Part 22

At this her eyes softened upon me. Never had I seen anything, in life or in dream, so beautiful as the smile upon her lips. But I went on: “My men will patrol the coast; but they are few, and I cannot, of course, prevent your messengers eluding their vigilance and communicating with Monsieur le Fevre. I am glad I cannot prevent it. I doubt not you will warn him that all this neighbourhood is strictly watched. My men would at once recognise him, if they saw him, from the descriptions they have had.”

Then, as I watched her face, my restraint was shaken. The love which I had not till that day let myself realise laid mighty grasp upon me. The long-chained passion crept into my voice, and it changed, trembling, as I continued:

“Oh, you can prevent him falling into our hands. I beseech you let not that evil come upon me that your brother should be my prisoner.”

“Thank you, monsieur,” she said very simply, putting her hand in mine with a confidence like a child’s. Her eyes searched my very heart for a second. “I think, with such assistance, we can elude your vigilance, monsieur.”

But on the instant her look changed to one of the deepest gravity. As I have so often thought of that look since, it was a surrender in part, in part a sacrament.

“The South Cove at noon,” she said, with a sort of sob, and flushed and ran hastily into the house.

For a moment or two I stood staring after her in utter bewilderment. The dominant feeling, which sent great gushes of light and warmth through heart and brain and nerve, was that she loved me, that she had revealed herself to me on a swift, inexplicable impulse. This set me reeling in a kind of intoxication. But underneath, clamouring harshly to be heeded, was the problem she had thrust upon me. She had forced me to know just what I had striven so desperately not to know. For the moment, however, I did not think. I simply let myself feel; and, turning mechanically, I walked in a daze down the winding road through the rose garden.

“Of course,” said I to myself, and half aloud to the roses, “she means that I am to act upon her word and take my men safely out of the way to South Cove before noon, leaving the North Harbour, where the ship has gone, perfectly secure. She knows that I can act with a clear conscience on so definite a piece of information as that. She knows that there is nothing else for me to do. She sees that I love her. She trusts me. And she trusts my wit to comprehend her subtle devisings. Irene! Irene!”

And I swung gaily down towards the village through an air more light and sweet, through a sunshine more radiant and clear, under a sky more blue, than ever before my travelled senses had encountered.

I breakfasted at the inn. By the time my messengers had got hold of my scattered men and given them my orders to report to me at South Cove, it wanted but an hour of noon. To South Cove was an hour’s brisk walking, and I set out, with my orderly at my heels. He was a trusty, discreet fellow, with whom I was wont to talk not a little; but to-day my dreams were all-sufficient to me, and I would not let the lad so much as stir his tongue. Arriving at the point where the upland dipped down to South Cove, a narrow inlet thickly screened with woods, I noted the hour as exact noon. Then, liking well the look of the leafage below me, with the glint of water sparkling through, and craving no company but my own and my thoughts, I bade my man wait where he was and watch the roads both ways, and halt the others as they should come up.

The path down through the trees was green-mossed, winding, and steep. I went swiftly but noiselessly. Near the foot, as I was just about to emerge upon the beach, the sound of voices below caught my ear. I essayed to stop myself, slipped, crashed through a brittle screen of dead spruce boughs, and came down, erect upon my feet but somewhat jarred, not ten paces from the spot where a lady and a cavalier, locked in one another’s arms, stood beside a small boat drawn up upon the shingle.

It was mademoiselle, and the man was her brother, as I saw on the instant from the likeness between them. They had unlocked their arms and turned towards me, startled at the sound of my fall. Mademoiselle’s face went white, then flushed crimson, and, drawing herself up, she confronted me with a look of unutterable scorn, mingled with pain and reproach. Apprehension and amusement struggled together in the face of the young seigneur.

For my own part, I had realised on the instant the whole enormity of my mistake. Mademoiselle had told me the plain truth, staking everything on my love, trusting me utterly. My heart sinks now as I recall the anguish of that moment. I had but one thought—to justify myself in her eyes. I sprang forward, stammering.

“Forgive me, mademoiselle, I did not understand—I quite misunderstood. Believe me, I never dreamed——”

But, shaken and humiliated as she was, she did not lose her presence of mind. She played another card boldly.

“Captain Scott,” she said, as if this were the most ceremonious meeting in the world, “this is my fiancé, Monsieur de St. Ange.”

By great good fortune I had wit enough to seem to believe her. In fact, perhaps my belief was too well simulated, for the expressions that passed over her face in the next few seconds were inexplicable to me and mightily increased my confusion. But toward this “Monsieur de St. Ange” I felt most cordial.

“Delighted, monsieur, I am sure,” I exclaimed, bowing low, while he bowed with equal ceremony, but in silence.

“I congratulate you,” I went on, terribly at a loss. Then I looked at mademoiselle, who had turned away white and indifferent.

“There has been some mistake,” I continued desperately. “That you should wish to see your betrothed is, of course, to me sufficient explanation of your presence here. But others might think I should inquire more searchingly into an enemy’s purpose in visiting a place like this. My men are in the neighbourhood; I will go at once and withdraw them. But I beg you, monsieur, to withdraw yourself as speedily as possible.”

I backed away, striving in vain to win a look from mademoiselle. As for her brother, he was most civil.

“I thank you for your great courtesy, monsieur,” he answered, the corners of his mouth restraining themselves from mirth. “Much as it would be to my pleasure to know you better, I am aware that I might find it inconvenient. I shall comply as speedily as possible with your most reasonable request.”

At the foot of the path, finding that mademoiselle was quite oblivious to my presence, I turned and made all haste from the calamitous spot. When I found my men, I hurried them off toward Cheticamp with an eagerness that hinted at a fresh and important clue. From the inn I sent them in parties of two, on errands of urgency that would take them as far as possible from South Cove. Then, hurrying back to the Seigneury, I awaited, in sickening suspense, the return of mademoiselle to a belated meal.

At the suggestion of the wizened old housekeeper, I ate the meal alone—or, rather, I put some dry, chip-like substances into my mouth, which chose to collect themselves in a lump some little way below my throat. The old lady seemed as ignorant as I of the reason of mademoiselle’s delay, though once and again, from the shrewd scrutiny which I caught her bestowing upon my countenance, I suspected that she knew more than she would confess. The afternoon went by in that misery of waiting that turns one’s blood to gall. I would go out among the roses, but cursing them for their false, disastrous speech, I found them not contenting company. Then I would go back into the library and spend the sluggish minutes in jumping up, sitting down, trying this book, rejecting that, while every sense was on the rack of intensity to catch some hint of her presence in the house. But all in vain. The stillness seemed unnatural. There was a menace in the clear pour of the afternoon sun. When at last, toward sundown, the humpbacked old gardener went by the window with a watering-pot, I was startled to see that the affairs of life were going on as usual. There was somehow a grain of comfort, of reassurance, in the sight of the old humpback. I left the library and went to find the housekeeper, determined to put her through such an inquisition as should in some way relieve my suspense.

I found her in the supper-room, putting flowers on a table that was set for—only one.

“Supper is served, monsieur,” she said, as I came in.

“For me alone?” I gasped, feeling that the world had come to an end.

“For monsieur,” she answered.

“Tell me”—and the tone made her look at me quickly with a deference not before observable in her manner—“tell me at once where Mademoiselle le Fevre is gone.”

“Certainly, monsieur, certainly. There is no desire to deceive monsieur. Mademoiselle and her maid have removed to the inn at Cheticamp, where mademoiselle intends to reside till she can join monsieur her brother at Louisbourg.”

I heard her through, then rushed from the room, snatched up my hat, and sped down to the inn of Cheticamp. I fear that the civil salutations of the villagers whom I passed went outrageously unregarded.

My demand was urgent, so within a very few minutes of my coming I was ushered into mademoiselle’s parlour, and with a thrill of hope at the omen I noted that it was the same room which I had occupied on the night of my arrival at Cheticamp, the same dear room through whose hop-garlanded window I had made such bold and merry counterfeit with mademoiselle in her disguise. But not nourishing to hope was mademoiselle’s greeting. I had not dreamed so small a dame could ever look so tall. Her slim figure was in the gown of creamy linen which she had worn when I had met her in the rose-garden. Her small, strange, child-like face was very white, her lips set coldly and less scarlet than their wont, and her eyes—they were fearfully bright and large, with a gaze which I could not fathom.

“To what do I owe this honour, monsieur?” she asked. “It is much——”

But I was rude in my trouble.

“Why have you fled from me, mademoiselle?” I interrupted passionately. “Why have you left your own home in this way? I will leave it at once—for you shall not be driven from it.”

“My home, monsieur? It is your house. I will not be a pensioner on your bounty.”

How had she found this out? I was in confusion.

“What—what do you mean, mademoiselle?” I stammered.

“I mean, monsieur,” she said, with ice and fire contending in her voice, “that all these days, when I thought I was playing the hostess, in a home belonging either to my brother or to the English Government, I have been but a beggar living on your charity. I know that you are the owner of Cheticamp House and all in it, it having been taken from us to give to you.”

I was in despair over this further complication; but this was not the time for finding out the betrayer of my secret.

“I had hoped that you would never know, mademoiselle,” I protested. “But it is not of that I would speak. Forgive me, I beg you on my knees, for the stupid mistake, the unpardonable mistake I made this morning. And oh, count it something that I did my best to remedy the error, so that no harm came of it.”

The anger that flamed into her eyes was of a beauty that did not delight me.

“Doubtless you did your duty, monsieur, as a servant of your Government. Doubtless honour required that you should betray the trust so foolishly reposed in you by a silly girl. You would have taken my brother, and through his sister’s folly. I cannot feel any very keen gratitude for the generosity which suffered my fiancé, whom you did not seek, to go free.”

Light began to struggle in upon the darkness of my brain.

“Your fiancé!” I returned quickly. “Could you think for one moment I did not know that he was your brother?”

Her face changed marvellously at this declaration.

“I knew your purpose then,” I went on. “But forgive me, forgive me for not understanding you before. I was not worthy of the simple trust you placed in me. I thought you meant me to understand that I should take my men to South Cove at noon to have them out of the way. I thought it was a piece of your daring strategy, and I was proud because you trusted my stupid wits to follow your plan. I thought it was to save me the embarrassment of openly letting your brother go. I thought—oh, I thought myself so wise, and I was so cheaply careful of my duty. Can you forgive me? You know, you must know, in the light of what I did afterwards, that if I had only understood your words in all their uncalculating faith no power on earth would have prevented me keeping myself and my men as far as possible from South Cove.”

Her tense attitude relaxed. Her figure seemed no longer so portentously tall.

“It is I who must ask forgiveness,” she said softly, holding out her hand. I seized it in both of mine and dared to kiss it fiercely, hungrily, and marvelled to find that it was not at once withdrawn from such an ardour.

“I am not so wise, I am not so subtle, as you think me,” she continued. “It was a clever device, indeed, that you credited me with, and so much more considerate and fine in every way than my poor little thoughtlessness which threw the responsibility upon you. But you are mistaken, monsieur, if you think that I am at all clever or subtle.”

She was looking down, watching, but not seeming to see, how my hands held both of hers. For myself, I knew that the joy of life had come to me; but I could find no word to say, so wildly ran my blood. After a moment’s silence she said musingly:

“I don’t think I ever could deceive any one. I am sure I never did deceive any one in my life—but once; oh, yes, once.” And here she lifted up her face and flashed upon me a challenge of dancing eyes and mocking mouth.

“No, indeed,” said I. “The maid who came to my window did not deceive me for a moment when afterwards I met her in the rose-garden.”

“Oh!” she gasped with a little sob, while her face grew scarlet. “You knew all the time? It was horrid of me—too horrid to think of. Oh——”

At this point it seemed to me that she was looking for a spot to hide her face, and, taking base advantage of her confusion, I drew her into my arms and let her blushes fly to cover against my coat. Never before, in my opinion, had the King’s uniform been so highly honoured.

“To my window you came that night, my lady,” I whispered, “but it was to the door of my heart you came.”

_Printed in Great Britain by Hazell, Watson & Viney, Ld., London and Aylesbury._

Transcriber’s Notes

Illustrations which were line-drawings had page numbers which were not printed; illustrations which were more complex had no numbers and had facing blank pages. This accounts for the oddities in page numbering.

Obvious typographical errors have been corrected silently. Less obvious ones which were changed are:

page 9, latter was replaced by letter page 18, drawing-toom was replaced by drawing-room page 153, Twen- at end of a line and not finished on next line was replaced by Twentieth

End of Project Gutenberg's The Times Red Cross Story Book, by Various