadays, so I
suppose one might as well be quite informal and
have done with it.  Who were there?"

"Oh, well—" she considered, "no one, I
should think, who would interest you.  Rather
an indifferent set.  Pleasant people but not
inspiring.  The Marquis had some young relative or
connexion who was quite odious and made the
most surprising noises over his food.  I met a new
man whom I think I am going to like very much
indeed.  He wouldn't interest you because he
doesn't mean anything in particular—and, of course,
he oughtn't to interest me for the same reason.
He's just an idle pleasant young man, but—he has
great charm.  Very great charm.  His name is
Ste. Marie.  Baron de Vries seems very fond of him,
which surprised me rather."

"Ste. Marie!" exclaimed the old gentleman in
obvious astonishment.  "Ste. Marie de Mont Perdu?"

"Yes," she said.  "Yes, that is the name, I
believe.  You know him then?  I wonder he
didn't mention it."

"I knew his father," said old David.  "And
his grandfather, for that matter.  They're Gascon,
I think, or Bearnais, but this boy's mother will have
been Irish, unless his father married again.

"So you've been meeting a Ste. Marie, have you?
And finding that he has great charm?"  The old
gentleman broke into one of his growling laughs,
and reached for a long black cigar which he lighted,
eyeing his granddaughter the while over the flaring
match.

"Well," he said, when the cigar was drawing,
"they all have had charm.  I should think there
has never been a Ste. Marie without it.  They're
a sort of embodiment of romance, that family.
This boy's great-grandfather lost his life defending
a castle against a horde of peasants in 1799.  His
grandfather was killed in the French campaign in
Mexico in '39—at Vera Cruz, it was, I think; and
his father died in a filibustering expedition ten years
ago.  I wonder what will become of the last
Ste. Marie?"  Old David's eyes suddenly sharpened.

"You're not going to fall in love with Ste. Marie
and marry him, are you?" he demanded.

Miss Benham gave a little angry laugh, but her
grandfather saw the colour rise in her cheeks for
all that.

"Certainly not!" she said with great decision.
"What an absurd idea!  Because I meet a man
at a dinner party and say I like him, must I marry
him to-morrow?  I meet a great many men at
dinners and things, and a few of them I like.
Heavens!"

"'Methinks the lady doth protest too much,'"
muttered old David into his huge beard.

"I beg your pardon?" asked Miss Benham
politely.  But he shook his head, still growling
inarticulately, and began to draw enormous clouds
of smoke from the long black cigar.  After a time
he took the cigar once more from his lips and looked
thoughtfully at his granddaughter where she sat
on the edge of the vast bed, upright and beautiful,
perfect in the most meticulous detail.  Most women
when they return from a long evening out, look
more or less the worse for it.  Deadened eyes,
pale cheeks, loosened coiffure tell their inevitable
tale.  Miss Benham looked as if she had just come
from the hands of a very excellent maid.  She
looked as freshly *soignée* as she might have looked
at eight that evening instead of at one.  Not a
wave of her perfectly undulated hair was loosened
or displaced, not a fold of the lace at her breast had
departed from its perfect arrangement.

"It is odd," said old David Stewart, "you
taking a fancy to young Ste. Marie.  Of course
it's natural too in a way, because you are complete
opposites, I should think—that is, if this lad is like
the rest of his race.  What I mean is, that merely
attractive young men don't as a rule attract you."

"Well, no," she admitted, "they don't usually.
Men with brains attract me most, I think—men who
are making civilisation, men who are ruling the
world or at least doing important things for it.
That's your fault, you know.  You taught me that."

The old gentleman laughed.

"Possibly," said he.  "Possibly.  Anyhow that
is the sort of men you like and they like you.  You're
by no means a fool, Helen.  In fact, you're a woman
with brains.  You could wield great influence
married to the proper sort of man."

"But not to M. Ste. Marie," she suggested,
smiling across at him.

"Well, no," he said.  "No, not to Ste. Marie.
It would be a mistake to marry Ste. Marie—if he is
what the rest of his house have been.  The
Ste. Maries live a life compounded of romance and
imagination and emotion.  You're not emotional."

"No," said Miss Benham slowly and thoughtfully.
It was as if the idea were new to her.  "No,
I'm not, I suppose.  No.  Certainly not."

"As a matter of fact," said old David, "you're
by nature rather cold.  I'm not sure it isn't a good
thing.  Emotional people, I observe, are usually
in hot water of some sort.  When you marry you're
very likely to choose with a great deal of care and
some wisdom.  And you're also likely to have what
is called a career.  I repeat that you could wield
great influence in the proper environment."

The girl frowned across at her grandfather reflectively.

"Do you mean by that," she asked after a little
silence, "do you mean that you think I am likely
to be moved by sheer ambition and nothing else
in arranging my life?  I've never thought of myself
as a very ambitious person."

"Let us substitute for ambition, common
sense," said old David.  "I think you have a great
deal of common sense for a woman—and so young
a woman.  How old are you, by the way?  Twenty-two?
Yes, to be sure.  I think you have great
common sense and appreciation of values.  And
I think you're singularly free of the emotionalism
that so often plays hob with them all.  People
with common sense fall in love in the right places."

"I don't quite like the sound of it," said Miss
Benham.  "Perhaps I am rather ambitious—I
don't know.  Yes, perhaps.  I should like to play
some part in the world.  I don't deny that.
But—am I as cold as you say?  I doubt it very much.
I doubt that."

"You're twenty-two," said her grandfather.
"And you have seen a good deal of society in
several capitals.  Have you ever fallen in love?"

.. _`"'You're twenty-two.  Have you ever fallen in love?'"`:

.. figure:: images/img-053.jpg
   :align: center
   :alt: "'You're twenty-two.  Have you ever fallen in love?'"

   "'You're twenty-two.  Have you ever fallen in love?'"

Oddly, the face of Ste. Marie came before Miss
Benham's eyes as if she had summoned it there.
But she frowned a little and shook her head, saying—

"No, I can't say that I have.  But that means
nothing.  There's plenty of time for that.

"And you know," she said after a pause, "you
know I'm rather sure I could fall in love—pretty
hard.  I'm sure of that.  Perhaps I have been
waiting.  Who knows?"

"Ay, who knows?" said David.  He seemed
all at once to lose interest in the subject, as old
people often do without apparent reason, for he
remained silent for a long time, puffing at the long
black cigar or rolling it absently between his fingers.
After awhile he laid it down in a metal dish which
stood at his elbow and folded his lean hands before
him over the invalid's table.  He was still so long
that at last his granddaughter thought he had
fallen asleep, and she began to rise from her seat,
taking care to make no noise, but at that the old
man stirred, and put out his hand once more for the cigar.

"Was young Richard Hartley at your dinner
party?" he asked.  And she said—

"Yes.  Oh, yes, he was there.  He and M. Ste. Marie
came together, I believe.  They are very close
friends."

"Another idler," growled old David.  "The
fellow's a man of parts—and a man of family.
What's he idling about here for?  Why isn't he
in Parliament where he belongs?"

"Well," said the girl, "I should think it is
because he is too much a man of family—as you put
it.  You see, he'll succeed his cousin, Lord
Risdale, before very long, and then all his work would
have been for nothing, because he'll have to take
his seat in the Lords.  Lord Risdale is unmarried,
you know, and a hopeless invalid.  He may die
any day.  I think I sympathise with poor Mr. Hartley.
It would be a pity to build up a career
for one's self in the lower House and then suddenly
in the midst of it have to give it all up.  The
situation is rather paralysing to endeavour, isn't it?"

"Yes, I dare say," said old David absently.  He
looked up sharply.  "Young Hartley doesn't come
here as much as he used to do."

"No," said Miss Benham, "he doesn't."  She
gave a little laugh.

"To avoid cross-examination," she said, "I
may as well admit that he asked me to marry him
and I had to refuse.  I'm sorry, because I like him
very much indeed."

Old David made an inarticulate sound which
may have been meant to express surprise—or
almost anything else.  He had not a great range
of expression.

"I don't want," said he, "to seem to have gone
daft on the subject of marriage, and I see no reason
why you should be in any haste about it—certainly,
I should hate to lose you, my child, but—Hartley,
as the next Lord Risdale, is undoubtedly a good
match.  And you say you like him."  The girl
looked up with a sort of defiance, and her face
was a little flushed.

"I don't love him," she said.  "I like him
immensely but I don't love him, and after all—well,
you say I'm cold and I admit I'm more or less
ambitious, but, after all—well, I just don't quite
love him.  I want to love the man I marry."

Old David Stewart held up his black cigar and
gazed thoughtfully at the smoke which streamed
thin and blue and veil-like from its lighted end.

"Love!" he said in a reflective tone.  "Love."  He
repeated the word two or three times slowly,
and he stirred a little in his bed.

"I have forgotten what it is," said he.  "I
expect I must be very old.  I have forgotten what
love—that sort of love—is like.  It seems very far
away to me and rather unimportant.  But I
remember that I thought it important enough once, a
century or two ago.  Do you know, it strikes me as
rather odd that I have forgotten what love is like.
It strikes me as rather pathetic."  He gave a sort
of uncouth grimace and stuck the black cigar once
more into his mouth.

"Egad!" said he, mumbling indistinctly over
the cigar, "how foolish love seems when you look
back at it across fifty or sixty years!"

Miss Benham rose to her feet smiling, and she
came and stood near where the old man lay propped
up against his pillows.  She touched his cheek with
her cool hand, and old David put up one of his own
hands and patted it.

"I'm going to bed now," said she.  "I've sat
here talking too long.  You ought to be asleep and
so ought I."

"Perhaps!  Perhaps!" the old man said.  "I
don't feel sleepy, though.  I dare say I shall read
a little."  He held her hand in his and looked up at her.

"I've been talking a great deal of nonsense about
marriage," said he.  "Put it out of your head!
It's all nonsense.  I don't want you to marry for a
long time.  I don't want to lose you."  His face
twisted a little quite suddenly.

"You're precious near all I have left, now," he said.

The girl did not answer at once, for it seemed to
her that there was nothing to say.  She knew that
her grandfather was thinking of the lost boy, and
she knew what a bitter blow the thing had been to
him.  She often thought that it would kill him
before his old malady could run its course.

But after a moment she said very gently—

"We won't give up hope.  We'll never give up
hope.  Think! he might come home to morrow.
Who knows?"

"If he has stayed away of his own accord,"
cried out old David Stewart in a loud voice, "I'll
never forgive him—not if he comes to me to-morrow
on his knees!  Not even if he comes to me on his knees!"

The girl bent over her grandfather, saying:
"Hush! hush!  You mustn't excite yourself."  But
old David's grey face was working and his eyes
gleamed from their cavernous shadows with a
savage fire.

"If the boy is staying away out of spite," he
repeated, "he need never come back to me.  I won't
forgive him."  He beat his unemployed hand upon
the table before him, and the things which lay there
jumped and danced.

"And if he waits until I'm dead and then comes
back," said he, "he'll find he has made a mistake—a
great mistake.  He'll find a surprise in store for
him.  I can tell you that.  I won't tell you what
I have done, but it will be a disagreeable surprise
for Master Arthur.  You may be sure."

The old gentleman fell to frowning and muttering
in his choleric fashion, but the fierce glitter
began to go out of his eyes, and his hands ceased to
tremble and clutch at the things before him.  The
girl was silent because again there seemed to her
to be nothing that she could say.  She longed very
much to plead her brother's cause, but she was sure
that would only excite her grandfather, and he was
growing quieter after his burst of anger.  She bent
down over him and kissed his cheek.

"Try to go to sleep!" she said.  "And don't
torture yourself with thinking about all this.  I'm
as sure that poor Arthur is not staying away out of
spite as if he were myself.  He's foolish and
headstrong, but he's not spiteful, dear.  Try to believe
that!  And now I'm really going.  Good-night!"

She kissed him again and slipped out of the room.
And as she closed the door she heard her
grandfather pull the bell-cord which hung beside him
and summon the excellent Peters from the room
beyond.





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.. _`STE. MARIE SETS FORTH UPON THE GREAT ADVENTURE`:

.. class:: center large bold

   CHAPTER V


.. class:: center medium bold

   STE. MARIE SETS FORTH UPON THE GREAT ADVENTURE

.. vspace:: 2

Miss Benham stood at one of the long
drawing-room windows of the house in
the Rue de l'Université and looked out between the
curtains upon the rather grimy little garden, where
a few not very prosperous cypresses and chestnuts
stood guard over the rows of lilac shrubs and the
box-bordered flower-beds and the usual
moss-stained fountain.  She was thinking of the events
of the past month, the month which had elapsed
since the evening of the de Saulnes' dinner party.
They were not at all startling events; in a practical
sense there were no events at all, only a quiet
sequence of affairs which was about as inevitable
as the night upon the day—the day upon the night
again.  In a word this girl, who had considered
herself very strong and very much the mistress of
her feelings, found, for the first time in her life, that
her strength was as nothing at all against the potent
charm and magnetism of a man who had almost
none of the qualities she chiefly admired in men.
During the month's time she had passed from a
phase of angry self-scorn through a period of
bewilderment not unmixed with fear, and from that
she had come into an unknown world, a land very
strange to her, where old standards and judgments
seemed to be valueless—a place seemingly ruled
altogether by new emotions, sweet and thrilling or
full of vague terrors as her mood veered here or
there.

That sublimated form of guesswork which is
called "woman's intuition" told her that
Ste. Marie would come to her on this afternoon, and
that something in the nature of a crisis would have
to be faced.  It can be proved even by poor
masculine mathematics that guesswork, like other
gambling ventures, is bound to succeed about half the
time, and it succeeded on this occasion.  Even as
Miss Benham stood at the window looking out
through the curtains Monsieur Ste. Marie was
announced from the doorway.

She turned to meet him with a little frown of
determination, for in his absence she was often
very strong indeed, and sometimes she made up and
rehearsed little speeches of great dignity and decision,
in which she told him that he was attempting a
quite hopeless thing, and, as a well-wishing friend,
advised him to go away and attempt it no longer.
But as Ste. Marie came quickly across the room
towards her the little frown wavered and at last
fled from her face, and another look came there.
It was always so.  The man's bodily presence
exerted an absolute spell over her.

"I have been sitting with your grandfather for
half an hour," Ste. Marie said, and she said—

"Oh, I'm glad!  I'm very glad.  You always
cheer him up.  He hasn't been too cheerful, or too
well of late."  She unnecessarily twisted a chair
about and after a moment sat down in it.  And
she gave a little laugh.

"This friendship which has grown up between
my grandfather and you," said she, "I don't
understand it at all.  Of course, he knew your father
and all that, but you two seem such very different
types, I shouldn't think you would amuse each
other at all.  There's Mr. Hartley, for example, I
should expect my grandfather to like him very
much better than you, but he doesn't—though I
fancy he approves of him much more."

She laughed again, but a different laugh, and
when he heard it Ste. Marie's eyes gleamed a little
and his hands moved beside him.

"I expect," said she, "I expect, you know, that
he just likes you, without stopping to think
why—as everybody else does.  I fancy it's just that.
What do you think?"

"Oh, I?" said the man.  "I—how should I
know?  I know it's a great privilege to be allowed
to see him—such a man as that.  And I know we
get on wonderfully well.  He doesn't condescend
as most old men do who have led important lives.
We just talk as two men in a club might talk.  And
I tell him stories and make him laugh.  Oh yes,
we get on wonderfully well."

"Oh!" said she.  "I've often wondered what
you talk about.  What did you talk about to-day?"

Ste. Marie turned abruptly away from her and
went across to one of the windows—the window
where she had stood earlier looking out upon the
dingy garden.  She saw him stand there, with his
back turned, the head a little bent, the hands
twisting together behind him, and a sudden fit of
nervous shivering wrung her.  Every woman knows
when a certain thing is going to be said to her, and
usually she is prepared for it, though usually also
she says she is not.  Miss Benham knew what was
coming now, and she was frightened—not of
Ste. Marie, but of herself.  It meant so very much to
her, more than to most women at such a time.
It meant, if she said yes to him, the surrender of
almost all the things she had cared for and hoped
for.  It meant the giving up of that career which
old David Stewart had dwelt upon a month ago.

Ste. Marie turned back into the room.  He came
a little way towards where the girl sat and halted,
and she could see that he was very pale.  A sort
of critical second self noticed that he was pale, and
was surprised, because, although men's faces often
turn red, they seldom turn noticeably pale except in
very great nervous crises—or in works of fiction;
while women on the contrary may turn red and
white twenty times a day, and no harm done.  He
raised his hands a little way from his sides in the
beginning of a gesture, but they dropped again as
if there were no strength in them.

"I—told him," said Ste. Marie in a flat voice,
"I told your grandfather that I—loved you more
than anything in this world or in the next.  I told
him that my love for you had made another being
of me—a new being.  I told him that I wanted to
come to you and to kneel at your feet and to ask you
if you could give me just a little, little hope—something
to live for—a light to climb towards.  That
is what we talked about, your grandfather and I."

"Ste. Marie!  Ste. Marie!" said the girl in a
half whisper.

"What did my grandfather say to you?" she
asked after a silence.

Ste. Marie looked away.

"I cannot tell you," he said.  "He—was not
quite sympathetic."

The girl gave a little cry.

"Tell me what he said!" she demanded.  "I
must know what he said."  The man's eyes pleaded
with her, but she held him with her gaze and in
the end he gave in.

"He said I was a damned fool," said Ste. Marie.
And the girl, after an instant of staring, broke
into a little fit of nervous overwrought laughter,
and covered her face with her hands.

He threw himself upon his knees before her,
and her laughter died away.  An Englishman or
an American cannot do that.  Richard Hartley,
for example, would have looked like an idiot upon
his knees and he would have felt it.  But it did
not seem extravagant with Ste. Marie.  It became him.

"Listen! listen!" he cried to her, but the girl
checked him before he could go on.  She dropped
her hands from her face and she bent a little forward
over the man as he knelt there.  She put out her
hands and took his head for a swift instant between
them, looking down into his eyes.  At the touch
a sudden wave of tenderness swept her—almost
an engulfing wave—almost it overwhelmed her
and bore her away from the land she knew.  And
so when she spoke her voice was not quite steady.
She said—

"Ah, dear Ste. Marie!  I cannot pretend to be
cold towards you.  You have laid a spell upon me,
Ste. Marie.  You enchant us all somehow, don't
you?  I suppose I'm not as different from the
others as I thought I was.

"And yet," she said, "he was right, you know.
My grandfather was right.  No, let me talk, now!
I must talk for a little.  I must try to tell you
how it is with me—try somehow to find a way.
He was right.  He meant that you and I were utterly
unsuited to each other, and so, in calm moments, I
know we are.  I know that well enough.  When
you're not with me I feel very sure about it.  I think
of a thousand excellent reasons why you and I
ought to be no more to each other than friends.
Do you know, I think my grandfather is a little
uncanny.  I think he has prophetic powers.  They
say very old people often have.  He and I talked
about you when I came home from that dinner party
at the de Saulnes' a month ago—the dinner party
where you and I first met.  I told him that I had
met a man whom I liked very much—a man with
great charm—and, though I must have said the
same sort of thing to him before about other men,
he was quite oddly disturbed, and talked for a long
time about it, about the sort of man I ought to
marry and the sort I ought not to marry.  It was
unusual for him.  He seldom says anything of that
kind.  Yes, he is right.  You see, I'm ambitious
in a particular way.  If I marry at all I ought to
marry a man who is working hard in politics or in
something of that kind.  I could help him.  We
could do a great deal together."

"I could go into politics!" cried Ste. Marie, but
she shook her head, smiling down upon him.

"No, not you, my dear.  Politics least of all.
You could be a soldier, if you chose.  You could
fight as your father and your grandfather and the
others of your house have done.  You could lead
a forlorn hope in the field.  You could suffer and
starve and go on fighting.  You could die splendidly
but—politics, no!  That wants a tougher shell
than you have.

"And a soldier's wife!  Of what use to him is she?"

Ste. Marie's face was very grave.  He looked up
to her smiling.

"Do you set ambition before love, my queen?"
he asked, and she did not answer him at once.
She looked into his eyes, and she was as grave
as he.

"Is love all?" she said at last.  "Is love all?
Ought one to think of nothing but love when one
is settling one's life for ever?

"I wonder?

"I look about me, Ste. Marie," she said, "and
in the lives of my friends—the people who seem
to me to be most worth while—the people who are
making the world's history for good or ill, and it
seems to me that in their lives love has the second
place—or the third.  I wonder if one has the right
to set it first.

"There is, of course," she said, "the merely
domestic type of woman—the woman who has no
thought and no interest beyond her home.  I am
not that type of woman.  Perhaps I wish I were.
Certainly they are the happiest.  But I was brought
up among—well, among important people—men
of my grandfather's kind.  All my training has
been towards that life.  Have I the right, I wonder,
to give it all up?"

The man stirred at her feet and she put out her
hands to him quickly.

"Do I seem brutal?" she cried.  "Oh, I don't
want to be!  Do I seem very ungenerous and
wrapped up in my own side of the thing?  I don't
mean to be that but—I'm not sure.  I expect it's
that.  I'm not sure, and I think I'm a little
frightened."  She gave him a brief anxious smile that
was not without its tenderness.

"I'm so sure," she said, "when I'm away from
you.  But when you're here—oh, I forget all I've
thought of.

"You lay your spell upon me."

Ste. Marie gave a little wordless cry of joy.  He
caught her two hands in his and held them against
his lips.  Again that great wave of tenderness
swept her—almost engulfing.  But when it had
ebbed she sank back once more in her chair, and
she withdrew her hands from his clasp.

"You make me forget too much," she said.  "I
think you make me forget everything that I ought
to remember.  Oh, Ste. Marie, have I any right
to think of love and happiness while this terrible
mystery is upon us?  While we don't know whether
poor Arthur is alive or dead?  You've seen what
it has brought my grandfather to.  It is killing
him.  He has been much worse in the last fortnight.
And my mother is hardly a ghost of herself in these
days.  Ah, it is brutal of me to think of my own
affairs—to dream of happiness at such a time."  She
smiled across at him very sadly.

"You see what you have brought me to!" she said.

Ste. Marie rose to his feet.  If Miss Benham,
absorbed in that warfare which raged within her,
had momentarily forgotten the cloud of sorrow
under which her household lay, so much the more
had he, to whom the sorrow was less intimate,
forgotten it.  But he was ever swift to sympathy,
Ste. Marie, as quick as a woman and as tender.
He could not thrust his love upon the girl at such
a time as this.  He turned a little away from her
and so remained for a moment.  When he faced
about again the flush had gone from his cheeks
and the fire from his eyes.  Only tenderness was
left there.

"There has been no news at all this week?" he
asked, and the girl shook her head.

"None!  None!  Shall we ever have news of
him, I wonder?  Must we go on always and never
know?  It seems to me almost incredible that any
one could disappear so completely.  And yet, I
dare say, many people have done it before and have
been as carefully sought for.  If only I could believe
that he is alive!  If only I could believe that!"

"I believe it," said Ste. Marie.

"Ah," she said, "you say that to cheer me.
You have no reason to offer."

"Dead bodies very seldom disappear
completely," said he.  "If your brother died
anywhere there would be a record of the death.  If he
were accidentally killed there would be a record
of that too, and, of course, you are having all such
records constantly searched?"

"Oh yes," she said.  "Yes, of course.  At
least, I suppose so.  My uncle has been directing
the search.  Of course he would take an obvious
precaution like that."

"Naturally," said Ste. Marie.  "Your uncle, I
should say, is an unusually careful man."  He
paused a moment to smile.

"He makes his little mistakes, though.  I told
you about that man O'Hara and about how sure
Captain Stewart was that the name was Powers.
Do you know——"  Ste. Marie had been walking up
and down the room, but he halted to face her.

"Do you know, I have a very strong feeling that
if one could find this man O'Hara one would learn
something about what became of your brother?
I have no reason for thinking that, but I feel it."

"Oh," said the girl doubtfully, "I hardly think
that could be so.  What motive could the man
have for harming my brother?"

"None," said Ste. Marie; "but he might have
an excellent motive for hiding him
away—kidnapping him.  Is that the word?  Yes, I know,
you're going to say that no demand has been made
for money, and that is where my argument—if I
can call it an argument—is weak.  But the fellow
may be biding his time.  Anyhow, I should like
to have five minutes alone with him.

"I'll tell you another thing.  It's a trifle and
it may be of no consequence, but I add it to my
vague and—if you like—foolish feeling and make
something out of it.  I happened some days ago
to meet at the Café de Paris a man who, I knew,
used to know this O'Hara.  He was not, I think,
a friend of his at all, but an acquaintance.  I asked
him what had become of O'Hara, saying that I
hadn't seen him for some weeks.  Well, this man
said O'Hara had gone away somewhere a couple
of months ago.  He didn't seem at all surprised,
for it appears the Irishman—if he is an Irishman—is
decidedly a haphazard sort of person, here
to-day, gone to-morrow.  No, the man wasn't
surprised, but he was rather angry, because he said
O'Hara owed him some money.  I said I thought
he must be mistaken about the fellow's absence,
because I'd seen him in the street within the month—on
the evening of our dinner party you remember—but
this man was very sure that I had made a
mistake.  He said that if O'Hara had been in town
he was sure to have known it.

"Well, the point is here.  Your brother disappears
at a certain time.  At the same time this
Irish adventurer disappears too, *and* your brother
was known to have frequented the Irishman's
company.  It may be only a coincidence, but I
can't help feeling that there's something in it."

Miss Benham was sitting up straight in her chair
with a little alert frown.

"Have you spoken of this to my uncle?" she
demanded.

"Well—no," said Ste. Marie.  "Not the latter
part of it; that is, not my having heard of O'Hara's
disappearance.  In the first place, I learnt of that
only three days ago and I have not seen Captain
Stewart since—I rather expected to find him here
to-day; and in the second place I was quite sure
that he would only laugh.  He has laughed at me
two or three times for suggesting that this Irishman
might know something.  Captain Stewart is—not
easy to convince, you know."

"I know," she said, looking away.  "He's
always very certain that he's right.  Well, perhaps
he is right.  Who knows?"

She gave a little sob.

"Oh!" she cried, "shall we ever have my
brother back?  Shall we ever see him again?  It
is breaking my heart, Ste. Marie, and it is killing
my grandfather and, I think, my mother too!
Oh, can nothing be done!"

Ste. Marie was walking up and down the floor
before her, his hands clasped behind his back.
When she had finished speaking the girl saw him
halt beside one of the windows, and, after a moment,
she saw his head go up sharply and she heard him
give a sudden cry.  She thought he had seen
something from the window which had wrung that
exclamation from him, and she asked—

"What is it?"  But abruptly the man turned
back into the room and came across to where she
sat.  It seemed to her that his face had a new
look, a very strange exaltation which she had
never before seen there.  He said—

"Listen!  I do not know if anything can
be done that has not been done already, but if
there is anything I shall do it, you may be sure."

"You, Ste. Marie!" she cried in a sharp voice.  "You?"

"And why not I?" he demanded.

"Oh, my friend," said she, "you could do
nothing.  You wouldn't know where to turn, how to
set to work.  Remember that a score of men who
are skilled in this kind of thing have been searching
for two months.  What could you do that they
haven't done?"

"I do not know, my queen," said Ste. Marie;
"but I shall do what I can.  Who knows?
Sometimes the fool who rushes in where angels have
feared to tread succeeds where they have failed.

"Oh, let me do this!" he cried out.  "Let me
do it, for both our sakes, for yours and for mine.
It is for your sake most.  I swear that!  It is to
set you at peace again, bring back the happiness
you have lost.  But it is for my sake too, a little.
It will be a test of me, a trial.  If I can succeed
here where so many have failed, if I can bring back
your brother to you—or at least, discover what
has become of him—I shall be able to come to you
with less shame for my—unworthiness."

He looked down upon her with eager burning
eyes, and, after a little, the girl rose to face him.
She was very white and she stared at him silently.

"When I came to you to-day," he went on, "I
knew that I had nothing to offer you but my faithful
love and my life, which has been a life without
value.  In exchange for that I asked too much.
I knew it and you knew it too.  I know well enough
what sort of man you ought to marry, and what
a brilliant career you could make for yourself in
the proper place—what great influence you could
wield.  But I asked you to give that all up and I
hadn't anything to offer in its place—nothing but love.

"My queen, give me a chance now to offer you
more!  If I can bring back your brother or news
of him, I can come to you without shame and ask
you to marry me, because if I can succeed in that
you will know that I can succeed in other things.
You will be able to trust me.  You'll know that
I can climb.  It shall be a sort of symbol.  Let me go!"

The girl broke into a sort of sobbing laughter.

"Oh, divine madman!" she cried.  "Are you
all mad, you Ste. Maries, that you must be forever
leading forlorn hopes?  Oh, how you are, after all,
a Ste. Marie!  Now at last I know why one cannot
but love you.  You're the knight of old.  You're
chivalry come down to us.  You're a ghost out of
the past when men rode in armour with pure hearts
seeking the Great Adventure.

"Oh, my friend," she said, "be wise!  Give
this up in time.  It is a beautiful thought and I
love you for it, but it is madness—yes, yes, a sweet
madness, but mad nevertheless!  What possible
chance would you have of success?  And think!
Think how failure would hurt you—and me!  You
must not do it, Ste. Marie."

"Failure will never hurt me, my queen," said
he; "because there are no hurts in the grave, and
I shall never give over searching until I succeed or
until I am dead."  His face was uplifted, and
there was a sort of splendid fervour upon it.  It
was as if it shone.  The girl stared at him dumbly.
She began to realise that the knightly spirit of
those gallant long-dead gentlemen was indeed
descended upon the last of their house, that he
burnt with the same pure fire which had long ago
lighted them through quest and adventure, and
she was a little afraid with an almost superstitious
fear.

She put out her hands upon the man's shoulders
and she moved a little closer to him, holding him.

"Oh, madness! madness!" she said, watching his face.

"Let me do it!" said Ste. Marie.

And after a silence that seemed to endure for a
long time she sighed, shaking her head, and said
she—

"Oh, my friend, there is no strength in me to
stop you.  I think we are both a little mad, and
I know that you are very mad, but I cannot say
no.  You seem to have come out of another century
to take up this quest.  How can I prevent you?
But listen to one thing.  If I accept this sacrifice,
if I let you give your time and your strength to
this almost hopeless attempt, it must be understood
that it is to be within certain limits.  I will
not accept any indefinite thing.  You may give
your efforts to trying to find trace of my brother
for a month if you like, or for three months or six,
or even a year, but not for more than that.  If he
is not found in a year's time we shall know that—we
shall know that he is dead, and that—further
search is useless.  I cannot say how I——  Oh,
Ste. Marie, Ste. Marie, this is a proof of you indeed!
And I have called you idle!  I have said hard
things of you.  It is very bitter to me to think
that I have said those things."

"They were true, my queen," said he, smiling.
"They were quite true.  It is for me to prove
now that they shall be true no longer."  He took
the girl's hand in his rather ceremoniously, and
bent his head and kissed it.  As he did so he was
aware that she stirred, all at once, uneasily, and
when he had raised his head he looked at her in
question.

"I thought some one was coming into the room,"
she explained, looking beyond him.  "I thought
some one started to come in between the portières
yonder.  It must have been a servant."

"Then it is understood," said Ste. Marie.  "To
bring you back your happiness and to prove
myself in some way worthy of your love, I am to devote
myself with all my effort and all my strength to
finding your brother or some trace of him, and
until I succeed I will not see your face again, my
queen."

"Oh, that!" she cried, "that too?"

"I will not see you," said he, "until I bring you
news of him, or until my year is passed and I have
failed utterly.  I know what risk I run.  If I fail,
I lose you.  That is understood too.  But if I
succeed——"

"Then?" she said, breathing quickly.  "Then?"

"Then," said he, "I shall come to you and I
shall feel no shame in asking you to marry me,
because then you will know that there is in me
some little worthiness, and that in our lives together
you need not be buried in obscurity—lost to the
world."

"I cannot find any words to say," said she.  "I
am feeling just now very humble and very ashamed.
It seems that I haven't known you at all.  Oh yes,
I am ashamed."  The girl's face, habitually so cool
and composed, was flushed with a beautiful flush,
and it had softened and it seemed to quiver between
a smile and a tear.  With a swift movement she
leant close to him holding by his shoulder, and for
an instant her cheek was against his.  She
whispered to him—

"Oh, find him quickly, my dear!  Find him
quickly, and come back to me!"

Ste. Marie began to tremble, and she stood away
from him.  Once he looked up, but the flush was
gone from Miss Benham's cheeks, and she was
pale again.  She stood with her hands tight clasped
over her breast.

So he bowed to her very low, and turned and
went out of the room and out of the house.

.. _`"He turned and went out of the room."`:

.. figure:: images/img-074.jpg
   :align: center
   :alt: "He turned and went out of the room."

   "He turned and went out of the room."

So quickly did he move at this last that a man
who had been for some moments standing just
outside the portières of the doorway had barely
time to step aside into the shadows of the dim hall.
As it was, Ste. Marie in a more normal moment
must have seen that the man was there, but his
eyes were blind and he saw nothing.  He groped
for his hat and stick as if the place were a place
of gloom, and, because the footman who should
have been at the door was in regions unknown, he
let himself out and so went away.

Then the man who stood apart in the shadows
crossed the hall to a small room which was furnished
as a library but not often used.  He closed the
door behind him and went to one of the windows
which gave upon the street.  And he stood there
for a long time drawing absurd invisible pictures
upon the glass with one finger, and staring
thoughtfully out into the late June afternoon.





.. vspace:: 4

.. _`A Brave Gentleman Receives a Hurt, but Volunteers in a Good Cause`:

.. class:: center large bold

   CHAPTER VI


.. class:: center medium bold white-space-pre-line

   A BRAVE GENTLEMAN RECEIVES A HURT BUT
   VOLUNTEERS IN A GOOD CAUSE

.. vspace:: 2

When Ste. Marie had gone Miss Benham
sat alone in the drawing-room for almost
an hour.  She had been stirred that afternoon more
deeply than she thought she had ever been stirred
before, and she needed time to regain that cool
poise, that mental equilibrium which was normal
to her and necessary for coherent thought.

She was still in a sort of fever of bewilderment
and exaltation, still all aglow with the man's own
high fervour; but the second self, which so often
sat apart from her and looked on with critical
mocking eyes, whispered that to-morrow, the
fervour past, the fever cooled, she must see the
thing in its truer light—a glorious lunacy born of
a moment of enthusiasm.  It was finely romantic of
him, this mocking second self whispered to her:
picturesque beyond criticism; but, setting aside
the practical folly of it, could even the mood last?

The girl rose to her feet with an angry exclamation.
She found herself intolerable at such times as this.

"If there's a heaven," she cried out, "and by
chance I ever go there, I suppose I shall walk sneering
through the streets, and saying to myself: 'Oh
yes, it's pretty enough, but how absurd and unpractical!'"

She passed before one of the small narrow mirrors
which were let into the walls of the room in gilt
Louis Seize frames with candles beside them, and
she turned and stared at her very beautiful reflection
with a resentful wonder.

"Shall I always drag along so far behind him?"
she said.  "Shall I never rise to him, save in the
moods of an hour?"

She began suddenly to realise what the man's
going away meant—that she might not see him
again for weeks, months, even a year.  For was it
at all likely that he could succeed in what he had
undertaken?

"Why did I let him go?" she cried.  "Oh,
fool, fool, to let him go!"  But even as she said
it she knew that she could not have held him back.

She began to be afraid, not for him, but of herself.
He had taught her what it might be to love.
For the first time love's premonitory thrill—promise
of unspeakable uncomprehended mysteries—had
wrung her, and the echo of that thrill stirred in
her yet; but what might not happen in his long
absence?  She was afraid of that critical and
analysing power of mind which she had so long trained to
attack all that came to her.  What might it not work
with the new thing that had come?  To what pitiful
shreds might it not be rent while he, who only could
renew it, was away?  She looked ahead at the
weeks and months to come, and she was terribly
afraid.

She went out of the room and up to her
grandfather's chamber and knocked there.  The
admirable Peters who opened to her said that his master
had not been very well and was just then asleep,
but as they spoke together in low tones the old
gentleman cried testily from within—

"Well?  Well?  Who's there?  Who wants to
see me?  Who is it?"

Miss Benham went into the dim shaded room,
and when old David saw who it was he sank back
upon his pillows with a pacified growl.  He
certainly looked ill, and he had grown thinner and
whiter within the past month, and the lines in his
waxlike face seemed to be deeper scored.

The girl went up beside the bed and stood there
a moment, after she had bent over and kissed her
grandfather's cheek, stroking with her hand the
absurdly gorgeous mandarin's jacket—an imperial
yellow one this time.

"Isn't this new?" she asked.  "I seem never
to have seen this one before.  It's quite wonderful."

The old gentleman looked down at it with the
pride of a little girl over her first party frock.  He
came as near simpering as a fierce person of
eighty-six, with a square white beard, can come.

"Rather good, that!  What?" said he.  "Yes,
it's new.  De Vries sent it me.  It is my best one.
Imperial yellow.  Did you notice the little *Show*
medallions with the *swastika*?  Young Ste. Marie
was here this afternoon."  He introduced the name
with no pause or change of expression, as if
Ste. Marie were a part of the decoration of the
mandarin's jacket.

"I told him he was a damned fool."

"Yes," said Miss Benham, "I know.  He said you did."

"I suppose," she said, "that in a sort of
very informal fashion I am engaged to him.  Well
no, perhaps not quite that, but he seems to consider
himself engaged to me, and when he has finished
something very important that he has undertaken
to do he is coming to ask me definitely to marry
him.  No, I suppose we aren't engaged yet: at
least I'm not.  But it's almost the same, because
I suppose I shall accept him whether he fails or
succeeds in what he is doing."

"If he fails in it, whatever it may be," said old
David, "he won't give you a chance to accept him.
He won't come back.  I know him well enough for
that.  He's a romantic fool, but he's a
thorough-going fool.  He plays the game."  The old man
looked up to his granddaughter, scowling a little.

"You two are absurdly unsuited to each other,"
said he, "and I told Ste. Marie so.  I suppose you
think you're in love with him."

"Yes," said the girl, "I suppose I do."

"Idleness and all?  You were rather severe on
idleness at one time."

"He isn't idle any more," said she.  "He has
undertaken—of his own accord—to find Arthur.
He has some theory about it.  And he is not going
to see me again until he has succeeded—or until a
year is past.  If he fails, I fancy he won't come
back."

Old David gave a sudden hoarse exclamation,
and his withered hands shook and stirred before
him.  Afterwards he fell to half-inarticulate muttering.

"The young romantic fool!—Don Quixote—like
all the rest of them—those Ste. Maries.  The
fool and the angels.  The angels and the fool."  The
girl distinguished words from time to time.
For the most part he mumbled under his breath.
But when he had been silent a long time he said
suddenly—

"It would be ridiculously like him to succeed."

The girl gave a little sigh.

"I wish I dared hope for it," said she.  "I wish
I dared hope for it."

She had left a book that she wanted in the
drawing-room, and when presently her grandfather fell
asleep in his fitful manner, she went down after it.
In crossing the hall she came upon Captain Stewart,
who was dressed for the street and had his hat and
stick in his hands.  He did not live in his father's
house, for he had a little flat in the Rue du Faubourg
St. Honoré, but he was in and out a good deal.
He paused when he saw his niece and smiled upon
her a benignant smile, which she rather disliked,
because she disliked benignant people.  The two
really saw very little of each other, though Captain
Stewart often sat for hours together with his sister
up in a little boudoir which she had furnished in
the execrable taste which to her meant comfort,
while that timid and colourless lady embroidered
strange tea-cloths with stranger flora, and prattled
about the heathen, in whom she had an academic
interest.

He said—

"Ah, my dear!  It's you?"  Indisputably it
was, and there seemed to be no use of denying it,
so Miss Benham said nothing, but waited for the
man to go on if he had more to say.

"I dropped in," he continued, "to see my father,
but they told me he was asleep and so I didn't
disturb him.  I talked a little while with your
mother instead."

"I have just come from him," said Miss Benham.
"He dozed off again as I left.  Still, if you had
anything in particular to tell him, he'd be glad to
be wakened, I fancy.  There's no news?"

"No," said Captain Stewart sadly, "no, nothing.
I do not give up hope, but I am, I confess, a little
discouraged."

"We are all that, I should think," said Miss
Benham briefly.  She gave him a little nod, and
turned away into the drawing-room.  Her uncle's
peculiar dry manner irritated her at times beyond
bearing, and she felt that this was one of the times.
She had never had any reason for doubting that
he was a good and kindly soul, but she disliked him
because he bored her.  Her mother bored her too—the
poor woman bored everybody—but the sense
of filial obligation was strong enough in the girl to
prevent her from acknowledging this even to
herself.  In regard to her uncle she had no sense of
obligation whatever, except to be as civil to him as
possible, and so she kept out of his way.

She heard the heavy front door close and gave a
little sigh of relief.

"If he had come in here and tried to talk to
me," she said, "I should have screamed."

.. vspace:: 2

Meanwhile Ste. Marie, a man moving in a dream,
uplifted, cloud-enwrapped, made his way
homeward.  He walked all the long distance—that is,
looking backward upon it later he thought he must
have walked, but the half-hour was a blank to
him, an indeterminate, a chaotic whirl of things
and emotions.

In the little flat in the Rue d'Assas he came upon
Richard Hartley, who, having found the door
unlocked and the master of the place absent, had sat
comfortably down with a pipe and a stack of
*Courriers Français* to wait.  Ste. Marie burst into the
doorway of the room where his friend sat at ease.
Hat, gloves and stick fell away from him in a sort
of shower.  He extended his arms high in air.  His
face was, as it were, luminous.  The Englishman
regarded him morosely.  He said—

"You look as if somebody had died and left you
money.  What the devil are you looking like that for?"

"*Hè!*" cried Ste. Marie in a great voice.  "*Hè*,
the world is mine!  Embrace me, my infant!
Sacred name of a pig, why do you sit there?
Embrace me!"  He began to stride about the room,
his head between his hands.  Speech lofty and
ridiculous burst from him in a sort of splutter of
fireworks, but the Englishman sat still in his chair,
and a grey bleak look came upon him, for he began
to understand.  He was more or less used to these
outbursts, and he bore them as patiently as he
could; but though seven times out of the ten they
were no more than spasms of pure joy of living,
and meant, "It's a fine spring day," or "I've just
seen two beautiful princesses of milliners in the
street," an inner voice told him that this time it
meant another thing.  Quite suddenly he realised
that he had been waiting for this, bracing himself
against its onslaught.  He had not been altogether
blind through the past month.

Ste. Marie seized him and dragged him from his chair.

"Dance, lump of flesh! dance, sacred English
*rosbif* that you are!  Sing, *gros polisson*!
Sing!"  Abruptly, as usual, the mania departed from him,
but not the glory; his eyes shone bright and triumphant.

"Ah, my old," said he, "I am near the stars at
last.  My feet are on the top rungs of the ladder.
Tell me that you are glad!"  The Englishman
drew a long breath.

"I take it," said he, "that means that
you're—that she has accepted you, eh?"  He held out
his hand.  He was a brave and honest man.  Even
in pain he was incapable of jealousy.  He said—

"I ought to want to murder you, but I don't.
I congratulate you.  You're an undeserving beggar,
but so were the rest of us.  It was an open field,
and you've won quite honestly.  My best wishes!"

Then at last Ste. Marie understood, and in a
flash the glory went out of his face.  He cried—

"Ah, *mon cher ami*!  Pig that I am to forget.
Pig! pig! animal!"  The other man saw that
tears had sprung to his eyes, and was horribly
embarrassed to the very bottom of his good British
soul.

"Yes! yes!" he said gruffly.  "Quite so,
quite so!  No consequence!"  He dragged his
hands away from Ste. Marie's grasp, stuck them
in his pockets, and turned to the window beside
which he had been sitting.  It looked out over the
sweet green peace of the Luxembourg Gardens
with their winding paths and their clumps of trees
and shrubbery, their flaming flower-beds, their
groups of weather-stained sculpture.  A youth in
labourer's corduroys and an unclean beret strolled
along under the high palings, one arm was about
the ample waist of a woman somewhat the youth's
senior, but, as ever, love was blind.  The youth
carolled in a high, clear voice: "*Vous êtes si jolie*,"
a song of abundant sentiment, and the young woman
put up one hand and patted his cheek.  So they
strolled on and turned up into the Rue Vavin.

Ste. Marie, across the room, looked at his friend's
square back, and knew that in his silent way the
man was suffering.  A great sadness, the recoil
from his trembling heights of bliss, came upon him
and enveloped him.  Was it true that one man's
joy must inevitably be another's pain?  He tried
to imagine himself in Hartley's place, Hartley in
his; and he gave a little shiver.  He knew that
if that *bouleversement* were actually to take place
he would be as glad for his friend's sake as poor
Hartley was now for his; but he knew also that
the smile of congratulation would be a grimace of
almost intolerable pain, and so he knew what
Hartley's black hour must be like.

"You must forgive me," he said.  "I had forgotten.
I don't know why.  Well, yes, happiness
is a very selfish state of mind, I suppose.  One
thinks of nothing but one's self—and one other.
I—during this past month I've been in the clouds.
You must forgive me."

The Englishman turned back into the room.
Ste. Marie saw that his face was as completely
devoid of expression as it usually was, that his
hands when he chose and lighted a cigarette were
quite steady, and he marvelled.  That would have
been impossible for him under such circumstances.

"She has accepted you, I take it?" said Hartley
again.

"Not quite that," said he.  "Sit down and I'll
tell you about it."  So he told him about his hour
with Miss Benham, and about what had been agreed
upon between them, and about what he had
undertaken to do.

"Apart from wishing to do everything in this
world that I can do to make her happy," he said,
"—and she will never be at peace again until she
knows the truth about her brother—apart from
that, I'm purely selfish in the thing.  I've got to
win her respect as well as—the rest.  I want her
to respect me, and she has never quite done that.
I'm an idler.  So are you, but you have a perfectly
good excuse.  I have not.  I've been an idler
because it suited me, because nothing turned up,
and because I have enough to eat without working
for my living.  I know how she has felt about all
that.  Well, she shall feel it no longer."

"You're taking on a big order," said the other man.

"The bigger the better," said Ste. Marie.  "And
I shall succeed in it or never see her again.  I've
sworn that."  The odd look of exaltation that Miss
Benham had seen in his face, the look of knightly
fervour, came there again, and Hartley saw it and
knew that the man was stirred by no transient
whim.  Oddly enough he thought, as had the girl
earlier in the day, of those elder Ste. Maries who
had taken sword and lance and gone out into a
strange world, a place of unknown terrors, afire
for the Great Adventure.  And this was one of their
blood.

"I'm afraid you don't realise," he went on,
"the difficulties you've got to face.  Better men
than you have failed over this thing, you know."

"A worse might nevertheless succeed," said
Ste. Marie, and the other said—

"Yes.  Oh, yes.  And there's always luck to be
considered, of course.  You might stumble on some
trace."  He threw away his cigarette and lighted
another, and he smoked it down almost to the end
before he spoke.  At last he said—

"I want to tell you something.  The reason why
I want to tell it comes a little later.  A few weeks
before you returned to Paris I asked Miss Benham
to marry me."

Ste. Marie looked up with a quick sympathy.

"Ah!" said he.  "I have sometimes thought—wondered.
I have wondered if it went as far as
that.  Of course I could see that you had known
her well, though you seldom go there nowadays."

"Yes," said Hartley, "it went as far as that,
but no farther.  She—well, she didn't care for
me—not in that way.  So I stiffened my back and
shut my mouth, and got used to the fact that what
I'd hoped for was impossible.

"And now comes the reason for telling you what
I've told.  I want you to let me help you in what
you're going to do—if you think you can, that is.
Remember, I—cared for her too.  I'd like to do
something for her.  It would never have occurred
to me to do this until you thought of it, but I
should like very much to lend a hand, do some of
the work.  D'you think you could let me in?"

Ste. Marie stared at him in open astonishment,
and, for an instant, something like dismay.

"Yes, yes!  I know what you're thinking,"
said the Englishman.  "You'd hoped to do it all
yourself.  It's your game, I know.  Well, it's your
game even if you let me come in.  I'm just a helper.
Some one to run errands, some one perhaps to take
counsel with now and then.  Look at it on the
practical side!  Two heads are certainly better
than one.  Certainly I could be of use to you.  And
besides—well, I want to do something for her.
I—cared too, you see.  D'you think you could take
me in?"

It was the man's love that made his appeal
irresistible.  No one could appeal to Ste. Marie on
that score in vain.  It was true that he had hoped
to work alone, to win or lose alone, to stand, in
this matter, quite on his own feet, but he could
not deny the man who had loved her and lost her.
Ste. Marie thrust out his hand.

"You love her too!" he said.  "That is enough.
We work together.  I have a possibly foolish idea
that if we can find a certain man we will learn
something about Arthur Benham.  I'll tell you
about it."

But before he could begin the door-bell jangled.





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.. _`CAPTAIN STEWART MAKES A KINDLY OFFER`:

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   CHAPTER VII


.. class:: center medium bold

   CAPTAIN STEWART MAKES A KINDLY OFFER

.. vspace:: 2

Ste. Marie scowled.

"A caller would come singularly malapropos,
just now," said he.  "I've half a mind not
to go to the door.  I want to talk this thing over with
you."

"Whoever it is," objected Hartley, "has been
told by the concierge that you're at home.  It
may not be a caller anyhow.  It may be a parcel
or something.  You'd best go."  So Ste. Marie
went out into the little passage, blaspheming fluently
the while.

The Englishman heard him open the outer door of
the flat.  He heard him exclaim in great surprise—

"Ah, Captain Stewart!  A great pleasure.  Come
in!  Come in!"  And he permitted himself a little
blaspheming on his own account, for the visitor, as
Ste. Marie had said, came most malapropos, and
besides he disliked Miss Benham's uncle.

He heard the American say—

"I have been hoping for some weeks to give
myself the pleasure of calling here, and to-day such
an excellent pretext presented itself that I came
straight away."

Hartley heard him emit his mewing little laugh,
and heard him say with the elephantine archness
affected by certain dry and middle-aged gentlemen—

"I come with congratulations.  My niece has
told me all about it.  Lucky young man!  Ah!——"  He
reached the door of the inner room and saw
Richard Hartley standing by the window, and
he began to apologise profusely, saying that he
had had no idea that Ste. Marie was not alone.
But Ste. Marie said—

"It doesn't in the least matter.  I have no
secrets from Hartley.  Indeed, I have just been
talking with him about this very thing."  But for
all that he looked curiously at the elder man, and
it struck him as very odd that Miss Benham should
have gone straight to her uncle and told him all
this.  It did not seem in the least like her, especially
as he knew the two were on no terms of intimacy.
He decided that she must have gone up to her
grandfather's room to discuss it with that old
gentleman—a reasonable enough hypothesis—and that Captain
Stewart must have come in during the discussion.
Quite evidently he had wasted no time in setting out
upon his errand of congratulation.

"Then," said Captain Stewart, "if I am to be
good-naturedly forgiven for my stupidity, let me go
on and say, in my capacity as a member of the
family, that the news pleased me very much.  I
was glad to hear it."  He shook Ste. Marie's
hand, looking very benignant indeed, and
Ste. Marie was quite overcome with pleasure and
gratitude: it seemed to him such a very kindly
act in the elder man.  He produced things to
smoke and drink, and Captain Stewart accepted a
cigarette and mixed himself a rather stiff glass of
absinthe—it was between five and six o'clock.

"And now," said he, when he was at ease in the
most comfortable of the low cane chairs, and the
glass of opalescent liquor was properly curdled and
set at hand, "now, having congratulated you and—ah,
welcomed you, if I may put it so, as a probable
future member of the family, I turn to the other
feature of the affair."  He had an odd trick of
lowering his head and gazing benevolently upon
an auditor as if over the top of spectacles.  It was
one of his elderly ways.  He beamed now upon
Ste. Marie in this manner, and, after a moment,
turned and beamed upon Richard Hartley, who
gazed stolidly back at him without expression.

"You have determined, I hear," said he, "to
join us in our search for poor Arthur.  Good!  Good I
I welcome you there, also."

Ste. Marie stirred uneasily in his chair.

"Well," said he, "in a sense, yes.  That is, I've
determined to devote myself to the search, and
Hartley is good enough to offer to go in with me;
but I think, if you don't mind——  Of course, I know
it's very presumptuous and doubtless idiotic of
us—but, if you don't mind, I think we'll work
independently.  You see—well, I can't quite put it into
words, but it's our idea to succeed or fail quite
by our own efforts.  I dare say we shall fail, but it
won't be for lack of trying."

Captain Stewart looked disappointed.

"Oh, I think," said he.  "Pardon me for saying
it!  but I think you're rather foolish to do that."  He
waved an apologetic hand.  "Of course, I comprehend
your excellent motive.  Yes, as you say, you want to
succeed quite on your own.  But, look at the practical
side!  You'll have to go over all the weary weeks of
useless labour we have gone over.  We could save
you that.  We have examined and followed up and
at last given over a hundred clues that on the
surface looked quite possible of success.  You'll be
doing that all over again.  In short, my dear friend,
you will merely be following along a couple of months
behind us.  It seems to me a pity.  I shan't like to see
you wasting your time and efforts."  He dropped
his eyes to the glass of Pernod which stood beside
him, and he took it in his hand and turned it slowly,
and watched the light gleam in strange pearl colours
upon it.  He glanced up again with a little smile
which the two younger men found oddly pathetic.

"I should like to see you succeed," said Captain
Stewart.  "I like to see youth and courage and
high hope succeed."  He said—

"I am past the age of romance, though I am not
so very old in years.  Romance has passed me by,
but—I love it still.  It still stirs me surprisingly
when I see it in other people—young people who are
simple and earnest and who—and who are in love."  He
laughed gently, still turning the glass in his hands.

"I am afraid you will call me a sentimentalist,"
he said, "and an elderly sentimentalist is, as a rule,
a ridiculous person.  Ridiculous or not, though, I
have rather set my heart on your success in this
undertaking.  Who knows? you may succeed
where we others have failed.  Youth has such a
way of charging in and carrying all before it by
assault: such a way of overleaping barriers that
look unsurmountable to older eyes!  Youth!  Youth!

"Eh, my God!" said he, "to be young again
just for a little while.  To feel the blood beat strong
and eager.  Never to be tired.  Eh, to be like one
of you youngsters!  You, Ste. Marie, or you,
Hartley.  There's so little left for people when youth
is gone."  He bent his head again, staring down
upon the glass before him, and for a while there was
a silence which neither of the younger men cared
to break.

"Don't refuse a helping hand!" said Captain
Stewart, looking up once more.  "Don't be
overproud!  I may be able to set you upon the
right path.  Not that I have anything definite to
work upon.  I haven't, alas!  But each day new
clues turn up.  One day we shall find the real one,
and that may be one that I have turned over to you
to follow out.  One never knows."

.. _`"'Don't refuse a helping hand!' said Captain Stewart, looking up once more.  'Don't be overproud!'"`:

.. figure:: images/img-091.jpg
   :align: center
   :alt: "'Don't refuse a helping hand!' said Captain Stewart, looking up once more.  'Don't be overproud!'"

   "'Don't refuse a helping hand!' said Captain Stewart, looking up once more.  'Don't be overproud!'"

Ste. Marie looked across at Richard Hartley, but
that gentleman was blowing smoke rings and to all
outward appearance giving them his entire attention.
He looked back to Captain Stewart, and Stewart's
eyes regarded him smiling a little wistfully, he
thought.

Ste. Marie scowled out of the window at the trees
of the Luxembourg Gardens.

"I hardly know," said he.  "Of course I sound a
braying ass in hesitating even a moment, but—in
a way, you understand.  I'm so anxious to do this
or to fail in it quite on my own!  You're—so
tremendously kind about it that I don't know what to
say.  I must seem very ungrateful, I know.  But
I'm not."

"No," said the elder man, "you don't seem
ungrateful at all.  I understand exactly how you
feel about it, and I applaud your feeling—but not
your judgment.  I am afraid that for the sake
of a sentiment you're taking unnecessary risks of
failure."

For the first time Richard Hartley spoke.

"I've an idea, you know," said he, "that it's
going to be a matter chiefly of luck.  One day
somebody will stumble on the right trail—and that
might as well be Ste. Marie or I as your trained
detectives.  If you don't mind my saying so,
sir—I don't want to seem rude—your trained detectives
do not seem to accomplish much in two months,
do they?"

Captain Stewart looked thoughtfully at the
younger man.

"No," he said at last.  "I am sorry to say they
don't seem to have accomplished much—except to
prove that there are a great many places poor
Arthur has *not* been to, and a great many people
who have *not* seen him.  After all, that is
something—the elimination of ground that need not
be worked over again."  He set down the glass from
which he had been drinking.

"I cannot agree with your theory," he said.  "I
cannot agree that such work as this is best left to
an accidental solution.  Accidents are too rare.  We
have tried to go at it in as scientific a way as could
be managed—by covering large areas of territory,
by keeping the police everywhere on the alert, by
watching the boy's old friends and searching his
favourite haunts.  Personally I am inclined to
think that he managed to slip away to America
very early in the course of events—before we began to
search for him.  And of course, I am having a careful
watch kept there as well as here.  But no trace
has appeared as yet—nothing at all trustworthy.
Meanwhile I continue to hope and to work, but I
grow a little discouraged.  In any case, though,
we shall hear of him in three months more if he is
alive."

"Why three months?" asked Ste. Marie.
"What do you mean by that?"

"In three months," said Captain Stewart,
"Arthur will be of age, and he can demand the
money left him by his father.  If he is alive he will
turn up for that.  I have thought, from the first,
that he is merely hiding somewhere until this time
should be past.  He—you must know that he went
away very angry, after a quarrel with his
grandfather.  My father is not a patient man.  He may
have been very harsh with the boy."

"Ah yes," said Hartley, "but no boy, however
young or angry, would be foolish enough to risk
an absolute break with the man who is going to
leave him a large fortune.  Young Benham must
know that his grandfather would never forgive
him for staying away all this time if he stayed
away of his own accord.  He must know that
he'd be taking tremendous risks of being cut off
altogether."

"And besides," added Ste. Marie, "it is quite
possible that your father, sir, may die at any
time—any hour.  And he's very angry with his grandson.
He may have cut him off already."

Captain Stewart's eyes sharpened suddenly, but
he dropped them to the glass in his hand.

"Have you any reason for thinking that?" he asked.

"No," said Ste. Marie.  "I beg your pardon.  I
shouldn't have said it.  That is a matter which
concerns your family alone.  I forgot myself.  The
possibility occurred to me suddenly, for the first
time."  But the elder man looked up at him with
a smile.

"Pray don't apologise!" said he.  "Surely we
three can speak frankly together.  And frankly I
know nothing of my father's will.  But I don't
think he would cut poor Arthur off, though he is, of
course, very angry about the boy's leaving in the
manner he did.  No!  I am sure he wouldn't cut
him off.  He was fond of the lad, very fond—as
we all were."

Captain Stewart glanced at his watch and rose
with a little sigh.

"I must be off," said he.  "I have to dine out
this evening, and I must get home to change.  There
is a cab-stand near you?"  He looked out of the
window.  "Ah yes!  Just at the corner of the
Gardens."  He turned about to Ste. Marie, and
held out his hand with a smile.  He said—

"You refuse to join forces with us then?  Well,
I'm sorry.  But for all that, I wish you luck.  Go
your own way, and I hope you'll succeed.  I
honestly hope that, even though your success may
show me up for an incompetent bungler."  He
gave a little kindly laugh and Ste. Marie tried to
protest.

"Still," said the elder man, "don't throw me
over altogether.  If I can help you in any way,
little or big, let me know.  If I can give you any
hints, any advice, anything at all, I want to do it.
And if you happen upon what seems to be a promising
clue, come and talk it over with me.  Oh, don't
be afraid!  I'll leave it to you to work out.  I
shan't spoil your game."

"Ah, now that's very good of you," said
Ste. Marie.  "Only you make me seem more than
ever an ungrateful fool.  Thanks, I will come to you
with my troubles if I may.  I have a foolish idea
that I want to follow out a little first, but doubtless
I shall be running to you soon for information."

The elder man's eyes sharpened again with keen
interest.

"An idea!" he said quickly.  "You have an
idea?  What—may I ask what sort of an idea?"

"Oh it's nothing," declared Ste. Marie.  "You have
already laughed at it.  I just want to find that
man O'Hara, that's all.  I've a feeling that I
should learn something from him."

"Ah!" said Captain Stewart slowly.  "Yes,
the man O'Hara.  There's nothing in that, I'm
afraid.  I've made inquiries about O'Hara.  It
seems he left Paris six months ago, saying he was
off for America.  An old friend of his told me that.
So you must have been mistaken when you thought
you saw him in the Champs Elysées, and he couldn't
very well have had anything to do with poor Arthur.
I'm afraid that idea is hardly worth following up."

"Perhaps not," said Ste. Marie.  "I seem to
start badly, don't I?  Ah well, I'll have to come to
you all the sooner, then."

"You'll be welcome," promised Captain Stewart.
"Good-bye to you!  Good day, Hartley.  Come
and see me both of you.  You know where I live."

He took his leave then, and Hartley, standing
beside the window, watched him turn down the
street, and at the corner get into one of the fiacres
there and drive away.

Ste. Marie laughed aloud.

"There's the second time," said he, "that I've
had him about O'Hara.  If he is as careless as that
about everything, I don't wonder he hasn't found
Arthur Benham.  O'Hara disappeared from Paris
(publicly, that is) at about the time young Benham
disappeared.  As a matter of fact he remains, or
at least for a time remained in the city without
letting his friends know, because I made no
mistake about seeing him in the Champs Elysées.  All
that looks to me suspicious enough to be worth
investigation.

"Of course," he admitted doubtfully—"of
course I'm no detective, but that's how it looks
to me."

"I don't believe Stewart is any detective either,"
said Richard Hartley.  "He's altogether too
cock-sure.  That sort of man would rather die than admit
he is wrong about anything.  He's a good old chap
though, isn't he?  I liked him to-day better than
ever before.  I thought he was rather pathetic when
he went on about his age."

"He has a good heart," said Ste. Marie.  "Very
few men under the circumstances would come here
and be as decent as he was.  Most men would
have thought I was a presumptuous ass and would
have behaved accordingly."

Ste. Marie took a turn about the room and his face
began to light up with its new excitement and
exaltation.

"And to-morrow," he cried, "to-morrow we
begin!  To-morrow we set out into the world and
the Adventure is on foot.  God send it success!"  He
laughed across at the other man, but it was a
laugh of eagerness not of mirth.

"I feel," said he, "like Jason.  I feel as if we
were to set sail to-morrow for Colchis and the
Golden Fleece."

"Ye—es," said the other man a little drily.  "Yes,
perhaps.  I don't want to seem critical, but isn't
your figure somewhat ill chosen?"

"'Ill chosen'?" cried Ste. Marie.  "What
d'you mean?  Why ill chosen?"

"I was thinking of Medea," said Richard Hartley.





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.. _`STE. MARIE MEETS WITH A MISADVENTURE AND DREAMS A DREAM`:

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   CHAPTER VIII


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   STE. MARIE MEETS WITH A MISADVENTURE AND DREAMS A DREAM

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So on the next day these two rode forth upon
their quest, and no quest was ever undertaken
with a stouter courage or with a grimmer
determination to succeed.  To put it fancifully they
burnt their tower behind them, for to one of them
at least—to him who led—there was no going back.

But after all they set forth under a cloud, and
Ste. Marie took a heavy heart with him.  On the
evening before an odd and painful incident had
befallen, a singularly unfortunate incident.

It chanced that neither of the two men had a
dinner engagement that evening, and so, after
their old habit, they dined together.  There was
some wrangling over where they should go, Hartley
insisting upon *Armenonville* or the *Madrid* in the
Bois, Ste. Marie objecting that these would be full
of tourists so late in June, and urging the claims
of some quiet place in the Quarter, where they
could talk instead of listening perforce to loud
music.  In the end, for no particular reason, they
compromised on the little Spanish restaurant in
the Rue Helder.  They went there about eight
o'clock, without dressing; for it is a very quiet
place which the world does not visit, and they had
a *sopa de yerbas*, and some *langostinos*, which are
shrimps, and a heavenly *arroz* with fowl in it, and
many tender succulent strips of red pepper.  They
had a salad made out of a little of everything that
grows green, with the true Spanish oil, which has
a tang and a bouquet unappreciated by the philistine;
and then they had a strange pastry and some
cheese and green almonds.  And to make them
glad they drank a bottle of old red Valdepeñas,
and afterwards a glass each of a special Manzanilla,
upon which the restaurant very justly prides itself.
It was a simple dinner and a little stodgy for
that time of the year, but the two men were hungry,
and sat at table, almost alone in the upper room,
for a long time, saying how good everything was,
and from time to time despatching the saturnine
waiter, a Madrileno, for more peppers.  When
at last they came out into the narrow street and
thence to the thronged Boulevard des Italiens, it
was nearly eleven o'clock.  They stood for a little
time in the shelter of a kiosk, looking down the
boulevard to where the Place de l'Opéra opened
wide, and the lights of the Café de la Paix shone
garish in the night, and Ste. Marie said—

"There's a street *fête* in Montmartre.  We
might drive home that way."

"An excellent idea," said the other man.  "The
fact that Montmartre lies in an opposite direction
from home makes the plan all the better.  And
after that we might drive home through the Bois.
That's much farther in the wrong direction.  Lead on!"

So they sprang into a waiting fiacre, and were
dragged up the steep stone-paved hill to the heights
where *La Bohême* still reigns, though the glory of
Moulin Rouge has departed, and the trail of tourist
is over all.  They found Montmartre very much
*en fête*.  In the Place Blanche were two of the
enormous and brilliantly lighted merry-go-rounds
which only Paris knows—one furnished with stolid
cattle, theatrical-looking horses, and Russian sleighs,
the other with the ever-popular galloping pigs.
When these dreadful machines were in rotation
mechanical organs concealed somewhere in their
bowels emitted hideous brays and shrieks, which
mingled with the shrieks of the ladies mounted
upon the galloping pigs, and together insulted a
peaceful sky.

The square was filled with that extremely
heterogeneous throng which the Parisian street *fête*
gathers together, but it was, for the most part, a
well-dressed throng, largely recruited from the
boulevards, and it was quite determined to have
a very good time in the cheerful harmless Latin
fashion.  The two men got down from their fiacre
and elbowed a way through the good-natured
crowd to a place near the more popular of the
merry-go-rounds.  The machine was in rotation.
Its garish lights shone and glittered, its hidden
mechanical organ blared a German waltz tune,
the huge pink-varnished pigs galloped gravely up
and down as the platform upon which they were
mounted whirled round and round.  A little group
of American trippers, sight-seeing, with a guide,
stood near by, and one of the group, a pretty girl
with red hair, demanded plaintively of the friend
upon whose arm she hung: "Do you think mamma
would be shocked if we took a ride?  Wouldn't I
love to!"

Hartley turned laughing from this distressed
maiden to Ste. Marie.  He was wondering with
mild amusement why anybody should wish to do
such a foolish thing, but Ste. Marie's eyes were
fixed upon the galloping pigs and the eyes shone
with a wistful excitement.  To tell the truth it
was impossible for him to look on at any form of
active amusement without thirsting to join it.  A
joyous and care-free lady in a blue hat, who was
mounted astride upon one of the pigs, hurled a
paper serpentine at him, and shrieked with delight
when it knocked his hat off.

"That's the second time she has hit me with
one of those things," he said, groping about his
feet for the hat.  "Here, stop that boy with the
basket!"  A vendor of the little rolls of paper
ribbon was shouting his wares through the crowd.
Ste. Marie filled his pockets with the things, and
when the lady with the blue hat came round on
the next turn, lassoed her neatly about the neck
and held the end of the ribbon till it broke.  Then
he caught a fat gentleman, who was holding
himself on by his steed's neck, in the ear, and the
red-haired American girl laughed aloud.

"When the thing stops," said Ste. Marie, "I'm
going to take a ride, just one ride.  I haven't
ridden a pig for many years."  Hartley jeered at
him, calling him an infant, but Ste. Marie bought
more serpentines, and when the platform came to
a stop clambered up to it, and mounted the only
unoccupied pig he could find.  His friend still
scoffed at him and called him names, but Ste. Marie
tucked his long legs round the pig's neck and
smiled back, and presently the machine began
again to revolve.

At the end of the first revolution Hartley gave
a shout of delight, for he saw that the lady with
the blue hat had left her mount and was making
her way along the platform towards where
Ste. Marie sat hurling serpentines in the face of the
world.  By the next time round she had come to
where he was, mounted astride behind him, and
was holding herself with one very shapely arm
round his neck, while with the other she rifled his
pockets for ammunition.  Ste. Marie grinned, and
the public, loud in its acclaims, began to pelt the
two with serpentines until they were hung with
many-coloured ribbons like a Christmas-tree.  Even
Richard Hartley was so far moved out of the
self-consciousness with which his race is cursed as to
buy a handful of the common missiles, and the
lady in the blue hat returned his attention with
skill and despatch.

But as the machine began to slacken its pace,
and the hideous wail and blare of the concealed
organ died mercifully down, Hartley saw that his
friend's manner had all at once altered, that he
sat leaning forward away from the enthusiastic
lady with the blue hat, and that the paper
serpentines had dropped from his hands.  Hartley
thought that the rapid motion must have made
him a little giddy, but presently, before the
merry-go-round had quite stopped, he saw the man leap
down and hurry towards him through the crowd.
Ste. Marie's face was grave and pale.  He caught
Hartley's arm in his hand and turned him round,
crying in a low voice—

"Come out of this as quickly as you can!  No,
in the other direction.  I want to get away at once."

"What's the matter?" Hartley demanded.
"Lady in the blue hat too friendly?  Well, if
you're going to play this kind of game, you might
as well play it."

"Helen Benham was down there in the crowd,"
said Ste. Marie.  "On the opposite side from you.
She was with a party of people who got out of two
motor-cars, to look on.  They were in evening
things, so they had come from dinner somewhere,
I suppose.  She saw me."

"The devil!" said Hartley under his breath.
Then he gave a shout of laughter, demanding—

"Well, what of it?  You weren't committing
any crime, were you?  There's no harm in riding
a silly pig in a silly merry-go-round.  Everybody
does it in these *fête* things."  But even as he
spoke he knew how extremely unfortunate the
meeting was, and the laughter went out of his voice.

"I'm afraid," said Ste. Marie, "she won't see
the humour of it.  Good God, what a thing to
happen!  *You* know well enough what she'll think
of me.

"At five o'clock this afternoon," he said bitterly,
"I left her with a great many fine high-sounding
words about the quest I was to give my days and
nights to—for her sake.  I went away from her
like a—knight going into battle—consecrated.  I
tell you, there were tears in her eyes when I went.
And now, now, at midnight, she sees me riding a
galloping pig in a street *fête* with a girl from the
boulevards sitting on the pig with me and holding
me round the neck before a thousand people.
What will she think of me?  What but one thing
can she possibly think?  Oh, I know well enough!
I saw her face before she turned away.

"And," he cried, "I can't even go to her and
explain—if there's anything to explain, and I
suppose there is not.  I can't even go to her.  I've
sworn not to see her."

"Oh, I'll do that," said the other man.  "I'll
explain it to her, if any explanation's necessary.
I think you'll find that she will laugh at it."  But
Ste. Marie shook his head.

"No, she won't," said he.  And Hartley could
say no more, for he knew Miss Benham, and he
was very much afraid that she would not laugh.

They found a fiacre at the side of the square and
drove home at once.  They were almost entirely
silent all the long way, for Ste. Marie was buried
in gloom, and the Englishman, after trying once or
twice to cheer him up, realised that he was best
left to himself just then, and so held his tongue.
But in the Rue d'Assas as Ste. Marie was getting
down—Hartley kept the fiacre to go on to his
rooms in the Avenue de l'Observatoire—he made
a last attempt to lighten the man's depression.
He said—

"Don't you be a silly ass about this!  You're
making much too much of it, you know.  I'll go
to her to-morrow or next day and explain, and
she'll laugh—if she hasn't already done so.

"You know," he said, almost believing it himself,
"you are paying her a dashed poor compliment
in thinking she's so dull as to misunderstand
a little thing of this kind.  Yes, by Jove, you are!"

Ste. Marie looked up at him, and his face, in the
light of the cab-lamp, showed a first faint gleam
of hope.

"Do you think so?" he demanded.  "Do
you really think that?  Maybe I am.  But—  O
Lord, who would understand such an idiocy?
Sacred imbecile that I am: why was I ever born?
I ask you."  He turned abruptly and began to
ring at the door, casting a brief "Good-night,"
over his shoulder.  And, after a moment, Hartley
gave it up and drove away.

Above, in the long shallow front room of his
flat, with the three windows overlooking the
Gardens, Ste. Marie made lights, and after much
rummaging unearthed a box of cigarettes of a peculiarly
delectable flavour, which had been sent him by a
friend in the Khedivial household.  He allowed
himself one or two of them now and then, usually
in sorrowful moments, as an especial treat.  And
this seemed to him to be the moment for smoking
all there were left.  Surely his need had never
been greater.  In England he had, of course learnt
to smoke a pipe, but pipe smoking always remained
with him a species of accomplishment; it never
brought him the deep and ruminative peace with
which it enfolds the Anglo-Saxon heart.  The
*vieux Jacob* of old-fashioned Parisian Bohemia
inspired in him unconcealed horror, of cigars he
was suspicious because, he said, most of the
unpleasant people he knew smoked cigars: so he
soothed his soul with cigarettes, and he was usually
to be found with one between his fingers.

He lighted one of the precious Egyptians, and
after a first ecstatic inhalation went across to one
of the long windows, which was open, and stood
there with his back to the room, his face to the
peaceful fragrant night.  A sudden recollection
came to him of that other night a month before,
when he had stood on the Pont des Invalides with
his eyes upon the stars, his feet upon the ladder
thereunto.  His heart gave a sudden exultant leap
within him when he thought how far and high he
had climbed, but after the leap it shivered and
stood still when this evening's misadventure came
before him.

Would she ever understand?  He had no fear
that Hartley would not do his best with her.
Hartley was as honest and as faithful as ever a friend
was in this world.  He would do his best.  But
even then——  It was the girl's inflexible nature
that made the matter so dangerous.  He knew
that she was inflexible, and he took a curious pride
in it.  He admired it.  So must have been those
calm-eyed ancient ladies for whom other Ste. Maries
went out to do battle.  It was wellnigh
impossible to imagine them lowering their eyes to
silly revelry.  They could not stoop to such as
that.  It was beneath their high dignity.  And it
was beneath hers also.  As for himself, he was a
thing of patches.  Here a patch of exalted
chivalry—a noble patch—there a patch of bourgeois
child-like love of fun; here a patch of melancholic
asceticism, there one of something quite the reverse.
A hopeless patchwork he was.  Must she not shrink
from him when she knew?  He could not quite
imagine her understanding the wholly trivial and
meaningless impulse that had prompted him to
ride a galloping pig and cast paper serpentines at
the assembled world.

Apart from her view of the affair he felt no shame
in it.  The moment of childish gaiety had been
but a passing mood.  It had in no way slackened
his tense enthusiasm, dulled the keenness of his
spirit, lowered his high flight.  He knew that
well enough.  But he wondered if she would
understand, and he could not believe it possible.  The
mood of exaltation in which they had parted that
afternoon came to him, and then the sight of her
shocked face as he had seen it in the laughing crowd
in the Place Blanche.

"What must she think of me?" he cried aloud.
"What must she think of me?"

So for an hour or more he stood in the open
window staring into the fragrant night, or tramped
up and down the long room, his hands behind his
back, kicking out of his way the chairs and things
which impeded him—torturing himself with fears
and regrets and fancies, until at last in a calmer
moment he realised that he was working himself
up into an absurd state of nerves over something
which was done and could not now be helped.  The
man had an odd streak of fatalism in his nature—that
will have come of his southern blood—and it
came to him now in his need.  For the work upon
which he was to enter with the morrow he had
need of clear wits, not scattered ones; a calm
judgment, not disordered nerves.  So he took himself
in hand, and it would have been amazing to any
one unfamiliar with the abrupt changes of the
Latin temperament, to see how suddenly Ste. Marie
became quiet and cool and master of himself.

.. _`"So for an hour or more he stood in the open window staring into the fragrant night."`:

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   :alt: "So for an hour or more he stood in the open window staring into the fragrant night."

   "So for an hour or more he stood in the open window staring into the fragrant night."

"It is done," he said with a little shrug, and if
his face was for a moment bitter it quickly enough
became impassive.  "It is done, and it cannot be
undone—unless Hartley can undo it.  And now,
*revenons à nos moutons*!

"Or at least," said he, looking at his watch—and
it was between one and two—"at least to our beds!"

So he went to bed, and, so well had he recovered
from his fit of excitement, he fell asleep almost at
once.  But, for all that, the jangled nerves had
their revenge.  He who commonly slept like the
dead, without the slightest disturbance, dreamed
a strange dream.  It seemed to him that he stood
spent and weary in a twilit place, a waste place
at the foot of a high hill.  At the top of the hill
She sat upon a sort of throne, golden in a beam of
light from heaven—serene, very beautiful, the
end and crown of his weary labours.  His feet
were set to the ascent of the height whereon she
waited, but he was withheld.  From the shadows
at the hill's foot a voice called to him in distress,
anguish of spirit—a voice he knew, but he could
not say whose voice.  It besought him out of utter
need, and he could not turn away from it.

Then from those shadows eyes looked upon him,
very great and dark eyes, and they besought him
too; he did not know what they asked, but they
called to him like the low voice, and he could not
turn away.

He looked to the far height, and with all his power
he strove to set his feet towards it—the goal of
long labour and desire—but the eyes and the piteous
voice held him motionless, for they needed him.

From this anguish he awoke trembling.  And
after a long time, when he was composed, he fell
asleep once more, and once more he dreamed the
dream.

So morning found him pallid and unrefreshed.
But by daylight he knew whose eyes had besought
him, and he wondered, and was a little afraid.





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.. _`Ste. Marie goes upon a Journey and Richard Hartley Pleads for Him`:

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   CHAPTER IX


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   STE. MARIE GOES UPON A JOURNEY AND
   RICHARD HARTLEY PLEADS FOR HIM

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It may as well be admitted at the outset that
neither Ste. Marie nor Richard Hartley proved
themselves to be geniuses, hitherto undeveloped, in
the detective science.  They entered upon their
self-appointed task with a fine fervour, but, as Miss
Benham had suggested, with no other qualifications
in particular.  Ste. Marie had a theory that when
engaged in work of this nature you went into
questionable parts of the city, ate and drank cheek
by jowl with questionable people; if possible got
them drunk while you remained sober (difficult
feat), and sooner or later they said things which
put you on the right road to your goal, or else
confessed to you that they themselves had committed
the particular crime in which you were interested.
He argued that this was the way it happened in
books, and that surely people didn't write books
about things of which they were ignorant.

Hartley, on the other hand, preferred the newer
or scientific methods.  You sat at home with a
pipe and a whisky and water—if possible in a long
dressing-gown with a cord round its middle.
You reviewed all the known facts of the case, and you
did mathematics about them with Xs and Ys and
many other symbols, and in the end, by a system of
elimination, you proved that a certain thing must
infallibly be true.  The chief difficulty for him in
this was, he said, that he had been at Oxford instead
of at Cambridge, and so the mathematics was rather
beyond him.

In practice, however, they combined the two
methods, which was doubtless as well as if they
hadn't, because for some time they accomplished
nothing whatever, and so neither one was able to
sneer at the other's stupidity.

This is not to say that they found nothing in the
way of clues.  They found an embarrassment of
them, and for some days went about in a fever of
excitement over these; but the fever cooled when
clue after clue turned out to be misleading.  Of
course Ste. Marie's first efforts were directed towards
tracing the movements of the Irishman, O'Hara, but
the efforts were altogether unavailing.  The man
seemed to have disappeared as noiselessly and
completely as had young Arthur Benham himself.  He
was unable even to settle with any definiteness the
time of the man's departure from Paris.  Some of
O'Hara's old acquaintances maintained that they
had seen the last of him two months before, but a
shifty-eyed person in rather cheaply smart clothes
came up to Ste. Marie one evening in Maxim's, and
said he had heard that Ste. Marie was making inquiries
about M. O'Hara.  Ste. Marie said he was, and that
it was an affair of money, whereupon the cheaply
smart individual declared that M. O'Hara had left
Paris six months before to go to the United States
of America, and that he had had a picture postal
card, some weeks since, from New York.  The
informant accepted an expensive cigar and a
Dubonnet by way of reward, but presently departed
into the night, and Ste. Marie was left in some
discouragement, his theory badly damaged.

He spoke of this encounter to Richard Hartley,
who came on later to join him, and Hartley, after an
interval of silence and smoke, said—

"That was a lie.  The man lied."

"Name of a dog, why?" demanded Ste. Marie,
but the Englishman shrugged his shoulders.

"I don't know," he said.  "But I believe it
was a lie.  The man came to you, sought you out to
tell his story, didn't he?  And all the others have
given a different date?  Well, there you are!  For
some reason this man or some one behind
him—O'Hara himself, probably—wants you to believe
that O'Hara is in America.  I dare say he's in
Paris all the while."

"I hope you're right," said the other.  "And
I mean to make sure, too.  It certainly was odd, this
strange being hunting me out to tell me that.  I
wonder, by the way, how he knew I'd been making
inquiries about O'Hara.  I've questioned only two
or three people, and then in the most casual way.
Yes, it's odd."

It was about a week after this—a fruitless week,
full of the alternate brightness of hope and the
gloom of disappointment—that he met Captain
Stewart, to whom he had been more than once on
the point of appealing.  He happened upon him
quite by chance one morning in the Rue Royale.
Captain Stewart was coming out of a shop, a very
smart-looking shop, devoted, as Ste. Marie, with
some surprise and much amusement, observed,
to ladies' hats, and the price of hats must have
depressed him, for he looked in an ill humour and
older and more yellow than usual.  But his face
altered suddenly when he saw the younger man, and
he stopped, and shook Ste. Marie's hand with every
evidence of pleasure.

"Well met! well met!" he exclaimed.  "If you
are not in a hurry, come and sit down somewhere
and tell me about yourself."

They picked their way across the street to the
terrace of the *Taverne Royale*, which was almost
deserted at that hour, and sat down at one of the little
tables well back from the pavement, in a corner.

"Is it fair?" queried Captain Stewart, "is it
fair as a rival investigator to ask you what success
you have had?"  Ste. Marie laughed rather ruefully
and confessed that he had as yet no success at all.

"I've just come," said he, "from pricking one
bubble that promised well, and Hartley is up in
Montmartre destroying another, I fancy.  Oh
well, we didn't expect it to be child's play."

Captain Stewart raised his little glass of dry
vermouth in an old-fashioned salute, and drank
from it.

"You," said he, "you were—ah, full of some
idea of connecting this man, this Irishman, O'Hara,
with poor Arthur's disappearance.  You've found
that not so promising, as you went on, I take it."

"Well, I've been unable to trace O'Hara," said
Ste. Marie.  "He seems to have disappeared as
completely as your nephew.  I suppose you have
no clues to spare?  I confess I'm out of them, at the
moment."

"Oh, I have plenty," said the elder man.  "A
hundred.  More than I can possibly look after."  He
gave a little chuckling laugh.

"I've been waiting for you to come to me," he
said.  "It was a little ungenerous perhaps, but we
all love to say, 'I told you so.'  Yes, I have a
great quantity of clues, and, of course, they all seem
to be of the greatest and most exciting importance.
That's a way clues have."  He took an envelope
from an inner pocket of his coat, and sorted several
folded papers which were in it.

"I have here," said he, "memoranda of two
chances, shall I call them?—which seem to me
very good, though, as I have already said, every
clue seems good.  That is the maddening, the
heart-breaking part of such an investigation.  I
have made these brief notes from letters received,
one yesterday, one the day before, from an agent
of mine who has been searching the *bains de mer*
of the north coast.  This agent writes that some one
very much resembling poor Arthur has been seen at
Dinard and also at Deauville, and he urges me to
come there, or to send a man there at once to look
into the matter.  You will ask, of course, why this
agent himself does not pursue the clue he has found.
Unfortunately he has been called to London upon
some pressing family matter of his own; he is an
Englishman."

"Why haven't you gone yourself?" asked
Ste. Marie.  But the elder man shrugged his
shoulders and smiled a tired deprecatory smile.

"Oh, my friend," said he, "if I should attempt
personally to investigate one half of these things, I
should be compelled to divide myself into twenty
parts.  No, I must stay here.  There must be,
alas! the spider at the centre of the web.  I cannot
go, but if you think it worth while I will gladly turn
over the memoranda of these last clues to you.  They
may be the true clues, they may not.  At any rate,
some one must look into them.  Why not you and
your partner—or shall I say assistant?"

"Why, thank you!" cried Ste. Marie.  "A
thousand thanks.  Of course I shall be—we shall
be glad to try this chance.  On the face of it, it
sounds very reasonable.  Your nephew, from what
I remember of him, is much more apt to be in
some place that is amusing—some place of gaiety—than
hiding away where it is merely dull, if he has
his choice in the matter, that is—if he is free.  And
yet——" he turned and frowned thoughtfully at the
elder man.

"What I want to know," said he, "is how the
boy is supporting himself all this time.  You say
he had no money, or very little, when he went
away.  How is he managing to live, if your theory
is correct—that he is staying away of his own accord?
It costs a lot of money to live as he likes to live."

Captain Stewart nodded.

"Oh, that," said he, "that is a question I have
often proposed to myself.  Frankly it's beyond
me.  I can only surmise that poor Arthur, who
had scattered a small fortune about in foolish
loans, managed, before he actually disappeared
(mind you, we didn't begin to look for him until
a week had gone by), managed to collect some of
this money, and so went away with something
in pocket.  That, of course, is only a guess."

"It is possible," said Ste. Marie doubtfully,
"but—I don't know.  It is not very easy to raise
money from the sort of people I imagine your nephew
to have lent it to.  They borrow but they don't
repay."

He glanced up with a half-laughing half-defiant air.

"I can't," said he, "rid myself of a belief that
the boy is here in Paris and he is not free to come or
go.  It's only a feeling, but it is very strong in me.
Of course I shall follow out these clues you've been
so kind as to give me.  I shall go to Dinard and
Deauville, and Hartley, I imagine, will go with
me; but I haven't great confidence in them."

Captain Stewart regarded him reflectively for a
time, and in the end he smiled.

"If you will pardon my saying it," he said,
"your attitude is just a little womanlike.  You
put away reason for something vaguely intuitive.
I always distrust intuition myself."  Ste. Marie
frowned a little and looked uncomfortable.  He did
not relish being called womanlike—few men do—but
he was bound to admit that the elder man's criticism
was more or less just.

"Moreover," pursued Captain Stewart, "you
altogether ignore the point of motive—as I may
have suggested to you before.  There could be no
possible motive, so far as I am aware, for kidnapping
or detaining or in any way harming my nephew
except the desire for money; but, as you know, he
had no large sum of money with him, and no demand
has been made upon us since his disappearance.
I'm afraid you can't get round that."

"No," said Ste. Marie, "I'm afraid I can't.
Indeed, leaving that aside (and it can't be left aside),
I still have almost nothing with which to prop up
my theory.  I told you it was only a feeling."

He took up the memoranda which Captain
Stewart had laid upon the marble-topped table
between them, and read the notes through.

"Please," said he, "don't think I am ungrateful
for this chance.  I am not.  I shall do my best with
it, and I hope it may turn out to be important."  He
gave a little wry smile.

"I have all sorts of reasons," he said, "for
wishing to succeed as soon as possible.  You may
be sure that there won't be any delays on my part.
And now I must be going on.  I am to meet Hartley
for lunch on the other side of the river, and, if we
can manage it, I should like to start north this
afternoon or evening.

"Good!" said Captain Stewart, smiling.  "Good! that
is what I call true promptness.  You lose no
time at all.  Go to Dinard and Deauville, by all
means, and look into this thing thoroughly.  Don't
be discouraged if you meet with ill success at
first.  Take Mr. Hartley with you and do your
best."  He paid for the two glasses of aperatif,
and Ste. Marie could not help observing that he
left on the table a very small tip.  The waiter
cursed him audibly as the two walked away.

"If you have returned by a week from to-morrow,"
he said, as they shook hands, "I should like to
have you keep that evening—Thursday—for me.
I am having a very informal little party in my
rooms.  There will be two or three of the opera
people there, and they will sing for us, and the
others will be amusing enough.  All young.  All
young.  I like young people about me."  He gave
his odd little mewing chuckle.  "And the ladies
must be beautiful as well as young.  Come if you
are here!  I'll drop a line to Mr. Hartley also."  He
shook Ste. Marie's hand and went away down
the street towards the Rue du Faubourg St. Honoré,
where he lived.

Ste. Marie met Hartley as he expected to do, at
lunch, and they talked over the possibilities of the
Dinard and Deauville expedition.  In the end they
decided that Ste. Marie should go alone, but that
he was to telegraph, later on, if the clue looked
promising.  Hartley had two or three investigations
on foot in Paris, and stayed on to complete these.
Also he wished, as soon as possible, to see Helen
Benham and explain Ste. Marie's ride on the
galloping pigs.  Ten days had elapsed since that
evening, but Miss Benham had gone into the country
the next day to make a visit at the de Saulnes'
chateau on the Oise.

So Ste. Marie packed a portmanteau with clothes
and things, and departed by a mid-afternoon train
to Dinard, and, towards five, Richard Hartley
walked down to the Rue de l'Université.  He
thought it just possible that Miss Benham might
by now have returned to town, but if not he meant
to have half an hour's chat with old David Stewart,
whom he had not seen for some weeks.

At the door he learnt that Mademoiselle was that
very day returned and was at home.  So he went
in to the drawing-room, reserving his visit to old
David until later.  He found the room divided
into two camps.  At one side Mrs. Benham
conversed in melancholic monotones with two elderly
French ladies, who were clad in depressing black of
a dowdiness surpassed only in English provincial
towns.  It was as if the three mourned together
over the remains of some dear one who lay dead
amongst them.  Hartley bowed low with an uncontrollable
shiver, and turned to the tea-table, where
Miss Benham sat in the seat of authority, flanked
by a young American lady, whom he had met before,
and by Baron de Vries, whom he had not seen since
the evening of the de Saulnes' dinner party.

Miss Benham greeted him with evident pleasure, and
to his great delight remembered just how he liked
his tea—three pieces of sugar and no milk.  It
always flatters a man when his little tastes of this
sort are remembered.  The four fell at once into
conversation together, and the young American lady
asked Hartley why Ste. Marie was not with him.

"I thought you two always went about together,"
she said.  "Were never seen apart and all that—a
sort of modern Damon and Phidias."  Hartley
caught Baron de Vries' eye and looked away again
hastily.

"My—ah, Phidias," said he, resisting an irritable
desire to correct the lady, "got mislaid to-day.
It shan't happen again, I promise you.  He's a
very busy person just now, though.  He hasn't
time for social dissipation.  I'm the butterfly of the
pair."  The lady gave a sudden laugh.

"He was busy enough the last time I saw him,"
she said, crinkling her eyelids.  She turned to Miss
Benham.

"Do you remember that evening we were going
home from the *Madrid*, and motored round by
Montmartre to see the *fête*?"

"Yes," said Miss Benham, unsmiling, "I remember."

"Your friend, Ste. Marie," said the American lady
to Hartley, "was distinctly the lion of the *fête*—at
the moment we arrived, anyhow.  He was riding a
galloping pig and throwing those paper streamer
things—what do you call them?—with both hands,
and a genial lady in a blue hat was riding the same
pig and helping him out.  It was just like the
*Vie de Bohême* and the other books.  I found it
charming."

Baron de Vries emitted an amused chuckle.

"That was very like Ste. Marie," he said.
"Ste. Marie is a very exceptional young man.  He can
be an angel one moment, a child playing with toys
the next, and—well, a rather commonplace social
favourite the third.  It all comes of being
romantic—imaginative.  Ste. Marie—I know nothing about
this evening of which you speak—but Ste. Marie is
quite capable of stopping on his way to a funeral
to ride a galloping pig—or on his way to his own
wedding.

"And the pleasant part of it is," said Baron de
Vries, "that the lad would turn up at either of these
two ceremonies not a bit the worse, outside or in, for
his ride."

"Ah, now that's an oddly close shot," said Hartley.
He paused a moment, looking towards Miss Benham,
and said—

"I beg pardon!  Were you going to speak?"

"No," said Miss Benham, moving the things about
on the tea-table before her, and looking down at
them.  "No, not at all!"

"You came oddly close to the truth," the man
went on, turning back to Baron de Vries.  He was
speaking for Helen Benham's ears, and he knew she
would understand that, but he did not wish to
seem to be watching her.

"I was with Ste. Marie on that evening," he said.
"No!  I wasn't riding a pig, but I was standing
down in the crowd throwing serpentines at the people
who were.  And I happen to know that he—that
Ste. Marie was on that day, that evening, more deeply
concerned about something, more absolutely wrapped
up in it, devoted to it, than I have ever known him
to be about anything since I first knew him.  The
galloping pig was an incident that made, except for
the moment, no impression whatever upon him."  Hartley
nodded his head.

"Yes," said he, "Ste. Marie can be an angel one
moment and a child playing with toys the next.  When
he sees toys he always plays with them, and he plays
hard, but when he drops them they go completely
out of his mind."

The American lady laughed.

"Gracious me!" she cried.  "You two are
emphatic enough about him, aren't you?"

"We know him," said Baron de Vries.  Hartley
rose to replace his empty cup on the tea-table.
Miss Benham did not meet his eyes, and as he moved
away again she spoke to her friend about something
they were going to do on the next day, so Hartley
went across to where Baron de Vries sat at a little
distance, and took a place beside him on the chaise
longue.  The Belgian greeted him with raised
eyebrows and the little half-sad half-humorous smile
which was characteristic of him in his gentler
moments.

"You were defending our friend with a purpose,"
he said in a low voice.  "Good!  I am afraid he
needs it—here."  The younger man hesitated a
moment.  Then he said—

"I came on purpose to do that.  Ste. Marie knows
that she saw him on that confounded pig.  He
was half wild with distress over it because—well,
the meeting was singularly unfortunate, just then.
I can't explain——"

"You needn't explain," said the Belgian gravely.
"I know.  Helen told me some days since, though
she did not mention this encounter.  Yes, defend
him with all your power, if you will.  Stay after
we others have gone and—have it out with her.
The Phidias lady (I must remember that *mot*, by
the way) is preparing to take her leave now, and I
will follow her at once.  She shall believe that I am
enamoured—that I sigh for her.

"Eh!" said he, shaking his head.  And the
lines in the kindly old face seemed to deepen,
but in a sort of grave tenderness.  "Eh, so love has
come to the dear lad at last!  Ah! of course, the
hundred other affairs!  Yes, yes.  But they were
light.  No seriousness in them.  The ladies may
have loved.  He didn't very much.  This time,
I'm afraid——"

Baron de Vries paused as if he did not mean to
finish his sentence, and Hartley said—

"You say 'afraid'!  Why, afraid?"

The Belgian looked up at him reflectively.

"Did I say 'afraid'?" he asked.  "Well—perhaps
it was the word I wanted.  I wonder if
these two are fitted for each other.  I am fond of
them both.  I think you know that, but—she's
not very flexible, this child.  And she hasn't much
humour.  I love her, but I know those things are
true.  I wonder if one ought to marry Ste. Marie
without flexibility and without humour."

"If they love each other," said Richard Hartley,
"I expect the other things don't count.  Do they?"

Baron de Vries rose to his feet, for he saw that
the Phidias lady was going.

"Perhaps not," said he; "I hope not.  In any
case, do your best for him with Helen.  Make her
comprehend if you can.  I am afraid she is unhappy
over the affair."  He made his adieux and went
away with the American lady, to that young
person's obvious excitement.  And after a moment
the three ladies across the room departed also,
Mrs. Benham explaining that she was taking her two
friends up to her own sitting-room to show them
something vaguely related to the heathen.  So
Hartley was left alone with Helen Benham.

It was not his way to beat about the bush, and
he gave battle at once.  He said, standing to say
it more easily—

"You know why I came here to-day.  It was
the first chance I've had since that—unfortunate
evening.  I came on Ste. Marie's account."

Miss Benham said a weak—

"Oh!"  And because she was nervous and
overwrought and because the thing meant so much
to her, she said cheaply—

"He owes me no apologies.  He has a perfect
right to act as he pleases, you know."

The Englishman frowned across at her.

"I didn't come to make apologies," said he.
"I came to explain.  Well, I have explained—Baron
de Vries and I together.  That's just how
it happened, and that's just how Ste. Marie takes
things.  The point is, that you've got to understand
it.  I've got to make you."

The girl smiled up at him dolefully.

"You look," she said, "as if you were going to
beat me if necessary.  You look very warlike."

"I feel warlike," the man said, nodding.  He said—

"I'm fighting for a friend to whom you are
doing, in your mind, an injustice.  I know him
better than you do, and I tell you you're doing
him a grave injustice.  You're failing altogether
to understand him."

"I wonder," the girl said, looking very
thoughtfully down at the table before her.

"I know," said he.

Quite suddenly she gave a little overwrought
cry, and she put up her hands over her face.

"Oh, Richard!" she said, "that day when he
was here!  He left me——  Oh, I cannot tell you at
what a height he left me!  It was something new
and beautiful.  He swept me to the clouds with
him.  And I might—perhaps I might have lived
on there.  Who knows?  But then that hideous
evening!  Ah, it was too sickening, the fall back
to common earth again!"

"I know," said the man gently, "I know.  And
he knew, too.  Directly he'd seen you he knew how
you would feel about it.  I'm not pretending that
it was of no consequence.  It was unfortunate, of
course.  But—the point is it did not mean in him
any slackening, any stooping, any letting go.  It
was a moment's incident.  We went to the wretched
place by accident after dinner.  Ste. Marie saw
those childish lunatics at play, and for about two
minutes he played with them.  The lady in the
blue hat made it appear a little more extreme, and
that's all."

Miss Benham rose to her feet and moved restlessly
back and forth.

"Oh, Richard!" she said, "the golden spell is
broken—the enchantment he laid upon me that
day.  I'm not like him, you know.  Oh, I wish I
were!  I wish I were!  I can't change from hour
to hour.  I can't rise to the clouds again after my
fall to earth.  It has all—become something different.

"Don't misunderstand me," she cried; "I
don't mean that I've ceased to care for him.  No,
far from that!  But I was in such an exalted heaven,
and now I'm not there any more.  Perhaps he
can lift me to it again.  Oh yes, I'm sure he can
when I see him once more; but I wanted to go on
living there so happily while he was away!  Do
you understand at all?"

"I think I do," the man said, but he looked at
her very curiously and a little sadly; for it was
the first time he had ever seen her swept from her
superb poise by any emotion, and he hardly
recognised her.  It was very bitter to him to realise
that he could never have stirred her to this, never
under any conceivable circumstances.

The girl came to him where he stood and touched
his arm with her hand.

"He is waiting to hear how I feel about it all,
isn't he?" she said.  "He is waiting to know that
I understand.  Will you tell him a little lie for me,
Richard?  No!  You needn't tell a lie; I will
tell it.  Tell him that I said I understood perfectly.
Tell him that I was shocked for a moment, but
that afterwards I understood and thought no more
about it.  Will you tell him I said that?  It won't
be a lie from you, because I did say it.  Oh, I will
not grieve him or hamper him now while he is
working in my cause!  I'll tell him a lie rather than
have him grieve."

"Need it be a lie?" said Richard Hartley.
"Can't you truly believe what you've said?"

She shook her head slowly.

"I'll try," said she, "but—my golden spell is
broken, and I can't mend it alone.  I'm sorry."

He turned with a little sigh to leave her, but
Miss Benham followed him towards the door of the
drawing-room.

"You're a good friend, Richard," she said, when
she had come near.  "You're a good friend to him."

"He deserves good friends," said the man stoutly.
"And besides," said he, "we're brothers in arms
nowadays.  We've enlisted together to fight for
the same cause."

The girl fell back with a little cry.  "Do you
mean," she said, after a moment, "do you mean
that you are working with him—to find Arthur?"

Hartley nodded.

"But," said she stammering, "but, Richard——"

The man checked her.  "Oh, I know what I'm
doing," said he.  "My eyes are open.  I know
that I'm not—well, in the running.  I work for
no reward except a desire to help you and
Ste. Marie.  That's all.  It pleases me to be useful."

He went away with that, not waiting for an
answer; and the girl stood where he had left her,
staring after him.





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.. _`CAPTAIN STEWART ENTERTAINS`:

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   CHAPTER X


.. class:: center medium bold

   CAPTAIN STEWART ENTERTAINS

.. vspace:: 2

Ste. Marie returned, after three days, from
Dinard in a depressed and somewhat puzzled
frame of mind.  He had found no trace whatever
of Arthur Benham either at Dinard or at Deauville,
and, what was more, he was unable to discover
that any one even remotely resembling that youth
had been seen at either place.  The matter of
identification, it seemed to him, should be a rather
simple one.  In the first place, the boy's appearance
was not at all French, nor for that matter English:
it was very American.  Also he spoke French—so
Ste. Marie had been told—very badly, having for the
language that scornful contempt peculiar to
Anglo-Saxons of a certain type.  His speech, it seemed,
was, like his appearance, ultra-American, full of
strange idioms and oddly pronounced.  In short,
such a youth would be rather sure to be
remembered by any hotel management and staff with
which he might have come in contact.

At first Ste. Marie pursued his investigations
quietly and, as it were, casually, but, after his
initial failure, he went to the managements of the
various hotels and lodging-houses and to the cafés
and bathing establishments, and told them with
all frankness a part of the truth—that he was
searching for a young man whose disappearance
had caused great distress to his family.  He was
not long in discovering that no such young man
could have been either in Dinard or Deauville.

The thing which puzzled him was that, apart
from finding no trace of the missing boy, he also
found no trace of Captain Stewart's agent—the
man who had been first on the ground.  No one
seemed able to recollect that such a person had been
making inquiries, and Ste. Marie began to suspect
that his friend was being imposed upon.  He
determined to warn Stewart that his agents were earning
their fees too easily.

So he returned to Paris more than a little dejected
and sore over this waste of time and effort.  He
arrived by a noon tram, and drove across the city
in a fiacre to the Rue d'Assas.  But as he was in
the midst of unpacking his portmanteau, for he
kept no servant (a woman came in once a day to
"do" the rooms), the door-bell rang.  It was
Baron de Vries, and Ste. Marie admitted him with
an exclamation of surprise and pleasure.

"You passed me in the street just now,"
explained the Belgian, "and, as I was a few minutes
early for a lunch engagement, I followed you up."

He pointed with his stick at the open bag.

"Ah, you have been on a journey!  Detective work?"

Ste. Marie pushed his guest into a chair, gave
him cigarettes, and told him about the fruitless
expedition to Dinard.  He spoke also of his belief
that Captain Stewart's agent had never really
found a clue at all, and at that Baron de Vries
nodded his grey head and said, "Ah!" in a tone
of some significance.  Afterwards he smoked a
little while in silence, but presently he said, as if
with some hesitation—

"May I be permitted to offer a word of advice?"

"But surely!" cried Ste. Marie, kicking away
the half-empty portmanteau.  "Why not?"

"Do whatever you are going to do in this matter
according to your own judgment," said the elder
man.  "Or according to Mr. Hartley's and your
combined judgments.  Make your investigations
without reference to our friend Captain Stewart."  He
halted there as if that were all he had meant
to say, but when he saw Ste. Marie's raised
eyebrows, he frowned and went on slowly as if picking
his words with some care.

"I should be sorry," he said, "to have Captain
Stewart at the head of any investigation of this
nature in which I was deeply interested—just now,
at any rate.  I am afraid—It is difficult to say.  I
do not wish to say too much—I am afraid he is
not quite the man for the position."

Ste. Marie nodded his head with great emphasis.

"Ah!" he cried, "that's just what I have felt,
you know, all along.  And it's what Hartley felt
too, I'm sure.  No, Stewart is not the sort for a
detective.  He's too cock-sure.  He won't admit
that he might possibly be wrong now and then.
He's too——"

"He is too much occupied with other matters,"
said Baron de Vries.  Ste. Marie sat down on the
edge of a chair.

"Other matters?" he demanded.  "That
sounds mysterious.  What other matters?"

"Oh, there is nothing very mysterious about it,"
said the elder man.  He frowned down at his
cigarette and brushed some fallen ash neatly from
his knees.

"Captain Stewart," said he, "is badly worried,
and has been for the past year or so—badly worried
over money matters and other things.  He has
lost enormous sums at play, as I happen to know;
and he has lost still more enormous sums at Auteuil
and at Longchamps.  Also the ladies are not without
their demands."

Ste. Marie gave a shout of laughter.

"*Comment donc!*" he cried.  "*Ce vieillard?*"

"Ah well," deprecated the other man, "*Vieillard*
is putting it rather high.  He can't be more than
fifty, I should think.  To be sure he looks older,
but then, in his day, he lived a great deal in a short
time.  Do you happen to remember Olga Nilssen?"

"I do," said Ste. Marie.  "I remember her very
well indeed; I was a sort of go-between in settling
up that affair with Morrison.  Morrison's people
asked me to do what I could.  Yes, I remember
her well, and with some pleasure.  I felt sorry for
her, you know.  People didn't quite know the
truth of that affair.  Morrison behaved very badly
to her."

"Yes," said Baron de Vries, "and Captain
Stewart has behaved very badly to her also.  She
is furious with rage or jealousy or both.  She goes
about, I am told, threatening to kill him, and it
would be rather like her to do it one day.  Well,
I have dragged in all this scandal by way of
showing you that Stewart has his hands full of his own
affairs just now, and so cannot give the attention
he ought to give to hunting out his nephew.  As
you suggest, his agents may be deceiving him.  I
don't know, I suppose they could do it easily enough.
If I were you I would set to work quite independently
of him."

"Yes," said Ste. Marie in an absent tone.  "Oh
yes, I shall do that, you may be sure."  He gave
a sudden smile.

"He's a queer type, this Captain Stewart,"
said Ste. Marie.  "He begins to interest me very
much.  I had never suspected this side of him
(though I remember now that I once saw him
coming out of a milliner's shop).  He looks rather
an ascetic, rather donnish, don't you think?  I
remember that he talked to me one day quite
pathetically about feeling his age and about liking
young people round him.  He's an odd character.
Fancy him mixed up in an affair with Olga Nilssen! or,
rather, fancy her involved in an affair
with him!  What can she have seen in him?  She's
not mercenary, you know.  At least she used not to be."

"Ah! there," said Baron de Vries, "you enter
upon a *terra incognita*.  No one can say what a
woman sees in this man or in that.  It's beyond
our ken."  He rose to take his leave, and
Ste. Marie went with him to the door.

"I've been asked to a sort of party at Stewart's
rooms this week," Ste. Marie said.  "I don't know
whether I shall go or not.  Probably not.  I
suppose I shouldn't find Olga Nilssen there?"

"Well, no," said the Belgian, laughing.  "No, I
hardly think so.  Good-bye!  Think over what
I've told you.  Good-bye!"  He went away down
the stair, and Ste. Marie returned to his unpacking.

Nothing more of consequence occurred in the
next few days.  Hartley had unearthed a
somewhat shabby adventurer, who swore to having seen
the Irishman, O'Hara, in Paris within a month, but
it was by no means certain that this being did not
merely affirm what he believed to be desired of him,
and in any case the information was of no especial
value, since it was O'Hara's present whereabouts
that was the point at issue.  So it came to Thursday
evening.  Ste. Marie received a note from Captain
Stewart during the day, reminding him that he
was to come to the Rue du Faubourg St. Honoré
that evening, and asking him to come early, at ten
or thereabouts, so that the two could have a
comfortable chat before any one else turned up.
Ste. Marie had about decided not to go at all, but the
courtesy of this special invitation from Miss
Benham's uncle made it rather impossible for him to
stay away.  He tried to persuade Hartley to follow
him later on in the evening, but that gentleman
flatly refused, and went away to dine with some
English friends at Armenonville.

So Ste. Marie, in a vile temper, dined quite alone
at Lavenue's, beside the Gare Montparnasse, and
towards ten o'clock drove across the river to the
Rue du Faubourg.  Captain Stewart's flat was up
five stories, at the top of the building in which it
was located, and so well above the noises of the
street.  Ste. Marie went up in the automatic lift, and
at the door above his host met him in person, saying
that the one servant he kept was busy making
preparations in the kitchen beyond.  They entered
a large room, long but comparatively shallow, in
shape not unlike the sitting-room in the Rue d'Assas
but very much bigger, and Ste. Marie uttered an
exclamation of surprise and pleasure, for he had
never before seen an interior anything like this.
The room was decorated and furnished entirely in
Chinese and Japanese articles of great age and
remarkable beauty.  Ste. Marie knew little of the
hieratic art of these two countries, but he fancied
that the place must be an endless delight to the
expert.

The general tone of the room was gold, dulled
and softened by great age until it had ceased to
glitter, and relieved by the dusty Chinese blue, and
by old red faded to rose, and by warm ivory tints.
The great expanse of the walls was covered by a
brownish-yellow cloth, coarse, like burlap, and
against it round the room hung sixteen large panels
representing the sixteen *Rakan*.  They were early
copies—fifteenth century, Captain Stewart said—of
those famous originals by the Chinese *Sung*
master Ririomin, which have been for six hundred
years or more the treasures of Japan.  They were
mounted upon Japanese brocade of blue and dull
gold, framed in keyaki wood, and, out of their brown
time-stained shadows, the great *Rakan* scowled or
grinned or placidly gazed, grotesquely graceful
masterpieces of a perished art.

At the far end of the room, under a gilded canopy
of intricate wood-carving, stood upon his pedestal
of many-petalled lotus a great statue of Amida
Buddha in the yogi attitude of contemplation, and
at intervals against the other walls other smaller
images stood or sat; Buddha in many incarnations;
Kwannon, Goddess of Mercy; Jizo Bosatzu; Hotei,
pot-bellied, God of Contentment; Jingo-Kano, God
of War.  In the centre of the place was a Buddhist
temple table; and priests' chairs, lacquered and
inlaid, stood about the room.  The floor was covered
by Chinese rugs, dull yellow with blue flowers; and
over a doorway which led into another room was
fixed a huge rama of Chinese pierced carving, gilded,
in which there were trees and rocks and little
grouped figures of the hundred immortals.

It was indeed an extraordinary room.  Ste. Marie
looked about its mellow glow with a
half-comprehending wonder, and he looked at the man
beside him curiously, for here was another side to
this many-sided character.  Captain Stewart smiled.

"You like my museum?" he asked.  "Few
people care much for it except, of course, those
who go in for the Oriental arts.  Most of my friends
think it bizarre—too grotesque and unusual.  I
have tried to satisfy them by including those
comfortable low divan couches (they refuse altogether
to sit in the priests' chairs), but still they are
unhappy."  He called his servant, who came to take
Ste. Marie's hat and coat, and returned with smoking
things.

"It seems entirely wonderful to me," said the
younger man.  "I'm not an expert at all—I don't
know who the gentlemen in those sixteen panels
are, for example; but it is very beautiful.  I have
never seen anything like it at all."  He gave a
little laugh.

"Will it sound very impertinent in me, I wonder,
if I express surprise—not surprise at finding this
magnificent room, but at discovering that this
sort of thing is a taste and, very evidently, a serious
study of yours?  You—I remember your saying
once with some feeling that it was youth and beauty
and—well, freshness that you liked best to be
surrounded by.  This," said Ste. Marie, waving an
inclusive hand, "was young so many centuries ago!
It fairly breathes antiquity and death."

"Yes," said Captain Stewart thoughtfully.  "Yes,
that is quite true."  The two had seated
themselves upon one of the broad low benches which
had been built into the place to satisfy the philistine.

"I find it hard to explain," he said, "because both
things are passions of mine.  Youth—I could not exist
without it.  Since I have it no longer in my own
body, I wish to see it about me.  It gives me life.
It keeps my heart beating.  I must have it near.
And then this—antiquity and death, beautiful
things made by hands dead centuries ago in an alien
country!  I love this too.  I didn't speak too
strongly, it is a sort of passion with me—something
quite beyond the collector's mania, quite beyond
that.  Sometimes, do you know, I stay at home
in the evening, and I sit here quite alone with the
lights half on and, for hours together, I smoke and
watch these things—the quiet, sure, patient smile
of that Buddha for example.  Think how long he
has been smiling like that, and waiting!  Waiting
for what?  There is something mysterious beyond
all words in that smile of his, that fixed, crudely
carved wooden smile.  No, I'll be hanged if it's
crude!  It is beyond our modern art.  The dead
men carved better than we do.  We couldn't manage
that with such simple means.  We can only
reproduce what is before us.  We can't carve
questions—mysteries—everlasting riddles."

Through the pale blue wreathing smoke of his
cigarette Captain Stewart gazed down the room
to where Eternal Buddha stood and smiled
eternally.  And from there the man's eyes moved with
slow enjoyment along the opposite wall over those
who sat or stood there, over the panels of the ancient
Rakan, over carved lotus and gilt contorted dragon
for ever in pursuit of the holy pearl.  He drew a
short breath which seemed to bespeak extreme
contentment, the keenest height of pleasure, and
he stirred a little where he sat and settled himself
among the cushions.  Ste. Marie watched him, and
the expression of the man's face began to be oddly
revolting.  It was the face of a voluptuary in the
presence of his desire.  He was uncomfortable and
wished to say something to break the silence, but,
as often occurs at such a time, he could think of
nothing to say.  So there was a brief silence
between them.  But presently Captain Stewart roused
himself with an obvious effort.

"Here! this won't do," said he, in a tone of
whimsical apology.  "This won't do, you know.
I'm floating off on my hobby (and there's a mixed
metaphor that would do credit to your own Milesian
blood!) I'm boring you to extinction, and I don't
want to do that, for I'm anxious that you should
come here again—and often.  I should like to have
you form the habit.

"What was it I had in mind to ask you about?
Ah yes!  The journey to Dinard and Deauville.
I am afraid it turned out to be fruitless or you
would have let me know."

"Entirely fruitless," said Ste. Marie.  He went
on to tell the elder man of his investigation, and of
his certainty that no one resembling Arthur Benham
had been at either of the two places.

"It's no affair of mine, to be sure," he said;
"but I rather suspect that your agent was deceiving
you—pretending to have accomplished something
by way of making you think he was busy."  Ste. Marie
was so sure the other would immediately
disclaim this that he waited for the word, and gave
a little smothered laugh when Captain Stewart said
promptly—

"Oh no!  No!  That is impossible.  I have
every confidence in that man.  He is one of my
best.  No, you are mistaken there.  I am more
disappointed than you could possibly be over the
failure of your efforts, but I am quite sure my
man thought he had something worth working upon.

"By the way, I have received another rather
curious communication—from Ostend this time.
I will show you the letter, and you may try your
luck there if you would care to."  He felt in his
pockets and then rose.  "I've left the thing in
another coat," said he; "if you will allow me, I'll
fetch it."  But before he had turned away the
doorbell rang, and he paused.

"Ah well," he said, "another time.  Here are
some of my guests.  They have come earlier than
I had expected."

The new arrivals were three very perfectly dressed
ladies, one of them an operatic light who chanced
not to be singing that evening, and whom Ste. Marie
had met before.  The two others were rather
difficult of classification, but probably, he thought,
ornaments of that mysterious borderland between
the two worlds which seems to give shelter to so
many people against whose characters nothing
definite is known, but whose antecedents and
connexions are not made topics of conversation.  The
three ladies seemed to be on very friendly terms
with Captain Stewart, and greeted him with much
noisy delight.  One of the unclassified two, when her
host, with a glance towards Ste. Marie, addressed
her formally, seemed inordinately amused, and
laughed for a long time.

Within the next hour ten or a dozen other guests
had arrived, and they all seemed to know each
other very well, and proceeded to make themselves
quite at home.  Ste. Marie regarded them with a
reflective and not over-enthusiastic eye, and he
wondered a good deal why he had been asked here
to meet them.  He was as far from a prig or a snob
as any man could very well be, and he often went
to very Bohemian parties which were given by his
painter or musician friends, but these people seemed
to him quite different.  The men, with the exception
of two eminent opera singers, who quite obviously
had been asked because of their voices, were the
sort of men who abound at such places as Ostend
and Monte Carlo, and Baden Baden in the race
week.  That is not to say that they were ordinary
racing touts or the cheaper kind of adventurers:
there was a count among them, and a marquis who
had recently been divorced by his American wife;
but adventurers of a sort they undoubtedly were.
There was not one of them, so far as Ste. Marie
was aware, who was received anywhere in good
society, and he resented very much being compelled
to meet them.

Naturally enough he felt much less concern on
the score of the ladies.  It is an undoubted and
wellnigh universal truth that men who would
refuse outright to meet certain classes of their own
sex show no reluctance whatever over meeting the
women of a corresponding circle—that is, if the
women are attractive.  It is a depressing fact, and
inclines one to sighs and head-shakes and some
moral indignation, until the reverse truth is brought
to light: namely, that women have identically the
same point of view; that while they cast looks of
loathing and horror upon certain of their sisters,
they will meet with pleasure any presentable man
whatever his crimes or vices.

Ste. Marie was very much puzzled over all this.
It seemed to him so unnecessary that a man who
really had some footing in the newer society of
Paris should choose to surround himself with people
of this type; but, as he looked on and wondered, he
became aware of a curious and, in the light of a
past conversation, significant fact.  All of the
people in the room were young, all of them in their
varying fashions and degrees very attractive to
look upon, all full to overflowing of life and spirits
and the determination to have a good time.  He
saw Captain Stewart moving among them, playing
very gracefully his role of host, and the man seemed
to have dropped twenty years from his shoulders.
A miracle of rejuvenation seemed to have come
upon him; his eyes were bright and eager, the
colour was high in his cheeks, and the dry pedantic
tone had gone from his voice.  Ste. Marie watched
him, and at last he thought he understood.  It
was half revolting, half pathetic, he thought, but
it certainly was interesting to see.

.. _`"He saw Captain Stewart moving among them."`:

.. figure:: images/img-137.jpg
   :align: center
   :alt: "He saw Captain Stewart moving among them."

   "He saw Captain Stewart moving among them."

Duval, the great basso of the Opéra, accompanied
at the piano by one of the unclassified ladies, was
just finishing *Mefistofele's* drinking song out of
*Faust* when the door-bell rang.





.. vspace:: 4

.. _`A Golden Lady Enters—The Eyes again`:

.. class:: center large bold

   CHAPTER XI


.. class:: center medium bold

   A GOLDEN LADY ENTERS: THE EYES AGAIN

.. vspace:: 2

The music of voice and piano was very loud
just then, so that the little soft whirring
sound of the electric bell reached only one or two
pairs of ears in the big room.  It did not reach the
host certainly, and neither he nor most of the others
observed the servant make his way among the groups
of seated or standing people and go to the outer
door, which opened upon a tiny hallway.  The
song came to an end, and everybody was cheering
and applauding and crying *bravo* or *bis*, or one
of the other things that people shout at such times,
when, as if in unexpected answer to the outburst, a
lady appeared between the yellow portières, and came
forward a little way into the room.  She was a
tall lady of an extraordinary and immediately
noticeable grace of movement, a lady with rather
fair hair, but her eyebrows and lashes had been
stained darker than it was their nature to be.  She
had the classic Greek type of face—and figure too—all
but the eyes, which were long and narrow, narrow
perhaps from a habit of going half closed; and
when they were a little more than half closed, they
made a straight black line that turned up very
slightly at the outer end with an Oriental effect,
which went oddly in that classic face.  There is a
very popular piece of sculpture now in the
Luxembourg Gallery for which this lady "sat" as model to
a great artist.  Sculptors from all over the world go
there to dream over its perfect line and contour,
and little schoolgirls pretend not to see it, and
middle-aged maiden tourists with red *Baedeckers*
in their hands regard it furtively, and pass on, and
after awhile come back to look again.

The lady was dressed in some close clinging
material, which was not cloth-of-gold but something
very like it, only much duller—something which
gleamed when she stirred but did not glitter; and over
her splendid shoulders was hung an Oriental scarf
heavily worked with metallic gold.  She made an
amazing and dramatic picture in that golden room.
It was as if she had known just what her surroundings
would be and had dressed expressly for them.

The applause ceased as suddenly as if it had
been trained to break off at a signal, and the lady
came forward a little way, smiling a quiet assured
smile.  At each step her knee threw out the golden
stuff of her gown an inch or two, and it flashed
suddenly a dull subdued flash in the overhead light, and
died and flashed again.  A few of the people in the
room knew who the lady was, and they looked at
one another with raised eyebrows and startled
faces; but the others stared at her with an eager
admiration, thinking that they had seldom seen
anything so beautiful or so effective.  Ste. Marie sat
forward on the edge of his chair.  His eyes sparkled,
and he gave a little quick sigh of pleasurable
excitement.  This was drama and very good drama too, and
he suspected that it might at any moment turn into
a tragedy.

He saw Captain Stewart, who had been among a
group of people halfway across the room, turn his
head to look, when the cries and the applause
ceased so suddenly, and he saw the man's face
stiffen by swift degrees, all the joyous buoyant life
gone out of it, until it was yellow and rigid like a
dead man's face; and Ste. Marie, out of his
knowledge of the relations between these two people,
nodded, *en connaisseur*, for he knew that the man
was very badly frightened.

So the host of the evening hung back staring for
what must have seemed to him a long and terrible
time, though in reality it was but an instant; then
he came forward quickly to greet the newcomer; and
if his face was still yellow-white, there was nothing in
his manner but the courtesy habitual with him.
He took the lady's hand and she smiled at him;
but her eyes did not smile: they were hard.
Ste. Marie, who was the nearest of the others, heard
Captain Stewart say—

"This is an unexpected pleasure, my dearest
Olga!"  And to that the lady replied more
loudly—

"Yes, I returned to Paris only to-day.  You
didn't know, of course.  I heard you were entertaining
this evening and so I came, knowing that I
should be welcome."

"Always!" said Captain Stewart.  "Always
more than welcome!"  He nodded to one or two
of the men who stood near, and, when they had
approached, presented them.  Ste. Marie observed
that he used the lady's true name—she had, at
times, found occasion to employ others—and that
he politely called her "Madame Nilssen" instead
of "Mademoiselle."  But at that moment the lady
caught sight of Ste. Marie, and, crying out his name
in a tone of delighted astonishment, turned away
from the other men, brushing past them as if they
had been furniture, and advanced, holding out both
her hands in greeting.

"Dear Ste. Marie!" she exclaimed.  "Fancy
finding you here!  I'm so glad!  Oh, I'm so very
glad!  Take me away from these people!  Find
a corner where we can talk.  Ah! there is one
with a big seat.  *Allons-y*!"  She addressed him
for the most part in English, which she spoke
perfectly—as perfectly as she spoke French and
German and, presumably, her native tongue, which
must have been Swedish.

They went to the broad low seat, a sort of
hard-cushioned bench, which stood against one of the walls,
and made themselves comfortable there by the only
possible means, which, owing to the width of the
thing, was to sit far back with their feet stuck
straight out before them.  Captain Stewart had
followed them across the room, and showed a strong
tendency to remain.  Ste. Marie observed that his
eyes were hard and bright and very alert, and that
there were two bright spots of colour in his yellow
cheeks.  It occurred to Ste. Marie that the man
was afraid to leave him alone with Olga Nilssen,
and he smiled to himself, reflecting that the lady,
even if indiscreetly inclined, could tell him
nothing—save in details—that he did not already know.

But, after a few rather awkward moments, Mlle. Nilssen
waved an irritated hand.

"Go away!" she said to her host.  "Go away
to your other guests!  I want to talk to Ste. Marie.
We have old times to talk over."  And after
hesitating awhile uneasily, Captain Stewart turned
back into the room; but for some time thereafter
Ste. Marie was aware that a vigilant eye was being
kept upon them, and that their host was by no
means at his ease.

When they were left alone together, the girl turned
to him and patted his arm affectionately.  She
said—

"Ah, but it is very good to see you again, *mon
cher ami*!  It has been so long!"  She gave an
abrupt frown.

"What are you doing here?" she demanded.
And she said an unkind thing about her
fellow-guests.  She called them *canaille*.  She said—

"Why are you wasting your time among these
*canaille*?  This is not a place for you.  Why did
you come?"

"I don't know," said Ste. Marie.  He was still
a little resentful and he said so.  He said—

"I didn't know it was going to be like this.  I
came because Stewart went rather out of his way
to ask me.  I'd known him in a very different *milieu*."

"Ah yes!" she said reflectively.  "Yes, he
does go into the world also, doesn't he!  But this is
what he likes, you know."  Her lips drew back for an
instant and she said—

"He is a pig-dog."

Ste. Marie looked at her gravely.  She had used
that offensive name with a little too much fierceness.
Her face had turned for an instant quite white, and
her eyes had flashed out over the room a look that
meant a great deal to any one who knew her as
well as Ste. Marie did.  He sat forward and lowered
his voice.  He said—

"Look here, Olga!  I'm going to be very frank
for a moment.  May I?"

For just an instant the girl drew away from him
with suspicion in her eyes, and something else,
alertly defiant.  Then she put out her hands to his
arm.

"You may be what you like, dear Ste. Marie,"
she said.  "And say what you like.  I will take
it all—and swallow it alive—good as gold.  What
are you going to do to me?"

"I've always been fair with you, haven't I?"
he urged.  "I've had disagreeable things to say
or do but—you knew always that I liked you
and—where my sympathies were."

"Always!  Always, *mon cher*!" she cried.
"I trusted you always in everything.  And there is
no one else I trust.  No one!  No one!

"Ste. Marie!"

"What then?" he asked.

"Ste. Marie," she said, "why did you never
fall in love with me, as the other men did?"

"I wonder," said he.  "I don't know.  Upon
my word, I really don't know."  He was so serious
about it that the girl burst into a shriek of laughter.
And in the end he laughed too.

"I expect it was because I liked you too well," he
said at last.  "But come!  We're forgetting my
lecture.  Listen to your *grandpère* Ste. Marie!
I have heard—certain things—rumours—what you
will.  Perhaps they are foolish lies, and I hope they
are.  But if not, if the fear I saw in Stewart's face
when you came here to-night was—not without
cause, let me beg you to have a care.  You're
much too savage, my dear child.  Don't be so
foolish as to—well, turn comedy into the other
thing.  In the first place it's not worth while, and
in the second place it recoils, always.  Revenge
may be sweet.  I don't know.  But nowadays, with
police courts and all that, it entails much more
subsequent annoyance that it is worth.  Be wise, Olga!"

"Some things, Ste. Marie," said the golden lady,
"are worth all the consequences that may follow
them."  She watched Captain Stewart across the
room where he stood chatting with a little group
of people, and her beautiful face was as hard as
marble, and her eyes were as dark as a stormy
night, and her mouth, for an instant, was almost
like an animal's mouth, cruel and relentless.

Ste. Marie saw, and he began to be a bit alarmed
in good earnest.  In his warning he had spoken
rather more seriously than he felt the occasion
demanded, but he began at last to wonder if the
occasion was not in reality very serious indeed.
He was sure, of course, that Olga Nilssen had come
here on this evening to annoy Captain Stewart in
some fashion.  As he put it to himself, she probably
meant to "make a row," and he would not have
been in the least surprised if she had made it in the
beginning upon her very dramatic entrance.
Nothing more calamitous than that had occurred to
him.  But when he saw the woman's face, turned
a little away and gazing fixedly at Captain Stewart,
he began to be aware that there was tragedy very
near him, or all the makings of it.

Mlle. Nilssen turned back to him.  Her face
was still hard, and her eyes dark and narrowed,
with their oddly Oriental look.  She bent her
shoulders together for an instant, and her hands
moved slowly in her lap, stretching out before her, in
a gesture very like a cat's when it wakens from sleep
and yawns and extends its claws, as if to make sure
that they are still there and ready for use.

"I feel a little like Samson to-night," she said.
"I am tired of almost everything, and I should
like very much to pull the world down on top of
me and kill everybody in it—except you, Ste. Marie,
dear!  Except you!—and be crushed under
the ruins."

"I think," said Ste. Marie practically—and
the speech sounded rather like one of Hartley's
speeches—"I think it was not quite the world
that Samson pulled down, but a temple—or a
palace—something of that kind."

"Well," said the golden lady, "this place is
rather like a temple—a Chinese temple, with the
pig-dog for high priest."

Ste. Marie frowned at her.

"What are you going to do?" he demanded
sharply.  "What did you come here to do?
Mischief of some kind—*bien entendu*—but what?"

"Do?" she said, looking at him with her narrowed
eyes.  "I?  Why, what should I do?  Nothing, of
course!  I merely said I should like to pull the
place down.  Of course I couldn't do that quite
literally, now, could I?  No.  It is merely a mood.
I'm not going to do anything."

"You're not being honest with me," he said.  And
at that her expression changed, and she patted his
arm again with a gesture that seemed to beg forgiveness.

"Well then," she said, "if you must know,
maybe I did come here for a purpose.  I want to
have it out with our friend Captain Stewart about
something.

"And Ste. Marie, dear," she pleaded, "please,
I think you'd better go home first.  I don't care about
these other animals, but I don't want you dragged
into any row of any sort.  Please, be a sweet
Ste. Marie and go home.  Yes?"

"Absolutely, no!" said Ste. Marie.  "I shall
stay, and I shall try my utmost to prevent you from
doing anything foolish.  Understand that!  If you
want to have rows with people, Olga, for Heaven's
sake don't pick an occasion like this for the
purpose.  Have your rows in private!"

"I rather think I enjoy an audience," she said
with a reflective air, and Ste. Marie laughed aloud
because he knew that the naïve speech was so very
true.  This lady, with her many good qualities and
her bad ones—not a few, alas!—had an undeniable
passion for red fire that had amused him very much
on more than one past occasion.

"Please, go home!" she said once more.  But
when the man only shook his head, she raised her
hands a little way and dropped them again in her
lap in an odd gesture, which seemed to say that she
had done all she could do, and that if anything
disagreeable should happen now, and he should
be involved in it, it would be entirely his fault
because she had warned him.

Then quite abruptly a mood of irresponsible gaiety
seemed to come upon her.  She refused to have
anything more to do with serious topics, and when
Ste Marie attempted to introduce them she laughed
in his face.  As she had said in the beginning she
wished to do, she harked back to old days—the
earlier stages of what might be termed the Morrison
régime, and it seemed to afford her great delight to
recall the happenings of that epoch.  The
conversation became a dialogue of reminiscence which
would have been entirely unintelligible to a third
person, and was indeed so to Captain Stewart, who
once came across the room, made a feeble effort
to attach himself, and presently wandered away again.

They unearthed from the past an exceedingly
foolish song all about one "Little Willie" and a
purple monkey climbing up a yellow stick.  It
was set to a well-known air from *Don Giovanni*, and
when Duval, the basso heard them singing it, he came
up and insisted upon knowing what it was about.
He laughed immoderately over the English words
when he was told what they meant, and made
Ste. Marie write them down for him on two visiting
cards.  So they made a trio out of "Little Willie,"
the great Duval inventing a bass part quite
marvellous in its ingenuity, and they were compelled to
sing it over, and over again, until Ste. Marie's falsetto
imitation of a tenor voice cracked and gave out
altogether, since he was by nature baritone, if
anything at all.

The other guests had crowded round to hear the
extraordinary song, and when the song was at last
finished several of them remained, so that
Ste. Marie saw he was to be allowed an uninterrupted
*tête-à-tête* with Olga Nilssen no longer.  He
therefore drifted away, after a few moments, and went
with Duval and one of the other men across the
room to look at some small jade objects—snuff-bottles,
bracelets, buckles and the like—which were
displayed in a cabinet cleverly reconstructed out
of a Japanese shrine.  It was perhaps ten minutes
later when he looked round the place and discovered
that neither Mlle. Nilssen nor Captain Stewart
were to be seen.

His first thought was of relief, for he said to
himself that the two had sensibly gone into one
of the other rooms to "have it out" in peace and
quiet.  But following that came the recollection of
the woman's face when she had watched her host
across the room.  Her words came back to him: "I
feel a little like Samson to-night....  I should
very much like to pull the world down on top of
me and kill everybody in it."  Ste. Marie thought
of these things and he began to be uncomfortable.
He found himself watching the yellow-hung
doorway beyond, with its intricate Chinese carving
of trees and rocks and little groups of immortals,
and he found that unconsciously he was listening
for something—he did not know what—above
the chatter and laughter of the people in the room.
He endured this for possibly five minutes, and all at
once found that he could endure it no longer.  He
began to make his way quietly through the group
of people towards the curtained doorway.

As he went one of the women near by complained
in a loud tone that the servant had disappeared.
She wanted, it seemed, a glass of water having
already had many glasses of more interesting things.
Ste. Marie said he would get it for her and went on
his way.  He had an excuse now.

He found himself in a square dimly lighted room,
much smaller than the other.  There was a round
table in the centre so he thought it must be Stewart's
dining-room.  At the left a doorway opened into
a place where there were lights, and at the other
side was another door closed.  From the room at
the left there came a sound of voices, and though
they were not loud, one of them, Mlle. Olga Nilssen's
voice, was hard and angry and not altogether under
control.  The man would seem to have been attempting
to pacify her, and he would seem not to have
been very successful.

The first words that Ste. Marie was able to
distinguish were from the woman.  She said in a low
fierce tone—

"That is a lie, my friend!  That is a lie.  I
know all about the road to Clamart, so you needn't
lie to me any longer.  It's no good."  She paused
for just an instant there, and, in the pause,
Ste. Marie heard Stewart give a sort of inarticulate
exclamation.  It seemed to express anger and it
seemed also to express fear.  But the woman swept
on and her voice began to be louder.  She said—

"I've given you your chance.  You didn't
deserve it, but I've given it you—and you've told
me nothing but lies.  Well, you'll lie no more.  This
ends it."

Upon that Ste. Marie heard a sudden stumbling
shuffle of feet and a low hoarse cry of utter
terror—a cry more animal-like than human.  He heard the
cry break off abruptly in something that was like a
cough and a whine together, and he heard the sound
of a heavy body falling with a loose rattle upon
the floor.

With the sound of that falling body he had
already reached the doorway and torn aside the
heavy portière.  It was a sleeping-room he looked
into, a room of medium size, with two windows and
an ornate bed of the Empire style set sidewise
against the farther wall.  There were electric
lights upon imitation candles which were grouped
in sconces against the walls and these were turned
on so that the room was brightly illuminated.
Midway between the door and the ornate Empire
bed Captain Stewart lay huddled and writhing upon
the floor, and Olga Nilssen stood upright beside
him, gazing down upon him quite calmly.  In her
right hand, which hung at her side, she held a
little flat black automatic pistol of the type known
as Brownings, and they look toys but they are not.

.. _`"Captain Stewart lay huddled and writhing upon the floor."`:

.. figure:: images/img-149.jpg
   :align: center
   :alt: "Captain Stewart lay huddled and writhing upon the floor."

   "Captain Stewart lay huddled and writhing upon the floor."

Ste. Marie sprang at her silently and caught her
by the arm, twisting the automatic pistol from her
grasp, and the woman made no effort whatever
to resist him.  She looked into his face quite frankly
and unmoved, and she shook her head.

"I haven't harmed him," she said.  "I was going
to, yes.  And then myself, but he didn't give me
a chance.  He fell down in a fit."  She nodded
down towards the man, who lay writhing at their feet.

"I frightened him," she said, "and he fell in a fit.
He's an epileptic, you know.  Didn't you know
that?  Oh yes."

Abruptly she turned away shivering, and put up
her hands over her face.  And she gave an exclamation
of uncontrollable repulsion.

"Ugh!" she cried, "it's horrible.  Horrible!
I can't bear to look.  I saw him in a fit once
before—long ago—and I couldn't bear even to speak to him
for a month.  I thought he had been cured.  He
said——  Ah, it's horrible!"

Ste. Marie had dropped upon his knees beside the
fallen man, and Mlle. Nilssen said over her shoulder—

"Hold his head up from the floor, if you can
bear to.  He might hurt it."  It was not an easy
thing to do, for Ste. Marie had the natural sense of
repulsion in such matters that most people have,
and this man's appearance, as Olga Nilssen had
said, was horrible.  The face was drawn hideously,
and, in the strong clear light of the electrics, it was
a deathly yellow.  The eyes were half closed, and the
eyeballs turned up so that only the whites of them
showed between the lids.  There was froth upon the
distorted mouth, and it clung to the cat-like
moustache and to the shallow sunken chin beneath.
But Ste. Marie exerted all his will power, and took
the jerking trembling head in his hands, holding
it clear of the floor.

"You'd better call the servant," he said.  "There
may be something that can be done."  But the
woman answered, without looking—

"No, there's nothing that can be done, I believe,
except to keep him from bruising himself.
Stimulants—that sort of thing, do more harm than good.
Could you get him on the bed here?"

"Together we might manage it," said Ste. Marie.
"Come and help!"

"I can't!" she cried nervously.  "I can't—touch
him.  Please, I can't do it."

"Come!" said the man in a sharp tone.  "It's
no time for nerves.  I don't like it either, but it's got
to be done."  The woman began a half-hysterical
sobbing, but after a moment she turned and came
with slow feet to where Stewart lay.

Ste. Marie slipped his arms under the man's body
and began to raise him from the floor.

"You needn't help after all," he said.  "He's
not heavy."  And indeed, under his skilfully
shaped and padded clothes, the man was a mere waif
of a man—as unbelievably slight as if he were the
victim of a wasting disease.  Ste. Marie held the
body in his arms as if it had been a child, and
carried it across and laid it on the bed; but it was
many months before he forgot the horror of that
awful thing, shaking and twitching in his hold, the
head thumping hideously upon his shoulder, the arms
and legs beating against him.  It was the most
difficult task he had ever had to perform.

He laid Captain Stewart upon the bed and
straightened the helpless limbs as best he could.

"I suppose," he said, rising again, "I suppose
when the man comes out of this he'll be frightfully
exhausted and drop off to sleep, won't he?  We'll
have to——"  He halted abruptly there and, for
a single swift instant, he felt the black and rushing
sensation of one who is going to faint away.  The
wall behind the ornate Empire bed was covered
with photographs, some in frames, others left as
they had been received upon the large squares of
weird cardboard which are termed "art mounts."

"Come here a moment, quickly!" said Ste. Marie
in a sharp voice.  Mlle. Nilssen's sobs had died
down to a silent spasmodic catching of the breath,
but she was still much unnerved, and she approached
the bed with obvious unwillingness, dabbing at
her eyes with a handkerchief.  Ste. Marie pointed
to an unframed photograph which was fastened to
the wall by thumb tacks, and his outstretched hand
shook as he pointed.  Beneath them the other man
still writhed and tumbled in his epileptic fit.

"Do you know who that woman is?" demanded
Ste. Marie, and his tone was such that Olga Nilssen
turned slowly and stared at him.

"That woman," said she, "is the reason why I
wished to pull the world down upon Charlie Stewart
and me to-night.  That's who she is."

Ste. Marie gave a sort of cry.

"Who is she?" he insisted.  "What is her name?
I—have a particularly important reason for wanting
to know.  I've got to know."  Mlle. Nilssen shook
her head, still staring at him.

"I can't tell you that," said she.  "I don't
know the name.  I only know that—when he met her,
he——  I don't know her name, but I know where
she lives and where he goes every day to see her—a
house with a big garden and walled park on the
road to Clamart.  It's on the edge of the wood,
not far from Fort d'Issy.  The Clamart-Vanves-Issy
tram runs past the wall of one side of the park.
That's all I know."

Ste. Marie clasped his head with his hands.

"So near to it!" he groaned, "and yet——  Ah!"  He
bent forward suddenly over the bed and spelled
out the name of the photographer, which was
pencilled upon the brown cardboard mount.

"There's still a chance," he said.  "There's
still one chance."  He became aware that the woman
was watching him curiously, and nodded to her.

"It's something you don't know about," he
explained.  "I've got to find out who this—girl
is.  Perhaps the photographer can help me.  I
used to know him."  All at once his eyes sharpened.

"Tell me the simple truth about something!"
said he.  "If ever we have been friends, if you owe
me any good office, tell me this!  Do you know
anything about young Arthur Benham's disappearance
two months ago, or about what has become of
him?"  Again the woman shook her head.

"No," said she.  "Nothing at all.  I haven't
even heard of it.  Young Arthur Benham!  I've
met him once or twice.  I wonder—I wonder Stewart
never spoke to me about his disappearance.  That's
very odd."

"Yes," said Ste. Marie absently, "it is."  He
gave a little sigh.  "I wonder about a good many
things," said he.  He glanced down upon the bed
before them, and Captain Stewart lay still, save
for a slight twitching of the hands.  Once he moved
his head restlessly from side to side, and said
something incoherent in a weak murmur.

"He's out of it," said Olga Nilssen.  "He'll
sleep now, I think.  I suppose we must get rid of
those people and then leave him to the care of his
man.  A doctor couldn't do anything for him."

"Yes," said Ste. Marie, nodding.  "I'll call the
servant and tell the people that Stewart has been
taken ill."  He looked once more towards the
photograph on the wall, and under his breath he
said with an odd defiant fierceness—

"I won't believe it!"  But he did not explain
what he wouldn't believe.  He started out of the
room, but, halfway, halted and turned back.  He
looked Olga Nilssen full in the eyes, saying—

"It is safe to leave you here with him while I
call the servant?  There'll be no more——?"  But
the woman gave a low cry and a violent shiver
with it.

"You need have no fear," she said.  "I've no
desire now to—harm him.  The—reason is gone.
This has cured me.  I feel as if I could never bear
to see him again.  Oh, hurry!  Please, hurry!  I
want to get away from here."  Ste. Marie nodded
and went out of the room.





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.. _`The Name of the Lady with the Eyes—Evidence heaps up Swiftly`:

.. class:: center large bold

   CHAPTER XII


.. class:: center medium bold white-space-pre-line

   THE NAME OF THE LADY WITH THE EYES:
   EVIDENCE HEAPS UP SWIFTLY

.. vspace:: 2

Ste. Marie drove home to the Rue d'Assas
with his head in a whirl and with a sense of
great excitement beating somewhere within him,
probably in the place where his heart ought to be.
He had a curiously sure feeling that at last his feet
were upon the right path.  He could not have
explained this to himself—indeed, there was nothing
to explain, and if there had been, he was in far too
great an inner turmoil to manage it.  It was a mere
feeling—the sort of thing which he had once tried
to express to Captain Stewart, and had got laughed
at for his pains.

There was, in sober fact, no reason whatever why
Captain Stewart's possession of a photograph of the
beautiful lady whom Ste. Marie had once seen in
company with O'Hara should be taken as significant
of anything except an appreciation of beauty
on the part of Miss Benham's uncle—not even if, as
Mlle. Nilssen believed, Captain Stewart was in
love with the lady.  But to Ste. Marie, in his whirl
of reawakened excitement, the discovery loomed
to the skies, and, in a series of ingenious but very
vague leaps of the imagination, he saw himself,
with the aid of this new evidence (which was no
evidence at all, if he had been calm enough to realise
it), victorious in his great quest, leading young Arthur
Benham back to the arms of an ecstatic family, and
kneeling at the feet of that youth's sister to claim
his reward.  All of which seems a rather startling
flight of the imagination to have had its beginning
in the sight of one photograph of a young woman.
But then Ste. Marie was imaginative if he was
anything.

He fell to thinking of this girl whose eyes, after
one sight of them, had so long haunted him.  He
thought of her between those two men, the
hard-faced Irish adventurer and the other, Stewart,
strange compound of intellectual and voluptuary,
and his eyes flashed in the dark and he gripped his
hands together upon his knees.  He said again—

"I won't believe it!  I won't believe it!"  Believe
what? one wonders.

He slept hardly at all, only, towards morning,
falling into an uneasy doze.  And in the doze he
dreamed once more the dream of the dim waste
place and the hill, and the eyes and voice that called
him back—because they needed him.

As early as he dared, after his morning coffee, he
took a fiacre and drove across the river to the
Boulevard de la Madeleine, where he climbed a certain stair,
at the foot of which were two glass cases containing
photographs of, for the most part, well-known ladies
of the Parisian stage.  At the top of the stair he
entered the reception-room of a young photographer,
who is famous now the world over, but who at the
beginning of his career, when he had nothing but
talent and no acquaintance, owed certain of his
most important commissions to M. Ste. Marie.

The man, whose name was Bernstein, came forward
eagerly from the studio beyond to greet his
visitor, and Ste. Marie complimented him chaffingly
upon his very sleek and prosperous appearance, and
upon the new decorations of the little salon, which
were, in truth, excellently well judged.  But after
they had talked for a little while of such matters he
said—

"I want to know if you keep specimen prints
of all the photographs you have made within the
last few months, and if so I should like to see them."

The young Jew went to a wooden portfolio holder
which stood in a corner and dragged it out into the
light.

"I have them all here," said he, "everything that
I have made within the past ten or twelve months.
If you will let me draw up a chair you can look them
over comfortably."  He glanced at his former
patron with a little polite curiosity as Ste. Marie
followed his suggestion, and began to turn over the
big portfolio's contents, but he did not show any
surprise nor ask questions.  Indeed he guessed—to
a certain extent—rather near the truth of the matter.
It had happened before that young gentlemen,
and old ones too, wanted to look over his prints
without offering explanations, and they generally
picked out all the photographs there were of some
particular lady, and bought them if they could be
bought.

So he was by no means astonished on this
occasion, and he moved about the room putting things
to rights, and even went for a few moments into the
studio beyond, until he was recalled by a sudden
exclamation from his visitor, an exclamation which
had a sound of mingled delight and excitement.

Ste. Marie held in his hands a large photograph,
and he turned it towards the man who had made it.

"I am going to ask you some questions," said
he, "that will sound rather indiscreet and irregular,
but I beg you to answer them if you can, because
the matter is of great importance to a number of
people.  Do you remember this lady?"

"Oh yes," said the Jew readily, "I remember
her very well.  I never forget people who are as
beautiful as this lady was."  His eyes gleamed
with retrospective joy.

"She was splendid!" he declared, "sumptuous!
No!  I cannot describe her.  I have not the words.
And I could not photograph her with any justice
either.  She was all colour—brown skin with a dull
red stain under the cheeks, and a great mass of
hair that was not black but very nearly black—except
in the sun, and then there were red lights in
it.  She was a goddess, that lady, a queen of
goddesses: the young Juno before marriage, the——"

"Yes," interrupted Ste. Marie, "yes, I see.
Yes, quite evidently she was beautiful, but what I
wanted in particular to know was her name, if you
feel that you have a right to give it to me (I remind
you again that the matter is very important), and
any circumstances that you can remember about
her coming here; who came with her, for instance,
and things of that sort."

The photographer looked a little disappointed
at being cut off in the middle of his rhapsody, but
he began turning over the leaves of an order-book
which lay upon a table near by.

"Here is the entry!" he said after a few
moments.  "Yes, I thought so, the date was nearly
three months ago—April 5.  And the lady's name
was Mlle. Coira O'Hara."

"What?" cried the other man sharply.  "What
did you say?"

"Mlle. Coira O'Hara was the name," repeated
the photographer.  "I remember the occasion
perfectly.  The lady came here with three gentlemen,
one tall thin gentleman with an eyeglass, an Englishman,
I think, though he spoke very excellent French
when he spoke to me.  Among themselves they
spoke, I think, English, though I do not understand
it except a few words such as ''ow moch?' and
'sank you' and 'rady pleas' now.'"

"Yes!  Yes!" cried Ste. Marie impatiently.
And the little Jew could see that he was
labouring under some very strong excitement, and he
wondered mildly about it, scenting a love affair.

"Then," he pursued, "there was a very young
man in strange clothes, a tourist, I should think, like
those Americans and English who come in the summer
with little red books and sit on the terrace of
the Café de la Paix."  He heard his visitor draw a
swift sharp breath at that, but he hurried on before
he could be interrupted—

"This young man seemed to be unable to take
his eyes from the lady, and small wonder!  He
was very much *épris*, very much *épris* indeed.
Never have I seen a youth more so.  Ah, it was
something to see, that!  A thing to touch the
heart."

"What did the young man look like?" demanded
Ste. Marie.  The photographer described the youth
as best he could from memory, and he saw his visitor
nod once or twice, and at the end he said: "Yes,
yes, I thought so.  Thank you."

The Jew did not know what it was the other
thought, but he went on—

"Ah, a thing to touch the heart!  Such devotion
as that!  Alas that the lady should seem so
cold to it!  Still, a goddess!  What would you?
A queen among goddesses.  One would not have
them laugh and make little jokes—make eyes at
lovesick boys.  No indeed!"  He shook his head
rapidly and sighed.

Ste. Marie was silent for a little space, but at
length he looked up as if he had just remembered
something.

"And the third man?" he asked.

"Ah yes, the third gentleman," said Bernstein.
"I had forgotten him.  The third gentleman I
knew well.  He had often been here.  It was he
who brought these friends to me.  He was M. le
Capitaine Stewart.  Everybody knows M. le
Capitaine Stewart.  Everybody in Paris."

Again he observed that his visitor drew a little
swift sharp breath, and that he seemed to be
labouring under some excitement.

However, Ste. Marie did not question him further,
and so he went on to tell the little more he knew of
the matter: how the four people had remained for
an hour or more, trying many poses; how they had
returned, all but the tall gentleman, three days later
to see the proofs, and to order certain ones to be
printed—the young man paying on the spot in
advance—and how the finished prints had been
sent to M. le Capitaine Stewart's address.

When he had finished his visitor sat for a long
time silent, his head bent a little, frowning upon
the floor and chafing his hands together over his
knees.  But at last he rose rather abruptly.  He
said—

"Thank you very much indeed.  You have done
me a great service.  If ever I can repay it
command me.  Thank you!"

The Jew protested, smiling, that he was still too
deeply in debt to M. Ste. Marie, and so, politely
wrangling, they reached the door, and, with a last
expression of gratitude, the visitor departed down
the stair.  A client came in just then for a sitting
and so the little photographer did not have an
opportunity to wonder over the rather odd affair as much
as he might have done.  Indeed, in the press of
work, it slipped from his mind altogether.

But down in the busy boulevard Ste. Marie stood
hesitating on the curb.  There were so many things
to be done, in the light of these new developments,
that he did not know what to do first.

"Mademoiselle Coira O'Hara!—*Mademoiselle*!"  The
thought gave him a sudden sting of inexplicable
relief and pleasure.  She would be O'Hara's
daughter then.  And the boy, Arthur Benham (there
was no room for doubt in the photographer's
description), had seemed to be badly in love with her.
This was a new development indeed!  It wanted
thought, reflection, consultation with Richard
Hartley.  He signalled to a fiacre, and when it had
drawn up before him, sprang into it, and gave
Richard Hartley's address in the Avenue de
l'Observatoire.  But when they had gone a little way
he changed his mind and gave another address, one
in the Boulevard de la Tour Maubourg.  It was
where Mlle. Olga Nilssen lived.  She had told him
when he parted from her the evening before.

On the way he fell to thinking of what he had
learnt from the little photographer Bernstein, to
setting the facts, as well as he could, in order,
endeavouring to make out just how much or how little
they signified, by themselves or added to what
he had known before.  But he was in far too keen
a state of excitement to review them at all calmly.
As on the previous evening they seemed to him to
loom to the skies, and again he saw himself successful
in his quest—victorious, triumphant.  That this
leap to conclusions was but a little less absurd than
the first did not occur to him.  He was in a fine
fever of enthusiasm, and such difficulties as his eye
perceived lay in a sort of vague mist, to be dissipated
later on, when he should sit quietly down with
Hartley, and sift the wheat from the chaff, laying
out a definite scheme of action.

It occurred to him that in his interview with the
photographer he had forgotten one point, and he
determined to go back, later on, and ask about it.
He had forgotten to inquire as to Captain Stewart's
attitude towards the beautiful lady.  Young Arthur
Benham's infatuation had filled his mind at the
time, and had driven out of it what Olga Nilssen
had told him about Stewart.  He found himself
wondering if this point might not be one of great
importance—the rivalry of the two men for O'Hara's
daughter.  Assuredly that demanded thought and
investigation.

He found the prettily furnished apartment in
the Avenue de la Tour Maubourg a scene of great
disorder, presided over by a maid, who seemed to be
packing enormous quantities of garments into large
trunks.  The maid told him that her mistress,
after a sleepless night, had departed from Paris by
an early train, quite alone, leaving the servant to
follow on when she had telegraphed or written an
address.  No, Mlle. Nilssen had left no address at
all, not even for letters or telegrams.  In short the
entire proceeding was, so the exasperated woman
viewed it, everything that is imbecile.

Ste. Marie sat down on a hamper with his stick
between his knees, and wrote a little note to be sent
on when Mlle. Nilssen's whereabouts should be
known.  It was unfortunate, he reflected, that she
should have fled away just now, but not of great
importance to him, because he did not believe that
he could learn very much more from her than he
had learnt already.  Moreover, he sympathised with
her desire to get away from Paris—as far away as
possible from the man whom she had seen in so
horrible a state on the evening past.

He had kept the fiacre at the door, and he drove
at once back to the Rue d'Assas.  As he started to
mount the stair the concierge came out of her loge
to say that Mr. Hartley had called soon after
monsieur had left the house that morning, had seemed
very much disappointed on not finding monsieur,
and before going away again had had himself let
into monsieur's apartment with the key of the
*femme de ménage*, and had written a note which
monsieur would find, *là haut*.

Ste. Marie thanked the woman and went on up
to his rooms, wondering why Hartley had bothered
to leave a note instead of waiting or returning at
lunch-time as he usually did.  He found the
communication on his table and read it at once.  Hartley
said—

.. vspace:: 2

"I have to go across the river to the *Bristol*
to see some relatives who are turning up there to-day,
and who will probably keep me until evening, and
then I shall have to go back there to dine.  So I'm
leaving a word for you about some things I discovered
last evening.  I met Miss Benham at Armenonville,
where I dined, and in a *tête-à-tête* conversation
we had after dinner she let fall two facts which
seem to me very important.  They concern Captain S.
In the first place, when he told us that day, some
time ago, that he knew nothing about his father's
will or any changes that might have been made in
it, he lied.  It seems that old David, shortly after
the boy's disappearance, being very angry at
what he considered, and still considers, a bit of
spite on the boy's part, cut young Arthur Benham
out of his will and transferred that share to *Captain
S.*  (Miss Benham learnt this from the old man
only yesterday).  Also it appears that he did this
after talking the matter over with Captain S., who
affected unwillingness.  So, as the will reads now,
Miss B. and Captain S. stand to share equally the
bulk of the old man's money, which is several
millions (in dols. of course); Miss B.'s mother is to have
the interest of half of both shares as long as she
lives.  Now mark this!  Prior to this new arrangement
Captain S. was to receive only a small legacy,
on the ground that he already had a respectable
fortune left him by his mother, old David's first
wife.  (I've heard, by the way, that he has
squandered a good share of what he had.)

"Miss B. is, of course, much cut up over this
injustice to the boy, but she can't protest too much
as it only excites old David—she says the old man
is much weaker.

"You see, of course, the significance of all this.
If David Stewart dies, as he's likely to do, before
young Arthur's return, Captain S. gets the money.

"The second fact I learnt was that Miss Benham
did not tell her uncle about her semi-engagement
to you or about your volunteering to search for
the boy.  She thinks her grandfather must have
told him.  I didn't say so to her, but that is hardly
possible in view of the fact that Stewart came on
here to your rooms very soon after you had reached
them yourself.

"So that makes two lies for our gentle friend,
and serious lies, both of them.  To my mind they
point unmistakably to a certain conclusion.
*Captain S. has been responsible for putting his nephew
out of the way*.  He has either hidden him somewhere
and is keeping him in confinement, or he has
killed him.

"I wish we could talk it over to-day, but, as you
see, I'm helpless.  Remain in to-night, and I'll come
as soon as I can get rid of these confounded people
of mine.

"One word more!  Be careful!  Miss B. is, up
to this point, merely puzzled over things.  She
doesn't suspect her uncle of any crookedness, I'm
sure.  So we shall have to tread softly where she
is concerned.

"I shall see you to-night.—R.H."

.. vspace:: 2

Ste. Marie read the closely written pages through
twice, and he thought how like his friend it was to
take the time and trouble to put what he had learnt
into this clear concise form.  Another man would
have scribbled: "Important facts—tell you all
about it to-night," or something of that kind.
Hartley must have spent a quarter of an hour over
his writing.

Ste. Marie walked up and down the room, with
all his strength forcing his brain to quiet reasonable
action.  Once he said aloud—

"Yes, you're right, of course.  Stewart has been
at the bottom of it all along."  He realised that he
had been for some days slowly arriving at that
conclusion, and that, since the night before, he had
been practically certain of it, though he had not
yet found time to put his suspicions into logical
order.  Hartley's letter had driven the truth
concretely home to him, but he would have reached
the same truth without it—though that matter of
the will was of the greatest importance.  It gave
him a strong weapon to strike with.

He halted before one of the front windows, and
his eyes gazed unseeing across the street into the
green shrubbery of the Luxembourg Gardens.  The
lace curtains had been left by the *femme de ménage*
hanging straight down and not, as usual, looped
back at either side, but he could see through them
with perfect ease although he could not be seen
from outside.

He became aware that a man who was walking
slowly up and down a path inside the high iron
palings was in some way familiar to him, and his eyes
sharpened.  The man was very inconspicuously
dressed, and looked like almost any other man whom
one might pass in the street without taking any
notice of him; but Ste. Marie knew that he had
seen him often, and he wondered how and where.
There was a row of lilac shrubs against the iron
palings just inside, and between the palings and the
path, but two of the shrubs were dead and leafless,
and each time the man passed this spot he came into
plain view; each time also he directed an oblique
glance towards the house opposite.  Presently he
turned aside and sat down upon one of the public
benches, where he was almost but not quite hidden
by the intervening foliage.

Then at last Ste. Marie gave a sudden exclamation
and smote his hands together.

"The fellow's a spy!" he cried aloud.  "He's
watching the house to see when I go out."  He began
to remember how he had seen the man in the street
and in cafés and restaurants, and he remembered
that he had once or twice thought it odd but
without any second thought of suspicion.  So the fellow
had been set to spy upon him, watch his goings and
comings and report them to—no need of asking to
whom!

Ste. Marie stood behind his curtains and looked
across into the pleasant expanse of shrubbery and
greensward.  He was wondering if it would be
worth while to do anything.  Men and women
went up and down the path, hurrying or slowly,
at ease with the world—labourers, students, *bonnes*
with market baskets in their hands and long bread
loaves under their arms, nursemaids herding
small children, bigger children spinning diabolo
spools as they walked.  A man with a pointed
black beard and a soft hat passed once, and returned
to seat himself upon the public bench that
Ste. Marie was watching.  For some minutes he sat
there idle, holding the soft felt hat upon his knees
for coolness.  Then he turned and looked at the
other occupant of the bench, and Ste. Marie thought
he saw the other man nod, though he could not be
sure whether either one spoke or not.  Presently
the newcomer rose, put on the soft hat again and
disappeared down the path, going towards the gate
at the head of the Rue de Luxembourg.

Five minutes later the door-bell rang.





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.. _`THE ROAD TO CLAMART`:

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   CHAPTER XIII


.. class:: center medium bold

   THE ROAD TO CLAMART

.. vspace:: 2

Ste. Marie turned away from the window
and crossed to the door.  The man with
the pointed beard removed his soft hat, bowed
very politely, and asked if he had the honour to
address Monsieur Ste. Marie.

"That is my name," said Ste. Marie.  "*Entrez*,
monsieur!"  He waved his visitor to a chair and
stood waiting.

The man with the beard bowed once more.  He said—

"I have not the great honour of monsieur's
acquaintance, but circumstances, which I will
explain later, have put it in my power—have made
it a sacred duty, if I may be permitted to say the
word—to place in monsieur's hands a piece of information."

Ste. Marie smiled slightly and sat down.  He said—

"I listen with pleasure—and anticipation.  Pray go on!"

"I have information," said the visitor, "of the
whereabouts of M. Arthur Benham."  Ste. Marie
waved his hand.

"I feared as much," said he.  "I mean to say, I
hoped so.  Proceed, monsieur!"

"And learning," continued, the other, "that
M. Ste. Marie was conducting a search for that young
gentleman, I hastened at once to place this
information in his hands."

"At a price," suggested his host.  "At a price,
to be sure."

The man with the beard spread out his hands in
a beautiful and eloquent gesture which well
accompanied his Marseillais accent.

"Ah, as to that!" he protested.  "My
circumstances—I am poor, Monsieur.  One must gain the
livelihood.  What would you?  A trifle.  The
merest trifle."

"Where is Arthur Benham?" asked Ste. Marie.

"In Marseille, monsieur, I saw him a week ago—six
days.  And so far as I could learn he had no
intention of leaving there immediately—though it is,
to be sure, hot."

St. Marie laughed a laugh of genuine amusement,
and the man with the pointed beard stared at
him with some wonder.  Ste. Marie rose and crossed
the room to a writing-desk which stood against the
opposite wall.  He fumbled in a drawer of this,
and returned holding in his hand a pink and blue
note of the Banque de France.  He said—

"Monsieur——Pardon!  I have forgotten to ask
the name.  You have remarked quite truly that
one must gain a livelihood.  Therefore I do not
presume to criticise the way in which you gain yours.
Sometimes one cannot choose.  However, I should
like to make a little bargain with you, monsieur.
I know, of course, being not altogether imbecile,
who sent you here with this story and why you
were sent—why also your friend who sits upon the
bench in the garden across the street follows me
about and spies upon me.  I know all this and I
laugh at it a little.  But, monsieur, to amuse myself
further I have a desire to hear from your own lips
the name of the gentleman who is your employer.
Amusement is almost always expensive, and so I am
prepared to pay for this.  I have here a note of one
hundred francs.  It is yours in return for the
name—the right name.  Remember, I know it already."

The man with the pointed beard sprang to his
feet, quivering with righteous indignation.  All
southern Frenchmen like all other Latins, are
magnificent actors.  He shook one clenched hand
in the air, his face was pale and his fine eyes glittered.
Richard Hartley would have put himself promptly
in an attitude of defence, but Ste. Marie nodded
a smiling head in appreciation.  He was half a
southern Frenchman himself.

"Monsieur!" cried his visitor in a choked voice.
"Monsieur, have a care!  You insult me.  Have a
care, monsieur!  I am dangerous.  My anger when
roused is terrible!"

"I am cowed!" observed Ste. Marie, lighting a
cigarette.  "I quail."

"Never," declaimed the gentleman from Marseille,
"have I received an insult without returning
blow for blow.  My blood boils."

"The hundred francs, monsieur," said Ste. Marie,
"will doubtless cool it.  Besides, we stray
from our sheep.  Reflect, my friend!  I have not
insulted you.  I have asked you a simple question.
To be sure I have said that I knew your errand here
was not—not altogether sincere; but I protest,
monsieur, that no blame attaches to yourself.  The
blame is your employer's.  You have performed
your mission with the greatest of honesty—the most
delicate and faithful sense of honour.  That is
understood."

The gentleman with the beard strode across to
one of the windows and leant his head upon his
hand.  His shoulders still heaved with emotion, but
he no longer trembled.  The terrible crisis bade fair
to pass.  Then abruptly, in the frank and open
Latin way, he burst into tears, and wept with
copious profusion, while Ste. Marie smoked his
cigarette and waited.

When at length the Marseillais turned back into
the room he was calm once more, but there remained
traces of storm and flood.  He made a gesture of
indescribable and pathetic resignation.

"Monsieur," he exclaimed, "you have a heart of
gold.  Of gold, monsieur!  You understand.
Behold us! two men of honour.

"Monsieur," he said, "I had no choice.  I was
poor.  I saw myself face to face with the *misère*.
What would you?  I fell.  We are all weak flesh.
I accepted the commission of the pig who sent me
here to you."

Ste. Marie smoothed the pink and blue banknote
in his hands, and the other man's eye clung to it as
though he were starving and the banknote food.

"The name?" prompted Ste. Marie.

The gentleman from Marseille tossed up his hands.

"Monsieur already knows it.  Why should I
hesitate?  The name is Ducrot."

"What?" cried Ste. Marie sharply.  "What is
that?  Ducrot?"

"But naturally!" said the other man with some
wonder.  "Monsieur said he knew.  Certainly,
Ducrot.  A little withered man, bald on the top
of the head, creases down the cheeks, a moustache
like this,"—he made a descriptive gesture—"a little
chin.  A man like an elderly cat.  M. Ducrot."

Ste. Marie gave a sigh of relief.

"Yes, yes," said he.  "Ducrot is as good a name
as another.  The gentleman has more than one, it
appears.  Monsieur, the hundred-franc note is
yours."  The gentleman from Marseille took it
with a slightly trembling hand, and began to bow
himself towards the door, as if he feared that his host
would experience a change of heart, but Ste. Marie
checked him, saying—

"One moment.

"I was thinking," said he, "that you would perhaps
not care to present yourself to your—employer,
M. Ducrot, immediately: not for a few days, at least,
in view of the fact that certain actions of mine will
show him your mission has—well, miscarried.  It
would perhaps be well for you not to communicate
with M. Ducrot.  He might be displeased with you."

"Monsieur," said the gentleman with the beard,
"you speak with acumen and wisdom.  I shall
neglect to report myself to M. Ducrot—who, I
repeat, is a pig."

"And," pursued Ste. Marie, "the individual on
the bench across the street?"

"It is not necessary that I meet that individual
either!" said the Marseillais hastily.  "Monsieur,
I bid you adieu!"  He bowed again, a profound,
a scraping bow, and disappeared through the door.

Ste. Marie crossed to the window and looked
down upon the pavement below.  He saw his visitor
emerge from the house and slip rapidly down the
street towards the Rue Vavin.  He glanced across
into the Gardens, and the spy still sat there on his
bench, but his head lay back and he slept—the
sleep of the unjust.  One imagined that he must
be snoring, for an incredibly small urchin in a blue
apron stood on the path before him, and watched
with the open mouth of astonishment.

Ste. Marie turned back into the room and began
to tramp up and down, as was his way in a
perplexity or in any time of serious thought.  He
wished very much that Richard Hartley were there
to consult with.  He considered Hartley to have
a judicial mind—a mind to establish, out of confusion,
something like logical order, and he was very well
aware that he himself had not that sort of mind
at all.  In action he was sufficiently confident of
himself, but to construct a course of action he was
afraid, and he knew that a misstep now, at this critical
point, might be fatal—turn success into disaster.

He fell to thinking of Captain Stewart (alias
M. Ducrot), and he longed most passionately to leap into
a fiacre at the corner below, to drive at a gallop
across the city to the Rue du Faubourg St. Honoré,
to fall upon that smiling hypocrite in his beautiful
treasure-house, to seize him by the withered throat
and say—

"Tell me what you have done with Arthur Benham
before I tear your head from your miserable body!"

Indeed, he was far from sure that this was not what
it would come to, in the end; for he reflected that
he had not only a tremendous accumulation of
evidence with which to face Captain Stewart, but also
a very terrible weapon to hold over his head—the
threat of exposure to the old man who lay slowly
dying in the Rue de l'Université!  A few words in
old David's ear, a few proofs of their truth, and the
great fortune for which the son had sold his soul (if he
had any left to sell) must pass for ever out of his
reach, like gold seen in a dream.

This is what it might well come to, he said to
himself.  Indeed, it seemed to him at that moment
far the most feasible plan, for to such accusations,
such demands as that, Captain Stewart could offer
no defence.  To save himself from a more complete
ruin he would have to give up the boy, or tell what
he knew of him.  But Ste. Marie was unwilling to
risk everything on this throw without seeing Richard
Hartley first, and Hartley was not to be had until
evening.

He told himself that, after all, there was no
immediate hurry, for he was quite sure the man would be
compelled to keep to his bed for a day or two.  He
did not know much about epilepsy, but he knew that
its paroxysms were followed by great exhaustion,
and he felt sure that Stewart was far too weak in
body to recuperate quickly from any severe call
upon his strength.  He remembered how light that
burden had been in his arms the night before,
and then an uncontrollable shiver of disgust went
over him as he remembered the sight of the horribly
twisted and contorted face, felt again the shaking
thumping head as it beat against his shoulder.  He
wondered how much Stewart knew, how much he
would be able to remember, of the events of the
evening before, and he was at a loss there because of
his unfamiliarity with epileptic seizures.  Of one
thing, however, he was almost certain, and that was
that the man could scarcely have been conscious of
who were beside him when the fit was over.  If he
had come at all to his proper senses, before the
ensuing slumber of exhaustion, it must have been
after Mlle. Nilssen and himself had gone away.

Upon that he fell to wondering about the spy and
the gentleman from Marseille (he was a little sorry
that Hartley could not have seen the gentleman from
Marseille), but he reflected that the two were, without
doubt, acting upon old orders, and that the latter had
probably been stalking him for some days before he
found him at home.

He looked at his watch and it was half-past
twelve.  There was nothing to be done, he
considered, but wait—get through the day somehow;
and so, presently, he went out to lunch.  He went
up the Rue Vavin to the Boulevard Montparnasse,
and down that broad thoroughfare to Lavenue's, on
the busy Place de Rennes, where the cooking is the
best in all this quarter, and can indeed hold up its
head without shame in the face of those other
more widely famous restaurants, across the river,
frequented by the smart world and by the travelling
gourmet.

He went through to the inner room, which is
built like a raised loggia round two sides of a little
garden, and which is always cool and fresh in
summer.  He ordered a rather elaborate lunch and
thought that he sat a very long time at it, but when
he looked again at his watch only an hour and a half
had gone by.  It was a quarter-past two.  Ste. Marie
was depressed.  There remained almost all of the
afternoon to be got through, and Heaven alone
could say how much of the evening, before he could
have his consultation with Richard Hartley.  He
tried to think of some way of passing the time, but
although he was not usually at a loss, he found
his mind empty of ideas.  None of his common
occupations recommended themselves to him.  He
knew that whatever he tried to do he would interrupt
it with pulling out his watch every half-hour or
so and cursing the time because it lagged so slowly.
He went out to the *terrasse* for coffee, very low in
his mind.

But half an hour later, as he sat behind his little
marble-topped table, smoking and sipping a liqueur,
his eyes fell upon something across the square which
brought him to his feet with a sudden exclamation.
One of the big electric trams that ply between the
Place St. Germain-des-Prés and Clamart, by way
of the Porte de Versailles and Vanves, was dragging
its unwieldy bulk round the turn from the Rue de
Rennes into the boulevard.  He could see the sign-board
along the *impériale*: "Clamart—St. Germain-des-Prés"
with "Issy" and "Vanves" in brackets between.

Ste. Marie clinked a franc upon the table, and
made off across the place at a run.  Omnibuses from
Batignolles and Menilmontant got in his way,
fiacres tried to run him down, and a motor-car in a
hurry pulled up just in time to save his life, but
Ste. Marie ran on, and caught the tram before it had
completed the negotiation of the long curve and
gathered speed for its dash down the boulevard.
He sprang upon the step, and the conductor
reluctantly unfastened the chain to admit him.  So he
climbed up to the top and seated himself, panting.
The dial high on the façade of the Gare
Montparnasse said ten minutes to three.

He had no definite plan of action.  He had
started off in this headlong fashion upon the spur
of a moment's impulse, and because he knew where
the tram was going.  Now, embarked, he began
to wonder if he was not a fool.  He knew every
foot of the way to Clamart, for it was a favourite
half-day's excursion with him to ride there in this
fashion, walk thence through the beautiful Meudon
wood across to the river, and, from Bellevue or
Bas-Meudon, take a Suresnes boat back into the city.
He knew, or thought he knew, just where lay the
house, surrounded by garden and half-wild park,
of which Olga Nilssen had told him; he had often
wondered whose it was as the tram rolled along the
length of its high wall.  But he knew also that he
could do nothing there, single-handed and without
excuse or preparation.  He could not boldly ring
the bell, demand speech with Mlle. Coira O'Hara,
and ask her if she knew any thing of the whereabouts
of young Arthur Benham, whom a photographer
had suspected of being in love with her.  He
certainly could not do that.  And there seemed to be
nothing else that——  Ste. Marie broke off this
somewhat despondent course of reasoning with a sudden
little voiceless cry.  For the first time it occurred
to him to connect the house on the Clamart road and
Mlle. Coira O'Hara and young Arthur Benham.—  It
will be remembered that the man had not yet
had time to arrange his suddenly acquired mass of
evidence in logical order and to make deductions
from it.—For the first time he began to put two and
two together.  Stewart had hidden away his nephew:
this nephew was known to have been much
enamoured of the girl Coira O'Hara: Coira O'Hara was
said to be living (with her father? probably) in the
house on the outskirts of Paris, where she was
visited by Captain Stewart.  Was not the inference
plain enough—sufficiently reasonable?  It left,
without doubt, many puzzling things to be
explained?—perhaps too many; but Ste. Marie sat
forward in his seat, his eyes gleaming, his face tense
with excitement.

Was young Arthur Benham in the house on the
Clamart road?

He said the words almost aloud, and he became
aware that the fat woman with a live fowl at her
feet, and the butcher's boy on his other side, were
looking at him curiously.  He realised that he was
behaving in an excited manner, and so sat back and
lowered his eyes.  But over and over within him
the words said themselves, over and over, until
they made a sort of mad foolish refrain—

"Is Arthur Benham in the house on the Clamart
road?  Is Arthur Benham in the house on the
Clamart road?"  He was afraid that he would
say it aloud once more, and he tried to keep a
firm hold upon himself.

The tram swung into the Rue de Sevres, and
rolled smoothly out the long uninteresting stretch
of the Rue Lecourbe, far out to where the houses
became scattered, where mounds and pyramids
of red tiles stood alongside the factory where they
had been made, where an acre of little glass
hemispheres in long straight rows winked and glistened
in the afternoon sun—the forcing beds of some
market gardener; out to the Porte de Versailles
at the city wall, where a group of customs officers
sprawled at ease before their little sentry-box, or
loafed over to inspect ah incoming tram.

A bugle sounded and a drum beat from the great
fosse under the wall, and a company of *piou-pious*,
red capped, red trousered, shambled through their
evolutions in a manner to break the heart of a
British or a German drill-sergeant.  Then out past
level fields to little Vanves, with its steep streets
and its old grey church, and past the splendid
grounds of the Lycée beyond.  The fat woman
got down, her live fowl shrieking protest to the
movement, and the butcher's boy got down too, so
that Ste. Marie was left alone upon the *impériale*
save for a snuffy old gentleman in a pot-hat, who
sat in a corner buried behind the day's *Droits de
l'Homme*.

Ste. Marie moved forward once more, and laid
his arms upon the iron rail before him.  They
were coming near.  They ran past plum and apple
orchards, and past humble little detached villas, each
with a bit of garden in front and an acacia or two
at the gate posts.  But presently, on the right,
the way began to be bordered by a high stone wall,
very long, behind which showed the trees of a park,
and among them, far back from the wall, beyond a
little rise of ground, the gables and chimneys of a
house could be made out.  The wall went on for
perhaps a quarter of a mile in a straight sweep, but
halfway the road swung apart from it to the left,
dipped under a stone rail way bridge, and so presently
ended at the village of Clamart.

As the tram approached the beginning of that
long stone wall it began to slacken speed, and there
was a grating noise from underneath, and presently
it came to an abrupt halt.  Ste. Marie looked over
the guard-rail and saw that the driver had left
his place and was kneeling in the dust beside the
car, peering at its underworks.  The conductor
strolled round to him after a moment and stood
indifferently by, remarking upon the strange
vicissitudes to which electrical propulsion was subject.
The driver, without looking up, called his colleague
a number of the most surprising and, it is to be
hoped, unwarranted names, and suddenly began to
burrow under the tram, wriggling his way after the
manner of the serpent, until nothing could be seen
of him but two unrestful feet.  His voice though
muffled was still tolerably distinct.  It cursed in an
unceasing staccato, and with admirable ingenuity,
the tram, the conductor, the sacred dog of an
impediment which had got itself wedged into one of
the trucks, and the world in general.

Ste. Marie, sitting aloft, laughed for a moment,
and then turned his eager eyes upon what lay across
the road.  The halt had taken place almost exactly
at the beginning of that long stretch of the park wall
which ran beside the road and the tramway.  From
where he sat he could see the other wing, which led
inward from the road at something like a right angle,
but was presently lost to sight because of a sparse
and unkempt patch of young trees and shrubs,
well-nigh choked with undergrowth, which extended for
some distance from the park wall backward along
the roadside towards Vanves.  Whoever owned
that stretch of land had seemingly not thought it
worth while to cultivate it, or to build upon it, or
even to clear it off.

Ste. Marie's first thought as his eye scanned the
two long stretches of wall, and looked over their
tops to the trees of the park and the far-off gables
and chimneys of the house, was to wonder where
the entrance to the place could be, and he decided
that it must be on the side opposite to the Clamart
tram-line.  He did not know the smaller roads
hereabouts, but he guessed that there must be one
somewhere beyond, between the Route de Clamart
and the Fort d'Issy; and he was right.  There is a
little road between the two: it sweeps round in a
long curve, and ends near the tiny public garden
in Issy, and it is called the rue Barbés.

His second thought was that this unkempt patch
of trees and brush offered excellent cover for any
one who might wish to pass an observant hour
alongside that high stone wall—for any one who might
desire to cast a glance over the lie of the land, to
see at closer range that house of which so little
could be seen from the Route de Clamart, to look over
the wall's coping into park and garden.

The thought brought him to his feet with a
leaping heart, and before he realised that he had moved
he found himself in the road beside the halted
tram.  The conductor brushed past him, mounting
to his place, and from the platform he beckoned,
crying out—

"*En voiture*, monsieur!  *En voiture!*"  Again
something within Ste. Marie that was not his
conscious direction acted for him, and he shook his
head.  The conductor gave two little blasts upon his
horn, the tram wheezed and moved forward.  In a
moment it was on its way, swinging along at full
speed towards the curve in the line that bore to the
left and dipped under the railway bridge.  Ste. Marie
stood in the middle of that empty road, staring
after it until it had disappeared from view.





.. vspace:: 4

.. _`IN THE GARDEN`:

.. class:: center large bold

   CHAPTER XIV


.. class:: center medium bold

   IN THE GARDEN

.. vspace:: 2

Ste. Marie had acted upon an impulse of which
he was scarcely conscious at all, and when he
found himself standing alone in the road and
watching the Clamart tram disappear under the railway
bridge, he called himself hard names and wondered
what he was to do next.  He looked before and
behind him, and there was no living soul in sight.
He bent his eyes again upon that unkempt patch
of young trees and undergrowth, and once more the
thought forced itself to his brain that it would make
excellent cover for one who wished to observe a
little—to reconnoitre.

He knew that it was the part of wisdom to turn
his back upon this place, to walk on to Clamart or
return to Vanves, and mount upon a homeward-bound
tram.  He knew that it was the part of folly,
of madness even, to expose himself to possible
discovery by some one within the walled enclosure.
What though no one there were able to recognise
him, still the sight of a man prowling about the
walls, seeking to spy over them, might excite an
alarm that would lead to all sorts of undesirable
complications.  Dimly Ste. Marie realised all this,
and he tried to turn his back and walk away, but
the patch of little trees and shrubbery drew him
with an irresistible fascination.  Just a little look
along that unknown wall! he said to himself; just
the briefest of all brief reconnaissances, the merest
glance beyond the masking screen of wood growth,
so that in case of sudden future need he might have
the lie of the place clear in his mind; for without
any sound reason for it he was somehow confident
that this walled house and garden were to play an
important part in the rescue of Arthur Benham.
It was once more a matter of feeling.  The rather
woman-like intuition which had warned him that
O'Hara was concerned in young Benham's
disappearance, and that the two were not far from
Paris, was again at work in him, and he trusted it as
he had done before.

He gave a little nod of determination, as one who,
for good or ill, casts a die, and he crossed the road.
There was a deep ditch, and he had to climb down
into it and up its farther side, for it was too broad
to be jumped.  So he came into the shelter of the
young poplars and elms and oaks.  The underbrush
caught at his clothes, and the dead leaves of past
seasons crackled underfoot, but after a little space
he came to somewhat clearer ground, though the
saplings still stood thick about him and hid him
securely.

He made his way inward along the wall, keeping
a short distance back from it, and he saw that after
twenty or thirty yards it turned again at a very
obtuse angle away from him, and once more ran on in
a long straight line.  Just beyond this angle he
came upon a little wooden door thickly studded
with nails.  It was made to open inward, and on
the outside there was no knob or handle of any kind,
only a large keyhole of the simple old-fashioned sort.
Slipping up near to look, Ste. Marie observed that
the edges of the keyhole were rusty, but scratched
a little through the rust with recent marks, so the
door, it seemed, was sometimes used.  He observed
another thing.  The ground near by was less
encumbered with trees than at any other point, and the
turf was depressed with many wheel marks—broad
marks such as are made only by the wheels of a
motor-car.  He followed these tracks for a little
distance and they wound in and out among the
trees and, beyond the thin fringe of wood, swept
away in a curve towards Issy, doubtless to join the
road which he had already imagined to lie
somewhere beyond the enclosure.

Beyond the more open space about this little
door the young trees stood thick together again,
and Ste. Marie pressed cautiously on.  He stopped
now and then to listen, and once he thought that
he heard from within the sound of a woman's laugh,
but he could not be sure.  The slight change of
direction had confused him a little, and he was
uncertain as to where the house lay.  The wall
was twelve or fifteen feet high, and from the level
of the ground he could of course see nothing over
it but tree-tops.  He went on for what may have
been a hundred yards, but it seemed to him very
much more than that, and he came to a tall gnarled
cedar-tree which stood almost against the high wall.
It was half dead but its twisted limbs were thick
and strong, and by force of the tree's cramped
position they had grown in strange and grotesque forms.
One of them stretched across the very top of the
stone wall, and, with the wind's action, it had scraped
away the coping of tiles and bottle-glass, and had
made a little depression there to rest in.

Ste. Marie looked up along this natural ladder,
and temptation smote him sorely.  It was so easy
and so safe!  There was enough foliage left upon
the half-dead tree to screen him well, but whether or
no it is probable that he would have yielded to the
proffered lure.  There seems to have been more than
chance in Ste. Marie's movements upon this day.
There seems to have been something like the hand
of Fate in them, as doubtless there is in most things,
if one but knew.

He left his hat and stick behind him under a
shrub, and he began to make his way up the
half-bare branches of the gnarled cedar.  They bore
him well, without crack or rustle, and the way was
very easy.  No ladder made by man could have
offered a much simpler ascent.  So mounting slowly
and with care, his head came level with the top of
the wall.  He climbed to the next branch, a foot
higher, and rested there.  The drooping foliage from
the upper part of the cedar-tree, which was still
alive, hung down over him and cloaked him from
view, but through its aromatic screen he could see
as freely as through the window curtain in the Rue
d'Assas.

The house lay before him, a little to the left, and
perhaps a hundred yards away.  It was a
disappointing house to find in that great enclosure,
for though it was certainly neither small nor trivial,
it was as certainly far from possessing anything
like grandeur.  It had been in its day a respectable
unpretentious square structure of three stories,
entirely without architectural beauty, but also
entirely without the ornate hideousness of the modern
villas along the Route de Clamart.  Now, however,
the stucco was gone in great patches from its stone
walls, giving them an unpleasantly diseased look,
and long neglect of all decent care had lent the
place the air almost of desertion.  Anciently the
grounds before the house had been laid out in the
formal fashion, with a terrace and geometrical lawns,
and a pool and a fountain, and a rather fine long
vista between clipped larches; but the same neglect
which had made shabby the stuccoed house had
allowed grass and weeds to grow over the gravel
paths, underbrush to spring up and to encroach
upon the geometrical turf plots, the long double
row of clipped larches to flourish at will or to die, or
to fall prostrate and lie where they had fallen.

So all the broad enclosure was a scene of heedless
neglect, a riot of unrestrained and wanton growth,
where should have been decorous and orderly beauty.
It was a sight to bring tears to a gardener's eyes,
but it had a certain untamed charm of its own, for
all that.  The very riot of it, the wanton prodigality
of untouched natural growth, produced an effect
that was by no means all disagreeable.

An odd and whimsical thought came into Ste. Marie's
mind, that thus must have looked the garden
and park round the castle of the Sleeping Beauty
when the Prince came to wake her.

But sleeping beauties and unkempt grounds
went from him in a flash when he became aware of
a sound which was like the sound of voices.
Instinctively he drew farther back into the shelter of
his aromatic screen.  His eyes swept the space
below him, from right to left, and could see no one.
So he sat very still, save for the thunderous beat of
a heart which seemed to him like drum beats when
soldiers are marching, and he listened—"all ears"
as the phrase goes.

The sound was in truth a sound of voices.  He
was presently assured of that, but for some time he
could not make out from which direction it came.
And so he was the more startled when quite
suddenly there appeared from behind a row of tall
shrubs two young people, moving slowly together up
the untrimmed turf in the direction of the house.

.. _`"There appeared two young people."`:

.. figure:: images/img-187.jpg
   :align: center
   :alt: "There appeared two young people."

   "There appeared two young people."

The two young people were Mlle. Coira O'Hara
and Arthur Benham, and upon the brow of this latter
youth there was no sign of dungeon pallor, upon
his free moving limbs no ball and chain.  There was
no apparent reason why he should not hasten back
to the eager arms in the Rue de l'Université if he
chose to—unless indeed his undissembling attitude
towards Mlle. Coira O'Hara might serve as a reason.
The young man followed at her heel with much the
manner and somewhat the appearance of a small dog,
humbly conscious of unworthiness, but hopeful
nevertheless of an occasional kind word or pat on
the head.

The world wheeled multi-coloured and kaleidoscopic
before Ste. Marie's eyes, and in his ears there
was a rushing of great winds, but he set his teeth and
clung with all the strength he had to the tree which
sheltered him.  His first feeling, after that initial
giddiness, was anger, sheer anger, a bewildered and
astonished fury.  He had thought to find this poor
youth in captivity, pining through prison bars
for the home and the loved ones and the familiar
life from which he had been ruthlessly torn.  Yet
here he was strolling in a suburban garden with a
lady—free, free as air (or so he seemed).
Ste. Marie thought of the grim and sorrowful old man
in Paris who was sinking untimely into his grave
because his grandson did not return to him: he
thought of that timid soul—more shadow than
woman—the boy's mother: he thought of Helen
Benham's tragic eyes, and he could have beaten
young Arthur half to death, in that moment, in the
righteous rage that stormed within him.

But he turned his eyes from this wretched youth
to the girl who walked beside, a little in advance, and
the rage died in him swiftly.

After all was she not one to make any boy—or
any man—forget duty, home, friends, everything!

Rather oddly his mind flashed back to the morning,
and to the words of the little photographer, Bernstein.
Perhaps the Jew had put it as well as any man
man could—

"She was a goddess, that lady, a queen of goddesses
... the young Juno before marriage...."

Ste. Marie nodded his head.  Yes, she was just
that.  The little Jew had spoken well.  It could
not be more fairly put, though without doubt it
could have been expressed at much greater length
and with a great deal more eloquence.  The
photographer's other words came also to his mind, the
more detailed description; and again he nodded his
head, for this too was true.

"She was all colour—brown skin with a dull red
stain under the cheeks, and a great mass of hair that
was not black but very nearly black—except in the
sun, and then there were red lights in it."

It occurred to Ste. Marie, whimsically, that the
two young people might have stepped out of the
door of Bernstein's studio straight into this garden,
judging from their bearing, each to the other.

"Ah, a thing to touch the heart!  Such devotion
as that!  Alas, that the lady should seem so cold
to it! ... Still, a goddess.  What would you?
A queen among goddesses....  One would not
have them laugh and make little jokes....  Make
eyes at love-sick boys.  No indeed!"

Certainly Mlle. Coira O'Hara was not making
eyes at the love-sick boy who followed at her heels
this afternoon.  Perhaps it would be going too far
to say that she was cold to him, but it was very
plain to see that she was bored and weary, and
that she wished she might be almost
anywhere else than where she was, She turned her
beautiful face a little towards the wall where Ste
Marie lay perdu, and he could see that her eyes had
the same dark fire, the same tragic look of appeal,
that he had seen in them before—once in the Champs
Elysées and again in his dreams.

Abruptly he became aware that while he gazed,
like a man in a trance, the two young people walked
on their way and were on the point of passing beyond
reach of eye or ear.  He made a sudden involuntary
movement as if he would call them back, and, for
the first time, his faithful hiding-place, strained
beyond silent endurance, betrayed him with a
loud rustle of shaken branches.  Ste. Marie shrank
back, his heart in his throat.  It was too late to
retreat now down the tree.  The damage was
already done.  He saw the two young people halt
and turn to look, and, after a moment, he saw the
boy slowly come forward, staring.  He heard him say—

"What's up in that tree?  There's something in
the tree."  And he heard the girl answer: "It's
only birds fighting.  Don't bother!"  But young
Arthur Benham came on, staring up curiously until
he was almost under the high wall.

Then Ste. Marie's strange madness, or the hand
of Fate, or whatever power it was which governed
him on that day, thrust him on to the ultimate
pitch of recklessness.  He bent forward from his
insecure perch over the wall until his head and
shoulders were in plain sight, and he called down
to the lad below in a loud whisper—

"Benham!  Benham!"

The boy gave a sharp cry of alarm and began to
back away.  And after a moment Ste. Marie heard
the cry echoed from Coira O'Hara.  He heard her say—

"Be careful!  Be careful, Arthur!  Come away.
Oh, come away quickly!"

Ste. Marie raised his own voice to a sort of cry.
He said—

"Wait!  I tell you to wait, Benham!  I must
have a word with you.  I come from your
family—from Helen!"  To his amazement the lad turned
about and began to run towards where the girl stood
waiting; and so, without a moment's hesitation
Ste. Marie threw himself across the top of the wall,
hung for an instant by his hands, and dropped
upon the soft turf.  Scarcely waiting to recover his
balance he stumbled forward, shouting—

"Wait!  I tell you, wait!  Are you mad?
Wait, I say!  Listen to me!"

Vaguely, in the midst of his great excitement,
he had heard a whistle sound as he dropped inside
the wall.  He did not know then from whence the
shrill call had come, but afterwards he knew that
Coira had blown it.  And now, as he ran forward
towards the two who stood at a distance staring at
him, he heard other steps and he slackened his
pace to look.

A man came running down amongst the black-boled
trees, a strange, squat, gnome-like man,
whose gait was as uncouth as his dwarfish figure.  He
held something in his two hands as he ran, and when
he came near he threw this thing with a swift
movement up before him, but he did not pause in his odd
scrambling run.

Ste. Marie felt a violent blow upon his left leg
between hip and knee.  He thought that somebody
had crept up behind him and struck him, but, as
he whirled about, he saw that there was no one there,
and then he heard a noise, and knew that the
gnome-like running man had shot him.  He faced about
once more towards the two young people.  He was
very angry, and he wished to say so, and very much
he wished to explain why he had trespassed there, and
why they had no right to shoot him as if he were some
wretched thief.  But he found that in some quite
absurd fashion he was as if fixed to the ground.  It
was as if he had suddenly become of the most
ponderous and incredible weight like lead—or like that
other metal, not gold, which is the heaviest of all.
Only the metal, seemingly, was not only heavy but
fiery hot, and his strength was incapable of holding it
up any longer.  His eyes fixed themselves in a
bewildered stare upon the figure of Mlle. Coira O'Hara,
he had time to observe that she had put up her two
hands over her face, then he fell down forward, his
head struck upon something very hard, and he
knew no more.





.. vspace:: 4

.. _`A CONVERSATION AT LA LIERRE`:

.. class:: center large bold

   CHAPTER XV


.. class:: center medium bold

   A CONVERSATION AT LA LIERRE

.. vspace:: 2

Captain Stewart walked nervously up
and down the small inner drawing-room at La
Lierre, his restless hands fumbling together behind
him, and his eyes turning every half-minute with a
sharp eagerness to the closed door.  But at last,
as if he were very tired, he threw himself down in a
chair which stood near one of the windows, and all
his tense body seemed to relax in utter exhaustion.
It was not a very comfortable chair that he had sat
down in, but there were no comfortable chairs in the
room—nor for that matter in all the house.  When
he had taken the place—about two months before
this time—he had taken it furnished, but that does
not mean very much in France.  No French country
houses—or town houses either—are in the least
comfortable, by Anglo-Saxon standards, and that
is at least one excellent reason why Frenchmen
spend just as little time in them as they possibly
can.  Half the cafés in Paris would promptly put
up their shutters if Parisian homes could all at once
turn themselves into something like English or
American ones.  As for La Lierre it was even more
dreary and bare and tomb-like than other country
houses, because it was after all a sort of ruin, and had
not been lived in for fifteen years, save by an ancient
caretaker and his nearly as ancient wife.  And that
was perhaps why it could be taken, on a short lease,
at a very low price.

The room in which Captain Stewart sat was behind
the large drawing-room, which was always kept
closed now, and it looked out by one window to the
west, and by two windows to the north, over a
corner of the kitchen-garden, and a vista of trees
beyond.  It was a high-ceiled room with walls bare,
except for two large mirrors in the Empire fashion,
which stared at each other across the way with dull
and flaking eyes.  Under each of these stood a
heavy gilt and ebony console with a top of chocolate-coloured
marble, and in the centre of the room there
was a table of a like fashion to the consoles.  Further
than this there was nothing save three chairs, upon
one of which lay Captain Stewart's dust-coat and
motoring cap and goggles.

A shaft of golden light from the low sun slanted
into the place through the western window, from
which the Venetians had been pulled back, and fell
across the face of the man, who lay still and lax in his
chair, eyes closed and chin dropped a little so that
his mouth hung weakly open.  He looked very ill,
as indeed any one might look after such an attack
as he had suffered on the night previous.  That one
long moment of deathly fear before he had fallen
down in a fit had nearly killed him.  All through
this following day it had continued to recur until he
thought he should go mad.  And there was worse
still.  How much did Olga Nilssen know?  And how
much had she told?  She had astonished and
frightened him when she had said that she knew about the
house on the road to Clamart, for he thought he
had hidden his visits to La Lierre well.  He
wondered rather drearily how she had discovered them,
and he wondered how much she knew more than
she had admitted.  He had a half-suspicion of
something like the truth, that Mlle. Nilssen knew only
of Coira O'Hara's presence here, and drew a rather
natural inference.  If that was all, there was no
danger from her—no more, that is, than had already
borne its fruit; for Stewart knew well enough that
Ste. Marie must have learned of the place from her.
In any case Olga Nilssen had left Paris—he had
discovered that fact during the day—and so for the
present she might be eliminated as a source of peril.

The man in the chair gave a little groan, and rolled
his head wearily to and fro against the uncomfortable
chair-back; for now he came to the real and
immediate danger, and he was so very tired and ill,
and his head ached so sickeningly, that it was almost
beyond him to bring himself face to face with it.

There was the man who lay helpless upon a bed
upstairs!  And there were the man's friends, who
were not at all helpless or bedridden or in captivity!

A wave of almost intolerable pain swept through
Stewart's aching head, and he gave another groan
which was almost like a child's sob.  But at just
that moment the door which led into the central hall
opened, and the Irishman O'Hara came into the
room.  Captain Stewart sprang to his feet to meet
him, and he caught the other man by the arm in his
eagerness.

"How is he?" he cried out.  "How is he?  How
badly was he hurt?"

"The patient?" said O'Hara.—"Let go my
arm!  Hang it, man, you're pinching me!—Oh, he'll
do well enough.  He'll be fit to hobble about in a
week or ten days.  The bullet went clean through
his leg and out again without cutting an artery.  It
was a sort of miracle.  And a damned lucky miracle
for all hands, too!  If we'd had a splintered bone or a
severed artery to deal with I should have had to call
in a doctor.  Then the fellow would have talked,
and there'd have been the devil to pay.  As it is I
shall be able to manage well enough with my own
small skill.  I've dressed worse wounds than that in
my time.  By Jove, it was a miracle though!"  A
sudden little gust of rage swept him.  He cried out:

"That confounded fool of a gardener, that
one-eyed Michel, ought to be beaten to death.  Why
couldn't he have slipped up behind this fellow and
knocked him on the head, instead of shooting him
from ten paces away?  The benighted idiot!  He
came near upsetting the whole boat!"

"Yes," said Captain Stewart with a sharp hard
breath, "he should have shot straighter or not at all."

The Irishman stared at him with his bright blue
eyes, and after a moment he gave a short laugh.

"Jove, you're a bloodthirsty beggar, Stewart!"
said he.  "That would have been a rum go, if you
like!  Killing the fellow!  All his friends down on us
like hawks, and the police and all that!  You can't
go about killing people in the outskirts of Paris, you
know—at least not people with friends.  And this
chap looks like a gentleman, more or less, so I take
it he has friends.  As a matter of fact his face is
rather familiar.  I think I've seen him before
somewhere.  You looked at him just now through the
crack of the door; do you know who he is?  Coira
tells me he called out to Arthur by name, but Arthur
says he never saw him before, and doesn't know him
at all."

Captain Stewart shivered.  It had not been a
pleasant moment for him, that moment when he
had looked through the crack of the door and
recognised Ste. Marie.

"Yes," he said half under his breath.  "Yes, I
know who he is.  A friend of the family."  The
Irishman's lips puckered to a low whistle.  He said—

"Spying then, as I thought.  He has run us to
earth."  And the other nodded.

O'Hara took a turn across the room and back.

"In that case," he said presently, "in that case
then we must keep him prisoner here so long as we
remain.  That's certain."  He spun round sharply,
with an exclamation.

"Look here!" he cried in a lower tone, "how
about this fellow's friends?  It isn't likely he's
doing his dirty work alone.  How about his friends
when he doesn't turn up to-night?  If they know he
was coming here to spy on us, if they know where
the place is, if they know—in short, what he seems
to have known, we're done for.  We'll have to run,
get out, disappear.  Hang it, man, d'you
understand?  We're not safe here for an hour."

Captain Stewart's hands shook a little as he
gripped them together behind him, and a dew of
perspiration stood out suddenly upon his forehead
and cheek bones, but his voice when he spoke was
well under control.

"It's an odd thing," said he, "another miracle,
if you like; but I believe we are safe—reasonably
safe.  I—have reason to think that this fellow
learnt about La Lierre only last evening, from some
one who left Paris to-day to be gone a long time.
And I also have reason to believe that the fellow
has not seen the one friend who is in his confidence
since he obtained his information.  By chance I met
the friend, the other man, in the street this afternoon.
I asked after this fellow whom we have here, and the
friend said he hadn't seen him for twenty-four hours,
was going to see him to-night."

"By the Lord!" cried the Irishman with a great
laugh of relief.  "What luck!  What monumental
luck!  If all that's true, we're safe.  Why, man, we're
as safe as a fox in his hole.  The lad's friends won't
have the ghost of an idea of where he's gone to....

"Wait though!  Stop a bit!  He won't have
left written word behind him, eh?  He won't
have done that—for safety?"

"I think not," said Captain Stewart; but he
breathed hard, for he knew well enough that there
lay the gravest danger.

"I think not," he said again.  He made a rather
surprisingly accurate guess at the truth—that
Ste. Marie had started out upon impulse, without
intending more than a general reconnaissance,
and therefore without leaving any word behind
him.  Still, the shadow of danger uplifted itself
before the man and he was afraid.  A sudden gust
of weak anger shook him like a wind.

"In Heaven's name," he cried shrilly, "why
didn't that one-eyed fool kill the fellow while he
was about it?  There's danger for us every moment
while he is alive here.  Why didn't that shambling
idiot kill him?"  Captain Stewart's outflung hand
jumped and trembled, and his face was twisted
into a sort of grinning snarl.  He looked like an
angry and wicked cat, the other man thought.

"If I weren't an over-civilised fool," he said
viciously, "I'd go upstairs and kill him now with
my hands—while he can't help himself.  We're
all too scrupulous by half."

The Irishman stared at him and presently broke
into amazed laughter.

"Scrupulous!" said he.  "Well, yes, I'm too
scrupulous to murder a man in his bed, if you like.
I'm not squeamish, but——Good Lord!"

"Do you realise," demanded Captain Stewart,
"what risks we run while that fellow is
alive—knowing what he knows?"

"Oh yes, I realise that," said O'Hara.  "But
I don't see why *you* should have heart failure
over it."

Captain Stewart's pale lips drew back again in
their cat-like fashion.

"Never mind about me," he said.  "But I
can't help thinking you're peculiarly indifferent in
the face of danger."

"No, I'm not!" said the Irishman quickly.
"No, I'm not.  Don't you run away with that
idea!"  For the first time his hard face began
to show feeling.  He turned away with a quick
nervous movement, and stood staring out of the
window into the late sunlight.

"I merely said," he went on, "I merely said
that I'd stop short of murder.  I don't set any
foolish value on life—my own or any other.  I've
had to take life more than once, but it was in fair
fight or in self-defence, and I don't regret it.  It
was your cold-blooded joke about going upstairs
and killing this chap in his bed that put me on
edge.  Naturally, I know you didn't mean it."  He
swung back towards the other man.

"So don't you worry about me!" said he
after a little pause.  "Don't you go thinking that
I'm lukewarm or that I'm indifferent to danger.
I know there's danger from this lad upstairs, and I
mean to be on guard against it.  He stays here
under strict guard until—what we're after is
accomplished—until young Arthur comes of age.

"If there's danger," said he, "why we know
where it lies and we can guard against it.  That
kind of danger is not very formidable.  The
dangerous dangers are the ones that you don't know
about—the hidden ones."  He came forward a
little, and his lean face was as hard and as impassive
as ever, and the bright blue eyes shone from it
steady and unwinking.  Stewart looked up to him
with a sort of peevish resentment at the man's
confidence and cool poise.  It was an odd reversal
of their ordinary relations.  For the hour the duller
villain, the man who was wont to take orders and
to refrain from overmuch thought or question,
seemed to have become master.  Sheer physical
exhaustion and the constant maddening pain had
had their will of Captain Stewart.

A sudden shiver wrung him so that his dry fingers
rattled against the wood of the chair arms.

"All the same," he cried, "I'm afraid.  I've
been confident enough until now.  Now I'm afraid.
I wish the fellow had been killed."

"Kill him then!" laughed the Irishman.  "I
won't give you up to the police."  He crossed the
room to the door, but halted short of it and turned
about again, and he looked back very curiously
at the man who sat crouched in his chair by the
window.  It had occurred to him several times
that Stewart was very unlike himself.  The man
was quite evidently tired and ill, and that might
account for some of the nervousness; but this fierce
malignity was something a little beyond O'Hara's
comprehension.  It seemed to him that the elder
man had the air of one frightened beyond the
point the circumstances warranted.

"Are you going back to town?" he asked, "or
do you mean to stay the night?"

"I shall stay the night," Stewart said.  "I'm
too tired to bear the ride."  He glanced up and
caught the other's eyes fixed upon him.

"Well," he cried angrily.  "What is it?  What
are you looking at me like that for?  What do you
want?"

"I want nothing," said the Irishman a little
sharply.  "And I wasn't aware that I'd been
looking at you in any unusual way.  You're precious
jumpy, to-day, if you want to know...  Look
here!"  He came back a step, frowning.

"Look here," he repeated.  "I don't quite make
you out.  Are you keeping back anything?
Because if you are for Heaven's sake have it out here
and now!  We're all in this game together, and we
can't afford to be anything but frank with each
other.  We can't afford to make reservations.
It's altogether too dangerous for everybody.  You're
too much frightened.  There's no apparent reason
for being so frightened as that."

Captain Stewart drew a long breath between
closed teeth, and afterwards he looked up at the
younger man coldly.

"We need not discuss my personal feelings, I
think," said he.  "They have no—no bearing on
the point at issue.  As you say, we are all in this
thing together and you need not fear that I shall
fail to do my part, as I have done it in the past...
That's all, I believe."

"Oh, as you like!  As you like!" said the
Irishman in the tone of one rebuffed.  He turned
again and left the room, closing the door behind
him.  Outside on the stairs it occurred to him that
he had forgotten to ask the other man what this
fellow's name was—the fellow who lay wounded
upstairs.  No, he had asked once, but, in the
interest of the conversation, the question had been
lost.  He determined to inquire again that evening
at dinner.

But Captain Stewart, left thus alone, sank deeper
in the uncomfortable chair, and his head once more
stirred and sought vainly for ease against the
chair's high back.  The pain swept him in regular
throbbing waves that were like the waves of the
sea—waves which surge and crash and tear upon a
beach.  But between the throbs of physical pain
there was something else that was always present
while the waves came and went.  Pain and exhaustion,
if they are sufficiently extreme, can wellnigh
paralyse mind as well as body, and for some time
Captain Stewart wondered what this thing might be
which lurked at the bottom of him, still under the
surges of agony.  Then at last he had the strength
to look at it, and it was fear, cold and still and
silent.  He was afraid to the very depths of his soul.

True, as O'Hara had said, there did not seem to
be any very desperate peril to face; but Stewart
was afraid with the gambler's unreasoning,
half-superstitious fear, and that is the worst fear of all.
He realised that he had been afraid of Ste. Marie
from the beginning, and that, of course, was why
he had tried to draw him into partnership with
himself in his own official and wholly mythical
search for Arthur Benham.  He could have had
the other man under his eye then.  He could have
kept him busy for months running down false
scents.  As it was, Ste. Marie's uncanny instinct
about the Irishman O'Hara had led him true—that
and what he doubtless learned from Olga Nilssen.

If Stewart had been in a condition and mood to
philosophise, he would doubtless have reflected
that seven-tenths of the desperate causes, both
good and bad, which fail in this world, fail because
they are wrecked by some woman's love or jealousy
(or both).  But it is unlikely that he was able just
at this time to make such a reflection, though
certainly he wondered how much Olga Nilssen had
known, and how much Ste. Marie had had to put
together out of her knowledge and any previous
suspicions which he may have had.

The man would have been amazed if he could
have known what a mountain of information and
evidence had piled itself up over his head all in
twelve hours.  He would have been amazed and, if
possible, even more frightened than he was; but he
was without question sufficiently frightened, for
here was Ste. Marie in the very house, he had seen
Arthur Benham, and quite obviously he knew all
there was to know, or at least enough to ruin Arthur
Benham's uncle beyond all recovery or hope of
recovery—irretrievably.

Captain Stewart tried to think what it would
mean to him—failure in this desperate scheme,
but he had not the strength or the courage.  He
shrank from the picture as one shrinks from
something horrible in a bad dream.  There could be no
question of failure.  He had to succeed at any
cost, however desperate or fantastic.  Once more
the spasm of childish futile rage swept over him
and shook him like a wind.

"Why couldn't the fellow have been killed by
that one-eyed fool!" he cried, sobbing.  "Why
couldn't he have been killed?  He's the only one
who knows—the only thing in the way.  Why
couldn't he have been killed?"

Quite suddenly Captain Stewart ceased to sob
and shiver, and sat still in his chair, gripping the arms
with white and tense fingers.  His eyes began to
widen and they became fixed in a long strange
stare.  He drew a deep breath.

"I wonder!" he said aloud.  "I wonder, now."





.. vspace:: 4

.. _`THE BLACK CAT`:

.. class:: center large bold

   CHAPTER XVI


.. class:: center medium bold

   THE BLACK CAT

.. vspace:: 2

That providential stone or tree-root, or
whatever it may have been, proved a genuine
blessing in disguise to Ste. Marie.  It gave him a
splitting headache for a few hours, but it saved
him a good deal of discomfort the while his bullet
wound was being more or less probed, and very
skilfully cleansed and dressed by O'Hara.  For
he did not regain consciousness until this surgical
work was almost at its end, and then he wanted
to fight the Irishman for tying the bandages too tight.

But when O'Hara had gone away and left him
alone he lay still—or as still as the smarting burning
pain in his leg and the ache in his head would let
him—and stared at the wall beyond his bed, and,
bit by bit, the events of the past hour came back
to him and he knew where he was.  He cursed
himself very bitterly, as he well might do, for a
bungling idiot.  The whole thing had been in
his hands, he said with perfect truth—Arthur
Benham's whereabouts proved, Stewart's responsibility,
or at the very least complicity, and the
sordid motive therefor.  Remained, had Ste. Marie
been a sane being instead of an impulsive fool,
remained but to face Stewart down in the presence
of witnesses, threaten him with exposure, and so,
with perfect ease, bring back the lost boy in triumph
to his family.

It should all have been so simple, so easy, so
effortless!  Yet now it was ruined by a moment's
rash folly, and Heaven alone knew what would
come of it.  He remembered that he had left
behind him no indication whatever of where he meant
to spend the afternoon.  Hartley would come
hurrying across town that evening to the Rue d'Assas
and would find no one there to receive him.  He
would wait and wait and at last go home.  He
would come again on the next morning, and then
he would begin to be alarmed and would start a
second search—but with what to reckon by?
Nobody knew about the house on the road to
Clamart but Mlle. Olga Nilssen, and she was far away.

He thought of Captain Stewart, and he wondered
if that gentleman was by any chance here in the
house, or if he was still in bed in the Rue du Faubourg
St. Honoré, recovering from his epileptic fit.

After that he fell once more to cursing himself
and his incredible stupidity, and he could have
wept for sheer bitterness of chagrin.

He was still engaged in this unpleasant occupation
when the door of the room opened and the
Irishman O'Hara entered, having finished his
interview with Captain Stewart below.  He came up
beside the bed and looked down not unkindly upon
the man who lay there, but Ste. Marie scowled back
at him, for he was in a good deal of pain and a vile
humour.

"How's the leg—*and* the head?" asked the
amateur surgeon—to do him justice he was very
skilful indeed through much experience.

"They hurt," said Ste. Marie shortly.  "My
head aches like the devil, and my leg burns."

O'Hara made a sound which was rather like a gruff
laugh, and nodded.

"Yes, and they'll go on doing it too," said he.
"At least the leg will.  Your head will be all right
again in a day or so.  Do you want anything to
eat?  It's near dinner-time.  I suppose we can't
let you starve—though you deserve it."

"Thanks, I want nothing!" said Ste. Marie.
"Pray don't trouble about me!"  The other man
nodded again indifferently, and turned to go out
of the room, but in the doorway he halted and looked
back.

"As we're to have the pleasure of your company
for some time to come," said he, "you might
suggest a name to call you by.  Of course I don't
expect you to tell your own name, though I can
learn that easily enough."

"Easily enough, to be sure," said the man on
the bed.  "Ask Stewart.  He knows only too well."

The Irishman scowled.  And after a moment he said—

"I don't know any Stewart."  But at that Ste. Marie
gave a laugh, and a tinge of red came over
the Irishman's cheeks.

"And so to save Captain Stewart the trouble,"
continued the wounded man, "I'll tell you my
name with pleasure.  I don't know why I shouldn't.
It's Ste. Marie."

"What?" cried O'Hara hoarsely.  "What?
Say that again!"  He came forward a swift step
or two into the room, and he stared at the man
on the bed as if he were staring at a ghost.

"Ste. Marie?" he cried in a whisper.  "It's
impossible!

"What are you," he demanded, "to Gilles,
Comte de Ste. Marie de Mont-Perdu?  What are
you to him?"

"He was my father," said the younger man,
"but he is dead.  He has been dead for ten years."  He
turned his head with a little grimace of pain to
look curiously after the Irishman, who had all at
once turned away across the room, and stood still
beside a window, with bent head.

"Why?" he questioned.  "What about my
father?  Why did you ask that?"

O'Hara did not answer at once, and he did not
stir from his place by the window, but after awhile
he said—

"I knew him ...  That's all."  And after
another space he came back beside the bed, and
once more looked down upon the young man who
lay there.  His face was veiled, inscrutable.  It
betrayed nothing.

"You have a look of your father," said he.
"That was what puzzled me a little.  I was just
saying to——I was just thinking that there was
something familiar about you....  Ah well! we've
all come down in the world since then.
The Ste. Marie blood though!  Who'd have
thought it!"  The man shook his head a little
sorrowfully, but Ste. Marie stared up at him in
frowning incomprehension.  The pain had dulled
him somewhat.

And presently O'Hara again moved towards the
door.  On the way he said—

"I'll bring or send you something to eat—not
too much.  And later on I'll give you a sleeping
powder.  With that head of yours you may have
trouble in getting to sleep.  Understand, I'm doing
this for your father's son, and not because you've
any right yourself to consideration."

Ste. Marie raised himself with difficulty, on one elbow.

"Wait!" said he.  "Wait a moment!" and
the other halted just inside the door.

"You seem to have known my father," said
Ste. Marie, "and to have respected him.  For my
father's sake will you listen to me for five minutes?"

"No, I won't!" said the Irishman sharply,
"so you may as well hold your tongue.  Nothing
you can say to me or to any one in this house will
have the slightest effect.  We know what you came
spying here for.  We know all about it."

"Yes," said Ste. Marie with a little sigh, and he
fell back upon the pillows.  "Yes, I suppose you
do.  I was rather a fool to speak.  You wouldn't
all be doing what you're doing if words could affect
you.  I was a fool to speak."  The Irishman stared
at him for another moment and went out of the
room, closing the door behind him.

So he was left once more alone to his pain and
his bitter self-reproaches, and his wild and futile
plans for escape.  But O'Hara returned in an hour
or thereabouts with food for him—a cup of broth
and a slice of bread; and when Ste. Marie had
eaten these, the Irishman looked once more to his
wounded leg, and gave him a sleeping powder
dissolved in water.

He lay restless and wide-eyed for an hour, and
then drifted away through intermediate mists into
a sleep full of horrible dreams, but it was at least
relief from bodily suffering; and when he awoke
in the morning his headache was almost gone.

He awoke to sunshine and fresh sweet odours,
and the twittering of birds.  By good chance O'Hara
had been the last to enter the room on the evening
before, and so no one had come to close the shutters
or draw the blinds.  The windows were open
wide, and the morning breeze, very soft and aromatic,
blew in and out and filled the place with sweetness.
The room was a corner room with windows that
looked south and east, and the early sun slanted
in and lay in golden squares across the floor.

Ste. Marie opened his eyes with none of the dazed
bewilderment that he might have expected.  The
events of the preceding day came back to him
instantly and without shock.  He put up an
experimental hand and found that his head was still very
sore where he had struck it in falling, but the ache
was almost gone.  He tried to stir his leg, and a
protesting pain shot through it.  It burned dully
even when it was quiet, but the pain was not at all
severe.  He realised that he was to get off rather
well, considering what might have happened, and
he was so grateful for this that he almost forgot to
be angry with himself over his monumental folly.

A small bird chased by another wheeled in through
the southern window and back again into free air.
Finally the two settled down upon the parapet of
the little shallow balcony, which was there, to have
their disagreement out, and they talked it over
with a great deal of noise and many threatening
gestures and a complete loss of temper on both
sides.  Ste. Marie, from his bed, cheered them on,
but there came a commotion in the ivy which draped
the wall below, and the two birds fled in ignominious
haste, and just in the nick of time, for when the
cause of the commotion shot into view, it was a large
black cat of great bodily activity and an ardent
single-heartedness of aim.

The black cat gazed for a moment resentfully
after its vanished prey, and then composed its sleek
body upon the iron rail, tail and paws tucked
neatly under.  Ste. Marie chirruped, and the cat
turned yellow eyes upon him in mild astonishment
as one who should say—

"Who the deuce are you, and what the deuce
are you doing here?"  He chirruped again, and the
cat, after an ostentatious yawn and stretch, came
to him—beating up to windward, as it were, and
making the bed in three tacks.  When O'Hara
entered the room some time later he found his
patient in a very cheerful frame of mind, and the
black cat sitting on his chest, purring like a dynamo
and kneading like an industrious baker.

"Ho!" said the Irishman, "you seem to have
found a friend."

"Well, I need one friend here," argued
Ste. Marie.  "I'm in the enemy's stronghold.  You
needn't be alarmed: the cat can't tell me
anything, and it can't help me to escape.  It can
only sit on me and purr.  That's harmless enough."

O'Hara began one of his gruff laughs, but he
seemed to remember himself in the middle of it, and
assumed an intimidating scowl instead.

"How's the leg?" he demanded shortly.  "Let
me see it!"  He took off the bandages and cleansed
and sprayed the wound with some antiseptic liquid
that he had brought in a bottle.

"There's a little fever," said he, "but that can't
be avoided.  You're going on very well—a good
deal better than you'd any right to expect."  He
had to inflict not a little pain in his examination
and redressing of the wound.  He knew that, and
once or twice he glanced up at Ste. Marie's face
with a sort of reluctant admiration for the man
who could bear so much without any sign whatever.
In the end he put together his things and nodded
with professional satisfaction.

"You'll do well enough now for the rest of the
day," he said.  "I'll send up old Michel to valet
you.  He's the gardener who shot you yesterday,
and he may take it into his head to finish the job
this morning.  If he does I shan't try to stop him."

"Nor I," said Ste. Marie.  "Thanks very much
for your trouble.  An excellent surgeon was lost
in you."

O'Hara left the room, and presently the old
caretaker, one-eyed, gnome-like, shambling like a bear,
sidled into the room and proceeded to set things
to rights.  He looked, Ste. Marie said to himself,
like something in an old German drawing, or in
those imitations of old drawings that one sometimes
sees nowadays in Fliegende Blatter.  He tried to
make the strange creature talk, but Michel went
about his task with an air half frightened, half
stolid, and refused to speak more than an occasional
"*oui*" or a "*bien, monsieur*," in answer to orders.
Ste. Marie asked if he might have some coffee and
bread, and the old Michel nodded and slipped from
the room as silently as he had entered it.

Thereafter Ste. Marie trifled with the cat and
got one hand well scratched for his trouble, but in
five minutes there came a knocking at the door.
He laughed a little.  "Michel grows ceremonious
when it's a question of food," he said.  "*Entrez,
mon vieux!*"  The door opened, and Ste. Marie
caught his breath.

"Michel is busy," said Coira O'Hara, "so I have
brought your coffee."

.. _`"'Michel is busy,' said Coira O'Hara, 'so I have brought your coffee.'"`:

.. figure:: images/img-211.jpg
   :align: center
   :alt: "'Michel is busy,' said Coira O'Hara, 'so I have brought your coffee.'"

   "'Michel is busy,' said Coira O'Hara, 'so I have brought your coffee.'"

She came into the sunlit room, holding the
steaming bowl of *café au lait* before her in her two
hands.  Over it her eyes went out to the man who lay
in his bed, a long and steady and very grave look.
"A goddess that lady, a queen among goddesses,"—thus
the little Jew of the Boulevard de la Madeleine.
Ste. Marie gazed back at her, and his heart was sick
within him to think of the contemptible role Fate
had laid upon this girl to play: the candle to the
moth, the bait to the eager unskilled fish, the lure
to charm a foolish boy.

The girl's splendid beauty seemed to fill all that
bright room with, as it were, a richer subtler light.
There could be no doubt of her potency.  Older
and wiser heads than young Arthur Benham's
might well forget the world for her.  Ste. Marie
watched, and the heartsickness within him was
like a physical pain keen and bitter.  He thought
of that first and only previous meeting—the single
minute in the Champs Elysées when her eyes had
held him, had seemed to beseech him out of some
deep agony.  He thought of how they had haunted
him afterwards both by day and by night—calling
eyes—and he gave a little groan of sheer bitterness,
for he realised that all this while she was laying her
snares about the feet of an inexperienced boy,
decoying him to his ruin.  There was a name for
such women, an ugly name.  They were called
adventuresses.

The girl set the bowl which she carried down
upon a table not far from the bed.

"You will need a tray or something," said she.
"I suppose you can sit up against your pillows?
I'll bring a tray, and you can hold it on your knees
and eat from it."  She spoke in a tone of very
deliberate indifference and detachment.  There
seemed even to be an edge of scorn in it, but nothing
could make that deep and golden voice harsh or
unlovely.  As the girl's extraordinary beauty had
filled all the room with its light, so the sound of her
voice seemed to fill it with a sumptuous and
hushed resonance like a temple bell muffled in velvet.

"I must bring something to eat too," she said.
"Would you prefer *croissants* or *brioches* or plain
bread and butter?  You might as well have what
you like."

"Thank you!" said Ste. Marie.  "It doesn't
matter.  Anything.  You are most kind.  You
are Hebe, mademoiselle, server of feasts."  The
girl turned her head for a moment, and looked at
him with some surprise.

"If I am not mistaken," she said, "Hebe served
to gods."  Then she went out of the room, and
Ste. Marie broke into a sudden delighted laugh behind
her.  She would seem to be a young woman with
a tongue in her head.  She had seized the rash
opening without an instant's hesitation.

The black cat, which had been cruising, after
the inquisitive fashion of its kind, in far corners of
the room, strolled back and looked up to the table
where the bowl of coffee steamed and waited.

"Get out!" cried Ste. Marie.  "*Va t'en, sale
petit animal*!  Go and eat birds! that's my
coffee.  *Va*!  *Sauve toi*!  *Hè voleur que tu es*!"  He
sought for something by way of missile, but
there was nothing within reach.  The black cat
turned its calm and yellow eyes towards him, looked
back to the aromatic feast, and leapt expertly to
the top of the table.  Ste. Marie shouted and made
horrible threats.  He waved an impotent pillow,
not daring to hurl it for fear of smashing the table's
entire contents, but the black cat did not even
glance towards him.  It smelt the coffee, sneezed
over it because it was hot, and finally proceeded
to lap very daintily, pausing often to take breath
or to shake its head, for cats disapprove of hot dishes,
though they will partake of them at a pinch.

There came a step outside the door, and the
thief leapt down with some haste, yet not quite in
time to escape observation.  Mlle. O'Hara came in
breathing terrible threats.

"Has that wretched animal touched your coffee?"
she cried.  "I hope not."  But Ste Marie laughed
weakly from his bed, and the guilty beast stood in
mid-floor, brown drops beading its black chin and
hanging upon its whiskers.

"I did what I could, mademoiselle," said
Ste. Marie; "but there was nothing to throw.  I am
sorry to be the cause of so much trouble."

"It is nothing," said she.  "I will bring some
more coffee, only it will take ten minutes, because
I shall have to make some fresh."  She made as if
she would smile a little in answer to him, but her
face turned grave once more, and she went out of
the room with averted eyes.

Thereafter Ste. Marie occupied himself with
watching idly the movements of the black cat, and
as he watched something icy cold began to grow
within him, a sensation more terrible than he had
ever known before.  He found himself shivering
as if that summer day had all at once turned to
January, and he found that his face was wet with a
chill perspiration.

When the girl at length returned she found him
lying still, his face to the wall.  The black cat was
in her path as she crossed the room, so that she had
to thrust it out of the way with her foot, and she
called it names for moving with such lethargy.

"Here is the coffee at last," she said.  "I made
it fresh.  And I have brought some *brioches*.  Will
you sit up and have the tray on your knees?"

"Thank you!" said Ste. Marie.  "I do not
wish anything."

"You do not——" she repeated after him.
"But I have made the coffee especially for you!"
she protested.  "I thought you wanted it.  I
don't understand."

With a sudden movement the man turned towards
her a white and drawn face.

"Mademoiselle!" he cried, "it would have
been more merciful to let your gardener shoot again
yesterday.  Much more merciful, mademoiselle."  She
stared at him under her straight black brows.

"What do you mean?" she demanded.  "More
merciful?  What do you mean by that?"  Ste. Marie
stretched out a pointing finger and the girl
followed it.  She gave, after a tense instant, a single
sharp scream.  And upon that—

"No! no!  It's not true.  It's not possible."  Moving
stiffly she set down the bowl she carried,
and the hot liquid splashed up round her wrists.
For a moment she hung there, drooping, holding
herself up by the strength of her hands upon the
table.  It was as if she had been seized with
faintness.  Then she sprang to where the cat crouched
beside a chair.  She dropped upon her knees and
tried to raise it in her arms, but the beast bit and
scratched at her feebly, and crept away to a little
distance, where it lay struggling and very unpleasant
to see.

"Poison!" she said in a choked gasping whisper.
"Poison!"  She looked once towards the man
upon the bed, and she was white and shivering.

"It's not true!" she cried again.  "I—won't
believe it.  It's because the cat—was not used to
coffee.  Because it was hot.  I won't believe it.
I won't believe it."  She began to sob, holding
her hands over her white face.

Ste. Marie watched her with puzzled eyes.  If
this was acting, it was very very good acting.  A
little glimmer of hope began to burn in him—hope
that in this last shameful thing, at least, the girl
had had no part.

"It's impossible!" she insisted piteously.  "I
tell you it's impossible.  I brought the coffee myself
from the kitchen.  I took it from the pot there—the
same pot we had all had ours from.  It was
never out of my sight—or, that is—I mean——"

She halted there and Ste. Marie saw her eyes turn
slowly towards the door, and he saw a crimson flush
come up over her cheeks and die away, leaving her
white again.  He drew a little breath of relief and
gladness, for he was sure of her now.  She had had
no part in it.

"It is nothing, mademoiselle," said he cheerfully.
"Think no more of it.  It is nothing."

"Nothing?" she cried in a loud voice.  "Do
you call poison nothing?"  She began to shiver
again very violently.

"You would have drunk it!" she said, staring
at him in a white agony.  "But for a miracle you
would have drunk it—and died!"  Abruptly she
came beside the bed and threw herself upon her
knees there.  In her excitement and horror she
seemed to have forgotten what they two were to
each other.  She caught him by the shoulders with
her two hands and the girl's violent trembling
shook them both.

"Will you believe," she cried, "that I had
nothing to do with this?  Will you believe me?
You must believe me!"

There was no acting in that moment.  She was
wrung with a frank anguish and utter horror, and
between her words there were hard and terrible sobs.

"I believe you, mademoiselle," said the man
gently.  "I believe you.  Pray think no more
about it!"  He smiled up into the girl's beautiful
face, though within him he was still cold and ashiver,
as even the bravest men might well be at such an
escape, and after a moment she turned away again.
With unsteady hands she put the new-made bowl
of coffee and the *brioches* and other things together
upon the tray, and started to carry it across the
room to the bed, but halfway she turned back again
and set the tray down.  She looked about and
found an empty glass, and she poured a little of the
coffee into it.  Ste. Marie, who was watching her,
gave a sudden cry—

"No! no! mademoiselle, I beg you.  You must
not!"  But the girl shook her head at him gravely
over the glass.

"There is no danger," she said, "but I must be
sure."  She drank what was in the glass, and
afterwards went across to one of the windows and stood
there with her back to the room for a little time.

In the end she returned and once more brought
the breakfast tray to the bed.  Ste. Marie raised
himself to a sitting posture, and took the thing
upon his knees, but his hands were shaking.

"If I were not as helpless as a dead man,
mademoiselle," said he, "you should not have done that.
If I could have stopped you, you should not have
done it, mademoiselle."  A wave of colour spread
up under the brown skin of the girl's face, but she
did not speak.  She stood by for a moment to see
if he was supplied with everything he needed, and
when Ste. Marie expressed his gratitude for her
pains she only bowed her head.  Then presently
she turned away and left the room.

Outside the door she met some one who was
approaching.  Ste. Marie heard her break into
rapid and excited speech, and he heard O'Hara's
voice in answer.  The voice expressed astonishment
and indignation and a sort of gruff horror, but the
man who listened could hear only the tones not the
words that were spoken.

The Irishman came quickly into the room.  He
glanced once towards the bed where Ste. Marie sat
eating his breakfast with apparent unconcern (there
may have been a little bravado in this), and then
bent over the thing which lay moving feebly beside
a chair.  When he rose again his face was hard and
tense, and his blue eyes glittered in a fashion that
boded trouble for somebody.

"This looks very bad for us," he said gruffly.
"I should—I should like to have you believe that
neither my daughter nor I had any part in it.  When
I fight I fight openly, I don't use poison.  Not even
with spies."

"Oh, that's all right!" said Ste. Marie, taking
an ostentatious sip of coffee.  "That's understood.
I know well enough who tried to poison me.  If
you'll just keep your friend Stewart out of the
kitchen, I shan't worry about my food."

The Irishman's cheeks reddened with a quick
flush, and he dropped his eyes.  But in an instant
he raised them again, and looked full into the eyes
of the man who sat in bed.

"You seem," said he, "to be labouring under a
curious misapprehension.  There is no Stewart
here, and I don't know any man of that name."

Ste. Marie laughed.

"Oh, don't you?" he said.  "That's my
mistake then.  Well, if you don't know him, you
ought to.  You have interests in common."

O'Hara favoured his patient with a long and
frowning stare.  But at the end he turned without
a word and went out of the room.





.. vspace:: 4

.. _`THOSE WHO WERE LEFT BEHIND`:

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   CHAPTER XVII


.. class:: center medium bold

   THOSE WHO WERE LEFT BEHIND

.. vspace:: 2

That meeting with Richard Hartley of which
Captain Stewart, in the small drawing-room
at La Lierre, spoke to the Irishman O'Hara,
took place at Stewart's own door in the Rue du
Faubourg St. Honoré, and it must have been at just
about the time when Ste. Marie, concealed among
the branches of his cedar, looked over the wall and
saw Arthur Benham walking with Mlle. Coira O'Hara.
Hartley had lunched at Durand's with his friends,
whose name—though it does not at all matter
here—was Reeves-Davis, and after lunch the four of them,
Major and Lady Reeves-Davis, Reeves-Davis'
sister Mrs. Carsten, and Hartley, spent an hour
at a certain picture dealer's near the Madeleine.
After that Lady Reeves-Davis wanted to go in
search of an antiquary's shop which was somewhere
in the Rue du Faubourg, and she did not know
just where.  They went in from the Rue Royale,
and amused themselves by looking at the attractive
windows on the way.

During one of their frequent halts, while the
two ladies were passionately absorbed in a display
of hats and Reeves-Davis was making derisive
comments from the rear, Hartley, who was too much
bored to pay attention, saw a figure which seemed to
him familiar emerge from an adjacent doorway, and
start to cross the pavement to a large touring car
with the top up, which stood at the kerb.  The man
wore a dust-coat and a cap, and he moved as if he
were in a hurry, but as he went he cast a quick look
about him, and his eye fell upon Richard Hartley.
Hartley nodded, and he thought the elder man gave
a violent start—but then he looked very white and
ill and might have started at anything.  For an
instant Captain Stewart made as if he would go on
his way without taking notice, but the seemed to
change his mind and turned back.  He held out his
hand with a rather wan and nervous smile, saying—

"Ah, Hartley!  It is you, then.  I wasn't sure."  He
glanced over the other's shoulder, and said—

"Is that our friend Ste. Marie with you?"

"No," said Richard Hartley, "some English
friends of mine.  I haven't seen Ste. Marie to-day.
I'm to meet him this evening.  You've seen him
since I have, as a matter of fact.  He came to your
party last night, didn't he?  Sorry I couldn't
come.  They must have tired you out, I should
think.  You look ill."

"Yes," said the other man absently.  "Yes.  I
had an attack of—an old malady, last night.  I
am rather stale to-day.  You say you haven't
seen Ste. Marie?  No, to be sure.  If you see him
later on you might say that I mean to drop in on
him to-morrow to make my apologies.  He'll
understand.  Good day!"  So he turned away to the
motor, which was waiting for him, and Hartley went
back to his friends, wondering a little what it was
that Stewart had to apologise for.

As for Captain Stewart he must have gone at once
out to La Lierre.  What he found there has already
been set forth.

It was about ten that evening when Hartley,
who had left his people, after dinner was over,
at the *Marigny*, reached the Rue d'Assas.  The
street door was already closed for the night, and
so he had to ring for the *cordon*.  When the door
clicked open and he had closed it behind him, he
called out his name before crossing the court to
Ste. Marie's stair, but as he went on his way the
voice of the concierge reached him from the little
*loge*.

"*M. Ste. Marie n'est pas là.*"

Now the Parisian concierge, as every one knows
who has lived under his iron sway, is a being set
apart from the rest of mankind.  He has, in general
no human attributes, and certainly no human
sympathy.  His hand is against all the world and
the hand of all the world is against him.  Still, here
and there amongst this peculiar race are to be found
a very few beings who are of softer substance—men
and women instead of spies and harpies.  The
concierge who had charge of the house wherein
Ste. Marie dwelt was an old woman, undeniably
severe upon occasion, but for the most part a kindly
and even jovial soul.  She must have become a
concierge through some unfortunate mistake.

She snapped open her little square window, and
stuck out into the moonlit court a dishevelled
grey head.

"*Il n'est pas là*," she said again, beaming upon
Richard Hartley, whom she liked, and when he
protested that he had a definite and important
appointment with her lodger, went on to explain
that Ste. Marie had gone out, doubtless to lunch,
before one o'clock and had never returned.

"He may have left word for me upstairs," Hartley
said.  "I'll go up and wait, if I may."  So the
woman got him her extra key, and he went up, let
himself into the flat and made lights there.

Naturally he found no word, but his own note of
that morning lay spread out upon a table where
Ste. Marie had left it, and so he knew that his friend
was in possession of the two facts he had learnt about
Stewart.  He made himself comfortable with a book
and some cigarettes, and settled down to wait.
Ste. Marie out at La Lierre, with a bullet hole in his
leg, was deep in a drugged sleep just then, but
Hartley waited for him, looking up now and then
from his book with a scowl of impatience, until the
little clock on the mantle said that it was one
o'clock.  Then he went home in a very bad temper,
after writing another note, and leaving it on the
table, to say that he would return early in the
morning.

But in the morning he began to be alarmed.  He
questioned the concierge very closely as to
Ste. Marie's movements on the day previous, but she
could tell him little (save to mention the brief visit
of a man with an accent of Toulouse or Marseille),
and there seemed to be no one else to whom he
could go.  He spent the entire morning in the flat
and returned there after a hasty lunch.  But at
mid-afternoon he took a fiacre at the corner of the
Gardens and drove to the Rue du Faubourg St. Honoré.

Captain Stewart was at home.  He was in a
dressing-gown and still looked fagged and unwell.
He certainly betrayed some surprise at sight of his
visitor, but he made Hartley welcome at once, and
insisted upon having cigars and things to drink
brought out for him.  On the whole he presented an
astonishingly normal exterior, for within him he
must have been cold with fear, and in his ears a
question must have rung and shouted and rung
again unceasingly.—

"What does this fellow know?  What does he know?"

Hartley's very presence there had a perilous look.

The younger man shook his head at the servant
who asked him what he wished to drink.

"Thanks, you're very good," he said to Captain
Stewart, and that gentleman eyed him silently.
"I can't stay but a moment.  I just dropped in
to ask if you'd any idea what can have become of
Ste. Marie."

"Ste. Marie?" said Captain Stewart.  "What
do you mean—'become of him'?"  He moistened
his lips to speak, but he said the words without a
tremor.

"Well, what I meant, was," said Hartley, "that
you'd seen him last.  He was here Thursday evening.
Did he say anything to you about going anywhere
in particular the next day—yesterday?  He left
his rooms about noon and hasn't turned up since."

Captain Stewart drew a short breath and sat
down abruptly in a near-by chair, for all at once
his knees had begun to tremble under him.  He
was conscious of a great and blissful wave of relief
and well-being, and he wanted to laugh.  He
wanted so much to laugh that it became a torture
to keep his face in repose.

So Ste Marie had left no word behind him, and
the danger was past!

With a great effort he looked up from where he
sat to Richard Hartley, who stood anxious and
frowning before him.

"Forgive me for sitting down!" he said, "and
sit down yourself, I beg!  I'm still very shaky
from my attack of illness.  Ste. Marie?  Ste. Marie has
disappeared?  How very extraordinary!  It's like
poor Arthur.  Still—a single day!  He might be
anywhere for a single day, might he not?  For
all that, though, it's very odd.  Why no!  No, I
don't think he said anything about going away!  At
least I remember nothing about it."  The relief
and triumph within him burst out in a sudden little
chuckle of malicious fun.

.. _`"'Ste. Marie has disappeared?  How very extraordinary!'"`:

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   "'Ste. Marie has disappeared?  How very extraordinary!'"

"I can think of only one thing," said he, "that
might be of use to you.  Ste. Marie seemed to take a
very great fancy to one of the ladies here the other
evening.  And, I must confess, the lady seemed to
return it.  It had all the look of a desperate
flirtation—a most desperate flirtation.  They spent the
evening in a corner together.

"You don't suppose," he said, still chuckling
gently, "that Ste. Marie is taking a little holiday,
do you?  You don't suppose that lady could account
for him?"

"No," said Richard Hartley, "I don't.  And
if you knew Ste. Marie a little better you wouldn't
suppose it either."  But after a pause he said—

"Could you give me the—lady's name, by any
chance?  Of course I don't want to leave any
stone unturned."  And once more the other man
emitted his pleased little chuckle that was so like
a cat's mew.

"I can give you her name," said he.  "The
name is Mademoiselle——Bertrand.  Elise Bertrand.
But I regret to say I haven't the address by me.
She came with some friends.  I will try to get it
and send it you.  Will that be all right?"

"Yes, thanks!" said Richard Hartley.  "You're
very good.  And now I must be going on.  I'm
rather in a hurry."

Captain Stewart protested against this great
haste, and pressed the younger man to sit down and
tell him more about his friend's disappearance, but
Hartley excused himself, repeating that he was in a
great hurry, and went off.

When he had gone Captain Stewart lay back in his
chair and laughed until he was weak and ached from
it, the furious helpless laughter which comes after the
sudden release from a terrible strain.  He was not,
as a rule, a demonstrative man, but he became aware
that he would like to dance and sing, and probably
he would have done both if it had not been for the
servant in the next room.

So there was no danger to be feared, and his terrors
of the night past—he shivered a little to think of
them—had been after all useless terrors!  As for
the prisoner out at La Lierre nothing was to be
feared from him so long as a careful watch was
kept.  Later on he might have to be disposed of,
since both bullet and poison had failed (he scowled
over that, remembering a bad quarter of an hour
with O'Hara early this morning), but that matter
could wait.  Some way would present itself.  He
thought of the wholly gratuitous lie he had told
Hartley, a thing born of a moment's malice, and he
laughed again.  It struck him that it would be very
humorous if Hartley should come to suspect his
friend of turning aside from his great endeavours
to enter upon an affair with a lady.  He dimly
remembered that Ste. Marie's name had, from time
to time, been a good deal involved in romantic
histories, and he said to himself that his lie had
been very well chosen indeed, and might be
expected to cause Richard Hartley much anguish of
spirit.

After that he lighted a very large cigarette, half as
big as a cigar, and he lay back in his low comfortable
chair, and began to think of the outcome of all this
plotting and planning.  As is very apt to be the
case when a great danger has been escaped, he
was in a mood of extreme hopefulness and confidence.
Vaguely he felt as if the recent happenings
had set him ahead a pace towards his goal, though, of
course, they had done nothing of the kind.  The
danger that would exist so long as Ste. Marie, who
knew everything, was alive, seemed in some
miraculous fashion to have dwindled to insignificance; in
this rebound from fear and despair, difficulties
were swept away and the path was clear.  The
man's mind leapt to his goal, and a little shiver of
prospective joy ran over him.  Once that goal
gained he could defy the world.  Let eyes look
askance, let tongues wag, he would be safe then—safe
for all the rest of his life, and rich, rich, rich!

For he was playing against a feeble old man's
life.  Day by day he watched the low flame sink
lower, as the flame of an exhausted lamp sinks and
flickers.  It was slow, for the old man had still
a little strength left, but the will to live—which
was the oil in the lamp—was almost gone and the
waiting could not be long now.  One day, quite
suddenly, the flame would sink down to almost
nothing, as at last it does in the spent lamp.  It would
flicker up and down rapidly for a few moments,
and all at once there would be no flame there.  Old
David would be dead, and a servant would be sent
across the river in haste to the Rue du Faubourg
St. Honoré.  Stewart lay back in his chair and tried
to imagine that it was true, that it had already
happened, as happen it must before long, and once
more the little shiver which was like a shiver of
voluptuous delight ran up and down his limbs,
and his breath began to come fast and hard.

But Richard Hartley drove at once back to the
Rue d'Assas.  He was not very much disappointed in
having learnt nothing from Stewart, though he was
thoroughly angry at that gentleman's hint about
Ste. Marie and the unknown lady.  He had gone to the
Rue du Faubourg because, as he had said, he wished
to leave no stone unturned, and, after all, he had
thought it quite possible that Stewart could give
him some information which would be of value.
Hartley firmly believed the elder man to be a
rascal, but, of course, he knew nothing definite save
the two facts which he had accidentally learnt
from Helen Benham, and it had occurred to him
that Captain Stewart might have sent Ste. Marie
off upon another wild-goose chase such as the
expedition to Dinard had been.  He would have
been sure that the elder man had had something
do to with Ste. Marie's disappearance if the latter
had not been seen since Stewart's party, but instead
of that Ste. Marie had come home, slept, gone out
the next morning, returned again, received a visitor,
and gone out to lunch.  It was all very puzzling
and mysterious.

His mind went back to the brief interview with
Stewart and dwelt upon it.  Little things which had
at the time made no impression upon him began to
recur and to take on significance.  He
remembered the elder man's odd and strained manner
at the beginning, his sudden and causeless change
to ease and a something that was almost like a
triumphant excitement, and then his absurd story
about Ste. Marie's flirtation with a lady.  Hartley
thought of these things, he thought also of the fact
that Ste. Marie had disappeared immediately after
hearing grave accusations against Stewart.  Could
he have lost his head, rushed across the city at
once to confront the middle-aged villain, and
then—disappeared from human ken?  It would have been
very like him to do something rashly impulsive upon
reading that note.

Hartley broke into a sudden laugh of sheer
amusement when he realised to what a wild and
improbable flight his fancy was soaring.  He could
not quite rid himself of a feeling that Stewart was,
in some mysterious fashion, responsible for his
friend's vanishing.  But he was unlike Ste. Marie;
he did not trust his feelings, either good or bad,
unless they were backed by excellent evidence,
and he had to admit that there was not a single
scrap of evidence, in this instance, against Miss
Benham's uncle.

The girl's name recalled him to another duty.
He must tell her about Ste. Marie.  He was by this
time halfway up the Boulevard St. Germain, but
he gave a new order and the fiacre turned back
to the Rue de l'Université.  The footman at the
door said that mademoiselle was not in the drawing-room,
as it was only four o'clock, but that he thought
she was in the house.  So Hartley sent up his name
and went in to wait.

Miss Benham came down looking a little pale
and anxious.

"I've been with grandfather," she explained.
"He had some sort of sinking spell last night, and
we were very much frightened.  He's much better,
but—well he couldn't have many such spells and
live.  I'm afraid he grows a good deal weaker, day
by day, now.  He sees hardly any one outside the
family, except Baron de Vries."  She sat down
with a little sigh of fatigue and smiled up at her
visitor.

"I'm glad you've come," said she.  "You'll
cheer me up and I rather need it.  What are you
looking so solemn about, though?  You won't
cheer me up if you look like that."

"Well, you see," said Hartley, "I came at this
impossible hour to bring you some bad news.  I'm
sorry.

"Perhaps," he conditioned, "bad news is putting
it with too much seriousness.  Strange news is
better.  To be brief, Ste. Marie has disappeared—vanished
into thin air.  I thought you ought to know."

"Ste. Marie!" cried the girl.  "How?  What
do you mean—vanished?  When did he vanish?"  She
gave a sudden exclamation of relief.

"Oh, he has come upon some clue or other and
has rushed off to follow it.  That's all—How dare
you frighten me so?"

"He went without luggage," said the man, shaking
his head, "and he left no word of any kind behind
him.  He went out to lunch yesterday about noon,
and, as I said, simply vanished, leaving no trace
whatever behind him.  I've just been to see your
uncle, thinking that he might know something,
but he doesn't."

The girl looked up quickly.

"My uncle?" she said.  "Why my uncle?"

"Well," said Hartley, "you see Ste. Marie went
to a little party at your uncle's flat on the night
before he disappeared, and I thought your uncle
might have heard him say something that would
throw light on his movements the next day."  Hartley
remembered the unfortunate incident of
the galloping pigs, and hurried on—

"He went to the party more for the purpose of
having a talk with your uncle than for any other
reason, I think.  I was to have gone myself, but
gave it up at the eleventh hour for the Cain's dinner
at Armenonville.

"Well, the next morning after Captain Stewart's
party he went out early.  I called at his rooms to see
him about something important that I thought he
ought to know.  I missed him, and so left a note
for him, which he got on his return and read.  I
found it open on his table later on.  At noon he
went out again, and that's all.  Frankly, I'm
worried about him."

Miss Benham watched the man with thoughtful
eyes and, when he had finished, she asked—

"Could you tell me what was in this note that you
left for Ste. Marie?"

Hartley was by nature a very open and frank
young man, and in consequence an unusually bad
liar.  He hesitated and looked away and he began
to turn red.

"Well—no," he said after a moment, "no, I'm
afraid I can't.  It was something you wouldn't
understand—wouldn't know about."  And the girl
said, "Oh!" and remained for a little while silent.

But at the end she looked up and met his eyes, and
the man saw that she was very grave.  She said—

"Richard, there is something that you and I
have been avoiding and pretending not to see.  It
has gone too far now, and we're got to face it with
perfect frankness.  I know what was in your note to
Ste. Marie.  It was what you found out the other
evening about—my uncle, the matter of the will
and the other matter.  He knew about the will, but
he told you and Ste. Marie that he didn't.  He
said to you also that I had told him about my
engagement and Ste. Marie's determination to search
for Arthur, and that was—a lie.  I didn't tell him,
and grandfather didn't tell him.  He listened in
the door yonder and heard it himself.  I have a good
reason for knowing that.

"And then," she said, "he tried very hard to
persuade you and Ste. Marie to take up your
search under his direction, and he partly succeeded.
He sent Ste. Marie upon a foolish expedition to
Dinard, and he gave him and gave you other clues
just as foolish as that one.

"Richard, do you believe that my uncle has
hidden poor Arthur away somewhere, or—worse
than that?  Do you?  Tell me the truth!"

"There is not," said Hartley, "one particle of
real evidence against him that I'm aware of.
There's plenty of motive, if you like, but motive is
not evidence."

"I asked you a question," the girl said.  "Do
you believe my uncle has been responsible for
Arthur's disappearance?"

"Yes," said Richard Hartley, "I'm afraid I do."

"Then," she said, "he has been responsible for
Ste. Marie's disappearance also.  Ste. Marie became
dangerous to him and so vanished.  What can we
do, Richard?  What can we do?"

.. _`"'What can we do, Richard? What can we do?'"`:

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   :alt: "'What can we do, Richard? What can we do?'"

   "'What can we do, Richard? What can we do?'"





.. vspace:: 4

.. _`A CONVERSATION OVERHEARD`:

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   CHAPTER XVIII


.. class:: center medium bold

   A CONVERSATION OVERHEARD

.. vspace:: 2

In the upper chamber at La Lierre the days
dragged very slowly by, and the man who
lay in bed there counted interminable hours, and
prayed for the coming of night with its merciful
oblivion of sleep.  His inaction was made bitterer
by the fact that the days were days of green and
gold, of breeze-stirred tree-tops without his windows,
of vagrant sweet airs that stole in upon his solitude,
bringing him all the warm fragrance of summer
and of green things growing.

He suffered little pain.  There was, for the first
three or four days, a dull and feverish ache in his
wounded leg, but presently even that passed and
the leg hurt him only when he moved it.  He
thought sometimes that he would be grateful for
a bit of physical anguish to make the hours pass
more quickly.

The other inmates of the house held aloof from
him.  Once a day O'Hara came in to see to the
wound, but he maintained a well-nigh complete
silence over his work and answered questions only
with a brief yes or no.  Sometimes he did not
answer them at all.  The old Michel came twice
daily, but this strange being had quite plainly been
frightened into dumbness, and there was nothing to
be got out of him.  He shambled hastily about the
place, his one scared eye upon the man in bed,
and as soon as possible fled away, closing the door
behind him.  Sometimes Michel brought in the
meals, sometimes his wife, a creature so like him
that the two might well have passed for twin
survivors of some unknown race; sometimes—thrice
altogether in that first week—Coira O'Hara brought
the tray, and she was as silent as the others.

So Ste. Marie was left alone to get through the
interminable days as best he might, and ever
afterwards the week remained in his memory as a sort
of nightmare.  Lying idle in his bed he evolved
many surprising and fantastic schemes for escape—for
getting word to the outside world of his presence
here, and one by one he gave them up in disgust
as their impossibility forced itself upon him.
Plans and schemes were useless while he lay
bed-ridden, unfamiliar even with the house wherein he
dwelt, with the garden and park that surrounded it.

As for aid from any of the inmates of the place,
that was to be laughed at.  They were engaged
together in a scheme so desperate that failure
must mean utter ruin to them all.  He sometimes
wondered if the two servants could be bribed.
Avarice unmistakable gleamed from their little
glittering rat-like eyes, but he was sure that they
would sell out for no small sum and, in so far as he
could remember, there had been in his pockets
when he came here not more than five or six louis.
Doubtless the old Michel had managed to abstract
those in his daily offices about the room, for
Ste. Marie knew that the clothes hung in a closet across
from his bed.  He had seen them there once when
the closet door was open.

Any help that might come to him must come
from outside—and what help was to be expected
there?  Over and over again he reminded himself
of how little Richard Hartley knew.  He might
suspect Stewart of complicity in this new
disappearance, but how was he to find out anything
definite?  How was any one to do so?

It was at such times as this, when brain and
nerves were strained and worn almost to breaking
point that Ste. Marie had occasion to be grateful
for the southern blood that was in him, the strong
tinge of fatalism which is common alike to Latin
and to Oriental.  It rescued him more than once
from something like nervous breakdown, calmed
him suddenly, lifted his burdens from outwearied
shoulders, and left him in peace to wait until some
action should be possible.  Then, in such hours,
he would fall to thinking of the girl for whose sake,
in whose cause, he lay bedridden, beset with dangers.
As long before, she came to him in a sort of waking
vision—a being but half earthly, enthroned high
above him, calm-browed, very pure, with passionless
eyes that gazed into far distance and were
unaware of the base things below.  What would
she think of him, who had sworn to be true knight
to her, if she could know how he had bungled and
failed?  He was glad that she did not know, that
if he had blundered into peril the knowledge of it
could not reach her to hurt her pride.

And sometimes also, with a great sadness and
pity, he thought of poor Coira O'Hara and of the
pathetic wreck her life had fallen into.  The girl
was so patently fit for better things!  Her splendid
beauty was not a cheap beauty.  She was no coarse-blown
gorgeous flower, imperfect at telltale points.
It was good blood that had modelled her dark
perfection, good blood that had shaped her long
and slim and tapering hands.

"A queen among goddesses!"  The words
remained with him and he knew that they were true.
She might have held up her head among the greatest,
this adventurer's girl; but what chance had she
had?  What merest ghost of a chance?

He watched her on the rare occasions when she
came into the room.  He watched the poise of her
head, her walk, the movements she made, and he
said to himself that there was no woman of his
acquaintance whose grace was more perfect—certainly
none whose grace was so native.

Once he complained to her of the desperate
idleness of his days and asked her to lend him a
book of some kind, a review, even a daily newspaper,
though it be a week old.

"I should read the very advertisements with
joy," he said.

She went out of the room and returned presently
with an armful of books, which she laid upon the
bed without comment.

"In my prayers, mademoiselle," cried
Ste. Marie, "you shall be foremost forever!"  He
glanced at the row of titles and looked up in sheer
astonishment.

"May I ask whose books these are?" he said.

"They are mine," said the girl.  "I caught up
the ones that lay first at hand.  If you don't care
for any of them I will choose others."  The books
were: *Diana of the Crossways*, *Richard Feverel*,
Henri Lavedan's *Le Duel*, Maeterlinck's *Pelleas
et Melisande*, *Don Quixote de la Mancha*, in Spanish,
a volume of Virgil's *Eclogues*, and the *Life of the
Chevalier Bayard* by the "Loyal Servitor."  Ste. Marie
stared at her.

"Do you read Spanish?" he demanded, "and
Latin, as well as French and English?"

"My mother was Spanish," said she.  "And as
for Latin, I began to read it with my father when
I was a child.  Shall I leave the books here?"

Ste. Marie took up the *Bayard* and held it between
his hands.

"It is worn from much reading, mademoiselle,"
he said.

"It is the best of all," said she.  "The very
best of all.  I didn't know I had brought you that."  She
made a step towards him as if she would take
the book away, and over it the eyes of them met
and were held.  In that moment it may have come
to them both who she was, who so loved the knight
without fear and without reproach—the daughter
of an Irish adventurer of ill repute; for their faces
began suddenly to flush with red and after an instant
the girl turned away.

"It is of no consequence," said she.  "You may
keep the book if you care to."  And Ste. Marie
said very gently—

"Thank you, mademoiselle!  I will keep it for
a little while."  So she went out of the room and
left him alone.

This was at noon on the sixth day, and after he
had swallowed hastily the lunch which had been
set before him Ste. Marie fell upon the books like a
child upon a new box of sweets.  Like the child
again it was difficult for him to choose among them.
He opened one and then another, gloating over
them all, but in the end he chose the *Bayard* and
for hours lost himself among the high deeds of the
Preux Chevalier and his faithful friends (among
whom, by the way, there was a Ste. Marie who
died nobly for France).  It was late afternoon when
at last he laid the book down with a sigh and
settled himself more comfortably among the pillows.

The sun was not in the room at that hour but,
from where he lay, he could see it on the tree-tops,
gold upon green.  Outside his south window the
leaves of a chestnut which stood there quivered
and rustled gently under a soft breeze.  Delectable
odours floated in to Ste. Marie's nostrils, and he
thought how very pleasant it would be if he were
lying on the turf under the trees, instead of
bed-ridden in this upper chamber, which he had come to
hate with a bitter hatred.

He began to wonder if it would be possible to
drag himself across the floor to that south window,
and so to lie down for a while with his head in the
tiny balcony beyond—his eyes turned to the blue
sky.  Astir with the new thought he sat up in bed
and carefully swung his feet out till they hung to
the floor.  The wound in the left leg smarted and
burnt, but not too severely, and with slow pains
Ste. Marie stood up.  He almost cried out when he
discovered that it could be done quite easily.  He
essayed to walk and he was a little weak, but by no
means helpless.  He found that it gave him pain
to raise his left leg in the ordinary action of walking,
or to bend that knee, but he could get about well
enough by dragging the injured member beside
him, for when it was straight it supported him
without protest.

He took his pillows across to the window and
disposed them there, for it was a French window
opening to the floor, and the level of the little balcony
outside was but a few inches above the level of
the room.  Then the desire seized him to make a
tour of his prison walls.  He went first to the closet
where he had seen his clothes hanging, and they
were still there.  He felt in the pockets and
withdrew his little English pig-skin sovereign purse.
It had not been tampered with, and he gave an
exclamation of relief over that, for he might later
on have use for money.  There were eight louis
in it, each in its little separate compartment, and
in another pocket he found a fifty-franc note and
some silver.  He went to the two east windows
and looked out.  The trees stood thick together on
that side of the house, but between two of them he
could see the park wall fifty yards away.  He
glanced down, and the side of the house was covered
thick with the ivy which had given the place its
name, but there was no water pipe near nor any
other thing which seemed to offer foot or hand
hold—unless perhaps the ivy might prove strong
enough to bear a man's weight.  Ste. Marie made
a mental note to look into that when he was a
little stronger, and turned back to the south window,
where he had disposed his pillows.

The unaccustomed activity was making his
wound smart and prickle, and he lay down at once,
with head and shoulders in the open air; and, out
of the warm and golden sunshine and the emerald
shade, the breath of summer came to him and
wrapped him round with sweetness and pillowed
him upon its fragrant breast.

He became aware, after a long time, of voices
below, and turned upon his elbows to look.  The
ivy had clambered upon and partly covered the
iron grille of the little balcony and he could observe
without being seen.  Young Arthur Benham and
Coira O'Hara had come out of the door of the house,
and they stood upon the raised and paved terrace
which ran the width of the façade, and seemed to
hesitate as to the direction they should take.
Ste. Marie heard the girl say—

"It's cooler here in the shade of the house,"
and, after a moment, the two came along the shady
terrace, whose outer margin was set at intervals
with stained and discoloured marble nymphs upon
pedestals, and, between the nymphs, with
moss-grown stone benches.  They halted before a bench
upon which, earlier in the day, a rug had been
spread out to dry in the sun and had been forgotten,
and, after a moment's further hesitation, they
sat down upon it.  Their faces were turned towards
the house and every word that they spoke mounted
in that still air clear and distinct to the ears of the
man above.

Ste. Marie wriggled back into the room and sat
up to consider.  The thought of deliberately
listening to a conversation not meant for him sent a hot
flush to his cheeks.  He told himself that it could
not be done, and that there was an end to the matter.
Whatever might hang upon it it could not be asked
of him that he should stoop to dishonour.  But
at that the heavy and grave responsibility which
really did hang upon him and upon his actions
came before his mind's eyes and loomed there
mountainous.  The fate of this foolish boy, who
was set round with thieves and adventurers—even
though his eyes were open and he knew where he
stood—that came to Ste. Marie and confronted
him: and the picture of a bitter old man who was
dying of grief came to him: and a mother's face:
and *hers*.  There could be no dishonour in the face
of all this, only a duty very clear and plain.  He
crept back to his place, his arms folded beneath
him as he lay, his eyes at the thin screen of ivy
which cloaked the balcony grille.

Young Arthur Benham appeared to be giving
tongue to a rather sharp attack of homesickness.
It may be that long confinement within the walls
of La Lierre was beginning to try him somewhat.

"Mind you," he declared, as Ste. Marie's ears
came once more within range, "mind you, I'm
not saying that Paris hasn't got its points.  It
has.  Oh yes!  And so has London, and so has
Ostend, and so has Monte Carlo—Verree much so!—I
like Paris.  I like the theatres and the vaudeville
shows in the Champs Elysées, and I like
Longchamps.  I like the boys who hang around Henry's
bar.  They're good sports, all right, all right!  But,
by Golly, I want to go home!  Put me off at the
corner of Forty-second Street and Broadway and
I'll ask no more.  Set me down at seven p.m. right
there on the corner outside the *Knickerbocker*,
for that's where I would live and die."  There
came into the lad's somewhat strident voice a
softness that was almost pathetic.

"You don't know Broadway, Coira, do you?
Nix! of course not.  Little girl, it's the one, one street
of all this large world.  It's the equator that runs
north and south instead of east and west.  It's a
long bright gay live wire, that's what Broadway is.
And I give you my word of honour like a little
man that it—is—not—slow.  No indeed!  When
I was there last it was being called the *Gay White
Way*.  It is not called the *Gay White Way* now.
It has had forty other new good names since then,
and I don't know what they are, but I do know
that it is forever gay, and that the electric signs are
still blazing all along the street, and the street cars
are still killing people in the good old fashion, and
the newsboys are still dodging under the automobiles
to sell you a *Woild* or a *Choinal* or, if it's
after twelve at night, a *Morning Telegraph*.  Coira,
my girl, standing on that corner after dark you
can see the electric signs of fifteen theatres, no one
of them more than five minutes' walk away, and
just round the corner there are more.

"I want to go home!  I want to take one large
unparalleled leap from here and come down at the
corner I told you about.  D'you know what I'd
do?  We'll say it's seven p.m. and beginning to
get dark.  I'd dive into the *Knickerbocker* (that's
the hotel that the bright and happy people go to
for dinner or supper), and I'd engage a table up on
the terrace.  Then I'd telephone to a little friend
of mine, whose name is Doe—John Doe—and in
about ten minutes he'd have left the crowd he
was standing in line with and he'd come galloping
up that glad to see me you'd cry to watch him.
We'd go up on the terrace, where the potted palms
grow, for our dinner, and the tables all around us
would be full of people that would know Johnnie
Doe and me, and they'd all make us drink drinks
and tell us how glad they were to see us aboard again.

"And after dinner," said young Arthur Benham,
with wide and smiling eyes, "after dinner we'd
go to see one of the Roof Garden shows.  Let me
tell you they've got the *Marigny*, or the
Ambassadeurs, or the Jardin de Paris beaten to a
pulp—to—a—pulp!  And after the show we'd slip round
to the stage door—you bet we would!—and capture
the two most beautiful ladies in the world and take
'em off to supper."  He wrinkled his young brow
in great perplexity.

"Now I wonder," said he anxiously.  "I wonder
where we'd go for supper.

"You see," he apologised, "it's two years since
I left the Real Street, and Gee, what a lot can
happen on Broadway in two years!  There's
probably half a dozen new supper places that I
don't know anything about, and one of them's
the place where the crowd goes.  Well, anyhow,
we'd go to that place, and there'd be a band playing,
and the electric fans would go round, and round,
and Johnnie Doe and I and the two most beautiful
ladies would put it all over the other pikers there."

Young Benham gave a little sigh of pleasure
and excitement.

"That's what I'd like to do to-night," said he,
"and that's what I'll do, you can bet your sh—boots,
when all this silly mess is over and I'm a free man.
I'll hike back to good old Broadway, and if ever
you see any one trying to pry me loose from it again,
you can laugh yourself to death, because he'll
never, never succeed.

"Nine more weeks shut in here by stonewalls!"
said the boy, staring about him with a sort of
bitterness.  "Nine weeks more!"

"Is it so hard as that?" asked the girl.  There
was no foolish coquetry in her tone.  She spoke
as if the words involved no personal question at
all, but there was a little smile at her lips, and
Arthur Benham turned towards her quickly and
caught at her hands.

"No, no!" he cried.  "I didn't mean that.
You know I didn't mean that.  You're worth nine
years' waiting.  You're the best, d'you hear? the
best there is.  There's nobody anywhere that can
touch you.  Only—well, this place is getting on
my nerves.  It's got me worn to a frazzle.  I
feel like a criminal doing time."

"You came very near having to do time somewhere
else," said the girl.  "If this M. Ste. Marie
hadn't blundered we should have had them all
round our ears, and you'd have had to run for it."

"Yes," the boy said, nodding gravely.  "Yes,
that was great luck."  He raised his head and
looked up along the windows above him.

"Which is his room?" he asked, and Mlle. O'Hara said—

"The one just overhead, but he's in bed far back
from the window.  He couldn't possibly hear
us talking."  She paused for a moment in frowning
hesitation, and, in the end, said—

"Tell me about him, this Ste. Marie!  Do you
know anything about him?"

.. _`"'Tell me about him, this Ste. Marie! Do you know anything about him?'"`:

.. figure:: images/img-244.jpg
   :align: center
   :alt: "'Tell me about him, this Ste. Marie! Do you know anything about him?'"

   "'Tell me about him, this Ste. Marie! Do you know anything about him?'"

"No," said Arthur Benham, "I don't—not
personally, that is.  Of course I've heard of him.
Lots of people have spoken of him to me.  And the
odd part of it is that they all had a good word to
say.  Everybody seemed to like him.  I got the
idea that he was the best ever.  I wanted to know
him.  I never thought he'd take on a piece of dirty
work like this."

"Nor I!" said the girl, in a low voice.  "Nor
I!"  The boy looked up.

"Oh, you've heard of him too, then?" said he.
And she said, still in her low voice—

"I—saw him once."

"Well," declared young Benham, "it's beyond
me.  I give it up.  You never can tell about people,
can you?  I guess they'll all go wrong when there's
enough in it to make it worth while.  That's what
old Charlie always says.  He says most people
are straight enough when there's nothing in it, but
make the pot big enough and they'll all go crooked."  The
young man's face turned suddenly hard and
old and bitter.

"Gee!  I ought to know that well enough,
oughtn't I?" he said.  "I guess nobody knows
that better than I do after what happened to me...
Come along and take a walk in the garden, Maud!
I'm sick of sitting still."

Mlle. Coira O'Hara looked up with a start, as if
she had not been listening, but she rose, when the
boy held out his hand to her, and the two went
down from the terrace and moved off towards the west.

Ste. Marie watched them until they had
disappeared among the trees, and then turned on
his back, staring up into the softly stirring canopy
of green above him, and the little rifts of bright
blue sky.  He did not understand at all.  Something
mysterious had crept in where all had seemed
so plain to the eye.  Certain words that young
Arthur Benham had spoken repeated themselves
in his mind and he could not at once make them
out.  Assuredly there was something mysterious here.

In the first place what did the boy mean by
"dirty work"?  To be sure spying in its usual
sense is not held to be one of the noblest of
occupations, but—in such a cause as this!  It was
absurd, ridiculous, to call it "dirty work."  And
what did he mean by the words which he had used
afterwards?  Ste. Marie did not quite follow the
idiom about the "big enough pot," but he assumed
that it referred to money.  Did the young fool
think he was being paid for his efforts?  That was
ridiculous too.

The boy's face came before him as it had looked
with that sudden hard and bitter expression.  What
did he mean by saying that no one knew the crookedness
of humanity under money temptation better
than he knew it after something that had happened
to him?  In a sense his words were doubtless
very true.  Captain Stewart (and he must have
been "old Charlie"—Ste. Marie remembered that
the name was Charles), O'Hara and O'Hara's
daughter stood excellent samples of that bit of
cynicism, but obviously the boy had not spoken
in that sense—certainly not before Mlle. O'Hara!
He meant something else, then.  But what?  What?

Ste. Marie rose with some difficulty to his feet,
and carried the pillows back to the bed whence
he had taken them.  He sat down upon the edge
of the bed, staring in great perplexity across the
room at the open window, but all at once he uttered
an exclamation, and he smote his hands together.

"That boy doesn't know!" he cried.  "They're
tricking him, these others!"

The lad's face came once more before him, and
it was a foolish and stubborn face perhaps, but
it was neither vicious nor mean.  It was the face
of an honest headstrong boy, who would be incapable
of the cold cruelty to which all circumstances
seemed to point.

"They're tricking him somehow!" cried Ste. Marie
again.  "They're lying to him and making
him think——"

What was it they were making him think, these
three conspirators?  What possible thing could
they make him think other than the plain truth?
Ste. Marie shook a weary head and lay down among
his pillows.  He wished that he had "old Charlie"
in a corner of that room with his fingers round
"old Charlie's" wicked throat.  He would soon
get at the truth then: or O'Hara either, that grim
and saturnine *chevalier d'industrie*, though O'Hara
would be a bad handful to manage: or—Ste. Marie's
head dropped back with a little groan when
the face of young Arthur's enchantress came
between him and the opposite wall of the room, and
her great and tragic eyes looked into his.

It seemed incredible that that queen among
goddesses should be what she was!





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.. _`THE INVALID TAKES THE AIR`:

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   CHAPTER XIX


.. class:: center medium bold

   THE INVALID TAKES THE AIR

.. vspace:: 2

When O'Hara, the next morning, went
through the formality of looking in upon
his patient, and after a taciturn nod was about to
go away again, Ste. Marie called him back.  He
said—

"Would you mind waiting a moment?" and
the Irishman halted inside the door.

"I made an experiment yesterday," said
Ste. Marie, "and I find that, after a poor fashion, I
can walk—that is to say, I can drag myself about
a little, without any great pain, if I don't bend the
left leg."

O'Hara returned to the bed and made a silent
examination of the bullet wound which, it was plain
to see, was doing very well indeed.

"You'll be all right in a few days," said he,
"but you'll be lame for a week yet—maybe two.
As a matter of fact, I've known men to march half
a day with a hole in the leg worse than yours, though
it probably was not quite pleasant."

"I'm afraid I couldn't march very far," said
Ste. Marie, "but I can hobble a bit.  The point is,
I'm going mad from confinement in this room.  Do
you think I might be allowed to stagger about the
garden for an hour, or sit there under one of the
trees?  I don't like to ask favours, but—so far as
I can see it could do no harm.  I couldn't possibly
escape, you see.  I couldn't climb a fifteen foot
wall even if I had two good legs: as it is, with a
leg and a half, I couldn't climb anything."

The Irishman looked at him sharply, and was
silent for a time as if considering.  But at last he
said—

"Of course there is no reason whatever for
granting you any favours here.  You're on the
footing of a spy—a captured spy, and you're very
lucky not to have got what you deserved instead
of a trumpery flesh wound."  The man's face twisted
into a heavy scowl.

"Unfortunately," said he, "an—accident has
put me—put us in as unpleasant a position towards
you as you had put yourself towards us.  We
seem to stand in the position of having tried to
poison you, and—well, we owe you something for
that.  Still, I'd meant to keep you locked up in
this room so long as it was necessary to have you
at La Lierre."  He scowled once more in an
intimidating fashion at Ste. Marie, and it was evident
that he found himself embarrassed.

"And," he said awkwardly, "I suppose I owe
something to your father's son....  Look here! if
you're to be allowed in the garden you must
understand that it's at fixed hours and not alone.
Somebody will always be with you, and old Michel
will be on hand to shoot you down if you try to run
for it, or if you try to communicate with Arthur
Benham.  Is that understood?"

"Quite!" said Ste. Marie gaily.

"Quite understood and agreed to.  And many
thanks for your courtesy.  I shan't forget it.  We
differ rather widely on some rather important
subjects, you and I, but I must confess that you're
very generous, and I thank you.  The old Michel
has my full permission to shoot at me if he sees me
trying to fly over a fifteen foot wall."

"He'll shoot without asking your permission,"
said the Irishman grimly, "if you try that on, but
I don't think you'll be apt to try it for the present—not
with a crippled leg."  He pulled out his watch
and looked at it.

"Nine o'clock," said he.  "If you care to
begin to-day you can go out at eleven for an
hour.  I'll see that old Michel is ready at that time."

"Eleven will suit me perfectly," said Ste. Marie.
"You're very good.  Thanks once more!"  The
Irishman did not seem to hear.  He replaced the
watch in his pocket and turned away in silence.
But before he left the room he stood a moment
beside one of the windows, staring out into the
morning sunshine, and the other man could see
that his face had once more settled into the still
and melancholic gloom which was characteristic
of it.  Ste. Marie watched and, for the first time,
the man began to interest him as a human being.
He had thought of O'Hara before merely as a
rather shady adventurer of a not very rare type,
but he looked at the adventurer's face now, and
he saw that it was the face of a man of unspeakable
sorrows.  When O'Hara looked at one, one saw
only a pair of singularly keen and hard blue eyes
set under a bony brow.  When those eyes were
turned away, the man's attention relaxed, the face
became a battleground furrowed and scarred with
wrecked pride and with bitterness and with shame
and with agony.  Most soldiers of fortune have
faces like that, for the world has used them very
ill, and they have lost one precious thing after
another until all are gone; and they have tasted
everything that there is in life, and the flavour
which remains is a very bitter flavour—dry like ashes.

It came to Ste. Marie, as he lay watching this
man, that the story of the man's life, if he could
be made to tell it would doubtless be one of the
most interesting stories in the world, as must be the
tale of the adventurous career of any one who has
slipped down the ladder of respectability rung by
rung into that shadowy no-man's-land, where the
furtive birds of prey foregather and hatch their
plots.  It was plain enough that O'Hara had, as
the phrase goes, seen better days.  Without question
he was a villain, but after all a generous villain.
He had been very decent about making amends
for that poisoning affair.  A cheaper rascal would
have behaved otherwise.  Ste. Marie suddenly
remembered what a friend of his had once said of
this mysterious Irishman.  The two had been
sitting on the terrace of a café, and, as O'Hara
passed by, Ste. Marie's friend pointed after him
and said: "There goes some of the best blood
that ever came out of Ireland.  See what it has
fallen to!"

Seemingly it had fallen pretty low.  He would
have liked very much to know about the downward
stages, but he knew that he would never hear
anything of them from the man himself, for O'Hara
was clad, as it were, in an armour of taciturnity.
He was incredibly silent.  He wore mail that
nothing could pierce.

The Irishman turned abruptly away and left
the room, and Ste. Marie, with all the gay excitement
of a little girl preparing for her first nursery
party, began to get himself ready to go out.  The
old Michel had already been there to help him
bathe and shave, so that he had only to dress
himself and attend to his one conspicuous vanity—the
painstaking arrangement of his hair, which he wore,
according to the fashion of the day, parted a little
at one side and brushed almost straight back, so
that it looked rather like a close-fitting and
incredibly glossy skull-cap.  Richard Hartley, who
was inclined to joke at his friend's grave interest
in the matter, said that it reminded him of patent
leather.

When he was dressed—and he found that putting
on his left boot was no mean feat—Ste. Marie sat
down in a chair by the window and lighted a cigarette.
He had half an hour to wait, and so he picked
up the volume of Bayard, which Coira O'Hara had
not yet taken away from him, and began to read
in it at random.  He became so absorbed that the
old Michel, come to summon him, took him by
surprise.  But it was a pleasant surprise and
very welcome.  He followed the old man out of
the room with a heart that beat fast with eagerness.

The descent of the stairs offered difficulties, for
the wounded leg protested sharply against being
bent more than a very little at the knee.  But, by
aid of Michel's shoulder, he made the passage in
safety, and so came to the lower story.  At the foot
of the stairs some one opened a door almost in
their faces, but closed it again with great haste,
and Ste. Marie gave a chuckle of laughter, for, though
it was almost dark there, he thought he had recognised
Captain Stewart.

"So old Charlie's with us to-day, is he?" he
said aloud, and Michel queried: "*Comment,
monsieur?*" because Ste. Marie had spoken in English.

They came out upon the terrace before the house,
and the fresh sweet air bore against their faces,
and little flecks of live gold danced and shivered
about their feet upon the moss-stained tiles.  The
gardener stepped back for an instant into the
doorway and reappeared, bearing across his arms the
short carbine with which Ste. Marie had already
made acquaintance.  The victim looked at this
weapon with a laugh, and the old Michel's
gnome-like countenance distorted itself suddenly and a
weird cackle came from it.

"It is my old friend?" demanded Ste. Marie,
and the gardener cackled once more, stroking the
barrel of the weapon as if it were a faithful dog.

"The same, monsieur," said he.  "But she
apologises for not doing better."

"Beg her for me," said the young man, "to
cheer up.  She may get another chance."  Old
Michel's face froze into an expression of anxious
and rather frightened solicitude, but he waved his
arm for the prisoner to precede him, and Ste. Marie
began to limp down across the littered and unkempt
sweep of turf.  Behind him at the distance of a
dozen paces he heard the shambling footfalls of
his guard, but he had expected that, and it could
not rob him of his swelling and exultant joy at
treading once more upon green grass and looking
up into blue sky.  He was like a man newly released
from a dungeon, rather than from a sunny and
by no means uncomfortable upper chamber.  He
would have liked to dance and sing, to run at full
speed like a child until he was breathless and red
in the face.  Instead of that he had to drag himself
with slow pains and some discomfort, but his spirit
ran ahead, dancing and singing, and he thought
that it even halted now and then to roll on the grass.

As he had observed, a week before from the top
of his wall, a double row of larches led straight down
away from the front of the house, making a wide
and long vista interrupted, halfway to its end, by
a *rond point*, in the centre of which was a pool and
a fountain.  The double row of trees was sadly
broken now, and the trees were untrimmed and
uncared for.  One of them had fallen, probably
in a wind storm, and lay dead across the way.
Ste. Marie turned aside towards the west and found
himself presently among chestnuts, planted in
close rows, whose tops grew in so thick a canopy
above that but little sunshine came through, and
there was no turf under foot, only black earth hard
trodden, mossy here and there.

From beyond, in the direction he had chanced
to take and a little towards the west, a soft morning
breeze bore to him the scent of roses, so constant
and so sweet despite its delicacy that to breathe
it was like an intoxication.  He felt it begin to
take hold upon and to sway his senses like an
exquisite, an insidious wine.

"The flower gardens, Michel?" he asked over
his shoulder.  "They are before us?"

"Ahead and to the left, monsieur," said the
old man, and he took up once more his slow and
difficult progress.  But again, before he had gone
many steps, he was halted.  There began to reach
his ears a rich but slender strain of sound, a golden
thread of melody.  At first he thought that it was a
cello or the lower notes of a violin, but presently
he became aware that it was a woman singing
in a half-voice without thought of what she
sang—as women croon to a child, or over their work, or
when they are idle and their thoughts are far
wandering.

The mistake was not as absurd as it may seem,
for it is a fact that the voice which is called a
contralto, if it is a good and clear and fairly resonant
voice, sounds at a distance very much indeed like
a cello or the lower register of a violin.  And that
is especially true when the voice is hushed to a
half-articulate murmur.  Indeed, this is but one
of the many strange peculiarities of that most
beautiful of all human organs.  The contralto can
rarely express the lighter things, and it is quite
impossible for it to express merriment or gaiety,
but it can thrill the heart as can no other sound
emitted by a human throat, and it can shake the
soul to its very innermost hidden deeps.  It is the
soft yellow gold of singing—the wine of sound:
it is mystery: it is shadowy unknown beautiful
places: it is enchantment.

Ste. Marie stood still and listened.  The sound
of low singing came from the right.  Without
realising that he had moved he began to make his
way in that direction, and the old Michel, carbine
upon arm, followed behind him.  He had no doubt
of the singer.  He knew well who it was, for the
girl's speaking voice had thrilled him long before
this.  He came to the eastern margin of the grove
of chestnuts, and found that he was beside the
open *rond point* where the pool lay within its stone
circumference, unclean and choked with lily pads,
and the fountain, a naked lady holding aloft a shell,
stood above.  The *rond point* was not in reality
round, it was an oval with its greater axis at right
angles to the long straight avenue of larches.  At
the two ends of the oval there were stone benches
with backs, and behind these tall shrubs grew close
and overhung so that even at noonday the spots
were shaded.





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.. _`THE STONE BENCH AT THE ROND POINT`:

.. class:: center large bold

   CHAPTER XX


.. class:: center medium bold

   THE STONE BENCH AT THE ROND POINT

.. vspace:: 2

Mlle. Coira O'Hara sat alone upon the
stone bench at the hither end of the *rond
point*.  With a leisurely hand she put fine stitches
into a mysterious garment of white, with lace on
it, and, over her not too arduous toil, she sang *à
demi voix*, a little German song all about the tender
passions.

.. _`"Mlle. Coira O'Hara sat alone upon the stone bench."`:

.. figure:: images/img-257.jpg
   :align: center
   :alt: "Mlle. Coira O'Hara sat alone upon the stone bench."

   "Mlle. Coira O'Hara sat alone upon the stone bench."

Ste. Marie halted his dragging steps a little way
off, but the girl heard him and turned to look.  After
that she rose hurriedly and stood as if poised for
flight, but Ste. Marie took his hat in his hands and
came forward.

"If you go away, mademoiselle," said he; "if
you let me drive you from your place, I shall limp
across to that pool and fall in and drown myself, or
I shall try to climb the wall yonder and Michel will
have to shoot me."  He came forward another step.

"If it is impossible," he said, "that you and I
should stay here together for a few little moments,
and talk about what a beautiful day it is—if that
is impossible, why then I must apologise for
intruding upon you and go on my way, inexorably pursued
by the would-be murderer who now stands six paces
to the rear.

"Is it impossible, mademoiselle?" said Ste. Marie.

The girl's face was flushed with that deep and
splendid understain.  She looked down upon the
white garment in her hand and away across the
broad *rond point*, and, in the end, she looked up
very gravely into the face of the man who stood
leaning upon his stick before her.

"I don't know," she said in her deep voice,
"what my father would wish.  I did not know
that you were coming into the garden this morning
or——"

"Or else," said Ste. Marie with a little touch of
bitterness in his tone, "or else you would not
have been here.  You would have remained in the house."

He made a bow.

"To-morrow, mademoiselle," said he, "and for
the remainder of the days that I may be at La
Lierre, I shall stay in my room.  You need have
no fear of me."  All the man's life he had been
spoilt.  The girl's bearing hurt him absurdly, and
a little of the hurt may have betrayed itself in his
face as he turned away, for she came towards him
with a swift movement, saying—

"No! no!  Wait!

"I have hurt you," she said with a sort of
wondering distress.  "You have let me hurt you....
And yet surely you must see ... you
must realise on what terms ... Do you forget
that you are not among your friends
... outside? ... This is so very different!"

"I had forgotten," said he.  "Incredible as it
sounds, I had for a moment forgotten.  Will you
grant me your pardon for that?

"And yet," he persisted after a moment's pause,
"yet, mademoiselle, consider a little!  It is likely
that—circumstances have so fallen that it seems
I shall be here within your walls for a time, perhaps
a long time.  I am able to walk a little now.  Day
by day I shall be stronger, better able to get about.
Is there not some way—are there not some terms
under which we could meet without embarrassment?
Must we for ever glare at each other and pass by
warily, just because we—well, hold different views
about—something?"  It was not a premeditated
speech at all.  It had never until this moment
occurred to him to suggest any such arrangement
with any member of the household at La Lierre.
At another time he would doubtless have considered
it undignified if not downright unwise to hold
intercourse of any friendly sort with this band of
contemptible adventurers.  The sudden impulse may
have been born of his long week of almost intolerable
loneliness, or it may have come of the warm
exhilaration of this first breath of sweet outdoor air,
or perhaps it needed neither of these things, for
the girl was very beautiful—enchantment breathed
from her, and though he knew what she was, in what
despicable plot she was engaged, he was too much
Ste. Marie to be quite indifferent to her.  Though
he looked upon her sorrowfully and with pain and
vicarious shame, he could not have denied the spell
she wielded.  After all he was Ste. Marie.

Once more the girl looked up very gravely under
her brows and her eyes met the man's eyes.

"I don't know," she said.  "Truly I don't know.
I think I should have to ask my father about it.

"I wish," she said, "that we might do that.  I
should like it.  I should like to be able to talk to
some one—about the things I like—and care for.
I used to talk with my father about things.  But
not lately.  There is no one now."  Her eyes
searched him.

"Would it be possible, I wonder," said she.
"Could we two put everything else aside—forget
altogether who we are and why we are here.  Is
that possible?"

"We could only try, mademoiselle," said Ste. Marie.
"If we found it a failure we could give it
up."  He broke into a little laugh.

"And besides," he said, "I can't help thinking
that two people ought to be with me all the time I
am in the garden here—for safety's sake.  I might
catch the old Michel napping one day, you know,
throttle him, take his rifle away and escape.  If
there were two I couldn't do that."

For an instant she met his laugh with an answering
smile, and the smile came upon her sombre beauty
like a moment of golden light upon darkness.  But
afterwards she was grave again and thoughtful.

"Is it not rather foolish," she asked, "to warn
us—to warn me of possibilities like that?  You
might quite easily do what you have said.  You are
putting us on our guard against you."

"I meant to, mademoiselle," said Ste. Marie.
"I meant to.  Consider my reasons.  Consider
what I was pleading for!"  And he gave a little
laugh when the colour began again to rise in the
girl's cheeks.

She turned away from him, shaking her head,
and he thought that he had said too much and that
she was offended, but after a moment the girl looked
up and, when she met his eyes, she laughed outright.

"I cannot for ever be scowling and snarling at
you," said she.  "It is quite too absurd.  Will you
sit down for a little while?  I don't know whether
or not my father would approve, but we have met
here by accident, and there can be no harm surely
in our exchanging a few civil words.  If you try to
bring up forbidden topics I can simply go away—and
besides Michel stands ready to murder you if it
should become necessary.  I think his failure of a
week ago is very heavy on his conscience."

Ste. Marie sat down in one corner of the long
stone bench, and he was very glad to do it, for his leg
was beginning to cause him some discomfort.  It
felt hot, and as if there were a very tight band round
it above the knee.  The relief must have been
apparent in his face, for Mlle. O'Hara looked at
him in silence for a moment, and she gave a little
troubled anxious frown.  Men can be quite
indifferent to suffering in each other if the suffering
is not extreme, and women can be too; but men are
quite miserable in the presence of a woman who is
in pain, and women, before a suffering man, while
they are not miserable are always full of a desire
to do something that will help.  And that might
be a small additional proof (if any more proof were
necessary) that they are much the more practical
of the two sexes.

The girl's sharp glance seemed to assure her that
Ste. Marie was comfortable, now that he was sitting
down, for the frown went from her brows, and she
began to arrange the mysterious white garment in
her lap in preparation to go on with her work.

Ste. Marie watched her for awhile in a contented
silence.  The leaves overhead stirred under a puff
of air, and a single yellow beam of sunlight came
down and shivered upon the girl's dark head and
played about the bundle of white over which her
hands were busy.  She moved aside to avoid it, but
it followed her, and when she moved back it followed
again and danced in her lap, as if it were a live thing
with a malicious sense of humour.  It might have
been Tinker Bell out of *Peter Pan*, only it did not
jingle.  Mlle. O'Hara uttered an exclamation of
annoyance, and Ste. Marie laughed at her, but in a
moment the leaves overhead were still again, and
the sunbeam with a sense of humour was gone to
torment some one else.

Still, neither of the two spoke, and Ste. Marie
continued to watch the girl bent above her sewing.
He was thinking of what she had said to him when
he asked her if she read Spanish—that her mother
had been Spanish.  That would account then for
her dark eyes.  It would account for the darkness
of her skin too, but not for its extraordinary
clearness and delicacy, for Spanish women are apt to
have dull skins of an opaque texture.  This was,
he said to himself, an Irish skin with a darker stain,
and he was quite sure that he had never before seen
anything at all like it.

Apart from colouring she was all Irish, of the
type which has become famous the world over, and
which in the opinion of men who have seen women
in all countries, and have studied them, is the most
beautiful type that exists in our time.

Ste. Marie was dark himself and, in the ordinary
nature of things, he should have preferred a fair
type in women.  In theory, for that matter, he
did prefer it; but it was impossible for him to sit
near Coira O'Hara, and watch her bent head and
busy hovering hands and remain unstirred by her
splendid beauty.  He found himself wondering
why one kind of loveliness more than another should
exert a potent and mysterious spell by virtue of
mere proximity, and when the woman who bore it
was entirely passive.  If this girl had been looking
at him the matter would have been easy to understand,
for an eye-glance is often downright hypnotic,
but she was looking at the work in her hands and,
so far as could be judged, she had altogether
forgotten his presence; yet the mysterious spell, the
potent enchantment, breathed from her like a
vapour, and he could not be insensible to it.  It
was like sorcery.

The girl looked up so suddenly that Ste. Marie
jumped.  She said—

"You are not a very talkative person.  Are you
always as silent as this?"

"No," said he, "I am not.  I offer my humblest
apologies.  It seems as if I were not being properly
grateful for being allowed to sit here with you, but
to tell the truth I was buried in thought."  They
had begun to talk in French, but, midway of
Ste. Marie's speech, the girl glanced towards the old
Michel, who stood a short distance away, and so he
changed to English.

"In that case," she said, regarding her work
with her head on one side like a bird—"in that
case you might at least tell me what your thoughts
were.  They might be interesting."  Ste. Marie
gave a little embarrassed laugh.

"I'm sorry," said he, "but I'm afraid they were
too personal.  I'm afraid if I told you, you'd get
up and go away, and be frigidly polite to me when
next we passed each other in the garden here.

"But there's no harm," he said, "in telling you
one thing that occurred to me.  It occurred to me
that, as far as a young girl can be said to resemble
an elderly woman, you bear a most remarkable
resemblance to a very dear old friend of mine who
lives near Dublin—Lady Margaret Craith.  She's
a widow and almost all of her family are dead, I
believe (I didn't know any of them), and she lives
there in a huge old house with a park, quite alone,
with her army of servants.  I go to see her whenever
I'm in Ireland, because she is one of the sweetest
souls I have ever known."

He became aware suddenly that Mlle. O'Hara's
head was bent very low over her sewing, and that
her face, or as much of it as he could see, was
crimson.

"Oh I—I beg your pardon!" cried Ste. Marie.
"I've done something dreadful.  I don't know
what it is, but I'm very, very sorry.  Please
forgive me if you can!"

"It is nothing," she said in a low voice, and
after a moment she looked up for the swiftest
possible glance and down again.

"That is my—aunt," she said.  "Only—please,
let us talk about something else!  Of course you
couldn't possibly have known."

"No," said Ste. Marie gravely.  "No, of course.
You are very good to forgive me."  He was silent
a little while, for what the girl had told him
surprised him very much indeed, and touched him too.
He remembered again the remark of his friend when
O'Hara had passed them on the boulevard—

"There goes some of the best blood that ever
came out of Ireland.  See what it has fallen to!"

"It is a curious fact," said he, "that you and I
are very close compatriots in the matter of
blood—if 'compatriots' is the word.  You are Irish
and Spanish.  My mother was Irish and my people
were Bearnais, which is about as much Spanish as
French—and indeed there was a great deal of blood
from across the mountains in them, for they often
married Spanish wives."  He pulled the Bayard
out of his pocket.

"The Ste. Marie in here married a Spanish lady,
didn't he?"

The girl looked up to him once more.

"Yes," she said.  "Yes, I remember.  He was
a brave man, monsieur.  He had a great soul.
And he died nobly."

"Well, as for that," he said, flushing a little,
"the Ste. Maries have all died rather well."  He
gave a short laugh.

"Though I must admit," said he, "that the
last of them came precious near falling below the
family standard a week ago.  I should think that
probably none of my respected forefathers was
killed in climbing over a garden wall.  *Autres temps
autres moeurs*."

He burst out laughing again at what seemed to
him rather comic, but Mlle. O'Hara did not smile.
She looked very gravely into his eyes and there
seemed to be something like sorrow in her look.
Ste. Marie wondered at it, but after a moment it
occurred to him that he was very near forbidden
ground, and that doubtless the girl was trying to
give him a silent warning of it.  He began to turn
over the leaves of the book in his hand.

"You have marked a great many pages here,"
said he, and she said—

"It is my best of all books.  I read in it very
often.  I am so thankful for it that there are no
words to say how thankful I am—how glad I am
that I have such a world as that to—take refuge in
sometimes when this world is a little too unbearable.
It does for me now what the fairy stories did
when I was little.  And to think that it's true,
true!  To think that once there truly were men
like that—*sans peur et sans reproche*!  It makes
life worth while to think that those men lived even
if it was long ago."

Ste. Marie bent his head over the little book, for
he could not look at Mlle. O'Hara just then.  It
seemed to him wellnigh the most pathetic speech
that he had ever heard.  His heart bled for her.
Out of what mean shadows had the girl to turn her
weary eyes upward to this sunlight of ancient
heroism!

"And yet, mademoiselle," said he gently, "I
think there are such men alive to-day if only one
will look for them.  Remember! they were not
common even in Bayard's time.  Oh yes, I think
there are *preux chevaliers* nowadays—only perhaps
they don't go about things in quite the same
fashion.

"Other times, other manners!" he said again.

"Do you know any such men?" she demanded,
facing him with shadowy eyes.  And he said—

"Yes.  I know men who are in all ways as
honourable and as high-hearted as Bayard was.  In his
place they would have acted as he did, but nowadays
one has to practise heroism much less conspicuously—in
the little things that few people see and that
no one applauds or writes books about.  It is much
harder to do brave little acts than brave big ones."

"Yes," she agreed slowly.  "Oh yes, of course."  But
there was no spirit in her tone, rather a sort of
apathy.  Once more the leaves overhead swayed
in the breeze, opened a tiny rift, and the little
trembling rays of sunshine shot down to her where
she sat.  She stretched out one hand cupwise, and
the sunbeam, after a circling gyration, darted into
it and lay there like a small golden bird panting,
as it were, from flight.

"If I were a painter," said Ste. Marie, "I should
be in torture and anguish of soul until I had painted
you sitting there on a stone bench and holding a
sunbeam in your hand.  I don't know what I should
call the picture, but I think it would be something
figurative—symbolic.  Can you think of a name?"

Coira O'Hara looked up at him with a slight
smile, but her eyes were gloomy and full of dark
shadows.

"It might be called any one of a great number
of things, I should think," said she.
"Happiness—belief—illusion.

"See!  The sunbeam is gone."





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.. _`A MIST DIMS THE SHINING STAR`:

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   CHAPTER XXI


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   A MIST DIMS THE SHINING STAR

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Ste. Marie remained in his room all the rest
of that day, and he did not see Mlle. O'Hara
again, for Michel brought him his lunch and the old
Justine his dinner.  For the greater part of the time
he sat in bed reading, but rose now and then and
moved about the room.  His wound seemed to have
suffered no great inconvenience from the morning's
outing.  If he stood or walked too long it burned
somewhat, and he had the sensation of a tight band
round the leg, but this passed after he had lain down
for a little while, or even sat in a chair with the leg
straight out before him, so he knew that he was not
to be crippled very much longer, and his thoughts
began to turn more and more keenly upon the
matter of escape.

He realised of course that now, since he was once
more able to walk, he would be guarded with
unremitting care every moment of the day, and quite
possibly every moment of the night as well, though
the simple bolting of his door on the outside would
seem to answer the purpose save when he was out
of doors.  Once he went to the two east windows
and hung out of them testing, as well as he could
with his hands, the strength and tenacity of the ivy
which covered that side of the house.  He thought
it seemed strong enough to give hand and foothold
without being torn loose, but he was afraid it would
make an atrocious amount of noise if he should try
to climb down it, and besides he would need two
very active legs for that.

At another time a fresh idea struck him, and he
put it at once into action.  There might be just a
chance, when out one day with Michel, of getting
near enough to the wall which ran along the Clamart
road to throw something over it when the old man
was not looking.  In one of his pockets he had a
cardcase with a little pencil fitted into a loop at
one edge, and, in the case, it was his custom to
carry postage stamps.  He investigated, found pencil
and stamps.  Of course he had nothing but cards
to write upon, and they were useless.  He looked
about the room and went through an empty chest
of drawers in vain, but at last, on some shelves in the
closet where his clothes had hung, he found several
large sheets of coarse white paper: the shelves were
covered with it loosely for the sake of cleanliness.
He abstracted one of these sheets and cut it into
squares of the ordinary note paper size, and he sat
down and wrote a brief letter to Richard Hartley,
stating where he was, that Arthur Benham was there,
the O'Haras and, he thought, Captain Stewart.
He did not write the names out, but put instead the
initial letters of each name, knowing that Hartley
would understand.  He gave careful directions as to
how the place was to be reached, and he asked
Hartley to come as soon as possible by night to that
wall where he himself had made his entrance, to
climb up by the cedar-tree, and to drop his answer
into the thick leaves of the lilac bushes immediately
beneath—an answer naming a day and hour,
preferably by night, when he could return with three
or four to help him, surprise the household at La
Lierre, and carry off young Benham.

Ste. Marie wrote this letter four times, and each
of the four copies he enclosed in an awkwardly
fashioned envelope, made with infinite pains so that
its flaps folded in together, for he had no gum.  He
addressed and stamped the four envelopes, and put
them all in his pocket to await the first opportunity.

Afterwards he lay down for awhile and, as, one
after another, the books he had in the room failed
to interest him, his thoughts began to turn back to
Mlle. Coira O'Hara and his hour with her upon the
old stone bench in the garden.  He realized all at
once that he had been putting off this reflection as
one puts off a reckoning that one a little dreads to
face, and rather vaguely he realised why.

The spell that the girl wielded—quite without
being conscious of it: he granted her that grace—was
too potent.  It was dangerous, and he knew it.
Even imaginative and very unpractical people can
be in some things surprisingly matter-of-fact, and
Ste. Marie was matter-of-fact about this.  The girl
had made a mysterious and unprecedented appeal
to him at his very first sight of her, long before,
and ever since that time she had continued,
intermittently at least, to haunt his dreams.  Now he
was in the very house with her.  It was quite
possible that he might see her and speak with her every
day, and he knew there was peril in that.

He closed his eyes and she came to him, dark
and beautiful, magnetically vital, spreading
enchantment about her like a fragrance.  She sat
beside him on the moss-stained bench in the garden,
holding out her hand cupwise, and a sunbeam lay
in the hand like a little golden fluttering bird.  His
thoughts ran back to that first morning when he
had narrowly escaped death by poison.  He remembered
the girl's agony of fear and horror.  He felt
her hands once more upon his shoulders, and he was
aware that his breath was coming faster and that
his heart beat quickly.  He got to his feet and
went across to one of the windows, and he stood there
for a long time frowning out into the summer day.
If ever in his life, he said to himself with some
deliberation, he was to need a cool and clear head, faculties
unclouded and unimpaired by emotion, it was now
in these next few days.  Much more than his own
well-being depended upon him now.  The fates of a
whole family and quite possibly the lives of some
of them were in his hands.  He must not fail and
he must not, in any least way, falter.

For enemies he had a band of desperate adventurers,
and the very boy himself, the centre and
reason for the whole plot, had been, in some
incomprehensible way, so played upon that he too was
against him.

The man standing by the window forced himself
quite deliberately to look the plain facts in the face.
He compelled himself to envisage this beautiful girl
with her tragic eyes for just what his reason knew
her to be—an adventuress, a decoy, a lure to a callow
impressionable foolish lad, the tool of that
arch-villain Stewart and of the lesser villain her father.
It was like standing by and watching something
lovely and pitiful vilely befouled.  It turned his
heart sick within him, but he held himself to the
task.  He brought to aid him the vision of his lady
in whose cause he was pursuing this adventure.  For
strength and determination he reached eye and hand
to her where she sat enthroned, calm-browed, serene.

For the first time since the beginning of all things
his lady failed him, and Ste. Marie turned cold with fear.

Where was that splendid frenzy that had been
wont to sweep him all in an instant into upper
air—set his feet upon the stars?  Where was it?  The
man gave a sudden voiceless cry of horror.  The
wings that had such countless times upborne him
fluttered weakly near the earth and could not mount.
His lady was there: through infinite space he was
aware of her, but she was cold and aloof and her eyes
gazed very serenely beyond, at something he could
not see.

He knew well enough that the fault lay
somewhere within himself.  She was as she had ever
been, but he lacked the strength to rise to her.
Why?  Why?  He searched himself with a
desperate earnestness, but he could find no answer
to his questioning.  In himself, as in her, there had
come no change.  She was still to him all that she
ever had been—the star of his destiny, the pillar
of fire by night, of cloud by day, to guide him on his
path.  Where then the fine pure fervour that should,
at thought of her, whirl him on high and make a
god of him?

He stood wrapped in bewilderment and despair,
for he could find no answer.

In plain words, in commonplace black and white,
the man's anguish has an over-fanciful, a wellnigh
absurd look, but to Ste. Marie the thing was very
real and terrible: as real and as terrible as, to a
half-starved monk in his lonely cell, the sudden
failure of the customary exaltation of spirit after a
night's long prayer.

He went after a time back to the bed and lay
down there, with one upflung arm across his eyes to
shut out the light.  He was filled with a profound
dejection and a sense of hopelessness.  Through all
the long week of his imprisonment he had been
cheerful, at times even gay.  However evil his case
might have looked, his elastic spirits had mounted
above all difficulties and cares, confident in the face
of apparent defeat.  Now at last he lay still, bruised,
as it were, and battered and weary.  The flame of
courage burnt very low in him.  From sheer
exhaustion he fell after a time into a troubled sleep,
but even there the enemy followed him and would
not let him rest.  He seemed to himself to be in a
place of shadows and fear.  He strained his eyes
to make out above him the bright clear star of
guidance, for so long as that shone he was safe, but
something had come between—cloud or mist—and
his star shone dimly in fitful glimpses.

On the next morning he went out once more, with
old Michel, into the garden.  He went with a
stronger heart, for the morning had renewed his
courage, as bright fresh mornings do.  From the
anguish of the day before he held himself carefully
aloof.  He kept his mind away from all thought
of it, and gave his attention to the things about him.
It would return doubtless in the slow idle hours;
he would have to face it again, and yet again; he
would have to contend with it: but for the present
he put it out of his thoughts, for there were things
to do.

It was no more than human of him—and certainly
it was very characteristic of Ste. Marie—that he
should be half glad and half disappointed at not
finding Coira O'Hara in her place at the *rond point*.
It left him free to do what he wished to do—make
a careful reconnaissance of the whole garden
enclosure—but it left him empty of something he had,
without conscious thought, looked forward to.

His wounded leg was stronger and more flexible
than on the day before: it burnt and prickled less,
and could be bent a little at the knee with small
distress, so he led the old Michel at a good pace down
the length of the enclosure, past the rose gardens—a
tangle of unkempt sweetness—and so to the
opposite wall.  He found the gates there, very
formidable-looking, made of vertical iron bars connected
by cross pieces and an ornamental scroll.  They
were fastened together by a heavy chain and a
padlock.  The lock was covered with rust, as were the
gates themselves, and Ste. Marie observed that the
lane outside upon which they gave was overgrown
with turf and moss and even with seedling
shrubs, so he felt sure that this entrance was never
used.  The lane, he noted, swept away to the right,
towards Fort d'Issy and not towards the Clamart
road.  He heard, as he stood there, the whirr of a
tram from far away at the left—a tram bound to or
from Clamart—and the sound brought to his mind
what he wished to do.  He turned about and began
to make his way round the rose gardens, which were
partly enclosed by a low brick wall some two or
three feet high.  Beyond them the trees and
shrubbery were not set out in orderly rows as they were
near the house, but grew at will without hindrance
or care.  It was like a bit of the Meudon wood.

He found the going more difficult here for his bad
leg, but he pressed on and in a little while saw before
him that wall which skirted the Clamart road.  He
felt in his pocket for the four sealed and stamped
letters, but just then the old Michel spoke behind him.

"*Pardon, monsieur!  Il n'est pas permis.*"

"What is not permitted?" demanded Ste. Marie,
wheeling about.

"To approach that wall, monsieur," said the old
man with an incredibly gnome-like and apologetic grin.

Ste. Marie gave an exclamation of disgust.

"Is it believed that I could leap over it?" he
asked.  "A matter of five metres?  *Merci non*!
I am not so agile.  You flatter me."

The old Michel spread out his two gnarled
hands.

"*Pas de ma faute*.  I have orders, monsieur.  It
will be my painful duty to shoot if monsieur
approaches that wall."  He turned his strange head
on one side and regarded Ste. Marie with his sharp
and bead-like eye.  The smile of apology still
distorted his face, and he looked exactly like the
Punchinello in a street show.

Ste. Marie slowly withdrew from his pocket two
louis d'or, and held them before him in the palm of
his hand.  He looked down upon them and Michel
looked too, with a gaze so intense that his solitary
eye seemed to project a very little from his withered
face.  He was like a hypnotised old bird.

"*Mon vieux,*" said Ste. Marie.  "I am a man of
honour."

"*Sûrement*!  *Sûrement*, monsieur!" said the old
Michel politely, but his hypnotised gaze did not stir
so much as a hair's-breadth.

"*Ça va sans le dire.*"

"A man of honour," repeated Ste. Marie.  "When
I give my word I keep it.  *Voila*!  I keep it."

"And," said he, "I have here forty francs.  Two
louis.  A large sum.  It is yours, my brave Michel,
for the mere trouble of turning your back just thirty
seconds."

"Monsieur," whispered the old man, "it is
impossible.  He would kill me—by torture."

"He will never know," said Ste. Marie, "for I
do not mean to try to escape.  I give you my word
of honour that I shall not try to escape.  Besides,
I could not climb over that wall, as you see.

"Two louis, Michel!  Forty francs!"

The old man's hands twisted and trembled round
the barrel of the carbine, and he swallowed once
with some difficulty.  He seemed to hesitate but in
the end he shook his head.  It was as if he shook
it in grief over the grave of his firstborn.

"It is impossible," he said again.  "Impossible."  He
tore the bead-like eye away from those two
beautiful glowing golden things, and Ste. Marie saw
that there was nothing to be done with him just
now.  He slipped the money back into his pocket
with a little sigh, and turned away towards the rose
gardens.

"Ah well," said he.  "Another time perhaps.
Another time.  And there are more louis still, *mon
vieux*.  Perhaps three or four.  Who knows?"  Michel
emitted a groan of extreme anguish, and
they moved on.

But a few moments later Ste. Marie gave a sudden
low exclamation and then a soundless laugh, for
he caught sight of a very familiar figure seated in
apparent dejection upon a fallen tree trunk and
staring across the tangled splendour of the roses.





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.. _`A SETTLEMENT REFUSED`:

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   CHAPTER XXII


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   A SETTLEMENT REFUSED

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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. Marie *who 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.

.. _`"His hand went swiftly to his coat pocket."`:

.. figure:: images/img-281.jpg
   :align: center
   :alt: "His hand went swiftly to his coat pocket."

   "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.





.. vspace:: 4

.. _`THE LAST ARROW—AND A PROMISE`:

.. class:: center large bold

   CHAPTER XXIII


.. class:: center medium bold

   THE LAST ARROW—AND A PROMISE

.. vspace:: 2

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 the *bon Dieu*
will 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.

.. vspace:: 2

He had not consciously directed his feet, but
without direction they led him round the corner of the
rose gardens and towards the *rond 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 the *rond 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.

.. _`"She did not move when he came before her."`:

.. figure:: images/img-292.jpg
   :align: center
   :alt: "She did not move when he came before her."

   "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!"





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.. _`THE JOINT IN THE ARMOUR`:

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   CHAPTER XXIV


.. class:: center medium bold

   THE JOINT IN THE ARMOUR

.. vspace:: 2

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.





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.. _`COIRA GOES OVER TO THE ENEMY`:

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   CHAPTER XXV


.. class:: center medium bold

   COIRA GOES OVER TO THE ENEMY

.. vspace:: 2

They were near the east end of the *rond point*,
in a space where fir trees stood and the
ground underfoot was covered with dry needles.

"I was just on my way to—our bench beyond
the fountain," said she, and Ste. Marie nodded,
looking upon her sombrely.  It seemed to him
that he looked with new eyes, and after a little
time when he did not speak but only gazed in that
strange manner the girl said—

"What is it?  Something has happened.  Please
tell me what it is!"  Something like the pale
foreshadow of fear came over her beautiful face,
and shrouded her golden voice as if it had been a
veil.

"Your father," said Ste. Marie heavily, "has
just been telling me—that you are to marry young
Arthur Benham.  He has been telling me."

She drew a quick breath, looking at him, but,
after a moment, she said—

"Yes, it is true.  You knew it before, though.
Didn't you?  Do you mean that you didn't know
it before?  I don't quite understand.  You must
have known that.

"What in Heaven's name *did* you think?" she
cried, as if with a sort of anger at his dulness.

The man rubbed one hand wearily across his eyes.

"I—don't quite know," said he.  "Yes, I
suppose I had thought of it.  I don't know.  It came
to me with such a—shock!  Yes.  Oh, I don't
know.  I expect I didn't think at all.  I—just
didn't think."  Abruptly his eyes sharpened upon
her and he moved a step forward.

"Tell me the truth!" he said.  "Do you love
this boy?"

The girl's cheeks burned with a swift crimson
and she set her lips together.  She was on the
verge of extreme anger just then, but after a little
the flush died down again and the dark fire went
out of her eyes.  She made an odd little gesture
with her two hands.  It seemed to express fatigue
as much as anything—a great weariness.

"I like him," she said.  "I like him—enough,
I suppose.  He is good—and kind—and gentle.
He will be good to me.  And I shall try very, very
hard to make him happy."  Quite suddenly and
without warning the fire of her anger burnt up
again.  She flamed defiance in the man's face.

"How dare you question me?" she cried.
"What right have you to ask me questions about
such a thing?  You, what you are!"

Ste. Marie bent his head.

"No right, mademoiselle," said he in a low
voice.  "I have no right to ask you anything—not
even forgiveness.  I think I am a little mad
to-day.  It—this news came to me suddenly.  Yes,
I think I am a little mad."  The girl stared at him
and he looked back with sombre eyes.  Once more
he was stabbed with intolerable pain to think what
she was.  Yet in an inexplicable fashion it pleased
him that she should carry out her trickery to the
end with a high head.  It was a little less base done
proudly.  He could not have borne it otherwise.

"Who are you," the girl cried in a bitter
resentment, "that you should understand?  What do
you know of the sort of life I have led—we have
led together, my father and I?—Oh, I don't mean
that I'm ashamed of it!  We have nothing to feel
shame for, but you simply do not know what such
a life is."

Though he writhed with pain, the man nodded
over her.  He was so glad that she could carry
it through proudly, with a high hand, an erect head.

She spread out her arms before him, a splendid
and tragic figure.

"What chance have I ever had?" she
demanded.  "No, I am not blaming him.  I am not
blaming my father!  I chose to follow him.  I
chose it!  But what chance have I had?  Think
of the people I have lived among!  Would you
have me marry one of them—one of those men?
I'd rather die!  And yet I cannot go on—forever.
I am twenty now.  What if my father—You yourself
said yesterday—Oh, I am afraid!  I tell you
I have lain awake at night a hundred times and
shivered with cold, terrible fear of what would
become of me if—if anything should happen—to
my father.

"And so," she said, "when I met Arthur Benham
last winter and he—began to—he said—when he
begged me to marry him....  Ah, can't you see?
It meant safety—safety—safety!  And I liked
him.  I like him now—very, very much.  He is
a sweet boy.  I—shall be happy with him—in a
peaceful fashion.  And my father——

"Oh, I'll be honest with you," said she.  "It
was my father who decided me.  He was—he is—so
pathetically pleased with it!  He so wants me
to be safe!  It's all he lives for now.  I—couldn't
fight against them both.  Arthur and my father.

"So I gave in.  And then when Arthur had to
be hidden we came here with him—to wait."

She became aware that the man was staring at
her with something strange and terrible in his gaze,
and she broke off in wonder.  The air of that warm
summer morning turned all at once keen and sharp
about them—charged with moment.

"Mademoiselle!" cried Ste. Marie.  "Mademoiselle,
are you telling me the truth?"

For some obscure reason she was not angry.
Again she spread out her hands in that gesture of
weariness.  She said—

"Oh, why should I lie to you?"  And the man
began to tremble exceedingly.  He stretched out
an unsteady hand.

"You—knew Arthur Benham last winter?"
he said.  "Long before his—before he left his
home?  Before that?"

"He asked me to marry him last winter," said
the girl.  "For a long, long time I—wouldn't....
But he never let me alone.  He followed me
everywhere.  And my father——"

Ste. Marie clapped his two hands over his face,
and a groan came to her through the straining
fingers.  He cried in an agony—

"Mademoiselle! mademoiselle!"

.. _`312`:

He fell upon his knees at her feet, his head bent
in what seemed to be an intolerable anguish, his
hands over his hidden face.  The girl heard
hard-wrung, stumbling, incoherent words, wrenched each
with an effort out of extreme pain.

"Fool!  Fool!" the man cried, groaning.  "Oh,
fool that I have been! worm, animal!  Oh, fool
not to see—not to know!  Madman; imbecile;
thing without a name!"

She stood white-faced, smitten with great fear
over this abasement.  Not the least and faintest
glimmer reached her of what it meant.  She stretched
down a hand of protest and it touched the man's
head.  As if the touch were a stroke of magic he
sprang upright before her.

"Now at last, mademoiselle," said he, "we
two must speak plainly together.  Now at last I
think I see clear, but I must know beyond doubt or
question.  Oh, mademoiselle, now I think I know
you for what you are, and it seems to me that
nothing in this world is of consequence beside
that.  I have been blind, blind, blind! ... Tell
me one thing!  Why did Arthur Benham leave
his home two months ago?"

"He had to leave it!" she said, wondering.
She did not understand yet, but she was aware
that her heart was beating in loud and fast throbs,
and she knew that some great mystery was to
be made plain before her.  Her face was very white.

"He had to leave it!" she said again.  "You
know as well as I.  Why do you ask me that?
He quarrelled with his grandfather.  They had
often quarrelled before—over money—always over
money!  His grandfather is a miser, almost a
madman.  He tried to make Arthur sign a paper releasing
his inheritance—the fortune he is to inherit from
his father—and when Arthur wouldn't he drove
him away.  Arthur went to his uncle—Captain
Stewart—and Captain Stewart helped him to hide.
He didn't dare go back because they're all against
him, all his family.  They'd make him give in."

Ste. Marie gave a loud exclamation of amazement.
The thing was incredible—childish!  It
was beyond the maddest possibilities.  But even
as he said the words to himself a face came before
him—Captain Stewart's smiling and benignant
face—and he understood everything.  As clearly
as if he had been present he saw the angry
bewildered boy, fresh from David Stewart's berating,
mystified over some commonplace legal matter
requiring a signature.  He saw him appeal for
sympathy and counsel to "old Charlie," and he
heard "old Charlie's" reply.  It was easy enough
to understand now.  It must have been easy
enough to bring about.  What absurdities could
not such a man as Captain Stewart instil into the
already prejudiced mind of that foolish lad?

His thoughts turned from Arthur Benham to
the girl before him, and that part of the mystery
was clear also.  She would believe whatever she
was told in the absence of any reason to doubt.
What did she know of old David Stewart or of the
Benham family?  It seemed to Ste. Marie all at
once incredible that he could ever have believed
ill of her—ever have doubted her honesty.  It
seemed to him so incredible that he could have
laughed aloud in bitterness and self-disdain.  But
as he looked at the girl's white face and her shadowy,
wondering eyes all laughter, all bitterness, all cruel
misunderstandings were swallowed up in the golden
light of his joy at knowing her, in the end, for what
she was.

"Coira!  Coira!" he cried, and neither of the
two knew that he called her for the first time by
her name.  "Oh, child," said he, "how they have
lied to you and tricked you!  I might have known,
I might have seen it, but I was a blind fool.  I
thought—intolerable things.  I might have known!
They have lied to you most damnably, Coira."

She stared at him in a breathless silence without
movement of any sort.  Only her face seemed to
have turned a little whiter, and her great eyes
darker so that they looked almost black, and
enormous in that still face.

He told her, briefly, the truth, how young Arthur
had had frequent quarrels with his grandfather
over his waste of money, how after one of them,
not at all unlike the others, he had disappeared,
and how Captain Stewart, in desperate need, had
set afoot his plot to get the lad's greater inheritance
for himself.  He described for her old David Stewart
and the man's bitter grief, and he told her about
the will, about how he had begun to suspect Captain
Stewart and of how he had traced the lost boy to
La Lierre.  He told her all that he knew of the
whole matter and he knew almost all there was to
know, and he did not spare himself even his
misconception of the part she had played, though he
softened that as best he could.

Midway of his story Mlle. O'Hara bent her head
and covered her face with her hands.  She did not
cry out or protest or speak at all.  She made no
more than that one movement, and after it she
stood quite still, but the sight of her, bowed and
shamed, stripped of pride, as it had been of
garments, was more than the man could bear.  He
cried her name—

"Coira!"  And when she did not look up, he
called once more upon her.  He said—

"Coira, I cannot bear to see you stand so!  Look
at me!  Ah, child, look at me!

"Can you realise," he cried, "can you even
begin to think what a great joy it is to me to know
at last that you have had no part in all this?  Can't
you see what it means to me?  I can think of
nothing else.  Coira, look up!"

She raised her white face and there were no tears
upon it, but a still anguish too great to be told.
It would seem never to have occurred to her to
doubt the truth of his words.  She said—

"It is I who might have known.  Knowing
what you have told me now it seems impossible
that I could have believed.—And Captain Stewart—I
always hated him—loathed him—distrusted him.

"And yet," she cried, wringing her hands, "how
could I know?  How could I know?"

The girl's face writhed suddenly with her grief
and she stared up at Ste. Marie with terror in her
eyes.  She whispered—

"My father!  Oh, Ste. Marie, my father!  It
is not possible.  I will not believe—He cannot
have done this, knowing.  My father, Ste. Marie!"

The man turned his eyes away, and she gave a
sobbing cry.

"Has he," she said slowly, "done even this for
me?  Has he given—his honour also—when everything
else was—gone?  Has he given me his honour too?

"Oh!" she said, "why could I not have died
when I was a little child?  Why could I not have
done that?  To think that I should have lived
to—bring my father to this!  I wish I had died.

"Ste. Marie!" she said, pleading with him.
"Ste. Marie, do you think—my father—knew?"

"Let me think!" said he.  "Let me think!
Is it possible that Stewart has lied to you all—to
one as to another?  Let me think!"  His mind
ran back over the matter and he began to remember
instances which had seemed to him odd but to
which he had attached no importance.  He
remembered O'Hara's puzzled and uncomprehending face
when he, Ste. Marie, had spoken of Stewart's villainy.
He remembered the man's indignation over the
affair of the poison, and his fairness in trying to
make amends.  He remembered other things, and
his face grew lighter and he drew a great breath
of relief.  He said—

"Coira, I do not believe he knew.  Stewart
has lied equally to you all—tricked each one of
you!"  And at that the girl gave a cry of gladness,
and began to weep.

As long as men and women continue to stand
upon opposite sides of a great gulf—and that will
be as long as they exist together in this world—just
so long will men continue to be unhappy and ill
at ease in the face of women's tears, even though
they know vaguely that tears may mean just
anything at all, and by no means always grief.

Ste. Marie stood first upon one foot and then
upon the other.  He looked anxiously about him
for succour.  He said: "There! there!" or words
to that effect, and once he touched the shoulder
of the girl who stood weeping before him, and he
was very miserable indeed.

But quite suddenly, in the midst of his discomfort,
she looked up to him, and she was smiling and
flushed, so that Ste. Marie stared at her in utter
amazement.

"So now at last," said she, "I have back my
Bayard.  And I think the rest—doesn't matter
very much."

"Bayard?" said he, wondering.  "I don't
understand," he said.

"Then," said she, "you must just go without
understanding.  For I shall never, never explain."

The bright flush went from her face and she turned
grave once more.

"What is to be done?" she asked.  "What
must we do now, Ste. Marie?—I mean about Arthur
Benham.  I suppose he must be told."

"Either he must be told," said the man, "or he
must be taken back to his home by force."  He
told her about the four letters which in four days
he had thrown over the wall into the Clamart road.

"It was on the chance," he said, "that some
one would pick one of them up and post it, thinking
it had been dropped there by accident.  What
has become of them I don't know.  I know only
that they never reached Hartley."

The girl nodded thoughtfully.

"Yes," said she, "that was the best thing you
could have done.  It ought to have succeeded.  Of
course——"  She paused a moment and then nodded
again.  "Of course," said she, "I can manage to
get a letter in the post now.  We'll send it to-day
if you like.  But I was wondering—Would it be
better or not to tell Arthur the truth?  It all
depends upon how he may take it—whether or
not he will believe you.  He's very stubborn,
and he's frightened about this break with his family,
and he is quite sure that he has been badly treated.
Will he believe you?  Of course if he does believe
he could escape from here quite easily at any time
and there'd be no necessity for a rescue.  What
do you think?"

"I think he ought to be told," said Ste. Marie.
"If we try to carry him away by force there'll be
a fight, of course, and—who knows what might
happen?  That we must leave for a last resort—a
last desperate resort.  First we must tell the boy."

Abruptly he gave a cry of dismay, and the girl
looked up to him, staring.

"But—but *you*, Coira!" said he, stammering.
"But *you*!  I hadn't realised—I hadn't thought—it
never occurred to me what this means to you."  The
full enormity of the thing came upon him
slowly.  He was asking this girl to help him in
robbing her of her lover.

She shook her head with a little wry smile.

"Do you think," said she, "that knowing what
I know now I would go on with that until after he has
made his peace with his family?  Before, it was
different.  I thought him alone and ill-treated and
hunted down.  I could help him then, comfort
him.  Now I should be—all you ever thought me,
if I did not send him to his grandfather."  She
smiled again, a little mirthlessly.

"If his love for me is worth anything," she said,
"he will come back—but openly, this time, not in
hiding.  Then I shall know that he is—what I
would have him be.  Otherwise——"

Ste. Marie looked away.

"But you must remember, Coira," said he,
"that the lad is very young, and that his
family—They may try—It may be hard for him.  They
may say that he is too young to know—Ah, child,
I should have thought of this!"

"Ste. Marie!" said the girl, and after a moment
he turned to face her.

"What will you say to Arthur's family, Ste. Marie,"
she demanded very soberly, "when they
ask you if I—if Arthur should be allowed to—come
back to me?"

A wave of colour flooded the man's face and his
eyes shone.  He cried—

"I shall tell them, Coira, that if that wretched
half-baked lad should search this wide world round,
from Paris on to Paris again, and if he should spend
a lifetime searching, he would never find the beauty
and the sweetness and the tenderness and the true
faith that he left behind at La Lierre—nor the
hundredth part of them.  I should say that you
are so much above him that he ought to creep to
you on his knees from the Rue de l'Université to
this garden, thanking God that you were here at
the journey's end, and kissing the ground that he
dragged himself over for sheer joy and gratitude.
I should tell them—Oh, I have no words!  I could
tell them so pitifully little of you!  I think I
should only say: 'Go to her and see!'  I think I
should just say that."

The girl turned her head away with a little sob,
but afterwards she faced him once more, and she
looked up to him with sweet, half-shut eyes for a
long time.  At last she said—

"For love of whom, Ste. Marie, did you undertake
this quest—this search for Arthur Benham?
It was not in idleness or by way of a whim.  It
was for love.  For love of whom?"

For some strange and inexplicable reason the
words struck him like a blow, and he stared whitely.

"I came," he said at last, and his voice was
oddly flat, "for his sister's sake.  For love of
her."  Coira O'Hara dropped her eyes.  But presently
she looked up again with a smile.  She said—

"God make you happy, my friend!"  And
she turned and moved away from him up among
the trees.  At a little distance she turned, saying—

"Wait where you are!  I will fetch Arthur or
send him to you.  He must be told at once."  Then
she went on and was lost to sight.

Ste. Marie followed a few steps after her and
halted.  His face was turned, by chance, towards
the east wall, and suddenly he gave a great cry
and smothered it with his hands over his mouth.
His knees bent under him and he was weak and
trembling.  Then he began to run.  He ran with
awkward steps for his leg was not yet entirely
recovered, but he ran fast, and his heart beat within
him until he thought it must burst.

He was making for that spot which was overhung
by the half dead cedar tree.





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.. _`"I WON'T GO!"`:

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   CHAPTER XXVI


.. class:: center medium bold

   "I WON'T GO!"

.. vspace:: 2

Ste. Marie came under the wall breathless and
shaking.  What he had seen there from a
distance was no longer visible, but he pressed in
close among the lilac shrubs and called out in an
unsteady voice.  He said—

"Who is there?  Who is it?"  And after a
moment he called again.

A hand appeared at the top of the high wall.
The drooping screen of foliage was thrust aside, and
he saw Richard Hartley's face looking down.  Ste. Marie
held himself by the strong stems of the lilacs,
for once more his knees had weakened under him.

"There's no one in sight," Hartley said.  "I
can see for a long way.  No one can see us or hear
us."  And he said: "I got your letter this
morning—an hour ago.  When shall we come to get you
out—you and the boy?  To-night?"

"To-night at two!" said Ste. Marie.  He spoke
in a loud whisper.  "I'm to talk with Arthur here
in a few minutes.  We must be quick.  He may
come at any time.  I shall try to persuade him to
go home willingly, but if he refuses we must take
him by force.  Bring a couple of good men with
you to-night and see that they're armed.  Come
in a motor and leave it just outside the wall by that
small door that you passed.  Have you any money
in your pockets?  I may want to bribe the gardener."

Hartley searched in his pockets, and while he did
so the man beneath asked—

"Is old David Stewart alive?"

"Just about!" Hartley said.  "He's very low
and he suffers a great deal, but he's quite conscious
all the time.  If we can fetch the boy to him it may
give him a turn for the better.  Where is Captain
Stewart?  I had spies on his trail for some time but
he has disappeared within the past three or four days.
Once I followed him in his motor out past here,
but I lost him beyond Clamart."

"He's here, I think," said Ste. Marie.  "I saw
him a few days ago."

The man on the wall had found two notes of a
hundred francs each, and he dropped them down to
Ste. Marie's hands.  Also he gave him a small
revolver which he had in his pocket, one of the little
automatic weapons such as Olga Nilssen had brought
to the Rue du Faubourg St. Honoré.  Afterwards
he glanced up and said—

"Two people are coming out of the house, I shall
have to go.  At two to-night, then!—and at this
spot.  We shall be in time."  He drew back out
of sight, and the other man heard the cedar-tree
shake slightly as he went down to the ground.  Then
Ste. Marie turned and walked quickly back to the
place where Mlle. O'Hara had left him.  His heart
was leaping with joy and exultation, for now at last
he thought that the end was in sight—the end
he had so long laboured and hoped for.  He knew
that his face must be flushed and his eyes bright, and
he made a strong effort to crush down these tokens of
his triumph—to make his bearing seem natural
and easy.  He might have spared himself the pains.

Young Arthur Benham and Coira O'Hara came
together down under the trees from the house.
They walked swiftly, and the boy was a step in
advance, his face white with excitement and anger.
He began to speak while he was still some
distance away.  He cried out in his strident young
voice—

"What the devil is all this silly nonsense about
old Charlie and lies and misunderstandings
and—and all that guff?" he demanded.  "What the
devil is it?  D'you think I'm a fool?  D'you think
I'm a kid?  Well, I'm not!"  He came close to
Ste. Marie, staring at him with an angry scowl, but
the scowl twitched and wavered, and his hands
shook a little beside him, and his breath came
irregularly.  He was frightened.

"There is no nonsense," said Ste. Marie.  "There
is no nonsense in all this whole sorry business.  But
there has been a great deal of misunderstanding
and a great many lies and not a little cruelty.  It's
time you knew the truth at last."  He turned his
eyes to where Coira O'Hara stood near-by.

"How much have you told him?" he asked.
And the girl said—

"I told him everything, or almost.  But I had
to say it very quickly and—he wouldn't believe
me.  I think you'd best tell him again."

The boy gave a short contemptuous laugh.

"Well, I don't want to hear it," said he.  He
was looking towards the girl.  He said—

"This fellow may be able to hypnotize you, all
right, but not Willie.  Little Willie's wise to guys
like him."  And swinging about to Ste. Marie, he
cried—

"Forget it!  Forget it!  I don't want to listen
to your little song to-day.  Ah, you make me sick!
You'd try to make me turn on old Charlie, would
you?  Why, old Charlie's the only real friend I've
got in the world.  Old Charlie has always stood up
for me against the whole bunch of them.  Forget
it, George!  I'm wise to your graft."

Ste. Marie frowned, for his temper was never of
the most patient, and the youth's sneering tone
annoyed him.  Truth to tell the tone was about
all he understood, for the strange words were
incomprehensible.

"Look here, Benham!" he said sharply.  "You
and I have never met, I believe, but we have a good
many friends in common, and I think we know
something about each other.  Have you ever
heard anything about me which would give you the
right to suspect me of any dishonesty of any sort?
Have you?"

"Oh, slush!" said the boy.  "Anybody 'll be
dishonest if it's worth his while."

"That happens to be untrue," Ste. Marie
remarked, "and as you grow older you will know it.
Leaving my honesty out of the question if you like,
I have the honour to tell you that I am, perhaps
not quite formally, engaged to your sister, and it is
on her account, for her sake, that I am here.  You
will hardly presume, I take it, to question your
sister's motive in wanting you to return home?
Incidentally your grandfather is so overcome by
grief over your absence that he is expected to die
at any time.

"Come!" said he, "I have said enough to
convince you that you must listen to me.  Believe
what you please, but listen to me for five minutes!
After that I have small doubt of what you will do."

The boy looked nervously from Ste. Marie to
Mlle. O'Hara, and back again.  He thrust his
unsteady hands into his pockets, but withdrew them
after a moment and clasped them together behind him.

"I tell you!" he burst out at last—"I tell you
it's no good, your trying to knock old Charlie to
me.  I won't stand for it.  Old Charlie's my best
friend, and I'd believe him before I'd believe
anybody in the world.  You've got a knife out for old
Charlie, that's what's the matter with you."

"And your sister?" suggested Ste. Marie.  "Your
mother?  You'd hardly know your mother if you
could see her to-day.  It has pretty nearly killed
her."

"Ah, they're all—they're all against me!" the
lad cried.  "They've always stood together against
me.  Helen too!"

"You wouldn't think they were against you if
you could just see them once, now," said Ste. Marie.
And Arthur Benham gave a sort of shamefaced sob,
saying—

"Ah, cut it out!  Cut it out!

"Go on then and talk, if you want to," he said.
"*I* don't care.  I don't have to listen.  Talk, if
you're pining for it."  And Ste. Marie, as briefly as
he could, told him the truth of the whole affair from
the beginning, as he had told it to Coira O'Hara.
Only, he laid special stress upon Charles Stewart's
present expectations from the new will; and he
assured the boy that no document his grandfather
might have asked him to sign could have given away
his rights in his father's fortune since he was a minor,
and had no legal right to sign away anything at all
even if he wished to.

"If you will look back as calmly and carefully
as you can," he said, "you will find that you didn't
begin to suspect your grandfather of anything
wrong until you had talked with Captain Stewart.
It was your uncle's explanation of the thing that
made you do that.  Well, remember what he had
at stake—I suppose it is a matter of several millions
of francs.  And he needs them.  His affairs are
in a bad way."

He told also about the pretended search which
Captain Stewart had so long maintained, and of
how he had tried to mislead the other searchers
whose motives were honest.

"It has been a gigantic gamble, my friend," he
said at the last.  "A gigantic and desperate gamble
to get the money that should be yours.  You can
end it by the mere trouble of climbing over that wall
yonder, and taking the Clamart tram back to Paris.
As easily as that you can end it—and, if I am not
mistaken, you can at the same time save an old
man's life—prolong it at the very least."  He took
a step forwards.

"I beg you to go!" he said very earnestly.
"You know the whole truth now.  You must see
what danger you have been and are in.  You must
know that I am telling you the truth.  I beg you
to go back to Paris."

And from where she stood, a little aside, Coira
O'Hara said—

"I beg you too, Arthur.  Go back to them!"

The boy dropped down upon a tree stump which
was near, and covered his face with his hands.  The
two who watched him could see that he was trembling
violently.  Over him their eyes met and they
questioned each other with a mute and anxious
gravity—

"What will he do?"  For everything was in
Arthur Benham's weak hands now.

For a little time, which seemed hours to all who
were there, the lad sat still hiding his face, but
suddenly he sprang to his feet and once more stood
staring into Ste. Marie's quiet eyes.

"How do I know you're telling the truth?" he
cried, and his voice ran up high and shrill, and
wavered and broke.  "How do I know that?
You'd tell just as smooth a story if—if you were
lying—if you'd been sent here to get me back
to—to what old Charlie said they wanted me for."

"You have only to go back to them and make
sure," said Ste. Marie.  "They can't harm you or
take anything from you.  If they persuaded you
to sign anything—which they will not do—it would
be valueless to them because you're a minor.  You
know that as well as I do.  Go and make sure!

"Or wait! wait!"  He gave a little sharp
laugh of excitement.

"Is Captain Stewart in the house?" he demanded.
"Call him out here!  That's better still!
Bring your uncle here to face me without telling
him what it's for, without giving him time to make
up a story!  Then we shall see.  Send for him!"

"He's not here," said the boy.  "He went away
an hour ago.  I don't know whether he'll be back
to-night or not."  Young Arthur stared at the elder
man, breathing hard.

"Good God!" he said in a whisper, "if—old
Charlie is rotten, who in this world isn't?
I—don't know what to believe."  Abruptly he turned
with a sort of snarl upon Coira O'Hara.

"Have you been in this game too?" he cried
out.  "I suppose you and your precious father and
old Charlie cooked it up together!  What?  You've
been having a fine low-comedy time laughing
yourselves to death at me, haven't you!  O Lord, what
a gang!"

Ste. Marie caught the boy by the shoulder and
spun him round.

"That will do!" he said sternly.  "You have
been a fool; don't make it worse by being a coward
and a cad.  Mlle. O'Hara knew no more of the truth
than you knew.  Your uncle lied to you all."  But
the girl came and touched his arm.  She said—

"Don't be hard with him!  He is bewildered
and nervous, and he doesn't know what he is saying.
Think how sudden it has been for him.  Don't be
hard with him, M. Ste. Marie."

Ste. Marie dropped his hand, and the lad backed
a few steps away.  His face was crimson.  After
a moment he said—

"I'm sorry, Coira.  I didn't mean that.  I didn't
mean it.  I beg your pardon.  I'm about half dippy,
I guess.  I—don't know what to believe or what to
think or what to do."  He remained staring at her
a little while in silence, and presently his eyes
sharpened.  He cried out—

"If I should go back there (mind you, I say,
'if'!) d'you know what they'd do?  Well, I'll tell
you.  They'd begin to talk at me one at a time.
They'd get me in a corner and cry over me and say
I was young and didn't know my mind, and that
I owed them something for all that's happened, and
not to bring their grey hairs in sorrow to the grave.
And the long and short of it would be that they'd
make me give you up."  He wheeled upon Ste. Marie.

"That's what they'd do!" he said, and his voice
began to rise again shrilly.  "They're three to one,
and they know they can talk me into anything.
*You* know it too."  He shook his head.

"I won't go back!" he cried wildly.  "That's
what will happen if I do.  I don't want granddad's
money.  He can give it to old Charlie or to a
gendarme if he wants to.  I'm going to have enough
of my own.  I won't go back, and that's all there
is of it.  You may be telling the truth or you may
not, but I won't go."

Ste. Marie started to speak, but the girl checked
him.  She moved closer to where Arthur Benham
stood, and she said—

"If your love for me, Arthur, is worth having, it
is worth fighting for.  If it is so weak that your
family can persuade you out of it, then—I don't
want it at all, for it would never last.  Arthur, you
must go back to them.  I want you to go."

"I won't!" the boy cried.  "I won't go.  I
tell you they could talk me out of anything.  You
don't know 'em.  I do.  I can't stand against
them.  I won't go, and that settles it.  Besides,
I'm not so sure that this fellow's telling the truth.
I've known old Charlie a lot longer than I have him."

Coira O'Hara turned a despairing face over her
shoulder towards Ste. Marie.

"Leave me alone with him!" she begged.  "Perhaps
I can win him over.  Leave us alone for a
little while!"  Ste. Marie hesitated, and in the
end went away and left the two together.  He went
farther down the park to the *rond point* and crossed
it to the familiar stone bench at the west side.  He
sat down there to wait.  He was anxious and
alarmed over this new obstacle, for he had the wit
to see that it was a very important one.  It was
quite conceivable that the boy, but half convinced,
half yielding before, would balk altogether when
he realised, as evidently he did realise, what
returning home might mean to him—the loss of the
girl he hoped to marry.

Ste. Marie was sufficiently wise in worldly matters
to know that the boy's fear was not unfounded.
He could imagine the family in the Rue de
l'Université taking exactly the view young Arthur said
they would take towards an alliance with the daughter
of a notorious Irish adventurer.  Ste. Marie's
cheeks burned hotly with anger when the words
said themselves in his brain, but he knew that there
could be no doubt of the Benhams' and even of old
David Stewart's view of the affair.  They would
oppose the marriage with all their strength.

He tried to imagine what weight such considerations
would have with him if it were he who was to
marry Coira O'Hara, and he laughed aloud with scorn
of them and with great pride in her.  But the lad
yonder was very young (too young: his family
would be right to that extent).  Would he be able
to stand against them?

Ste. Marie shook his head with a sigh and gave
over unprofitable wonderings, for he was still within
the walls of La Lierre, and so was Arthur Benham.
And the walls were high and strong.  He fell to
thinking of the attempt at rescue which was to be
made that night, and he began to form plans and
think of necessary preparations.  To be sure Coira
might persuade the boy to escape during the day,
and then the night attack would be unnecessary;
but in case of her failure it must be prepared for.  He
rose to his feet and began to walk back and forth
under the rows of chestnut trees, where the earth
was firm and black and mossy and there was no
growth of shrubbery.  He thought of that hasty
interview with Richard Hartley and he laughed a
little.  It had been rather like an exchange of
telegrams—reduced to the bare bones of necessary
question and answer.  There had been no time for
conversation.

His eyes caught a far-off glimpse of woman's
garments, and he saw that Coira O'Hara and Arthur
Benham were walking towards the house.  So he
went a little way after them and waited at a point
where he could see any one returning.  He had
not long to wait, for it seemed that the girl went only
as far as the door with her fiancé and then turned back.

Ste. Marie met her with raised eyebrows, and she
shook her head.

"I don't know," said she.  "He is very stubborn.
He is frightened and bewildered.  As he said, a
while ago, he doesn't know what to think or what
to believe.  You mustn't blame him.  Remember
how he trusted his uncle!  He's going to think it
over, and I shall see him again this afternoon.
Perhaps when he has had time to reflect——  I don't
know.  I truly don't know."

"He won't go to your father and make a scene?"
said Ste. Marie, and the girl shook her head.

"I made him promise not to."

"Oh, Bayard," she cried—and in his abstraction
he did not notice the name she gave him—"I
am afraid, myself!  I am horribly afraid about
my father."

"I am sure he did not know," said the man.
"Stewart lied to him."  But Coira O'Hara shook
her head, saying—

"I didn't mean that.  I'm afraid of what will
happen when he finds out how he has been—how
we have been played upon, tricked, deceived—what
a light we have been placed in.  You don't
know, you can't even imagine, how he has set his
heart on—what he wished to occur.  I am afraid
he will do something terrible when he knows.  I
am afraid he will kill Captain Stewart."

"Which," observed Ste. Marie, "would be an
excellent solution of the problem.  But, of course,
we mustn't let it happen.  What can be done?"

"We mustn't let him know the truth," said the
girl, "until Arthur is gone, and until Captain
Stewart is gone too.  He is terrible when he's
angry.  We must keep the truth from him until he
can do no harm.  It will be bad enough even then,
for I think it will break his heart."

Ste. Marie remembered that there was something
she did not know, and he told her about his interview
with Richard Hartley, and about their arrangement
for the rescue—if it should be necessary—on that
very night.

She nodded her head over it, but for a long time
after he had finished she did not speak.  Then she
said—

"I am glad, I suppose.  Yes, since it has to be
done I suppose I am glad that it is to come at
once."  She looked up at Ste. Marie with shadowy
inscrutable eyes.

"And so, monsieur," said she, "it is at an
end—all this."  She made a little gesture which
seemed to sweep the park and gardens.

"So we go out of each other's lives as abruptly
as we entered them.  Well——"  She had continued
to look at him, but she saw the man's face
turn white, and she saw something come into his
eyes which was like intolerable pain.  Then she
looked away.

Ste. Marie said her name twice, under his breath,
in a sort of soundless cry, but he said no more, and
after a moment she went on—

"Even so, I am glad that at last we know each
other—for what we are....  I should have been
sorry to go on thinking you ... what I thought
before....  And I could not have borne it, I'm
afraid, to have you think ... what you thought
of me ... when I came to know....  I'm glad
we understand at last."

Ste. Marie tried to speak, but no words would
come to him.  He was like a man defeated and
crushed, not one on the highroad to victory.  But
it may have been that the look of him was more
eloquent than anything he could have said.  And
it may have been that the girl saw and understood.

So the two remained there for a little while longer
in silence, but at last Coira O'Hara said—

"I must go back to the house now.  There is
nothing more to be done, I suppose—nothing left
now but to wait for night to come.  I shall see Arthur
this afternoon and make one last appeal to him.
If that fails you must carry him off.  Do you know
where he sleeps?  It is the room corresponding
to yours on the other side of the house—just across
that wide landing at the top of the stairs.  I will
manage that the front door below shall be left
unlocked.  The rest you and your friends must
do.  If I can make any impression upon Arthur,
I'll slip a note under your door this afternoon or
this evening.  Perhaps even if he decides to go it
would be best for him to wait until night and go
with the rest of you.  In any case I'll let you know."

She spoke rapidly, as if she were in great haste
to be gone, and with averted eyes.  And at the
end she turned away without any word of farewell,
but Ste. Marie started after her.  He cried—

"Coira!  Coira!"  And, when she stopped, he said—

"Coira, I can't let you go like this!  Are we
to—simply to go our different ways, like this, as if we'd
never met at all?"

"What else?" said the girl.  And there was
no answer to that.  Their separate ways were
determined for them—marked plain to see.

"But afterwards!" he cried.  "Afterwards—after
we have got the boy back to his home!  What then?"

"Perhaps," she said, "he will return to me."  She
spoke without any show of feeling.  "Perhaps
he will return.  If not—well, I don't know.  I
expect my father and I will just go on as we've
always gone.  We're used to it, you know."

After that she nodded to him and once more
turned away.  Her face may have been a very
little pale, but, as before, it betrayed no feeling of
any sort.  So she went up under the trees to the
house, and Ste. Marie watched her with strained and
burning eyes.

When, half an hour later, he followed, he came
unexpectedly upon the old Michel, who had entered
the park through the little wooden door in the wall,
and was on his way round to the kitchen with sundry
parcels of supplies.  He spoke a civil "*bon jour*,
monsieur," and Ste. Marie stopped him.  They
were out of sight from the windows.  Ste. Marie
withdrew from his pocket one of the hundred-franc
notes, and the single bead-like eye of the ancient
gnome fixed upon it and seemed to shiver with a
fascinated delight.

"A hundred francs!" said Ste. Marie unnecessarily,
and the old man licked his withered lips.  The
tempter said—

"My good Michel, would you care to receive this
trifling sum? a hundred francs?"

The gnome made a choked croaking sound in his throat.
"It is yours," said Ste. Marie, "for a small
service—for doing nothing at all."  The bead-like
eye rose to his and sharpened intelligently.

"I desire only," said he, "that you should sleep
well to-night, very well—without waking."

"Monsieur," said the old man, "I do not sleep
at all.  I watch.  I watch monsieur's windows.
Monsieur O'ara watches until midnight, and I watch
from then until day."

"Oh, I know that," said the other.  "I've seen
you more than once in the moonlight, but to-night,
*mon vieux*, slumber will overcome you.  Exhaustion
will have its way and you will sleep.  You will
sleep like the dead."

"I dare not!" cried the gardener.  "Monsieur,
I dare not!  The old one would kill me.  You do not
know him.  He would cut me into pieces and burn
the pieces.  Monsieur, it is impossible."

Ste. Marie withdrew the other hundred franc
note and held the two together in his hand.  Once
more the gnome made his strange croaking sound,
and the withered face twisted with anguish.

"Monsieur! monsieur!" he groaned.

"I have an idea," said the tempter.  "A little
earth rubbed upon one side of the head—perhaps
a trifling scratch to show a few drops of blood.
You have been assaulted, beaten down despite a
heroic resistance and left for dead.  An hour
afterwards you stagger into the house a frightful object.
*Hein?*"

The withered face of the old man expanded slowly
into a senile grin.

"Monsieur," said he with admiration in his tone,
"it is magnificent.  It shall be done.  I sleep like
the good dead—under the trees, not too near the
lilacs, eh?  *Bien*, monsieur, it is done!"  Into his
trembling claw he took the notes, he made an odd
bow, and shambled away about his business.  Ste. Marie
laughed and went on into the house.

He counted and there were fourteen hours to
wait.  Fourteen hours, and at the end of them—what?
His blood began to warm to the night's work.





.. vspace:: 4

.. _`THE NIGHT'S WORK`:

.. class:: center large bold

   CHAPTER XXVII


.. class:: center medium bold

   THE NIGHT'S WORK

.. vspace:: 2

The fourteen long hours dragged themselves
by.  They seemed interminable, but
somehow they passed and the appointed time drew
near.  Ste. Marie spent the greater part of the
afternoon reading, but twice he lay down upon the
bed and tried to sleep, and once he actually dozed
off for a brief space.  The old Michel brought his
meals.  He had thought it possible that Coira might
manage to bring the dinner-tray, as she had already
done on several occasions, and so make an opportunity
for informing him as to young Arthur's state
of mind.  But she did not come and no word came
from her.  So evening drew on and the dusk
gathered and deepened into darkness.

Ste. Marie walked his floor and prayed for the
hours to pass.  He had candles and matches, and
there was even a lamp in the room so that he could
have read if he chose, but he knew that the words
would have been meaningless to him, that he was
incapable of abstracting his thought from the
night's stern work.  He began to be anxious over
not having heard from Mlle. O'Hara.  She had said
that she would talk with Arthur Benham during
the afternoon, and then slip a note under
Ste. Marie's door.  Yet no word had come from her,
and, to the man pacing his floor in the darkness,
the fact took on proportions tremendous and
fantastic.  Something had happened.  The boy had
broken his promise, burst out upon O'Hara, or more
probably upon his uncle, and the house was by the
ears.  Coira was watched—even locked in her
room.  Stewart had fled!  A score of such terrible
possibilities rushed through Ste. Marie's brain and
tortured him.  He was in a state of nervous tension
that was almost unendurable, and the little noises
of the night outside, a wind-stirred rustle of leaves,
a bird's flutter among the branches, the sound of a
cracking twig, made him start violently and catch
his breath.

Then at his utmost need came reassurance and
something like ease of mind.  He heard a sound of
voices at the front of the house, and sprang to his
balconied window to listen.  Captain Stewart and
O'Hara were walking upon the brick-paved terrace
and chatting calmly over their cigars.  The man
above, prone upon the floor, his head pressed against
the ivy-masked grille of the balcony, listened, and
though he could hear their words only at intervals
when they passed beneath him, he knew that they
spoke of trivial matters in voices free of strain or
concern.

He drew back with a breath of relief, and at that
moment a sound across the room arrested him:
a soft scraping sound such as a mouse might make.
He went where it was, and a little square of paper
gleamed white through the darkness just within the
door.  Ste. Marie caught it up and took it to the far
side of the room away from the window.  He struck
a match, opened the folded paper, and a single
line of writing was there—

"He will go with you.  Wait by the door in the wall."

.. vspace:: 2

The man nearly cried out with joy.

He struck another match and looked at his watch.
It was a quarter to ten.  Four hours left out of the
fourteen.

Once more he lay down upon the bed and closed
his eyes.  He knew that he could not sleep, but he
was tired from long tramping up and down the
room and from the strain of over-tried nerves.
From hour to hour he looked at his watch by
match-light, but he did not leave the bed until half-past
one.  Then he rose and took a long breath, and
the time was at hand.

He stood a little while gazing out into the night.
An old moon was high overhead in a cloudless sky,
and that would make the night's work both easier
and more difficult, but, on the whole, he was glad
of it.  He looked to the east towards that wall
where was the little wooden door, and the way was
under cover of trees and shrubbery for the whole
distance save a little space beside the house.  He
listened and the night was very still—no sound from
the house below him—no sound anywhere save the
barking of a dog from far away, and, after an
instant, the whistle of a distant train.

Ste. Marie turned back into the room and pulled
the sheets from his bed.  He rolled them, corner-wise,
into a sort of rope and knotted them together
securely.  Then he went to one of the east windows.
There was no balcony there, but, as in all French
upper windows, a wood and iron bar fixed into the
stone casing at both ends, with a little grille below
it.  It crossed the window-space a third of the
distance from bottom to top.  He bent one end of the
improvised rope to this, made it fast, and let the
other end hang out.  The east side of the house
was in shadow, and the rolled sheet, a vague white
line, disappeared into the darkness below, but
Ste. Marie knew that it must reach nearly to the ground.
He had made use of it because he was afraid there
would be too much noise if he tried to climb down
the ivy.  The room directly underneath was the
drawing-room, and he knew that it was closed and
shuttered and unoccupied both by day and by
night.  The only danger, he decided, was from the
sleeping-room behind his own, with its windows
opening close by; but though he did not know it
he was safe there also, for the room was Coira O'Hara's.

He felt in his pocket for the pistol and it was
ready to hand.  Then he buttoned his coat round
him and swung himself out of the window.  He held
his body away from the wall with one knee, and
went down, hand under hand.  It was so quietly
done that it did not even rouse the birds in the
near-by trees.  Before he realised that he had come to
the lower windows his feet touched the earth and
he was free.

He stood for a moment where he was, and then
slipped rapidly across the open moonlit space into
the inky gloom of the trees.  He made a half-circle
round before the house and looked up at it.  It lay
grey and black and still in the night.  Where the
moonlight was upon it it was grey, where there was
shadow black as black velvet, and the windows were
like open dead eyes.  He looked towards Arthur
Benham's room, and there was no light, but he knew
that the boy was awake and waiting there, shivering
probably in the dark.  He wondered where Coira
O'Hara was, and he pictured her lying in her bed
fronting the gloom with sleepless open eyes
looking into those to-morrows which she had said she
saw so well.  He wondered bitterly what the
to-morrows were to bring her, but he caught himself
up with a stern determination and put her out of
his mind.  He did not dare think of her in that hour.

He turned and began to make his way silently
under the trees towards the appointed meeting
place.  Once he thought of the old Michel, and
wondered where that gnarled and withered
watch-dog had betaken himself.  Somewhere, within or
without the house, he was asleep, or pretended to
sleep, and Ste. Marie knew that he could be trusted.
The man's cupidity and his hatred of Captain
Stewart together would make him faithful—or
faithless, as one chose to look upon it.

He came to that place where a row of lilac shrubs
stood against the wall and a half-dead cedar stretched
gnarled branches above.  He was a little before his
time, and he settled himself to listen and wait, his
sharp ears keenly on the alert, his eyes turned
towards the dark and quiet house.

The little noises of the night broke upon him with
exaggerated clamour.  A crackling twig was a
thunderous crash, a bird's sleepy stir was the sound
of pursuit and disaster.  A hundred times he heard
the cautious approach of Richard Hartley's motor-car
without the wall, and he fell into a panic of fear
lest that machine prove unruly, break down, puncture
a tyre, or burst into a series of ear-splitting
explosions.  But at last—it seemed to him that he
had waited untold hours and that the dawn must be
nigh—there came an unmistakable rustling from
overhead and the sound of hard-drawn breath.  The
top of the wall, just at that point, was in moonlight,
and a man's head appeared over it, then an arm
and then a leg.  Hartley called down to him in a
whisper, and Ste. Marie, from the gloom beneath,
whispered a reply.  He said—

"The boy has promised to come with us.  We
shan't have to fight for it."  Richard Hartley said—

"Thank God!" He spoke to some one outside
and then, turning about, let himself down to arm's
length and dropped to the ground.

"Thank God!" he said again.  "The two men
who were to have come with me didn't show up.  I
waited as long as I dared, and then came on with
only the chauffeur.  He's waiting outside by the
car ready to crank up when I give the word.  The
car's just a few yards away headed out for the
road.  How are we to get back over the wall?"

Ste. Marie explained that Arthur Benham was to
come out to join them at the wooden door, and
doubtless would bring a key.  If not, the three of
them could scale fifteen feet easily enough in the
way soldiers and firemen are trained to do it.
He told his friend all that was necessary for the time,
and they went together along the wall to the more
open space beside the little door.

They waited there in silence for five minutes,
and once Hartley, with his back towards the house,
struck a match under his sheltering coat, looked to
see what time it was, and it was three minutes past
two.

"He ought to be here!" the man growled.  "I
don't like waiting.  Good Lord, you don't think
he's funked it, do you?  Eh?"  Ste. Marie did
not answer, but he was breathing very fast and he
could not keep his hands still.

The dog which he had heard from his window
began barking again very far away in the night, and
kept it up incessantly.  Perhaps he was barking at
the moon.

"I'm going a little way towards the house," said
Ste. Marie at last.  "We can't see the terrace from
here."  But before he had started they heard the
sound of hurrying feet, and Richard Hartley began
to curse under his breath.  He said—

"Does the young idiot want to rouse the whole
place?  Why can't he come quietly?"

Ste. Marie began to run forward, slipping the
pistol out of his pocket and holding it ready in his
hand, for his quick ears told him that there was more
than one pair of feet coming through the night.  He
went to where he could command the approach
from the house and halted there, but all at once he
gave a low cry and started forward again, for he
saw that Arthur Benham and Coira O'Hara were
running together, and that they were in desperate
haste.  He called out to them and the girl cried—

"Go to the door in the wall!  The door in the
wall!  Oh, be quick!"  He fell into step beside
her, and, as they ran, he said—

"You're going with him?  You're coming with
us?"  The girl answered him—

"No! no!" and she sprang to the little low
door and began to fit the iron key into the lock.
The three men stood about her, and young Arthur
Benham drew his breath in great shivering gasps
that were like sobs.

"They heard us!" he cried in a whisper.
"They're after us.  They heard us on the stairs.
I—stumbled and fell.  For God's sake, Coira, be
quick!"

The girl fumbled desperately with the clumsy
key, and dropped upon her knees to see the better.
Once she said in a whisper: "I can't turn it.  It
won't turn," and at that Richard Hartley pushed
her out of the way and lent his greater strength to
the task.

.. _`"The girl fumbled desperately with the clumsy key."`:

.. figure:: images/img-344.jpg
   :align: center
   :alt: "The girl fumbled desperately with the clumsy key."

   "The girl fumbled desperately with the clumsy key."

A sudden loud cry came from the house, a hoarse
screeching cry in a voice which might have been
either man's or woman's, but was as mad and as
desperate and as horrible in that still night as the
screech of a tortured animal—or of a maniac.  It
came again and again and it was nearer.

"Oh, hurry!  hurry!" said the girl.  "Can't
you be quick?  They're coming."  And, as she
spoke, the little group about the wall heard the
engine of the motor-car outside start up with a staccato
roar, and knew that the faithful chauffeur was ready
for them.

"I'm getting it, I think!" said Richard Hartley
between his teeth.  "I'm getting it.  Turn, you
beast!  Turn!"

There was a sound of hurrying feet, and Ste. Marie
spun about.  He cried—

"Don't wait for me!  Jump into the car and
go!  Don't wait anywhere.  Come back after you've
left Benham at home!"  He began to run forward
toward those running feet, and he did not know that
the girl followed after him.  A short distance
away there was a little open space of moonlight,
and in its midst, at full career, he met the
Irishman O'Hara, a gaunt and grotesque figure in his
sleeping suit, barefooted, with empty hands.
Beyond him still, some one else ran stumbling, and
sobbed and uttered mad cries.

Ste. Marie dropped his pistol to the ground and
sprang upon the Irishman.  He caught him about
the body and arms, and the two swayed and staggered
under the tremendous impact.  At just that
moment, from behind, came the crash of the opened
door and triumphant shouts.  Ste. Marie gave a
little gasp of triumph too, and clung the harder to
the man with whom he fought.  He drove his
head into the Irishman's shoulder, and set his
muscles with a grip which was like iron.  He knew
that it could not endure long, for the Irishman was
stronger than he; but the grip of a nervous man
who is keyed up to a high tension is incredibly powerful
for a little while.  Trained strength is nothing
beside it.

It seemed to Ste. Marie in this desperate moment—it
cannot have been more than a minute or two
at the most—that a strange and uncanny miracle
befel him.  It was as if he became two.  Soul and
body, spirit and straining flesh, seemed to him to
separate, to stand apart each from the other.  There
was a thing of iron flesh and thews which had locked
itself about an enemy, and clung there madly with
but one purpose, one single thought—to grip and
grip and never loosen until flesh should be torn
from bones.  But apart, the spirit looked on with a
complete detachment.  It looked beyond—he must
have raised his head to glance over O'Hara's
shoulder—saw a mad figure staggering forward in the
moonlight, and knew the figure for Captain Stewart.  It
saw an upraised arm and was not afraid, for the
work was almost done now.  It listened and was
glad, hearing the motor-car without the walls leap
forward into the night, and its puffing grow fainter
and fainter with distance.  It knew that the thing
of strained sinews received a crashing blow upon
back-flung head, and that the iron muscles were slipping
away from their grip, but it was still glad, for the
work was done.

Only at the last, before red and whirling lights
had obscured the view, before consciousness was
dissolved in unconsciousness, came horror and agony,
for the eyes saw Captain Stewart back away and
raise the thing he had struck with, a large revolver,
saw Coira O'Hara, a swift and flashing figure in the
moonlight, throw herself upon him, before he could
fire, heard together a woman's scream and the roar
of the pistol's explosion, and so knew no more.





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.. _`COIRA'S LITTLE HOUR`:

.. class:: center large bold

   CHAPTER XXVIII


.. class:: center medium bold

   COIRA'S LITTLE HOUR

.. vspace:: 2

When Coira O'Hara came to herself from
the moment's swoon into which she had
fallen she rose to her knees and stared wildly about
her.  She seemed to be alone in the place, and her
first thought was to wonder how long she had
lain there.  Captain Stewart had disappeared.  She
remembered her struggle with him to prevent him
from firing at Ste. Marie, and she remembered her
desperate agony when she realised that she could
not hold him much longer.  She remembered the
accidental discharge of the revolver into the air,
she remembered being thrown violently to the
ground—and that was all.

Where was her father and where was Ste. Marie?
The first question answered itself, for, as she turned
her eyes towards the west, she saw O'Hara's tall
ungainly figure disappearing in the direction of the
house.  She called his name twice, but it may be
that the man did not hear for he went on without
pausing and was lost to sight.

The girl became aware of something which lay
on the ground near her, half in and half out of the
patch of silver moonlight.  For some moments she
stared at it uncomprehending.  Then she gave a
sharp scream and struggled to her feet.  She ran
to the thing which lay there motionless and fell
upon her knees beside it.  It was Ste. Marie, his face
upturned to the sky, one side of his head black and
damp.  Stewart had not shot him, but that crashing
blow with the clubbed revolver had struck him
full and fair and he was very still.

For an instant the girl's strength went out of her
and she dropped lax across the body, her face upon
Ste. Marie's breast.  But after that she tore open
coat and waistcoat and felt for a heartbeat.  It
seemed to her that she found life, and she began to
believe that the man had only been stunned.

Once more she rose to her feet and looked about
her.  There was no one to lend her aid.  She bent
over the unconscious man and slipped her arms
about him.  Though Ste. Marie was tall he was
slightly built, by no means heavy, and the girl was
very strong.  She found that she could carry him
a little way, dragging his feet after her.  When
she could go no farther she laid him down, and
crouched over him, waiting until her strength should
return.  And this she did for a score of times;
but each time the distance she went was shorter,
and her breathing came with deeper gasps, and the
trembling in her limbs grew more terrible.  At the
last she moved in a sort of fever, an evil dream of
tortured body and reeling brain.  But she had got
Ste. Marie up through the park to the terrace and
into the house, and, with a last desperate effort,
she had laid him upon a couch in a certain little
room which opened from the lower hall.  Then
she fell down before him and lay still for a long time.

When she came to herself again the man was
stirring feebly and muttering to himself under his
breath.  With slow and painful steps she got across
the room, and pulled the bell cord.  She remained
there ringing until the old Justine, blinking and half
dressed, appeared with a candle in the doorway.
Coira told the woman to make lights and then to
bring water and a certain little bottle of aromatic
salts which was in her room upstairs.  The old
Justine exclaimed and cried out, but the girl flew at her
in a white fury, and she tottered away as fast as
old legs could move, once she had set alight the row
of candles on the mantel shelf.  Then Coira
O'Hara went back to the man who lay outstretched
on the low couch, and knelt beside him looking into
his face.  The man stirred and moved his head slowly.
Half articulate words came from his lips and she
made out that he was saying her name in a dull
monotone—only her name, over and over again.
She gave a little cry of grief and gladness, and hid
her face against him as she had done once before,
out in the night.

The old woman returned with a jug of water,
towels and the bottle of aromatic salts.  The two of
them washed that red stain from Ste. Marie's head
and found that he had received a severe bruise, and
that the flesh had been cut before and above the ear.

"Thank God!" the girl said, "it is only a flesh
wound.  If it were a fracture he would be breathing
in that horrible loud way they always do.  He's
breathing naturally.  He has only been stunned.

"You may go now!" she said.  "Only, bring a
glass and some drinking water—cold."

So the old woman went away to do her errand,
returned and went away again, and the two were
left together.  Coira held the salts bottle to
Ste. Marie's nostrils, and he gasped and sneezed and
tried to turn his head away from it, but it brought
him to his senses—and doubtless to a good deal of
pain.  Once when he could not escape the thing he
broke into a fit of weak cursing, and the girl laughed
over him tenderly and let him be.

Very slowly Ste. Marie opened his eyes and, in the
soft half light, the girl's face was bent above him, dark
and sweet and beautiful—near, so near that her
breath was warm upon his lips.  He said her name
again in an incredulous whisper—

"Coira!  Coira!"  And she said—

"I am here."  But the man was in a strange
borderland of half consciousness, and his ears were
deaf.

He said, gazing up at her—

"Is it—another dream?"  And he tried to raise
one hand from where it lay beside him, but the hand
wavered and fell aslant across his body.  It had
not the strength yet to obey him.

He said, still in his weak whisper—

"Oh, beautiful—and sweet—and true!"

The girl gave a little sob and hid her face.

"A goddess!" he whispered.  "'A queen among
goddesses!'  That's—what the little Jew said.
'A queen among goddesses.—The young Juno,
before——'"  He stirred restlessly where he lay,
and he complained—

"My head hurts!  What's the matter with my
head?  It hurts."

She dipped one of the towels in the basin of cold
water and held it to the man's brow.  The chill of
it must have been grateful for his eyes closed and he
breathed a little satisfied.  "Ah!

"It mustn't hurt to-night," said he.  "To-night
at two—by the little door in the garden wall.  And
he's coming with us.  The young fool is coming
with us....  So she and I go out of each other's
lives....

"Coira!" he cried with a sudden sharpness.
"Coira, I won't have it!  Am I going to lose you
... like this?  Am I going to lose you after all
... now that we know?"  He put up his hand once
more—a weak and uncertain hand.  It touched
the girl's warm cheek and a sudden violent shiver
wrung the man on the couch.  His eyes sharpened
and stared with something like fear.

"*Real!*" he cried, whispering.  "Real? ... Not
a dream?"

"Oh, very real, my Bayard!" said she.  A
thought came to her and she drew away from the
couch, and sat back upon her heels, looking at the
man with grave and sombre eyes.  In that moment
she fought within herself a battle of right and
wrong.

"He doesn't remember," she said.  "He doesn't
know.  He is like a little child.  He knows nothing
but that we two—are here together.  Nothing else.
Nothing!"

His state was plain to see.  He dwelt still in that
vague borderland between worlds.  He had brought
with him no memories, and no memories followed
him save those her face had wakened.  Within
the girl a great and tender passion of love fought
for possession of this little hour.

"It will be all I shall ever have!" she cried
piteously.  "And it cannot harm him.  He won't
remember it when he comes to his senses.  He'll
sleep again and—forget.  He'll go back to her and
never know.  And I shall never even see him again.
Why can't I have my little sweet hour?"

Once more the man cried her name, and she
knelt forward and bent above him.

"Oh, at last, Coira!" said he.  "After so long!
... And I thought it was another dream."

"Do you dream of me, Bayard?" she asked.
And he said—

"From the very first.  From that evening in the
Champs Elysées.  Your eyes, they've haunted me
from the very first.

"There was a dream of you," he said, "that I
had so often—but I cannot quite remember because
my head hurts.  What is the matter with my head?
I was—going somewhere.  It was so very important
that I should go, but I have forgotten where it was
and why I had to go there.  I remember only that
you called to me—called me back—and I saw your
eyes—and I couldn't go.  You needed me."

"Ah, sorely, Bayard!  Sorely!" cried the girl
above him.

"And now," said he, whispering.

"Now?" she said.

"Coira, I love you," said the man on the couch.
And Coira O'Hara gave a single dry sob.  She said—

"Oh, my dear love! now I wish that I might
die after hearing you say that.  My life, Bayard, is
full now.  It's full of joy and gratefulness and
everything that is sweet.  I wish I might die before other
things come to spoil it."

Ste. Marie—or that part of him which lay at
La Lierre, laughed with a fine scorn, albeit very
weakly.

"Why not live instead?" said he.  "And what
can come to spoil our life for us?

"*Our life!*" he said again in a whisper.  A flash
of remembrance seemed to come to him for he
smiled, and said—

"Coira, we'll go to Vavau."

"Anywhere!" said she.  "Anywhere!"

"So that we go together."

"Yes," she said gently, "so that we two go
together."  She tried with a desperate fierceness to
make herself like the man before her, to put away,
by sheer power of will, all memory, the knowledge
of everything save what was in this little room, but
it was the vainest of all vain efforts.  She saw
herself for a thief and a cheat—stealing, for love's sake,
the mere body of the man she loved while mind and
soul were absent.  In her agony she almost cried
out aloud as the words said themselves within her.
And she denied them.  She said—

"His mind may be absent but his soul is here.
He loves me.  It is I, not that other.  Can I not have
my poor little hour of pretence?  A little hour out
of all a lifetime!  Shall I have nothing at all?"

But the voice which had accused her said—

"If he knew, would he say he loves you?"  And
she hid her face, for she knew that he would
not—even if it were true.

"Coira!" whispered the man on the couch, and
she raised her head.  In the half darkness he could
not have seen how she was suffering.  Her face was
only a warm blur to him, vague and sweet and
beautiful, with tender eyes.  He said—

"I think—I'm falling asleep.  My head is so
very, very queer!  What is the matter with my
head?  Coira, do you think I might be kissed before
I go to sleep?"

She gave a little cry of intolerable anguish.  It
seemed to her that she was being tortured beyond
all reason or endurance.  She felt suddenly very
weak and she was afraid that she was going to faint
away.  She laid her face down upon the couch
where Ste. Marie's head lay.  Her cheek was against
his and her hair across his eyes.

The man gave a little contented sigh and fell
asleep.

Later, she rose stiffly and wearily to her feet.
She stood for a little while looking down upon him.
It was as if she looked upon the dead body of a
lover.  She seemed to say a still and white and
tearless farewell to him.  Her little hour was done, and
it had been, instead of joy, bitterness unspeakable:
ashes in the mouth.  Then she went out of the room
and closed the door.

In the hall outside she stood a moment considering,
and finally mounted the stairs and went to her
father's door.  She knocked and thought she heard
a slight stirring inside, but there was no answer.
She knocked twice again and called out her father's
name, saying that she wished to speak to him,
but still he made no reply, and, after waiting a little
longer, she turned away.  She went downstairs
again and out upon the terrace.  The terrace and
the lawn before it were still chequered with silver
and deep black, but the moon was an hour lower
in the west.  A little cool breeze had sprung up and
it was sweet and grateful to her.  She sat down
upon one of the stone benches and leant her head
back against the trunk of a tree which stood beside,
and she remained there for a long time, still and
relaxed in a sort of bodily and mental languor—an
exhaustion of flesh and spirit.

There came shambling footsteps upon the turf
and the old Michel advanced into the moonlight
from the gloom of the trees, emitting mechanical
and not very realistic groans.  He had been hard
put to it to find any one before whom he could pour
out his tale of heroism and suffering.  Coira O'Hara
looked upon him coldly, and the gnome groaned with
renewed and somewhat frightened energy.

"What is the matter with you?" she asked.
"Why are you about at this hour?"  The old
Michel told his piteous tale with tears and passion,
protesting that he had succumbed only before the
combined attack of twenty armed men, and exhibiting
his wounds.  But the girl gave a brief and
mirthless laugh.

"You were bribed to tell that, I suppose," said
she.  "By M. Ste. Marie?  Yes, probably.  Well,
tell it to my father to-morrow!  You'd better go
to bed now."  The old man stared at her with
open mouth for a breathless moment, and then
shambled hastily away, looking over his shoulder,
at intervals, until he was out of sight.

But after that the girl still remained in her place
from sheer weariness and lack of impulse to move.
She fell to wondering about Captain Stewart and
what had become of him, but she did not greatly
care.  She had a feeling that her world had come to
its end, and she was quite indifferent about those who
still peopled its ashes—or about all of them save her
father.

She heard the distant sound of a motor-car, and
at that sat up quickly, for it might be Ste. Marie's
friend Mr. Hartley returning from Paris.  The sound
came nearer and ceased, but she waited for ten
minutes before rapid steps approached from the
east wall and Hartley was before her.

He cried at once—

"Where's Ste. Marie?  Where is he?  He hasn't
tried to walk into the city?"

"He is asleep in the house," said the girl.  "He
was struck on the head and stunned.  I got him
into the house and he is asleep now.

"Of course," she said, "we could wake him, but
it would probably be better to let him sleep as long
as he will if it is possible.  It will save him a great
deal of pain I think.  He'll have a frightful
headache if he's wakened now.  Could you come for him
or send for him to-morrow—towards noon?"

"Why—yes, I suppose so," said Richard Hartley.
"Yes, of course, if you think that's better.  Could
I just see him for a moment?"  He stared at
the girl a bit suspiciously and Coira looked back
at him with a little tired smile, for she read his
thought.

"You want to make sure," said she.  "Of course!
Yes, come in.  He's sleeping very soundly."  She
led the man into that dim room where Ste. Marie
lay, and Hartley's quick eye noted the basin of water
and the stained towels and the little bottle of
aromatic salts.  He bent over his friend to see the bruise
at the side of the head, and listened to the sleeper's
breathing.  Then the two went out again to the
moonlit terrace.

"You must forgive me," said he when they had
come there.  "You must forgive me for seeming
suspicious, but—all this wretched business—and
he is my closest friend.—I've come to suspect
everybody.  I was unjust, for you helped us to get away.
I beg your pardon!"

The girl smiled at him again, her little white
tired smile, and she said—

"There is nothing I would not do to make
amends—now that I know—the truth."

"Yes," said Hartley.  "I understand.  Arthur
Benham told me how Stewart lied to you all.  Was
it he who struck Ste. Marie?"  She nodded.

"And then tried to shoot him—but he didn't
succeed in that.  I wonder where he is—Captain
Stewart?"

"I have him out in the car," Hartley said.  "Oh,
he shall pay, you may be sure!  If he doesn't die
and cheat us, that is.  I nearly ran the car over
him a few minutes ago.  If it hadn't been for the
moonlight I would have done for him.  He was lying
on his face in that lane that leads to the Issy road.
I don't know what is the matter with him.  He's
only half conscious and he's quite helpless.  He
looks as if he'd had a stroke of apoplexy or
something.  I must hurry him back to Paris, I suppose,
and get him under a doctor's care.  I wonder what's
wrong with him?"  The girl shook her head, for she
did not know of Stewart's epileptic seizures.  She
thought it quite possible that he had suffered a stroke
of apoplexy as Hartley suggested, for she remembered
the half-mad state he had been in.

Richard Hartley stood for a time in thought.

"I must get Stewart back to Paris at once," he
said finally.  "I must get him under care, and in a
safe place from which he can't escape.  It will want
some managing.  If I can get away, I'll come out
here again in the morning; but if not, I'll send the
car out with orders to wait here until Ste. Marie is
ready to return to the city.  Are you sure he's
all right—that he isn't badly hurt?"

"I think he will be all right," she said, "save for
the pain.  He was only stunned."  And Hartley
nodded.

"He seems to be breathing quite naturally,"
said he.  "That's arranged then.  The car will be
here in waiting, and I shall come with it if I can.
Tell him when he wakes."  He put out his hand
to her, and the girl gave him hers very listlessly but
smiling.  She wished he would go, and leave her alone.

Then in a moment more he did go, and she heard
his quick steps down through the trees, and heard, a
little later, the engine of the motor car start up with
a sudden loud volley of explosions.  And so she
was left to her solitary watch.  She noticed as
she turned to go indoors that the blackness of
the night was just beginning to grey towards dawn.





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.. _`THE SCALES OF INJUSTICE`:

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   CHAPTER XXIX


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   THE SCALES OF INJUSTICE

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Ste. Marie slept soundly until mid-morning—that
is to say, about ten o'clock—and then awoke
with a dull pain in his head and a sensation of
extreme giddiness, which became something like
vertigo when he attempted to rise.  However, with
the aid of the old Michel he got somehow upstairs
to his room, and made a rather sketchy toilet.

Coira came to him there and, while he lay still
across the bed, told him about the happenings of
the night after he had received his injury.  She
told him also that the motor was waiting for him,
outside the wall, and that Richard Hartley had
sent a message by the chauffeur, to say that he
was very busy in Paris making arrangements
about Stewart, who had come out of his strange
state of half insensibility only to rave in a delirium.

"So," she said, "you can go now whenever you
are ready.  Arthur is with his family, Captain
Stewart is under guard, and your work is done.
You ought to be glad—even though you are suffering
pain."

Ste. Marie looked up at her.

"Do I seem glad, Coira?" said he.  And she said—

"You will be glad to-morrow—and always, I
hope and pray.  Always, always!"

The man held one hand over his aching eyes.

"I have," he said, "queer half-memories.  I
wish I could remember distinctly."

He looked up at her again.

"I dropped down by the gate in the wall.  When
I awoke I was in a room in the house.  How did
that happen?"

"Oh," she said, turning her face away, "we
got you up to the house almost at once."  But
Ste. Marie frowned thoughtfully.

"'We'?  Who do you mean by 'we'?"

"Well then, I," the girl said.  "It was not
difficult."

"Coira!" cried the man, "do you mean that
you carried me bodily all that long distance?  You?"

"Carried or dragged," she said.  "As much one
as the other.  It was not very difficult.  I'm
strong, for a woman."

"Oh, child, child!" he cried.  And he said—

"I remember more.  It was you who held Stewart,
and kept him from shooting me.  I heard the
shot and I heard you scream.  The last thought
I had was that you had been killed in saving me.
That's what I went out into the blank, thinking."

He covered his eyes again as if the memory were
intolerable.  But after a while he said—

"You saved my life, you know."  And the girl
answered him—

"I had nearly taken it once before.  It was I
who called Michel that day you came over the
wall, the day you were shot.  I nearly murdered
you once.  I owed you something.  Perhaps we're
even now."  She saw that he did not at all
remember that hour in the little room—her hour
of bitterness, and she was glad.  She had felt sure
that it would be so.  For the present she did not
greatly suffer; she had come to a state beyond
active suffering—a chill state of dulled sensibilities.

The old Justine knocked at the door to ask if
monsieur was going into the city soon, or if she
should give the chauffeur his *déjeuner* and tell him
to wait.

"Are you fit to go?" Coira asked.  And he said—

"I suppose as fit as I shall be."  He got to his
feet, and the things about him swam dangerously,
but he could walk by using great care.  The girl
stood white and still, and she avoided his eyes.

"It is not good-bye," said he.  "I shall see you
soon again—and I hope, often—often, Coira."  The
words had a flat and foolish sound, but he
could find no others.  It was not easy to speak.

"I suppose I must not ask to see your father?"
said he, and she told him that her father had locked
himself in his own room and would see no one,
would not even open his door to take in food.

Ste. Marie went to the stairs, leaning upon the
shoulder of the stout old Justine, but, before he
had gone, Coira checked him for an instant.  She
said—

"Tell Arthur, if he speaks to you about me,
that what I said in the note I gave him last night,
I meant quite seriously.  I gave him a note to
read after he reached home.  Tell him for me that
it was final.  Will you do that?"

"Yes, of course," said Ste. Marie.  He looked at
her with some wonder because her words had been
very emphatic.

"Yes," he said, "I will tell him.  Is that all?"

"All but good-bye," said she.  "Good-bye, Bayard!"

She stood at the head of the stairs while he went
down them.  And she came after him to the
landing halfway where the stairs turned in the opposite
direction for their lower flight.  When he went
out of the front door he looked back, and she was
standing there above him—a straight, still figure,
dark against the light of the windows behind her.

He went straight to the Rue d'Assas.  He found
that while he sat still in the comfortable tonneau
of the motor his head was fairly normal, and the
world did not swing and whirl about in that
sickening fashion.  But when the car lurched or bumped
over an obstruction it made him giddy, and he
would have fallen had he been standing.

The familiar streets of the Montparnasse and
Luxembourg quarters had for his eyes all the charm
and delight of home things to the returned traveller.
He felt as if he had been away for months, and he
caught himself looking for changes, and it made
him laugh.  He was much relieved when he found
that his concierge was not on watch, and that he
could slip unobserved up the stairs and into his
rooms.  The rooms were fresh and clean, for they
had been aired and tended daily.

Arrived there he wrote a little note to a friend
of his who was a doctor and lived in the Rue Notre
Dame des Champs, asking this man to call as soon
as it might be convenient.  He sent the note by
the chauffeur, and then lay down, dressed as he was,
to wait, for he could not stand or move about
without a painful dizziness.  The doctor came within
a half-hour, examined Ste. Marie's bruised head
and bound it up.  He gave him a dose of something
with a vile taste, which he said would take away
the worst of the pain in a few hours, and he also
gave him a sleeping potion, and made him go to bed.

"You'll be fairly fit by evening," he said.  "But
don't stir until then.  I'll leave word below that
you're not to be disturbed."

So it happened that when Richard Hartley came
dashing up an hour or two later he was not allowed
to see his friend, and Ste. Marie slept a dreamless
sleep until dark.

He awoke then, refreshed but ravenous with
hunger, and found that there was only a dull ache
in his battered head.  The dizziness and the vertigo
were almost completely gone.  He made lights
and dressed with care.  He felt like a little girl
making ready for a party; it was so long—or
seemed so long—since he had put on evening
clothes.  Then he went out, leaving at the loge
of the concierge a note for Hartley to say where
he might be found.  He went to Lavenue's and
dined in solitary pomp, for it was after nine o'clock.
Again it seemed to him that it was months since
he had done the like—sat down to a real table for
a real dinner.  At ten he got into a fiacre and drove
to the Rue de l'Université.

The man who admitted him said that mademoiselle
was alone in the drawing-room, and he went
there at once.  He was dully conscious that
something was very wrong, but he had suffered too much
within the past few hours to be analytical, and he
did not know what it was that was wrong.  He
should have entered that room with a swift and
eager step, with shining eyes, with a high-beating
heart.  He went into it slowly, wrapped in a mantle
of strange apathy.

Helen Benham came forward to meet him and
took both his hands in hers.  Ste. Marie was
amazed to see that she seemed not to have altered
at all—in spite of this enormous lapse of time,
in spite of all that had happened in it.  And yet,
unaltered, she seemed to him a stranger, a charming
and gracious stranger with an icily beautiful face,
He wondered at her and at himself, and he was a
little alarmed, because he thought that he must
be ill.  That blow upon the head must, after all,
have done something terrible to him.

"Ah, Ste. Marie!" she said in her well-remembered
voice—and again he wondered that the
voice should be so high-pitched, and so without
colour or feeling.  "How glad I am," she said,
"that you are safely out of it all!  How you have
suffered for us, Ste. Marie!  You look white and
ill.  Sit down, please!  Don't stand!"  She drew
him to a comfortable chair, and he sat down in it
obediently.  He could not think of anything to
say, though he was not, as a rule, tongue-tied,
but the girl did not seem to expect any answer, for
she went on at once with a rather odd air of haste—

"Arthur is here with us, safe and sound.  Richard
Hartley brought him back from that dreadful
place, and he has talked everything over with
my grandfather, and it's all right.  They both
understand now, and there'll be no more trouble.
We have had to be careful, very careful, and we
have had to—well, to rearrange the facts a little
so as to leave—my uncle—to leave Captain Stewart's
name out of it.  It would not do to shock my
grandfather by telling him the truth.  Perhaps, later;
I don't know.  That will have to be thought of.
For the present we have left my uncle out of it—and
put the blame entirely upon this other man.
I forget his name."

"The blame cannot rest there," said Ste. Marie
sharply.  "It is not deserved, and I shall not allow
it to be left so.  Captain Stewart lied to O'Hara
throughout.  You cannot leave the blame with an
innocent man."

"Still—" she said, "such a man!"

Ste. Marie looked at her, frowning, and the girl
turned her eyes away.  She may have had the
grace to be a little ashamed.

"Think of the difficulty we were in!" she urged.
"Captain Stewart is my grandfather's own son.
We cannot tell him now, in his weak state, that
his own son is—what he is."

There was reason if not justice in that, and
Ste. Marie was forced to admit it.  He said—

"Ah well! for the present, then.  That can be
arranged later.  The main point is that I've found
your brother for you.  I've brought him back."

Miss Benham looked up at him and away again,
and she drew a quick breath.  He saw her hands
move restlessly in her lap, and he was aware that
for some odd reason she was very ill at ease.  At
last she said—

"Ah, but—but have you, dear Ste. Marie?  Have you?"

After a brief silence she stole another swift
glance at the man, and he was staring in open
and frank bewilderment.  She rushed into rapid
speech.

"Ah," she cried, "don't misunderstand me!
Don't think that I'm brutal or ungrateful for all
you've—you've suffered in trying to help us.
Don't think that!  I can—we can never be grateful
enough, never!  But stop and think!  Yes, I
know this all sounds hideous, but it's so terribly
important.  I shouldn't dream of saying a word
of it if it weren't so important, if so much didn't
depend upon it.  But stop and think!  Was it,
dear Ste. Marie, was it, after all, you?  Was it
you who brought Arthur to us?"

The man fairly blinked at her, owl-like.  He was
beyond speech.

"Wasn't it Richard?" she hurried on.  "Wasn't
it Richard Hartley?  Ah, if I could only say it
without seeming so contemptibly heartless!  If
only I needn't say it at all!  But it must be said
because of what depends upon it.

"Think!  Go back to the beginning!  Wasn't it
Richard who first began to suspect my uncle?
Didn't he tell you or write to you what he had
discovered, and so set you upon the right track?
And after you had—well, just fallen into their
hands, with no hope of ever escaping, yourself—to
say nothing of bringing Arthur back—wasn't it
Richard who came to your rescue and brought it
all to victory?  Oh, Ste. Marie, I must be just to
him as well as to you!  Don't you see that?
However grateful I may be to you for what you have
done—suffered—I cannot, in justice, give you what
I was to have given you, since it is, after all, Richard
who has saved my brother.  I cannot, can I?
Surely you must see it.  And you must see how
it hurts me to have to say it.  I had hoped
that—you would understand—without my speaking."

Still the man sat in his trance of astonishment,
speechless.  For the first time in his life he was
brought face to face with the amazing, the
appalling injustice of which a woman is capable when
her heart is concerned.  This girl wished to believe
that to Richard Hartley belonged the credit for
rescuing her brother, and, lo! she believed it.  A
score of juries might have decided against her, a
hundred proofs controverted her decision, but
she would have been deaf and blind.  It is only
women who accomplish miracles of reasoning like
that.

Ste. Marie took a long breath and he started to
speak, but in the end shook his head and remained
silent.  Through the whirl and din of falling skies
he was yet able to see the utter futility of words.
He could have adduced a hundred arguments to
prove her absurdity.  He could have shown her
that before he ever read Hartley's note he had
decided upon Stewart's guilt—and for much better
reasons than Hartley had.  He could have pointed
out to her that it was he, not Hartley, who
discovered young Benham's whereabouts; that it
was he who summoned Hartley there; and that,
as a matter of fact, Hartley need not have come
at all, since the boy had been persuaded to go
home in any case.

He thought of all these things and more, and,
in a moment of sheer anger at her injustice, he was
on the point of stating them, but he shook his head
and remained silent.  After all, of what use was
speech?  He knew that it could make no impression
upon her, and he knew why.  For some reason,
in some way, she had turned, during his absence,
to Richard Hartley, and there was nothing more
to be said.  There was no treachery on Hartley's
part.  He knew that, and it never even occurred
to him to blame his friend.  Hartley was as
faithful as any one who ever lived.  It seemed to be
nobody's fault.  It had just happened.

He looked at the girl before him with a new
expression, an expression of sheer curiosity.  It
seemed to him wellnigh incredible that any human
being could be so unjust and so blind.  Yet he
knew her to be, in other matters, one of the fairest
of all women, just and tender and thoughtful and
true.  He knew that she prided herself upon her
cool impartiality of judgment.  He shook his head
with a little sigh, and ceased to wonder any more.
It was beyond him.

He became aware that he ought to say something,
and he said—

"Yes.  Yes, I—see.  I see what you mean.  Yes,
Hartley did all you say.  I hadn't meant to rob
Hartley of the credit he deserves.  I suppose
you're right."  He was possessed of a sudden
longing to get away out of that room, and he rose
to his feet.

"If you don't mind," he said, "I think I'd
better go.  This is—well, it's a bit of a facer, you
see.  I want to think it over.  Perhaps to-morrow—you
don't mind?"  He saw a swift relief flash
into Miss Benham's eyes, but she murmured a
few words of protest that had a rather perfunctory
sound.  Ste. Marie shook his head.

"Thanks!  I won't stay," said he.  "Not just
now.  I—think I'd better go."  He had a confused
realisation of platitudinous adieux, of a silly
formality of speech, and he found himself in the
hall.  Once he glanced back, and Miss Benham
was standing where he had left her, looking after
him with a calm and unimpassioned face.  He thought
that she looked rather like a very beautiful statue.

The butler came to him to say that Mr. Stewart
would be glad if he would look in before leaving
the house, and so he went upstairs and knocked
at old David's door.  He moved like a man in a
dream, and the things about him seemed to be
curiously unreal and rather far away, as they seem
sometimes in a fever.

He was admitted at once, and he found the old
man sitting up in bed, clad in one of his incredibly
gorgeous mandarin's jackets—plum-coloured satin,
this time, with peonies—overflowing with spirits
and good-humour.  His grandson sat in a chair
near at hand.  The old man gave a shout of welcome—

"Ah, here's Jason, at last, back from Colchis.
Welcome home to—whatever the name of the place
was.  Welcome home!"  He shook Ste. Marie's
hand with hospitable violence, and Ste. Marie was
astonished to see upon what a new lease of life
and strength the old man seemed to have entered.
There was no ingratitude or misconception here,
certainly.  Old David quite overwhelmed his visitor
with thanks and with expressions of affection.

"You've saved my life among other things!"
he said in his gruff roar.  "I was ready to go, but,
by the Lord, I'm going to stay a while longer now!
This world's a better place than I thought—a
much better place."  He shook a heavily-waggish
head.

"If I didn't know," said he, "what your reward
is to be for what you've done, I should be in despair
over it all, because there is nothing else in the
world that would be anything like adequate.  You've
been making sure of the reward downstairs, I dare
say?  Eh, what?  Yes?"

"You mean——?" asked the younger man.

And old David said—

"I mean Helen, of course.  What else?"

Ste. Marie was not quite himself.  At another
time he might have got out of the room with an
evasive answer, but he spoke without thinking.
He said—

"Oh—yes!  I suppose—I suppose I ought to
tell you that Miss Benham—well, she has changed
her mind.  That is to say——"

"What!" shouted old David Stewart, in his
great voice.  "What is that?"

"Why, it seems," said Ste. Marie, "it seems
that I only blundered.  It seems that Hartley
rescued your grandson, not I.  And I suppose he
did, you know.  When you come to think of it,
I suppose he did."

David Stewart's great white beard seemed to
bristle like the ruff of an angry dog, and his eyes
flashed fiercely under their shaggy brows.

"Do you mean to tell me that after all you've
done and—and gone through, Helen has thrown
you over?  Do you mean to tell me that?"

"Well," argued Ste. Marie uncomfortably, "well,
you see, she seems to be right.  I did bungle it,
didn't I?  It was Hartley who came and pulled
us out of the hole."

"Hartley be damned!" cried the old man in
a towering rage.  And he began to pour out the
most extraordinary flood of furious invective upon
his granddaughter and upon Richard Hartley,
whom he quite unjustly termed a snake-in-the-grass,
and finally upon all women, past, contemporary
or still to be born.

Ste. Marie, in fear of old David's health, tried to
calm him, and the faithful valet came running
from the room beyond with prayers and protestations,
but nothing would check that astonishing
flow of fury until it had run its full course.  Then
the man fell back upon his pillows, crimson, panting
and exhausted; but the fierce eyes glittered still,
and they boded no good for Miss Helen Benham.

"You're well rid of her!" said the old gentleman,
when at last he was once more able to speak.
"You're well rid of her.  I congratulate you!  I
am ashamed and humiliated, and a great burden
of obligation is shifted to me—though I assume it
with pleasure—but I congratulate you.  You might
have found out too late what sort of a woman
she is."

Ste. Marie began to protest and to explain, and
say that Miss Benham had been quite right in
what she said, but the old gentleman only waved
an impatient arm to him; and presently, when he
saw the valet making signs across the bed, and
saw that his host was really in a state of complete
exhaustion after the outburst, he made his adieux
and got away.

Young Arthur Benham, who had been sitting
almost silent during the interview, followed him
out of the room, and closed the door behind them.
For the first time Ste. Marie noted that the boy's
face was white and strained.  Young Arthur pulled
a crumpled square of folded paper from his pocket
and shook it at the other man.

"Do you know what this is?" he cried.  "Do
you know what's in this?"  Ste. Marie shook his
head, but a sudden recollection came to him.

"Ah!" said he, "that must be the note
Mlle. O'Hara spoke of.  She asked me to tell you that
she meant it—whatever it may be—quite seriously;
that it was final.  She didn't explain.  She just
said that; that you were to take it as final."

The lad gave a sudden, very bitter sob.

"She has thrown me over!" he said.  "She
says I'm not to come back to her."

Ste. Marie gave a wordless cry, and he began to
tremble.

"You can read it if you want to," the boy said.
"Perhaps you can explain it.  I can't.  Do you
want to read it?"  The elder man stood staring
at him whitely, and the boy repeated his words.
He said—

"You can read it if you want to," and at last
Ste. Marie took the paper between stiff hands and
held it to the light.  Coira O'Hara said briefly
that too much was against their marriage.  She
mentioned his age, the certain hostility of his
family, their different tastes, a number of other
things.  But in the end she said she had begun
to realise that she did not love him as she ought
to do if they were to marry.  And so, the note
said finally, she gave him up to his family, she
released him altogether, and she begged him not
to come back to her or to urge her to change her
mind.  Also she made the trite but very sensible
observation that he would be glad of his freedom
before the year was out.

Ste. Marie's unsteady fingers opened, and the
crumpled paper slipped through them to the floor.
Over it the man and the boy looked at each other
in silence.  Young Arthur Benham's face was
white, and it was strained and contorted with its
first grief.  But first griefs do not last very long.
Coira O'Hara had told the truth; before the year
was out the lad would be glad of his freedom.
But the man's face was white also, white and still,
and his eyes held a strange expression which the
boy could not understand, and at which he
wondered.  The man was trembling a little from head
to foot.  The boy wondered about that too, but
abruptly he cried out—

"What's up?  Where are you going?" for
Ste. Marie had turned all at once and was running
down the stairs as fast as he could run.





.. vspace:: 4

.. _`JOURNEY'S END`:

.. class:: center large bold

   CHAPTER XXX


.. class:: center medium bold

   JOURNEY'S END

.. vspace:: 2

In the hall below Ste. Marie came violently into
contact with and nearly overturned Richard
Hartley, who was just giving his hat and stick to
the man who had admitted him.  Hartley seized
upon him with an exclamation of pleasure, and
wheeled him round to face the light.  He said—

"I've been pursuing you all day.  You're almost
as difficult of access here in Paris as you were at
La Lierre.  How's the head?"

Ste. Marie put up an experimental hand.  He
had forgotten his injury.

"Oh, that's all right," said he.  "At least I
think so.  Anderson fixed me up this afternoon.
But I haven't time to talk to you.  I'm in a hurry.
To-morrow we'll have a long chin.  Oh, how about
Stewart?"  He lowered his voice, and Hartley
answered him in the same tone.

"The man is in a delirium.  Heaven knows how
it'll end.  He may die, and he may pull through.
I hope he pulls through—except for the sake of the
family—because then we can make him pay for
what he's done.  I don't want him to go scot free
by dying."

"Nor I!" said Ste. Marie fiercely.  "Nor I!  I
want him to pay too—long and slowly and hard,
and, if he lives, I shall see that he does it, family
or no family.  Now I must be off."  Ste. Marie's
face was shining and uplifted.  The other man
looked at it with a little envious sigh.

"I see everything is all right," said he.  "And
I congratulate you.  You deserve it if ever any
one did."

Ste. Marie stared for an instant uncomprehending.
Then he saw.

"Yes," he said gently.  "Everything is all
right."  It was plain that the Englishman did not
know of Miss Benham's decision.  He was incapable
of deceit.  Ste. Marie threw an arm over his friend's
shoulder, and went with him a little way towards
the drawing-room.

"Go in there," he said.  "You'll find some one
glad to see you, I think.  And remember that I
said everything is all right."  He came back after
he had turned away, and met Hartley's puzzled
frown with a smile.

"If you've that motor here, may I use it?" he
asked.  "I want to go somewhere in a hurry."

"Of course!" the other man said.  "Of course!
I'll go home in a cab."

So they parted, and Ste. Marie went out to the
waiting car.

On the left bank the streets are nearly empty
of traffic at night, and one can make excellent time
over them.  Ste. Marie reached the Porte de
Versailles, at the city's limits, in twenty minutes,
and dashed through Issy five minutes later.  In
less than half an hour from the time he had left
the Rue de l'Université he was under the walls of
La Lierre.  He looked at his watch, and it was
not quite half-past eleven.

He tried the little door in the wall, and it was
unlocked, so he passed in and closed the door behind
him.  Inside he found that he was running, and
he gave a little laugh, but of eagerness and
excitement, not of mirth.  There were dim lights in one
or two of the upper windows, but none below, and
there was no one about.  He pulled at the door
bell, and, after a few impatient moments, pulled
again and still again.  Then he noticed that the
heavy door was ajar, and since no one answered
his ringing he pushed the door open and went in.

The lower hall was quite dark, but a very faint
light came down from above through the well of
the staircase.  He heard dragging feet in the upper
hall and then upon one of the upper flights, for the
stairs, broad below, divided at a half way landing
and continued upward, in an opposite direction,
in two narrower flights.  A voice, very faint and
weary, called—

"Who is there?  Who is ringing, please?"  And
Coira O'Hara, holding a candle in her hand,
came upon the stair landing, and stood gazing down
into the darkness.  She wore a sort of dressing
gown, a heavy white garment which hung in straight
long folds to her feet, and fell away from the arm
that held the candle on high.  The yellow beams
of light struck down across her head and face,
and, even at the distance, the man could see how
white she was, and hollow-eyed and worn—a pale
wraith of the splendid beauty that had walked in
the garden at La Lierre.

"Who is there, please?" she asked again.  "I
can't see.  What is it?"

"It is I, Coira!" said Ste. Marie, and she gave
a sharp cry.  The arm which was holding the candle
overhead shook and fell beside her, as if the strength
had gone out of it.  The candle dropped to the
floor, spluttered there for an instant, and went
out, but there was still a little light from the hall
above.

Ste. Marie sprang up the stairs to where the girl
stood, and caught her in his arms, for she was on
the verge of faintness.  Her head fell back away
from him, and he saw her eyes through half-closed
lids, her white teeth through parted lips.  She
was trembling, but, for that matter, so was he, at
the touch of her, the heavy and sweet burden in
his arms.  She tried to speak, and he heard a
whisper—

"Why?  Why?  Why?"

"Because it is my place, Coira!" said he.
"Because I cannot live away from you.  Because we
belong together."

The girl struggled weakly and pushed against
him.  Once more he heard whispering words, and
made out that she tried to say—

"Go back to her!  Go back to her!  You belong
there."  But at that he laughed aloud.

"I thought so too," said he.  "But she thinks
otherwise.  She'll have none of me, Coira.  It's
Richard Hartley now.  Coira, can you love a
jilted man?  I've been jilted—thrown
over—dismissed."

Her head came up in a flash, and she stared at
him, suddenly rigid and tense in his arms.

"Is that true?" she demanded.

"Yes, my love!" said he, and she began to weep,
with long, comfortable sobs, her face hidden in
the hollow of his shoulder.  On one other occasion
she had wept before him, and he had been horribly
embarrassed, but he bore this present tempest
without, as it were, winking.  He gloried in it.
He tried to say so.  He tried to whisper to her,
his lips pressed close to the ear that was nearest
them, but he found that he had no speech.  Words
would not come to his tongue; it trembled and
faltered, and was still for sheer inadequacy.

Rather oddly, in that his thoughts were chaos,
swallowed up in the surge of feeling, a memory
struck through to him of that other exaltation
which had swept him to the stars.  He looked
upon it and was amazed because now he saw it,
in clear light, for the thing it had been.  He saw
it for a fantasy, a self-evoked wraith of the imagination,
a dizzy flight of the spirit through spirit space.
He saw that it had not been love at all, and he
realised how little a part Helen Benham had ever
really played in it.  A cold and still-eyed figure
for him to wrap the veil of his imagination round,
that was what she had been.  There were times
when the sweep of his upward flight had stirred
her a little, wakened in her some vague response,
but for the most part she had stood aside and looked
on, wondering.

The mist was rent away from that rainbow-painted
cobweb, and at last the man saw and understood.
He gave an exclamation of wonder, and
the girl who loved him raised her head once more,
and the two looked each into the other's eyes for
a long time.  They fell into hushed and broken
speech.

"I have loved you so long, so long!" she said,
"and so hopelessly.  I never thought—I never
believed.—To think that in the end you have come
to me!  I cannot believe it!"

"Wait and see!" cried the man.  "Wait and
see!"  She shivered a little.

"If it is not true I should like to die before I
find out.  I should like to die now, Bayard, with
your arms holding me up, and your eyes close,
close."

Ste. Marie's arms tightened round her with a
sudden fierceness.  He hurt her, and she smiled
up at him.  Their two hearts beat one against
the other, and they beat very fast.

"Don't you understand," he cried, "that life's
only just beginning—day's just dawning, Coira?
We've been lost in the dark.  Day's coming now.
This is only the sunrise."

"I can believe it at last," she said, "because
you hold me close, and you hurt me a little, and
I'm glad to be hurt.  And I can feel your heart
beating.  Ah, never let me go, Bayard!  I should
be lost in the dark again, if you let me go."  A
sudden thought came to her, and she bent back
her head to see the better.

"Did you speak with Arthur?"  And he said—

"Yes.  He asked me to read your note, so I
read it.  That poor lad!  I came straight to you
then.  Straight and fast!"

"You knew why I did it?" she said, and Ste. Marie
said—

"Now I know."

"I could not have married him," said she.  "I
could not.  I never thought I should see you again,
but I loved you and I could not have married
him.—Ah, impossible!  And he'll be glad, later on.  You
know that.  It will save him any more trouble
with his family, and besides—he's so very young!
Already, I think, he was beginning to chafe a
little.  I thought so more than once.

"Oh, I'm trying to justify myself!" she cried.
"I'm trying to find reasons, but you know the true
reason.  You know it."

"I thank God for it!" he said.

So they stood clinging together in that dim place,
and broken whispering speech passed between them
or long silences when speech was done.  But at
last they went down the stairs and out upon the
open terrace where the moonlight lay.

"It was in the open sweet air," the girl said,
"that we came to know each other.  Let us walk
in it now.  The house smothers me."  She looked
up when they had passed the west corner of the
façade, and drew a little sigh.

"I am worried about my father," said she.
"He will not answer me when I call to him, and
he has eaten nothing all day long.  Bayard, I
think his heart is broken.  Ah! but to-morrow
we shall mend it again.  In the morning I shall
make him let me in, and I shall tell him—what I
have to tell."

They turned down under the trees, where the
moonlight made silver splashes about their feet,
and the sweet night air bore soft against their
faces.  Coira went a half step in advance, her
head laid back upon the shoulder of the man she
loved, and his arm held her up from falling.

So at last we leave them, walking there in the
tender moonlight, with the breath of roses about
them, and their eyes turned to the coming day.
It is still night, and there is yet one cloud of sorrow
to shadow them somewhat, for upstairs in his
locked room a man lies dead across the floor with
an empty pistol beside him—heart-broken, as the
girl had feared.  But where a great love is shadows
cannot last very long, not even such shadows as
this.  The morning must dawn—and joy cometh
of a morning.

.. _`"Walking there in the tender moonlight."`:

.. figure:: images/img-380.jpg
   :align: center
   :alt: "Walking there in the tender moonlight."

   "Walking there in the tender moonlight."

So we leave them walking together in the moonlight,
their faces turned towards the coming day.

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