"You received the letter?" he said.

"Which letter?" she asked hurriedly; and then closed her lips and slowly changed colour.

There was only one letter, of course. There could be no other. For it had never been suggested that Lory should write to her.

"Yes; I received it," she answered. "Thank you."

"Will you answer one question?" asked Lory.

"If it is a fair one," she answered with a laugh.

"And who is to decide whether it is a fair one or not?"

"Oh! I will do that," replied Denise with decision.

She knew the weakness of her position, and was prepared to defend it. Her eyes were shining, and the colour had not faded from her cheeks yet. Lory held his lip between his teeth as he looked at her. She waited for the question, without meeting his eyes, with a baffling little smile tilting the corners of her lips.

"Well," she said, after a pause, "I suppose you have decided not to ask it?"

"I have decided to draw conclusions instead, mademoiselle."

"Ah!"

"What does 'Ah!' mean?"

"It means that you will draw them wrong," she answered; and yet the tone of her voice seemed to suggest that she would rather like to hear the conclusions.

"One may conclude then, simply, that you changed your mind after you wrote, and claimed a woman's privilege."

"Yes—"

"That you were good enough to trust me to send the letter back unopened; and yet you would not trust me with the contents. One may conclude that it is, therefore, also a woman's privilege to be of two minds at the same time."

"If she likes," answered Denise. To which wise men know that there is no answer.

De Vasselot made a tragic gesture with his one available hand, and cast his eyes upwards in a mute appeal to the gods. He sighed heavily, and the expression of his face seemed to indicate a hopeless despair.

"What is the matter?" she asked, with a solicitude which was perhaps slightly exaggerated.

"What is one to understand? I ask you that?" said Lory, turning towards her almost fiercely.

"What do you want to understand, monsieur?" asked Denise, quietly.

"Mon Dieu—you!"

"Me!"

"Yes. I cannot understand you at all. You ask my advice, and then you act contrary to it. You write me a letter, and you forbid me to open it. Ah! I was a fool to send that letter back. I have often thought so since—"

Denise was looking gravely at him with an expression in her eyes which made him stop, and laugh, and contradict himself suddenly.

"You are quite right, mademoiselle, I was not a fool to send it back. It was the only thing I could do; and yet I almost thought, just now, that you were not glad that I had done so."

"Then you thought quite wrong," said Denise, sharply, with a gleam of anger in her eyes. "You think that it is only I who am difficult to understand. You are no easier. They say in Balagna that, if you liked, you could be a sort of king in Northern Corsica, and I am quite sure you have the manners of one."

"Thank you, mademoiselle," he said with a laugh.

"Oh—I do not mean the agreeable side of the character. I meant that you are rather given to ordering people about. You send an incompetent and stupid little priest to take us by the hand, and lead us out of the Casa Perucca like two school-children, without so much as a word of explanation."

"But I had not your permission to write to you."

Denise laughed gaily.

"So far as that goes you had not my permission to order me out of my own house; to send a steamer to St. Florent to fetch me; to treat me as if I were a regiment, in a word—and yet you did it, monsieur."

Lory sat up in his desire to defend himself, winced and lay down again.

"I fancy it is your Corsican blood," said Denise, reflectively. She rose and re-arranged a very sporting dustcloth which the baroness had laid across the wounded man's legs, and which his movement had cast to one side. "However, it remains for me to thank you," she said, and did not sit down again.

"It may have been badly done, mademoiselle," he said earnestly, "but I still think that it was the wisest thing to do."

"And still you give me no reasons," she said without turning to look at him. She was standing at the edge of the verandah, looking thoughtfully out at the matchless view. For the house stood above the pines which lay like a dusky green carpet between it and the Mediterranean. "And I am not going to ask you for them," she added with an odd little smile, not devoid of that deep wisdom with which it is to be presumed women are born; for they have it when it is most useful to them, and at an age when their masculine contemporaries are singularly ignorant of human nature.

"I am going," she said after a pause. "Jane told me that I must not tire you."

"Then stay," he said. "It is only when you are not there that I find it tiring."

She did not answer, and did not move until a servant came noiselessly from the house and approached Lory.

"It is a man," he said, "who will not be denied, and says he must speak to Monsieur le Comte. He is from Corsica."

Denise turned, and her face was quite changed. She had until that moment forgotten Corsica.



CHAPTER XXI.

FOR FRANCE.

"Lov'd I not honour more."

The servant retired to bring the new arrival to the verandah. Denise followed him, and, after a few paces, returned to Lory.

"If it is one of my people," she said, "I should like to see him before he goes."

The man who followed the servant to the verandah a minute later had a dark, clean-shaven face, all drawn into fine lines and innumerable minute wrinkles. Such lines mean starvation; but in this case they told a tale of the past, for the dark eyes had no hungry look. They looked hunted—that was all. The glitter of starvation had left them. He glanced uneasily around, took off his hat and bowed curtly to Lory. The hat and the clothes were new. Then he turned and looked at the servant, who lingered, with a haughty stare which must have been particularly offensive to that respectable Parisian menial. For the Corsicans are bad servants, and despise good servitude in others. When the footman had gone, the new-comer turned to Lory, and said, in a low voice—

I saw you at Toulon. I have not seen many faces in my life—for I have spent most of it in the macquis—so I remember those I have once met. I knew the Count de Vasselot when he was a young man, and he was what you are now. You are a de Vasselot."

"Yes," answered Lory.

"I thought so. That is why I followed you from Toulon—spending my last sou to do so."

He stopped. His two hands were in the pockets of his dark corduroy trousers, and he jerked them out with a sudden movement, bringing the empty pockets to view.

"Voila!" he said, "and I want to go to the war. So I came to you."

"Good," said Lory, looking him up and down. "You look tough, mon ami."

"I am," answered the Corsican. "Ten years of macquis, winter and summer—for one thing or another—do not make a man soft. I was told—the Abbe Susini told me—that France wants every man she can get, so I thought I would try a little fighting."

"Good," said Lory again. "You will find it very good fun."

The man gave a twisted grin. He had forgotten how to laugh. He drew forward the chair that Denise had just quitted, and sat down close to Lory in quite a friendly way, for there is a bond that draws fighting men and roaming men together despite accidental differences of station.

"One sees," he said, "that you are a de Vasselot. And I belong to the de Vasselots—! Whenever I have got into trouble it has been on that side."

He looked round to make sure that none could overhear.

"It was I who shot that Italian dog, Pietro Andrei," he mentioned in confidence, "on the road below Olmeta—but that was a personal matter."

"Ah!" said Lory, who had heard the story of Andrei's death on the market-place at Olmeta, and the stern determination of his widow to avenge it.

"Yes—I was starving, and Andrei had money on him. In the old days it was easy enough to get food in the macquis. One could come down into the villages at night. But now it is different. It is a hard life there now, and one may easily die of starvation. There are many who, like Pietro Andrei, are friendly with the gendarmes."

He finished with a gesture of supreme disgust, as if friendship with a gendarme were the basest of crimes.

"When did you see the Abbe Susini?" asked Lory. "and where—if you can tell me that?"

"I saw him in the macquis. He often goes up into the mountains alone, dressed like one of us. He is a queer man, that abbe. He says that he sometimes thinks it well to care for the wanderers from his flock—a jest, you see."

And the man gave his crooked grin again.

"It was above Asco, in the high mountains near Cinto," he continued, "and about a week ago. It was he who gave me money, and told me to come and fight for France. He was arranging for others to do the same."

"The abbe is a practical man," said Lory.

"Yes—and he told me news of Olmeta," said the man, glancing sideways at his companion.

"What news?"

"You have no doubt heard it—of Vasselot."

"I have heard nothing, my friend, but cannon. I am from Sedan to-day."

The man seemed to hesitate. He turned uneasily in his chair, glanced this way and that among the trees—a habit acquired in the macquis, no doubt. He took off his hat and passed his hand pensively over his hair. Then he turned to Lory.

"There is no longer a Chateau de Vasselot—it is gone—burnt to the ground, mon brave monsieur."

"Who burnt it?" asked de Vasselot.

"Who knows?" replied the man. "The Peruccas, no doubt. They have a woman to lead them now!"

The man finished with a short laugh, which was unpleasant to the ear.

Lory thought of the woman who was leading the Peruccas now, who had quitted the chair in which her accuser now sat, a few minutes earlier, and smiled.

"Have you a cigarette?" asked the Corsican, bluntly.

"Yes—but I cannot offer it to you. It is in my right-hand pocket, and my right arm is disabled."

"An arm and a leg, eh?" said the man, seeking in the pocket indicated by Lory, for the neat silver cigarette-case, which he handled with a sort of grand air—this gentleman of the mountain side. "You will smoke also?"

And with his own brown fingers he was kind enough to place a cigarette between de Vasselot's lips. The tobacco-smoke seemed to make him feel still more at home with the head of his clan. For he sat down again and began the conversation in quite a familiar way.

"Who is this Colonel Gilbert of Bastia, who mixes himself up in affairs?" he inquired.

"What affairs, my friend?"

"Well, the affairs of others, it would appear. We hear strange stories in the macquis—and things that one would never expect to reach the mountains. They say that Colonel Gilbert busies himself in stirring up the Peruccas and the de Vasselots against each other—an affair that has slept these thirty years."

"Ah!"

"Yes, and you should know it, you who are the chief of the de Vasselots, and have this woman to deal with; the women are always the worst. The chateau, they say, was burnt down, and the women disappeared from the Casa Perucca in the same week. The Casa Perucca is empty now, and the Chateau de Vasselot is gone—at Olmeta they are bored enough, I can tell you."

"They have nothing to quarrel about," suggested Lory.

"Nothing," replied the Corsican, quite gravely.

"And the chateau was empty when they burnt it?" inquired Lory.

"Yes; it has been empty since I was a boy. I remember it when I went to St. Florent to school, and it was then that I used to see your father, the count. He was powerful in those days—before the Peruccas began to get strong. But they overrun that country now, which is no doubt the reason why you have never been there."

"Pardon me—I was there when the war broke out two months ago."

"Ah! We never heard that in the macquis, though the Abbe Susini must have known it. He knows so much that he does not tell—that abbe."

"Which makes him the strong man he is, mon ami."

"You are right—you are right," said the Corsican, rising energetically. "But I am wasting your time with my talk, and tiring you as well, no doubt."

"Wait a minute," replied Lory, touching the bell that stood on a table by his side. "I will give you a letter to a friend of mine, commanding a regiment in Paris."

The servant brought the necessary materials, and Lory prepared awkwardly to write. His arm was still weak, but he could use his hand without pain. While he was writing, the man sat watching him, and at last muttered an exclamation of wonderment.

"It is a marvel how you resemble the count," he said, "as I remember him thirty years ago, when I was a boy. And do you know, monsieur, I saw an old man the other day for a moment, in passing on the road, above Asco, who brought my heart into my throat. If he had not been dead this score of years it might have been your father—not as I remember him, but as the years would have made him. I was hidden in the trees at the side of the road, and he passed by on foot. He had the air of going into the macquis. But I do not know who he was."

"When was that?" asked de Vasselot, pausing with his pen on the paper.

"That must have been a month ago."

"And you never saw or heard of him again?"

"No," answered the man.

Lory continued to write, his arm moving laboriously on the paper.

"I must have a name—of some sort," he said, "to give my friend, the commandant."

"Ah! I cannot give you my own. Jean Florent—since I came from St. Florent—that will do."

De Vasselot wrote the name, folded and addressed the letter.

"There", he said, "and I wish you good luck. Good luck in war-time may mean gold lace on your sleeve in a few months. I shall join you as soon as I can throw my leg across a horse. Will two hundred francs serve you to reach Paris?"

"Give me one hundred. I am no beggar."

He took the letter and the bank note, shook hands, and went away as abruptly as he came. The man was a murderer, with probably more than one life to account for; and yet he carried his crimes with a certain dignity, and had, at all events, that grand manner which comes from the habit of facing life fearlessly with the odds against.

Lory sat up and watched him. He rang the bell.

"See that man off the premises," he said to the servant, "and then beg Mademoiselle Lange to be good enough to return here."

Denise kept him waiting a long time, and then came with reluctant steps. The mention of Corsica seemed to have changed her humour. She sat down, nevertheless, in the chair, placed there by Fate.

"You sent for me," she said, rather curtly.

"Because I could not come myself," he answered. "I did not want you to see that man. Or rather, I did not want him to see you. He is not one of your people—quite the contrary."

And de Vasselot laughed with significance.

"One of yours?" she suggested.

"So it appears, though I was not aware of the honour. He described you as 'that woman.'"

Denise laughed lightly, and threw back her head.

"He may describe me as he likes. Did he bring you news?"

And Denise turned away as she spoke, with that air of indifference which so often covers a keen desire for information, if it is a woman who seeks it.

"Yes," answered Lory, turning, as she turned, to look at her. He looked at her whenever opportunity offered. The cheek half turned from him was a little sunburnt, the colour of a peach that has ripened in the open under a Southern sun, for Denise loved the air. Perhaps he had only spoken the truth when he said that her absence made him tired. There are many in the world who have to fight against that weariness all their lives. At last, as if with an effort, Denise turned, and met his glance for a moment.

"Bad news," she said; "I can see that."

"Yes. It is bad enough."

"Of your estates?" inquired Denise.

"No. I never cared for the estate; I do not care for it now."

"Then it is of ... some one?"

Lory did not answer at once.

"I shall have to go back to Corsica," he said at length, "as soon as I can move—in a few days."

Denise glanced at him with angry eyes.

"I was told that story," she said, "but did not believe it."

De Vasselot turned and looked at her, but could not see her averted face. His eyes were suddenly fierce. He was a fighter—of a fighting stock—and he instantly perceived that he was called upon at this moment to fight for the happiness of his whole life. He put out his hand and deliberately took hold of the skirt of her dress. She should not run away at all events. He twisted the soft material round his half-disabled fingers.

"What story?" he asked quietly.

Denise's eyes flashed, and then suddenly grew gentle. She did not quite know whether she was furious or afraid.

"That there was some one in the Chateau de Vasselot to whom—whom you loved."

"It is you that I love, mademoiselle," he answered sharply, with a ring in his voice, which came as a surprise to both of them, and which she never forgot all her life. "No. Do not go. You are pulling on my injured arm and I shall not let go."

Denise sat still, silent and at bay.

"Then who was in the chateau?" she asked at last.

"I cannot tell you."

"If it is as you say—about me—and—I ask you not to go to Corsica?"

"I must go."

"Why?" asked Denise, with a dangerous quiet in her voice.

"I cannot tell you."

"Then you expect a great deal."

De Vasselot slowly untwined his fingers and drew in his arm.

"True," he said reflectively. "I must ask nothing or too much. I asked more than you can give, mademoiselle."

A faint smile flickered across Denise's eyes. Who was he, to say how much a woman can give? She was free to go now, but did not move.

"With Corsica and—" she paused and glanced at his helpless attitude in the long chair,—"and the war, your life is surely sufficiently occupied as it is," she said coldly.

"But these evil times will pass. The war will cease, and then one may think of being happy. So long as there is war, I must of course fight—fight—fight, while there is a France to fight for."

Denise laughed.

"That is your scheme of life?" she asked bitterly.

"Yes, mademoiselle."

She rose and turned angrily away.

"Then it is France you care for—if it is no one in Corsica. France—nothing and nobody—but France."

And she left him.



CHAPTER XXII.

IN THE MACQUIS

"Before man made us citizens, great Nature made us men."

The Abbe Susini had no money, but he was a charitable man in a hasty and impulsive way. Even the very poor may be charitable: they can think kindly of the rich. It was not the rich of whom the abbe had a friendly thought, but the foolish and the stubborn. For this fiery little priest knew more of the unwritten history of the macquis than any in Corsica—infinitely more than those whose business it was.

It is the custom at Ajaccio, and in a smaller way at Bastia, to ignore the darker side of Corsican politics, and the French officials are content with the endeavour to get through their term of office with a whole skin. It is not, as in other islands of the Mediterranean, the gospel of "manana" which holds good here, but rather the gospel of "So I found it—it will last my time." So, from the prefet to the humblest gendarme, they come, they serve, and they go back rejoicing to France. They strike when absolutely forced to do so, but they commit the most fatal of all administrative errors—they strike gently.

The faults are not all on one side; for the islanders are at once turbulent and sullen. There are many who "keep the country," as the local saying is, and wander year after year in the mountain fastnesses, far above road or pathway, beyond the feeble reach of the law, rather than pay a trifling fine or bend their pride to face a week's imprisonment.

In the macquis, as in better society, there are grades of evil. Some are hiding from their own pride, others are evading a lifelong sentence, while many know that if the gendarme sees them he will shoot at sight—running, standing, sleeping, as a keeper kills vermin. Only a few months ago, on a road over which many tourists must have travelled, a young man of twenty-three was "destroyed" (the official term) by the gendarmes who wanted him for eleven murders. It is commonly asserted that these bandits are not dangerous, that they have no grievance against travellers. A starving man has a grievance against the whole world, and a condemned fratricide is not likely to pick and choose his next victim if tempted by a little money and the chance of escape therewith from the island.

It is, moreover, usual for a man to take to the macquis the moment that he finds himself involved in some trouble, or, it may be, merely under suspicion. From his retreat in the mountains he enters into negotiations with his lawyer, with the local magistrate, with his witnesses, even with the police. He distrusts justice itself, and only gives himself up or faces the tribunal when he has made sure of acquittal or such a sentence as his pride may swallow. Which details of justice as understood in a province of France at the beginning of the century may be read at the Assize terms in those great newspapers, Le Petit Bastiais or Le Paoli Pascal, by any who have a halfpenny to spend on literature.

It would appear easy enough to exterminate the bandits as one would exterminate wolves or other large game; but in such a country as Corsica, almost devoid of roads, thinly populated, heavily wooded, the expense would be greater than the administration is prepared to incur. It would mean putting an army into the field, prepared and equipped for a long campaign which might ultimately reach the dignity of a civil war. The bandits are not worth it. The whole country is not worth exploiting. Corsica is a small open wound on the great back of France, carefully concealed and only tended spasmodically from time to time at such periods as the health of the whole frame is sufficiently good to permit of serious attention being given to so small a sore. And such times, as the wondering world knows, are few and far between in the history of France.

The law-abiding natives, or such natives as the law has not found out, regard the denizens of the macquis with a tender pity not unmixed with respect. As often as not the bandit is a man with a real grievance, and the poor have a soft place in their hearts for a man with a grievance. And all Corsicans are poor. So all are for the bandits, and every man's hand is secretly or openly against the gendarme. Even in enmity, there is a certain sense of honour among these naive people. A man will shoot his foe in the back, but he will not betray him to the gendarme. Among a primitive people a man commands respect who has had the courage to take the law into his own hands. Amidst a subject population, he who rebels is not without honour.

It was among these and such as these that the Abbe Susini sought from time to time his lost sheep. He took a certain pleasure in donning the peasant clothes that his father had worn, and in going to the mountains as his forefathers had doubtless done before him. For every man worthy of the name has lurking in his being a remnant of the barbarian which makes him revolt occasionally against the life of the city and the crowded struggle of the streets, which sends him out to the waste places of the world where God's air is at all events untainted, where he may return to the primitive way of living, to kill and gather with his own hands that which must satisfy his own hunger.

The abbe had never known a very highly refined state of civilization. The barbarian was not buried very deep. To him the voice of the wind through the trees, the roar of the river, the fine, free air of the mountains had a charm which he could not put into words. He hungered for them as the exile hungers for the sight of his own home. The air of houses choked him, as sooner or later it seems to choke sailors and wanderers who have known what it is to be in the open all night, sleeping or waking beneath the stars, not by accident as an adventure, but by habit. Then the abbe would disappear for days together from Olmeta, and vanish into that mystic, silent, prowling world of the macquis. The sights he saw there, the men he met there, were among those things which the villagers said the abbe knew, but of which he never spoke.

During the stirring events of August and September the priest at Olmeta, and Colonel Gilbert at Bastia, watched each, in his individual way, the effect of the news upon a very sensitive populace. The abbe stood on the high-road one night within a stone's throw of Perucca, and, looking down into the great valley, watched the flickering flames consume all that remained of the old Chateau de Vasselot. Colonel Gilbert, in his little rooms in the bastion at Bastia, knew almost as soon that the chateau was burning, and only evinced his usual easy-going surprise. The colonel always seemed to be wondering that any should have the energy to do active wrong; for virtue is more often passive, and therefore less trouble.

The abbe was puzzled.

"An empty house," he muttered, "does not set itself on fire. Who has done this? and why?"

For he knew every drift and current of feeling amid his turbulent flock, and the burning of the chateau of Vasselot seemed to serve no purpose, and to satisfy no revenge. There was some influence at work which the Abbe Susini did not understand.

He understood well enough that a hundred grievances—a hundred unsatisfied vengeances—had suddenly been awakened by the events of the last months. The grip of France was for a moment relaxed, and all Corsica arose from its sullen sleep, not in organized revolt, but in the desire to satisfy personal quarrels—to break in one way or another the law which had made itself so dreaded. The burning of the Chateau de Vasselot might be the result of some such feeling; but the abbe thought otherwise.

He went to Perucca, where all seemed quiet, though he did not actually ring the great bell and speak to the widow Andrei.

A few hours later, after nightfall, he set off on foot by the road that leads to the Lancone Defile. But he did not turn to the left at the cross-roads. He went straight on instead, by the track which ultimately leads to Corte, in the middle of the island, and amidst the high mountains. This is one of the loneliest spots in all the lonely island, where men may wander for days and never see a human being. The macquis is thin here, and not considered a desirable residence. In fact, the mildest malefactor may have a whole mountain to himself without any demonstration of violence whatever.

This was not the abbe's destination. He was going farther, where the ordinary traveller would fare worse, and hurried along without looking to the left or right. A half-moon was peeping through an occasional rift in those heavy clouds which precede the autumn rains in these latitudes, and gather with such astonishing slowness and deliberation. It was not a dark night, and the air was still. The abbe had mounted considerably since leaving the cross-roads. His path now entered a valley between two mountains. On either side rose a sharp slope, broken, and rendered somewhat inaccessible by boulders, which had at one time been spilled down the mountain-side by some great upheaval, and now seemed poised in patient expectance of the next disturbance.

Suddenly the priest stopped, and stood rooted. A faint sound, inaudible to a townsman's ear, made him turn sharply to the right, and face the broken ground. A stone no bigger than a hazel nut had been dislodged somewhere above him, and now rolled down to his feet. The dead silence of the mountains closed over him again. There was, of course, no one in sight.

"It is Susini of Olmeta," he said, speaking quietly, as if he were in a room.

There was a moment's pause, and then a man rose from behind a rock, and came silently on bare feet down to the pathway. His approach was heralded by a scent which would have roused any sporting dog to frenzy. This man was within measurable distance of the beasts of the forests. As he came into the moonlight it was perceivable that he was hatless, and that his tangled hair and beard were streaked with white. His face was apparently black, and so were his hands. He had obviously not washed himself for years.

"You here," said the abbe, recognizing one who had for years and years been spoken of as a sort of phantom, living in the summits—the life of an animal—alone.

The other nodded.

"Then you have heard that the gendarmes are being drafted into the army, and sent to France?"

The man nodded again. He had done so long without speech that he had no doubt come to recognize its uselessness in the majority of human happenings. The abbe felt in his pocket, and gave the man a packet of tobacco. The Corsicans, unlike nearly all other races of the Mediterranean, are smokers of wooden pipes.

"Thanks," said the man, in an odd, soft voice, speaking for the first time.

"I am going up into the mountains," said the abbe, slowly, knowing no doubt that men who have lived long with Nature are slow to understand words, "to seek an old man who has recently gone there. He is travelling with a man called Jean, who has the evil eye."

"The Count de Vasselot," said the outlaw, quietly. He touched his forehead with one finger and made a vague wandering gesture of the hand. "I have seen him. You go the wrong way. He is down there, near the entrance to the Lancone Defile with others."

He paused and looked round him with the slow and distant glance which any may perceive in the eyes of a caged wild beast.

"They are all down from the mountains," he said.

Even the Abbe Susini glanced uneasily over his shoulder. These still, stony valleys were peopled by the noiseless, predatory Ishmaels of the macquis. They were, it is true, not numerous at this time, but those who had escaped the clutch of the imperial law were necessarily the most cunning and desperate.

"Buon," he said, turning to retrace his steps. "I shall go down to the Lancone Defile. God be with you, my friend."

The man gave a queer laugh. He evidently thought that the abbe expected too much.

The abbe walked until midnight, and then being tired he found a quiet spot between two great rocks, and lying down slept there until morning. In the leather saddle-bag which formed his pillow he had bread and some meat, which he ate as he walked on towards the Lancone Defile. Once, soon after daylight, he paused to listen, and the sound that had faintly reached him was repeated. It was the warning whistle of the steamer, the old Perseverance, entering Bastia harbour ten miles away. He was still in the shade of the great heights that lay between him and the Eastern coast, and hurried while the day was cool. Then the sun leapt up behind the hazy summits above Biguglia. The abbe looked at his huge silver watch. It was nearly eight o'clock. When he was near to the entrance of the defile he stood in the middle of the road and gave, in his high clear voice, the cry of the goat-herd calling his flock. He gave it twice, and then repeated it. If there were any in the macquis within a mile of him they could not fail to see him as he stood on the dusty road in the sunlight.

He was not disappointed. In a few minutes the closely-set arbutus bushes above the road were pushed aside and a boy came out—an evil-faced youth with a loose mouth.

"It is Jean of the Evil Eye who has sent me," he said glibly, with an eye on the abbe's hands in case there should be a knife. "He is up there with a broken leg. He has with him the old man."

"The old man?" repeated the abbe, interrogatively.

"Yes, he who is foolish."

"Show me the way," said Susini. "You need not look at my hands; I have nothing in them."

They climbed the steep slope that overhung the road, forcing their way through the thick brushwood, stumbling over the chaos of stones. Quite suddenly they came upon a group of men sitting round a smouldering fire where a tin coffee-pot stood amid the ashes. One man had his leg roughly tied up in sticks. It was Jean of the Evil Eye, who looked hard at the Abbe Susini, and then turning, indicated with a nod the Count de Vasselot who sat leaning against a tree. The count recognized Susini and nodded vaguely. His face, once bleached by long confinement, was burnt to a deep red; his eyes were quite irresponsible.

"He is worse," said Jean, without lowering his voice. "Sometimes I can only keep him here by force. He thinks the whole island is looking for him—he never sleeps."

Jean was interrupted by the evil-faced boy, who had risen, and was peering down towards the gates of the defile.

"There is a carriage on the road," he said.

They all listened. There were three other men whom the abbe knew by sight and reputation. One by one they rose to their feet and slowly cocked their old-fashioned single-barrelled guns.

"It is the carriage from Olmeta—must be going to Perucca," reported the boy.

And at the word Perucca, the count scrambled to his feet, only to be dragged back by Jean. The old man's eyes were alight with fear and hatred. He was grasping Jean's gun. The abbe rose and peered down through the bushes. Then he turned sharply and wrenched Jean's firearm from the count's hands.

"They are friends of mine," he said. "The man who shoots will be shot by me."

All turned and looked at him. They knew the abbe and the gun. And while they looked, Denise and Mademoiselle Brun drove past in safety.



CHAPTER XXIII.

AN UNDERSTANDING.

"Keep cool, and you command everybody."

When France realized that Napoleon III had fallen, she turned and rent his memory. No dog, it appears, may have his day, but some cur must needs yelp at his heels. Indeed (and this applies to literary fame as to emperors), it is a sure sign that a man is climbing high if the little dogs bark below.

And the little dogs and the curs remembered now the many slights cast upon them. France had been betrayed—was ruined. The twenty most prosperous years of her history were forgotten. There was a rush of patriots to Paris, and another rush of the chicken-hearted to the coast and the frontier.

The Baron de Melide telegraphed to the baroness to quit Frejus and go to Italy. And the baroness telegraphed a refusal to do so.

Lory de Vasselot fretted as much as one of his buoyant nature could fret under this forced inactivity. The sunshine, the beautiful surroundings, and the presence of friends, made him forget France at times, and think only of the present. And Denise absorbed his thoughts of the present and the future. She was a constant puzzle to him. There seemed to be two Denise Langes: one who was gay with that deep note of wisdom in her gaiety, which only French women compass, with odd touches of tenderness and little traits of almost maternal solicitude, which betrayed themselves at such moments as the wounded man attempted to do something which his crippled condition or his weakness prevented him from accomplishing. The other Denise was clear-eyed, logical, almost cold, who resented any mention of Corsica or of the war. Indeed, de Vasselot had seen her face harden at some laughing reference made by him to his approaching recovery. He was quick enough to perceive that she was endeavouring to shut out of her life all but the present, which was unusual; for most pin their faith on the future until they are quite old, and their future must necessarily be a phantom.

"I do not understand you, mademoiselle," he said, one day, on one of the rare occasions when she had allowed herself to be left alone with him. "You are brave, and yet you are a coward!"

And the resentment in her eyes took him by surprise. He did not know, perhaps, that the wisest men never see more than they are intended to see.

"Pray do not try," she answered. "The effort might delay your recovery and your return to the army."

She laughed, and presently left him. It is one thing to face the future, and another to sit quietly awaiting its approach. The majority of people spoil their lives by going out to meet the future, deliberately converting into a reality that which was only a dread. They call it knowing the worst.

The next morning Mademoiselle Brun, with a composed face and blinking eyes, mentioned casually to Lory that she and Denise were going back to Corsica.

"But why?" cried Lory; "but why, my dear demoiselle?"

"I do not know," answered Mademoiselle Brun, smoothing her gloves. "It will, at all events, show the world that we are not afraid."

De Vasselot looked at her non-committing face and held his peace. There was more in this than a man's philosophy might dream of.

"When do you go?" he asked after a pause.

"To-night, from Nice," was the answer.

And, as has been noted, Denise and mademoiselle arrived at Bastia in the early morning, and drove to the Casa Perucca, in the face of more than one rifle-barrel. Mademoiselle Brun never asked questions, and, if she knew why Denise had returned to Perucca so suddenly, she had not acquired the knowledge from the girl herself, but had, behind her beady eyes, put two and two together with that accuracy of which women have the monopoly. She meekly set to work to make the Casa Perucca comfortable, and took up her horticultural labours where she had dropped them.

"One misses the Chateau de Vasselot," she said one morning, standing by the open window that gave so wide a view of the valley.

"Yes," answered Denise; and that was all.

Mademoiselle went into the garden with her leather gloves and a small basket. The odd thing about her gardening was, that it was on such a minute scale that the result was never visible to the ordinary eye. Denise had, it appeared, given up gardening. Mademoiselle Brun did not know how she occupied herself at this time. She seemed to do nothing, and preferred to do it alone. Returning to the house at midday, mademoiselle went into the drawing-room, and there found Denise and Colonel Gilbert seated at the table with some papers, and a map spread out before them.

Both looked up with a guilty air, and Denise flushed suddenly, while the colonel bit his lip. Immediately he recovered himself, and rising, shook hands with the new-comer.

"I heard that you had returned," he said, "and hastened to pay my respects."

"We were looking at the plans," added Denise, hurriedly. "I have agreed to sell Perucca to Colonel Gilbert—as you have always wished me to do."

"Yes; I have always wished you do it," returned Mademoiselle Brun, slowly. She was very cool and collected, and in that had the advantage over her companions. "Has the colonel the money in his pocket?" she asked with a dry smile. "Is it to be settled this afternoon?"

She glanced from one to the other. If love is blind, he certainly tampers with the sight of those who have had dealings with him. Denise was only thinking of Perucca. She had not perceived that Colonel Gilbert was honestly in love with her. But Mademoiselle Brun saw it. She was wondering—if this thing had come to Gilbert twenty years earlier—what manner of man it might have made of him. It was a good love. Mademoiselle saw that quite clearly. For a dishonest man may at any moment be tripped up by an honest passion. Which is one of those practical jokes of Fate that break men's hearts.

"You know as well as I do," said Colonel Gilbert, with more earnestness than he had ever shown, "that the sooner you and mademoiselle are out of the island the better."

"Bah!" laughed mademoiselle. "With you at Bastia to watch over us, mon colonel! Besides, we Peruccas are invincible just now. Have we not burnt down the Chateau de Vasselot?"

Gilbert winced. Mademoiselle wondered why.

"I want it settled as soon as possible," put in Denise, turning to the papers. "There is no need of delay."

"None," acquiesced mademoiselle. She wanted to sell Perucca and be done with it, and with the island. She was a woman of iron nerve, but the gloom and loneliness of Corsica had not left her at ease. There was a haunting air of disaster that seemed to brood over the whole land, with its miles and miles of untenanted mountains, its malarial plains, and deserted sea-board. "None," she repeated. "But such transactions are not to be carried through, in a woman's drawing-room, by two women and a soldier."

She looked from one to the other. She did not know why one wanted to buy and the other to sell. She only knew that her own inclination was to give them every assistance, and to give it even against her better judgment. It could only be, after all, the question of a little more or a little less profit, and she, who had never had any money, knew that the possession of it never makes a woman one whit the happier.

"Then," said the colonel with his easy laugh—for he was inimitable in the graceful art of yielding—"Then, let us appoint a day to sign the necessary agreements in the office of the notary at Bastia. I tell you frankly I want to get you out of the island."

The colonel stayed to lunch, and, whether by accident or intention, made a better impression than he had ever made before. He was intelligent, easy, full of information and o rara avis! proved himself to be a man without conceit. He never complained of his ill-fortune in life, but his individuality thrust the fact into every mind, that this was a man destined for distinction who had missed it. He seemed to be riding through life for a fall, and rode with his chin up, gay and debonnaire.

Mademoiselle Brun felt relieved by the thought that the end of Corsica, and this impossible Casa Perucca, was in sight. She was gay as a little grey mouse may be gay at some domestic festival. She sent the widow to the cellar, and the occasion was duly celebrated in a bottle of Mattei Perucca's old wine.

With coffee came the question of fixing a date for the signature of the deed of sale at the notary's office at Bastia. And instantly the mouse skipped, as it were, into a retired corner of the conversation and crouched silent, watching with bright eyes.

"I should like it to be done soon," said the colonel, who, at the suggestion of his hostess, had lighted a cigarette. He seemed more himself with a cigarette between his fingers to contemplate with a dreamy eye, to turn and twist in reflective idleness. "You will understand that my future movements are uncertain if, as now seems possible, the war is not over."

"But surely it is over," put in Denise, quickly.

The colonel shrugged his shoulders.

"Who can tell? We are in the hands of a few journalists and lawyers, mademoiselle. If the men of words say 'Resist,' we others are ready. I have applied to be relieved of my command here, since they are going to fortify Paris. Shall we say next week?"

"To-day is Thursday—shall we say Monday?" replied Denise.

"Make it Wednesday," suggested Mademoiselle Brun from her silent corner.

And after some discussion Wednesday was finally selected. Mademoiselle Brun had no particular reason why it should be Wednesday, in preference to Monday, and, unlike most people in such circumstances, advanced none.

"We shall require witnesses," she said as the colonel took his leave. "I shall be able to find two to testify to the signature of Denise."

The colonel had apparently forgotten this necessity. He thanked her and departed.

"And on Wednesday," he said, "I shall in reality have the money in my pocket."

During the afternoon mademoiselle announced her intention of walking to Olmeta. It would be advisable to secure the Abbe Susini as a witness, she said. He was a busy man, and a journey to Bastia would of necessity take up his whole day. Denise did not offer to accompany her, so she set out alone at a quick pace, learnt, no doubt, in the Rue des Saints Peres.

"They will not shoot at an old woman," she said, and never looked aside.

The priest's housekeeper received her coldly. Yes the abbe was at home, she said, holding the door ajar with scant hospitality. Mademoiselle pushed it open and went into the narrow passage. She had not too much respect for a priest, and none whatever for a priest's housekeeper, who kept a house so badly. She looked at the dirty floor, and with a subtle feminine irony, sought the mat which was lying in the road outside the house. She folded her hands at her waist, and still grasping her cheap cotton umbrella, waited to be announced.

The Abbe Susini received her in his little bare study, where a few newspapers, half a dozen ancient volumes of theology and a life of Napoleon the Great, represented literature. He bowed silently and drew forward his own horsehair armchair. Mademoiselle Brun sat down, and crossed her hands upon the hilt of her umbrella like a soldier at rest under arms. She waited until the housekeeper had closed the door and shuffled away to her own quarters. Then she looked the resolute little abbe straight in the eyes.

"Let us understand each other," she said.

"Bon Dieu! upon what point, mademoiselle?"

Mademoiselle was still looking at him. She perceived that there were some points upon which the priest did not desire to be understood. She held up one finger in its neutral-coloured cotton glove, and shook it slowly from side to side.

"None of your theology," she said; "I come to you as a man—the only man I think in this island at present."

"At present?"

"Yes, the other is in France, recovering from his wounds."

"Ah!" said the abbe, glancing shrewdly into her face. "You also have perceived that he is a man—that. But there is our good Colonel Gilbert. You forget him."

"He would have made a good priest," said mademoiselle, bluntly, and the abbe laughed aloud.

"Ah! but you amuse me, mademoiselle. You amuse me enormously." And he leant back to laugh at his ease.

"Yes, I came on purpose to amuse you. I came to tell you that Denise Lange has sold Perucca to Colonel Gilbert."

"Sacred name of—thunder," he muttered, the mirth wiped away from his face as if with a cloth. He sat bolt upright, glaring at her, his restless foot tapping on the floor.

"Ah, you women!" he ejaculated after a pause.

"Ah, you priests!" returned Mademoiselle Brun, composedly.

"And you did not stop it," he said, looking at her with undisguised contempt.

"I have no control. I used to have a little; now I have none."

She finished with a gesture, describing the action of a leaf blown before the wind.

"But I have put off the signing of the papers until Wednesday," she continued. "I have undertaken to provide two witnesses, yourself if you will consent, the other—I thought we might get the other from Frejus between now and Wednesday. A boat from St. Florent to-night could surely, with this wind, reach St. Raphael to-morrow."

The abbe was looking at her with manifest approval.

"Clever," he said—"clever."

Mademoiselle Brun rose to go as abruptly as she had come.

"Personally," she said, "I shall be glad to be rid of Perucca for ever—but I fancied there are reasons."

"Yes," said the priest, slowly, "there are reasons."

"Oh! I ask no questions," she snapped out at him with her hand on the door. On the threshold she paused. "All the same," she said, "I do ask a question. Why does Colonel Gilbert want to buy?"

The priest threw up his hands in angry bewilderment.

"That is it!" he cried. "I wish I knew."

"Then find out," said mademoiselle, "between now and Wednesday."

And with a curt nod she left him.



CHAPTER XXIV.

CE QUE FEMME VEUT.

"All nature is but art, unknown to thee! All chance, direction which thou canst not see."

It rained all night with a semi-tropical enthusiasm. The autumn rains are looked for in these latitudes at certain dates, and if by chance they fail, the whole winter will be disturbed and broken. With sunrise, however, the clouds broke on the western side of the island, and from the summit of the great Perucca rock the blue and distant sea was visible through the grey confusion of mist and cloud. The autumn had been a dry one, so the whole mountain-side was clothed in shades of red and brown, rising from the scarlet of the blackberry leaves to the deep amber of the bare rock, where all vegetation ceased. The distant peeps of the valley of Vasselot glowed blue and purple, the sea was a bright cobalt, and through the broken clouds the sun cast shafts of yellow gold and shimmering silver. The whole effect was dazzling, and such as dim Northern eyes can scarce imagine.

Mademoiselle Brun, who had just risen from the table where she and Denise had had their early breakfast of coffee and bread, was standing by the window that opened upon the verandah where old Mattel Perucca had passed so many hours of his life.

"One should build on this spot," she began, "a convalescent home for atheists."

She broke off, and staggered back. The room, the verandah, the whole world it seemed, was shaking and vibrating like a rickety steam-engine. For a moment the human senses were paralyzed by a deafening roar and rattle. Mademoiselle Brun turned to Denise, and for a time they clung to each other; and then Denise, whose strong young arms half lifted her companion from the ground, gained the open window. She held there for a moment, and then staggered across the verandah and down the steps, dragging mademoiselle with her.

There was no question of speech, of thought, of understanding. They merely stood, holding to each other, and watching the house. Then a sudden silence closed over the world, and all was still. Denise turned and looked down into the valley, smiling beneath them in its brilliant colouring. Her hand was at her throat as if she were choking. Mademoiselle, shaking in every limb, turned and sat down on a garden seat. Denise would not sit, but stood shaking and swaying like a reed in a mistral. And yet each in her way was as brave a woman as could be found even in their own country.

Mademoiselle Brun leant forward, and held her head between her two hands, while she stared at the ground between her feet. At last speech caine to her, but not her natural voice.

"I suppose," she said, passing her little shrivelled hand across her eyes, "that it was an earthquake."

"No," said Denise. "Look!" And she pointed with a shaking finger down towards the river.

A great piece of the mountain-side, comprising half a dozen vine terraces, a few olive terraces, and a patch of pinewood, had fallen bodily down into the river-bed, leaving the slope a bare and scarified mass of rock and red soil. The little Guadelle river, a tributary of the Aliso, was completely dammed. Perucca was the poorer by the complete disappearance of one of its sunniest slopes, but the house stood unhurt.

"No more will fall," said Denise presently. "See; there is the bare rock."

Mademoiselle rose, and came slowly towards Denise. They were recovering from their terror now. For at all events, the cause of it lay before them, and lacked the dread uncertainty of an earthquake. Mademoiselle gave an odd laugh.

"It is the boundary-line between Perucca and Vasselot," she said, "that has fallen into the valley."

Denise was thinking the same thought, and made no answer. The footpath from the chateau up to the Casa by which Gilbert had come on the day of Mattei Perucca's death, by which he had also ridden to the chateau one day, was completely obliterated. Where it had crept along the face of the slope, there now rose a bare red rock. There was no longer a short cut from the one house to the other. It made Perucca all the more inaccessible.

"Curious," whispered Mademoiselle Brun to herself, as she turned towards the house. She went indoors to get a hat, for the autumn sun was now glaring down upon them.

When she came out again, Denise was sitting looking thoughtfully down into the valley where had once stood the old chateau, now gone, to which had led this pathway, now wiped off the face of the earth.

"There is assuredly," she said, without looking round, "a curse upon this country."

Which Seneca had thought eighteen hundred years before, and which the history of the islands steadily confirms.

Mademoiselle was drawing on her gloves, and carried her umbrella.

"I am going down the pathway to look at it all," she said.

There was nothing to be done. When Nature takes things into her own hands, men can only stand by and look. Denise was perhaps more shaken than the smaller, tougher woman. She made no attempt to accompany mademoiselle, but sat in the shade of a mimosa tree, and watched her descend into the valley, now appearing, now hidden, in the brushwood.

Mademoiselle Brun made her way to the spot where the pathway was suddenly cut short by the avalanche of rock and rubble and soil. It happened to be the exact spot where Colonel Gilbert's heavy horse had stumbled months before, where the footpath crossed the bed of a small mountain torrent. A few loosened stones had come bowling down the slope, set free by the landslip. These had fallen on to the pathway, and there shattered themselves into a thousand pieces. Mademoiselle stood among the debris. She looked down in order to make sure of her foothold, and something caught her eye. She knelt down eagerly, and then, looking up, glanced round surreptitiously like a thief. She could not see the Casa Perucca. She was alone on this solitary mountain-side. Slowly she collected the debris of the broken rock, which was mixed with a red powdery soil.

"Ciel!" she whispered, "Ciel! what fools we have all been!"

She rose from her knees with one clasped handful of rubble. Slowly and thoughtfully she climbed the hill again. On the terrace, where she arrived hot and tired, the widow Andrei met her. The woman had been to the village on an errand, and had returned during mademoiselle's absence.

"The Abbe Susini awaits you in the library," she said. "He asked for you and not for mademoiselle, who has gone to her own garden."

Mademoiselle hurried into the library. The arrival of the abbe at this moment seemed providential, though the explanation of it was simple enough.

"I came," he said, looking at her keenly, "on a fool's errand. I came to ask whether the ladies were afraid."

Mademoiselle gave a chilly smile.

"The ladies were not afraid, Monsieur l'Abbe," she said. "They were terrified—since you ask."

She went to a side-table and brought a newspaper; for even in her excitement she was scrupulously tidy. She laid it on the table in front of the abbe, rather awkwardly with her left hand, and then, holding her right over the newspaper, she suddenly opened it, and let fall a little heap of stones and soil. Some of the stones had a singular rounded appearance.

The abbe treated her movements with the kindly interest offered at the shrine of childhood or imbecility. It was evident that he supposed that the landslip had unhinged Mademoiselle Brun's reason.

"What is that?" he asked soothingly, contemplating the mineral trophy.

"I think," answered mademoiselle, "that it is the explanation."

"The explanation of what, if one may inquire?"

"Of your precious colonel," said mademoiselle. "That is gold, Monsieur L'Abbe. I have seen similar dirt in a museum in Paris." She took up one of the pebbles. "Scrape it with your knife," she said, handing it to him.

The abbe obeyed her, and volunteered on his own account to bite it. He handed it back to her with the marks of his teeth on it, and one side of it scraped clean showing pure gold. Then he walked pensively to the window, where he stood with his back turned to her in deep thought for some minutes. At length he turned on his heel and looked at her.

"It began," he said, holding up one finger and shaking it slowly from side to side, which seemed to indicate that his hearer must be silent for a while, "long ago. I see it now."

"Part of it," corrected mademoiselle, inexorably.

"He must have discovered it two years ago when he first surveyed this country for the proposed railway. I see now why that man from St. Florent shot Pietro Andrei on the high-road. Pietro Andrei was in the way, and a little subtle revival of a forgotten vendetta secured his removal. I see now whence came the anonymous letter intended to frighten Mattei Perucca away from here. It frightened him into the next world."

"And I see now," interrupted the refractory listener, "why Denise received an offer for the estate before she had become possessed of it, and an offer of marriage before we had been here a month. But he tripped and fell then," she concluded grimly.

"And all for money," said the abbe, contemptuously.

"Wait," said mademoiselle—"wait till you have yourself been tempted. So many fall. It must be greater than we think, that temptation. You and I perhaps have never had it."

"No," replied the abbe, simply. "There has never been more than a sou in my poor-box at the church. I see now," continued Susini, "who has been stirring up this old strife between the Peruccas and the Vasselots—offering, as he was, to buy from one and the other alternately. This dirt, mademoiselle, must lie on both estates."

"It lies between the two."

The priest was deep in thought, rubbing his stubbly chin with two fingers.

"I see so much now," he said at length, "which I never understood before."

He turned towards the window, and looked down at the rocky slope with a new interest.

"There must be a great quantity of it," he said reflectively. "He has walked over so many obstacles to get to it, with his pleasant laugh."

"He has walked over his own heart," said mademoiselle, persistently contemplating the question from the woman's point of view.

The priest moved impatiently.

"I was thinking of men's lives," he said. Then he turned and faced her with a sudden gleam in his eye. "There is one thing yet unexplained—the burning of the Chateau de Vasselot. An empty house does not ignite itself. Explain me that."

Mademoiselle shrugged her shoulders.

"That still remains to be explained," she said. "In the mean time we must act."

"I know that—I know that," he cried. "I have acted! I am acting! De Vasselot arrives in Corsica to-morrow night. A letter from him crossed the message I sent to him by a special boat from St. Florent last night."

"What brings him here?"

The abbe turned and looked at her with scorn.

"Bah!" he cried. "You know as well as I. It is the eyes of Mademoiselle Denise."

He took his hat and went towards the door.

"On Wednesday morning, if you do not see me before, at the office of the notary, in the Boulevard du Palais at Bastia," he said. "Where there will be a pretty salad for Mister the Colonel, prepared for him by a woman and a priest—eh! Both your witnesses shall be there, mademoiselle—both."

He broke off with a laugh and an upward jerk of the head.

"Ah! but he is a pretty scoundrel, your colonel."

"He is not my colonel," returned Mademoiselle Brun. "Besides, even he has his good points. He is brave, and he is capable of an honest affection."

The priest gave a scornful laugh.

"Ah! you women," he cried. "You think that excuses everything. You do not know that if it is worth anything it should make a man better instead of worse. Otherwise it is not worth a snap of my finger—your honest affection."

And he came back into the room on purpose to snap his finger, in his rude way, quite close to Mademoiselle Brun's parchment face.



CHAPTER XXV.

ON THE GEEAT ROAD.

"Look in my face; my name is Might-Have-Been. I am also called No More, Too Late, Farewell,"

"This," said the captain of the Jane, the Baron de Melide's yacht, "is the bay of St. Florent. We anchor a little further in."

"Yes," answered Lory, who stood on the bridge beside the sailor, "I know it. I am glad to see it again—to smell the smell of Corsica again."

"Monsieur le Comte is attached to his native country?" suggested the captain, consulting the chart which he held folded in his hand.

De Vasselot was looking through a pair of marine glasses across the hills to where the Perucca rock jutted out of the mountain side.

"No; I hate it. But I am glad to come back," he said.

"Monsieur will be welcomed by his people. It is a great power, the voice of the people." For the captain was a Republican.

"It is the bleating of sheep, mon capitaine," returned de Vasselot, with a laugh.

They stood side by side in silence while the steamer crept steadily forward into the shallow bay. Already a boat had left the town wall, and was sailing out leisurely on the evening breeze towards them. It came alongside. De Vasselot gave some last instructions to the captain, said farewell, and left the ship. It was a soldier's breeze, and the boat ran free. In a few minutes de Vasselot stepped ashore. The abbe was waiting for him at the steps. It was almost dark, but de Vasselot could see the priest's black eyes flashing with some new excitement. De Vasselot held out his hand, but Susini made a movement, of which the new-comer recognized the significance in his quick way. He took a step forward, and they embraced after the manner of the French.

"Voila!" said the abbe, "we are friends at last."

"I have always known that you were mine," answered Lory.

"Good. And now I have bad news for you. A friend's privilege, Monsieur le Comte."

"Ah," said Lory, looking sharply at him.

"Your father. I have found him and lost him again. I found him where I knew he would be, in the macquis, living the life that they live there, with perfect tranquillity. Jean was with him. By some means or other Jean got wind of a proposed investigation of the chateau. The Peruccas people have been stirred up lately; but that is a long story which I cannot tell you now. At all events, they quitted the chateau a few hours before the house was mysteriously burnt down. To-day I received a message from Jean. Your father left their camp before daybreak to-day. All night he had been restless. He was in a panic that the Peruccas are seeking him. He is no longer responsible, mon ami; his mind is gone. From his muttered talk of the last few days, they conclude that he is making his way south to Bonifacio, in order to cross the straits from there to Sardinia. He is on foot, alone, and deranged. There is my news."

"And Jean?" asked de Vasselot, curtly; for he was quick in decision and in action.

"Jean has but half recovered from an accident. The small bone of his leg was broken by a fall. He is following on the back of an old horse which cannot trot, the only one he could procure. I have ready for you a good horse. You have but to follow the track over the mountains due south—you know the stars, you, who are a cavalry officer—until you join the Corte road at Ponte Alle Leccia, then there is but the one road to Bocognano. If you overtake your poor father, you have but to detain him until Jean comes up. You may trust Jean to bring him safely back to the yacht here as arranged. But you must be at Bastia at the Hotel Clement at ten o'clock on Wednesday morning. That is absolutely necessary. You understand—life or death, you must be there. I and a woman, who is clever enough, are mixing a salad for some one at Bastia on Wednesday morning, and it is you who are the vinegar."

"Where is the horse?" asked Lory.

"It is a few paces away. Come, I will show you."

"Ah!" cried Lory, whose voice had a ring of excitement in it that always came when action was imminent. "But I cannot go at that pace. It is not only Jean who has but one leg. Your arm—thank you. Now we can go."

And he limped by the side of Susini through the dark alleys of St. Florent. The horse was waiting for them beneath an archway which de Vasselot remembered. It was the entry to the stable where he had left his horse on the occasion of his first arrival in Corsica.

"Aha!" he said, with a sort of glee as he settled himself in the saddle. "It is good to be across a horse again. Pity you are a priest; you might come with me. It will be a fine night for a ride. What a pity you are a priest! You were not meant for one, you know."

"I am as the good God made me, and a little worse," returned Susini. "That is your road."

And so they parted. Lory rode on, happy in that he was called upon to act without too much thought. For those who think most, laugh least. De Vasselot's life had been empty enough until the outbreak of the war, and now it was full to overflowing. And though France had fallen, and he himself, it would appear, must be a pauper; though his father must inevitably be a living sorrow, which one who tasted it has told us is worse than a dead one; though Denise would have nothing to say to him,—yet he was happier than he had ever been. He was wise enough not to sift his happiness. He had never spoken of it to others. It is wise not to confide one's happiness to another; he may pull it to pieces in his endeavour to find out how it is made.

The onlooker may only guess at the inner parts of another's life; but at times one may catch a glimpse of the light that another sees. And it is, therefore, to be safely presumed that Lory de Vasselot found a certain happiness in the unswerving execution of his duty. Not only as a soldier, but as a man, he rejoiced in a strict sense of duty, which, in sober earnest, is one of the best gifts that a man may possess. He had not inherited it from father or mother. He had not acquired it at St. Cyr. He had merely received it at second-hand from Mademoiselle Brun, at third-hand from that fat old General Lange who fell at Solferino. For the schoolgirl in the Rue du Cherche-Midi was quite right when she had pounced upon Mademoiselle Brun's secret, which, however, lay safely dead and buried on that battlefield. And Mademoiselle Brun had taught, had shaped Henri de Melide; and Henri de Melide had always been Lory de Vasselot's best friend. So the thin silver thread of good had been woven through the web of more lives than the little woman ever dreamt. Who shall say what good or what evil the meanest of us may thus accomplish?

De Vasselot never thought of these things. He was content to go straight ahead without looking down those side paths into which so many immature thinkers stray. He had fought at Sedan, had thrown his life with no niggard hand into the balance. When wounded he had cunningly escaped the attentions of the official field hospitals. He might easily have sent in his name to Prussian head-quarters as that of a wounded officer begging to be released on parole. But he cherished the idea of living to fight another day. Denise, with word and glance, and, more potent still, with silence, had tempted him a hundred times to abandon the idea of further service to France. "She does not understand," he concluded; and he threw Denise into the balance. She made it clear to him that he must choose between her and France. Without hesitation he threw his happiness into the balance. For this Corsican—this dapper sportsman of the Bois de Boulogne and Longchamps—was, after all, that creation of which the world has need to be most proud—a man.

Duty had been his guiding light, though he himself would have laughed the gayest denial to such an accusation. Duty had brought him to Corsica. And—for there is no human happiness that is not spiced by duty—he had the hope of seeing Denise.

He rode up the valley of the Guadelle blithely enough, despite the fact that his leg pained him and his left arm ached abominably. Of course, he would find his father—he knew that; and the peace and quiet of some rural home in France would restore the wandering reason. And all was for the best in the best possible world! For Lory was a Frenchman, and into the French nature there has assuredly filtered some of the light of that sunny land.

At more than one turn of the road he looked up towards Perucca. Once he saw a light in one of the windows of the old house. Slowly he climbed to the level of the tableland; and Denise, sitting at the open window, heard the sound of his horse's feet, and wondered who might be abroad at that hour. He glanced at the ruined chapel that towers above the Chateau de Vasselot on its rocky promontory, and peered curiously down into the black valley, where the charred remains of his ancestral home are to be found to this day. Murato was asleep—a silent group of stone-roofed houses, one of which, however, had seen the birth of a man notorious enough in his day—Fieschi, the would-be assassin of Louis Philippe. Every village in this island has, it would seem, the odour of blood.

The road now mounted steadily, and presently led through the rocky defile where Susini had turned back on a similar errand scarce a week earlier. The rider now emerged into the open, and made his careful way along the face of a mountain. The chill air bespoke a great altitude, which was confirmed by that waiting, throbbing silence which is of the summits. Far down on the right, across rolling ranges of lower hills, a steady pin-point of light twinkled like a star. It was the lighthouse of Punta-Revellata, by Calvi, twenty miles away.

The night was clear and dark. A few clouds lay on the horizon to the south, and all the dome of heaven was a glittering field of stars. De Vasselot's horse was small and wiry—part Arab, part mountain pony—and attended to his own affairs with the careful and surprising intelligence possessed by horses, mules, and donkeys that are born and bred to mountain roads. After Murato the track had descended sharply, only to mount again to the heights dividing the watersheds of the Bevinco and the Golo. And now de Vasselot could hear the Golo roaring in its rocky bed in the valley below. He knew that he was safe now, for he had merely to follow the river till it led him to the high-road at Ponte Alle Leccia. The country here was more fertile, and the track led through the thickest macquis. The subtle scent of flowering bushes filled the air with a cool, soft flavour, almost to be tasted on the lips, of arbutus, myrtle, cistus, oleander, tamarisk, and a score of flowering heaths. The silence here was broken incessantly by the stirring of the birds, which swarm in these berry-bearing coppices.

The track crossed the narrow, flat valley, where, a hundred years earlier, had been fought the last great fight that finally subjugated Corsica to France. Here de Vasselot passed through some patches of cultivated ground—rare enough in this fertile land—noted the shadowy shape of a couple of houses, and suddenly found himself on the high-road. He had spared his horse hitherto, but now urged the willing beast to a better pace. This took the form of an uneven, fatiguing trot, which, however, made good account of the kilometres, and de Vasselot noted mechanically the recurrence of the little square stones every five or six minutes.

It was during that darkest hour which precedes the dawn that he skirted the old capital, Corte, straggling up the hillside to the towering citadel standing out grey and solemn against its background of great mountains. The rider could now see dimly a snow-clad height here and there. Halfway between Corte and Vivario, where the road climbs through bare heights, he paused, and then hurried on again. He had heard in this desert stillness the beat of a horse's feet on the road in front of him. He was not mistaken, for when he drew up to listen a second time there was no sound. The rider had stopped, and was waiting for him. The outline of his form could be seen against the starry sky at a turn in the road further up the mountain-side.

"Is that you, Jean?" cried Lory.

"Yes," answered the voice of the man who rarely spoke.

The two horses exchanged a low, gurgled greeting.

"Are we on the right road? What is the next village?" asked Lory.

"The next is a town—Vivario. We are on the right road. At Vivario turn to the right, where the road divides. He is going that way, through Bocognano and Bastelica to Sartene and Bonifacio. I have heard of him many times, from one and the other."

From one and the other! De Vasselot half turned in his saddle to glance back at the road over which he had travelled. He had seen and heard no one all through the night.

"He procured a horse at Corte last evening," continued Jean. "It seems a good one. What is yours?"

"I have not seen mine," answered de Vasselot; "I can only feel him. But I think there are thirty kilometres in him yet." As he spoke he had his hand in his pocket. "Here," he said. "Take some money. Get a better horse at Vivario and follow me. It will be daylight in an hour. Tell me again the names of the places on the road."

"Vivario, Bocognano, Bastelica, Cauro, Sartene, Bonifacio," repeated Jean, like a lesson.

"Vivario, Bocognano, Bastelica, Cauro, Sartene," muttered de Vasselot, as he rode on.

He was in the great forest of Vizzavona when the day broke, and he saw through the giant pines the rosy tints of sunrise on the summit of Monte D'Oro, from whence at dawn may be seen the coast-line of Italy and France and, like dots upon a map, all the islets of the sea. Still he met no one—had seen no living being but Jean since quitting St. Florent at the other extremity of the island.

It was freezingly cold at the summit of the pass where the road traverses a cleft in the mountain-range, and de Vasselot felt that weariness which comes to men, however strong, just before the dawn ends a sleepless night. The horse, as he had told Jean, was still fresh enough, and gained new energy as the air grew lighter. The mountain town of Bocognano lies below the road, and the scent of burning pinewood told that the peasants were astir. Here de Vasselot quitted the highway, and took a side-road to Bastelica. As he came round the slope of Monte Mezzo, the sun climbed up into the open sky, and flooded the broad valley of the Prunelli with light. De Vasselot had been crossing watersheds all night, climbing out of one valley only to descend into another, crossing river after river with a monotony only varied by the various dangers of the bridges. The valley of the Prunelli seemed no different from others until he looked across it, and perceived his road mounting on the opposite slope. A single horseman was riding southward at a good pace. It was his father at last.



CHAPTER XXVI.

THE END OF THE JOURNEY.

"La journee sera dure, Mais elle se passera."

At the sight of the horseman on the road in front of him, those instincts of the chase which must inevitably be found in all manly hearts, were suddenly aroused, and Lory surprised his willing horse by using the spurs, of which the animal had hitherto been happily ignorant.

At the same time he made a mistake. He gave an eager shout, quite forgetting that the count had never seen him in uniform, and would inevitably perceive the glint of his accoutrements in the sunlight. The instinct of the macquis was doubtless strong upon the fugitive, There are certain habits of thought acquired in a brief period of outlawry, which years of respectability can never efface. The count, who had lived in secrecy more than half his life, took fright at the sight of a sword, and down the quiet valley of the Prunelli father and son galloped one after the other—a wild and uncanny chase.

With the cunning of the hunted, the count left the road by the first opening he saw—a path leading into a pine-wood; but over this rough ground the trained soldier was equal to the native-born. The track only led to the open road again at a higher level, and de Vasselot had gained on his father when they emerged from the wood.

Lory had called to his father once or twice, reassuring him, but without effect. The old count sat low in his saddle and urged his horse with a mechanical jerk of the heels. Thus they passed through the village of Bastelica—a place with an evil name. It was early still, and but few were astir, for the peasants of the South are idle. In Corsica, moreover, the sight of a flying man always sends others into hiding. No man wishes to see him, though all sympathies are with him, and the pursuer is avoided as if he bore the plague.

In Bastelica there were none but closed doors and windows. A few children playing in the road instinctively ran to their homes, where their mothers drew them hurriedly indoors. The Bastelicans would have nought to do with the law or the law-breaker. It was the sullen indifference of the crushed, but the unconquered.

Down into the valley, across another river—the southern branch of the Prunelli—and up again. Cauro was above them—a straggling village with one large square house and a little church—Cauro, the stepping-stone between civilization and those wild districts about Sartene where the law has never yet penetrated. Lory de Vasselot had gained a little on the downward incline. He could now see that his father's clothes were mud-stained and torn, that his long white hair was ill-kempt. But the pursuer's horse was tired; for de Vasselot had been unable to relieve him of his burden all through the night. Lame and disabled, he could not mount or dismount without assistance. On the upward slope, where the road climbs through a rocky gorge, the fugitive gained ground. Out on the open road again, within sight of Cauro, the count's horse showed signs of distress, but gained visibly. The count was unsteady in the saddle, riding heedlessly. In an instant de Vasselot saw the danger. His father was dropping with fatigue, and might at any moment fall from the saddle.

"Stop," he cried, "or I will shoot your horse!"

The count took no notice. Perhaps he did not hear. The road now mounted in a zigzag. The fugitive was already at the angle. In a few moments he would be back again at a higher level. Lory knew he could never overtake the fresher horse. There was but one chance—the chance perhaps of two shots as his father passed along the road above him. Should the gendarmes of Cauro, where there is a strong station, see this fugitive, so evidently from the macquis, with all the signs of outlawry upon him, they would fire upon him without hesitation. Also he might at any moment fall from the saddle and be dragged by the stirrup.

De Vasselot drew across the road to the outer edge of it, from whence he could command a better view of the upper slope. The count came on at a steady trot. He looked down with eyes that had no reason in them and yet no fear. He saw the barrel of the revolver, polished by long use in an inner pocket, and looked fearlessly into it. Lory fired and missed. His father threw back his head and laughed. His white hair fluttered in the wind. There was time for another shot. Lory took a longer aim, remembering to fire low, and horse and rider suddenly dropped behind the low wall of the upper road. De Vasselot rode on.

"It was the horse—it must have been the horse," he said to himself, with misgiving in his heart. He turned the corner at a gallop. On the road in front, the horse was struggling to rise, but the count lay quite still in the dust. Lory dismounted as well as he could. Mechanically he tied the two horses together, then turned towards his father. With his uninjured hand he took the old man by the shoulder and raised him. The dishevelled white head fell to one side with a jerk that was unmistakable. The count was dead. And Lory de Vasselot found himself face to face with that question which so many have with them all through life: the question whether at a certain point in the crooked road of life he took the wrong or right turning.

Death itself had no particular terror for de Vasselot. It was his trade, and it is easier to become familiar with death than with suffering. He dragged his father to the side of the road where a great chestnut tree cast a shadow still, though its leaves were falling. Then he looked round him. There was no one in sight. He knew, moreover, that he was in a country where the report of firearms repels rather than attracts attention. It occurred to him at that moment that his father's horse had risen to its feet—a fact which had suggested nothing to his mind when he had tied the two bridles together. He examined the animal carefully. There was no blood upon it; no wound. The dust was rubbed away from the knees. The horse had crossed its legs and fallen as it started at the second report of his pistol.

Lory turned and stooped over his father. Here again, was no blood—only the evidence of a broken neck. Still, though indirectly, Lory de Vasselot had killed his father. It was well for him that he was a soldier—taught by experience to give their true value to the strange chances of life and death. Moreover, he was a, Frenchman—gay in life and reckless of its end.

He sat down by the side of the road and remembered the Abbe Susini's words: "Life or death, you must be at Bastia on Wednesday morning."

Mechanically, he drew his watch from within his tunic, which was white with dust. The watch had run down. And when Jean arrived a few minutes later, he found Lory de Vasselot sitting in the shade of the great chestnut tree, by the side of his dead father, sleepily winding up his watch.

"I fired at the horse to lame it—it crossed its legs and fell, throwing him against the wall," he said, shortly.

Jean lifted his master, noted the swinging head, and laid him gently down again.

"Heaven soon takes those who are useless," he said.

Then he slipped his hand within the old man's jacket. The inner pockets were stuffed full of papers, which Jean carefully withdrew. Some were tied together with pink tape, long since faded to a dull grey. He made one packet of them all and handed it to Lory.

"It was for those that they burnt the chateau," he said; "but we have outwitted them."

De Vasselot turned the clumsy parcel in his hand.

"What is it?" he asked.

"It is the papers of Vasselot and Perucca—your title-deeds."

Lory laid the papers on the bank beside him.

"In your pocket," corrected Jean, gruffly. "That is the place for them."

And while Lory was securing the packet inside his tunic, the unusually silent man spoke again.

"It is Fate who has handed them to you," he said.

"Then you think that Fate has time to think of the affairs of the Vasselots?"

"I believe it, monsieur le comte."

They fell to talking of the past, and of the count. Then de Vasselot told his companion that he must be in Bastia in less than twenty-four hours, and Jean, whose gloomy face was drawn and pinched by past hardships, and a present desire for sleep, was alert in a moment.

"When the abbe says it, it is important," he said.

"But it is easily done," protested de Vasselot, who like many men of action had a certain contempt for those crises in life which are but matters of words. Which is a mistake; for as the world progresses it grows more verbose, and for one moment of action, there are in men's lives to-day a million words.

"It is to be done," answered Jean, "but not easily. You must ride to Porto Vecchio and there find a man called Casabianda. You will find him on the quay or in the Cafe Amis. Tell him your name, and that you must be at Bastia by daybreak. He has a good boat."

Lory rose to his feet. There was a light in his tired eyes, and he sighed as he passed his hand across them, for the thought of further action was like wine to him.

"But I must sleep, Jean, I must sleep," he said, lightly.

"You can do that in Casablanda's boat." Answered Jean, who was already changing de Vasselot's good saddle to the back of his own fresher horse.

Jean had to lift his master into the saddle, which office the wiry Susini had performed for him at St. Florent fourteen hours earlier. There is a good inn at Cauro where de Vasselot procured a cup of coffee and some bread without dismounting. Jean had given him a list of names, and the route to Porto Vecchio was not a difficult one, though it led through a deserted country. By midday, de Vasselot caught sight of the Eastern sea; by three o'clock he saw the great gulf of Porto Vecchio, and before sunset he rode, half-asleep, into the ancient town with its crumbling walls and ill-paved streets. He had ridden in safety through one of the waste places of this province of France—a canton wherein a few years ago a well-known bandit had forbidden the postal service, and that postal service was not—and he knew enough to be aware that the mysterious messengers of the macquis had cleared the way before him. But de Vasselot only fully realized the magic of his own name when he at length found the man, Casabianda—a scoundrel whose personal appearance must assuredly have condemned him without further evidence in any court of justice except a Corsican court—who bowed before him as before a king, and laid violent hands upon his wife and daughter a few minutes later because the domestic linen chest failed to rise to the height of a clean table cloth.