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 has 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 tree-tops.

"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 toward 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 realize where he was, for he turned with a sudden start and 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 honor 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 realized 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-suspicion 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 dishonorable 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.

* * * * *



XXV

MEDEA GOES OVER TO THE ENEMY

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 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 burned 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!"

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 realize," 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 honor, also—when everything else was—gone? Has he given me his honor, 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 villany. 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 succor. 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 realized—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 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 shall 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 color 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'Universite 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 afterward 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 toward 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.

* * * * *



XXVI

BUT THE FLEECE ELECTS TO REMAIN

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-car 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. Honore. Afterward 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 on time."

He drew back out of sight, and the other man heard the cedar-tree shake slightly as he went down it 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 labored 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 his 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 toward 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! For-get 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 honor 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, 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 forward. "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? Oh, 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 gray 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 toward 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 realized, as evidently he did realize, 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'Universite taking exactly the view young Arthur said they would take toward 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 toward 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 fiance 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 awhile 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 high-road 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 afterward!" he cried. "Afterward—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, beadlike 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 beadlike 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'Hara 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 afterward 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.

* * * * *



XXVII

THE NIGHT'S WORK

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 to 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."

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, toward 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 realized 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 gray and black and still in the night. Where the moonlight was upon it, it was gray; where there was shadow, black as black velvet, and the windows were like open, dead eyes. He looked toward 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 toward 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 pretending 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 toward the dark and quiet house.

The little noises of the night broke upon him with exaggerated clamor. 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 tire, 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 a 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 sha'n'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 toward the house, struck a match under his sheltering coat, looked to see what time it was, and found 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 toward 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.

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 befell 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 backflung 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 then knew no more.

* * * * *



XXVIII

MEDEA'S LITTLE HOUR

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 realized 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 toward 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 heart-beat. 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 up-stairs. 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 mantelshelf. 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 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 border-land 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 border-land 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-Elysees. 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 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 down-stairs again and out upon the terrace. The terrace and the lawn before it were still checkered 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 leaned her head back against the trunk of a tree which stood beside it 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—toward 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 gray toward dawn.

* * * * *



XXIX

THE SCALES OF INJUSTICE

Ste. Marie slept soundly until mid-morning—that it 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 up-stairs 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 awhile 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 dejeuner 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, half-way, 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'Universite.

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 color 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 of 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 well-nigh 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 realization of platitudinous adieus, 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 up-stairs 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-colored satin this time, with peonies—overflowing with spirits and good-humor. 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 awhile 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 down-stairs, 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 for 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.