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+*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 13261 ***
+
+JASON
+
+A ROMANCE
+
+BY
+JUSTUS MILES FORMAN
+
+AUTHOR OF
+"A STUMBLING BLOCK" "BUCHANAN'S WIFE"
+"THE ISLAND OF ENCHANTMENT"
+
+WITH ILLUSTRATIONS BY
+W. HATHERELL, R.I.
+
+HARPER & BROTHERS PUBLISHERS
+NEW YORK AND LONDON
+MCMIX
+
+
+COPYRIGHT, 1908.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+À PARIS
+
+MÈRE MYSTÉRIEUSE ... SOEUR CONSOLATRICE
+ENCHANTERESSE AUX YEUX VOILÉS
+JÉ DÉDIE CE PETIT ROMAN
+EN RECONNAISSANCE
+J.M.F.
+
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS
+
+     I. STE. MARIE HEARS OF A MYSTERY AND MEETS A DARK LADY
+
+    II. THE LADDER TO THE STARS
+
+   III. STE. MARIE MAKES A VOW, BUT A PAIR OF EYES HAUNT HIM
+
+    IV. OLD DAVID STEWART
+
+     V. JASON SETS FORTH UPON THE GREAT ADVENTURE
+
+    VI. A BRAVE GENTLEMAN RECEIVES A HURT, BUT VOLUNTEERS IN A GOOD CAUSE
+
+   VII. CAPTAIN STEWART MAKES A KINDLY OFFER
+
+  VIII. JASON MEETS WITH A MISADVENTURE AND DREAMS A DREAM
+
+    IX. JASON GOES UPON A JOURNEY, AND RICHARD HARTLEY PLEADS FOR HIM
+
+     X. CAPTAIN STEWART ENTERTAINS
+
+    XI. A GOLDEN LADY ENTERS--THE EYES AGAIN
+
+   XII. THE NAME OF THE LADY WITH THE EYES--EVIDENCE HEAPS UP SWIFTLY
+
+  XIII. THE VOYAGE TO COLCHIS
+
+   XIV. THE WALLS OF AEA
+
+    XV. A CONVERSATION AT LA LIERRE
+
+   XVI. THE BLACK CAT
+
+  XVII. THOSE WHO WERE LEFT BEHIND
+
+ XVIII. A CONVERSATION OVERHEARD
+
+   XIX. THE INVALID TAKES THE AIR
+
+    XX. THE STONE BENCH AT THE ROND POINT
+
+   XXI. A MIST DIMS THE SHINING STAR
+
+  XXII. A SETTLEMENT REFUSED
+
+ XXIII. THE LAST ARROW
+
+  XXIV. THE JOINT IN THE ARMOR
+
+   XXV. MEDEA GOES OVER TO THE ENEMY
+
+  XXVI. BUT THE FLEECE ELECTS TO REMAIN
+
+ XXVII. THE NIGHT'S WORK
+
+XXVIII. MEDEA'S LITTLE HOUR
+
+  XXIX. THE SCALES OF INJUSTICE
+
+   XXX. JASON SAILS BACK TO COLCHIS--JOURNEY'S END
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+I
+
+STE. MARIE HEARS OF A MYSTERY AND MEETS A DARK LADY
+
+
+From Ste. Marie's little flat, which overlooked the gardens, they drove
+down the quiet rue du Luxembourg, and at the Place St. Sulpice turned to
+the left. They crossed the Place St. Germain des Prés, where lines of
+home-bound working-people stood waiting for places in the electric
+trams, and groups of students from the Beaux Arts or from Julien's sat
+under the awnings of the Deux Magots, and so, beyond that busy square,
+they came into the long and peaceful stretch of the Boulevard St.
+Germain. The warm, sweet dusk gathered round them as they went, and the
+evening air was fresh and aromatic in their faces. There had been a
+little gentle shower in the late afternoon, and roadway and pavement
+were still damp with it. It had wet the new-grown leaves of the
+chestnuts and acacias that bordered the street. The scent of that living
+green blended with the scent of laid dust and the fragrance of the last
+late-clinging chestnut blossoms; it caught up a fuller, richer burden
+from the overflowing front of a florist's shop; it stole from open
+windows a savory whiff of cooking, a salt tang of wood smoke; and the
+soft little breeze--the breeze of coming summer--mixed all together and
+tossed them and bore them down the long, quiet street; and it was the
+breath of Paris, and it shall be in your nostrils and mine, a keen agony
+of sweetness, so long as we may live and so wide as we may
+wander--because we have known it and loved it--and in the end we shall
+go back to breathe it when we die.
+
+The strong white horse jogged evenly along over the wooden pavement, its
+head down, the little bell at its neck jingling pleasantly as it went.
+The cocher, a torpid, purplish lump of gross flesh, pyramidal, pearlike,
+sat immobile in his place. The protuberant back gave him an
+extraordinary effect of being buttoned into his fawn-colored coat wrong
+side before. At intervals he jerked the reins like a large strange toy,
+and his strident voice said:
+
+"Hé!" to the stout white horse, which paid no attention whatever. Once
+the beast stumbled and the pearlike lump of flesh insulted it, saying:
+
+"Hé! veux tu, cochon!"
+
+Before the War Office a little black slip of a milliner's girl dodged
+under the horse's head, saving herself and the huge box slung to her arm
+by a miracle of agility, and the cocher called her the most frightful
+names, without turning his head and in a perfunctory tone quite free
+from passion.
+
+Young Hartley laughed and turned to look at his companion, but Ste.
+Marie sat still in his place, his hat pulled a little down over his
+brows and his handsome chin buried in the folds of the white silk
+muffler with which for some obscure reason he had swathed his neck.
+
+"This is the first time in many years," said the Englishman, "that I
+have known you to be silent for ten whole minutes. Are you ill, or are
+you making up little epigrams to say at the dinner-party?"
+
+Ste. Marie waved a despondent glove.
+
+"I 'ave," said he, "w'at you call ze blue. Papillons noirs--clouds in my
+soul." It was a species of jest with Ste. Marie--and he seemed never to
+tire of it--to pretend that he spoke English very brokenly. As a matter
+of fact, he spoke it quite as well as any Englishman and without the
+slightest trace of accent. He had discovered a long time before this--it
+may have been while the two were at Eton together--that it annoyed
+Hartley very much, particularly when it was done in company and before
+strangers. In consequence he became on such occasions a sort of
+comic-paper caricature of his race, and by dint of much practice, added
+to a naturally alert mind, he became astonishingly ingenious in the
+torture of that honest but unimaginative gentleman whom he considered
+his best friend. He achieved the most surprising expressions by the mere
+literal translation of French idiom, and he could at any time bring
+Hartley to a crimson agony by calling him "my dear "'before other men,
+whereas at the equivalent "mon cher" the Englishman would doubtless
+never, as the phrase goes, have batted an eye.
+
+"Ye-es," he continued, sadly, "I 'ave ze blue. I weep. Weez ze tears
+full ze eyes. Yes." He descended into English. "I think something's
+going to happen to me. There's calamity, or something, in the air.
+Perhaps I'm going to die."
+
+"Oh, I know what you are going to do, right enough," said the other man.
+"You're going to meet the most beautiful woman--girl--in the world at
+dinner, and of course you are going to fall in love with her."
+
+"Ah, the Miss Benham!" said Ste. Marie, with a faint show of interest.
+"I remember now, you said that she was to be there. I had forgotten.
+Yes, I shall be glad to meet her. One hears so much. But why am I of
+course going to fall in love with her?"
+
+"Well, in the first place," said Hartley, "you always fall in love with
+all pretty women as a matter of habit, and, in the second place,
+everybody--well, I suppose you--no one could help falling in love with
+her, I should think."
+
+"That's high praise to come from you," said the other. And Hartley said,
+with a short, not very mirthful laugh:
+
+"Oh, I don't pretend to be immune. We all--everybody who knows her.
+You'll understand presently."
+
+Ste. Marie turned his head a little and looked curiously at his friend,
+for he considered that he knew the not very expressive intonations of
+that young gentleman's voice rather well, and this was something
+unusual. He wondered what had been happening during his six months'
+absence from Paris.
+
+"I dare say that's what I feel in the air, then," he said, after a
+little pause. "It's not calamity; it's love.
+
+"Or maybe," he said, quaintly, "it's both. L'un n'empêche pas I'autre."
+And he gave an odd little shiver, as if that something in the air had
+suddenly blown chill upon him.
+
+They were passing the corner of the Chamber of Deputies, which faces the
+Pont de la Concorde. Ste. Marie pulled out his watch and looked at it.
+
+"Eight-fifteen," said he. "What time are we asked for--eight-thirty?
+That means nine: It's an English house, and nobody will be on time. It's
+out of fashion to be prompt nowadays."
+
+"I should hardly call the Marquis de Saulnes English, you know,"
+objected Hartley.
+
+"Well, his wife is," said the other, "and they're altogether English in
+manner. Dinner won't be before nine. Shall we get out, and walk across
+the bridge and up the Champs-Elysées? I should like to, I think. I like
+to walk at this time of the evening--between the daylight and the dark."
+Hartley nodded a rather reluctant assent, and Ste. Marie prodded the
+pear-shaped cocher in the back with his stick. So they got down at the
+approach to the bridge, Ste. Marie gave the cocher a piece of two
+francs, and they turned away on foot. The pear-shaped one looked at the
+coin in his fat hand as if it were something unclean and
+contemptible--something to be despised. He glanced at the dial of his
+taximeter, which had registered one franc twenty-five, and pulled the
+flag up. He spat gloomily out into the street, and his purple lips moved
+in words. He seemed to say something like "Sale diable de métier!"
+which, considering the fact that he had just been overpaid, appears
+unwarrantably pessimistic in tone. Thereafter he spat again, picked up
+his reins and jerked them, saying:
+
+"Hè, Jean Baptiste! Uip, uip!" The unemotional white horse turned up the
+boulevard, trotting evenly at its steady pace, head down, the little
+bell at its neck jingling pleasantly as it went. It occurs to me that
+the white horse was probably unique. I doubt that there was another
+horse in Paris rejoicing in that extraordinary name.
+
+But the two young men walked slowly on across the Pont de la Concorde.
+They went in silence, for Hartley was thinking still of Miss Helen
+Benham, and Ste. Marie was thinking of Heaven knows what. His gloom was
+unaccountable unless he had really meant what he said about feeling
+calamity in the air. It was very unlike him to have nothing to say.
+Midway of the bridge he stopped and turned to look out over the river,
+and the other man halted beside him. The dusk was thickening almost
+perceptibly, but it was yet far from dark. The swift river ran leaden
+beneath them, and the river boats, mouches and hirondelles, darted
+silently under the arches of the bridge, making their last trips for the
+day. Away to the west, where their faces were turned, the sky was still
+faintly washed with color, lemon and dusky orange and pale thin green. A
+single long strip of cirrus cloud was touched with pink, a lifeless old
+rose, such as is popular among decorators for the silk hangings of a
+woman's boudoir. And black against this pallid wash of colors the tour
+Eiffel stood high and slender and rather ghostly. By day it is an ugly
+thing, a preposterous iron finger upthrust by man's vanity against God's
+serene sky; but the haze of evening drapes it in a merciful
+semi-obscurity and it is beautiful.
+
+Ste. Marie leaned upon the parapet of the bridge, arms folded before him
+and eyes afar. He began to sing, à demi-voix, a little phrase out of
+_Louise_--an invocation to Paris--and the Englishman stirred uneasily
+beside him. It seemed to Hartley that to stand on a bridge, in a top-hat
+and evening clothes, and sing operatic airs while people passed back and
+forth behind you, was one of the things that are not done. He tried to
+imagine himself singing in the middle of Westminster Bridge at half-past
+eight of an evening, and he felt quite hot all over at the thought. It
+was not done at all, he said to himself. He looked a little nervously at
+the people who were passing, and it seemed to him that they stared at
+him and at the unconscious Ste. Marie, though in truth they did nothing
+of the sort. He turned back and touched his friend on the arm, saying:
+
+"I think we'd best be getting along, you know." But Ste. Marie was very
+far away, and did not hear. So then he fell to watching the man's dark
+and handsome face, and to thinking how little the years at Eton and the
+year or two at Oxford had set any real stamp upon him. He would never be
+anything but Latin, in spite of his Irish mother and his public school.
+Hartley thought what a pity that was. As Englishmen go, he was not
+illiberal, but, no more than he could have altered the color of his
+eyes, could he have believed that anything foreign would not be improved
+by becoming English. That was born in him, as it is born in most
+Englishmen, and it was a perfectly simple and honest belief. He felt a
+deeper affection for this handsome and volatile young man whom all women
+loved, and who bade fair to spend his life at their successive feet--for
+he certainly had never shown the slightest desire to take up any sterner
+employment--he felt a deeper affection for Ste. Marie than for any other
+man he knew, but he had always wished that Ste. Marie were an
+Englishman, and he had always felt a slight sense of shame over his
+friend's un-English ways.
+
+After a moment he touched him again on the arm, saying:
+
+"Come along! We shall be late, you know. You can finish your little
+concert another time."
+
+"Eh!" cried Ste. Marie. "Quoi, donc?" He turned with a start.
+
+"Oh yes!" said he. "Yes, come along! I was mooning. Allons! Allons, my
+old!" He took Hartley's arm and began to shove him along at a rapid
+walk. "I will moon no more," he said. "Instead, you shall tell me about
+the wonderful Miss Benham whom everybody is talking about. Isn't there
+something odd connected with the family? I vaguely recall something
+unusual--some mystery or misfortune or something. But first a moment!
+One small moment, my old. Regard me that!" They had come to the end of
+the bridge, and the great Place de la Concorde lay before them.
+
+"In all the world," said Ste. Marie--and he spoke the truth--"there is
+not another such square. Regard it, mon brave! Bow yourself before it!
+It is a miracle."
+
+The great bronze lamps were alight, and they cast reflections upon the
+still damp pavement about them. To either side, the trees of the
+Tuileries gardens and of the Cours la Reine and the Champs-Elysées lay
+in a solid black mass; in the middle, the obelisk rose slender and
+straight, its pointed top black against the sky; and beneath, the water
+of the Nèreid fountains splashed and gurgled. Far beyond, the gay lights
+of the rue Royale shone in a yellow cluster; and beyond these still, the
+tall columns of the Madeleine ended the long vista. Pedestrians and cabs
+crept across that vast space and seemed curiously little, like black
+insects, and round about it all the eight cities of France sat atop
+their stone pedestals and looked on. Ste. Marie gave a little sigh of
+pleasure, and the two moved forward, bearing to the left, toward the
+Champs-Elysées.
+
+"And now," said he, "about these Benhams. What is the thing I cannot
+quite recall? What has happened to them?"
+
+"I suppose," said the other man, "you mean the disappearance of Miss
+Benham's young brother a month ago--before you returned to Paris. Yes,
+that was certainly very odd--that is, it was either very odd or very
+commonplace. And in either case the family is terribly cut up about it.
+The boy's name was Arthur Benham, and he was rather a young fool, but
+not downright vicious, I should think. I never knew him at all well, but
+I know he spent his time chiefly at the Café de Paris and at the Olympia
+and at Longchamps and at Henry's Bar. Well, he just disappeared, that is
+all. He dropped completely out of sight between two days, and though the
+family has had a small army of detectives on his trail they've not
+discovered the smallest clew. It's deuced odd altogether. You might
+think it easy to disappear like that, but it's not."
+
+"No--no," said Ste. Marie, thoughtfully. "No, I should fancy not.
+
+"This boy," he said, after a pause--"I think I had seen him--had him
+pointed out to me--before I went away. I think it was at Henry's Bar,
+where all the young Americans go to drink strange beverages. I am quite
+sure I remember his face. A weak face, but not quite bad."
+
+And after another little pause he asked:
+
+"Was there any reason why he should have gone away--any quarrel or that
+sort of thing?"
+
+"Well," said the other man, "I rather think there was something of the
+sort. The boy's uncle--Captain Stewart--middle-aged, rather prim old
+party--you'll have met him, I dare say--he intimated to me one day that
+there had been some trivial row. You see, the lad isn't of age yet,
+though he is to be in a few months, and so he has had to live on an
+allowance doled out by his grandfather, who's the head of the house. The
+boy's father is dead. There's a quaint old beggar, if you like--the
+grandfather. He was rather a swell in the diplomatic, in his day, it
+seems--rather an important swell. Now he's bedridden. He sits all day in
+bed and plays cards with his granddaughter or with a very superior
+valet, and talks politics with the men who come to see him. Oh yes, he's
+a quaint old beggar. He has a great quantity of white hair and an
+enormous square white beard and the fiercest eyes I ever saw, I should
+think. Everybody's frightened out of their wits of him. Well, he sits up
+there and rules his family in good old patriarchal style, and it seems
+he came down a bit hard on the poor boy one day over some folly or
+other, and there was a row and the boy went out of the house swearing
+he'd be even."
+
+"Ah, well, then," said Ste. Marie, "the matter seems simple enough. A
+foolish boy's foolish pique. He is staying in hiding somewhere to
+frighten his grandfather. When he thinks the time favorable he will come
+back and be wept over and forgiven."
+
+The other man walked a little way in silence.
+
+"Ye-es," he said, at last. "Yes, possibly. Possibly you are right.
+That's what the grandfather thinks. It's the obvious solution.
+Unfortunately there is more or less against it. The boy went away
+with--so far as can be learned--almost no money, almost none at all. And
+he has already been gone a month. Miss Benham, his sister, is sure that
+something has happened to him, and I'm a bit inclined to think so, too.
+It's all very odd. I should think he might have been kidnapped but that
+no demand has been made for money."
+
+"He was not," suggested Ste. Marie--"not the sort of young man to do
+anything desperate--make away with himself?" Hartley laughed.
+
+"Oh, Lord, no!" said he. "Not that sort of young man at all. He was a
+very normal type of rich and spoiled and somewhat foolish American boy."
+
+"Rich?" inquired the other, quickly.
+
+"Oh yes; they're beastly rich. Young Arthur is to come into something
+very good at his majority, I believe, from his father's estate, and the
+old grandfather is said to be indecently rich--rolling in it! There's
+another reason why the young idiot wouldn't be likely to stop away of
+his own accord. He wouldn't risk anything like a serious break with the
+old gentleman. It would mean a loss of millions to him, I dare say, for
+the old beggar is quite capable of cutting him off if he takes the
+notion. Oh, it's a bad business all through."
+
+And after they had gone on a bit he said it again, shaking his head:
+
+"It's a bad business! That poor girl, you know. It's hard on her. She
+was fond of the young ass for some reason or other. She's very much
+broken up over it."
+
+"Yes," said Ste. Marie, "it is hard for her--for all the family, of
+course. A bad business, as you say." He spoke absently, for he was
+looking ahead at something which seemed to be a motor accident. They had
+by this time got well up the Champs-Elysées and were crossing the Rond
+Point. A motor-car was drawn up alongside the curb just beyond, and a
+little knot of people stood about it and seemed to look at something on
+the ground.
+
+"I think some one has been run down," said Ste. Marie. "Shall we have a
+look?" They quickened their pace and came to where the group of people
+stood in a circle looking upon the ground, and two gendarmes asked many
+questions and wrote voluminously in their little books. It appeared that
+a delivery boy mounted upon a tricycle cart had turned into the wrong
+side of the avenue and had got himself run into and overturned by a
+motor-car going at a moderate rate of speed. For once the sentiment of
+those mysterious birds of prey which flock instantaneously from nowhere
+round an accident, was against the victim and in favor of the frightened
+and gesticulating chauffeur.
+
+Ste. Marie turned an amused face from this voluble being to the other
+occupants of the patently hired car, who stood apart, adding very little
+to the discussion. He saw a tall and bony man with very bright blue eyes
+and what is sometimes called a guardsman's mustache--the drooping,
+walruslike ornament which dates back a good many years now. Beyond this
+gentleman he saw a young woman in a long, gray silk coat and a motoring
+veil. He was aware that the tall man was staring at him rather fixedly
+and with a half-puzzled frown, as though he thought that they had met
+before and was trying to remember when, but Ste. Marie gave the man but
+a swift glance. His eyes were upon the dark face of the young woman
+beyond, and it seemed to him that she called aloud to him in an actual
+voice that rang in his ears. The young woman's very obvious beauty, he
+thought, had nothing to do with the matter. It seemed to him that her
+eyes called him. Just that. Something strange and very potent seemed to
+take sudden and almost tangible hold upon him--a charm, a spell, a
+magic--something unprecedented, new to his experience. He could not take
+his eyes from hers, and he stood staring.
+
+As before, on the Pont de la Concorde, Hartley touched him on the arm,
+and abruptly the chains that had bound him were loosened.
+
+"We must be going on, you know," the Englishman said, and Ste. Marie
+said, rather hurriedly:
+
+"Yes, yes, to be sure! Come along!" But at a little distance he turned
+once more to look back. The chauffeur had mounted to his place, the
+delivery boy was upon his feet again, little the worse for his tumble,
+and the knot of bystanders had begun to disperse, but it seemed to Ste.
+Marie that the young woman in the long silk coat stood quite still where
+she had been, and that her face was turned toward him, watching.
+
+"Did you notice that girl?" said Hartley, as they walked on at a brisker
+pace. "Did you see her face? She was rather a tremendous beauty, you
+know, in her gypsyish fashion. Yes, by Jove, she was!"
+
+"Did I see her?" repeated Ste. Marie. "Yes. Oh yes. She had very strange
+eyes. At least, I think it was the eyes. I don't know. I've never seen
+any eyes quite like them. Very odd!"
+
+He said something more in French which Hartley did not hear, and the
+Englishman saw that he was frowning.
+
+"Oh, well, I shouldn't have said there was anything strange about them,"
+Hartley said; "but they certainly were beautiful. There's no denying
+that. The man with her looked rather Irish, I thought."
+
+They came to the Etoile, and cut across it toward the Avenue Hoche. Ste.
+Marie glanced back once more, but the motor-car and the delivery boy and
+the gendarmes were gone.
+
+"What did you say?" he asked, idly.
+
+"I said the man looked Irish," repeated his friend. All at once Ste.
+Marie gave a loud exclamation.
+
+"Sacred thousand devils! Fool that I am! Dolt! Why didn't I think of it
+before?"
+
+Hartley stared at him, and Ste. Marie stared down the Champs-Elysées
+like one in a trance.
+
+"I say," said the Englishman, "we really must be getting on, you know;
+we're late." And as they went along down the Avenue Hoche, he demanded:
+"Why are you a dolt and whatever else it was? What struck you so
+suddenly?"
+
+"I remembered all at once," said Ste. Marie, "where I had seen that man
+before and with whom I last saw him. I'll tell you about it later.
+Probably it's of no importance, though."
+
+"You're talking rather like a mild lunatic," said the other. "Here we
+are at the house!"
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+II
+
+THE LADDER TO THE STARS
+
+
+Miss Benham was talking wearily to a strange, fair youth with an
+impediment in his speech, and was wondering why the youth had been asked
+to this house, where in general one was sure of meeting only interesting
+people, when some one spoke her name, and she turned with a little sigh
+of relief. It was Baron de Vries, the Belgian First Secretary of
+Legation, an old friend of her grandfather's, a man made gentle and
+sweet by infinite sorrow. He bowed civilly to the fair youth and bent
+over the girl's hand.
+
+"It is very good," he said, "to see you again in the world. We have need
+of you, nous autres. Madame your mother is well, I hope--and the bear?"
+He called old Mr. Stewart "the bear" in a sort of grave jest, and that
+fierce octogenarian rather liked it.
+
+"Oh yes," the girl said, "we're all fairly well. My mother had one of
+her headaches to-night and so didn't come here, but she's as well as
+usual, and 'the bear'--yes, he's well enough physically, I should think,
+but he has not been quite the same since--during the past month. It has
+told upon him, you know. He grieves over it much more than he will
+admit."
+
+"Yes," said Baron de Vries, gravely. "Yes, I know." He turned about
+toward the fair young man, but that youth had drifted away and joined
+himself to another group. Miss Benham looked after him and gave a little
+exclamation of relief.
+
+"That person was rather terrible," she said. "I can't think why he is
+here. Marian so seldom has dull people."
+
+"I believe," said the Belgian, "that he is some connection of De
+Saulnes'. That explains his presence." He lowered his voice. "You have
+heard no--news? They have found no trace?"
+
+"No," said she. "Nothing. Nothing at all. I'm rather in despair. It's
+all so hideously mysterious. I am sure, you know, that something has
+happened to him. It's--very, very hard. Sometimes I think I can't bear
+it. But I go on. We all go on."
+
+Baron de Vries nodded his head strongly.
+
+"That, my dear child, is just what you must do," said he. "You must go
+on. That is what needs the real courage, and you have courage. I am not
+afraid for you. And sooner or later you will hear of him--from him. It
+is impossible nowadays to disappear for very long. You will hear from
+him." He smiled at her, his slow, grave smile that was not of mirth but
+of kindness and sympathy and cheer.
+
+"And if I may say so," he said, "you are doing very wisely to come out
+once more among your friends. You can accomplish no good by brooding at
+home. It is better to live one's normal life--even when it is not easy
+to do it. I say so who know."
+
+The girl touched Baron de Vries' arm for an instant with her hand--a
+little gesture that seemed to express thankfulness and trust and
+affection.
+
+"If all my friends were like you!" she said to him. And after that she
+drew a quick breath as if to have done with these sad matters, and she
+turned her eyes once more toward the broad room where the other guests
+stood in little groups, all talking at once, very rapidly and in loud
+voices.
+
+"What extraordinarily cosmopolitan affairs these dinner-parties in new
+Paris are!" she said. "They're like diplomatic parties, only we have a
+better time and the men don't wear their orders. How many nationalities
+should you say there are in this room now?"
+
+"Without stopping to consider," said Baron de Vries, "I say ten." They
+counted, and out of fourteen people there were represented nine races.
+
+"I don't see Richard Hartley," Miss Benham said. "I had an idea he was
+to be here. Ah!" she broke off, looking toward the doorway. "Here he
+comes now!" she said. "He's rather late. Who is the Spanish-looking man
+with him, I wonder? He's rather handsome, isn't he?"
+
+Baron de Vries moved a little forward to look, and exclaimed in his
+turn. He said:
+
+"Ah, I did not know he was returned to Paris. That is Ste. Marie." Miss
+Benham's eyes followed the Spanish-looking young man as he made his way
+through the joyous greetings of friends toward his hostess.
+
+"So that is Ste. Marie!" she said, still watching him. "The famous Ste.
+Marie!" She gave a little laugh.
+
+"Well, I don't wonder at the reputation he bears for--gallantry and that
+sort of thing. He looks the part, doesn't he?"
+
+"Ye-es," admitted her friend. "Yes, he is sufficiently beau garçon.
+But--yes--well, that is not all, by any means. You must not get the idea
+that Ste. Marie is nothing but a genial and romantic young
+squire-of-dames. He is much more than that. He has very fine qualities.
+To be sure, he appears to possess no ambition in particular, but I
+should be glad if he were my son. He comes of a very old house, and
+there is no blot upon the history of that house--nothing but
+faithfulness and gallantry and honor. And there is, I think, no blot
+upon Ste. Marie himself. He is fine gold."
+
+The girl turned and stared at Baron de Vries with some astonishment.
+
+"You speak very strongly," said she. "I have never heard you speak so
+strongly of any one, I think."
+
+The Belgian made a little deprecatory gesture with his two hands, and he
+laughed.
+
+"Oh, well, I like the boy. And I should hate to have you meet him for
+the first time under a misconception. Listen, my child! When a young man
+is loved equally by both men and women, by both old and young, that
+young man is worthy of friendship and trust. Everybody likes Ste. Marie.
+In a sense, that is his misfortune. The way is made too easy for him.
+His friends stand so thick about him that they shut off his view of the
+heights. To waken ambition in his soul he has need of solitude or
+misfortune or grief. Or," said the elderly Belgian, laughing gently--"or
+perhaps the other thing might do it best--the more obvious thing?"
+
+The girl's raised eyebrows questioned him, and when he did not answer,
+she said:
+
+"What thing, then?"
+
+"Why, love," said Baron de Vries. "Love, to be sure. Love is said to
+work miracles, and I believe that to be a perfectly true saying. Ah, he
+is coming here!"
+
+The Marquise de Saulnes, who was a very pretty little Englishwoman with
+a deceptively doll-like look, approached, dragging Ste. Marie in her
+wake. She said:
+
+"My dearest dear, I give you of my best. Thank me and cherish him! I
+believe he is to lead you to the place where food is, isn't he?" She
+beamed over her shoulder and departed, and Miss Benham found herself
+confronted by the Spanish-looking man. Her first thought was that he was
+not as handsome as he had seemed at a distance, but something much
+better. For a young man she thought his face was rather oddly
+weather-beaten, as if he might have been very much at sea, and it was
+too dark to be entirely pleasing. But she liked his eyes, which were not
+brown or black, as she had expected, but a very unusual dark gray--a
+sort of slate color. And she liked his mouth, too, while disapproving of
+the fierce little upturned mustache which seemed to her a bit operatic.
+It was her habit--and it is not an unreliable habit--to judge people by
+their eyes and mouths. Ste. Marie's mouth pleased her because the lips
+were neither thin nor thick, they were not drawn into an unpleasant line
+by unpleasant habits, they did not pout as so many Latin lips do, and
+they had at one corner a humorous expression which she found curiously
+agreeable.
+
+"You are to cherish me," Ste. Marie said. "Orders from headquarters. How
+does one cherish people?" The corner of his very expressive mouth
+twitched, and he grinned at her.
+
+Miss Benham did not approve of young men who began an acquaintance in
+this very familiar manner. She thought that there was a certain
+preliminary and more formal stage which ought to be got through with
+first, but Ste, Marie's grin was irresistible. In spite of herself, she
+found that she was laughing.
+
+"I don't quite know," she said. "It sounds rather appalling, doesn't it?
+Marian has such an extraordinary fashion of hurling people at each
+other's heads! She takes my breath away at times."
+
+"Ah, well," said Ste. Marie, "perhaps we can settle upon something when
+I've led you to the place where food is. And, by-the-way, what are we
+waiting for? Are we not all here? There's an even number." He broke off
+with a sudden exclamation of pleasure; and when Miss Benham turned to
+look, she found that Baron de Vries, who had been talking to some
+friends, had once more come up to where she stood.
+
+She watched the greeting between the two men, and its quiet affection
+impressed her very much. She knew Baron de Vries well, and she knew that
+it was not his habit to show or to feel a strong liking for young and
+idle men. This young man must be very worth while to have won the regard
+of that wise old Belgian. Just then Hartley, who had been barricaded
+behind a cordon of friends, came up to her in an abominable temper over
+his ill luck, and a few moments later the dinner procession was formed
+and they went in.
+
+At table Miss Benham found herself between Ste. Marie and the same
+strange, fair youth who had afflicted her in the drawing-room. She
+looked upon him now with a sort of dismayed terror, but it developed
+that there was nothing to fear from the fair youth. He had no attention
+to waste upon social amenities. He fell upon his food with a wolfish
+passion extraordinary to see and also--alas!--to hear. Miss Benham
+turned from him to meet Ste. Marie's delighted eye.
+
+"Tell him for me," begged that gentleman, "that soup should be seen--not
+heard."
+
+But Miss Benham gave a little shiver of disgust. "I shall tell him
+nothing whatever," she said. "He's quite too dreadful, really! People
+shouldn't be exposed to that sort of thing. It's not only the noises.
+Plenty of very charming and estimable Germans, for example, make strange
+noises at table. But he behaves like a famished dog over a bone. I
+refuse to have anything to do with him. You must make up the loss to me,
+M. Ste. Marie. You must be as amusing as two people." She smiled across
+at him in her gravely questioning fashion. "I'm wondering," she said,
+"if I dare ask you a very personal question. I hesitate because I don't
+like people who presume too much upon a short acquaintance--and our
+acquaintance has been very, very short, hasn't it? even though we may
+have heard a great deal about each other beforehand. I wonder--"
+
+"Oh, I should ask it if I were you!" said Ste. Marie, at once. "I'm an
+extremely good-natured person. And, besides, I quite naturally feel
+flattered at your taking interest enough to ask anything about me."
+
+"Well," said she, "it's this: Why does everybody call you just 'Ste.
+Marie'? Most people are spoken of as Monsieur this or that--if there
+isn't a more august title; but they all call you Ste. Marie without any
+Monsieur. It seems rather odd."
+
+Ste. Marie looked puzzled. "Why," he said, "I don't believe I know,
+just. I'd never thought of that. It's quite true, of course. They never
+do use a Monsieur or anything, do they? How cheeky of them! I wonder why
+it is? I'll ask Hartley."
+
+He did ask Hartley later on, and Hartley didn't know, either. Miss
+Benham asked some other people, who were vague about it, and in the end
+she became convinced that it was an odd and quite inexplicable form of
+something like endearment. But nobody seemed to have formulated it to
+himself.
+
+"The name is really 'De Ste. Marie,'" he went on, "and there's a title
+that I don't use, and a string of Christian names that one never
+employs. My people were Béarnais, and there's a heap of ruins on top of
+a hill in the Pyrenees where they lived. It used to be Ste. Marie de
+Mont-les-Roses, but afterward, after the Revolution, they called it Ste.
+Marie de Mont Perdu. My great-grandfather was killed there, but some old
+servants smuggled his little son away and saved him."
+
+He seemed to Miss Benham to say that in exactly the right manner, not in
+the cheap and scoffing fashion which some young men affect in speaking
+of ancestral fortunes or misfortunes, nor with too much solemnity. And
+when she allowed a little silence to occur at the end, he did not go on
+with his family history, but turned at once to another subject. It
+pleased her curiously.
+
+The fair youth at her other side continued to crouch over his food,
+making fierce and animal-like noises. He never spoke or seemed to wish
+to be spoken to, and Miss Benham found it easy to ignore him altogether.
+It occurred to her once or twice that Ste. Marie's other neighbor might
+desire an occasional word from him, but, after all, she said to herself
+that was his affair and beyond her control. So these two talked together
+through the entire dinner period, and the girl was aware that she was
+being much more deeply affected by the simple, magnetic charm of a man
+than ever before in her life. It made her a little angry, because she
+was unfamiliar with this sort of thing and distrusted it. She was rather
+a perfect type of that phenomenon before which the British and
+Continental world stands in mingled delight and exasperation--the
+American unmarried young woman, the creature of extraordinary beauty and
+still more extraordinary poise, the virgin with the bearing and
+savoir-faire of a woman of the world, the fresh-cheeked girl with the
+calm mind of a savante and the cool judgment, in regard to men and
+things, of an ambassador. The European world says she is cold, and that
+may be true; but it is well enough known that she can love very deeply.
+It says that, like most queens, and for precisely the same set of
+reasons, she later on makes a bad mother; but it is easy to point to
+queens who are the best of mothers. In short, she remains an enigma,
+and, like all other enigmas, forever fascinating.
+
+Miss Benham reflected that she knew almost nothing about Ste. Marie save
+for his reputation as a carpet knight, and Baron de Vries' good opinion,
+which could not be despised. And that made her the more displeased when
+she realized how promptly she was surrendering to his charm. In a moment
+of silence she gave a sudden little laugh which seemed to express a
+half-angry astonishment.
+
+"What was that for?" Ste. Marie demanded.
+
+The girl looked at him for an instant and shook her head.
+
+"I can't tell you," said she. "That's rude, isn't it? I'm sorry. Perhaps
+I will tell you one day, when we know each other better."
+
+But inwardly she was saying: "Why, I suppose this is how they all
+begin--all these regiments of women who make fools of themselves about
+him! I suppose this is exactly what he does to them all!"
+
+It made her angry, and she tried quite unfairly to shift the anger, as
+it were, to Ste. Marie--to put him somehow in the wrong. But she was by
+nature very just, and she could not quite do that, particularly as it
+was evident that the man was using no cheap tricks. He did not try to
+flirt with her, and he did not attempt to pay her veiled compliments,
+though she was often aware that when her attention was diverted for a
+few moments his eyes were always upon her, and that is a compliment that
+few women can find it in their hearts to resent.
+
+"You say," said Ste. Marie, "'when we know each other better.' May one
+twist that into a permission to come and see you--I mean, really see
+you--not just leave a card at your door to-morrow by way of observing
+the formalities?"
+
+"Yes," she said. "Oh yes, one may twist it into something like that
+without straining it unduly, I think. My mother and I shall be very glad
+to see you. I'm sorry she is not here to-night to say it herself."
+
+Then the hostess began to gather together her flock, and so the two had
+no more speech. But when the women had gone and the men were left about
+the dismantled table, Hartley moved up beside Ste. Marie and shook a sad
+head at him. He said:
+
+"You're a very lucky being. I was quietly hoping, on the way here, that
+I should be the fortunate man, but you always have all the luck. I hope
+you're decently grateful."
+
+"Mon vieux," said Ste. Marie, "my feet are upon the stars. No!" He shook
+his head as if the figure displeased him. "No, my feet are upon the
+ladder to the stars. Grateful? What does a foolish word like grateful
+mean? Don't talk to me. You are not worthy to trample among my
+magnificent thoughts. I am a god upon Olympus."
+
+"You said just now," objected the other man, practically, "that your
+feet were on a ladder. There are no ladders from Olympus to the stars."
+
+"Ho!" said Ste. Marie. "Ho! Aren't there, though? There shall be ladders
+all over Olympus, if I like. What do you know about gods and stars? I
+shall be a god climbing to the heavens, and I shall be an angel of
+light, and I shall be a miserable worm grovelling in the night here
+below, and I shall be a poet, and I shall be anything else I happen to
+think of--all of them at once, if I choose. And you shall be the
+tongue-tied son of perfidious Albion that you are, gaping at my
+splendors from a fog-bank--a November fog-bank in May. Who is the
+desiccated gentleman bearing down upon us?"
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+III
+
+STE. MARIE MAKES A VOW, BUT A PAIR OF EYES HAUNT HIM
+
+
+Hartley looked over his shoulder and gave a little exclamation of
+distaste.
+
+"It's Captain Stewart, Miss Benham's uncle," he said, lowering his
+voice. "I'm off. I shall abandon you to him. He's a good old soul, but
+he bores me." Hartley nodded to the man who was approaching, and then
+made his way to the end of the table, where their host sat discussing
+aero-club matters with a group of the other men.
+
+Captain Stewart dropped into the vacant chair, saying: "May I recall
+myself to you, M. Ste. Marie? We met, I believe, once or twice, a couple
+of years ago. My name's Stewart."
+
+Captain Stewart--the title was vaguely believed to have been borne some
+years before in the American service, but no one appeared to know much
+about it--was not an old man. He could not have been, at this time, much
+more than fifty, but English-speaking acquaintances often called him
+"old Stewart," and others "ce vieux Stewart." Indeed, at a first glance
+he might have passed for anything up to sixty, for his face was a good
+deal more lined and wrinkled than it should have been at his age. Ste.
+Marie's adjective had been rather apt. The man had a desiccated
+appearance. Upon examination, however, one saw that the blood was still
+red in his cheeks and lips, and, although his neck was thin and withered
+like an old man's, his brown eyes still held their fire. The hair was
+almost gone from the top of his large, round head, but it remained at
+the sides--stiff, colorless hair, with a hint of red in it. And there
+were red streaks in his gray mustache, which was trained outward in two
+loose tufts, like shaving-brushes. The mustache and the shallow chin
+under it gave him an odd, catlike appearance. Hartley, who rather
+disliked the man, used to insist that he had heard him mew.
+
+Ste. Marie said something politely non-committal, though he did not at
+all remember the alleged meeting two years before, and he looked at
+Captain Stewart with a real curiosity and interest in his character as
+Miss Benham's uncle. He thought it very civil of the elder man to make
+these friendly advances when it was in no way incumbent upon him to do
+so.
+
+"I noticed," said Captain Stewart, "that you were placed next my niece,
+Helen Benham, at dinner. This must be the first time you two have met,
+is it not? I remember speaking of you to her some months ago, and I am
+quite sure she said that she had not met you. Ah, yes, of course, you
+have been away from Paris a great deal since she and her mother--her
+mother is my sister: that is to say, my half-sister--have come here to
+live with my father." He gave a little gentle laugh. "I take an elderly
+uncle's privilege," he said, "of being rather proud of Helen. She is
+called very pretty, and she certainly has great poise."
+
+Ste. Marie drew a quick breath, and his eyes began to flash as they had
+done a few moments before when he told Hartley that his feet were upon
+the ladder to the stars.
+
+"Miss Benham!" he cried. "Miss Benham is--" He hung poised so for a
+moment, searching, as it were, for words of sufficient splendor, but in
+the end he shook his head and the gleam faded from his eyes. He sank
+back in his chair, sighing. "Miss Benham," said he, "is extremely
+beautiful."
+
+And again her uncle emitted his little gentle laugh, which may have
+deceived Hartley into believing that he had heard the man mew. The sound
+was as much like mewing as it was like anything else.
+
+"I am very glad," Captain Stewart said, "to see her come out once more
+into the world. She needs distraction. We--You may possibly have heard
+that the family is in great distress of mind over the disappearance of
+my young nephew. Helen has suffered particularly, because she is
+convinced that the boy has met with foul play. I myself think it very
+unlikely--very unlikely indeed. The lack of motive, for one thing, and
+for another--Ah, well, a score of reasons! But Helen refuses to be
+comforted. It seems to me much more like a boy's prank--his idea of
+revenge for what he considered unjust treatment at his grandfather's
+hands. He was always a headstrong youngster, and he has been a bit
+spoiled. Still, of course, the uncertainty is very trying for us
+all--very wearing."
+
+"Of course," said Ste. Marie, gravely. "It is most unfortunate. Ah,
+by-the-way!" He looked up with a sudden interest. "A rather odd thing
+happened," he said, "as Hartley and I were coming here this evening. We
+walked up the Champs-Elysées from the Concorde, and on the way Hartley
+had been telling me of your nephew's disappearance. Near the Rond Point
+we came upon a motor-car which was drawn up at the side of the
+street--there had been an accident of no consequence, a boy tumbled over
+but not hurt. Well, one of the two occupants of the motor-car was a man
+whom I used to see about Maxim's and the Café de Paris and the
+Montmartre places, too, some time ago--a rather shady character whose
+name I've forgotten. The odd part of it all was that on the last
+occasion or two on which I saw your nephew he was with this man. I think
+it was in Henry's Bar. Of course, it means nothing at all. Your nephew
+doubtless knew scores of people, and this man is no more likely to have
+information about his present whereabouts than any of the others. Still,
+I should have liked to ask him. I didn't remember who he was till he had
+gone."
+
+Captain Stewart shook his head sadly, frowning down upon the cigarette
+from which he had knocked the ash.
+
+"I am afraid poor Arthur did not always choose his friends with the best
+of judgment," said he. "I am not squeamish, and I would not have boys
+kept in a glass case, but--yes, I'm afraid Arthur was not always too
+careful." He replaced the cigarette neatly between his lips. "This man,
+now--this man whom you saw to-night--what sort of looking man will he
+have been?"
+
+"Oh, a tall, lean man," said Ste. Marie. "A tall man with blue eyes and
+a heavy, old-fashioned mustache. I just can't remember the name."
+
+The smoke stood still for an instant over Captain Stewart's cigarette,
+and it seemed to Ste. Marie that a little contortion of anger fled
+across the man's face and was gone again. He stirred slightly in his
+chair. After a moment he said:
+
+"I fancy, from your description--I fancy I know who the man was. If it
+is the man I am thinking of, the name is--Powers. He is, as you have
+said, a rather shady character, and I more than once warned my nephew
+against him. Such people are not good companions for a boy. Yes, I
+warned him."
+
+"Powers," said Ste. Marie, "doesn't sound right to me, you know. I can't
+say the fellow's name myself, but I'm sure--that is, I think--it's not
+Powers."
+
+"Oh yes," said Captain Stewart, with an elderly man's half-querulous
+certainty. "Yes, the name is Powers. I remember it well. And I
+remember--Yes, it was odd, was it not, your meeting him like that, just
+as you were talking of Arthur? You--oh, you didn't speak to him, you
+say? No, no, to be sure! You didn't recognize him at once. Yes, it was
+odd. Of course, the man could have had nothing to do with poor Arthur's
+disappearance. His only interest in the boy at any time would have been
+for what money Arthur might have, and he carried none, or almost none,
+away with him when he vanished. Eh, poor lad! Where can he be to-night,
+I wonder? It's a sad business, M. Ste. Marie--a sad business."
+
+Captain Stewart fell into a sort of brooding silence, frowning down at
+the table before him, and twisting with his thin ringers the little
+liqueur glass and the coffee-cup which were there. Once or twice, Ste.
+Marie thought, the frown deepened and twisted into a sort of scowl, and
+the man's fingers twitched on the cloth of the table; but when at last
+the group at the other end of the board rose and began to move towards
+the door, Captain Stewart rose also and followed them. At the door he
+seemed to think of something, and touched Ste. Marie upon the arm.
+
+"This--ah, Powers," he said, in a low tone--"this man whom you saw
+to-night! You said he was one of two occupants of a motor-car. Yes? Did
+you by any chance recognize the other?"
+
+"Oh, the other was a young woman," said Ste. Marie. "No, I never saw her
+before. She was very handsome."
+
+Captain Stewart said something under his breath and turned abruptly
+away. But an instant later he faced about once more, smiling. He said,
+in a man-of-the-world manner, which sat rather oddly upon him:
+
+"Ah, well, we all have our little love-affairs. I dare say this shady
+fellow has his." And for some obscure reason Ste. Marie found the speech
+peculiarly offensive.
+
+In the drawing-room he had opportunity for no more than a word with Miss
+Benham, for Hartley, enraged over his previous ill success, cut in ahead
+of him and manoeuvred that young lady into a corner, where he sat before
+her, turning a square and determined back to the world. Ste. Marie
+listlessly played bridge for a time, but his attention was not upon it,
+and he was glad when the others at the table settled their accounts and
+departed to look in at a dance somewhere. After that he talked for a
+little with Marian de Saulnes, whom he liked and who made no secret of
+adoring him. She complained loudly that he was in a vile temper, which
+was not true; he was only restless and distrait and wanted to be alone;
+and so, at last, he took his leave without waiting for Hartley.
+
+Outside, in the street, he stood for a moment, hesitating, and an
+expectant fiacre drew up before the house, the cocher raising an
+interrogative whip. In the end Ste. Marie shook his head and turned away
+on foot. It was a still, sweet night of soft airs, and a moonless,
+starlit sky, and the man was very fond of walking in the dark. From the
+Etoile he walked down the Champs-Elysées, but presently turned toward
+the river. His eyes were upon the mellow stars, his feet upon the ladder
+thereunto. He found himself crossing the Pont des Invalides, and halted
+midway to rest and look. He laid his arms upon the bridge's parapet and
+turned his face outward. Against it bore a little gentle breeze that
+smelled of the purifying water below and of the night and of green
+things growing. Beneath him the river ran black as flowing ink, and
+across its troubled surface the many-colored lights of the many bridges
+glittered very beautifully, swirling arabesques of gold and crimson. The
+noises of the city--beat of hoofs upon wooden pavements, horn of train
+or motor-car, jingle of bell upon cab-horse--came here faintly and as if
+from a great distance. Above the dark trees of the Cours la Reine the
+sky glowed, softly golden, reflecting the million lights of Paris.
+
+Ste. Marie closed his eyes, and against darkness he saw the beautiful
+head of Helen Benham, the clear-cut, exquisite modelling of feature and
+contour, the perfection of form and color. Her eyes met his eyes, and
+they were very serene and calm and confident. She smiled at him, and the
+new contours into which her face fell with the smile were more perfect
+than before. He watched the turn of her head, and the grace of the
+movement was the uttermost effortless grace one dreams that a queen
+should have. The heart of Ste. Marie quickened in him, and he would have
+gone down upon his knees.
+
+He was well aware that with the coming of this girl something
+unprecedented, wholly new to his experience, had befallen him--an
+awakening to a new life. He had been in love a very great many times. He
+was usually in love. And each time his heart had gone through the same
+sweet and bitter anguish, the same sleepless nights had come and gone
+upon him, the eternal and ever new miracle had wakened spring in his
+soul, had passed its summer solstice, had faded through autumnal regrets
+to winter's death; but through it all something within him had waited
+asleep.
+
+He found himself wondering dully what it was--wherein lay the great
+difference?--and he could not answer the question he asked. He knew only
+that whereas before he had loved, he now went down upon prayerful knees
+to worship. In a sudden poignant thrill the knightly fervor of his
+forefathers came upon him, and he saw a sweet and golden lady set far
+above him upon a throne. Her clear eyes gazed afar, serene and
+untroubled. She sat wrapped in a sort of virginal austerity, unaware of
+the base passions of men. The other women whom Ste. Marie had--as he was
+pleased to term it--loved had certainly come at least half-way to meet
+him, and some of them had come a good deal farther than that. He could
+not, by the wildest flight of imagination, conceive this girl doing
+anything of that sort. She was to be won by trial and high endeavor, by
+prayer and self-purification--not captured by a warm eye-glance, a
+whispered word, a laughing kiss. In fancy he looked from the crowding
+cohorts of these others to that still, sweet figure set on high, wrapped
+in virginal austerity, calm in her serene perfection, and his soul
+abased itself before her. He knelt in an awed and worshipful adoration.
+
+So before quest or tournament or battle must those elder Ste.
+Maries--Ste. Maries de Mont-les-Roses---have knelt, each knight at the
+feet of his lady, each knightly soul aglow with the chaste ardor of
+chivalry.
+
+The man's hands tightened upon the parapet of the bridge, he lifted his
+face again to the shining stars where-among, as his fancy had it, she
+sat enthroned. Exultingly he felt under his feet the rungs of the
+ladder, and in the darkness he swore a great oath to have done forever
+with blindness and grovelling, to climb and climb, forever to climb,
+until at last he should stand where she was--cleansed and made worthy by
+long endeavor--at last meet her eyes and touch her hand.
+
+It was a fine and chivalric frenzy, and Ste. Marie was passionately in
+earnest about it, but his guardian angel--indeed, Fate herself--must
+have laughed a little in the dark, knowing what manner of man he was in
+less exalted hours.
+
+It was an odd freak of memory that at last recalled him to earth. Every
+man knows that when a strong and, for the moment, unavailing effort has
+been made to recall something lost to mind, the memory, in some
+mysterious fashion, goes on working long after the attention has been
+elsewhere diverted, and sometimes hours afterward, or even days,
+produces quite suddenly and inappropriately the lost article. Ste. Marie
+had turned, with a little sigh, to take up, once more, his walk across
+the Pont des Invalides, when seemingly from nowhere, and certainly by no
+conscious effort, a name flashed into his mind. He said it aloud:
+
+"O'Hara! O'Hara! That tall, thin chap's name was O'Hara, by Jove! It
+wasn't Powers at all!" He laughed a little as he remembered how very
+positive Captain Stewart had been. And then he frowned, thinking that
+the mistake was an odd one, since Stewart had evidently known a good
+deal about this adventurer. Captain Stewart, though, Ste. Marie
+reflected, was exactly the sort to be very sure he was right about
+things. He had just the neat and precise and semi-scholarly personality
+of the man who always knows. So Ste. Marie dismissed the matter with
+another brief laugh, but a cognate matter was less easy to dismiss. The
+name brought with it a face--a dark and splendid face with tragic eyes
+that called. He walked a long way thinking about them and wondering. The
+eyes haunted him. It will have been reasonably evident that Ste. Marie
+was a fanciful and imaginative soul. He needed but a chance word, the
+sight of a face in a crowd, the glance of an eye, to begin
+story-building, and he would go on for hours about it and work himself
+up to quite a passion with his imaginings. He should have been a writer
+of fiction.
+
+He began forthwith to construct romances about this lady of the
+motor-car. He wondered why she should have been with the shady
+Irishman--if Irishman he was--O'Hara, and with some anxiety he wondered
+what the two were to each other. Captain Stewart's little cynical jest
+came to his mind, and he was conscious of a sudden desire to kick Miss
+Benham's middle-aged uncle.
+
+The eyes haunted him. What was it they suffered? Out of what misery did
+they call--and for what? He walked all the long way home to his little
+flat overlooking the Luxembourg Gardens, haunted by those eyes. As he
+climbed his stair it suddenly occurred to him that they had quite driven
+out of his mind the image of his beautiful lady who sat among the stars,
+and the realization came to him with a shock.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+IV
+
+OLD DAVID STEWART
+
+
+It was Miss Benham's custom, upon returning home at night from
+dinner-parties or other entertainments, to look in for a few minutes on
+her grandfather before going to bed. The old gentleman, like most
+elderly people, slept lightly, and often sat up in bed very late into
+the night, reading or playing piquet with his valet. He suffered
+hideously at times from the malady which was killing him by degrees, but
+when he was free from pain the enormous recuperative power, which he had
+preserved to his eighty-sixth year, left him almost as vigorous and
+clear-minded as if he had never been ill at all. Hartley's description
+of him had not been altogether a bad one: "a quaint old beggar... a
+great quantity of white hair and an enormous square white beard and the
+fiercest eyes I ever saw..." He was a rather "quaint old beggar,"
+indeed! He had let his thick, white hair grow long, and it hung down
+over his brows in unparted locks as the ancient Greeks wore their hair.
+He had very shaggy eyebrows, and the deep-set eyes under them gleamed
+from the shadow with a fierceness which was rather deceptive but none
+the less intimidating. He had a great beak of a nose, but the mouth
+below could not be seen. It was hidden by the mustache and the enormous
+square beard. His face was colorless, almost as white as hair and beard;
+there seemed to be no shadow or tint anywhere except the cavernous
+recesses from which the man's eyes gleamed and sparkled. Altogether he
+was certainly "a quaint old beggar."
+
+He had, during the day and evening, a good many visitors, for the old
+gentleman's mind was as alert as it ever had been, and important men
+thought him worth consulting. The names which the admirable valet Peters
+announced from time to time were names which meant a great deal in the
+official and diplomatic world of the day. But if old David felt
+flattered over the unusual fashion in which the great of the earth
+continued to come to him, he never betrayed it. Indeed, it is quite
+probable that this view of the situation never once occurred to him. He
+had been thrown with the great of the earth for more than half a
+century, and he had learned to take it as a matter of course.
+
+On her return from the Marquise de Saulnes' dinner-party, Miss Benham
+went at once to her grandfather's wing of the house, which had its own
+street entrance, and knocked lightly at his door. She asked the
+admirable Peters, who opened to her, "Is he awake?" and being assured
+that he was, went into the vast chamber, dropping her cloak on a chair
+as she entered.
+
+David Stewart was sitting up in his monumental bed behind a sort of
+invalid's table which stretched across his knees without touching them.
+He wore over his night-clothes a Chinese mandarin's jacket of old red
+satin, wadded with down, and very gorgeously embroidered with the cloud
+and bat designs, and with large round panels of the imperial five-clawed
+dragon in gold. He had a number of these jackets--they seemed to be his
+one vanity in things external--and they were so made that they could be
+slipped about him without disturbing him in his bed, since they hung
+down only to the waist or thereabouts. They kept the upper part of his
+body, which was not covered by the bedclothes, warm, and they certainly
+made him a very impressive figure.
+
+He said: "Ah, Helen! Come in! Come in! Sit down on the bed there and
+tell me what you have been doing!" He pushed aside the pack of cards
+which was spread out on the invalid's table before him, and with great
+care counted a sum of money in francs and half-francs and nickel
+twenty-five centime pieces. "I've won seven francs fifty from Peters
+to-night," he said, chuckling gently. "That is a very good evening,
+indeed. Very good! Where have you been, and who were there?"
+
+"A dinner-party at the De Saulnes'," said Miss Benham, making herself
+comfortable on the side of the great bed. "It's a very pleasant place.
+Marian is, of course, a dear, and they're quite English and
+unceremonious. You can talk to your neighbor at dinner instead of
+addressing the house from a platform, as it were. French dinner-parties
+make me nervous."
+
+Old David gave a little growling laugh.
+
+"French dinner-parties at least keep people up to the mark in the art of
+conversation," said he. "But that is a lost art, anyhow, nowadays, so I
+suppose one might as well be quite informal and have done with it. Who
+were there?"
+
+"Oh, well"--she considered, "no one, I should think, who would interest
+you. Rather an indifferent set. Pleasant people, but not inspiring. The
+Marquis had some young relative or connection who was quite odious and
+made the most surprising noises over his food. I met a new man whom I
+think I am going to like very much, indeed. He wouldn't interest you,
+because he doesn't mean anything in particular, and of course he
+oughtn't to interest me for the same reason. He's just an idle, pleasant
+young man, but--he has great charm--very great charm. His name is Ste.
+Marie. Baron de Vries seems very fond of him, which surprised me,
+rather."
+
+"Ste. Marie!" exclaimed the old gentleman, in obvious astonishment.
+"Ste. Marie de Mont Perdu?"
+
+"Yes," she said. "Yes, that is the name, I believe. You know him, then?
+I wonder he didn't mention it."
+
+"I knew his father," said old David. "And his grandfather, for that
+matter. They're Gascon, I think, or Béarnais; but this boy's mother will
+have been Irish, unless his father married again.
+
+"So you've been meeting a Ste. Marie, have you?--and finding that he has
+great charm?" The old gentleman broke into one of his growling laughs,
+and reached for a long black cigar, which he lighted, eying his
+granddaughter the while over the flaring match. "Well," he said, when
+the cigar was drawing, "they all have had charm. I should think there
+has never been a Ste. Marie without it. They're a sort of embodiment of
+romance, that family. This boy's great-grandfather lost his life
+defending a castle against a horde of peasants in 1799; his grandfather
+was killed in the French campaign in Mexico in '39--at Vera Cruz it was,
+I think; and his father died in a filibustering expedition ten years
+ago. I wonder what will become of the last Ste. Marie?" Old David's eyes
+suddenly sharpened. "You're not going to fall in love with Ste. Marie
+and marry him, are you?" he demanded.
+
+Miss Benham gave a little angry laugh, but her grandfather saw the color
+rise in her cheeks for all that.
+
+"Certainly not," she said, with great decision, "What an absurd idea!
+Because I meet a man at a dinner-party and say I like him, must I marry
+him to-morrow? I meet a great many men at dinners and things, and a few
+of them I like. Heavens!"
+
+"'Methinks the lady doth protest too much,'" muttered old David into his
+huge beard.
+
+"I beg your pardon?" asked Miss Benham, politely.
+
+But he shook his head, still growling inarticulately, and began to draw
+enormous clouds of smoke from the long black cigar. After a time he took
+the cigar once more from his lips and looked thoughtfully at his
+granddaughter, where she sat on the edge of the vast bed, upright and
+beautiful, perfect in the most meticulous detail. Most women when they
+return from a long evening out look more or less the worse for
+it--deadened eyes, pale cheeks, loosened coiffure tell their inevitable
+tale. Miss Benham looked as if she had just come from the hands of a
+very excellent maid. She looked as freshly soignée as she might have
+looked at eight that evening instead of at one. Not a wave of her
+perfectly undulated hair was loosened or displaced, not a fold of the
+lace at her breast had departed from its perfect arrangement.
+
+"It is odd," said old David Stewart, "your taking a fancy to young Ste.
+Marie. Of course, it's natural, too, in a way, because you are complete
+opposites, I should think--that is, if this lad is like the rest of his
+race. What I mean is that merely attractive young men don't, as a rule,
+attract you."
+
+"Well, no," she admitted, "they don't usually. Men with brains attract
+me most, I think--men who are making civilization, men who are ruling
+the world, or at least doing important things for it. That's your fault,
+you know. You taught me that."
+
+The old gentleman laughed.
+
+"Possibly," said he. "Possibly. Anyhow, that is the sort of men you
+like, and they like you. You're by no means a fool, Helen; in fact,
+you're a woman with brains. You could wield great influence married to
+the proper sort of man."
+
+"But not to M. Ste. Marie," she suggested, smiling across at him.
+
+"Well, no," he said. "No, not to Ste. Marie. It would be a mistake to
+marry Ste. Marie--if he is what the rest of his house have been. The
+Ste. Maries live a life compounded of romance and imagination and
+emotion. You're not emotional."
+
+"No," said Miss Benham, slowly and thoughtfully. It was as if the idea
+were new to her. "No, I'm not, I suppose. No. Certainly not."
+
+"As a matter of fact," said old David, "you're by nature rather cold.
+I'm not sure it isn't a good thing. Emotional people, I observe, are
+usually in hot water of some sort. When you marry you're very likely to
+choose with a great deal of care and some wisdom. And you're also likely
+to have what is called a career. I repeat that you could wield great
+influence in the proper environment."
+
+The girl frowned across at her grandfather reflectively.
+
+"Do you mean by that," she asked, after a little silence--"do you mean
+that you think I am likely to be moved by sheer ambition and nothing
+else in arranging my life? I've never thought of myself as a very
+ambitious person."
+
+"Let us substitute for ambition common-sense," said old David. "I think
+you have a great deal of common-sense for a woman--and so young a woman.
+How old are you by-the-way? Twenty-two? Yes, to be sure. I think you
+have great common-sense and appreciation of values. And I think you're
+singularly free of the emotionalism that so often plays hob with them
+all. People with common-sense fall in love in the right places."
+
+"I don't quite like the sound of it," said Miss Benham. "Perhaps I am
+rather ambitious--I don't know. Yes, perhaps. I should like to play some
+part in the world, I don't deny that. But--am I as cold as you say? I
+doubt it very much. I doubt that."
+
+"You're twenty-two," said her grandfather, "and you have seen a good
+deal of society in several capitals. Have you ever fallen in love?"
+
+Oddly, the face of Ste. Marie came before Miss Benham's eyes as if she
+had summoned it there. But she frowned a little and shook her head,
+saying:
+
+"No, I can't say that I have. But that means nothing. There's plenty of
+time for that. And you know," she said, after a pause--"you know I'm
+rather sure I could fall in love--pretty hard. I'm sure of that. Perhaps
+I have been waiting. Who knows?"
+
+"Aye, who knows?" said David. He seemed all at once to lose interest in
+the subject, as old people often do without apparent reason, for he
+remained silent for a long time, puffing at the long black cigar or
+rolling it absently between his fingers. After awhile he laid it down in
+a metal dish which stood at his elbow, and folded his lean hands before
+him over the invalid's table. He was still so long that at last his
+granddaughter thought he had fallen asleep, and she began to rise from
+her seat, taking care to make no noise; but at that the old man stirred
+and put out his hand once more for the cigar. "Was young Richard Hartley
+at your dinner-party?" he asked, and she said:
+
+"Yes. Oh yes, he was there. He and M. Ste. Marie came together, I
+believe. They are very close friends."
+
+"Another idler," growled old David. "The fellow's a man of parts--and a
+man of family. What's he idling about here for? Why isn't he in
+Parliament, where he belongs?"
+
+"Well," said the girl, "I should think it is because he is too much a
+man of family--as you put it. You see, he'll succeed his cousin, Lord
+Risdale, before very long, and then all his work would have been for
+nothing, because he'll have to take his seat in the Lords. Lord Risdale
+is unmarried, you know, and a hopeless invalid. He may die any day. I
+think I sympathize with poor Mr. Hartley. It would be a pity to build up
+a career for one's self in the lower House, and then suddenly, in the
+midst of it, have to give it all up. The situation is rather paralyzing
+to endeavor, isn't it?"
+
+"Yes, I dare say," said old David, absently. He looked up sharply.
+"Young Hartley doesn't come here as much as he used to do."
+
+"No," said Miss Benham, "he doesn't." She gave a little laugh. "To avoid
+cross-examination," she said, "I may as well admit that he asked me to
+marry him and I had to refuse. I'm sorry, because I like him very much,
+indeed."
+
+Old David made an inarticulate sound which may have been meant to
+express surprise--or almost anything else. He had not a great range of
+expression.
+
+"I don't want," said he, "to seem to have gone daft on the subject of
+marriage, and I see no reason why you should be in any haste about it.
+Certainly I should hate to lose you, my child, but--Hartley as the next
+Lord Risdale is undoubtedly a good match. And you say you like him."
+
+The girl looked up with a sort of defiance, and her face was a little
+flushed.
+
+"I don't love him," she said. "I like him immensely, but I don't love
+him, and, after all--well, you say I'm cold, and I admit I'm more or
+less ambitious, but, after all--well, I just don't quite love him. I
+want to love the man I marry."
+
+Old David Stewart held up his black cigar and gazed thoughtfully at the
+smoke which streamed thin and blue and veil-like from its lighted end.
+
+"Love!" he said, in a reflective tone. "Love!" He repeated the word two
+or three times slowly, and he stirred a little in his bed. "I have
+forgotten what it is," said he. "I expect I must be very old. I have
+forgotten what love--that sort of love--is like. It seems very far away
+to me and rather unimportant. But I remember that I thought it important
+enough once, a century or two ago. Do you know, it strikes me as rather
+odd that I have forgotten what love is like. It strikes me as rather
+pathetic." He gave a sort of uncouth grimace and stuck the black cigar
+once more into his mouth. "Egad!" said he, mumbling indistinctly over
+the cigar, "how foolish love seems when you look back at it across fifty
+or sixty years!"
+
+Miss Benham rose to her feet smiling, and she came and stood near where
+the old man lay propped up against his pillows. She touched his cheek
+with her cool hand, and old David put up one of his own hands and patted
+it.
+
+"I'm going to bed now," said she. "I've sat here talking too long. You
+ought to be asleep, and so ought I."
+
+"Perhaps! Perhaps!" the old man said. "I don't feel sleepy, though. I
+dare say I shall read a little." He held her hand in his and looked up
+at her.
+
+"I've been talking a great deal of nonsense about marriage," said he.
+"Put it out of your head! It's all nonsense. I don't want you to marry
+for a long time. I don't want to lose you." His face twisted a little,
+quite suddenly. "You're precious near all I have left, now," he said.
+
+The girl did not answer at once, for it seemed to her that there was
+nothing to say. She knew that her grandfather was thinking of the lost
+boy, and she knew what a bitter blow the thing had been to him. She
+often thought that it would kill him before his old malady could run its
+course.
+
+But after a moment she said, very gently: "We won't give up hope. We'll
+never give up hope. Think! he might come home to-morrow! Who knows?"
+
+"If he has stayed away of his own accord," cried out old David Stewart,
+in a loud voice, "I'll never forgive him--not if he comes to me
+to-morrow on his knees! Not even if he comes to me on his knees!"
+
+The girl bent over her grandfather, saying: "Hush! hush! You mustn't
+excite yourself." But old David's gray face was working, and his eyes
+gleamed from their cavernous shadows with a savage fire.
+
+"If the boy is staying away out of spite," he repeated, "he need never
+come back to me. I won't forgive him." He beat his unemployed hand upon
+the table before him, and the things which lay there jumped and danced.
+"And if he waits until I'm dead and then comes back," said he, "he'll
+find he has made a mistake--a great mistake. He'll find a surprise in
+store for him, I can tell you that. I won't tell you what I have done,
+but it will be a disagreeable surprise for Master Arthur, you may be
+sure."
+
+The old gentleman fell to frowning and muttering in his choleric
+fashion, but the fierce glitter began to go out of his eyes and his
+hands ceased to tremble and clutch at the things before him. The girl
+was silent, because again there seemed to her to be nothing that she
+could say. She longed very much to plead her brother's cause, but she
+was sure that would only excite her grandfather, and he was growing
+quieter after his burst of anger. She bent down over him and kissed his
+cheek.
+
+"Try to go to sleep," she said. "And don't torture yourself with
+thinking about all this. I'm as sure that poor Arthur is not staying
+away out of spite as if he were myself. He's foolish and headstrong, but
+he's not spiteful, dear. Try to believe that. And now I'm really going.
+Good-night." She kissed him again and slipped out of the room. And as
+she closed the door she heard her grandfather pull the bell-cord which
+hung beside him and summoned the excellent Peters from the room beyond.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+V
+
+JASON SETS FORTH UPON THE GREAT ADVENTURE
+
+
+Miss Benham stood at one of the long drawing-room windows of the house
+in the rue de l'Université, and looked out between the curtains upon the
+rather grimy little garden, where a few not very prosperous cypresses
+and chestnuts stood guard over the rows of lilac shrubs and the
+box-bordered flower-beds and the usual moss-stained fountain. She was
+thinking of the events of the past month, the month which had elapsed
+since the evening of the De Saulnes' dinner-party. They were not at all
+startling events; in a practical sense there were no events at all, only
+a quiet sequence of affairs which was about as inevitable as the night
+upon the day--the day upon the night again. In a word, this girl, who
+had considered herself very strong and very much the mistress of her
+feelings, found, for the first time in her life, that her strength was
+as nothing at all against the potent charm and magnetism of a man who
+had almost none of the qualities she chiefly admired in men. During the
+month's time she had passed from a phase of angry self-scorn through a
+period of bewilderment not unmixed with fear, and from that she had come
+into an unknown world, a land very strange to her, where old standards
+and judgments seemed to be valueless--a place seemingly ruled altogether
+by new emotions, sweet and thrilling, or full of vague terrors as her
+mood veered here or there.
+
+That sublimated form of guesswork which is called "woman's intuition"
+told her that Ste. Marie would come to her on this afternoon, and that
+something in the nature of a crisis would have to be faced. It can be
+proved even by poor masculine mathematics that guesswork, like other
+gambling ventures, is bound to succeed about half the time, and it
+succeeded on this occasion. Even as Miss Benham stood at the window
+looking out through the curtains, M. Ste. Marie was announced from the
+doorway.
+
+She turned to meet him with a little frown of determination, for in his
+absence she was often very strong, indeed, and sometimes she made up and
+rehearsed little speeches of great dignity and decision in which she
+told him that he was attempting a quite hopeless thing, and, as a
+well-wishing friend, advised him to go away and attempt it no longer.
+But as Ste. Marie came quickly across the room toward her, the little
+frown wavered and at last fled from her face and another look came
+there. It was always so. The man's bodily presence exerted an absolute
+spell over her.
+
+"I have been sitting with your grandfather for half an hour," Ste. Marie
+said. And she said:
+
+"Oh, I'm glad! I'm very glad! You always cheer him up. He hasn't been
+too cheerful or too well of late." She unnecessarily twisted a chair
+about, and after a moment sat down in it. And she gave a little laugh.
+"This friendship which has grown up between my grandfather and you,"
+said she--"I don't understand it at all. Of course, he knew your father
+and all that; but you two seem such very different types, I shouldn't
+think you would amuse each other at all. There's Mr. Hartley, for
+example. I should expect my grandfather to like him very much better
+than you, but he doesn't--though I fancy he approves of him much more."
+
+She laughed again, but a different laugh; and when he heard it Ste.
+Marie's eyes gleamed a little and his hands moved beside him.
+
+"I expect," said she--"I expect, you know, that he just likes you
+without stopping to think why--as everybody else does. I fancy it's just
+that. What do you think?"
+
+"Oh, I?" said the man. "I--how should I know? I know it's a great
+privilege to be allowed to see him--such a man as that. And I know we
+get on wonderfully well. He doesn't condescend, as most old men do who
+have led important lives. We just talk as two men in a club might talk,
+and I tell him stories and make him laugh. Oh yes, we get on wonderfully
+well."
+
+"Oh," said she, "I've often wondered what you talk about. What did you
+talk about to-day?"
+
+Ste. Marie turned abruptly away from her and went across to one of the
+windows--the window where she had stood earlier, looking out upon the
+dingy garden. She saw him stand there, with his back turned, the head a
+little bent, the hands twisting together behind him, and a sudden fit of
+nervous shivering wrung her. Every woman knows when a certain thing is
+going to be said to her, and usually she is prepared for it, though
+usually, also, she says she is not. Miss Benham knew what was coming
+now, and she was frightened, not of Ste. Marie, but of herself. It meant
+so very much to her--more than to most women at such a time. It meant,
+if she said yes to him, the surrender of almost all the things she had
+cared for and hoped for. It meant the giving up of that career which old
+David Stewart had dwelt upon a month ago.
+
+Ste. Marie turned back into the room. He came a little way toward where
+the girl sat, and halted, and she could see that he was very pale. A
+sort of critical second self noticed that he was pale and was surprised,
+because, although men's faces often turn red, they seldom turn
+noticeably pale except in very great nervous crises--or in works of
+fiction; while women, on the contrary, may turn red and white twenty
+times a day, and no harm done. He raised his hands a little way from his
+sides in the beginning of a gesture, but they dropped again as if there
+was no strength in them.
+
+"I told him," said Ste. Marie, in a flat voice--"I told your grandfather
+that I--loved you more than anything in this world or in the next. I
+told him that my love for you had made another being of me--a new being.
+I told him that I wanted to come to you and to kneel at your feet, and
+to ask you if you could give me just a little, little hope--something to
+live for, a light to climb toward. That is what we talked about, your
+grandfather and I."
+
+"Ste. Marie! Ste. Marie!" said the girl, in a half whisper. "What did my
+grandfather say to you?" she asked, after a silence.
+
+Ste. Marie looked away.
+
+"I cannot tell you," he said. "He--was not quite sympathetic."
+
+The girl gave a little cry.
+
+"Tell me what he said!" she demanded. "I must know what he said."
+
+The man's eyes pleaded with her, but she held him with her gaze, and in
+the end he gave in.
+
+"He said I was a damned fool," said Ste. Marie.
+
+And the girl, after an instant of staring, broke into a little fit of
+nervous, overwrought laughter, and covered her face with her hands.
+
+He threw himself upon his knees before her, and her laughter died away.
+An Englishman or an American cannot do that. Richard Hartley, for
+example, would have looked like an idiot upon his knees, and he would
+have felt it. But it did not seem extravagant with Ste. Marie. It became
+him.
+
+"Listen! Listen!" he cried to her, but the girl checked him before he
+could go on.
+
+She dropped her hands from her face, and she bent a little forward over
+the man as he knelt there. She put out her hands and took his head for a
+swift instant between them, looking down into his eyes. At the touch a
+sudden wave of tenderness swept her--almost an engulfing wave; it almost
+overwhelmed her and bore her away from the land she knew. And so when
+she spoke her voice was not quite steady. She said:
+
+"Ah, dear Ste. Marie! I cannot pretend to be cold toward you. You have
+laid a spell upon me, Ste. Marie. You enchant us all, somehow, don't
+you? I suppose I'm not so different from the others as I thought I was.
+And yet," she said, "he was right, you know. My grandfather was right.
+No, let me talk, now. I must talk for a little. I must try to tell you
+how it is with me--try somehow to find a way. He was right. He meant
+that you and I were utterly unsuited to each other, and so, in calm
+moments, I know we are. I know that well enough. When you're not with
+me, I feel very sure about it. I think of a thousand excellent reasons
+why you and I ought to be no more to each other than friends. Do you
+know, I think my grandfather is a little uncanny. I think he has
+prophetic powers. They say very old people often have. He and I talked
+about you when I came home from that dinner-party at the De Saulnes', a
+month ago--the dinner-party where you and I first met. I told him that I
+had met a man whom I liked very much--a man with great charm; and though
+I must have said the same sort of thing to him before about other men,
+he was quite oddly disturbed, and talked for a long time about it--about
+the sort of man I ought to marry and the sort I ought not to marry. It
+was unusual for him. He seldom says anything of that kind. Yes, he is
+right. You see, I'm ambitious in a particular way. If I marry at all I
+ought to marry a man who is working hard in politics or in something of
+that kind. I could help him. We could do a great deal together."
+
+"I could go into politics!" cried Ste. Marie; but she shook her head,
+smiling down upon him.
+
+"No, not you, my dear. Politics least of all. You could be a soldier, if
+you chose. You could fight as your father and your grandfather and the
+others of your house have done. You could lead a forlorn hope in the
+field. You could suffer and starve and go on fighting. You could die
+splendidly, but--politics, no! That wants a tougher shell than you have.
+And a soldier's wife! Of what use to him is she?"
+
+Ste. Marie's face was very grave. He looked up to her, smiling.
+
+"Do you set ambition before love, my Queen?" he asked, and she did not
+answer him at once.
+
+She looked into his eyes, and she was as grave as he.
+
+"Is love all?" she said, at last. "Is love all? Ought one to think of
+nothing but love when one is settling one's life forever? I wonder? I
+look about me, Ste. Marie," she said, "and in the lives of my
+friends--the people who seem to me to be most worth while, the people
+who are making the world's history for good or ill--and it seems to me
+that in their lives love has the second place--or the third. I wonder if
+one has the right to set it first. There is, of course," she said, "the
+merely domestic type of woman--the woman who has no thought and no
+interest beyond her home. I am not that type of woman. Perhaps I wish I
+were. Certainly they are the happiest. But I was brought up among--well,
+among important people--men of my grandfather's kind. All my training
+has been toward that life. Have I the right, I wonder, to give it all
+up?"
+
+The man stirred at her feet, and she put out her hands to him quickly.
+
+"Do I seem brutal?" she cried. "Oh, I don't want to be! Do I seem very
+ungenerous and wrapped up in my own side of the thing? I don't mean to
+be that, but--I'm not sure. I expect it's that. I'm not sure, and I
+think I'm a little frightened." She gave him a brief, anxious smile that
+was not without its tenderness. "I'm so sure," she said, "when I'm away
+from you. But when you're here--oh, I forget all I've thought of. You
+lay your spell upon me."
+
+Ste. Marie gave a little wordless cry of joy. He caught her two hands in
+his and held them against his lips. Again that great wave of tenderness
+swept her, almost engulfing. But when it had ebbed she sank back once
+more in her chair, and she withdrew her hands from his clasp.
+
+"You make me forget too much," she said. "I think you make me forget
+everything that I ought to remember. Oh, Ste. Marie, have I any right to
+think of love and happiness while this terrible mystery is upon
+us--while we don't know whether poor Arthur is alive or dead? You've
+seen what it has brought my grandfather to! It is killing him. He has
+been much worse in the past fortnight. And my mother is hardly a ghost
+of herself in these days. Ah, it is brutal of me to think of my own
+affairs--to dream of happiness at such a time." She smiled across at him
+very sadly. "You see what you have brought me to!" she said.
+
+Ste. Marie rose to his feet. If Miss Benham, absorbed in that warfare
+which raged within her, had momentarily forgotten the cloud of sorrow
+under which her household lay, so much the more had he, to whom the
+sorrow was less intimate, forgotten it. But he was ever swift to
+sympathy, Ste. Marie--as quick as a woman, and as tender. He could not
+thrust his love upon the girl at such a time as this. He turned a little
+away from her, and so remained for a moment. When he faced about again
+the flush had gone from his cheeks and the fire from his eyes. Only
+tenderness was left there.
+
+"There has been no news at all this week?" he asked, and the girl shook
+her head.
+
+"None! None! Shall we ever have news of him, I wonder? Must we go on
+always and never know? It seems to me almost incredible that any one
+could disappear so completely. And yet, I dare say, many people have
+done it before and have been as carefully sought for. If only I could
+believe that he is alive! If only I could believe that!"
+
+"I believe it," said Ste. Marie.
+
+"Ah," she said, "you say that to cheer me. You have no reason to offer."
+
+"Dead bodies very seldom disappear completely," said he. "If your
+brother died anywhere there would be a record of the death. If he were
+accidentally killed there would be a record of that, too; and, of
+course, you are having all such records constantly searched?"
+
+"Oh yes," she said. "Yes, of course--at least, I suppose so. My uncle
+has been directing the search. Of course, he would take an obvious
+precaution like that."
+
+"Naturally," said Ste. Marie. "Your uncle, I should say, is an unusually
+careful man." He paused a moment to smile. "He makes his little
+mistakes, though. I told you about that man O'Hara, and about how sure
+Captain Stewart was that the name was Powers. Do you know"--Ste. Marie
+had been walking up and down the room, but he halted to face her--"do
+you know, I have a very strong feeling that if one could find this man
+O'Hara, one would learn something about what became of your brother? I
+have no reason for thinking that, but I feel it."
+
+"Oh," said the girl, doubtfully, "I hardly think that could be so. What
+motive could the man have for harming my brother?"
+
+"None," said Ste. Marie; "but he might have an excellent motive for
+hiding him away--kidnapping him. Is that the word? Yes, I know, you're
+going to say that no demand has been made for money, and that is where
+my argument--if I can call it an argument--is weak. But the fellow may
+be biding his time. Anyhow, I should like to have five minutes alone
+with him. I'll tell you another thing. It's a trifle, and it may be of
+no consequence, but I add it to my vague and--if you like--foolish
+feeling, and make something out of it. I happened, some days ago, to
+meet at the Café de Paris a man who I knew used to know this O'Hara. He
+was not, I think, a friend of his at all, but an acquaintance. I asked
+him what had become of O'Hara, saying that I hadn't seen him in some
+weeks. Well, this man said O'Hara had gone away somewhere a couple of
+months ago. He didn't seem at all surprised, for it appears the
+Irishman--if he is an Irishman--is decidedly a haphazard sort of person,
+here to-day, gone to-morrow. No, the man wasn't surprised, but he was
+rather angry, because he said O'Hara owed him some money. I said I
+thought he must be mistaken about the fellow's absence, because I'd seen
+him in the street within the month--on the evening of our dinner-party,
+you remember--but this man was very sure that I had made a mistake. He
+said that if O'Hara had been in town he was sure to have known it. Well,
+the point is here. Your brother disappears at a certain time. At the
+same time this Irish adventurer disappears, too, _and_ your brother was
+known to have frequented the Irishman's company. It may be only a
+coincidence, but I can't help feeling that there's something in it."
+
+Miss Benham was sitting up straight in her chair with a little alert
+frown.
+
+"Have you spoken of this to my uncle?" she demanded.
+
+"Well--no," said Ste. Marie. "Not the latter part of it--that is, not my
+having heard of O'Hara's disappearance. In the first place, I learned of
+that only three days ago, and I have not seen Captain Stewart since--I
+rather expected to find him here to-day; and, in the second place, I was
+quite sure that he would only laugh. He has laughed at me two or three
+times for suggesting that this Irishman might know something. Captain
+Stewart is--not easy to convince, you know."
+
+"I know," she said, looking away. "He's always very certain that he's
+right. Well, perhaps he is right. Who knows?" She gave a little sob.
+"Oh!" she cried, "shall we ever have my brother back? Shall we ever see
+him again? It is breaking my heart, Ste. Marie, and it is killing my
+grandfather and, I think, my mother, too! Oh, can nothing be done?"
+
+Ste. Marie was walking up and down the floor before her, his hands
+clasped behind his back. When she had finished speaking the girl saw him
+halt beside one of the windows, and after a moment she saw his head go
+up sharply and she heard him give a sudden cry. She thought he had seen
+something from the window which had wrung that exclamation from him, and
+she asked:
+
+"What is it?"
+
+But abruptly the man turned back into the room and came across to where
+she sat. It seemed to her that his face had a new look--a very strange
+exaltation which she had never before seen there. He said:
+
+"Listen! I do not know if anything can be done that has not been done
+already, but if there is anything I shall do it, you may be sure."
+
+"_You_, Ste. Marie?" she cried, in a sharp voice. "_You?_"
+
+"And why not I?" he demanded.
+
+"Oh, my friend," said she, "you could do nothing! You wouldn't know
+where to turn, how to set to work. Remember that a score of men who are
+skilled in this kind of thing have been searching for two months. What
+could you do that they haven't done?"
+
+"I do not know, my Queen," said Ste. Marie, "but I shall do what I can.
+Who knows? Sometimes the fool who rushes in where angels have feared to
+tread succeeds where they have failed. Oh, let me do this!" he cried
+out. "Let me do it for both our sakes--for yours and for mine! It is for
+your sake most. I swear that! It is to set you at peace again, bring
+back the happiness you have lost. But it is for my sake, too, a little.
+It will be a test of me, a trial. If I can succeed here where so many
+have failed, if I bring back your brother to you--or, at least, discover
+what has become of him--I shall be able to come to you with less shame
+for my--unworthiness."
+
+He looked down upon her with eager, burning eyes, and, after a little,
+the girl rose to face him. She was very white, and she stared at him
+silently.
+
+"When I came to you to-day," he went on, "I knew that I had nothing to
+offer you but my faithful love and my life, which has been a life
+without value. In exchange for that I asked too much. I knew it, and you
+knew it, too. I know well enough what sort of man you ought to marry,
+and what a brilliant career you could make for yourself in the proper
+place--what great influence you could wield. But I asked you to give
+that all up, and I hadn't anything to offer in its place--nothing but
+love. My Queen, give me a chance now to offer you more! If I can bring
+back your brother or news of him, I can come to you without shame and
+ask you to marry me, because if I can succeed in that you will know that
+I can succeed in other things. You will be able to trust me. You'll know
+that I can climb. It shall be a sort of symbol. Let me go!"
+
+The girl broke into a sort of sobbing laughter.
+
+"Oh, divine madman!" she cried. "Are you all mad, you Ste. Maries, that
+you must be forever leading forlorn hopes? Oh, how you are, after all, a
+Ste. Marie! Now, at last, I know why one cannot but love you. You're the
+knight of old. You're chivalry come down to us. You're a ghost out of
+the past when men rode in armor with pure hearts seeking the Great
+Adventure. Oh, my friend," she said, "be wise. Give this up in time. It
+is a beautiful thought, and I love you for it, but it is madness--yes,
+yes, a sweet madness, but mad, nevertheless! What possible chance would
+you have of success? And think--think how failure would hurt you--and
+me! You must not do it, Ste. Marie."
+
+"Failure will never hurt me, my Queen," said he, "because there are no
+hurts in the grave, and I shall never give over searching until I
+succeed or until I am dead." His face was uplifted, and there was a sort
+of splendid fervor upon it. It was as if it shone.
+
+The girl stared at him dumbly. She began to realize that the knightly
+spirit of those gallant, long dead gentlemen was indeed descended upon
+the last of their house, that he burnt with the same pure fire which had
+long ago lighted them through quest and adventure, and she was a little
+afraid with an almost superstitious fear. She put out her hands upon the
+man's shoulders, and she moved a little closer to him, holding him.
+
+"Oh, madness, madness!" she said, watching his face.
+
+"Let me do it!" said Ste. Marie.
+
+And after a silence that seemed to endure for a long time, she sighed,
+shaking her head, and said she:
+
+"Oh, my friend, there is no strength in me to stop you. I think we are
+both a little mad, and I know that you are very mad, but I cannot say
+no. You seem to have come out of another century to take up this quest.
+How can I prevent you? But listen to one thing. If I accept this
+sacrifice, if I let you give your time and your strength to this almost
+hopeless attempt, it must be understood that it is to be within certain
+limits. I will not accept any indefinite thing. You may give your
+efforts to trying to find trace of my brother for a month if you like,
+or for three months, or six, or even a year, but not for more than that.
+If he is not found in a year's time we shall know that--we shall know
+that he is dead, and that--further search is useless. I cannot say how
+I--Oh, Ste. Marie, Ste. Marie, this is a proof of you, indeed! And I
+have called you idle. I have said hard things of you. It is very bitter
+to me to think that I have said those things."
+
+"They were true, my Queen," said he, smiling. "They were quite, quite
+true. It is for me to prove now that they shall be true no longer." He
+took the girl's hand in his rather ceremoniously, and bent his head and
+kissed it. As he did so he was aware that she stirred, all at once,
+uneasily, and when he had raised his head he looked at her in question.
+
+"I thought some one was coming into the room," she explained, looking
+beyond him. "I thought some one started to come in between the portières
+yonder. It must have been a servant."
+
+"Then it is understood," said Ste. Marie. "To bring you back your
+happiness, and to prove myself in some way worthy of your love, I am to
+devote myself with all my effort and all my strength to finding your
+brother or some trace of him, and until I succeed I will not see your
+face again, my Queen."
+
+"Oh, that!" she cried--"that, too?"
+
+"I will not see you," said he, "until I bring you news of him, or until
+my year is passed and I have failed utterly. I know what risk I run. If
+I fail, I lose you. That is understood, too. But if I succeed--"
+
+"Then?" she said, breathing quickly. "Then?"
+
+"Then," said he, "I shall come to you, and I shall feel no shame in
+asking you to marry me, because then you will know that there is in me
+some little worthiness, and that in our lives together you need not be
+buried in obscurity--lost to the world."
+
+"I cannot find any words to say," said she. "I am feeling just now very
+humble and very ashamed. It seems that I haven't known you at all. Oh
+yes, I am ashamed."
+
+The girl's face, habitually so cool and composed, was flushed with a
+beautiful flush, and it had softened, and it seemed to quiver between a
+smile and a tear. With a swift movement she leaned close to him, holding
+by his shoulder, and for an instant her cheek was against his. She
+whispered to him:
+
+"Oh, find him quickly, my dear! Find him quickly, and come back to me!"
+
+Ste. Marie began to tremble, and she stood away from him. Once he looked
+up, but the flush was gone from Miss Benham's cheeks and she was pale
+again. She stood with her hands tight clasped over her breast. So he
+bowed to her very low, and turned and went out of the room and out of
+the house.
+
+So quickly did he move at this last that a man who had been, for some
+moments, standing just outside the portières of the doorway had barely
+time to step aside into the shadows of the dim hall. As it was, Ste.
+Marie, in a more normal moment, must have seen that the man was there;
+but his eyes were blind, and he saw nothing. He groped for his hat and
+stick as if the place were a place of gloom, and, because the footman
+who should have been at the door was in regions unknown, he let himself
+out, and so went away.
+
+Then the man who stood apart in the shadows crossed the hall to a small
+room which was furnished as a library, but not often used. He closed the
+door behind him, and went to one of the windows which gave upon the
+street. And he stood there for a long time, drawing absurd invisible
+pictures upon the glass with one finger and staring thoughtfully out
+into the late June afternoon.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+VI
+
+A BRAVE GENTLEMAN RECEIVES A HURT, BUT VOLUNTEERS IN A GOOD CAUSE
+
+
+When Ste. Marie had gone, Miss Benham sat alone in the drawing-room for
+almost an hour. She had been stirred that afternoon more deeply than she
+thought she had ever been stirred before, and she needed time to regain
+that cool poise, that mental equilibrium, which was normal to her and
+necessary for coherent thought.
+
+She was still in a sort of fever of bewilderment and exaltation, still
+all aglow with the man's own high fervor; but the second self which so
+often sat apart from her, and looked on with critical, mocking eyes,
+whispered that to-morrow, the fever past, the fervor cooled, she must
+see the thing in its true light--a glorious lunacy born of a moment of
+enthusiasm. It was finely romantic of him, this mocking second self
+whispered to her--picturesque beyond criticism--but, setting aside the
+practical folly of it, could even the mood last?
+
+The girl rose to her feet with an angry exclamation. She found herself
+intolerable at such times as this.
+
+"If there's a heaven," she cried out, "and by chance I ever go there, I
+suppose I shall walk sneering through the streets and saying to myself:
+'Oh yes, it's pretty enough, but how absurd and unpractical!'"
+
+She passed before one of the small, narrow mirrors which were let into
+the walls of the room in gilt Louis Seize frames with candles beside
+them, and she turned and stared at her very beautiful reflection with a
+resentful wonder.
+
+"Shall I always drag along so far behind him?" she said. "Shall I never
+rise to him, save in the moods of an hour?"
+
+She began suddenly to realize what the man's going away meant--that she
+might not see him again for weeks, months, even a year. For was it at
+all likely that he could succeed in what he had undertaken?
+
+"Why did I let him go?" she cried. "Oh, fool, fool, to let him go!" But
+even as she said it she knew that she could not have held him back.
+
+She began to be afraid, not for him, but of herself. He had taught her
+what it might be to love. For the first time love's premonitory
+thrill--promise of unspeakable, uncomprehended mysteries--had wrung her,
+and the echo of that thrill stirred in her yet; but what might not
+happen in his long absence? She was afraid of that critical and
+analyzing power of mind which she had so long trained to attack all that
+came to her. What might it not work with the new thing that had come? To
+what pitiful shreds might it not be rent while he who only could renew
+it was away? She looked ahead at the weeks and months to come, and she
+was terribly afraid.
+
+She went out of the room and up to her grandfather's chamber and knocked
+there. The admirable Peters, who opened to her, said that his master had
+not been very well, and was just then asleep, but as they spoke together
+in low tones the old gentleman cried, testily, from within:
+
+"Well? Well? Who's there? Who wants to see me? Who is it?"
+
+Miss Benham went into the dim, shaded room, and when old David saw who
+it was he sank back upon his pillows with a pacified growl. He certainly
+looked ill, and he had grown thinner and whiter within the past month,
+and the lines in his waxlike face seemed to be deeper scored.
+
+The girl went up beside the bed and stood there a moment, after she had
+bent over and kissed her grandfather's cheek, stroking with her hand the
+absurdly gorgeous mandarin's jacket--an imperial yellow one this time.
+
+"Isn't this new?" she asked. "I seem never to have seen this one before.
+It's quite wonderful."
+
+The old gentleman looked down at it with the pride of a little girl over
+her first party frock. He came as near simpering as a fierce person of
+eighty-six, with a square white beard, can come.
+
+"Rather good--what? What?" said he. "Yes, it's new. De Vries sent it me.
+It is my best one. Imperial yellow. Did you notice the little Show
+medallions with the swastika? Young Ste. Marie was here this afternoon."
+He introduced the name with no pause or change of expression, as if Ste.
+Marie were a part of the decoration of the mandarin's jacket. "I told
+him he was a damned fool."
+
+"Yes," said Miss Benham, "I know. He said you did. I suppose," she said,
+"that in a sort of very informal fashion I am engaged to him. Well, no,
+perhaps not quite that; but he seems to consider himself engaged to me,
+and when he has finished something very important that he has undertaken
+to do he is coming to ask me definitely to marry him. No, I suppose we
+aren't engaged yet; at least, I'm not. But it's almost the same, because
+I suppose I shall accept him whether he fails or succeeds in what he is
+doing."
+
+"If he fails in it, whatever it may be," said old David, "he won't give
+you a chance to accept him; he won't come back. I know him well enough
+for that. He's a romantic fool, but he's a thoroughgoing fool. He plays
+the game." The old man looked up to his granddaughter, scowling a
+little. "You two are absurdly unsuited to each other," said he, "and I
+told Ste. Marie so. I suppose you think you're in love with him."
+
+"Yes," said the girl, "I suppose I do."
+
+"Idleness and all? You were rather severe on idleness at one time."
+
+"He isn't idle any more," said she. "He has undertaken--of his own
+accord--to find Arthur. He has some theory about it; and he is not going
+to see me again until he has succeeded--or until a year is past. If he
+fails, I fancy he won't come back."
+
+Old David gave a sudden hoarse exclamation, and his withered hands shook
+and stirred before him. Afterward he fell to half-inarticulate
+muttering.
+
+"The young romantic fool!--Don Quixote--like all the rest of them--those
+Ste. Maries. The fool and the angels. The angels and the fool."
+
+The girl distinguished words from time to time. For the most part, he
+mumbled under his breath. But when he had been silent a long time, he
+said, suddenly:
+
+"It would be ridiculously like him to succeed."
+
+The girl gave a little sigh.
+
+"I wish I dared hope for it," said she. "I wish I dared hope for it."
+
+She had left a book that she wanted in the drawing-room, and, when
+presently her grandfather fell asleep in his fitful manner, she went
+down after it. In crossing the hall she came upon Captain Stewart, who
+was dressed for the street and had his hat and stick in his hands. He
+did not live in his father's house, for he had a little flat in the rue
+du Faubourg St. Honoré, but he was in and out a good deal. He paused
+when he saw his niece, and smiled upon her a benignant smile which she
+rather disliked, because she disliked benignant people. The two really
+saw very little of each other, though Captain Stewart often sat for
+hours together with his sister, up in a little boudoir which she had
+furnished in the execrable taste which to her meant comfort, while that
+timid and colorless lady embroidered strange tea cloths with stranger
+flora, and prattled about the heathen, in whom she had an academic
+interest.
+
+He said: "Ah, my dear! It's you?"
+
+Indisputably it was, and there seemed to be no use of denying it, so
+Miss Benham said nothing, but waited for the man to go on if he had more
+to say.
+
+"I dropped in," he continued, "to see my father, but they told me he was
+asleep, and so I didn't disturb him. I talked a little while with your
+mother instead."
+
+"I have just come from him," said Miss Benham. "He dozed off again as I
+left. Still, if you had anything in particular to tell him, he'd be glad
+to be wakened, I fancy. There's no news?"
+
+"No," said Captain Stewart, sadly--"no, nothing. I do not give up hope,
+but I am, I confess, a little discouraged."
+
+"We are all that, I should think," said Miss Benham, briefly.
+
+She gave him a little nod and turned away into the drawing-room. Her
+uncle's peculiar dry manner irritated her at times beyond bearing, and
+she felt that this was one of the times. She had never had any reason
+for doubting that he Was a good and kindly soul, but she disliked him
+because he bored her. Her mother bored her, too--the poor woman bored
+everybody--but the sense of filial obligation was strong enough in the
+girl to prevent her from acknowledging this even to herself. In regard
+to her uncle she had no sense of obligation whatever, except to be as
+civil to him as possible, and so she kept out of his way. She heard the
+heavy front door close, and gave a little sigh of relief.
+
+"If he had come in here and tried to talk to me," she said, "I should
+have screamed."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Meanwhile Ste. Marie, a man moving in a dream, uplifted,
+cloud-enwrapped, made his way homeward. He walked all the long
+distance--that is, looking backward upon it, later, he thought he must
+have walked, but the half-hour was a blank to him, an indeterminate, a
+chaotic whirl of things and emotions.
+
+In the little flat in the rue d'Assas he came upon Richard Hartley, who,
+having found the door unlocked and the master of the place absent, had
+sat comfortably down, with a pipe and a stack of _Couriers Français_, to
+wait. Ste. Marie burst into the doorway of the room where his friend sat
+at ease. Hat, gloves, and stick fell away from him in a sort of shower.
+He extended his arms high in the air. His face was, as it were,
+luminous. The Englishman regarded him morosely. He said:
+
+"You look as if somebody had died and left you money. What the devil you
+looking like that for?"
+
+"Hé!" cried Ste. Marie, in a great voice. "Hé, the world is mine!
+Embrace me, my infant! Sacred name of a pig, why do you sit there?
+Embrace me!"
+
+He began to stride about the room, his head between his hands. Speech
+lofty and ridiculous burst from him in a sort of splutter of fireworks,
+but the Englishman sat still in his chair, and a gray, bleak look came
+upon him, for he began to understand. He was more or less used to these
+outbursts, and he bore them as patiently as he could, but though seven
+times out of the ten they were no more than spasms of pure joy of
+living, and meant, "It's a fine spring day," or "I've just seen two
+beautiful princesses of milliners in the street," an inner voice told
+him that this time it meant another thing. Quite suddenly he realized
+that he had been waiting for this--bracing himself against its
+onslaught. He had not been altogether blind through the past month. Ste.
+Marie seized him and dragged him from his chair.
+
+"Dance, lump of flesh! Dance, sacred English rosbif that you are! Sing,
+gros polisson! Sing!" Abruptly, as usual, the mania departed from him,
+but not the glory; his eyes shone bright and triumphant. "Ah, my old,"
+said he, "I am near the stars at last. My feet are on the top rungs of
+the ladder. Tell me that you are glad!"
+
+The Englishman drew a long breath.
+
+"I take it," said he, "that means that you're--that she has accepted
+you, eh?" He held out his hand. He was a brave and honest man. Even in
+pain he was incapable of jealousy. He said: "I ought to want to murder
+you, but I don't. I congratulate you. You're an undeserving beggar, but
+so were the rest of us. It was an open field, and you've won quite
+honestly. My best wishes!"
+
+Then at last Ste. Marie understood, and in a flash the glory went out of
+his face. He cried: "Ah, mon cher ami! Pig that I am to forget. Pig!
+Pig! Animal!"
+
+The other man saw that tears had sprung to his eyes, and was horribly
+embarrassed to the very bottom of his good British soul.
+
+"Yes! Yes!" he said, gruffly. "Quite so, quite so! No consequence!" He
+dragged his hands away from Ste. Marie's grasp, stuck them in his
+pockets, and turned to the window beside which he had been sitting. It
+looked out over the sweet green peace of the Luxembourg Gardens, with
+their winding paths and their clumps of trees and shrubbery, their
+flaming flower-beds, their groups of weather-stained sculpture. A youth
+in laborer's corduroys and an unclean beret strolled along under the
+high palings; one arm was about the ample waist of a woman somewhat the
+youth's senior, but, as ever, love was blind. The youth carolled in a
+high, clear voice, "Vous êtes si jolie," a song of abundant sentiment,
+and the woman put up one hand and patted his cheek. So they strolled on
+and turned up into the rue Vavin.
+
+Ste. Marie, across the room, looked at his friend's square back, and
+knew that in his silent way the man was suffering. A great sadness, the
+recoil from his trembling heights of bliss, came upon him and enveloped
+him. Was it true that one man's joy must inevitably be another's pain?
+He tried to imagine himself in Hartley's place, Hartley in his, and he
+gave a little shiver. He knew that if that bouleversement were actually
+to take place he would be as glad for his friend's sake as poor Hartley
+was now for his, but he knew also that the smile of congratulation would
+be a grimace of almost intolerable pain, and so he knew what Hartley's
+black hour must be like.
+
+"You must forgive me," he said. "I had forgotten. I don't know why.
+Well, yes, happiness is a very selfish state of mind, I suppose. One
+thinks of nothing but one's self--and one other. I--during this past
+month I've been in the clouds. You must forgive me."
+
+The Englishman turned back into the room. Ste. Marie saw that his face
+was as completely devoid of expression as it usually was, that his
+hands, when he chose and lighted a cigarette, were quite steady, and he
+marvelled. That would have been impossible for him under such
+circumstances.
+
+"She has accepted you, I take it?" said Hartley again.
+
+"Not quite that," said he. "Sit down and I'll tell you about it." So he
+told him about his hour with Miss Benham, and about what had been agreed
+upon between them, and about what he had undertaken to do. "Apart from
+wishing to do everything in this world that I can do to make her happy,"
+he said--"and she will never be at peace again until she knows the truth
+about her brother--apart from that, I'm purely selfish in the thing.
+I've got to win her respect, as well as--the rest. I want her to respect
+me, and she has never quite done that. I'm an idler. So are you, but you
+have a perfectly good excuse. I have not. I've been an idler because it
+suited me, because nothing turned up, and because I have enough to eat
+without working for my living. I know how she has felt about all that.
+Well, she shall feel it no longer."
+
+"You're taking on a big order," said the other man.
+
+"The bigger the better," said Ste. Marie. "And I shall succeed in it or
+never see her again. I've sworn that."
+
+The odd look of exaltation that Miss Benham had seen in his face, the
+look of knightly fervor, came there again, and Hartley saw it, and knew
+that the man was stirred by no transient whim. Oddly enough he thought,
+as had the girl earlier in the day, of those elder Ste. Maries, who had
+taken sword and lance and gone out into a strange world--a place of
+unknown terrors--afire for the Great Adventure. And this was one of
+their blood.
+
+"I'm afraid you don't realize," he went on, "the difficulties you've got
+to face. Better men than you have failed over this thing, you know."
+
+"A worse might nevertheless succeed," said Ste. Marie. And the other
+said:
+
+"Yes. Oh yes. And there's always luck to be considered, of course. You
+might stumble on some trace." He threw away his cigarette and lighted
+another, and he smoked it down almost to the end before he spoke. At
+last he said: "I want to tell you something. The reason why I want to
+tell it comes a little later. A few weeks before you returned to Paris I
+asked Miss Benham to marry me."
+
+Ste. Marie looked up with a quick sympathy. "Ah," said he. "I have
+sometimes thought--wondered. I have wondered if it went as far as that.
+Of course, I could see that you had known her well, though you seldom go
+there nowadays."
+
+"Yes," said Hartley, "it went as far as that, but no farther. She--well,
+she didn't care for me--not in that way. So I stiffened my back and shut
+my mouth, and got used to the fact that what I'd hoped for was
+impossible. And now comes the reason for telling you what I've told. I
+want you to let me help you in what you're going to do--if you think you
+can, that is. Remember, I--cared for her, too. I'd like to do something
+for her. It would never have occurred to me to do this until you thought
+of it, but I should like very much to lend a hand--do some of the work.
+D'you think you could let me in?"
+
+Ste. Marie stared at him in open astonishment, and, for an instant,
+something like dismay.
+
+"Yes, yes! I know what you're thinking," said the Englishman. "You'd
+hoped to do it all yourself. It's _your_ game. I know. Well, it's your
+game even if you let me come in. I'm just a helper. Some one to run
+errands. Some one, perhaps, to take counsel with now and then. Look at
+it on the practical side. Two heads are certainly better than one.
+Certainly I could be of use to you. And besides--well, I want to do
+something for her. I--cared, too, you see. D'you think you could take me
+in?"
+
+It was the man's love that made his appeal irresistible. No one could
+appeal to Ste. Marie on that score in vain. It was true that he had
+hoped to work alone--to win or lose alone; to stand, in this matter,
+quite on his own feet; but he could not deny the man who had loved her
+and lost her. Ste. Marie thrust out his hand.
+
+"You love her, too!" he said. "That is enough. We work together. I have
+a possibly foolish idea that if we can find a certain man we will learn
+something about Arthur Benham. I'll tell you about it."
+
+But before he could begin the door-bell jangled.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+VII
+
+CAPTAIN STEWART MAKES A KINDLY OFFER
+
+
+Ste. Marie scowled.
+
+"A caller would come singularly malapropos just now," said he. "I've
+half a mind not to go to the door. I want to talk this thing over with
+you."
+
+"Whoever it is," objected Hartley, "has been told by the concierge that
+you're at home. It may not be a caller, anyhow. It may be a parcel or
+something. You'd best go."
+
+So Ste. Marie went out into the little passage, blaspheming fluently the
+while. The Englishman heard him open the outer door of the flat. He
+heard him exclaim, in great surprise:
+
+"Ah, Captain Stewart! A great pleasure! Come in! Come in!"
+
+And he permitted himself a little blaspheming on his own account, for
+the visitor, as Ste. Marie had said, came most malapropos, and, besides,
+he disliked Miss Benham's uncle. He heard the American say:
+
+"I have been hoping for some weeks to give myself the pleasure of
+calling here, and to-day such an excellent pretext presented itself that
+I came straightaway."
+
+Hartley heard him emit his mewing little laugh, and heard him say, with
+the elephantine archness affected by certain dry and middle-aged
+gentlemen:
+
+"I come with congratulations. My niece has told me all about it. Lucky
+young man! Ah--"
+
+He reached the door of the inner room and saw Richard Hartley standing
+by the window, and he began to apologize profusely, saying that he had
+had no idea that Ste. Marie was not alone. But Ste. Marie said:
+
+"It doesn't in the least matter. I have no secrets from Hartley. Indeed,
+I have just been talking with him about this very thing."
+
+But for all that he looked curiously at the elder man, and it struck him
+as very odd that Miss Benham should have gone straight to her uncle and
+told him all this. It did not seem in the least like her, especially as
+he knew the two were on no terms of intimacy. He decided that she must
+have gone up to her grandfather's room to discuss it with that old
+gentleman--a reasonable enough hypothesis--and that Captain Stewart must
+have come in during the discussion. Quite evidently he had wasted no
+time in setting out upon his errand of congratulation.
+
+"Then," said Captain Stewart, "if I am to be good-naturedly forgiven for
+my stupidity, let me go on and say, in my capacity as a member of the
+family, that the news pleased me very much. I was glad to hear it."
+
+He shook Ste. Marie's hand, looking very benignant indeed, and Ste.
+Marie was quite overcome with pleasure and gratitude; it seemed to him
+such a very kindly act in the elder man. He produced things to smoke and
+drink, and Captain Stewart accepted a cigarette and mixed himself a
+rather stiff glass of absinthe--it was between five and six o'clock.
+
+"And now," said he, when he was at ease in the most comfortable of the
+low cane chairs, and the glass of opalescent liquor was properly curdled
+and set at hand--"now, having congratulated you and--ah, welcomed you,
+if I may put it so, as a probable future member of the family--I turn to
+the other feature of the affair."
+
+He had an odd trick of lowering his head and gazing benevolently upon an
+auditor as if over the top of spectacles. It was one of his elderly
+ways. He beamed now upon Ste. Marie in this manner, and, after a moment,
+turned and beamed upon Richard Hartley, who gazed stolidly back at him
+without expression.
+
+"You have determined, I hear," said he, "to join us in our search for
+poor Arthur. Good! Good! I welcome you there, also."
+
+Ste. Marie stirred uneasily in his chair.
+
+"Well," said he, "in a sense, yes. That is, I've determined to devote
+myself to the search, and Hartley is good enough to offer to go in with
+me; but I think, if you don't mind--of course, I know it's very
+presumptuous and doubtless idiotic of us--but, if you don't mind, I
+think we'll work independently. You see--well, I can't quite put it into
+words, but it's our idea to succeed or fail quite by our own efforts. I
+dare say we shall fail, but it won't be for lack of trying."
+
+Captain Stewart looked disappointed.
+
+"Oh, I think--" said he. "Pardon me for saying it, but I think you're
+rather foolish to do that." He waved an apologetic hand. "Of course, I
+comprehend your excellent motive. Yes, as you say, you want to succeed
+quite on your own. But look at the practical side! You'll have to go
+over all the weary weeks of useless labor we have gone over. We could
+save you that. We have examined and followed up, and at last given over,
+a hundred clews that on the surface looked quite possible of success.
+You'll be doing that all over again. In short, my dear friend, you will
+merely be following along a couple of months behind us. It seems to me a
+pity. I sha'n't like to see you wasting your time and efforts."
+
+He dropped his eyes to the glass of Pernod which stood beside him, and
+he took it in his hand and turned it slowly and watched the light gleam
+in strange pearl colors upon it. He glanced up again with a little smile
+which the two younger men found oddly pathetic.
+
+"I should like to see you succeed," said Captain Stewart. "I like to see
+youth and courage and high hope succeed." He said: "I am past the age of
+romance, though I am not so very old in years. Romance has passed me by,
+but--I love it still. It still stirs me surprisingly when I see it in
+other people--young people who are simple and earnest, and who--and who
+are in love." He laughed gently, still turning the glass in his hand. "I
+am afraid you will call me a sentimentalist," he said, "and an elderly
+sentimentalist is, as a rule, a ridiculous person. Ridiculous or not,
+though, I have rather set my heart on your success in this undertaking.
+Who knows? You may succeed where we others have failed. Youth has such a
+way of charging in and carrying all before it by assault--such a way of
+overleaping barriers that look unsurmountable to older eyes! Youth!
+Youth! Eh, my God," said he, "to be young again, just for a little
+while! To feel the blood beat strong and eager! Never to be tired! Eh,
+to be like one of you youngsters! You, Ste. Marie, or you, Hartley!
+There's so little left for people when youth is gone!"
+
+He bent his head again, staring down upon the glass before him, and for
+a while there was a silence which neither of the younger men cared to
+break.
+
+"Don't refuse a helping hand," said Captain Stewart, looking up once
+more. "Don't be over-proud. I may be able to set you upon the right
+path. Not that I have anything definite to work upon--I haven't, alas!
+But each day new clews turn up. One day we shall find the real one, and
+that may be one that I have turned over to you to follow out. One never
+knows."
+
+Ste. Marie looked across at Richard Hartley, but that gentleman was
+blowing smoke-rings and to all outward appearance giving them his entire
+attention. He looked back to Captain Stewart, and Stewart's eyes
+regarded him, smiling a little wistfully, he thought. Ste. Marie scowled
+out of the window at the trees of the Luxembourg Gardens.
+
+"I hardly know," said he. "Of course, I sound a braying ass in
+hesitating even a moment; but, in a way, you understand, I'm so anxious
+to do this or to fail in it quite on my own. You're--so tremendously
+kind about it that I don't know what to say. I must seem very
+ungrateful, I know; but I'm not."
+
+"No," said the elder man, "you don't seem ungrateful at all. I
+understand exactly how you feel about it, and I applaud your
+feeling--but not your judgment. I am afraid that for the sake of a
+sentiment you're taking unnecessary risks of failure."
+
+For the first time Richard Hartley spoke.
+
+"I've an idea, you know," said he, "that it's going to be a matter
+chiefly of luck. One day somebody will stumble on the right trail, and
+that might as well be Ste. Marie or I as your trained detectives. If you
+don't mind my saying so, sir--I don't want to seem rude--your trained
+detectives do not seem to accomplish much in two months, do they?"
+
+Captain Stewart looked thoughtfully at the younger man.
+
+"No," he said, at last. "I am sorry to say they don't seem to have
+accomplished much--except to prove that there are a great many places
+poor Arthur has _not_ been to and a great many people who have _not_
+seen him. After all, that is something--the elimination of ground that
+need not be worked over again." He set down the glass from which he had
+been drinking. "I cannot agree with your theory," he said. "I cannot
+agree that such work as this is best left to an accidental solution.
+Accidents are too rare. We have tried to go at it in as scientific a way
+as could be managed--by covering large areas of territory, by keeping
+the police everywhere on the alert, by watching the boy's old friends
+and searching his favorite haunts. Personally, I am inclined to think
+that he managed to slip away to America very early in the course of
+events, before we began to search for him, and, of course, I am having a
+careful watch kept there as well as here. But no trace has appeared as
+yet--nothing at all trustworthy. Meanwhile, I continue to hope and to
+work, but I grow a little discouraged. In any case, though, we shall
+hear of him in three months more if he is alive."
+
+"Why three months?" asked Ste. Marie. "What do you mean by that?"
+
+"In three months," said Captain Stewart, "Arthur will be of age, and he
+can demand the money left him by his father. If he is alive he will turn
+up for that. I have thought, from the first, that he is merely hiding
+somewhere until this time should be past. He--you must know that he went
+away very angry, after a quarrel with his grandfather? My father is not
+a patient man. He may have been very harsh with the boy."
+
+"Ah, yes," said Hartley; "but no boy, however young or angry, would be
+foolish enough to risk an absolute break with the man who is going to
+leave him a large fortune. Young Benham must know that his grandfather
+would never forgive him for staying away all this time if he stayed away
+of his own accord. He must know that he'd be taking tremendous risks of
+being cut off altogether."
+
+"And besides," added Ste. Marie, "it is quite possible that your father,
+sir, may die at any time--any hour. And he's very angry at his grandson.
+He may have cut him off already."
+
+Captain Stewart's eyes sharpened suddenly, but he dropped them to the
+glass in his hand.
+
+"Have you any reason for thinking that?" he asked.
+
+"No," said Ste. Marie. "I beg your pardon. I shouldn't have said it.
+That is a matter which concerns your family alone. I forgot myself. The
+possibility occurred to me suddenly for the first time."
+
+But the elder man looked up at him with a smile.
+
+"Pray don't apologize," said he. "Surely we three can speak frankly
+together! And, frankly, I know nothing of my father's will. But I don't
+think he would cut poor Arthur off, though he is, of course, very angry
+about the boy's leaving in the manner he did. No, I am sure he wouldn't
+cut him off. He was fond of the lad, very fond--as we all were."
+
+Captain Stewart glanced at his watch and rose with a little sigh.
+
+"I must be off," said he. "I have to dine out this evening, and I must
+get home to change. There is a cabstand near you?" He looked out of the
+window. "Ah, yes! Just at the corner of the Gardens."
+
+He turned about to Ste. Marie, and held out his hand with a smile. He
+said:
+
+"You refuse to join forces with us, then? Well, I'm sorry. But, for all
+that, I wish you luck. Go your own way, and I hope you'll succeed. I
+honestly hope that, even though your success may show me up for an
+incompetent bungler."
+
+He gave a little kindly laugh, and Ste. Marie tried to protest.
+
+"Still," said the elder man, "don't throw me over altogether. If I can
+help you in any way, little or big, let me know. If I can give you any
+hints, any advice, anything at all, I want to do it. And if you happen
+upon what seems to be a promising clew come and talk it over with me.
+Oh, don't be afraid! I'll leave it to you to work out. I sha'n't spoil
+your game."
+
+"Ah, now, that's very good of you," said Ste. Marie. "Only you make me
+seem more than ever an ungrateful fool. Thanks, I will come to you with
+my troubles if I may. I have a foolish idea that I want to follow out a
+little first, but doubtless I shall be running to you soon for
+information."
+
+The elder man's eyes sharpened again with keen interest.
+
+"An idea!" he said, quickly. "You have an idea? What--May I ask what
+sort of an idea?"
+
+"Oh, it's nothing," declared Ste. Marie. "You have already laughed at
+it. I just want to find that man O'Hara, that's all. I've a feeling that
+I should learn something from him."
+
+"Ah!" said Captain Stewart, slowly. "Yes, the man O'Hara. There's
+nothing in that, I'm afraid. I've made inquiries about O'Hara. It seems
+he left Paris six months ago, saying he was off for America. An old
+friend of his told me that. So you must have been mistaken when you
+thought you saw him in the Champs-Elysées; and he couldn't very well
+have had anything to do with poor Arthur. I'm afraid that idea is hardly
+worth following up."
+
+"Perhaps not," said Ste. Marie. "I seem to start badly, don't I? Ah,
+well, I'll have to come to you all the sooner, then."
+
+"You'll be welcome," promised Captain Stewart. "Good-bye to you!
+Good-day, Hartley. Come and see me, both of you. You know where I live."
+
+He took his leave then, and Hartley, standing beside the window, watched
+him turn down the street, and at the corner get into one of the fiacres
+there and drive away.
+
+Ste. Marie laughed aloud.
+
+"There's the second time," said he, "that I've had him about O'Hara. If
+he is as careless as that about everything, I don't wonder he hasn't
+found Arthur Benham. O'Hara disappeared from Paris--publicly, that
+is--at about the time young Benham disappeared. As a matter of fact, he
+remains, or at least for a time remained, in the city without letting
+his friends know, because I made no mistake about seeing him in the
+Champs-Elysées. All that looks to me suspicious enough to be worth
+investigation. Of course," he admitted, doubtfully--"of course, I'm no
+detective; but that's how it looks to me."
+
+"I don't believe Stewart is any detective, either," said Richard
+Hartley. "He's altogether too cocksure. That sort of man would rather
+die than admit he is wrong about anything. He's a good old chap, though,
+isn't he? I liked him to-day better than ever before. I thought he was
+rather pathetic when he went on about his age."
+
+"He has a good heart," said Ste. Marie. "Very few men under the
+circumstances would come here and be as decent as he was. Most men would
+have thought I was a presumptuous ass, and would have behaved
+accordingly."
+
+Ste. Marie took a turn about the room, and his face began to light up
+with its new excitement and exaltation.
+
+"And to-morrow!" he cried--"to-morrow we begin! To-morrow we set out
+into the world and the Adventure is on foot! God send it success!"
+
+He laughed across at the other man; but it was a laugh of eagerness, not
+of mirth.
+
+"I feel," said he, "like Jason. I feel as if we were to set sail
+to-morrow for Colchis and the Golden Fleece."
+
+"Y-e-s," said the other man, a little dryly--"yes, perhaps. I don't want
+to seem critical, but isn't your figure somewhat ill chosen?"
+
+"'Ill chosen'?" cried Ste. Marie. "What d'you mean? Why ill chosen?"
+
+"I was thinking of Medea," said Richard Hartley.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+VIII
+
+JASON MEETS WITH A MISADVENTURE AND DREAMS A DREAM
+
+
+So on the next day these two rode forth upon their quest, and no quest
+was ever undertaken with a stouter courage or with a grimmer
+determination to succeed. To put it fancifully, they burned their tower
+behind them, for to one of them, at least--to him who led--there was no
+going back.
+
+But, after all, they set forth under a cloud, and Ste. Marie took a
+heavy heart with him. On the evening before an odd and painful incident
+had befallen--a singularly unfortunate incident.
+
+It chanced that neither of the two men had a dinner engagement that
+evening, and so, after their old habit, they dined together. There was
+some wrangling over where they should go, Hartley insisting upon
+Armenonville or the Madrid, in the Bois, Ste. Marie objecting that these
+would be full of tourists so late in June, and urging the claims of some
+quiet place in the Quarter, where they could talk instead of listening
+perforce to loud music. In the end, for no particular reason, they
+compromised on the little Spanish restaurant in the rue Helder. They
+went there about eight o'clock, without dressing, for it is a very quiet
+place which the world does not visit, and they had a sopa de yerbas, and
+some langostinos, which are shrimps, and a heavenly arroz, with fowl in
+it, and many tender, succulent strips of red pepper. They had a salad
+made out of a little of everything that grows green, with the true
+Spanish oil, which has a tang and a bouquet unappreciated by the
+Philistine; and then they had a strange pastry and some cheese and green
+almonds. And to make then glad, they drank a bottle of old red
+Valdepenas, and afterward a glass each of a special Manzanilla, upon
+which the restaurant very justly prides itself.
+
+It was a simple dinner and a little stodgy for that time of the year,
+but the two men were hungry and sat at table, almost alone in the upper
+room, for a long time, saying how good everything was, and from time to
+time despatching the saturnine waiter, a Madrileno, for more peppers.
+When at last they came out into the narrow street, and thence to the
+thronged Boulevard des Italiens, it was nearly eleven o'clock. They
+stood for a little time in the shelter of a kiosk, looking down the
+boulevard to where the Place de l'Opéra opened wide and the lights of
+the Café de la Paix shone garish in the night. And Ste. Marie said:
+
+"There's a street fête in Montmartre. We might drive home that way."
+
+"An excellent idea," said the other man. "The fact that Montmartre lies
+in an opposite direction from home makes the plan all the better. And
+after that we might drive home through the Bois. That's much farther in
+the wrong direction. Lead on!"
+
+So they sprang into a waiting fiacre, and were dragged up the steep,
+stone-paved hill to the heights, where La Bohême still reigns, though
+the glory of Moulin Rouge has departed and the trail of the tourist is
+over all. They found Montmartre very much en fête. In the Place Blanche
+were two of the enormous and brilliantly lighted merry-go-rounds, which
+only Paris knows--one furnished with stolid cattle, theatrical-looking
+horses, and Russian sleighs; the other with the ever-popular galloping
+pigs. When these dreadful machines were in rotation, mechanical organs,
+concealed somewhere in their bowels, emitted hideous brays and shrieks
+which mingled with the shrieks of the ladies mounted upon the galloping
+pigs, and together insulted a peaceful sky.
+
+The square was filled with that extremely heterogeneous throng which the
+Parisian street fête gathers together, but it was, for the most part, a
+well-dressed throng, largely recruited from the boulevards, and it was
+quite determined to have a very good time in the cheerful, harmless
+Latin fashion. The two men got down from their fiacre and elbowed a way
+through the good-natured crowd to a place near the more popular of the
+merry-go-rounds. The machine was in rotation. Its garish lights shone
+and glittered, its hidden mechanical organ blared a German waltz tune,
+the huge, pink-varnished pigs galloped gravely up and down as the
+platform upon which they were mounted whirled round and round. A little
+group of American trippers, sight-seeing with a guide, stood near by,
+and one of the group, a pretty girl with red hair, demanded plaintively
+of the friend upon whose arm she hung: "Do you think momma would be
+shocked if we took a ride? Wouldn't I love to!"
+
+Hartley turned, laughing, from this distressed maiden to Ste. Marie. He
+was wondering, with mild amusement, why anybody should wish to do such a
+foolish thing; but Ste. Marie's eyes were fixed upon the galloping pigs,
+and the eyes shone with a wistful excitement. To tell the truth, it was
+impossible for him to look on at any form of active amusement without
+thirsting to join it. A joyous and carefree lady in a blue hat, who was
+mounted astride upon one of the pigs, hurled a paper serpentine at him
+and shrieked with delight when it knocked his hat off.
+
+"That's the second time she has hit me with one of those things," he
+said, groping about his feet for the hat. "Here, stop that boy with the
+basket!"
+
+A vendor of the little rolls of paper ribbon was shouting his wares
+through the crowd. Ste. Marie filled his pockets with the things, and
+when the lady with the blue hat came round, on the next turn, lassoed
+her neatly about the neck and held the end of the ribbon till it broke.
+Then he caught a fat gentleman, who was holding himself on by his
+steed's neck, in the ear, and the red-haired American girl laughed
+aloud.
+
+"When the thing stops," said Ste. Marie, "I'm going to take a ride--just
+one ride. I haven't ridden a pig for many years."
+
+Hartley jeered at him, calling him an infant, but Ste. Marie bought more
+serpentines, and when the platform came to a stop clambered up to it and
+mounted the only unoccupied pig he could find. His friend still scoffed
+at him and called him names, but Ste. Marie tucked his long legs round
+the pig's neck and smiled back, and presently the machine began again to
+revolve.
+
+At the end of the first revolution Hartley gave a shout of delight, for
+he saw that the lady with the blue hat had left her mount and was making
+her way along the platform toward where Ste. Marie sat hurling
+serpentines in the face of the world. By the next time round she had
+come to where he was, mounted astride behind him, and was holding
+herself with one very shapely arm round his neck, while with the other
+she rifled his pockets for ammunition. Ste. Marie grinned, and the
+public, loud in its acclaims, began to pelt the two with serpentines
+until they were hung with many-colored ribbons like a Christmas-tree.
+Even Richard Hartley was so far moved out of the self-consciousness with
+which his race is cursed as to buy a handful of the common missiles, and
+the lady in the blue hat returned his attention with skill and despatch.
+
+But as the machine began to slacken its pace, and the hideous wail and
+blare of the concealed organ died mercifully down, Hartley saw that his
+friend's manner had all at once altered, that he sat leaning forward
+away from the enthusiastic lady with the blue hat, and that the paper
+serpentines had dropped from his hands. Hartley thought that the rapid
+motion must have made him a little giddy, but presently, before the
+merry-go-round had quite stopped, he saw the man leap down and hurry
+toward him through the crowd. Ste. Marie's face was grave and pale. He
+caught Hartley's arm in his hand and turned him round, crying, in a low
+voice:
+
+"Come out of this as quickly as you can! No, in the other direction. I
+want to get away at once!"
+
+"What's the matter?" Hartley demanded. "Lady in the blue hat too
+friendly? Well, if you're going to play this kind of game you might as
+well play it."
+
+"Helen Benham was down there in the crowd," said Ste. Marie. "On the
+opposite side from you. She was with a party of people who got out of
+two motor-cars to look on. They were in evening things, so they had come
+from dinner somewhere, I suppose. She saw me."
+
+"The devil!" said Hartley, under his breath. Then he gave a shout of
+laughter, demanding: "Well, what of it? You weren't committing any
+crime, were you? There's no harm in riding a silly pig in a silly
+merry-go-round. Everybody does it in these fête things." But even as he
+spoke he knew how extremely unfortunate the meeting was, and the
+laughter went out of his voice.
+
+"I'm afraid," said Ste. Marie, "she won't see the humor of it. Good God,
+what a thing to happen! _You_ know well enough what she'll think of me.
+At five o'clock this afternoon," he said, bitterly, "I left her with a
+great many fine, high-sounding words about the quest I was to give my
+days and nights to--for her sake. I went away from her like a--knight
+going into battle--consecrated. I tell you, there were tears in her eyes
+when I went. And _now_--now, at midnight--she sees me riding a galloping
+pig in a street fête with a girl from the boulevards sitting on the pig
+with me and holding me round the neck before a thousand people. What
+will she think of me? What but one thing can she possibly think? Oh, I
+know well enough! I saw her face before she turned away. And," he cried,
+"I can't even go to her and explain--if there's anything to explain, and
+I suppose there is not. I can't even go to her. I've sworn not to see
+her."
+
+"Oh, I'll do that," said the other man. "I'll explain it to her, if any
+explanation's necessary. I think you'll find that she will laugh at it."
+
+But Ste. Marie shook his head.
+
+"No, she won't," said he.
+
+And Hartley could say no more; for he knew Miss Benham, and he was very
+much afraid that she would not laugh.
+
+They found a fiacre at the side of the square and drove home at once.
+They were almost entirely silent all the long way, for Ste. Marie was
+buried in gloom, and the Englishman, after trying once or twice to cheer
+him up, realized that he was best left to himself just then, and so held
+his tongue. But in the rue d'Assas, as Ste. Marie was getting
+down--Hartley kept the fiacre to go on to his rooms in the Avenue de
+l'Observatoire--he made a last attempt to lighten the man's depression.
+He said:
+
+"Don't you be a silly ass about this! You're making much too much of it,
+you know. I'll go to her to-morrow or next day and explain, and she'll
+laugh---if she hasn't already done so. You know," he said, almost
+believing it himself, "you are paying her a dashed poor compliment in
+thinking she's so dull as to misunderstand a little thing of this kind.
+Yes, by Jove, you are!"
+
+Ste. Marie looked up at him, and his face, in the light of the cab lamp,
+showed a first faint gleam of hope.
+
+"Do you think so?" he demanded. "Do you really think that? Maybe I am.
+But--Oh, Lord, who would understand such an idiocy? Sacred imbecile that
+I am! Why was I ever born? I ask you."
+
+He turned abruptly, and began to ring at the door, casting a brief
+"Good-night" over his shoulder. And after a moment Hartley gave it up
+and drove away.
+
+Above, in the long, shallow front room of his flat, with the three
+windows overlooking the Gardens, Ste. Marie made lights, and after much
+rummaging unearthed a box of cigarettes of a peculiarly delectable
+flavor which had been sent him by a friend in the Khedivial household.
+He allowed himself one or two of them now and then, usually in sorrowful
+moments, as an especial treat; and this seemed to him to be the moment
+for smoking all that were left. Surely his need had never been greater.
+In England he had, of course, learned to smoke a pipe, but pipe-smoking
+always remained with him a species of accomplishment; it never brought
+him the deep and ruminative peace with which it enfolds the Anglo-Saxon
+heart. The "vieux Jacob" of old-fashioned Parisian Bohemia inspired in
+him unconcealed horror, of cigars he was suspicious because, he said,
+most of the unpleasant people he knew smoked cigars, so he soothed his
+soul with cigarettes, and he was usually to be found with one between
+his fingers.
+
+He lighted one of the precious Egyptians, and after a first ecstatic
+inhalation went across to one of the long windows, which was open, and
+stood there with his back to the room, his face to the peaceful,
+fragrant night. A sudden recollection came to him of that other night a
+month before when he had stood on the Pont des Invalides with his eyes
+upon the stars, his feet upon the ladder thereunto. His heart gave a
+sudden exultant leap within him when he thought how far and high he had
+climbed, but after the leap it shivered and stood still when this
+evening's misadventure came before him.
+
+Would she ever understand? He had no fear that Hartley would not do his
+best with her. Hartley was as honest and as faithful as ever a friend
+was in this world. He would do his best. But even then--It was the
+girl's inflexible nature that made the matter so dangerous. He knew that
+she was inflexible, and he took a curious pride in it. He admired it. So
+must have been those calm-eyed, ancient ladies for whom other Ste.
+Maries went out to do battle. It was well-nigh impossible to imagine
+them lowering their eyes to silly revelry. They could not stoop to such
+as that. It was beneath their high dignity. And it was beneath hers
+also. As for himself, he was a thing of patches. Here a patch of exalted
+chivalry--a noble patch--there a patch of bourgeois, childlike love of
+fun; here a patch of melancholic asceticism, there one of something
+quite the reverse. A hopeless patchwork he was. Must she not shrink from
+him when she knew? He could not quite imagine her understanding the
+wholly trivial and meaningless impulse that had prompted him to ride a
+galloping pig and cast paper serpentines at the assembled world.
+
+Apart from her view of the affair, he felt no shame in it. The moment of
+childish gayety had been but a passing mood. It had in no way slackened
+his tense enthusiasm, dulled the keenness of his spirit, lowered his
+high flight. He knew that well enough. But he wondered if she would
+understand, and he could not believe it possible. The mood of exaltation
+in which they had parted that afternoon came to him, and then the sight
+of her shocked face as he had seen it in the laughing crowd in the Place
+Blanche.
+
+"What must she think of me?" he cried, aloud. "What must she think of
+me?"
+
+So, for an hour or more, he stood in the open window staring into the
+fragrant night, or tramped up and down the long room, his hands behind
+his back, kicking out of his way the chairs and things which impeded
+him, torturing himself with fears and regrets and fancies, until at
+last, in a calmer moment, he realized that he was working himself up
+into an absurd state of nerves over something which was done and could
+not now be helped. The man had an odd streak of fatalism in his
+nature--that will have come of his Southern blood--and it came to him
+now in his need. For the work upon which he was to enter with the morrow
+he had need of clear wits, not scattered ones; a calm judgment, not
+disordered nerves. So he took himself in hand, and it would have been
+amazing to any one unfamiliar with the abrupt changes of the Latin
+temperament to see how suddenly Ste. Marie became quiet and cool and
+master of himself.
+
+"It is done," he said, with a little shrug, and if his face was for a
+moment bitter it quickly enough became impassive. "It is done, and it
+cannot be undone--unless Hartley can undo it. And now, revenons à nos
+moutons! Or, at least," said he, looking at his watch--and it was
+between one and two--"at least, to our beds!"
+
+So he went to bed, and, so well had he recovered from his fit of
+excitement, he fell asleep almost at once. But for all that the jangled
+nerves had their revenge. He who commonly slept like the dead, without
+the slightest disturbance, dreamed a strange dream. It seemed to him
+that he stood spent and weary in a twilight place--a waste place at the
+foot of a high hill. At the top of the hill She sat upon a sort of
+throne, golden in a beam of light from heaven--serene, very beautiful,
+the end and crown of his weary labors. His feet were set to the ascent
+of the height whereon she waited, but he was withheld. From the shadows
+at the hill's foot a voice called to him in distress, anguish of
+spirit--a voice he knew; but he could not say whose voice. It besought
+him out of utter need, and he could not turn away from it.
+
+Then from those shadows eyes looked upon him, very great and dark eyes,
+and they besought him, too; he did not know what they asked, but they
+called to him like the low voice, and he could not turn away.
+
+He looked to the far height, and with all his power he strove to set his
+feet toward it--the goal of long labor and desire; but the eyes and the
+piteous voice held him motionless--for they needed him.
+
+From this anguish he awoke trembling. And after a long time, when he was
+composed, he fell asleep once more, and once more he dreamed the dream.
+
+So morning found him pallid and unrefreshed. But by daylight he knew
+whose eyes had besought him, and he wondered and was a little afraid.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+IX
+
+JASON GOES UPON A JOURNEY, AND RICHARD HARTLEY PLEADS FOR HIM
+
+
+It may as well be admitted at the outset that neither Ste. Marie nor
+Richard Hartley proved themselves to be geniuses, hitherto undeveloped,
+in the detective science. They entered upon their self-appointed task
+with a fine fervor, but, as Miss Benham had suggested, with no other
+qualifications in particular. Ste. Marie had a theory that, when engaged
+in work of this nature, you went into questionable parts of the city,
+ate and drank cheek by jowl with questionable people--if possible, got
+them drunk while you remained sober (difficult feat), and sooner or
+later they said things which put you on the right road to your goal, or
+else confessed to you that they themselves had committed the particular
+crime in which you were interested. He argued that this was the way it
+happened in books, and that surely people didn't write books about
+things of which they were ignorant.
+
+Hartley, on the other hand, preferred the newer, or scientific, methods.
+You sat at home with a pipe and a whiskey-and-water--if possible, in a
+long dressing-gown with a cord round its middle. You reviewed all the
+known facts of the case, and you did mathematics about them with Xs and
+Ys and many other symbols, and in the end, by a system of elimination,
+you proved that a certain thing must infallibly be true. The chief
+difficulty for him in this was, he said, that he had been at Oxford
+instead of at Cambridge, and so the mathematics were rather beyond him.
+
+In practice, however, they combined the two methods, which was doubtless
+as well as if they hadn't, because for some time they accomplished
+nothing whatever, and so neither one was able to sneer at the other's
+stupidity.
+
+This is not to say that they found nothing in the way of clews. They
+found an embarrassment of them, and for some days went about in a fever
+of excitement over these; but the fever cooled when clew after clew
+turned out to be misleading. Of course, Ste. Marie's first efforts were
+directed toward tracing the movements of the Irishman O'Hara, but the
+efforts were altogether unavailing. The man seemed to have disappeared
+as noiselessly and completely as had young Arthur Benham himself. He was
+unable even to settle with any definiteness the time of the man's
+departure from Paris. Some of O'Hara's old acquaintances maintained that
+they had seen the last of him two months before, but a shifty-eyed
+person in rather cheaply smart clothes came up to Ste. Marie one evening
+in Maxim's and said he had heard that Ste. Marie was making inquiries
+about M. O'Hara. Ste. Marie said he was, and that it was an affair of
+money; whereupon the cheaply smart individual declared that M. O'Hara
+had left Paris six months before to go to the United States of America,
+and that he had had a picture postal-card from him, some weeks since,
+from New York. The informant accepted an expensive cigar and a Dubonnet
+by way of reward, but presently departed into the night, and Ste. Marie
+was left in some discouragement, his theory badly damaged.
+
+He spoke of this encounter to Richard Hartley, who came on later to join
+him, and Hartley, after an interval of silence and smoke, said: "That
+was a lie! The man lied!"
+
+"Name of a dog, why?" demanded Ste. Marie; but the Englishman shrugged
+his shoulders.
+
+"I don't know," he said. "But I believe it was a lie. The man came to
+you--sought you out to tell his story, didn't he? And all the others
+have given a different date? Well, there you are! For some reason, this
+man or some one behind him--O'Hara himself, probably--wants you to
+believe that O'Hara is in America. I dare say he's in Paris all the
+while."
+
+"I hope you're right," said the other. "And I mean to make sure, too. It
+certainly was odd, this strange being hunting me out to tell me that. I
+wonder, by-the-way, how he knew I'd been making inquiries about O'Hara.
+I've questioned only two or three people, and then in the most casual
+way. Yes, it's odd."
+
+It was about a week after this--a fruitless week, full of the alternate
+brightness of hope and the gloom of disappointment--that he met Captain
+Stewart, to whom he had been, more than once, on the point of appealing.
+He happened upon him quite by chance one morning in the rue Royale.
+Captain Stewart was coming out of a shop, a very smart-looking shop,
+devoted, as Ste. Marie, with some surprise and much amusement, observed,
+to ladies' hats, and the price of hats must have depressed him, for he
+looked in an ill humor, and older and more yellow than usual. But his
+face altered suddenly when he saw the younger man, and he stopped and
+shook Ste. Marie's hand with every evidence of pleasure.
+
+"Well met! Well met!" he exclaimed. "If you are not in a hurry, come and
+sit down somewhere and tell me about yourself."
+
+They picked their way across the street to the terrace of the Taverne
+Royale, which was almost deserted at that hour, and sat down at one of
+the little tables, well back from the pavement, in a corner.
+
+"Is it fair," queried Captain Stewart--"is it fair, as a rival
+investigator, to ask you what success you have had?"
+
+Ste. Marie laughed rather ruefully, and confessed that he had as yet no
+success at all.
+
+"I've just come," said he, "from pricking one bubble that promised well,
+and Hartley is up in Montmartre destroying another, I fancy. Oh, well,
+we didn't expect it to be child's play."
+
+Captain Stewart raised his little glass of dry vermouth in an
+old-fashioned salute and drank it.
+
+"You," said he--"you were--ah, full of some idea of connecting this man,
+this Irishman O'Hara, with poor Arthur's disappearance. You've found
+that not so promising as you went on, I take it."
+
+"Well, I've been unable to trace O'Hara," said Ste. Marie. "He seems to
+have disappeared as completely as your nephew. I suppose you have no
+clews to spare? I confess I'm out of them at the moment."
+
+"Oh, I have plenty," said the elder man. "A hundred. More than I can
+possibly look after." He gave a little chuckling laugh. "I've been
+waiting for you to come to me," he said. "It was a little ungenerous,
+perhaps, but we all love to say, 'I told you so.' Yes, I have a great
+quantity of clews, and of course they all seem to be of the greatest and
+most exciting importance. That's a way clews have."
+
+He took an envelope from an inner pocket of his coat, and sorted several
+folded papers which were in it.
+
+"I have here," said he, "memoranda of two--chances, shall I call
+them?--which seem to me very good, though, as I have already said, every
+clew seems good. That is the maddening, the heart-breaking, part of such
+an investigation. I have made these brief notes from letters received,
+one yesterday, one the day before, from an agent of mine who has been
+searching the bains de mer of the north coast. This agent writes that
+some one very much resembling poor Arthur has been seen at Dinard and
+also at Deauville, and he urges me to come there or to send a man there
+at once to look into the matter. You will ask, of course, why this agent
+himself does not pursue the clew he has found. Unfortunately, he has
+been called to London upon some pressing family matter of his own; he is
+an Englishman."
+
+"Why haven't you gone yourself?" asked Ste. Marie.
+
+But the elder man shrugged his shoulders and smiled a tired, deprecatory
+smile.
+
+"Oh, my friend," said he, "if I should attempt personally to investigate
+one-half of these things, I should be compelled to divide myself into
+twenty parts. No, I must stay here. There must be, alas! the spider at
+the centre of the web. I cannot go; but if you think it worth while, I
+will gladly turn over the memoranda of these last clews to you. They may
+be the true clews, they may not. At any rate, some one must look into
+them. Why not you and your partner--or shall I say assistant?"
+
+"Why, thank you!" cried Ste. Marie. "A thousand thanks! Of course, I
+shall be--we shall be glad to try this chance. On the face of it, it
+sounds very reasonable. Your nephew, from what I remember of him, is
+much more apt to be in some place that is amusing, some place of gayety,
+than hiding away where it is merely dull, if he has his choice in the
+matter--that is, if he is free. And yet--" He turned and frowned
+thoughtfully at the elder man. "What I want to know," said he, "is how
+the boy is supporting himself all this time? You say he had no money, or
+very little, when he went away. How is he managing to live if your
+theory is correct--that he is staying away of his own accord? It costs a
+lot of money to live as he likes to live."
+
+Captain Stewart nodded.
+
+"Oh, that," said he--"that is a question I have often proposed to
+myself. Frankly, it's beyond me. I can only surmise that poor Arthur,
+who had scattered a small fortune about in foolish loans, managed,
+before he actually disappeared (mind you, we didn't begin to look for
+him until a week had gone by)--managed to collect some of this money,
+and so went away with something in pocket. That, of course, is only a
+guess."
+
+"It is possible," said Ste. Marie, doubtfully, "but--I don't know. It is
+not very easy to raise money from the sort of people I imagine your
+nephew to have lent it to. They borrow, but they don't repay." He
+glanced up with a half-laughing, half-defiant air. "I can't," said he,
+"rid myself of a belief that the boy is here in Paris, and that he is
+not free to come or go. It's only a feeling, but it is very strong in
+me. Of course, I shall follow out these clews you've been so kind as to
+give me. I shall go to Dinard and Deauville, and Hartley, I imagine,
+will go with me, but I haven't great confidence in them."
+
+Captain Stewart regarded him reflectively for a time, and in the end he
+smiled.
+
+"If you will pardon my saying it," he said, "your attitude is just a
+little womanlike. You put away reason for something vaguely intuitive. I
+always distrust intuition myself."
+
+Ste. Marie frowned a little and looked uncomfortable. He did not relish
+being called womanlike--few men do; but he was bound to admit that the
+elder man's criticism was more or less just.
+
+"Moreover," pursued Captain Stewart, "you altogether ignore the point of
+motive--as I may have suggested to you before. There could be no
+possible motive, so far as I am aware, for kidnapping or detaining, or
+in any way harming, my nephew except the desire for money; but, as you
+know, he had no large sum of money with him, and no demand has been made
+upon us since his disappearance. I'm afraid you can't get round that."
+
+"No," said Ste. Marie, "I'm afraid I can't. Indeed, leaving that
+aside--and it can't be left aside--I still have almost nothing with
+which to prop up my theory. I told you it was only a feeling."
+
+He took up the memoranda which Captain Stewart had laid upon the
+marble-topped table between them, and read the notes through.
+
+"Please," said he, "don't think I am ungrateful for this chance. I am
+not. I shall do my best with it, and I hope it may turn out to be
+important." He gave a little wry smile. "I have all sorts of reasons,"
+he said, "for wishing to succeed as soon as possible. You may be sure
+that there won't be any delays on my part. And now I must be going on. I
+am to meet Hartley for lunch on the other side of the river, and, if we
+can manage it, I should like to start north this afternoon or evening."
+
+"Good!" said Captain Stewart, smiling. "Good! That is what I call true
+promptness. You lose no time at all. Go to Dinard and Deauville, by all
+means, and look into this thing thoroughly. Don't be discouraged if you
+meet with ill success at first. Take Mr. Hartley with you, and do your
+best."
+
+He paid for the two glasses of apéritif, and Ste. Marie could not help
+observing that he left on the table a very small tip. The waiter cursed
+him audibly as the two walked away.
+
+"If you have returned by a week from to-morrow," he said, as they shook
+hands, "I should like to have you keep that evening--Thursday--for me. I
+am having a very informal little party in my rooms. There will be two or
+three of the opera people there, and they will sing for us, and the
+others will be amusing enough. All young--all young. I like young people
+about me." He gave his odd little mewing chuckle. "And the ladies must
+be beautiful as well as young. Come if you are here! I'll drop a line to
+Mr. Hartley also."
+
+He shook Ste. Marie's hand, and went away down the street toward the rue
+du Faubourg St. Honoré where he lived.
+
+Ste. Marie met Hartley as he expected to do, at lunch, and they talked
+over the possibilities of the Dinard and Deauville expedition. In the
+end they decided that Ste. Marie should go alone, but that he was to
+telegraph, later on, if the clew looked promising. Hartley had two or
+three investigations on foot in Paris, and stayed on to complete these.
+Also he wished, as soon as possible, to see Helen Benham and explain
+Ste. Marie's ride on the galloping pigs. Ten days had elapsed since that
+evening, but Miss Benham had gone into the country the next day to make
+a visit at the De Saulnes' château on the Oise.
+
+So Ste. Marie packed a portmanteau with clothes and things, and departed
+by a mid-afternoon train to Dinard, and toward five Richard Hartley
+walked down to the rue de I'Université. He thought it just possible that
+Miss Benham might by now have returned to town, but if not he meant to
+have half an hour's chat with old David Stewart, whom he had not seen
+for some weeks.
+
+At the door he learned that mademoiselle was that very day returned and
+was at home. So he went in to the drawing-room, reserving his visit to
+old David until later. He found the room divided into two camps. At one
+side Mrs. Benham conversed in melancholic monotones with two elderly
+French ladies who were clad in depressing black of a dowdiness surpassed
+only in English provincial towns. It was as if the three mourned
+together over the remains of some dear one who lay dead among them.
+Hartley bowed low, with an uncontrollable shiver, and turned to the
+tea-table, where Miss Benham sat in the seat of authority, flanked by a
+young American lady whom he had met before, and by Baron de Vries, whom
+he had not seen since the evening of the De Saulnes' dinner-party.
+
+Miss Benham greeted him with evident pleasure, and to his great delight
+remembered just how he liked his tea--three pieces of sugar and no milk.
+It always flatters a man when his little tastes of this sort are
+remembered. The four fell at once into conversation together, and the
+young American lady asked Hartley why Ste. Marie was not with him.
+
+"I thought you two always went about together," she said--"were never
+seen apart and all that--a sort of modern Damon and Phidias."
+
+Hartley caught Baron de Vries' eye, and looked away again hastily.
+
+"My--ah, Phidias," said he, resisting an irritable desire to correct the
+lady, "got mislaid to-day. It sha'n't happen again, I promise you. He's
+a very busy person just now, though. He hasn't time for social
+dissipation. I'm the butterfly of the pair."
+
+The lady gave a sudden laugh.
+
+"He was busy enough the last time I saw him," she said, crinkling her
+eyelids. She turned to Miss Benham. "Do you remember that evening we
+were going home from the Madrid and motored round by Montmartre to see
+the fête?"
+
+"Yes," said Miss Benham, unsmiling, "I remember."
+
+"Your friend Ste. Marie," said the American lady to Hartley, "was
+distinctly the lion of the fête--at the moment we arrived, anyhow. He
+was riding a galloping pig and throwing those paper streamer
+things--what do you call them?--with both hands, and a genial lady in a
+blue hat was riding the same pig and helping him out. It was just like
+the _Vie de Bohème_ and the other books. I found it charming."
+
+Baron de Vries emitted an amused chuckle.
+
+"That was very like Ste. Marie," he said. "Ste. Marie is a very
+exceptional young man. He can be an angel one moment, a child playing
+with toys the next, and--well, a rather commonplace social favorite the
+third. It all comes of being romantic--imaginative. Ste. Marie--I know
+nothing about this evening of which you speak, but Ste. Marie is quite
+capable of stopping on his way to a funeral to ride a galloping pig--or
+on his way to his own wedding. And the pleasant part of it is," said
+Baron de Vries, "that the lad would turn up at either of these two
+ceremonies not a bit the worse, outside or in, for his ride."
+
+"Ah, now, that's an oddly close shot," said Hartley. He paused a moment,
+looking toward Miss Benham, and said: "I beg pardon! Were you going to
+speak?"
+
+"No," said Miss Benham, moving the things about on the tea-table before
+her, and looking down at them. "No, not at all!"
+
+"You came oddly close to the truth," the man went on, turning back to
+Baron de Vries.
+
+He was speaking for Helen Benham's ears, and he knew she would
+understand that, but he did not wish to seem to be watching her.
+
+"I was with Ste. Marie on that evening," he said. "No, I wasn't riding a
+pig, but I was standing down in the crowd throwing serpentines at the
+people who were. And I happen to know that he--that Ste. Marie was on
+that day, that evening, more deeply concerned about something, more
+absolutely wrapped up in it, devoted to it, than I have ever known him
+to be about anything since I first knew him. The galloping pig was an
+incident that made, except for the moment, no impression whatever upon
+him." Hartley nodded his head. "Yes," said he, "Ste. Marie can be an
+angel one moment and a child playing with toys the next. When he sees
+toys he always plays with them, and he plays hard, but when he drops
+them they go completely out of his mind."
+
+The American lady laughed.
+
+"Gracious me!" she cried. "You two are emphatic enough about him, aren't
+you?"
+
+"We know him," said Baron de Vries.
+
+Hartley rose to replace his empty cup on the tea-table. Miss Benham did
+not meet his eyes, and as he moved away again she spoke to her friend
+about something they were going to do on the next day, so Hartley went
+across to where Baron de Vries sat at a little distance, and took a
+place beside him on the chaise lounge. The Belgian greeted him with
+raised eyebrows and the little, half-sad, half-humorous smile which was
+characteristic of him in his gentler moments.
+
+"You were defending our friend with a purpose," he said, in a low voice.
+"Good! I am afraid he needs it--here."
+
+The younger man hesitated a moment. Then he said:
+
+"I came on purpose to do that. Ste. Marie knows that she saw him on that
+confounded pig. He was half wild with distress over it, because--well,
+the meeting was singularly unfortunate just then. I can't explain--"
+
+"You needn't explain," said the Belgian, gravely. "I know. Helen told me
+some days ago, though she did not mention this encounter. Yes, defend
+him with all your power, if you will. Stay after we others have gone
+and--have it out with her. The Phidias lady (I must remember that mot,
+by-the-way) is preparing to take her leave now, and I will follow her at
+once. She shall believe that I am enamoured, that I sigh for her. Eh!"
+said he, shaking his head--and the lines in the kindly old face seemed
+to deepen, but in a sort of grave tenderness--"eh, so love has come to
+the dear lad at last! Ah, of course, the hundred other affairs! Yes,
+yes. But they were light. No seriousness in them. The ladies may have
+loved. He didn't--very much. This time, I'm afraid--"
+
+Baron de Vries paused as if he did not mean to finish his sentence, and
+Hartley said:
+
+"You say 'afraid'! Why afraid?"
+
+The Belgian looked up at him reflectively.
+
+"Did I say 'afraid'?" he asked. "Well, perhaps it was the word I wanted.
+I wonder if these two are fitted for each other. I am fond of them both.
+I think you know that, but--she's not very flexible, this child. And she
+hasn't much humor. I love her, but I know those things are true. I
+wonder if one ought to marry Ste. Marie without flexibility and without
+humor."
+
+"If they love each other," said Richard Hartley, "I expect the other
+things don't count. Do they?"
+
+Baron de Vries rose to his feet, for he saw that the Phidias lady was
+going.
+
+"Perhaps not," said he; "I hope not. In any case, do your best for him
+with Helen. Make her comprehend if you can. I am afraid she is unhappy
+over the affair."
+
+He made his adieus, and went away with the American lady, to that young
+person's obvious excitement. And after a moment the three ladies across
+the room departed also, Mrs. Benham explaining that she was taking her
+two friends up to her own sitting-room, to show them something vaguely
+related to the heathen. So Hartley was left alone with Helen Benham.
+
+It was not his way to beat about the bush, and he gave battle at once.
+He said, standing, to say it more easily:
+
+"You know why I came here to-day? It was the first chance I've had since
+that--unfortunate evening. I came on Ste. Marie's account."
+
+Miss Benham said a weak "Oh!" And because she was nervous and
+overwrought, and because the thing meant so much to her, she said,
+cheaply: "He owes me no apologies. He has a perfect right to act as he
+pleases, you know."
+
+The Englishman frowned across at her. "I didn't come to make apologies,"
+said he. "I came to explain. Well, I have explained--Baron de Vries and
+I together. That's just how it happened. And that's just how Ste. Marie
+takes things. The point is that you've got to understand it. I've got to
+make you."
+
+The girl smiled up at him dolefully. "You look," she said, "as if you
+were going to beat me if necessary. You look very warlike."
+
+"I feel warlike," the man said, nodding. He said: "I'm fighting for a
+friend to whom you are doing, in your mind, an injustice. I know him
+better than you do, and I tell you you're doing him a grave injustice.
+You're failing altogether to understand him."
+
+"I wonder," the girl said, looking very thoughtfully down at the table
+before her.
+
+"I know," said he.
+
+Quite suddenly she gave a little overwrought cry, and she put up her
+hands over her face. "Oh, Richard!" she said, "that day when he was
+here! He left me--oh, I cannot tell you at what a height he left me! It
+was something new and beautiful. He swept me to the clouds with him. And
+I might--perhaps I might have lived on there. Who knows? But then that
+hideous evening! Ah, it was too sickening: the fall back to common earth
+again!"
+
+"I know," said the man, gently--"I know. And _he_ knew, too. Directly
+he'd seen you he knew how you would feel about it. I'm not pretending
+that it was of no consequence. It was unfortunate, of course. But the
+point is, it did not mean in him any slackening, any stooping, any
+letting go. It was a moment's incident. We went to the wretched place by
+accident after dinner. Ste. Marie saw those childish lunatics at play,
+and for about two minutes he played with them. The lady in the blue hat
+made it appear a little more extreme, and that's all."
+
+Miss Benham rose to her feet and moved restlessly back and forth. "Oh,
+Richard," she said, "the golden spell is broken--the enchantment he laid
+upon me that day. I'm not like him, you know. Oh, I wish I were! I wish
+I were! I can't change from hour to hour. I can't rise to the clouds
+again after my fall to earth. It has all--become something different.
+Don't misunderstand me!" she cried. "I don't mean that I've ceased to
+care for him. No, far from that! But I was in such an exalted heaven,
+and now I'm not there any more. Perhaps he can lift me to it again. Oh
+yes, I'm sure he can, when I see him once more; but I wanted to go on
+living there so happily while he was away! Do you understand at all?"
+
+"I think I do," the man said, but he looked at her very curiously and a
+little sadly, for it was the first time he had ever seen her swept from
+her superb poise by any emotion, and he hardly recognized her. It was
+very bitter to him to realize that he could never have stirred her to
+this--never, under any conceivable circumstances.
+
+The girl came to him where he stood, and touched his arm with her hand.
+"He is waiting to hear how I feel about it all, isn't he?" she said. "He
+is waiting to know that I understand. Will you tell him a little lie for
+me, Richard? No, you needn't tell a lie. I will tell it. Tell him that I
+said I understood perfectly. Tell him that I was shocked for a moment,
+but that afterward I understood and thought no more about it. Will you
+tell him I said that? It won't be a lie from you, because I did say it.
+Oh, I will not grieve him or hamper him now while he is working in my
+cause! I'll tell him a lie rather than have him grieve."
+
+"Need it be a lie?" said Richard Hartley. "Can't you truly believe what
+you've said?"
+
+She shook her head slowly.
+
+"I'll try," said she, "but--my golden spell is broken and I can't mend
+it alone. I'm sorry."
+
+He turned with a little sigh to leave her, but Miss Benham followed him
+toward the door of the drawing-room.
+
+"You're a good friend, Richard," she said, when she had come
+near--"you're a good friend to him."
+
+"He deserves good friends," said the young man, stoutly. "And besides,"
+said he, "we're brothers in arms nowadays. We've enlisted together to
+fight for the same cause." The girl fell back with a little cry.
+
+"Do you mean," she said, after a moment--"do you mean that _you_ are
+working with him--to find Arthur?"
+
+Hartley nodded.
+
+"But--" said she, stammering. "But, Richard--"
+
+The man checked her.
+
+"Oh, I know what I'm doing," said he. "My eyes are open. I know that I'm
+not--well, in the running. I work for no reward except a desire to help
+you and Ste. Marie. That's all. It pleases me to be useful."
+
+He went away with that, not waiting for an answer, and the girl stood
+where he had left her, staring after him.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+X
+
+CAPTAIN STEWART ENTERTAINS
+
+
+Ste. Marie returned, after three days, from Dinard in a depressed and
+somewhat puzzled frame of mind. He had found no trace whatever of Arthur
+Benham, either at Dinard or at Deauville, and, what was more, he was
+unable to discover that any one even remotely resembling that youth had
+been seen at either place. The matter of identification, it seemed to
+him, should be a rather simple one. In the first place, the boy's
+appearance was not at all French, nor, for that matter, English; it was
+very American. Also, he spoke French--so Ste. Marie had been told--very
+badly, having for the language that scornful contempt peculiar to
+Anglo-Saxons of a certain type. His speech, it seemed, was, like his
+appearance, ultra-American--full of strange idioms and oddly pronounced.
+In short, such a youth would be rather sure to be remembered by any
+hotel management and staff with which he might have come in contact.
+
+At first Ste. Marie pursued his investigations quietly and, as it were,
+casually; but after his initial failure he went to the managements of
+the various hotels and lodging-houses, and to the cafés and bathing
+establishments, and told them, with all frankness, a part of the
+truth--that he was searching for a young man whose disappearance had
+caused great distress to his family. He was not long in discovering that
+no such young man could have been either in Dinard or Deauville.
+
+The thing which puzzled him was that, apart from finding no trace of the
+missing boy, he also found no trace of Captain Stewart's agent--the man
+who had been first on the ground. No one seemed able to recollect that
+such a person had been making inquiries, and Ste. Marie began to suspect
+that his friend was being imposed upon. He determined to warn Stewart
+that his agents were earning their fees too easily.
+
+So he returned to Paris more than a little dejected, and sore over this
+waste of time and effort. He arrived by a noon train, and drove across
+the city in a fiacre to the rue d'Assas. But as he was in the midst of
+unpacking his portmanteau--for he kept no servant; a woman came in once
+a day to "do" the rooms--the door-bell rang. It was Baron de Vries, and
+Ste. Marie admitted him with an exclamation of surprise and pleasure.
+
+"You passed me in the street just now," explained the Belgian, "and as I
+was a few minutes early for a lunch engagement I followed you up." He
+pointed with his stick at the open bag. "Ah, you have been on a journey!
+Detective work?"
+
+Ste. Marie pushed his guest into a chair, gave him cigarettes, and told
+him about the fruitless expedition to Dinard. He spoke, also, of his
+belief that Captain Stewart's agent had never really found a clew at
+all; and at that Baron de Vries nodded his gray head and said, "Ah!" in
+a tone of some significance. Afterward he smoked a little while in
+silence, but presently he said, as if with some hesitation: "May I be
+permitted to offer a word of advice?"
+
+"But surely!" cried Ste. Marie, kicking away the half-empty portmanteau.
+"Why not?"
+
+"Do whatever you are going to do in this matter according to your own
+judgment," said the elder man, "or according to Mr. Hartley's and your
+combined judgments. Make your investigations without reference to our
+friend Captain Stewart." He halted there as if that were all he had
+meant to say, but when he saw Ste. Marie's raised eyebrows he frowned
+and went on, slowly, as if picking his words with some care. "I should
+be sorry," he said, "to have Captain Stewart at the head of any
+investigation of this nature in which I was deeply interested--just now,
+at any rate. I am afraid--it is difficult to say; I do not wish to say
+too much--I am afraid he is not quite the man for the position."
+
+Ste. Marie nodded his head with great emphasis. "Ah," he cried, "that's
+just what I have felt, you know, all along! And it's what Hartley felt,
+too, I'm sure. No, Stewart is not the sort for a detective. He's too
+cocksure. He won't admit that he might possibly be wrong now and then.
+He's too--"
+
+"He is too much occupied with other matters," said Baron de Vries.
+
+Ste. Marie sat down on the edge of a chair. "Other matters?" he
+demanded. "That sounds mysterious. What other matters?"
+
+"Oh, there is nothing very mysterious about it," said the elder man. He
+frowned down at his cigarette, and brushed some fallen ash neatly from
+his knees. "Captain Stewart," said he, "is badly worried, and has been
+for the past year or so--badly worried over money matters and other
+things. He has lost enormous sums at play, as I happen to know, and he
+has lost still more enormous sums at Auteuil and at Longchamps. Also,
+the ladies are not without their demands."
+
+Ste. Marie gave a shout of laughter. "Comment donc!" he cried. "Ce
+vieillard?"
+
+"Ah, well," deprecated the other man. "Vieillard is putting it rather
+high. He can't be more than fifty, I should think. To be sure, he looks
+older; but then, in his day, he lived a great deal in a short time. Do
+you happen to remember Olga Nilssen?"
+
+"I do," said Ste. Marie. "I remember her very well, indeed. I was a sort
+of go-between in settling up that affair with Morrison. Morrison's
+people asked me to do what I could. Yes, I remember her well, and with
+some pleasure. I felt sorry for her, you know. People didn't quite know
+the truth of that affair. Morrison behaved very badly to her."
+
+"Yes," said Baron de Vries, "and Captain Stewart has behaved very badly
+to her also. She is furious with rage or jealousy--or both. She goes
+about, I am told, threatening to kill him, and it would be rather like
+her to do it one day. Well, I have dragged in all this scandal by way of
+showing you that Stewart has his hands full of his own affairs just now,
+and so cannot give the attention he ought to give to hunting out his
+nephew. As you suggest, his agents may be deceiving him. I don't know. I
+suppose they could do it easily enough. If I were you I should set to
+work quite independently of him."
+
+"Yes," said Ste. Marie, in an absent tone. "Oh yes, I shall do that, you
+may be sure." He gave a sudden smile. "He's a queer type, this Captain
+Stewart. He begins to interest me very much. I had never suspected this
+side of him, though I remember now that I once saw him coming out of a
+milliner's shop. He looks rather an ascetic--rather donnish, don't you
+think? I remember that he talked to me one day quite pathetically about
+feeling his age and about liking young people round him. He's an odd
+character. Fancy him mixed up in an affair with Olga Nilssen! Or,
+rather, fancy her involved in an affair with him! What can she have seen
+in him? She's not mercenary, you know--at least, she used not to be."
+
+"Ah! there," said Baron de Vries, "you enter upon a terra incognita. No
+one can say what a woman sees in this man or in that. It's beyond our
+ken."
+
+He rose to take his leave, and Ste. Marie went with him to the door.
+
+"I've been asked to a sort of party at Stewart's rooms this week," Ste.
+Marie said. "I don't know whether I shall go or not. Probably not. I
+suppose I shouldn't find Olga Nilssen there?"
+
+"Well, no," said the Belgian, laughing. "No, I hardly think so.
+Good-bye! Think over what I've told you. Good-bye!"
+
+He went away down the stair, and Ste. Marie returned to his unpacking.
+
+Nothing more of consequence occurred in the next few days. Hartley had
+unearthed a somewhat shabby adventurer who swore to having seen the
+Irishman O'Hara in Paris within a month, but it was by no means certain
+that this being did not merely affirm what he believed to be desired of
+him, and in any case the information was of no especial value, since it
+was O'Hara's present whereabouts that was the point at issue. So it came
+to Thursday evening. Ste. Marie received a note from Captain Stewart
+during the day, reminding him that he was to come to the rue du Faubourg
+St. Honoré that evening, and asking him to come early, at ten or
+thereabouts, so that the two could have a comfortable chat before any
+one else turned up. Ste. Marie had about decided not to go at all, but
+the courtesy of this special invitation from Miss Benham's uncle made it
+rather impossible for him to stay away. He tried to persuade Hartley to
+follow him on later in the evening, but that gentleman flatly refused
+and went away to dine with some English friends at Armenonville.
+
+So Ste. Marie, in a vile temper, dined quite alone at Lavenue's, beside
+the Gare Montparnasse, and toward ten o'clock drove across the river to
+the rue du Faubourg. Captain Stewart's flat was up five stories, at the
+top of the building in which it was located, and so, well above the
+noises of the street. Ste. Marie went up in the automatic lift, and at
+the door above his host met him in person, saying that the one servant
+he kept was busy making preparations in the kitchen beyond. They entered
+a large room, long but comparatively shallow, in shape not unlike the
+sitting-room in the rue d'Assas, but very much bigger, and Ste. Marie
+uttered an exclamation of surprise and pleasure, for he had never before
+seen an interior anything like this. The room was decorated and
+furnished entirely in Chinese and Japanese articles of great age and
+remarkable beauty. Ste. Marie knew little of the hieratic art of these
+two countries, but he fancied that the place must be an endless delight
+to the expert.
+
+The general tone of the room was gold, dulled and softened by great age
+until it had ceased to glitter, and relieved by the dusty Chinese blue
+and by old red faded to rose and by warm ivory tints. The great expanse
+of the walls was covered by a brownish-yellow cloth, coarse like burlap,
+and against it, round the room, hung sixteen large panels representing
+the sixteen Rakan. They were early copies--fifteenth century, Captain
+Stewart said--of those famous originals by the Chinese Sung master
+Ririomin, which have been for six hundred years or more the treasures of
+Japan. They were mounted upon Japanese brocade of blue and dull gold,
+framed in keyaki wood, and out of their brown, time-stained shadows the
+great Rakan scowled or grinned or placidly gazed, grotesquely graceful
+masterpieces of a perished art.
+
+At the far end of the room, under a gilded canopy of intricate
+wood-carving, stood upon his pedestal of many-petalled lotus a great
+statue of Amida Buddha in the yogi attitude of contemplation, and at
+intervals against the other walls other smaller images stood or sat:
+Buddha, in many incarnations; Kwannon, goddess of mercy; Jizo Bosatzu
+Hotei, pot-bellied, god of contentment; Jingo-Kano, god of war. In the
+centre of the place was a Buddhist temple table, and priests' chairs,
+lacquered and inlaid, stood about the room. The floor was covered with
+Chinese rugs, dull yellow with blue flowers, and over a doorway which
+led into another room was fixed a huge rama of Chinese pierced carving,
+gilded, in which there were trees and rocks and little grouped figures
+of the hundred immortals.
+
+It, was, indeed an extraordinary room. Ste. Marie looked about its
+mellow glow with a half-comprehending wonder, and he looked at the man
+beside him curiously, for here was another side to this many-sided
+character. Captain Stewart smiled.
+
+"You like my museum?" he asked. "Few people care much for it except, of
+course, those who go in for the Oriental arts. Most of my friends think
+it bizarre--too grotesque and unusual. I have tried to satisfy them by
+including those comfortable low divan-couches (they refuse altogether to
+sit in the priests' chairs), but still they are unhappy."
+
+He called his servant, who came to take Ste. Marie's hat and coat and
+returned with smoking things.
+
+"It seems entirely wonderful to me," said the younger man. "I'm not an
+expert at all--I don't know who the gentlemen in those sixteen panels
+are, for example--but it is very beautiful. I have never seen anything
+like it at all." He gave a little laugh. "Will it sound very impertinent
+in me, I wonder, if I express surprise--not surprise at finding this
+magnificent room, but at discovering that this sort of thing is a taste
+and, very evidently, a serious study of yours? You--I remember your
+saying once with some feeling that it was youth and beauty and--well,
+freshness that you liked best to be surrounded by. This," said Ste.
+Marie, waving an inclusive hand, "was young so many centuries ago! It
+fairly breathes antiquity and death."
+
+"Yes," said Captain Stewart, thoughtfully. "Yes, that is quite true."
+
+The two had seated themselves upon one of the broad, low benches which
+had been built into the place to satisfy the Philistine.
+
+"I find it hard to explain," he said, "because both things are passions
+of mine. Youth--I could not exist without it. Since I have it no longer
+in my own body, I wish to see it about me. It gives me life. It keeps my
+heart beating. I must have it near. And then this--antiquity and death,
+beautiful things made by hands dead centuries ago in an alien country! I
+love this, too. I didn't speak too strongly; it is a sort of passion
+with me--something quite beyond the collector's mania--quite beyond
+that. Sometimes, do you know, I stay at home in the evening, and I sit
+here quite alone, with the lights half on, and for hours together I
+smoke and watch these things--the quiet, sure, patient smile of that
+Buddha, for example. Think how long he has been smiling like that, and
+waiting! Waiting for what? There is something mysterious beyond all
+words in that smile of his, that fixed, crudely carved wooden smile--no,
+I'll be hanged if it's crude! It is beyond our modern art. The dead men
+carved better than we do. We couldn't manage that with such simple
+means. We can only reproduce what is before us. We can't carve
+questions--mysteries--everlasting riddles."
+
+Through the pale-blue, wreathing smoke of his cigarette Captain Stewart
+gazed down the room to where eternal Buddha stood and smiled eternally.
+And from there the man's eyes moved with slow enjoyment along the
+opposite wall over those who sat or stood there, over the panels of the
+ancient Rakan, over carved lotus, and gilt contorted dragon forever in
+pursuit of the holy pearl. He drew a short breath which seemed to
+bespeak extreme contentment, the keenest height of pleasure, and he
+stirred a little where he sat and settled himself among the cushions.
+Ste. Marie watched him, and the expression of the man's face began to be
+oddly revolting. It was the face of a voluptuary in the presence of his
+desire. He was uncomfortable, and wished to say something to break the
+silence, but, as often occurs at such a time, he could think of nothing
+to say. So there was a brief silence between them. But presently Captain
+Stewart roused himself with an obvious effort.
+
+"Here, this won't do!" said he, in a tone of whimsical apology. "This
+won't do, you know. I'm floating off on my hobby (and there's a mixed
+metaphor that would do credit to your own Milesian blood!). I'm boring
+you to extinction, and I don't want to do that, for I'm anxious that you
+should come here again--and often. I should like to have you form the
+habit. What was it I had in mind to ask you about? Ah, yes! The journey
+to Dinard and Deauville. I am afraid it turned out to be fruitless or
+you would have let me know."
+
+"Entirely fruitless," said Ste. Marie.
+
+He went on to tell the elder man of his investigation, and of his
+certainty that no one resembling Arthur Benham had been at either of the
+two places.
+
+"It's no affair of mine, to be sure," he said, "but I rather suspect
+that your agent was deceiving you--pretending to have accomplished
+something by way of making you think he was busy."
+
+Ste. Marie was so sure the other would immediately disclaim this that he
+waited for the word, and gave a little smothered laugh when Captain
+Stewart said, promptly:
+
+"Oh no! No! That is impossible. I have every confidence in that man. He
+is one of my best. No, you are mistaken there. I am more disappointed
+than you could possibly be over the failure of your efforts, but I am
+quite sure my man thought he had something worth working upon.
+By-the-way, I have received another rather curious communication--from
+Ostend this time. I will show you the letter, and you may try your luck
+there if you would care to." He felt in his pockets and then rose. "I've
+left the thing in another coat," said he; "if you will allow me, I'll
+fetch it." But before he had turned away the door-bell rang and he
+paused. "Ah, well," he said, "another time. Here are some of my guests.
+They have come earlier than I had expected."
+
+The new arrivals were three very perfectly dressed ladies, one of them
+an operatic light, who chanced not to be singing that evening and whom
+Ste. Marie had met before. The two others were rather difficult of
+classification, but probably, he thought, ornaments of that mysterious
+border-land between the two worlds which seems to give shelter to so
+many people against whose characters nothing definite is known, but
+whose antecedents and connections are not made topics of conversation.
+The three ladies seemed to be on very friendly terms with Captain
+Stewart, and greeted him with much noisy delight. One of the
+unclassified two, when her host, with a glance toward Ste. Marie,
+addressed her formally, seemed inordinately amused, and laughed for a
+long time.
+
+Within the next hour ten or a dozen other guests had arrived, and they
+all seemed to know one another very well, and proceeded to make
+themselves quite at home. Ste. Marie regarded them with a reflective and
+not over-enthusiastic eye, and he wondered a good deal why he had been
+asked here to meet them. He was as far from a prig or a snob as any man
+could very well be, and he often went to very Bohemian parties which
+were given by his painter or musician friends, but these people seemed
+to him quite different. The men, with the exception of two eminent
+opera-singers, who quite obviously had been asked because of their
+voices, were the sort of men who abound at such places as Ostend and
+Monte Carlo, and Baden-Baden in the race week. That is not to say that
+they were ordinary racing touts or the cheaper kind of adventurers
+(there was a count among them, and a marquis who had recently been
+divorced by his American wife), but adventurers of a sort they
+undoubtedly were. There was not one of them, so far as Ste. Marie was
+aware, who was received anywhere in good society, and he resented very
+much being compelled to meet them.
+
+Naturally enough, he felt much less concern on the score of the ladies.
+It is an undoubted and well-nigh universal truth that men who would
+refuse outright to meet certain classes of their own sex show no
+reluctance whatever over meeting the women of a corresponding
+circle--that is, if the women are attractive. It is a depressing fact
+and inclines one to sighs and head-shakes, and some moral indignation,
+until the reverse truth is brought to light--namely, that women have
+identically the same point of view; that, while they cast looks of
+loathing and horror upon certain of their sisters, they will meet with
+pleasure any presentable man whatever his crimes or vices.
+
+Ste. Marie was very much puzzled over all this. It seemed to him so
+unnecessary that a man who really had some footing in the newer society
+of Paris should choose to surround himself with people of this type; but
+as he looked on and wondered he became aware of a curious and, in the
+light of a past conversation, significant fact: all of the people in the
+room were young; all of them in their varying fashions and degrees very
+attractive to look upon; all full to overflowing of life and spirits and
+the determination to have a good time. He saw Captain Stewart moving
+among them, playing very gracefully his rôle of host, and the man seemed
+to have dropped twenty years from his shoulders. A miracle of
+rejuvenation seemed to have come upon him: his eyes were bright and
+eager, the color was high in his cheeks, and the dry, pedantic tone had
+gone from his voice. Ste. Marie watched him, and at last he thought he
+understood. It was half revolting, half pathetic, he thought, but it
+certainly was interesting to see.
+
+Duval, the great basso of the Opéra, accompanied at the piano by one of
+the unclassified ladies, was just finishing Mephistopheles' drinking
+song out of _Faust_ when the door-bell rang.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+XI
+
+A GOLDEN LADY ENTERS--THE EYES AGAIN
+
+
+The music of voice and piano was very loud just then, so that the
+little, soft, whirring sound of the electric bell reached only one or
+two pairs of ears in the big room. It did not reach the host certainly,
+and neither he nor most of the others observed the servant make his way
+among the groups of seated or standing people and go to the outer door,
+which opened upon a tiny hallway. The song came to an end, and everybody
+was cheering and applauding and crying "Bravo!" or "Bis!" or one of the
+other things that people shout at such times, when, as if in unexpected
+answer to the outburst, a lady appeared between the yellow portières and
+came forward a little way into the room. She was a tall lady of an
+extraordinary and immediately noticeable grace of movement--a lady with
+rather fair hair; but her eyebrows and eyelashes had been stained darker
+than it was their nature to be. She had the classic Greek type of
+face--and figure, too--all but the eyes, which were long and
+narrow--narrow, perhaps, from a habit of going half closed; and when
+they were a little more than half closed they made a straight black line
+that turned up very slightly at the outer end with an Oriental effect
+which went oddly in that classic face. There is a popular piece of
+sculpture now in the Luxembourg Gallery for which this lady "sat" as
+model to a great artist. Sculptors from all over the world go there to
+dream over its perfect line and contour, and little schoolgirls pretend
+not to see it, and middle-aged maiden tourists, with red Baedekers in
+their hands, regard it furtively and pass on, and after a while come
+back to look again.
+
+The lady was dressed in some very close-clinging material which was not
+cloth of gold, but something very like it, only much duller--something
+which gleamed when she stirred, but did not glitter--and over her
+splendid shoulders was hung an Oriental scarf heavily worked with
+metallic gold. She made an amazing and dramatic picture in that golden
+room. It was as if she had known just what her surroundings would be and
+had dressed expressly for them.
+
+The applause ceased as suddenly as if it had been trained to break off
+at a signal, and the lady came forward a little way, smiling a quiet,
+assured smile. At each step her knee threw out the golden stuff of her
+gown an inch or two, and it flashed suddenly--a dull, subdued flash in
+the overhead light--and died and flashed again. A few of the people in
+the room knew who the lady was, and they looked at one another with
+raised eyebrows and startled faces; but the others stared at her with an
+eager admiration, thinking that they had seldom seen anything so
+beautiful or so effective. Ste. Marie sat forward on the edge of his
+chair. His eyes sparkled, and he gave a little quick sigh of pleasurable
+excitement. This was drama, and very good drama, too, and he suspected
+that it might at any moment turn into a tragedy.
+
+He saw Captain Stewart, who had been among a group of people half-way
+across the room, turn his head to look when the cries and the applause
+ceased so suddenly, and he saw the man's face stiffen by swift degrees,
+all the joyous, buoyant life gone out of it, until it was yellow and
+rigid like a dead man's face; and Ste. Marie, out of his knowledge of
+the relations between these two people, nodded, en connaisseur, for he
+knew that the man was very badly frightened.
+
+So the host of the evening hung back, staring for what must have seemed
+to him a long and terrible time, though in reality it was but an
+instant; then he came forward quickly to greet the new-comer, and if his
+face was still yellow-white there was nothing in his manner but the
+courtesy habitual with him. He took the lady's hand, and she smiled at
+him, but her eyes did not smile--they were hard. Ste. Marie, who was the
+nearest of the others, heard Captain Stewart say:
+
+"This is an unexpected pleasure, my dearest Olga!"
+
+And to that the lady replied, more loudly: "Yes, I returned to Paris
+only to-day. You didn't know, of course. I heard you were entertaining
+this evening, and so I came, knowing that I should be welcome."
+
+"Always!" said Captain Stewart--"always more than welcome!"
+
+He nodded to one or two of the men who stood near, and when they
+approached presented them. Ste. Marie observed that he used the lady's
+true name--she had, at times, found occasion to employ others--and that
+he politely called her "Madame Nilssen" instead of "Mademoiselle." But
+at that moment the lady caught sight of Ste. Marie, and, crying out his
+name in a tone of delighted astonishment, turned away from the other
+men, brushing past them as if they had been furniture, and advanced
+holding out both her hands in greeting.
+
+"Dear Ste. Marie!" she exclaimed. "Fancy finding you here! I'm so glad!
+Oh, I'm so very glad! Take me away from these people! Find a corner
+where we can talk. Ah, there is one with a big seat! Allons-y!"
+
+She addressed him for the most part in English, which she spoke
+perfectly--as perfectly as she spoke French and German and, presumably,
+her native tongue, which must have been Swedish.
+
+They went to the broad, low seat, a sort of hard-cushioned bench, which
+stood against one of the walls, and made themselves comfortable there by
+the only possible means, which, owing to the width of the thing, was to
+sit far back with their feet stuck straight out before them. Captain
+Stewart had followed them across the room and showed a strong tendency
+to remain. Ste. Marie observed that his eyes were hard and bright and
+very alert, and that there were two bright spots of color in his yellow
+cheeks. It occurred to Ste. Marie that the man was afraid to leave him
+alone with Olga Nilssen, and he smiled to himself, reflecting that the
+lady, even if indiscreetly inclined, could tell him nothing--save in
+details--that he did not already know. But after a few rather awkward
+moments Mile. Nilssen waved an irritated hand.
+
+"Go away!" she said to her host. "Go away to your other guests! I want
+to talk to Ste. Marie. We have old times to talk over."
+
+And after hesitating awhile uneasily, Captain Stewart turned back into
+the room; but for some time thereafter Ste. Marie was aware that a
+vigilant eye was being kept upon them and that their host was by no
+means at his ease.
+
+When they were left alone together the girl turned to him and patted his
+arm affectionately. She said:
+
+"Ah, but it is very good to see you again, mon cher ami! It has been so
+long!" She gave an abrupt frown. "What are you doing here?" she
+demanded.
+
+And she said an unkind thing about her fellow-guests. She called them
+"canaille." She said:
+
+"Why are you wasting your time among these canaille? This is not a place
+for you. Why did you come?"
+
+"I don't know," said Ste. Marie. He was still a little resentful, and he
+said so. He said: "I didn't know it was going to be like this. I came
+because Stewart went rather out of his way to ask me. I'd known him in a
+very different milieu."
+
+"Ah, yes!" she said, reflectively. "Yes, he does go into the world also,
+doesn't he? But this is what he likes, you know." Her lips drew back for
+an instant, and she said: "He is a pig-dog!"
+
+Ste. Marie looked at her gravely. She had used that offensive name with
+a little too much fierceness. Her face had turned for an instant quite
+white, and her eyes had flashed out over the room a look that meant a
+great deal to any one who knew her as well as Ste. Marie did. He sat
+forward and lowered his voice. He said:
+
+"Look here, Olga! I'm going to be very frank for a moment. May I?"
+
+For just an instant the girl drew away from him with suspicion in her
+eyes, and something else, alertly defiant. Then she put out her hands to
+his arm.
+
+"You may be what you like, dear Ste. Marie," she said, "and say what you
+like. I will take it all--and swallow it alive--good as gold. What are
+you going to do to me?"
+
+"I've always been fair with you, haven't I?" he urged. "I've had
+disagreeable things to say or do, but--you knew always that I liked you
+and--where my sympathies were."
+
+"Always! Always, mon cher!" she cried. "I trusted you always in
+everything. And there is no one else I trust. No one! No one!--Ste.
+Marie!"
+
+"What then?" he asked.
+
+"Ste. Marie," she said, "why did you never fall in love with me, as the
+other men did?"
+
+"I wonder!" said he. "I don't know. Upon my word, I really don't know."
+
+He was so serious about it that the girl burst into a shriek of
+laughter. And in the end he laughed, too.
+
+"I expect it was because I liked you too well," he said, at last. "But
+come! We're forgetting my lecture. Listen to your grandpère Ste. Marie!
+I have heard--certain things--rumors--what you will. Perhaps they are
+foolish lies, and I hope they are. But if not, if the fear I saw in
+Stewart's face when you came here to-night, was--not without cause, let
+me beg you to have a care. You're much too savage, my dear child. Don't
+be so foolish as to--well, turn comedy into the other thing. In the
+first place, it's not worth while, and, in the second place, it recoils
+always. Revenge may be sweet. I don't know. But nowadays, with police
+courts and all that, it entails much more subsequent annoyance than it
+is worth. Be wise, Olga!"
+
+"Some things, Ste. Marie," said the golden lady, "are worth all the
+consequences that may follow them."
+
+She watched Captain Stewart across the room, where he stood chatting
+with a little group of people, and her beautiful face was as hard as
+marble and her eyes were as dark as a stormy night, and her mouth, for
+an instant, was almost like an animal's mouth--cruel and relentless.
+
+Ste. Marie saw, and he began to be a bit alarmed in good earnest. In his
+warning he had spoken rather more seriously than he felt the occasion
+demanded, but he began at last to wonder if the occasion was not in
+reality very serious, indeed. He was sure, of course, that Olga Nilssen
+had come here on this evening to annoy Captain Stewart in some fashion.
+As he put it to himself, she probably meant to "make a row," and he
+would not have been in the least surprised if she had made it in the
+beginning, upon her very dramatic entrance. Nothing more calamitous than
+that had occurred to him. But when he saw the woman's face turned a
+little away and gazing fixedly at Captain Stewart, he began to be aware
+that there was tragedy very near him--or all the makings of it.
+
+Mlle. Nilssen turned back to him. Her face was still hard, and her eyes
+dark and narrowed with their oddly Oriental look. She bent her shoulders
+together for an instant and her hands moved slowly in her lap,
+stretching out before her in a gesture very like a cat's when it wakes
+from sleep and yawns and extends its claws, as if to make sure that they
+are still there and ready for use.
+
+"I feel a little like Samson to-night," she said. "I am tired of almost
+everything, and I should like very much to pull the world down on top of
+me and kill everybody in it--except you, Ste. Marie, dear; except
+you!--and be crushed under the ruins!"
+
+"I think," said Ste. Marie, practically--and the speech sounded rather
+like one of Hartley's speeches--"I think it was not quite the world that
+Samson pulled down, but a temple--or a palace--something of that kind."
+
+"Well," said the golden lady, "this place is rather like a temple--a
+Chinese temple, with the pig-dog for high-priest."
+
+Ste. Marie frowned at her.
+
+"What are you going to do?" he demanded, sharply. "What did you come
+here to do? Mischief of some kind--bien entendu--but what?"
+
+"Do?" she said, looking at him with her narrowed eyes. "I? Why, what
+should I do? Nothing, of course! I merely said I should like to pull the
+place down. Of course, I couldn't do that quite literally, now, could I?
+No. It is merely a mood. I'm not going to do anything."
+
+"You're not being honest with me," he said.
+
+And at that her expression changed, and she patted his arm again with a
+gesture that seemed to beg forgiveness.
+
+"Well, then," she said, "if you must know, maybe I did come here for a
+purpose. I want to have it out with our friend Captain Stewart about
+something. And Ste. Marie, dear," she pleaded, "please, I think you'd
+better go home first. I don't care about these other animals, but I
+don't want you dragged into any row of any sort. Please be a sweet Ste.
+Marie and go home. Yes?"
+
+"Absolutely, no!" said Ste. Marie. "I shall stay, and I shall try my
+utmost to prevent you from doing anything foolish. Understand that! If
+you want to have rows with people, Olga, for Heaven's sake don't pick an
+occasion like this for the purpose. Have your rows in private!"
+
+"I rather think I enjoy an audience," she said, with a reflective air,
+and Ste. Marie laughed aloud because he knew that the naïve speech was
+so very true. This lady, with her many good qualities and her bad
+ones--not a few, alas!--had an undeniable passion for red fire that had
+amused him very much on more than one past occasion.
+
+"Please go home!" she said once more.
+
+But when the man only shook his head, she raised her hands a little way
+and dropped them again in her lap, in an odd gesture which seemed to say
+that she had done all she could do, and that if anything disagreeable
+should happen now, and he should be involved in it, it would be entirely
+his fault because she had warned him.
+
+Then quite abruptly a mood of irresponsible gayety seemed to come upon
+her. She refused to have anything more to do with serious topics, and
+when Ste. Marie attempted to introduce them she laughed in his face. As
+she had said in the beginning she wished to do, she harked back to old
+days (the earlier stages of what might be termed the Morrison régime),
+and it seemed to afford her great delight to recall the happenings of
+that epoch. The conversation became a dialogue of reminiscence which
+would have been entirely unintelligible to a third person, and was,
+indeed, so to Captain Stewart, who once came across the room, made a
+feeble effort to attach himself, and presently wandered away again.
+
+They unearthed from the past an exceedingly foolish song all about one
+"Little Willie" and a purple monkey climbing up a yellow stick. It was
+set to a well-known air from _Don Giovanni_, and when Duval, the basso,
+heard them singing it he came up and insisted upon knowing what it was
+about. He laughed immoderately over the English words when he was told
+what they meant, and made Ste. Marie write them down for him on two
+visiting-cards. So they made a trio out of "Little Willie," the great
+Duval inventing a bass part quite marvellous in its ingenuity, and they
+were compelled to sing it over and over again, until Ste. Marie's
+falsetto imitation of a tenor voice cracked and gave out altogether,
+since he was by nature barytone, if anything at all.
+
+The other guests had crowded round to hear the extraordinary song, and
+when the song was at last finished several of them remained, so that
+Ste. Marie saw he was to be allowed an uninterrupted tête-à-tête with
+Olga Nilssen no longer. He therefore drifted away, after a few moments,
+and went with Duval and one of the other men across the room to look at
+some small jade objects--snuff-bottles, bracelets, buckles, and the
+like--which were displayed in a cabinet cleverly reconstructed out of a
+Japanese shrine. It was perhaps ten minutes later when he looked round
+the place and discovered that neither Mlle. Nilssen nor Captain Stewart
+was to be seen.
+
+His first thought was of relief, for he said to himself that the two had
+sensibly gone into one of the other rooms to "have it out" in peace and
+quiet. But following that came the recollection of the woman's face when
+she had watched her host across the room. Her words came back to him: "I
+feel a little like Samson to-night.... I should like very much to pull
+the world down on top of me and kill everybody in it!" Ste. Marie
+thought of these things, and he began to be uncomfortable. He found
+himself watching the yellow-hung doorway beyond, with its intricate
+Chinese carving of trees and rocks and little groups of immortals, and
+he found that unconsciously he was listening for something--he did not
+know what--above the chatter and laughter of the people in the room. He
+endured this for possibly five minutes, and all at once found that he
+could endure it no longer. He began to make his way quietly through the
+groups of people toward the curtained doorway.
+
+As he went, one of the women near by complained in a loud tone that the
+servant had disappeared. She wanted, it seemed, a glass of water, having
+already had many glasses of more interesting things. Ste. Marie said he
+would get it for her, and went on his way. He had an excuse now.
+
+He found himself in a square, dimly lighted room much smaller than the
+other. There was a round table in the centre, so he thought it must be
+Stewart's dining-room. At the left a doorway opened into a place where
+there were lights, and at the other side was another door closed. From
+the room at the left there came a sound of voices, and though they were
+not loud, one of them, Mlle. Olga Nilssen's voice, was hard and angry
+and not altogether under control. The man would seem to have been
+attempting to pacify her, and he would seem not to have been very
+successful.
+
+The first words that Ste. Marie was able to distinguish were from the
+woman. She said, in a low, fierce tone:
+
+"That is a lie, my friend! That is a lie! I know all about the road to
+Clamart, so you needn't lie to me any longer. It's no good."
+
+She paused for just an instant there, and in the pause St. Marie heard
+Stewart give a sort of inarticulate exclamation. It seemed to express
+anger and it seemed also to express fear. But the woman swept on, and
+her voice began to be louder. She said:
+
+"I've given you your chance. You didn't deserve it, but I've given it
+you--and you've told me nothing but lies. Well, you'll lie no more. This
+ends it."
+
+Upon that Ste. Marie heard a sudden stumbling shuffle of feet and a low,
+hoarse cry of utter terror--a cry more animal-like than human. He heard
+the cry break off abruptly in something that was like a cough and a
+whine together, and he heard the sound of a heavy body falling with a
+loose rattle upon the floor.
+
+With the sound of that falling body he had already reached the doorway
+and torn aside the heavy portière. It was a sleeping-room he looked
+into, a room of medium size with two windows and an ornate bed of the
+Empire style set sidewise against the farther wall. There were electric
+lights upon imitation candles which were grouped in sconces against the
+wall, and these were turned on, so that the room was brightly
+illuminated. Midway between the door and the ornate Empire bed Captain
+Stewart lay huddled and writhing upon the floor, and Olga Nilssen stood
+upright beside him, gazing down upon him quite calmly. In her right
+hand, which hung at her side, she held a little flat black automatic
+pistol of the type known as Brownings--and they look like toys, but they
+are not.
+
+Ste. Marie sprang at her silently and caught her by the arm, twisting
+the automatic pistol from her grasp, and the woman made no effort
+whatever to resist him. She looked into his face quite frankly and
+unmoved, and she shook her head.
+
+"I haven't harmed him," she said. "I was going to, yes--and then
+myself--but he didn't give me a chance. He fell down in a fit." She
+nodded down toward the man who lay writhing at their feet. "I frightened
+him," she said, "and he fell in a fit. He's an epileptic, you know.
+Didn't you know that? Oh yes."
+
+Abruptly she turned away shivering, and put up her hands over her face.
+And she gave an exclamation of uncontrollable repulsion.
+
+"Ugh!" she cried, "it's horrible! Horrible! I can't bear to look. I saw
+him in a fit once before--long ago--and I couldn't bear even to speak to
+him for a month. I thought he had been cured. He said--Ah, it's
+horrible!"
+
+Ste. Marie had dropped upon his knees beside the fallen man, and Mlle.
+Nilssen said, over her shoulder:
+
+"Hold his head up from the floor, if you can bear to. He might hurt it."
+
+It was not an easy thing to do, for Ste. Marie had the natural sense of
+repulsion in such matters that most people have, and this man's
+appearance, as Olga Nilssen had said, was horrible. The face was drawn
+hideously, and in the strong, clear light of the electrics it was a
+deathly yellow. The eyes were half closed, and the eyeballs turned up so
+that only the whites of them showed between the lids. There was froth
+upon the distorted mouth, and it clung to the catlike mustache and to
+the shallow, sunken chin beneath. But Ste. Marie exerted all his will
+power, and took the jerking, trembling head in his hands, holding it
+clear of the floor.
+
+"You'd better call the servant," he said. "There may be something that
+can be done."
+
+But the woman answered, without looking:
+
+"No, there's nothing that can be done, I believe, except to keep him
+from bruising himself. Stimulants--that sort of thing--do more harm than
+good. Could you get him on the bed here?"
+
+"Together we might manage it," said Ste. Marie. "Come and help!"
+
+"I can't!" she cried, nervously. "I can't--touch him. Please, I can't do
+it."
+
+"Come!" said the man, in a sharp tone. "It's no time for nerves. I don't
+like it, either, but it's got to be done."
+
+The woman began a half-hysterical sobbing, but after a moment she turned
+and came with slow feet to where Stewart lay.
+
+Ste. Marie slipped his arms under the man's body and began to raise him
+from the floor.
+
+"You needn't help, after all," he said. "He's not heavy."
+
+And, indeed, under his skilfully shaped and padded clothes the man was a
+mere waif of a man--as unbelievably slight as if he were the victim of a
+wasting disease. Ste. Marie held the body in his arms as if it had been
+a child, and carried it across and laid it on the bed; but it was many
+months before he forgot the horror of that awful thing shaking and
+twitching in his hold, the head thumping hideously upon his shoulder,
+the arms and legs beating against him. It was the most difficult task he
+had ever had to perform. He laid Captain Stewart upon the bed and
+straightened the helpless limbs as best he could.
+
+"I suppose," he said, rising again--"I suppose when the man comes out of
+this he'll be frightfully exhausted and drop off to sleep, won't he?
+We'll have to--"
+
+He halted abruptly there, and for a single swift instant he felt the
+black and rushing sensation of one who is going to faint away. The wall
+behind the ornate Empire bed was covered with photographs, some in
+frames, others left, as they had been received, upon the large squares
+of weird cardboard which are termed "art mounts."
+
+"Come here a moment, quickly!" said Ste. Marie, in a sharp voice.
+
+Mlle. Nilssen's sobs had died down to a silent, spasmodic catching of
+the breath, but she was still much unnerved, and she approached the bed
+with obvious unwillingness, dabbing at her eyes with a handkerchief.
+Ste. Marie pointed to an unframed photograph which was fastened to the
+wall by thumb-tacks, and his outstretched hand shook as he pointed.
+Beneath them the other man still writhed and tumbled in his epileptic
+fit.
+
+"Do you know who that woman is?" demanded Ste. Marie, and his tone was
+such that Olga Nilssen turned slowly and stared at him.
+
+"That woman," said she, "is the reason why I wished to pull the world
+down upon Charlie Stewart and me to-night. That's who she is."
+
+Ste. Marie gave a sort of cry.
+
+"Who is she?" he insisted. "What is her name? I--have a particularly
+important reason for wanting to know. I've got to know."
+
+Mlle. Nilssen shook her head, still staring at him.
+
+"I can't tell you that," said she. "I don't know the name. I only know
+that--when he met her, he--I don't know her name, but I know where she
+lives and where he goes every day to see her--a house with a big garden
+and walled park on the road to Clamart. It's on the edge of the wood,
+not far from Fort d'Issy. The Clamart-Vanves-Issy tram runs past the
+wall of one side of the park. That's all I know."
+
+Ste. Marie clasped his head with his hands.
+
+"So near to it!" he groaned, "and yet--Ah!" He bent forward suddenly
+over the bed and spelled out the name of the photographer which was
+pencilled upon the brown cardboard mount. "There's still a chance," he
+said, "There's still one chance."
+
+He became aware that the woman was watching him curiously, and nodded to
+her.
+
+"It's something you don't know about," he explained. "I've got to find
+out who this--girl is. Perhaps the photographer can help me. I used to
+know him." All at once his eyes sharpened. "Tell me the simple truth
+about something!" said he. "If ever we have been friends, if you owe me
+any good office, tell me this: Do you know anything about young Arthur
+Benham's disappearance two months ago, or about what has become of him?"
+
+Again the woman shook her head.
+
+"No," said she. "Nothing at all. I hadn't even heard of it. Young Arthur
+Benham! I've met him once or twice. I wonder--I wonder Stewart never
+spoke to me about his disappearance! That's very odd."
+
+"Yes," said Ste. Marie, absently, "it is." He gave a little sigh. "I
+wonder about a good many things," said he.
+
+He glanced down upon the bed before them, and Captain Stewart lay still,
+save for a slight twitching of the hands. Once he moved his head
+restlessly from side to side and said something incoherent in a weak
+murmur.
+
+"He's out of it," said Olga Nilssen. "He'll sleep now, I think. I
+suppose we must get rid of those people and then leave him to the care
+of his man. A doctor couldn't do anything for him."
+
+"Yes," said Ste. Marie, nodding, "I'll call the servant and tell the
+people that Stewart has been taken ill."
+
+He looked once more toward the photograph on the wall, and under his
+breath he said, with an odd, defiant fierceness: "I won't believe it!"
+But he did not explain what he wouldn't believe. He started out of the
+room, but, half-way, halted and turned back. He looked Olga Nilssen full
+in the eyes, saying:
+
+"It is safe to leave you here with him while I call the servant?
+There'll be no more--?"
+
+But the woman gave a low cry and a violent shiver with it.
+
+"You need have no fear," she said. "I've no desire now to--harm him.
+The--reason is gone. This has cured me. I feel as if I could never bear
+to see him again. Oh, hurry! Please hurry! I want to get away from
+here!"
+
+Ste. Marie nodded, and went out of the room.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+XII
+
+THE NAME OF THE LADY WITH THE EYES--EVIDENCE HEAPS UP SWIFTLY
+
+
+Ste. Marie drove home to the rue d'Assas with his head in a whirl, and
+with a sense of great excitement beating somewhere within him--probably
+in the place where his heart ought to be. He had a curiously sure
+feeling that at last his feet were upon the right path. He could not
+have explained this to himself--indeed, there was nothing to explain,
+and if there had been he was in far too great an inner turmoil to manage
+it. It was a mere feeling--the sort of thing which he had once tried to
+express to Captain Stewart and had got laughed at for his pains.
+
+There was, in sober fact, no reason whatever why Captain Stewart's
+possession of a photograph of the beautiful lady whom Ste. Marie had
+once seen in company with O'Hara should be taken as significant of
+anything except an appreciation of beauty on the part of Miss Benham's
+uncle--not even if, as Mlle. Nilssen believed, Captain Stewart was in
+love with the lady. But to Ste. Marie, in his whirl of reawakened
+excitement, the discovery loomed to the skies, and in a series of
+ingenious but very vague leaps of the imagination he saw himself, with
+the aid of this new evidence (which was no evidence at all, if he had
+been calm enough to realize it), victorious in his great quest: leading
+young Arthur Benham back to the arms of an ecstatic family, and kneeling
+at the feet of that youth's sister to claim his reward. All of which
+seems a rather startling flight of the imagination to have had its
+beginning in the sight of one photograph of a young woman. But, then,
+Ste. Marie was imaginative if he was anything.
+
+He fell to thinking of this girl whose eyes, after one sight of them,
+had so long haunted him. He thought of her between those two men, the
+hard-faced Irish adventurer, and the other, Stewart, strange compound of
+intellectual and voluptuary, and his eyes flashed in the dark and he
+gripped his hands together upon his knees. He said again:
+
+"I won't believe it! I won't believe it!" Believe what? one wonders.
+
+He slept hardly at all: only, toward morning, falling into an uneasy
+doze. And in the doze he dreamed once more the dream of the dim, waste
+place and the hill, and the eyes and voice that called him back--because
+they needed him.
+
+As early as he dared, after his morning coffee, he took a fiacre and
+drove across the river to the Boulevard de la Madeleine, where he
+climbed a certain stair, at the foot of which were two glass cases
+containing photographs of, for the most part, well-known ladies of the
+Parisian stage. At the top of the stair he entered the reception-room of
+a young photographer who is famous now the world over, but who, at the
+beginning of his career, when he had nothing but talent and no
+acquaintance, owed certain of his most important commissions to M. Ste.
+Marie.
+
+The man, whose name was Bernstein, came forward eagerly from the studio
+beyond to greet his visitor, and Ste. Marie complimented him chaffingly
+upon his very sleek and prosperous appearance, and upon the new
+decorations of the little salon, which were, in truth, excellently well
+judged. But after they had talked for a little while of such matters, he
+said:
+
+"I want to know if you keep specimen prints of all the photographs you
+have made within the past few months, and, if so, I should like to see
+them."
+
+The young Jew went to a wooden portfolio-holder which stood in a corner,
+and dragged it out into the light.
+
+"I have them all here," said he--"everything that I have made within the
+past ten or twelve months. If you will let me draw up a chair you can
+look them over comfortably."
+
+He glanced at his former patron with a little polite curiosity as Ste.
+Marie followed his suggestion, and began to turn over the big
+portfolio's contents; but he did not show any surprise nor ask
+questions. Indeed, he guessed, to a certain extent, rather near the
+truth of the matter. It had happened before that young gentlemen--and
+old ones, too--wanted to look over his prints without offering
+explanations, and they generally picked out all the photographs there
+were of some particular lady and bought them if they could be bought.
+
+So he was by no means astonished on this occasion, and he moved about
+the room putting things to rights, and even went for a few moments into
+the studio beyond until he was recalled by a sudden exclamation from his
+visitor--an exclamation which had a sound of mingled delight and
+excitement.
+
+Ste. Marie held in his hands a large photograph, and he turned it toward
+the man who had made it.
+
+"I am going to ask you some questions," said he, "that will sound rather
+indiscreet and irregular, but I beg you to answer them if you can,
+because the matter is of great importance to a number of people. Do you
+remember this lady?"
+
+"Oh yes," said the Jew, readily, "I remember her very well. I never
+forget people who are as beautiful as this lady was." His eyes gleamed
+with retrospective joy. "She was splendid!" he declared. "Sumptuous! No,
+I cannot describe her. I have not the words. And I could not photograph
+her with any justice, either. She was all color: brown skin, with a
+dull-red stain under the cheeks, and a great mass of hair that was not
+black but very nearly black--except in the sun, and then there were red
+lights in it. She was a goddess, that lady, a queen of goddesses-- the
+young Juno before marriage--the--"
+
+"Yes," interrupted Ste. Marie--"yes, I see. Yes, quite evidently she was
+beautiful; but what I wanted in particular to know was her name, if you
+feel that you have a right to give it to me (I remind you again that the
+matter is very important), and any circumstances that you can remember
+about her coming here: who came with her, for instance and things of
+that sort."
+
+The photographer looked a little disappointed at being cut off in the
+middle of his rhapsody, but he began turning over the leaves of an
+order-book which lay upon a table near by.
+
+"Here is the entry," he said, after a few moments. "Yes, I thought so,
+the date was nearly three months ago--April 5th. And the lady's name was
+Mlle. Coira O'Hara."
+
+"What!" cried the other man, sharply. "What did you say?"
+
+"Mlle. Coira O'Hara was the name," repeated the photographer. "I
+remember the occasion perfectly. The lady came here with three
+gentlemen--one tall, thin gentleman with an eyeglass, an Englishman, I
+think, though he spoke very excellent French when he spoke to me. Among
+themselves they spoke, I think, English, though I do not understand it,
+except a few words, such as ''ow moch?' and 'sank you' and 'rady,
+pleas', now.'"
+
+"Yes! yes!" cried Ste. Marie, impatiently. And the little Jew could see
+that he was laboring under some very strong excitement, and he wondered
+mildly about it, scenting a love-affair.
+
+"Then," he pursued, "there was a very young man in strange clothes--a
+tourist, I should think, like those Americans and English who come in
+the summer with little red books and sit on the terrace of the Café de
+la Paix." He heard his visitor draw a swift, sharp breath at that, but
+he hurried on before he could be interrupted. "This young man seemed to
+be unable to take his eyes from the lady--and small wonder! He was very
+much épris--very much épris, indeed. Never have I seen a youth more so.
+Ah, it was something to see, that--a thing to touch the heart!"
+
+"What did the young man look like?" demanded Ste. Marie.
+
+The photographer described the youth as best he could from memory, and
+he saw his visitor nod once or twice, and at the end he said:
+
+"Yes, yes; I thought so. Thank you."
+
+The Jew did not know what it was the other thought, but he went on:
+
+"Ah, a thing to touch the heart! Such devotion as that! Alas, that the
+lady should seem so cold to it! Still, a goddess! What would you? A
+queen among goddesses. One would not have them laugh and make little
+jokes--make eyes at love-sick boys. No, indeed!" He shook his head
+rapidly and sighed.
+
+M. Ste. Marie was silent for a little space, but at length he looked up
+as if he had just remembered something.
+
+"And the third man?" he asked.
+
+"Ah, yes, the third gentleman," said Bernstein. "I had forgotten him.
+The third gentleman I knew well. He had often been here. It was he who
+brought these friends to me. He was M. le Capitaine Stewart. Everybody
+knows M. le Capitaine Stewart--everybody in Paris."
+
+Again he observed that his visitor drew a little, swift, sharp breath,
+and that he seemed to be laboring under some excitement.
+
+However, Ste. Marie did not question him further, and so he went on to
+tell the little more he knew of the matter--how the four people had
+remained for an hour or more, trying many poses; how they had returned,
+all but the tall gentleman, three days later to see the proofs and to
+order certain ones to be printed (the young man paying on the spot in
+advance), and how the finished prints had been sent to M. le Capitaine
+Stewart's address.
+
+When he had finished, his visitor sat for a long time silent, his head
+bent a little, frowning upon the floor and chafing his hands together
+over his knees. But at last he rose rather abruptly. He said:
+
+"Thank you very much, indeed. You have done me a great service. If ever
+I can repay it, command me. Thank you!"
+
+The Jew protested, smiling, that he was still too deeply in debt to M.
+Ste. Marie, and so, politely wrangling, they reached the door, and with
+a last expression of gratitude the visitor departed down the stair. A
+client came in just then for a sitting, and so the little photographer
+did not have an opportunity to wonder over the rather odd affair as much
+as he might have done. Indeed, in the press of work, it slipped from his
+mind altogether.
+
+But down in the busy boulevard Ste. Marie stood hesitating on the curb.
+There were so many things to be done, in the light of these new
+developments, that he did not know what to do first.
+
+"Mlle. Coira O'Hara!--_Mademoiselle!_" The thought gave him a sudden
+sting of inexplicable relief and pleasure. She would be O'Hara's
+daughter, then. And the boy, Arthur Benham (there was no room for doubt
+in the photographer's description) had seemed to be badly in love with
+her. This was a new development, indeed! It wanted thought, reflection,
+consultation with Richard Hartley. He signalled to a fiacre, and when it
+had drawn up before him sprang into it and gave Richard Hartley's
+address in the Avenue de l'Observatoire. But when they had gone a little
+way he changed his mind and gave another address, one in the Boulevard
+de la Tour Maubourg. It was where Mlle. Olga Nilssen lived. She had told
+him when he parted from her the evening before.
+
+On the way he fell to thinking of what he had learned from the little
+photographer Bernstein, to setting the facts, as well as he could, in
+order, endeavoring to make out just how much or how little they
+signified by themselves or added to what he had known before. But he was
+in far too keen a state of excitement to review them at all calmly. As
+on the previous evening, they seemed to him to loom to the skies, and
+again he saw himself successful in his quest--victorious--triumphant.
+That this leap to conclusions was but a little less absurd than the
+first did not occur to him. He was in a fine fever of enthusiasm, and
+such difficulties as his eye perceived lay in a sort of vague mist to be
+dissipated later on, when he should sit quietly down with Hartley and
+sift the wheat from the chaff, laying out a definite scheme of action.
+
+It occurred to him that in his interview with the photographer he had
+forgotten one point, and he determined to go back, later on, and ask
+about it. He had forgotten to inquire as to Captain Stewart's attitude
+toward the beautiful lady. Young Arthur Benham's infatuation had filled
+his mind at the time, and had driven out of it what Olga Nilssen had
+told him about Stewart. He found himself wondering if this point might
+not be one of great importance--the rivalry of the two men for O'Hara's
+daughter. Assuredly that demanded thought and investigation.
+
+He found the prettily furnished apartment in the Avenue de la Tour
+Maubourg a scene of great disorder, presided over by a maid who seemed
+to be packing enormous quantities of garments into large trunks. The
+maid told him that her mistress, after a sleepless night, had departed
+from Paris by an early train, quite alone, leaving the servant to follow
+on when she had telegraphed or written an address. No, Mlle. Nilssen had
+left no address at all--not even for letters or telegrams. In short, the
+entire proceeding was, so the exasperated woman viewed it, everything
+that is imbecile.
+
+Ste. Marie sat down on a hamper with his stick between his knees, and
+wrote a little note to be sent on when Mlle. Nilssen's whereabouts
+should be known. It was unfortunate, he reflected, that she should have
+fled away just now, but not of great importance to him, because he did
+not believe that he could learn very much more from her than he had
+learned already. Moreover, he sympathized with her desire to get away
+from Paris--as far away as possible from the man whom she had seen in so
+horrible a state on the evening past.
+
+He had kept the fiacre at the door, and he drove at once back to the rue
+d'Assas. As he started to mount the stair the concierge came out of her
+loge to say that Mr. Hartley had called soon after Monsieur had left the
+house that morning, had seemed very much disappointed on not finding
+Monsieur, and before going away again had had himself let into
+Monsieur's apartment with the key of the femme de ménage, and had
+written a note which Monsieur would find là haut.
+
+Ste. Marie thanked the woman, and went on up to his rooms, wondering why
+Hartley had bothered to leave a note instead of waiting or returning at
+lunch-time, as he usually did. He found the communication on his table
+and read it at once. Hartley said:
+
+I have to go across the river to the Bristol to see some relatives who
+are turning up there to-day, and who will probably keep me until
+evening, and then I shall have to go back there to dine. So I'm leaving
+a word for you about some things I discovered last evening. I met Miss
+Benham at Armenonville, where I dined, and in a tête-à-tête conversation
+we had after dinner she let fall two facts which seem to me very
+important. They concern Captain S. In the first place, when he told us
+that day, some time ago, that he knew nothing about his father's will or
+any changes that might have been made in it, he lied. It seems that old
+David, shortly after the boy's disappearance, being very angry at what
+he considered, and still considers, a bit of spite on the boy's part,
+cut young Arthur Benham out of his will and transferred that share to
+_Captain S._ (Miss Benham learned this from the old man only yesterday).
+Also it appears that he did this after talking the matter over with
+Captain S., who affected unwillingness. So, as the will reads now, Miss
+B. and Captain S. stand to share equally the bulk of the old man's
+money, which is several millions--in dollars, of course. Miss B.'s
+mother is to have the interest of half of both shares as long as she
+lives. Now mark this: Prior to this new arrangement, Captain S. was to
+receive only a small legacy, on the ground that he already had a
+respectable fortune left him by his mother, old David's first wife (I've
+heard, by-the-way, that he has squandered a good share of this.)
+
+Miss B. is, of course, much cut up over the injustice to the boy, but
+she can't protest too much, as it only excites old David. She says the
+old man is much weaker.
+
+You see, of course, the significance of all this. If David Stewart dies,
+as he's likely to do, before young Arthur's return, Captain S. gets the
+money.
+
+The second fact I learned was that Miss Benham did not tell her uncle
+about her semi-engagement to you or about your volunteering to search
+for the boy. She thinks her grandfather must have told him. I didn't say
+so to her, but that is hardly possible in view of the fact that Stewart
+came on here to your rooms very soon after you had reached them
+yourself.
+
+So that makes two lies for our gentle friend--and serious lies, both of
+them. To my mind, they point unmistakably to a certain conclusion.
+_Captain S. has been responsible for putting his nephew out of the way_.
+He has either hidden him somewhere and is keeping him in confinement, or
+he has killed him.
+
+I wish we could talk it over to-day, but, as you see, I'm helpless.
+Remain in to-night, and I'll come as soon as I can get rid of these
+confounded people of mine.
+
+One word more. Be careful! Miss B. is, up to this point, merely puzzled
+over things. She doesn't suspect her uncle of any crookedness, I'm sure.
+So we shall have to tread softly where she is concerned.
+
+I shall see you to-night. R.H.
+
+Ste. Marie read the closely written pages through twice, and he thought
+how like his friend it was to take the time and trouble to put what he
+had learned into this clear, concise form. Another man would have
+scribbled, "Important facts--tell you all about it to-night," or
+something of that kind. Hartley must have spent a quarter of an hour
+over his writing.
+
+Ste. Marie walked up and down the room with all his strength forcing his
+brain to quiet, reasonable action. Once he said, aloud:
+
+"Yes, you're right, of course. Stewart has been at the bottom of it all
+along." He realized that he had been for some days slowly arriving at
+that conclusion, and that since the night before he had been practically
+certain of it, though he had not yet found time to put his suspicions
+into logical order. Hartley's letter had driven the truth concretely
+home to him, but he would have reached the same truth without it--though
+that matter of the will was of the greatest importance. It gave him a
+strong weapon to strike with.
+
+He halted before one of the front windows, and his eyes gazed unseeing
+across the street into the green shrubbery of the Luxembourg Gardens.
+The lace curtains had been left by the femme de ménage hanging straight
+down, and not, as usual, looped back to either side, so he could see
+through them with perfect ease, although he could not be seen from
+outside.
+
+He became aware that a man who was walking slowly up and down a path
+inside the high iron palings was in some way familiar to him, and his
+eyes sharpened. The man was inconspicuously dressed, and looked like
+almost any other man whom one might pass in the streets without taking
+any notice of him; but Ste. Marie knew that he had seen him often, and
+he wondered how and where. There was a row of lilac shrubs against the
+iron palings just inside and between the palings and the path, but two
+of the shrubs were dead and leafless, and each time the man passed this
+spot he came into plain view; each time, also, he directed an oblique
+glance toward the house opposite. Presently he turned aside and sat down
+upon one of the public benches, where he was almost, but not quite,
+hidden by the intervening foliage.
+
+Then at last Ste. Marie gave a sudden exclamation and smote his hands
+together.
+
+"The fellow's a spy!" he cried, aloud. "He's watching the house to see
+when I go out." He began to remember how he had seen the man in the
+street and in cafés and restaurants, and he remembered that he had once
+or twice thought it odd, but without any second thought of suspicion. So
+the fellow had been set to spy upon him, watch his goings and comings
+and report them to--no need of asking to whom.
+
+Ste. Marie stood behind his curtains and looked across into the pleasant
+expanse of shrubbery and greensward. He was wondering if it would be
+worth while to do anything. Men and women went up and down the path,
+hurrying or slowly, at ease with the world--laborers, students, bonnes
+with market-baskets in their hands and long bread loaves under their
+arms, nurse-maids herding small children, bigger children spinning
+diabolo spools as they walked. A man with a pointed black beard and a
+soft hat passed once and returned to seat himself upon the public bench
+that Ste. Marie was watching. For some minutes he sat there idle,
+holding the soft felt hat upon his knees for coolness. Then he turned
+and looked at the other occupant of the bench, and Ste. Marie thought he
+saw the other man nod, though he could not be sure whether either one
+spoke or not. Presently the new-comer rose, put on the soft hat again,
+and disappeared down the path going toward the gate at the head of the
+rue du Luxembourg.
+
+Five minutes later the door-bell rang.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+XIII
+
+THE VOYAGE TO COLCHIS
+
+
+Ste. Marie turned away from the window and crossed to the door. The man
+with the pointed beard removed his soft hat, bowed very politely, and
+asked if he had the honor to address M. Ste. Marie.
+
+"That is my name," said Ste. Marie. "Entrez, Monsieur!" He waved his
+visitor to a chair and stood waiting.
+
+The man with the beard bowed once more. He said:
+
+"I have not the great honor of Monsieur's acquaintance, but
+circumstances, which I will explain later, have put it in my power--have
+made it a sacred duty, if I may be permitted to say the word--to place
+in Monsieur's hands a piece of information."
+
+Ste. Marie smiled slightly and sat down. He said:
+
+"I listen with pleasure--and anticipation. Pray go on!"
+
+"I have information," said the visitor, "of the whereabouts of M. Arthur
+Benham."
+
+Ste. Marie waved his hand.
+
+"I feared as much," said he. "I mean to say, I hoped so. Proceed,
+Monsieur!"
+
+"And learning," continued the other, "that M. Ste. Marie was conducting
+a search for that young gentleman, I hastened at once to place this
+information in his hands."
+
+"At a price," suggested his host. "At a price, to be sure."
+
+The man with the beard spread out his hands in a beautiful and eloquent
+gesture which well accompanied his Marseillais accent.
+
+"Ah, as to that!" he protested. "My circumstances--I am poor, Monsieur.
+One must gain the livelihood. What would you? A trifle. The merest
+trifle."
+
+"Where is Arthur Benham?" asked Ste. Marie.
+
+"In Marseilles, Monsieur. I saw him a week ago--six days. And, so far as
+I could learn, he had no intention of leaving there immediately--though
+it is, to be sure, hot."
+
+Ste. Marie laughed a laugh of genuine amusement, and the man with the
+pointed beard stared at him with some wonder. Ste. Marie rose and
+crossed the room to a writing-desk which stood against the opposite
+wall. He fumbled in a drawer of this, and returned holding in his hand a
+pink-and-blue note of the Banque de France. He said:
+
+"Monsieur--pardon! I have forgotten to ask the name--you have remarked
+quite truly that one must gain a livelihood. Therefore, I do not presume
+to criticise the way in which you gain yours. Sometimes one cannot
+choose. However, I should like to make a little bargain with you,
+Monsieur. I know, of course, being not altogether imbecile, who sent you
+here with this story and why you were sent--why, also, your friend who
+sits upon the bench in the garden across the street follows me about and
+spies upon me. I know all this, and I laugh at it a little. But,
+Monsieur, to amuse myself further, I have a desire to hear from your own
+lips the name of the gentleman who is your employer. Amusement is almost
+always expensive, and so I am prepared to pay for this. I have here a
+note of one hundred francs. It is yours in return for the name--the
+_right_ name. Remember, I know it already."
+
+The man with the pointed beard sprang to his feet quivering with
+righteous indignation. All Southern Frenchmen, like all other Latins,
+are magnificent actors. He shook one clinched hand in the air, his face
+was pale, and his fine eyes glittered. Richard Hartley would have put
+himself promptly in an attitude of defence, but Ste. Marie nodded a
+smiling head in appreciation. He was half a Southern Frenchman himself.
+
+"Monsieur!" cried his visitor, in a choked voice, "Monsieur, have a
+care! You insult me! Have a care, Monsieur! I am dangerous! My anger,
+when roused, is terrible!"
+
+"I am cowed," observed Ste. Marie, lighting a cigarette. "I quail."
+
+"Never," declaimed the gentleman from Marseilles, "have I received an
+insult without returning blow for blow! My blood boils!"
+
+"The hundred francs, Monsieur," said Ste. Marie, "will doubtless cool
+it. Besides, we stray from our sheep. Reflect, my friend! I have not
+insulted you. I have asked you a simple question. To be sure, I have
+said that I knew your errand here was not--not altogether sincere, but I
+protest, Monsieur, that no blame attaches to yourself. The blame is your
+employer's. You have performed your mission with the greatest of
+honesty--the most delicate and faithful sense of honor. That is
+understood."
+
+The gentleman with the beard strode across to one of the windows and
+leaned his head upon his hand. His shoulders still heaved with emotion,
+but he no longer trembled. The terrible crisis bade fair to pass. Then,
+abruptly, in the frank and open Latin way, he burst into tears, and wept
+with copious profusion, while Ste. Marie smoked his cigarette and
+waited.
+
+When at length the Marseillais turned back into the room he was calm
+once more, but there remained traces of storm and flood. He made a
+gesture of indescribable and pathetic resignation.
+
+"Monsieur," he exclaimed, "you have a heart of gold--of gold, Monsieur!
+You understand. Behold us, two men of honor! Monsieur," he said, "I had
+no choice. I was poor. I saw myself face to face with the misère. What
+would you? I fell. We are all weak flesh. I accepted the commission of
+the pig who sent me here to you."
+
+Ste. Marie smoothed the pink-and-blue bank-note in his hands, and the
+other man's eye clung to it as though he were starving and the bank-note
+was food.
+
+"The name?" prompted Ste. Marie.
+
+The gentleman from Marseilles tossed up his hands.
+
+"Monsieur already knows it. Why should I hesitate? The name is Ducrot."
+
+"What!" cried Ste. Marie, sharply. "What is that? Ducrot?"
+
+"But naturally!" said the other man, with some wonder. "Monsieur said he
+knew. Certainly, Ducrot. A little, withered man, bald on the top of the
+head, creases down the cheeks, a mustache like this"--he made a
+descriptive gesture--"a little chin. A man like an elderly cat. M.
+Ducrot."
+
+Ste. Marie gave a sigh of relief.
+
+"Yes, yes," said he. "Ducrot is as good a name as another. The gentleman
+has more than one, it appears. Monsieur, the hundred-franc note is
+yours."
+
+The gentleman from Marseilles took it with a slightly trembling hand,
+and began to bow himself toward the door as if he feared that his host
+would experience a change of heart; but Ste. Marie checked him, saying:
+
+"One moment. I was thinking," said he, "that you would perhaps not care
+to present yourself to your--employer, M. Ducrot, immediately--not for a
+few days, at least, in view of the fact that certain actions of mine
+will show him your mission has--well, miscarried. It would, perhaps, be
+well for you not to communicate with M. Ducrot. He might be displeased
+with you."
+
+"Monsieur," said the gentleman with the beard, "you speak with acumen
+and wisdom. I shall neglect to report myself to M. Ducrot, who, I
+repeat, is a pig."
+
+"And," pursued Ste. Marie, "the individual on the bench across the
+street?"
+
+"It is not necessary that I meet that individual, either!" said the
+Marseillais, hastily. "Monsieur, I bid you adieu!" He bowed again, a
+profound, a scraping bow, and disappeared through the door.
+
+Ste. Marie crossed to the window and looked down upon the pavement
+below. He saw his late visitor emerge from the house and slip rapidly
+down the street toward the rue Vavin. He glanced across into the gardens
+and the spy still sat there on his bench, but his head lay back and he
+slept--the sleep of the unjust. One imagined that he must be snoring,
+for an incredibly small urchin in a blue apron stood on the path before
+him and watched with the open mouth of astonishment.
+
+Ste. Marie turned back into the room, and began to tramp up and down as
+was his way in a perplexity or in any time of serious thought. He wished
+very much that Richard Hartley were there to consult with. He considered
+Hartley to have a judicial mind--a mind to establish, out of confusion,
+something like logical order, and he was very well aware that he himself
+had not that sort of mind at all. In action he was sufficiently
+confident of himself, but to construct a course of action he was afraid,
+and he knew that a misstep now, at this critical point, might be
+fatal--turn success into disaster.
+
+He fell to thinking of Captain Stewart (alias M. Ducrot) and he longed
+most passionately to leap into a fiacre at the corner below, to drive at
+a gallop across the city to the rue du Faubourg St. Honoré, to fall upon
+that smiling hypocrite in his beautiful treasure-house, to seize him by
+the withered throat and say:
+
+"Tell me what you have done with Arthur Benham before I tear your head
+from your miserable body!"
+
+Indeed, he was far from sure that this was not what it would come to, in
+the end, for he reflected that he had not only a tremendous accumulation
+of evidence with which to face Captain Stewart, but also a very terrible
+weapon to hold over his head--the threat of exposure to the old man who
+lay slowly dying in the rue de l'Université! A few words in old David's
+ear, a few proofs of their truth, and the great fortune for which the
+son had sold his soul--if he had any left to sell--must pass forever out
+of his reach, like gold seen in a dream.
+
+This is what it might well come to, he said to himself. Indeed, it
+seemed to him at that moment far the most feasible plan, for to such
+accusations, such demands as that, Captain Stewart could offer no
+defence. To save himself from a more complete ruin he would have to give
+up the boy or tell what he knew of him. But Ste. Marie was unwilling to
+risk everything on this throw without seeing Richard Hartley first, and
+Hartley was not to be had until evening.
+
+He told himself that, after all, there was no immediate hurry, for he
+was quite sure the man would be compelled to keep to his bed for a day
+or two. He did not know much about epilepsy, but he knew that its
+paroxysms were followed by great exhaustion, and he felt sure that
+Stewart was far too weak in body to recuperate quickly from any severe
+call upon his strength. He remembered how light that burden had been in
+his arms the night before, and then an uncontrollable shiver of disgust
+went over him as he remembered the sight of the horribly twisted and
+contorted face, felt again the shaking, thumping head as it beat against
+his shoulder. He wondered how much Stewart knew, how much he would be
+able to remember of the events of the evening before, and he was at a
+loss there because of his unfamiliarity with epileptic seizures. Of one
+thing, however, he was almost certain, and that was that the man could
+scarcely have been conscious of who were beside him when the fit was
+over. If he had come at all to his proper senses before the ensuing
+slumber of exhaustion, it must have been after Mlle. Nilssen and himself
+had gone away.
+
+Upon that he fell to wondering about the spy and the gentleman from
+Marseilles--he was a little sorry that Hartley could not have seen the
+gentleman from Marseilles--but he reflected that the two were, without
+doubt, acting upon old orders, and that the latter had probably been
+stalking him for some days before he found him at home.
+
+He looked at his watch and it was half-past twelve. There was nothing to
+be done, he considered, but wait--get through the day somehow; and so,
+presently, he went out to lunch. He went up the rue Vavin to the
+Boulevard Montparnasse and down that broad thoroughfare to Lavenue's, on
+the busy Place de Rennes, where the cooking is the best in all this
+quarter, and can, indeed, hold up its head without shame in the face of
+those other more widely famous restaurants across the river, frequented
+by the smart world and by the travelling gourmet.
+
+He went through to the inner room, which is built like a raised loggia
+round two sides of a little garden, and which is always cool and fresh
+in summer. He ordered a rather elaborate lunch, and thought that he sat
+a very long time at it, but when he looked again at his watch only an
+hour and a half had gone by. It was a quarter-past two. Ste. Marie was
+depressed. There remained almost all of the afternoon to be got through,
+and Heaven alone could say how much of the evening, before he could have
+his consultation with Richard Hartley. He tried to think of some way of
+passing the time, but although he was not usually at a loss he found his
+mind empty of ideas. None of his common occupations recommended
+themselves to him. He knew that whatever he tried to do he would
+interrupt it with pulling out his watch every half-hour or so and
+cursing the time because it lagged so slowly. He went out to the terrace
+for coffee, very low in his mind.
+
+But half an hour later, as he sat behind his little marble-topped table,
+smoking and sipping a liqueur, his eyes fell upon something across the
+square which brought him to his feet with a sudden exclamation. One of
+the big electric trams that ply between the Place St. Germain des Prés
+and Clamart, by way of the Porte de Versailles and Vanves, was dragging
+its unwieldy bulk round the turn from the rue de Rennes into the
+boulevard. He could see the sign-board along the impériale--"Clamart-St.
+Germain des Prés," with "Issy" and "Vanves" in brackets between.
+
+Ste. Marie clinked a franc upon the table and made off across the Place
+at a run. Omnibuses from Batignolles and Menilmontant got in his way,
+fiacres tried to run him down, and a motor-car in a hurry pulled up just
+in time to save his life, but Ste. Marie ran on and caught the tram
+before it had completed the negotiation of the long curve and gathered
+speed for its dash down the boulevard. He sprang upon the step, and the
+conductor reluctantly unfastened the chain to admit him. So he climbed
+up to the top and seated himself, panting. The dial high on the façade
+of the Gare Montparnasse said ten minutes to three.
+
+He had no definite plan of action. He had started off in this headlong
+fashion upon the spur of a moment's impulse, and because he knew where
+the tram was going. Now, embarked, he began to wonder if he was not a
+fool. He knew every foot of the way to Clamart, for it was a favorite
+half-day's excursion with him to ride there in this fashion, walk thence
+through the beautiful Meudon wood across to the river, and from Bellevue
+or Bas-Meudon take a Suresnes boat back into the city. He knew, or
+thought he knew, just where lay the house, surrounded by garden and
+half-wild park, of which Olga Nilssen had told him; he had often
+wondered whose place it was as the tram rolled along the length of its
+high wall. But he knew, also, that he could do nothing there,
+single-handed and without excuse or preparation. He could not boldly
+ring the bell, demand speech with Mile. Coira O'Hara, and ask her if she
+knew anything of the whereabouts of young Arthur Benham, whom a
+photographer had suspected of being in love with her. He certainly could
+not do that. And there seemed to be nothing else that--Ste. Marie broke
+off this somewhat despondent course of reasoning with a sudden little
+voiceless cry. For the first time it occurred to him to connect the
+house on the Clamart road and Mlle. Coira O'Hara and young Arthur Benham
+(it will be remembered that the man had not yet had time to arrange his
+suddenly acquired mass of evidence in logical order and to make
+deductions from it), for the first time he began to put two and two
+together. Stewart had hidden away his nephew; this nephew was known to
+have been much enamoured of the girl Coira O'Hara; Coira O'Hara was said
+to be living--with her father, probably--in the house on the outskirts
+of Paris, where she was visited by Captain Stewart. Was not the
+inference plain enough--sufficiently reasonable? It left, without doubt,
+many puzzling things to be explained--perhaps too many; but Ste. Marie
+sat forward in his seat, his eyes gleaming, his face tense with
+excitement.
+
+"Is young Arthur Benham in the house on the Clamart road?"
+
+He said the words almost aloud, and he became aware that the fat woman
+with a live fowl at her feet and the butcher's boy on his other side
+were looking at him curiously. He realized that he was behaving in an
+excited manner, and so sat back and lowered his eyes. But over and over
+within him the words said themselves--over and over, until they made a
+sort of mad, foolish refrain.
+
+"Is Arthur Benham in the house on the Clamart road? Is Arthur Benham in
+the house on the Clamart road?" He was afraid that he would say it aloud
+once more, and, he tried to keep a firm hold upon himself.
+
+The tram swung into the rue de Sevres, and rolled smoothly out the long,
+uninteresting stretch of the rue Lecourbe, far out to where the houses,
+became scattered, where mounds and pyramids of red tiles stood alongside
+the factory where they had been made, where an acre of little glass
+hemispheres in long, straight rows winked and glistened in the afternoon
+sun--the forcing-beds of some market gardener; out to the Porte de
+Versailles at the city wall, where a group of customs officers sprawled
+at ease before their little sentry-box or loafed over to inspect an
+incoming tram.
+
+A bugle sounded and a drum beat from the great fosse under the wall, and
+a company of piou-pious, red-capped, red-trousered, shambled through
+their evolutions in a manner to break the heart of a British or a German
+drill-sergeant. Then out past level fields to little Vanves, with its
+steep streets and its old gray church, and past the splendid grounds of
+the Lycée beyond. The fat woman got down, her live fowl shrieking
+protest to the movement, and the butcher's boy got down, too, so that
+Ste. Marie was left alone upon the impériale save for a snuffy old
+gentleman in a pot-hat who sat in a corner buried behind the day's
+_Droits de l'Homme_.
+
+Ste. Marie moved forward once more and laid his arms upon the iron rail
+before him. They were coming near. They ran past plum and apple orchards
+and past humble little detached villas, each with a bit of garden in
+front and an acacia or two at the gate-posts. But presently, on the
+right, the way began to be bordered by a high stone wall, very long,
+behind which showed the trees of a park, and among them, far back from
+the wall beyond a little rise of ground, the gables and chimneys of a
+house could be made out. The wall went on for perhaps a quarter of a
+mile in a straight sweep, but half-way the road swung apart from it to
+the left, dipped under a stone railway bridge, and so presently ended at
+the village of Clamart.
+
+As the tram approached the beginning of that long stone wall it began to
+slacken speed, there was a grating noise from underneath, and presently
+it came to an abrupt halt. Ste. Marie looked over the guard-rail and saw
+that the driver had left his place and was kneeling in the dust beside
+the car peering at its underworks. The conductor strolled round to him
+after a moment and stood indifferently by, remarking upon the strange
+vicissitudes to which electrical propulsion is subject. The driver,
+without looking up, called his colleague a number of the most surprising
+and, it is to be hoped, unwarranted names, and suddenly began to burrow
+under the tram, wriggling his way after the manner of a serpent until
+nothing could be seen of him but two unrestful feet. His voice, though
+muffled, was still tolerably distinct. It cursed, in an unceasing
+staccato and with admirable ingenuity, the tram, the conductor, the
+sacred dog of an impediment which had got itself wedged into one of the
+trucks, and the world in general.
+
+Ste. Marie, sitting aloft, laughed for a moment, and then turned his
+eager eyes upon what lay across the road. The halt had taken place
+almost exactly at the beginning of that long stretch of park wall which
+ran beside the road and the tramway. From where he sat he could see the
+other wing which led inward from the road at something like a right
+angle, but was presently lost to sight because of a sparse and unkempt
+patch of young trees and shrubs, well-nigh choked with undergrowth,
+which extended for some distance from the park wall backward along the
+road-side toward Vanves. Whoever owned that stretch of land had
+seemingly not thought it worth while to cultivate it or to build upon it
+or even to clear it off.
+
+Ste. Marie's first thought, as his eye scanned the two long stretches of
+wall and looked over their tops to the trees of the park and the far-off
+gables and chimneys of the house, was to wonder where the entrance to
+the place could be, and he decided that it must be on the side opposite
+to the Clamart tram-line. He did not know the smaller roads hereabouts,
+but he guessed that there must be one somewhere beyond, between the
+route de Clamart and Fort d'Issy, and he was right. There is a little
+road between the two; it sweeps round in a long curve and ends near the
+tiny public garden in Issy, and it is called the rue Barbés.
+
+His second thought was that this unkempt patch of tree and brush offered
+excellent cover for any one who might wish to pass an observant hour
+alongside that high stone wall; for any one who might desire to cast a
+glance over the lie of the land, to see at closer range that house of
+which so little could be seen from the route de Clamart, to look over
+the wall's coping into park and garden.
+
+The thought brought him to his feet with a leaping heart, and before he
+realized that he had moved he found himself in the road beside the
+halted tram. The conductor brushed past him, mounting to his place, and
+from the platform beckoned, crying out:
+
+"En voiture, Monsieur! En voiture!"
+
+Again something within Ste. Marie that was not his conscious direction
+acted for him, and he shook his head. The conductor gave two little
+blasts upon his horn, the tram wheezed and moved forward. In a moment it
+was on its way, swinging along at full speed toward the curve in the
+line that bore to the left and dipped under the railway bridge. Ste.
+Marie stood in the middle of that empty road, staring after it until it
+had disappeared from view.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+XIV
+
+THE WALLS OF AEA
+
+
+Ste. Marie had acted upon an impulse of which he was scarcely conscious
+at all, and when he found himself standing alone in the road and
+watching the Clamart tram disappear under the railway bridge he called
+himself hard names and wondered what he was to do next. He looked before
+and behind him, and there was no living soul in sight. He bent his eyes
+again upon that unkempt patch of young trees and undergrowth, and once
+more the thought forced itself to his brain that it would make excellent
+cover for one who wished to observe a little--to reconnoitre.
+
+He knew that it was the part of wisdom to turn his back upon this place,
+to walk on to Clamart or return to Vanves and mount upon a
+homeward-bound tram. He knew that it was the part of folly, of madness
+even, to expose himself to possible discovery by some one within the
+walled enclosure. What though no one there were able to recognize him,
+still the sight of a man prowling about the walls, seeking to spy over
+them, might excite an alarm that would lead to all sorts of undesirable
+complications. Dimly Ste. Marie realized all this, and he tried to turn
+his back and walk away, but the patch of little trees and shrubbery drew
+him with an irresistible fascination. "Just a little look along that
+unknown wall," he said to himself, "just the briefest of all brief
+reconnaissances, the merest glance beyond the masking screen of wood
+growth, so that in case of sudden future need he might have the lie of
+the place clear in his mind;" for without any sound reason for it he was
+somehow confident that this walled house and garden were to play an
+important part in the rescue of Arthur Benham. It was once more a matter
+of feeling. The rather womanlike intuition which had warned him that
+O'Hara was concerned in young Benham's disappearance, and that the two
+were not far from Paris, was again at work in him, and he trusted it as
+he had done before.
+
+He gave a little nod of determination, as one who, for good or ill,
+casts a die, and he crossed the road. There was a deep ditch, and he had
+to climb down into it and up its farther side, for it was too broad to
+be jumped. So he came into the shelter of the young poplars and elms and
+oaks. The underbrush caught at his clothes, and the dead leaves of past
+seasons crackled underfoot; but after a little space he came to somewhat
+clearer ground, though the saplings still stood thick about him and hid
+him securely.
+
+He made his way inward along the wall, keeping a short distance back
+from it, and he saw that after twenty or thirty yards it turned again at
+a very obtuse angle away from him and once more ran on in a long
+straight line. Just beyond this angle he came upon a little wooden door
+thickly studded with nails. It was made to open inward, and on the
+outside there was no knob or handle of any kind, only a large key-hole
+of the simple, old-fashioned sort. Slipping up near to look, Ste. Marie
+observed that the edges of the key-hole were rusty, but scratched a
+little through the rust with recent marks; so the door, it seemed, was
+sometimes used. He observed another thing. The ground near by was less
+encumbered with trees than at any other point, and the turf was
+depressed with many wheel marks--broad marks, such as are made only by
+the wheels of a motor-car. He followed these tracks for a little
+distance, and they wound in and out among the trees, and beyond the thin
+fringe of wood swept away in a curve toward Issy, doubtless to join the
+road which he had already imagined to lie somewhere beyond the
+enclosure.
+
+Beyond the more open space about this little door the young trees stood
+thick together again, and Ste. Marie pressed cautiously on. He stopped
+now and then to listen, and once he thought that he heard from within
+the sound of a woman's laugh, but he could not be sure. The slight
+change of direction had confused him a little, and he was uncertain as
+to where the house lay. The wall was twelve or fifteen feet high, and
+from the level of the ground he could, of course, see nothing over it
+but tree tops. He went on for what may have been a hundred yards, but it
+seemed to him very much more than that, and he came to a tall gnarled
+cedar-tree which stood almost against the high wall. It was half dead,
+but its twisted limbs were thick and strong, and by force of the tree's
+cramped position they had grown in strange and grotesque forms. One of
+them stretched across the very top of the stone wall, and with the
+wind's action it had scraped away the coping of tiles and bottle-glass
+and had made a little depression there to rest in.
+
+Ste. Marie looked up along this natural ladder, and temptation smote him
+sorely. It was so easy and so safe! There was enough foliage left upon
+the half-dead tree to screen him well, but whether or no it is probable
+that he would have yielded to the proffered lure. There seems to have
+been more than chance in Ste. Marie's movements upon this day; there
+seems to have been something like the hand of Fate in them--as doubtless
+there is in most things, if one but knew.
+
+He left his hat and stick behind him, under a shrub, and he began to
+make his way up the half-bare branches of the gnarled cedar. They bore
+him well, without crack or rustle, and the way was very easy. No ladder
+made by man could have offered a much simpler ascent. So, mounting
+slowly and with care, his head came level with the top of the wall. He
+climbed to the next branch, a foot higher, and rested there. The
+drooping foliage from the upper part of the cedar-tree, which was still
+alive, hung down over him and cloaked him from view, but through its
+aromatic screen he could see as freely as through the window curtain in
+the rue d'Assas.
+
+The house lay before him, a little to the left and perhaps a hundred
+yards away. It was a disappointing house to find in that great
+enclosure, for though it was certainly neither small nor trivial, it was
+as certainly far from possessing anything like grandeur. It had been in
+its day a respectable, unpretentious square structure of three stories,
+entirely without architectural beauty, but also entirely without the
+ornate hideousness of the modern villas along the route de Clamart. Now,
+however, the stucco was gone in great patches from its stone walls,
+giving them an unpleasantly diseased look, and long neglect of all
+decent cares had lent the place the air almost of desertion. Anciently
+the grounds before the house had been laid out in the formal fashion
+with a terrace and geometrical lawns and a pool and a fountain and a
+rather fine, long vista between clipped larches, but the same neglect
+which had made shabby the stuccoed house had allowed grass and weeds to
+grow over the gravel paths, underbrush to spring up and to encroach upon
+the geometrical turf-plots, the long double row of clipped larches to
+flourish at will or to die or to fall prostrate and lie where they had
+fallen.
+
+So all the broad enclosure was a scene of heedless neglect, a riot of
+unrestrained and wanton growth, where should have been decorous and
+orderly beauty. It was a sight to bring tears to a gardener's eyes, but
+it had a certain untamed charm of its own, for all that. The very riot
+of it, the wanton prodigality of untouched natural growth, produced an
+effect that was by no means all disagreeable.
+
+An odd and whimsical thought came into Ste. Marie's mind that thus must
+have looked the garden and park round the castle of the sleeping beauty
+when the prince came to wake her.
+
+But sleeping beauties and unkempt grounds went from him in a flash when
+he became aware of a sound which was like the sound of voices.
+Instinctively he drew farther back into the shelter of his aromatic
+screen. His eyes swept the space below him from right to left, and could
+see no one. So he sat very still, save for the thunderous beat of a
+heart which seemed to him like drum-beats when soldiers are marching,
+and he listened--"all ears," as the phrase goes.
+
+The sound was in truth a sound of voices. He was presently assured of
+that, but for some time he could not make out from which direction it
+came. And so he was the more startled when quite suddenly there appeared
+from behind a row of tall shrubs two young people moving slowly together
+up the untrimmed turf in the direction of the house.
+
+The two young people were Mlle. Coira O'Hara and Arthur Benham, and upon
+the brow of this latter youth there was no sign of dungeon pallor, upon
+his free-moving limbs no ball and chain. There was no apparent reason
+why he should not hasten back to the eager arms in the rue de
+l'Université if he chose to--unless, indeed, his undissembling attitude
+toward Mlle. Coira O'Hara might serve as a reason. The young man
+followed at her heel with much the manner and somewhat the appearance of
+a small dog humbly conscious of unworthiness, but hopeful nevertheless
+of an occasional kind word or pat on the head.
+
+The world wheeled multi-colored and kaleidoscopic before Ste. Marie's
+eyes, and in his ears there was a rushing of great winds, but he set his
+teeth and clung with all the strength he had to the tree which sheltered
+him. His first feeling, after that initial giddiness, was anger, sheer
+anger, a bewildered and astonished fury. He had thought to find this
+poor youth in captivity, pining through prison bars for the home and the
+loved ones and the familiar life from which he had been ruthlessly torn.
+Yet here he was strolling in a suburban garden with a lady--free, free
+as air, or so he seemed. Ste. Marie thought of the grim and sorrowful
+old man in Paris who was sinking untimely into his grave because his
+grandson did not return to him; he thought of that timid soul--more
+shadow than woman--the boy's mother; he thought of Helen Benham's tragic
+eyes, and he could have beaten young Arthur half to death in that moment
+in the righteous rage that stormed within him.
+
+But he turned his eyes from this wretched youth to the girl who walked
+beside, a little in advance, and the rage died in him swiftly.
+
+After all, was she not one to make any boy--or any man--forget duty,
+home, friends, everything?
+
+Rather oddly his mind flashed back to the morning and to the words of
+the little photographer, Bernstein. Perhaps the Jew had put it as well
+as any man could:
+
+"She was a goddess, that lady, a queen of goddesses ... the young Juno
+before marriage...."
+
+Ste. Marie nodded his head. Yes, she was just that. The little Jew had
+spoken well. It could not be more fairly put--though without doubt it
+could have been expressed at much greater length and with a great deal
+more eloquence. The photographer's other words came also to his mind,
+the more detailed description, and again he nodded his head, for this,
+too, was true.
+
+"She was all color--brown skin with a dull-red stain under the cheeks,
+and a great mass of hair that was not black but very nearly
+black--except in the sun, and then there were red lights in it."
+
+It occurred to Ste. Marie, whimsically, that the two young people might
+have stepped out of the door of Bernstein's studio straight into this
+garden, judging from their bearing each to the other.
+
+"Ah, a thing to touch the heart! Such devotion as that! Alas, that the
+lady should seem so cold to it! ... Still, a goddess! What would you? A
+queen among goddesses! ... One would not have them laugh and make little
+jokes.... Make eyes at love-sick boys. No, indeed!"
+
+Certainly Mlle. Coira O'Hara was not making eyes at the love-sick boy
+who followed at her heel this afternoon. Perhaps it would be going too
+far to say that she was cold to him, but it was very plain to see that
+she was bored and weary, and that she wished she might be almost
+anywhere else than where she was. She turned her beautiful face a little
+toward the wall where Ste. Marie lay perdu, and he could see that her
+eyes had the same dark fire, the same tragic look of appeal that he had
+seen in them before--once in the Champs-Elysées and again in his dreams.
+
+Abruptly he became aware that while he gazed, like a man in a trance,
+the two young people walked on their way and were on the point of
+passing beyond reach of eye or ear. He made a sudden involuntary
+movement as if he would call them back, and for the first time his
+faithful hiding-place, strained beyond silent endurance, betrayed him
+with a loud rustle of shaken branches. Ste. Marie shrank back, his heart
+in his throat. It was too late to retreat now down the tree. The damage
+was already done. He saw the two young people halt and turn to look, and
+after a moment he saw the boy come slowly forward, staring. He heard him
+say:
+
+"What's up in that tree? There's something in the tree." And he heard
+the girl answer: "It's only birds fighting. Don't bother!" But young
+Arthur Benham came on, staring up curiously until he was almost under
+the high wall.
+
+Then Ste. Marie's strange madness, or the hand of Fate, or whatever
+power it was which governed him on that day, thrust him on to the
+ultimate pitch of recklessness. He bent forward from his insecure perch
+over the wall until his head and shoulders were in plain sight, and he
+called down to the lad below in a loud whisper:
+
+"Benham! Benham!"
+
+The boy gave a sharp cry of alarm and began to back away. And after a
+moment Ste. Marie heard the cry echoed from Coira O'Hara. He heard her
+say:
+
+"Be careful! Be careful, Arthur! Come away! Oh, come away quickly!"
+
+Ste. Marie raised his own voice to a sort of cry. He said:
+
+"Wait! I tell you to wait, Benham! I must have a word with you. I come
+from your family--from Helen!"
+
+To his amazement the lad turned about and began to run toward where the
+girl stood waiting; and so, without a moment's hesitation, Ste. Marie
+threw himself across the top of the wall, hung for an instant by his
+hands, and dropped upon the soft turf. Scarcely waiting to recover his
+balance, he stumbled forward, shouting:
+
+"Wait! I tell you, wait! Are you mad? Wait, I say! Listen to me!"
+
+Vaguely, in the midst of his great excitement, he had heard a whistle
+sound as he dropped inside the wall. He did not know then whence the
+shrill call had come, but afterward he knew that Coira O' Hara had blown
+it. And now, as he ran forward toward the two who stood at a distance
+staring at him, he heard other steps and he slackened his pace to look.
+
+A man came running down among the black-boled trees, a strange, squat,
+gnomelike man whose gait was as uncouth as his dwarfish figure. He held
+something in his two hands as he ran, and when he came near he threw
+this thing with a swift movement up before him, but he did not pause in
+his odd, scrambling run.
+
+Ste. Marie felt a violent blow upon his left leg between hip and knee.
+He thought that somebody had crept up behind him and struck him; but as
+he whirled about he saw that there was no one there, and then he heard a
+noise and knew that the gnomelike running man had shot him. He faced
+about once more toward the two young people. He was very angry and he
+wished to say so, and very much he wished to explain why he had
+trespassed there, and why they had no right to shoot him as if he were
+some wretched thief. But he found that in some quite absurd fashion he
+was as if fixed to the ground. It was as if he had suddenly become of
+the most ponderous and incredible weight, like lead--or that other
+metal, not gold, which is the heaviest of all. Only the metal,
+seemingly, was not only heavy but fiery hot, and his strength was
+incapable of holding it up any longer. His eyes fixed themselves in a
+bewildered stare upon the figure of Mlle. Coira O'Hara; he had time to
+observe that she had put up her two hands over her face, then he fell
+down forward, his head struck something very hard, and he knew no more.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+XV
+
+A CONVERSATION AT LA LIERRE
+
+
+Captain Stewart walked nervously up and down the small inner
+drawing-room at La Lierre, his restless hands fumbling together behind
+him, and his eyes turning every half-minute with a sharp eagerness to
+the closed door. But at last, as if he were very tired, he threw himself
+down in a chair which stood near one of the windows, and all his tense
+body seemed to relax in utter exhaustion. It was not a very comfortable
+chair that he had sat down in, but there were no comfortable chairs in
+the room--nor, for that matter, in all the house. When he had taken the
+place, about two months before this time, he had taken it furnished, but
+that does not mean very much in France. No French country-houses--or
+town-houses, either--are in the least comfortable, by Anglo-Saxon
+standards, and that is at least one excellent reason why Frenchmen spend
+just as little time in them as they possibly can. Half the cafés in
+Paris would promptly put up their shutters if Parisian homes could all
+at once turn themselves into something like English or American ones. As
+for La Lierre, it was even more dreary and bare and tomblike than other
+country-houses, because it was, after all, a sort of ruin, and had not
+been lived in for fifteen years, save by an ancient caretaker and his
+nearly as ancient wife. And that was, perhaps, why it could be taken on
+a short lease at such a very low price.
+
+The room in which Captain Stewart sat was behind the large drawing-room,
+which was always kept closed now, and it looked out by one window to the
+west, and by two windows to the north, over a corner of the kitchen
+garden and a vista of trees beyond. It was a high-ceiled room with walls
+bare except for two large mirrors in the Empire fashion, which stared at
+each other across the way with dull and flaking eyes. Under each of
+these stood a heavy gilt and ebony console with a top of
+chocolate-colored marble, and in the centre of the room there was a
+table of a like fashion to the consoles. Further than this there was
+nothing save three chairs, upon one of which lay Captain Stewart's
+dust-coat and motoring cap and goggles.
+
+A shaft of golden light from the low sun slanted into the place through
+the western window from which the Venetians had been pulled back, and
+fell across the face of the man who lay still and lax in his chair, eyes
+closed and chin dropped a little so that his mouth hung weakly open. He
+looked very ill, as, indeed, any one might look after such an attack as
+he had suffered on the night previous. That one long moment of deathly
+fear before he had fallen down in a fit had nearly killed him. All
+through this following day it had continued to recur until he thought he
+should go mad. And there was worse still. How much did Olga Nilssen
+know? And how much had she told? She had astonished and frightened him
+when she had said that she knew about the house on the road to Clamart,
+for he thought he had hidden his visits to La Lierre well. He wondered
+rather drearily how she had discovered them, and he wondered how much
+she knew more than she had admitted. He had a half-suspicion of
+something like the truth, that Mlle. Nilssen knew only of Coira O'Hara's
+presence here, and drew a rather natural inference. If that was all,
+there was no danger from her--no more, that is, than had already borne
+its fruit, for Stewart knew well enough that Ste. Marie must have
+learned of the place from her. In any case Olga Nilssen had left
+Paris--he had discovered that fact during the day--and so for the
+present she might be eliminated as a source of peril.
+
+The man in the chair gave a little groan and rolled his head wearily to
+and fro against the uncomfortable chair-back, for now he came to the
+real and immediate danger, and he was so very tired and ill, and his
+head ached so sickeningly that it was almost beyond him to bring himself
+face to face with it.
+
+There was the man who lay helpless upon a bed up-stairs! And there were
+the man's friends, who were not at all helpless or bedridden or in
+captivity!
+
+A wave of almost intolerable pain swept through Stewart's aching head,
+and he gave another groan which was almost like a child's sob. But at
+just that moment the door which led into the central hall opened, and
+the Irishman O'Hara came into the room. Captain Stewart sprang to his
+feet to meet him, and he caught the other man by the arm in his
+eagerness.
+
+"How is he?" he cried out. "How is he? How badly was he hurt?"
+
+"The patient?" said O'Hara. "Let go my arm! Hang it, man, you're
+pinching me! Oh, he'll do well enough. He'll be fit to hobble about in a
+week or ten days. The bullet went clean through his leg and out again
+without cutting an artery. It was a sort of miracle--and a damned lucky
+miracle for all hands, too! If we'd had a splintered bone or a severed
+artery to deal with I should have had to call in a doctor. Then the
+fellow would have talked, and there'd have been the devil to pay. As it
+is, I shall be able to manage well enough with my own small skill. I've
+dressed worse wounds than that in my time. By Jove, it was a miracle,
+though!" A sudden little gust of rage swept him. He cried out: "That
+confounded fool of a gardener, that one-eyed Michel, ought to be beaten
+to death. Why couldn't he have slipped up behind this fellow and knocked
+him on the head, instead of shooting him from ten paces away? The
+benighted idiot! He came near upsetting the whole boat!"
+
+"Yes," said Captain Stewart, with a sharp, hard breath, "he should have
+shot straighter or not at all."
+
+The Irishman stared at him with his bright blue eyes, and after a moment
+he gave a short laugh.
+
+"Jove, you're a bloodthirsty beggar, Stewart!" said he. "That would have
+been a rum go, if you like! Killing the fellow! All his friends down on
+us like hawks, and the police and all that! You can't go about killing
+people in the outskirts of Paris, you know--at least not people with
+friends. And this chap looks like a gentleman, more or less, so I take
+it he has friends. As a matter of fact, his face is rather familiar. I
+think I've seen him before, somewhere. You looked at him just now
+through the crack of the door; do you know who he is? Coira tells me he
+called out to Arthur by name, but Arthur says he never saw him before
+and doesn't know him at all."
+
+Captain Stewart shivered. It had not been a pleasant moment for him,
+that moment when he had looked through the crack of the door and
+recognized Ste. Marie.
+
+"Yes," he said, half under his breath--"yes, I know who he is. A friend
+of the family."
+
+The Irishman's lips puckered to a low whistle. He said:
+
+"Spying, then, as I thought. He has run us to earth."
+
+And the other nodded. O'Hara took a turn across the room and back.
+
+"In that case," he said, presently--"in that case, then, we must keep
+him prisoner here so long as we remain. That's certain." He spun round
+sharply with an exclamation. "Look here!" he cried, in a lower tone,
+"how about this fellow's friends? It isn't likely he's doing his dirty
+work alone. How about his friends, when he doesn't turn up to-night? If
+they know he was coming here to spy on us; if they know where the place
+is; if they know, in short, what he seems to have known, we're done for.
+We'll have to run, get out, disappear. Hang it, man, d'you understand?
+We're not safe here for an hour."
+
+Captain Stewart's hands shook a little as he gripped them together
+behind him, and a dew of perspiration stood out suddenly upon his
+forehead and cheek-bones, but his voice, when he spoke, was well under
+control.
+
+"It's an odd thing," said he--"another miracle, if you like--but I
+believe we are safe--reasonably safe. I--have reason to think that this
+fellow learned about La Lierre only last evening from some one who left
+Paris to-day to be gone a long time. And I also have reason to believe
+that the fellow has not seen the one friend who is in his confidence,
+since he obtained his information. By chance I met the friend, the other
+man, in the street this afternoon. I asked after this fellow whom we
+have here, and the friend said he hadn't seen him for twenty-four
+hours--was going to see him to-night."
+
+"By the Lord!" cried the Irishman, with a great laugh of relief. "What
+luck! What monumental luck! If all that's true, we're safe. Why, man,
+we're as safe as a fox in his hole. The lad's friends won't have the
+ghost of an idea of where he's gone to.... Wait, though! Stop a bit! He
+won't have left written word behind him, eh? He won't have done
+that--for safety?"
+
+"I think not," said Captain Stewart, but he breathed hard, for he knew
+well enough that there lay the gravest danger. "I think not," he said
+again.
+
+He made a rather surprisingly accurate guess at the truth--that Ste.
+Marie had started out upon impulse, without intending more than a
+general reconnaissance, and therefore without leaving any word behind
+him. Still, the shadow of danger uplifted itself before the man and he
+was afraid. A sudden gust of weak anger shook him like a wind.
+
+"In Heaven's name," he cried, shrilly, "why didn't that one-eyed fool
+kill the fellow while he was about it? There's danger for us every
+moment while he is alive here. Why didn't that shambling idiot kill
+him?"
+
+Captain Stewart's outflung hand jumped and trembled and his face was
+twisted into a sort of grinning snarl. He looked like an angry and
+wicked cat, the other man thought.
+
+"If I weren't an over-civilized fool," he said, viciously, "I'd go
+up-stairs and kill him now with my hands while he can't help himself.
+We're all too scrupulous by half."
+
+The Irishman stared at him and presently broke into amazed laughter.
+
+"Scrupulous!" said he. "Well, yes, I'm too scrupulous to murder a man in
+his bed, if you like. I'm not squeamish, but--Good Lord!"
+
+"Do you realize," demanded Captain Stewart, "what risks we run while
+that fellow is alive--knowing what he knows?"
+
+"Oh yes, I realize that," said O'Hara. "But I don't see why _you_ should
+have heart failure over it."
+
+Captain Stewart's pale lips drew back again in their catlike fashion.
+
+"Never mind about me," he said. "But I can't help thinking you're
+peculiarly indifferent in the face of danger."
+
+"No, I'm not!" said the Irishman, quickly. "No, I'm not. Don't you run
+away with that idea! I merely said," he went oh--"I merely said that I'd
+stop short of murder. I don't set any foolish value on life--my own or
+any other. I've had to take life more than once, but it was in fair
+fight or in self-defence, and I don't regret it. It was your coldblooded
+joke about going up-stairs and killing this chap in his bed that put me
+on edge. Naturally I know you didn't mean it. Don't you go thinking that
+I'm lukewarm or that I'm indifferent to danger. I know there's danger
+from this lad up-stairs, and I mean to be on guard against it. He stays
+here under strict guard until--what we're after is accomplished--until
+young Arthur comes of age. If there's danger," said he, "why, we know
+where it lies, and we can guard against it. That kind of danger is not
+very formidable. The dangerous dangers are the ones that you don't know
+about--the hidden ones."
+
+He came forward a little, and his lean face was as hard and as impassive
+as ever, and the bright blue eyes shone from it steady and unwinking.
+Stewart looked up to him with a sort of peevish resentment at the man's
+confidence and cool poise. It was an odd reversal of their ordinary
+relations. For the hour the duller villain, the man who was wont to take
+orders and to refrain from overmuch thought or question, seemed to have
+become master. Sheer physical exhaustion and the constant maddening pain
+had had their will of Captain Stewart. A sudden shiver wrung him so that
+his dry fingers rattled against the wood of the chair-arms.
+
+"All the same," he cried, "I'm afraid. I've been confident enough until
+now. Now I'm afraid. I wish the fellow had been killed."
+
+"Kill him, then!" laughed the Irishman. "I won't give you up to the
+police."
+
+He crossed the room to the door, but halted short of it and turned about
+again, and he looked back very curiously at the man who sat crouched in
+his chair by the window. It had occurred to him several times that
+Stewart was very unlike himself. The man was quite evidently tired and
+ill, and that might account for some of the nervousness, but this fierce
+malignity was something a little beyond O'Hara's comprehension. It
+seemed to him that the elder man had the air of one frightened beyond
+the point the circumstances warranted.
+
+"Are you going back to town," he asked, "or do you mean to stay the
+night?"
+
+"I shall stay the night," Stewart said. "I'm too tired to bear the
+ride." He glanced up and caught the other's eyes fixed upon him. "Well!"
+he cried, angrily. "What is it? What are you looking at me like that
+for? What do you want?"
+
+"I want nothing," said the Irishman, a little sharply. "And I wasn't
+aware that I'd been looking at you in any unusual way. You're precious
+jumpy to-day, if you want to know.... Look here!" He came back a step,
+frowning. "Look here!" he repeated. "I don't quite make you out. Are you
+keeping back anything? Because if you are, for Heaven's sake have it out
+here and now! We're all in this game together, and we can't afford to be
+anything but frank with one another. We can't afford to make
+reservations. It's altogether too dangerous for everybody. You're too
+much frightened. There's no apparent reason for being so frightened as
+that."
+
+Captain Stewart drew a long breath between closed teeth, and afterward
+he looked up at the younger man coldly.
+
+"We need not discuss my personal feelings, I think," said he. "They have
+no--no bearing on the point at issue. As you say, we are all in this
+thing together, and you need not fear that I shall fail to do my part,
+as I have done it in the past.... That's all, I believe."
+
+"Oh, _as_ you like! As you like!" said the Irishman, in the tone of one
+rebuffed. He turned again and left the room, closing the door behind
+him. Outside on the stairs it occurred to him that he had forgotten to
+ask the other man what this fellow's name was--the fellow who lay
+wounded up-stairs. No, he had asked once, but in the interest of the
+conversation the question had been lost. He determined to inquire again
+that evening at dinner.
+
+But Captain Stewart, left thus alone, sank deeper in the uncomfortable
+chair, and his head once more stirred and sought vainly for ease against
+the chair's high back. The pain swept him in regular throbbing waves
+that were like the waves of the sea--waves which surge and crash and
+tear upon a beach. But between the throbs of physical pain there was
+something else that was always present while the waves came and went.
+Pain and exhaustion, if they are sufficiently extreme, can well nigh
+paralyze mind as well as body, and for some time Captain Stewart
+wondered what this thing might be which lurked at the bottom of him
+still under the surges of agony. Then at last he had the strength to
+look at it, and it was fear, cold and still and silent. He was afraid to
+the very depths of his soul.
+
+True, as O'Hara had said, there did not seem to be any very desperate
+peril to face, but Stewart was afraid with the gambler's unreasoning,
+half-superstitious fear, and that is the worst fear of all. He realized
+that he had been afraid of Ste. Marie from the beginning, and that, of
+course, was why he had tried to draw him into partnership with himself
+in his own official and wholly mythical search for Arthur Benham. He
+could have had the other man under his eye then. He could have kept him
+busy for months running down false scents. As it was, Ste. Marie's
+uncanny instinct about the Irishman O'Hara had led him true--that and
+what he doubtless learned from Olga Nilssen.
+
+If Stewart had been in a condition and mood to philosophize, he would
+doubtless have reflected that seven-tenths of the desperate causes, both
+good and bad, which fail in this world, fail because they are wrecked by
+some woman's love or jealousy--or both. But it is unlikely that he was
+able just at this time to make such a reflection, though certainly he
+wondered how much Olga Nilssen had known, and how much Ste. Marie had
+had to put together out of her knowledge and any previous suspicions
+which he may have had.
+
+The man would have been amazed if he could have known what a mountain of
+information and evidence had piled itself up over his head all in twelve
+hours. He would have been amazed and, if possible, even more frightened
+than he was, but he was without question sufficiently frightened, for
+here was Ste. Marie in the very house, he had seen Arthur Benham, and
+quite obviously he knew all there was to know, or at least enough to
+ruin Arthur Benham's uncle beyond all recovery or hope of
+recovery--irretrievably.
+
+Captain Stewart tried to think what it would mean to him--failure in
+this desperate scheme--but he had not the strength or the courage. He
+shrank from the picture as one shrinks from something horrible in a bad
+dream. There could be no question of failure. He had to succeed at any
+cost, however desperate or fantastic. Once more the spasm of childish,
+futile rage swept over him and shook him like a wind.
+
+"Why couldn't the fellow have been killed by that one-eyed fool?" he
+cried, sobbing. "Why couldn't he have been killed? He's the only one who
+knows--the only thing in the way. Why couldn't he have keen killed?"
+
+Quite suddenly Captain Stewart ceased to sob and shiver, and sat still
+in his chair, gripping the arms with white and tense fingers. His eyes
+began to widen, and they became fixed in a long, strange stare. He drew
+a deep breath.
+
+"I wonder!" he said, aloud. "I wonder, now."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+XVI
+
+THE BLACK CAT
+
+
+That providential stone or tree-root, or whatever it may have been,
+proved a genuine blessing in disguise to Ste. Marie. It gave him a
+splitting headache for a few hours, but it saved him a good deal of
+discomfort the while his bullet wound was being more or less probed and
+very skilfully cleansed and dressed by O'Hara. For he did not regain
+consciousness until this surgical work was almost at its end, and then
+he wanted to fight the Irishman for tying the bandages too tight.
+
+But when O'Hara had gone away and left him alone he lay still--or as
+still as the smarting, burning pain in his leg and the ache in his head
+would let him--and stared at the wall beyond his bed, and bit by bit the
+events of the past hour came back to him, and he knew where he was. He
+cursed himself very bitterly, as he well might do, for a bungling idiot.
+The whole thing had been in his hands, he said, with perfect
+truth--Arthur Benham's whereabouts proved Stewart's responsibility or,
+at the very least, complicity and the sordid motive therefor.
+Remained--had Ste. Marie been a sane being instead of an impulsive
+fool--remained but to face Stewart down in the presence of witnesses,
+threaten him with exposure, and so, with perfect ease, bring back the
+lost boy in triumph to his family.
+
+It should all have been so simple, so easy, so effortless! Yet now it
+was ruined by a moment's rash folly, and Heaven alone knew what would
+come of it. He remembered that he had left behind him no indication
+whatever of where he meant to spend the afternoon. Hartley would come
+hurrying across town that evening to the rue d'Assas, and would find no
+one there to receive him. He would wait and wait, and at last go home.
+He would come again on the next morning, and then he would begin to be
+alarmed and would start a second search--but with what to reckon by?
+Nobody knew about the house on the road to Clamart but Mlle. Olga
+Nilssen, and she was far away.
+
+He thought of Captain Stewart, and he wondered if that gentleman was by
+any chance here in the house, or if he was still in bed in the rue du
+Faubourg St. Honoré, recovering from his epileptic fit.
+
+After that he fell once more to cursing himself and his incredible
+stupidity, and he could have wept for sheer bitterness of chagrin.
+
+He was still engaged in this unpleasant occupation when the door of the
+room opened and the Irishman O'Hara entered, having finished his
+interview with Captain Stewart below. He came up beside the bed and
+looked down not unkindly upon the man who lay there, but Ste. Marie
+scowled back at him, for he was in a good deal of pain and a vile humor.
+
+"How's the leg--_and_ the head?" asked the amateur surgeon. To do him
+justice, he was very skilful, indeed, through much experience.
+
+"They hurt," said Ste. Marie, shortly. "My head aches like the devil,
+and my leg burns."
+
+O'Hara made a sound which was rather like a gruff laugh, and nodded.
+
+"Yes, and they'll go on doing it, too," said he. "At least the leg will.
+Your head will be all right again in a day or so. Do you want anything
+to eat? It's near dinner-time. I suppose we can't let you starve--though
+you deserve it."
+
+"Thanks; I want nothing," said Ste. Marie. "Pray don't trouble about
+me."
+
+The other man nodded again indifferently and turned to go out of the
+room, but in the doorway he halted and looked back.
+
+"As we're to have the pleasure of your company for some time to come,"
+said he, "you might suggest a name to call you by. Of course I don't
+expect you to tell your own name--though I can learn that easily
+enough."
+
+"Easily enough, to be sure," said the man on the bed. "Ask Stewart. He
+knows only too well."
+
+The Irishman scowled. And after a moment he said:
+
+"I don't know any Stewart."
+
+But at that Ste. Marie gave a laugh, and a tinge of red came over the
+Irishman's cheeks.
+
+"And so, to save Captain Stewart the trouble," continued the wounded
+man, "I'll tell you my name with pleasure. I don't know why I shouldn't.
+It's Ste. Marie."
+
+"What?" cried O'Hara, hoarsely. "What? Say that again!"
+
+He came forward a swift step or two into the room, and he stared at the
+man on the bed as if he were staring at a ghost.
+
+"Ste. Marie?" he cried, in a whisper. "It's impossible! What are you,"
+he demanded, "to Gilles, Comte de Ste. Marie de Mont-Perdu? What are you
+to him?"
+
+"He was my father," said the younger man; "but he is dead. He has been
+dead for ten years."
+
+He raised his head, with a little grimace of pain, to look curiously
+after the Irishman, who had all at once turned away across the room and
+stood still beside a window with bent head.
+
+"Why?" he questioned. "What about my father? Why did you ask that?"
+
+O'Hara did not answer at once, and he did not stir from his place by the
+window, but after a while he said:
+
+"I knew him.... That's all."
+
+And after another space he came back beside the bed, and once more
+looked down upon the young man who lay there. His face was veiled,
+inscrutable. It betrayed nothing.
+
+"You have a look of your father," said he. "That was what puzzled me a
+little. I was just saying to--I was just thinking that there was
+something familiar about you.... Ah, well, we've all come down in the
+world since then. The Ste. Marie blood, though. Who'd have thought it?"
+
+The man shook his head a little sorrowfully, but Ste. Marie stared up at
+him in frowning incomprehension. The pain had dulled him somewhat. And
+presently O'Hara again moved toward the door. On the way he said:
+
+"I'll bring or send you something to eat--not too much. And later on
+I'll give you a sleeping-powder. With that head of yours you may have
+trouble in getting to sleep. Understand, I'm doing this for your
+father's son, and not because you've any right yourself to
+consideration."
+
+Ste. Marie raised himself with difficulty on one elbow.
+
+"Wait!" said he. "Wait a moment!" and the other halted just inside the
+door. "You seem to have known my father," said Ste. Marie, "and to have
+respected him. For my father's sake, will you listen to me for five
+minutes?"
+
+"No, I won't," said the Irishman, sharply. "So you may as well hold your
+tongue. Nothing you can say to me or to any one in this house will have
+the slightest effect. We know what you came spying here for. We know all
+about it."
+
+"Yes," said Ste. Marie, with a little sigh, and he fell back upon the
+pillows. "Yes, I suppose you do. I was rather a fool to speak. You
+wouldn't all be doing what you're doing if words could affect you. I was
+a fool to speak."
+
+The Irishman stared at him for another moment, and went out of the room,
+closing the door behind him.
+
+So he was left once more alone to his pain and his bitter
+self-reproaches and his wild and futile plans for escape. But O'Hara
+returned in an hour or thereabout with food for him--a cup of broth and
+a slice of bread; and when Ste. Marie had eaten these the Irishman
+looked once more to his wounded leg, and gave him a sleeping-powder
+dissolved in water.
+
+He lay restless and wide-eyed for an hour, and then drifted away through
+intermediate mists into a sleep full of horrible dreams, but it was at
+least relief from bodily suffering, and when he awoke in the morning his
+headache was almost gone.
+
+He awoke to sunshine and fresh, sweet odors and the twittering of birds.
+By good chance O'Hara had been the last to enter the room on the evening
+before, and so no one had come to close the shutters or draw the blinds.
+The windows were open wide, and the morning breeze, very soft and
+aromatic, blew in and out and filled the place with sweetness. The room
+was a corner room, with windows that looked south and east, and the
+early sun slanted in and lay in golden squares across the floor.
+
+Ste. Marie opened his eyes with none of the dazed bewilderment that he
+might have expected. The events of the preceding day came back to him
+instantly and without shock. He put up an experimental hand, and found
+that his head was still very sore where he had struck it in falling, but
+the ache was almost gone. He tried to stir his leg, and a protesting
+pain shot through it. It burned dully, even when it was quiet, but the
+pain was not at all severe. He realized that he was to get off rather
+well, considering what might have happened, and he was so grateful for
+this that he almost forgot to be angry with himself over his monumental
+folly.
+
+A small bird chased by another wheeled in through the southern window
+and back again into free air. Finally, the two settled down upon the
+parapet of the little shallow balcony which was there to have their
+disagreement out, and they talked it over with a great deal of noise and
+many threatening gestures and a complete loss of temper on both sides.
+Ste. Marie, from his bed, cheered them on, but there came a commotion in
+the ivy which draped the wall below, and the two birds fled in
+ignominious haste, and just in the nick of time, for when the cause of
+the commotion shot into view it was a large black cat, of great bodily
+activity and an ardent single-heartedness of aim.
+
+The black cat gazed for a moment resentfully after its vanished prey,
+and then composed its sleek body upon the iron rail, tail and paws
+tucked neatly under. Ste. Marie chirruped, and the cat turned yellow
+eyes upon him in mild astonishment, as one who should say, "Who the
+deuce are you, and what the deuce are you doing here?" He chirruped
+again, and the cat, after an ostentatious yawn and stretch, came to
+him--beating up to windward, as it were, and making the bed in three
+tacks. When O'Hara entered the room some time later he found his patient
+in a very cheerful frame of mind, and the black cat sitting on his chest
+purring like a dynamo and kneading like an industrious baker.
+
+"Ho," said the Irishman, "you seem to have found a friend!"
+
+"Well, I need one friend here," argued Ste. Marie. "I'm in the enemy's
+stronghold. You needn't be alarmed; the cat can't tell me anything, and
+it can't help me to escape. It can only sit on me and purr. That's
+harmless enough."
+
+O'Hara began one of his gruff laughs, but he seemed to remember himself
+in the middle of it and assumed an intimidating scowl instead.
+
+"How's the leg?" he demanded, shortly. "Let me see it." He took off the
+bandages and cleansed and sprayed the wound with some antiseptic liquid
+that he had brought in a bottle. "There's a little fever," said he, "but
+that can't be avoided. You're going on very well--a good deal better
+than you'd any right to expect." He had to inflict not a little pain in
+his examination and redressing of the wound. He knew that, and once or
+twice he glanced up at Ste. Marie's face with a sort of reluctant
+admiration for the man who could bear so much without any sign whatever.
+In the end he put together his things and nodded with professional
+satisfaction. "You'll do well enough now for the rest of the day," he
+said. "I'll send up old Michel to valet you. He's the gardener who shot
+you yesterday, and he may take it into his head to finish the job this
+morning. If he does I sha'n't try to stop him."
+
+"Nor I," said Ste. Marie. "Thanks very much for your trouble. An
+excellent surgeon was lost in you."
+
+O'Hara left the room, and presently the old caretaker, one-eyed,
+gnomelike, shambling like a bear, sidled in and proceeded to set things
+to rights. He looked, Ste. Marie said to himself, like something in an
+old German drawing, or in those imitations of old drawings that one
+sometimes sees nowadays in _Fliegende Blätter_. He tried to make the
+strange creature talk, but Michel went about his task with an air
+half-frightened, half-stolid, and refused to speak more than an
+occasional "oui" or a "bien, Monsieur," in answer to orders. Ste. Marie
+asked if he might have some coffee and bread, and the old Michel nodded
+and slipped from the room as silently as he had entered it.
+
+Thereafter Ste. Marie trifled with the cat and got one hand well
+scratched for his trouble, but in five minutes there came a knocking at
+the door. He laughed a little. "Michel grows ceremonious when it's a
+question of food," he said. "Entrez, mon vieux!"
+
+The door opened, and Ste. Marie caught his breath.
+
+"Michel is busy," said Coira O'Hara, "so I have brought your coffee."
+
+She came into the sunlit room holding the steaming bowl of café au lait
+before her in her two hands. Over it her eyes went out to the man who
+lay in his bed, a long and steady and very grave look. "A goddess that
+lady, a queen among goddesses--" Thus the little Jew of the Boulevard de
+la Madeleine. Ste. Marie gazed back at her, and his heart was sick
+within him to think of the contemptible rôle Fate had laid upon this
+girl to play: the candle to the moth, the bait to the eager, unskilled
+fish, the lure to charm a foolish boy.
+
+The girl's splendid beauty seemed to fill all that bright room with, as
+it were, a richer, subtler light. There could be no doubt of her
+potency. Older and wiser heads than young Arthur Benham's might well
+forget the world for her. Ste. Marie watched, and the heartsickness
+within him was like a physical pain, keen and bitter. He thought of that
+first and only previous meeting--the single minute in the
+Champs-Elysées, when her eyes had held him, had seemed to beseech him
+out of some deep agony. He thought of how they had haunted him afterward
+both by day and by night--calling eyes--and he gave a little groan of
+sheer bitterness, for he realized that all this while she was laying her
+snares about the feet of an inexperienced boy, decoying him to his ruin.
+There was a name for such women, an ugly name. They were called
+adventuresses.
+
+The girl set the bowl which she carried down upon a table not far from
+the bed. "You will need a tray or something," said she. "I suppose you
+can sit up against your pillows? I'll bring a tray and you can hold it
+on your knees and eat from it." She spoke in a tone of very deliberate
+indifference and detachment. There seemed even to be an edge of scorn in
+it, but nothing could make that deep and golden voice harsh or unlovely.
+As the girl's extraordinary beauty had filled all the room with its
+light, so the sound of her voice seemed to fill it with a sumptuous and
+hushed resonance like a temple bell muffled in velvet. "I must bring
+something to eat, too," she said. "Would you prefer croissants or
+brioches or plain bread-and-butter? You might as well have what you
+like."
+
+"Thank you!" said Ste. Marie. "It doesn't matter. Anything. You are most
+kind. You are Hebe, Mademoiselle, server of feasts." The girl turned her
+head for a moment and looked at him with some surprise.
+
+"If I am not mistaken," she said, "Hebe served to gods." Then she went
+out of the room, and Ste. Marie broke into a sudden delighted laugh
+behind her. She would seem to be a young woman with a tongue in her
+head. She had seized the rash opening without an instant's hesitation.
+
+The black cat, which had been cruising, after the inquisitive fashion of
+its kind, in far corners of the room, strolled back and looked up to the
+table where the bowl of coffee steamed and waited.
+
+"Get out!" cried Ste. Marie. "Va t'en, sale petit animal! Go and eat
+birds! That's _my_ coffee. Va! Sauve toi! Hé, voleur que tu es!" He
+sought for something by way of missile, but there was nothing within
+reach.
+
+The black cat turned its calm and yellow eyes toward him, looked back to
+the aromatic feast, and leaped expertly to the top of the table. Ste.
+Marie shouted and made horrible threats. He waved an impotent pillow,
+not daring to hurl it for fear of smashing the table's entire contents,
+but the black cat did not even glance toward him. It smelled the coffee,
+sneezed over it because it was hot, and finally proceeded to lap very
+daintily, pausing often to take breath or to shake its head, for cats
+disapprove of hot dishes, though they will partake of them at a pinch.
+
+There came a step outside the door, and the thief leaped down with some
+haste, yet not quite in time to escape observation. Mlle. O'Hara came
+in, breathing terrible threats.
+
+"Has that wretched animal touched your coffee?" she cried. "I hope not."
+But Ste. Marie laughed weakly from his bed, and the guilty beast stood
+in mid-floor, brown drops beading its black chin and hanging upon its
+whiskers.
+
+"I did what I could, Mademoiselle," said Ste. Marie, "but there was
+nothing to throw. I am sorry to be the cause of so much trouble."
+
+"It is nothing," said she. "I will bring some more coffee, only it will
+take ten minutes, because I shall have to make some fresh." She made as
+if she would smile a little in answer to him, but her face turned grave
+once more and she went out of the room with averted eyes.
+
+Thereafter Ste. Marie occupied himself with watching idly the movements
+of the black cat, and, as he watched, something icy cold began to grow
+within him, a sensation more terrible than he had ever known before. He
+found himself shivering as if that summer day had all at once turned to
+January, and he found that his face was wet with a chill perspiration.
+
+When the girl at length returned she found him lying still, his face to
+the wall. The black cat was in her path as she crossed the room, so that
+she had to thrust it out of the way with her foot, and she called it
+names for moving with such lethargy.
+
+"Here is the coffee at last," she said. "I made it fresh. And I have
+brought some brioches. Will you sit up and have the tray on your knees?"
+
+"Thank you," said Ste. Marie. "I do not wish anything."
+
+"You do not--" she repeated after him. "But I have made the coffee
+especially for you," she protested. "I thought you wanted it. I don't
+understand."
+
+With a sudden movement the man turned toward her a white and drawn face.
+
+"Mademoiselle," he cried, "it would have been more merciful to let your
+gardener shoot again yesterday. Much more merciful, Mademoiselle."
+
+She stared at him under her straight, black brows.
+
+"What do you mean?" she demanded. "More merciful? What do you mean by
+that?"
+
+Ste. Marie stretched out a pointing finger, and the girl followed it.
+She gave, after a tense instant, a single, sharp scream. And upon that:
+
+"No, no! It's not true! It's not possible!"
+
+Moving stiffly, she set down the bowl she carried, and the hot liquid
+splashed up round her wrists. For a moment she hung there, drooping,
+holding herself up by the strength of her hands upon the table. It was
+as if she had been seized with faintness. Then she sprang to where the
+cat crouched beside a chair. She dropped upon her knees and tried to
+raise it in her arms, but the beast bit and scratched at her feebly, and
+crept away to a little distance, where it lay struggling and very
+unpleasant to see.
+
+"Poison!" she said, in a choked, gasping whisper. "Poison!" She looked
+once toward the man upon the bed, and she was white and shivering. "It's
+not true!" she cried again. "I--won't believe it! It's because the
+cat--was not used to coffee. Because it was hot. I won't believe it! I
+won't believe it!" She began to sob, holding her hands over her white
+face.
+
+Ste. Marie watched her with puzzled eyes. If this was acting, it was
+very good acting. A little glimmer of hope began to burn in him--hope
+that in this last shameful thing, at least, the girl had had no part.
+
+"It's impossible," she insisted, piteously. "I tell you it's impossible.
+I brought the coffee myself from the kitchen. I took it from the pot
+there--the same pot we had all had ours from. It was never out of my
+sight--or, that is--I mean--"
+
+She halted there, and Ste. Marie saw her eyes turn slowly toward the
+door, and he saw a crimson flush come up over her cheeks and die away,
+leaving her white again. He drew a little breath of relief and gladness,
+for he was sure of her now. She had had no part in it.
+
+"It is nothing, Mademoiselle," said he, cheerfully. "Think no more of
+it. It is nothing."
+
+"Nothing?" she cried, in a loud voice. "Do you call poison nothing?" She
+began to shiver again very violently. "You would have drunk it!" she
+said, staring at him in a white agony. "But for a miracle you would have
+drunk it--and died!"
+
+Abruptly she came beside the bed and threw herself upon her knees there.
+In her excitement and horror she seemed to have forgotten what they two
+were to each other. She caught him by the shoulders with her two hands,
+and the girl's violent trembling shook them both.
+
+"Will you believe," she cried, "that I had nothing to do with this? Will
+you believe me? You must believe me!"
+
+There was no acting in that moment. She was wrung with a frank anguish,
+an utter horror, and between her words there were hard and terrible
+sobs.
+
+"I believe you, Mademoiselle," said the man, gently. "I believe you.
+Pray think no more about it."
+
+He smiled up into the girl's beautiful face, though within him he was
+still cold and a-shiver, as even the bravest man might well be at such
+an escape, and after a moment she turned away again. With unsteady hands
+she put the new-made bowl of coffee and the brioches and other things
+together upon the tray and started to carry it across the room to the
+bed, but half-way she turned back again and set the tray down. She
+looked about and found an empty glass, and she poured a little of the
+coffee into it. Ste. Marie, who was watching her, gave a sudden cry.
+
+"No, no, Mademoiselle, I beg you! You must not!"
+
+But the girl shook her head at him gravely over the glass.
+
+"There is no danger," she said, "but I must be sure."
+
+She drank what was in the glass, and afterward went across to one of the
+windows and stood there with her back to the room for a little time.
+
+In the end she returned and once more brought the breakfast-tray to the
+bed. Ste. Marie raised himself to a sitting posture and took the thing
+upon his knees, but his hands were shaking.
+
+"If I were not as helpless as a dead man, Mademoiselle," said he, "you
+should not have done that. If I could have stopped you, you should not
+have done it, Mademoiselle."
+
+A wave of color spread up under the brown skin of the girl's face, but
+she did not speak. She stood by for a moment to see if he was supplied
+with everything he needed, and when Ste. Marie expressed his gratitude
+for her pains she only bowed her head. Then presently she turned away
+and left the room.
+
+Outside the door she met some one who was approaching. Ste. Marie heard
+her break into rapid and excited speech, and he heard O'Hara's voice in
+answer. The voice expressed astonishment and indignation and a sort of
+gruff horror, but the man who listened could hear only the tones, not
+the words that were spoken.
+
+The Irishman came quickly into the room. He glanced once toward the bed
+where Ste. Marie sat eating his breakfast with apparent unconcern--there
+may have been a little bravado in this--and then bent over the thing
+which lay moving feebly beside a chair. When he rose again his face was
+hard and tense and his blue eyes glittered in a fashion that boded
+trouble for somebody.
+
+"This looks very bad for us," he said, gruffly. "I should--I should like
+to have you believe that neither my daughter nor I had any part in it.
+When I fight I fight openly, I don't use poison. Not even with spies."
+
+"Oh, that's all right," said Ste. Marie, taking an ostentatious sip of
+coffee. "That's understood. I know well enough who tried to poison me.
+If you'll just keep your friend Stewart out of the kitchen I sha'n't
+worry about my food."
+
+The Irishman's cheeks reddened with a quick flush and he dropped his
+eyes. But in an instant he raised them again and looked full into the
+eyes of the man who sat in bed.
+
+"You seem," said he, "to be laboring under a curious misapprehension.
+There is no Stewart here, and I don't know any man of that name."
+
+Ste. Marie laughed.
+
+"Oh, don't you?" he said. "That's my mistake then. Well, if you don't
+know him, you ought to. You have interests in common."
+
+O'Hara favored his patient with a long and frowning stare. But at the
+end he turned without a word and went out of the room.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+XVII
+
+THOSE WHO WERE LEFT BEHIND
+
+
+That meeting with Richard Hartley of which Captain Stewart, in the small
+drawing-room at La Lierre, spoke to the Irishman O'Hara, took place at
+Stewart's own door in the rue du Faubourg St. Honoré, and it must have
+been at just about the time when Ste. Marie, concealed among the
+branches of his cedar, looked over the wall and saw Arthur Benham
+walking with Mlle. Coira O'Hara. Hartley had lunched at Durand's with
+his friends, whose name--though it does not at all matter here--was
+Reeves-Davis, and after lunch the four of them, Major and Lady
+Reeves-Davis, Reeves-Davis' sister, Mrs. Carsten, and Hartley, spent an
+hour at a certain picture-dealer's near the Madeleine. After that Lady
+Reeves-Davis wanted to go in search of an antiquary's shop which was
+somewhere in the rue du Faubourg, and she did not know just where. They
+went in from the rue Royale, and amused themselves by looking at the
+attractive windows on the way.
+
+During one of their frequent halts, while the two ladies were
+passionately absorbed in a display of hats, and Reeves-Davis was making
+derisive comments from the rear, Hartley, who was too much bored to pay
+attention, saw a figure which seemed to him familiar emerge from an
+adjacent doorway and start to cross the pavement to a large touring-car,
+with the top up, which stood at the curb. The man wore a dust-coat and a
+cap, and he moved as if he were in a hurry, but as he went he cast a
+quick look about him and his eye fell upon Richard Hartley. Hartley
+nodded, and he thought the elder man gave a violent start; but then he
+looked very white and ill and might have started at anything. For an
+instant Captain Stewart made as if he would go on his way without taking
+notice, but he seemed to change his mind and turned back. He held out
+his hand with a rather wan and nervous smile, saying:
+
+"Ah, Hartley! It is you, then! I wasn't sure." He glanced over the
+other's shoulder and said, "Is that our friend Ste. Marie with you?"
+
+"No," said Richard Hartley, "some English friends of mine. I haven't
+seen Ste. Marie to-day. I'm to meet him this evening. You've seen him
+since I have, as a matter of fact. He came to your party last night,
+didn't he? Sorry I couldn't come. They must have tired you out, I should
+think. You look ill."
+
+"Yes," said the other man, absently. "Yes, I had an attack of--an old
+malady last night. I am rather stale to-day. You say you haven't seen
+Ste. Marie? No, to be sure. If you see him later on you might say that I
+mean to drop in on him to-morrow to make my apologies. He'll understand.
+Good-day."
+
+So he turned away to the motor which was waiting for him, and Hartley
+went back to his friends, wondering a little what it was that Stewart
+had to apologize for.
+
+As for Captain Stewart, he must have gone at once out to La Lierre. What
+he found there has already been set forth.
+
+It was about ten that evening when Hartley, who had left his people,
+after dinner was over, at the Marigny, reached the rue d'Assas. The
+street door was already closed for the night, and so he had to ring for
+the cordon. When the door clicked open and he had closed it behind him
+he called out his name before crossing the court to Ste. Marie's stair;
+but as he went on his way the voice of the concierge reached him from
+the little loge.
+
+"M. Ste. Marie n'est pas là,"
+
+Now, the Parisian concierge, as every one knows who has lived under his
+iron sway, is a being set apart from the rest of mankind. He has, in
+general, no human attributes, and certainly no human sympathy. His hand
+is against all the world, and the hand of all the world is against him.
+Still, here and there among this peculiar race are to be found a very
+few beings who are of softer substance--men and women instead of spies
+and harpies. The concierge who had charge of the house wherein Ste.
+Marie dwelt was an old woman, undeniably severe upon occasion, but for
+the most part a kindly and even jovial soul. She must have become a
+concierge through some unfortunate mistake.
+
+She snapped open her little square window and stuck out into the moonlit
+court a dishevelled gray head.
+
+"Il n'est pas là." she said again, beaming upon Richard Hartley, whom
+she liked, and, when he protested that he had a definite and important
+appointment with her lodger, went on to explain that Ste. Marie had gone
+out, doubtless to lunch, before one o'clock and had never returned.
+
+"He may have left word for me up-stairs," Hartley said; "I'll go up and
+wait, if I may." So the woman got him her extra key, and he went up, let
+himself into the flat, and made lights there.
+
+Naturally he found no word, but his own note of that morning lay spread
+out upon a table where Ste. Marie had left it, and so he knew that his
+friend was in possession of the two facts he had learned about Stewart.
+He made himself comfortable with a book and some cigarettes, and settled
+down to wait.
+
+Ste. Marie out at La Lierre, with a bullet-hole in his leg, was deep in
+a drugged sleep just then, but Hartley waited for him, looking up now
+and then from his book with a scowl of impatience, until the little
+clock on the mantel said that it was one o'clock. Then he went home in a
+very bad temper, after writing another note and leaving it on the table,
+to say that he would return early in the morning.
+
+But in the morning he began to be alarmed. He questioned the concierge
+very closely as to Ste. Marie's movements on the day previous, but she
+could tell him little, save to mention the brief visit of a man with an
+accent of Toulouse or Marseilles, and there seemed to be no one else to
+whom he could go. He spent the entire morning in the flat, and returned
+there after a hasty lunch. But at mid-afternoon he took a fiacre at the
+corner of the Gardens and drove to the rue du Faubourg St. Honoré.
+
+Captain Stewart was at home. He was in a dressing-gown, and still looked
+fagged and unwell. He certainly betrayed some surprise at sight of his
+visitor, but he made Hartley welcome at once and insisted upon having
+cigars and things to drink brought out for him. On the whole he
+presented an astonishingly normal exterior, for within him he must have
+been cold with fear, and in his ears a question must have rung and
+shouted and rung again unceasingly--"What does this fellow know? What
+does he know?"
+
+Hartley's very presence there had a perilous look.
+
+The younger man shook his head at the servant who asked him what he
+wished to drink.
+
+"Thanks, you're very good," he said to Captain Stewart, and that
+gentleman eyed him silently. "I can't stay but a moment. I just dropped
+in to ask if you'd any idea what can have become of Ste. Marie."
+
+"Ste. Marie?" said Captain Stewart. "What do you mean--'become of him'?"
+He moistened his lips to speak, but he said the words without a tremor.
+
+"Well, what I meant was," said Hartley, "that you'd seen him last. He
+was here Thursday evening. Did he say anything to you about going
+anywhere in particular the next day--yesterday? He left his rooms about
+noon and hasn't turned up since."
+
+Captain Stewart drew a short breath and sat down, abruptly, in a near-by
+chair, for all at once his knees had begun to tremble under him. He was
+conscious of a great and blissful wave of relief and well-being, and he
+wanted to laugh. He wanted so much to laugh that it became a torture to
+keep his face in repose.
+
+So Ste. Marie had left no word behind him, and the danger was past!
+
+With a great effort he looked up from where he sat to Richard Hartley,
+who stood anxious and frowning before him.
+
+"Forgive me for sitting down," he said, "and sit down yourself, I beg.
+I'm still very shaky from my attack of illness. Ste. Marie--Ste. Marie
+has disappeared? How very extraordinary! It's like poor Arthur. Still--a
+single day! He might be anywhere for a single day, might he not? For all
+that, though, it's very odd. Why, no. No, I don't think he said anything
+about going away. At least I remember nothing about it." The relief and
+triumph within him burst out in a sudden little chuckle of malicious
+fun. "I can think of only one thing," said he, "that might be of use to
+you. Ste. Marie seemed to take a very great fancy to one of the ladies
+here the other evening. And, I must confess, the lady seemed to return
+it. It had all the look of a desperate flirtation--a most desperate
+flirtation. They spent the evening in a corner together. You don't
+suppose," he said, still chuckling gently, "that Ste. Marie is taking a
+little holiday, do you? You don't suppose that the lady could account
+for him?"
+
+"No," said Richard Hartley, "I don't. And if you knew Ste. Marie a
+little better you wouldn't suppose it, either." But after a pause he
+said: "Could you give me the--lady's name, by any chance? Of course, I
+don't want to leave any stone unturned."
+
+And once more the other man emitted his pleased little chuckle that was
+so like a cat's mew.
+
+"I can give you her name," said he. "The name is Mlle.---- Bertrand.
+Elise Bertrand. But I regret to say I haven't the address by me. She
+came with some friends. I will try and get it and send it you. Will that
+be all right?"
+
+"Yes, thanks!" said Richard Hartley. "You're very good. And now I must
+be going on. I'm rather in a hurry."
+
+Captain Stewart protested against this great haste, and pressed the
+younger man to sit down and tell him more about his friend's
+disappearance, but Hartley excused himself, repeating that he was in a
+great hurry, and went off.
+
+When he had gone Captain Stewart lay back in his chair and laughed until
+he was weak and ached from it, the furious, helpless laughter which
+comes after the sudden release from a terrible strain. He was not, as a
+rule, a demonstrative man, but he became aware that he would like to
+dance and sing, and probably he would have done both if it had not been
+for the servant in the next room.
+
+So there was no danger to be feared, and his terrors of the night
+past--he shivered a little to think of them--had been, after all,
+useless terrors! As for the prisoner out at La Lierre, nothing was to be
+feared from him so long as a careful watch was kept. Later on he might
+have to be disposed of, since both bullet and poison had failed--he
+scowled over that, remembering a bad quarter of an hour with O'Hara
+early this morning--but that matter could wait. Some way would present
+itself. He thought of the wholly gratuitous lie he had told Hartley, a
+thing born of a moment's malice, and he laughed again. It struck him
+that it would be very humorous if Hartley should come to suspect his
+friend of turning aside from his great endeavors to enter upon an affair
+with a lady. He dimly remembered that Ste. Marie's name had, from time
+to time, been a good deal involved in romantic histories, and he said to
+himself that his lie had been very well chosen, indeed, and might be
+expected to cause Richard Hartley much anguish of spirit.
+
+After that he lighted a very large cigarette, half as big as a cigar,
+and he lay back in his low, comfortable chair and began to think of the
+outcome of all this plotting and planning. As is very apt to be the case
+when a great danger has been escaped, he was in a mood of extreme
+hopefulness and confidence. Vaguely he felt as if the recent happenings
+had set him ahead a pace toward his goal, though of course they had done
+nothing of the kind. The danger that would exist so long as Ste. Marie,
+who knew everything, was alive, seemed in some miraculous fashion to
+have dwindled to insignificance; in this rebound from fear and despair
+difficulties were swept away and the path was clear. The man's mind
+leaped to his goal, and a little shiver of prospective joy ran over him.
+Once that goal gained he could defy the world. Let eyes look askance,
+let tongues wag, he would be safe then--safe for all the rest of his
+life, and rich, rich, rich!
+
+For he was playing against a feeble old man's life. Day by day he
+watched the low flame sink lower as the flame of an exhausted lamp sinks
+and flickers. It was slow, for the old man had still a little strength
+left, but the will to live--which was the oil in the lamp--was almost
+gone, and the waiting could not be long now. One day, quite suddenly,
+the flame would sink down to almost nothing, as at last it does in the
+spent lamp. It would flicker up and down rapidly for a few moments, and
+all at once there would be no flame there. Old David would be dead, and
+a servant would be sent across the river in haste to the rue du Faubourg
+St. Honoré. Stewart lay back in his chair and tried to imagine that it
+was true, that it had already happened, as happen it must before long,
+and once more the little shiver, which was like a shiver of voluptuous
+delight, ran up and down his limbs, and his breath began to come fast
+and hard.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+But Richard Hartley drove at once back to the rue d'Assas. He was not
+very much disappointed in having learned nothing from Stewart, though he
+was thoroughly angry at that gentleman's hint about Ste. Marie and the
+unknown lady. He had gone to the rue du Faubourg because, as he had
+said, he wished to leave no stone unturned, and, after all, he had
+thought it quite possible that Stewart could give him some information
+which would be of value. Hartley firmly believed the elder man to be a
+rascal, but of course he knew nothing definite save the two facts which
+he had accidentally learned from Helen Benham, and it had occurred to
+him that Captain Stewart might have sent Ste. Marie off upon another
+wild-goose chase such as the expedition to Dinard had been. He would
+have been sure that the elder man had had something to do with Ste.
+Marie's disappearance if the latter had not been seen since Stewart's
+party, but instead of that Ste. Marie had come home, slept, gone out the
+next morning, returned again, received a visitor, and gone out to lunch.
+It was all very puzzling and mysterious.
+
+His mind went back to the brief interview with Stewart and dwelt upon
+it. Little things which had at the time made no impression upon him
+began to recur and to take on significance. He remembered the elder
+man's odd and strained manner at the beginning, his sudden and causeless
+change to ease and to something that was almost like a triumphant
+excitement, and then his absurd story about Ste. Marie's flirtation with
+a lady. Hartley thought of these things; he thought also of the fact
+that Ste. Marie had disappeared immediately after hearing grave
+accusations against Stewart. Could he have lost his head, rushed across
+the city at once to confront the middle-aged villain, and
+then--disappeared from human ken? It would have been very like him to do
+something rashly impulsive upon reading that note.
+
+Hartley broke into a sudden laugh of sheer amusement when he realized to
+what a wild and improbable flight his fancy was soaring. He could not
+quite rid himself of a feeling that Stewart was, in some mysterious
+fashion, responsible for his friend's vanishing, but he was unlike Ste.
+Marie: he did not trust his feelings, either good or bad, unless they
+were backed by excellent evidence, and he had to admit that there was
+not a single scrap of evidence in this instance against Miss Benham's
+uncle.
+
+The girl's name recalled him to another duty. He must tell her about
+Ste. Marie. He was by this time half-way up the Boulevard St. Germain,
+but he gave a new order, and the fiacre turned back to the rue de
+l'Université. The footman at the door said that Mademoiselle was not in
+the drawing-room, as it was only four o'clock, but that he thought she
+was in the house. So Hartley sent up his name and went in to wait.
+
+Miss Benham came down looking a little pale and anxious.
+
+"I've been with grandfather," she explained. "He had some sort of
+sinking-spell last night and we were very much frightened. He's much
+better, but--well, he couldn't have many such spells and live. I'm
+afraid he grows a good deal weaker day by day now. He sees hardly any
+one outside the family, except Baron de Vries." She sat down with a
+little sigh of fatigue and smiled up at her visitor. "I'm glad you've
+come," said she. "You'll cheer me up, and I rather need it. What are you
+looking so solemn about, though? You won't cheer me up if you look like
+that."
+
+"Well, you see," said Hartley, "I came at this impossible hour to bring
+you some bad news. I'm sorry. Perhaps," he modified, "bad news is
+putting it with too much seriousness. Strange news is better. To be
+brief, Ste. Marie has disappeared--vanished into thin air. I thought you
+ought to know."
+
+"Ste. Marie!" cried the girl. "How? What do you mean--vanished? When did
+he vanish?"
+
+She gave a sudden exclamation of relief.
+
+"Oh, he has come upon some clew or other and has rushed off to follow
+it. That's all. How dare you frighten me so?"
+
+"He went without luggage," said the man, shaking his head, "and he left
+no word of any kind behind him. He went out to lunch yesterday about
+noon, and, as I said, simply vanished, leaving no trace whatever behind
+him. I've just been to see your uncle, thinking that he might know
+something, but he doesn't."
+
+The girl looked up quickly.
+
+"My uncle?" she said. "Why my uncle?"
+
+"Well," said Hartley, "you see, Ste. Marie went to a little party at
+your uncle's flat on the night before he disappeared, and I thought your
+uncle might have heard him say something that would throw light on his
+movements the next day."
+
+Hartley remembered the unfortunate incident of the galloping pigs, and
+hurried on:
+
+"He went to the party more for the purpose of having a talk with your
+uncle than for any other reason, I think. I was to have gone myself, but
+gave it up at the eleventh hour for the Cains' dinner at Armenonville.
+Well, the next morning after Captain Stewart's party he went out early.
+I called at his rooms to see him about something important that I
+thought he ought to know. I missed him, and so left a note for him which
+he got on his return and read. I found it open on his table later on. At
+noon he went out again, and that's all. Frankly, I'm worried about him."
+
+Miss Benham watched the man with thoughtful eyes, and when he had
+finished she asked:
+
+"Could you tell me what was in this note that you left for Ste. Marie?"
+
+Hartley was by nature a very open and frank young man, and in
+consequence an unusually bad liar. He hesitated and looked away, and he
+began to turn red.
+
+"Well--no," he said, after a moment--"no, I'm afraid I can't. It was
+something you wouldn't understand--wouldn't know about."
+
+And the girl said, "Oh!" and remained for a little while silent. But at
+the end she looked up and met his eyes, and the man saw that she was
+very grave. She said:
+
+"Richard, there is something that you and I have been avoiding and
+pretending not to see. It has gone too far now, and we've got to face it
+with perfect frankness. I know what was in your note to Ste. Marie. It
+was what you found out the other evening about--my uncle--the matter of
+the will and the other matter. He knew about the will, but he told you
+and Ste. Marie that he didn't. He said to you, also, that I had told him
+about my engagement and Ste. Marie's determination to search for Arthur,
+and that was--a lie. I didn't tell him, and grandfather didn't tell him.
+He listened in the door yonder and heard it himself. I have a good
+reason for knowing that. And then," she said, "he tried very hard to
+persuade you and Ste. Marie to take up your search under his direction,
+and he partly succeeded. He sent Ste. Marie upon a foolish expedition to
+Dinard, and he gave him and gave you other clews just as foolish as that
+one. Richard, do you believe that my uncle has hidden poor Arthur away
+somewhere or--worse than that? Do you? Tell me the truth!"
+
+"There is not," said Hartley, "one particle of real evidence against him
+that I'm aware of. There's plenty of motive, if you like, but motive is
+not evidence."
+
+"I asked you a question," the girl said. "Do you believe my uncle has
+been responsible for Arthur's disappearance?"
+
+"Yes," said Richard Hartley, "I'm afraid I do."
+
+"Then," she said, "he has been responsible for Ste. Marie's
+disappearance also. Ste. Marie became dangerous to him, and so vanished.
+What can we do, Richard? What can we do?"
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+XVIII
+
+A CONVERSATION OVERHEARD
+
+
+In the upper chamber at La Lierre the days dragged very slowly by, and
+the man who lay in bed there counted interminable hours and prayed for
+the coming of night with its merciful oblivion of sleep. His inaction
+was made bitterer by the fact that the days were days of green and gold,
+of breeze-stirred tree-tops without his windows, of vagrant sweet airs
+that stole in upon his solitude, bringing him all the warm fragrance of
+summer and of green things growing.
+
+He suffered little pain. There was, for the first three or four days, a
+dull and feverish ache in his wounded leg, but presently even that
+passed, and the leg hurt him only when he moved it. He thought sometimes
+that he would be grateful for a bit of physical anguish to make the
+hours pass more quickly.
+
+The other inmates of the house held aloof from him. Once a day O'Hara
+came in to see to the wound, but he maintained a well-nigh complete
+silence over his work, and answered questions only with a brief yes or
+no. Sometimes he did not answer them at all. The old Michel came twice
+daily, but this strange being had quite plainly been frightened into
+dumbness, and there was nothing to be got out of him. He shambled
+hastily about the place, his one scared eye upon the man in bed, and as
+soon as possible fled away, closing the door behind him. Sometimes
+Michel brought in the meals, sometimes his wife, a creature so like him
+that the two might well have passed for twin survivors of some unknown
+race; sometimes--thrice altogether in that first week--Coira O'Hara
+brought the tray, and she was as silent as the others.
+
+So Ste. Marie was left alone to get through the interminable days as
+best he might, and ever afterward the week remained in his memory as a
+sort of nightmare. Lying idle in his bed, he evolved many surprising and
+fantastic schemes for escape, for getting word to the outside world of
+his presence here, and one by one he gave them up in disgust as their
+impossibility forced itself upon him. Plans and schemes were useless
+while he lay bedridden, unfamiliar even with the house wherein he dwelt,
+with the garden and park that surrounded it.
+
+As for aid from any of the inmates of the place, that was to be laughed
+at. They were engaged together in a scheme so desperate that failure
+must mean utter ruin to them all. He sometimes wondered if the two
+servants could be bribed. Avarice unmistakable gleamed from their
+little, glittering, ratlike eyes, but he was sure that they would sell
+out for no small sum, and in so far as he could remember there had been
+in his pockets, when he came here, not more than five or six louis.
+Doubtless the old Michel had managed to abstract those in his daily
+offices about the room, for Ste. Marie knew that the clothes hung in a
+closet across from his bed. He had seen them there once when the
+closet-door was open.
+
+Any help that might come to him must come from outside--and what help
+was to be expected there? Over and over again he reminded himself of how
+little Richard Hartley knew. He might suspect Stewart of complicity in
+this new disappearance, but how was he to find out anything definite?
+How was any one to do so?
+
+It was at such times as this, when brain and nerves were strained and
+worn almost to breaking-point, that Ste. Marie had occasion to be
+grateful for the Southern blood that was in him, the strong tinge of
+fatalism which is common alike to Latin and to Oriental. It rescued him
+more than once from something like nervous breakdown, calmed him
+suddenly, lifted his burdens from outwearied shoulders, and left him in
+peace to wait until some action should be possible. Then, in such hours,
+he would fall to thinking of the girl for whose sake, in whose cause, he
+lay bedridden, beset with dangers. As long before, she came to him in a
+sort of waking vision--a being but half earthly, enthroned high above
+him, calm-browed, very pure, with passionless eyes that gazed into far
+distance and were unaware of the base things below. What would she think
+of him, who had sworn to be true knight to her, if she could know how he
+had bungled and failed? He was glad that she did not know, that if he
+had blundered into peril the knowledge of it could not reach her to hurt
+her pride.
+
+And sometimes, also, with a great sadness and pity, he thought of poor
+Coira O'Hara and of the pathetic wreck her life had fallen into. The
+girl was so patently fit for better things! Her splendid beauty was not
+a cheap beauty. She was no coarse-blown, gorgeous flower, imperfect at
+telltale points. It was good blood that had modelled her dark
+perfection, good blood that had shaped her long and slim and tapering
+hands.
+
+"A queen among goddesses!" The words remained with him, and he knew that
+they were true. She might have held up her head among the greatest, this
+adventurer's girl; but what chance had she had? What merest ghost of a
+chance?
+
+He watched her on the rare occasions when she came into the room. He
+watched the poise of her head, her walk, the movements she made, and he
+said to himself that there was no woman of his acquaintance whose grace
+was more perfect--certainly none whose grace was so native.
+
+Once he complained to her of the desperate idleness of his days, and
+asked her to lend him a book of some kind, a review, even a daily
+newspaper, though it be a week old.
+
+"I should read the very advertisements with joy," he said.
+
+She went out of the room and returned presently with an armful of books,
+which she laid upon the bed without comment.
+
+"In my prayers, Mademoiselle," cried Ste. Marie, "you shall be foremost
+forever!" He glanced at the row of titles and looked up in sheer
+astonishment. "May I ask whose books these are?" he said.
+
+"They are mine," said the girl. "I caught up the ones that lay first at
+hand. If you don't care for any of them, I will choose others."
+
+The books were: _Diana of the Crossways, Richard Feverel,_ Henri
+Lavedan's _Le Duel_, Maeterlinck's _Pelleas et Mélisande, Don Quixote de
+la Mancha_, in Spanish, a volume of Virgil's _Eclogues_, and the _Life
+of the Chevalier Bayard_, by the Loyal Servitor. Ste. Marie stared at
+her.
+
+"Do you read Spanish," he demanded, "and Latin, as well as French and
+English?"
+
+"My mother was Spanish," said she. "And as for Latin, I began to read it
+with my father when I was a child. Shall I leave the books here?"
+
+Ste. Marie took up the _Bayard_ and held it between his hands.
+
+"It is worn from much reading, Mademoiselle," he said.
+
+"It is the best of all," said she. "The very best of all. I didn't know
+I had brought you that."
+
+She made a step toward him as if she would take the book away, and over
+it their eyes met and were held. In that moment it may have come to them
+both who she was, who so loved the knight without fear and without
+reproach--the daughter of art Irish adventurer of ill repute--for their
+faces began suddenly to flush with red, and after an instant the girl
+turned away.
+
+"It is of no consequence," said she. "You may keep the book if you care
+to."
+
+And Ste. Marie said, very gently: "Thank you, Mademoiselle. I will keep
+it for a little while."
+
+So she went out of the room and left him alone.
+
+This was at noon on the sixth day, and, after he had swallowed hastily
+the lunch which had been set before him, Ste. Marie fell upon the books
+like a child upon a new box of sweets. Like the child again, it was
+difficult for him to choose among them. He opened one and then another,
+gloating over them all, but in the end he chose the _Bayard_, and for
+hours lost himself among the high deeds of the Preux Chevalier and his
+faithful friends--among whom, by the way, there was a Ste. Marie who
+died nobly for France. It was late afternoon when at last he laid the
+book down with a sigh and settled himself more comfortably among the
+pillows.
+
+The sun was not in the room at that hour, but from where he lay he could
+see it on the tree-tops, gold upon green. Outside his south window the
+leaves of a chestnut which stood there quivered and rustled gently under
+a soft breeze. Delectable odors floated in to Ste. Marie's nostrils, and
+he thought how very pleasant it would be if he were lying on the turf
+under the trees instead of bedridden in this upper chamber, which he had
+come to hate with a bitter hatred.
+
+He began to wonder if it would be possible to drag himself across the
+floor to that south window, and so to lie down for a while with his head
+in the tiny balcony beyond, his eyes turned to the blue sky. Astir with
+the new thought, he sat up in bed and carefully swung his feet out till
+they hung to the floor. The wound in the left leg smarted and burned,
+but not too severely, and with slow pains Ste. Marie stood up. He almost
+cried out when he discovered that it could be done quite easily. He
+essayed to walk, and he was a little weak, but by no means helpless. He
+found that it gave him pain to raise his left leg in the ordinary action
+of walking or to bend that knee, but he could get about well enough by
+dragging the injured member beside him, for when it was straight it
+supported him without protest.
+
+He took his pillows across to the window and disposed them there, for it
+was a French window opening to the floor, and the level of the little
+balcony outside was but a few inches above the level of the room. Then
+the desire seized him to make a tour of his prison walls. He went first
+to the closet where he had seen his clothes hanging, and they were still
+there. He felt in the pockets and withdrew his little English pigskin
+sovereign-purse. It had not been tampered with, and he gave an
+exclamation of relief over that, for he might later on have use for
+money. There were eight louis in it, each in its little separate
+compartment, and in another pocket he found a fifty-franc note and some
+silver. He went to the two east windows and looked out. The trees stood
+thick together on that side of the house, but between two of them he
+could see the park wall fifty yards away. He glanced down, and the side
+of the house was covered thick with the ivy which had given the place
+its name, but there was no water-pipe near, nor any other thing which
+seemed to offer foot or hand hold, unless, perhaps, the ivy might prove
+strong enough to bear a man's weight. Ste. Marie made a mental note to
+look into that when he was a little stronger, and turned back to the
+south window where he had disposed his pillows.
+
+The unaccustomed activity was making his wound smart and prickle, and he
+lay down at once with head and shoulders in the open air, and out of the
+warm and golden sunshine and the emerald shade the breath of summer came
+to him and wrapped him round with sweetness and pillowed him upon its
+fragrant breast.
+
+He became aware after a long time of voices below, and turned upon his
+elbows to look. The ivy had clambered upon and partly covered the iron
+grille of the little balcony, and he could observe without being seen.
+Young Arthur Benham and Coira O'Hara had come out of the door of the
+house, and they stood upon the raised and paved terrace which ran the
+width of the façade, and seemed to hesitate as to the direction they
+should take. Ste. Marie heard the girl say:
+
+"It's cooler here in the shade of the house," and after a moment the two
+came along the shady terrace whose outer margin was set at intervals
+with stained and discolored marble nymphs upon pedestals, and between
+the nymphs with moss-grown stone benches. They halted before a bench
+upon which, earlier in the day, a rug had been spread out to dry in the
+sun and had been forgotten, and after a moment's further hesitation they
+sat down upon it. Their faces were turned toward the house, and every
+word that they spoke mounted in that still air clear and distinct to the
+ears of the man above.
+
+Ste. Marie wriggled back into the room and sat up to consider. The
+thought of deliberately listening to a conversation not meant for him
+sent a hot flush to his cheeks. He told himself that it could not be
+done, and that there was an end to the matter. Whatever might hang upon
+it, it could not be asked of him that he should stoop to dishonor. But
+at that the heavy and grave responsibility, which really did hang upon
+him and upon his actions, came before his mind's eye and loomed there
+mountainous. The fate of this foolish boy who was set round with thieves
+and adventurers--even though his eyes were open and he knew where he
+stood--that came to Ste. Marie and confronted him; and the picture of a
+bitter old man who was dying of grief came to him; and a mother's face;
+and _hers_. There could be no dishonor in the face of all this, only a
+duty very clear and plain. He crept back to his place, his arms folded
+beneath him as he lay, his eyes at the thin screen of ivy which cloaked
+the balcony grille.
+
+Young Arthur Benham appeared to be giving tongue to a rather sharp
+attack of homesickness. It may be that long confinement within the walls
+of La Lierre was beginning to try him somewhat.
+
+"Mind you," he declared, as Ste. Marie's ears came once more within
+range--"mind you, I'm not saying that Paris hasn't got its points. It
+has. Oh yes! And so has London, and so has Ostend, and so has Monte
+Carlo. Verree much so! I like Paris. I like the theatres and the
+vaudeville shows in the Champs-Elysées, and I like Longchamps. I like
+the boys who hang around Henry's Bar. They're good sports all right, all
+right! But, by golly, I want to go home! Put me off at the corner of
+Forty-second Street and Broadway, and I'll ask no more. Set me down at 7
+P.M., right there on the corner outside the Knickerbocker, for that's
+where I would live and die." There came into the lad's somewhat strident
+voice a softness that was almost pathetic. "You don't know Broadway,
+Coira, do you? Nix! of course not. Little girl, it's the one street of
+all this large world. It's the equator that runs north and south instead
+of east and west. It's a long, bright, gay, live wire!--that's what
+Broadway is. And I give you my word of honor, like a little man, that
+it--is--not--slow. No-o, indeed! When I was there last it was being
+called the 'Gay White Way.' It is not called the 'Gay White Way' now. It
+has had forty other new, good names since then, and I don't know what
+they are, but I do know that it is forever gay, and that the electric
+signs are still blazing all along the street, and the street-cars are
+still killing people in the good old fashion, and the news-boys are
+still dodging under the automobiles to sell you a _Woild_ or a _Choinal_
+or, if it's after twelve at night, a _Morning Telegraph_. Coira, my
+girl, standing on that corner after dark you can see the electric signs
+of fifteen theatres, not one of them more than five minutes' walk away;
+and just round the corner there are more. I want to go home! I want to
+take one large, unparalleled leap from here and come down at the corner
+I told you about. D'you know what I'd do? We'll say it's 7 P.M. and
+beginning to get dark. I'd dive into the Knickerbocker--that's the hotel
+that the bright and happy people go to for dinner or supper--and I'd
+engage a table up on the terrace. Then I'd telephone to a little friend
+of mine whose name is Doe--John Doe--and in about ten minutes he'd have
+left the crowd he was standing in line with and he'd come galloping up,
+that glad to see me you'd cry to watch him. We'd go up on the terrace,
+where the potted palms grow, for our dinner, and the tables all around
+us would be full of people that would know Johnnie Doe and me, and
+they'd all make us drink drinks and tell us how glad they were to see us
+aboard again. And after dinner," said young Arthur Benham, with wide and
+smiling eyes--"after dinner we'd go to see one of the roof-garden shows.
+Let me tell you they've got the Marigny or the Ambassadeurs or the
+Jardin de Paris beaten to a pulp--to--a--pulp! And after the show we'd
+slip round to the stage-door--you bet we would!--and capture the two
+most beautiful ladies in the world and take 'em off to supper."
+
+He wrinkled his young brow in great perplexity. "Now I wonder," said he,
+anxiously--"I wonder where we'd go for supper. You see," he apologized,
+"it's two years since I left the Real Street, and, gee! what a lot can
+happen on Broadway in two years! There's probably half a dozen new
+supper-places that I don't know anything about, and one of them's the
+place where the crowd goes. Well, anyhow, we'd go to that place, and
+there'd be a band playing, and the electric fans would go round and
+round, and Johnnie Doe and I and the two most beautiful ladies would put
+it all over the other pikers there."
+
+Young Benham gave a little sigh of pleasure and excitement. "That's what
+I'd like to do to-night," said he, "and that's what I'll do, you can bet
+your sh--boots, when all this silly mess is over and I'm a free man.
+I'll hike back to good old Broadway, and if ever you see any one trying
+to pry me loose from it again you can laugh yourself to death, because
+he'll never, never succeed.
+
+"That's where I'll go," he said, nodding, "when this waiting is
+over--straight back to Liberty Land and the bright lights. The rest of
+the family can stay here till they die, if they want to--and I suppose
+they do--_I'm_ going home as soon as I've got my money. Old Charlie'll
+manage all that for me. He'll get a lawyer to look after it, and I won't
+have to see anybody in the family at all.
+
+"Nine more weeks shut in by stone walls!" said the boy, staring about
+him with a sort of bitterness. "Nine weeks more!"
+
+"Is it so hard as that?" asked the girl.
+
+There was no foolish coquetry in her tone. She spoke as if the words
+involved no personal question at all, but there was a little smile at
+her lips, and Arthur Benham turned toward her quickly and caught at her
+hands.
+
+"No, no!" he cried. "I didn't mean that. You know I didn't mean that.
+You're worth nine years' waiting. You're the best--d'you hear?--the best
+there is. There's nobody anywhere that can touch you. Only--well, this
+place is getting on my nerves. It's got me worn to a frazzle. I feel
+like a criminal doing time."
+
+"You came very near having to do time somewhere else," said the girl.
+"If this M. Ste. Marie hadn't blundered we should have had them all
+round our ears, and you'd have had to run for it."
+
+"Yes," the boy said, nodding gravely. "Yes, that was great luck."
+
+He raised his head and looked up along the windows above him.
+
+"Which is his room?" he asked, and Mlle. O'Hara said:
+
+"The one just overhead, but he's in bed far back from the window. He
+couldn't possibly hear us talking."
+
+She paused for a moment in frowning hesitation, and in the end said:
+
+"Tell me about him, this Ste. Marie! Do you know anything about him?"
+
+"No," said Arthur Benham, "I don't--not personally, that is. Of course
+I've heard of him. Lots of people have spoken of him to me. And the odd
+part of it is that they all had a good word to say. Everybody seemed to
+like him. I got the idea that he was the best ever. I wanted to know
+him. I never thought he'd take on a piece of dirty work like this."
+
+"Nor I," said the girl, in a low voice. "Nor I."
+
+The boy looked up.
+
+"Oh, you've heard of him, too, then?" said he.
+
+And she said, still in her low voice, "I--saw him once."
+
+"Well," declared young Benham, "it's beyond me. I give it up. You never
+can tell about people, can you? I guess they'll all go wrong when
+there's enough in it to make it worth while. That's what old Charlie
+always says. He says most people are straight enough when there's
+nothing in it, but make the pot big enough and they'll all go crooked."
+
+The young man's face turned suddenly hard and old and bitter.
+
+"Gee! I ought to know that well enough, oughtn't I?" he said. "I guess
+nobody knows that better than I do after what happened to me.... Come
+along and take a walk in the garden, Maud! I'm sick of sitting still."
+
+Mlle. Coira O'Hara looked up with a start, as if she had not been
+listening, but she rose when the boy held out his hand to her, and the
+two went down from the terrace and moved off toward the west.
+
+Ste. Marie watched them until they had disappeared among the trees, and
+then turned on his back, staring up into the softly stirring canopy of
+green above him and the little rifts of bright blue sky. He did not
+understand at all. Something mysterious had crept in where all had
+seemed so plain to the eye. Certain words that young Arthur Benham had
+spoken repeated themselves in his mind, and he could not at once make
+them out. Assuredly there was something mysterious here.
+
+In the first place, what did the boy mean by "dirty work"? To be sure,
+spying, in its usual sense, is not held to be one of the noblest of
+occupations, but--in such a cause as this! It was absurd, ridiculous, to
+call it "dirty work." And what did he mean by the words which he had
+used afterward? Ste. Marie did not quite follow the idiom about the "big
+enough pot," but he assumed that it referred to money. Did the young
+fool think he was being paid for his efforts? That was ridiculous, too.
+
+The boy's face came before him as it had looked with that sudden hard
+and bitter expression. What did he mean by saying that no one knew the
+crookedness of humanity under money temptation better than he knew it
+after something that had happened to him? In a sense his words were
+doubtless very true. Captain Stewart--and he must have been "old
+Charlie"; Ste. Marie remembered that the name was Charles--O'Hara, and
+O'Hara's daughter stood excellent examples of that bit of cynicism, but
+obviously the boy had not spoken in that sense--certainly not before
+Mlle. O'Hara! He meant something else, then. But what--what?
+
+Ste. Marie rose with some difficulty to his feet and carried the pillows
+back to the bed whence he had taken them. He sat down upon the edge of
+the bed, staring in great perplexity across the room at the open window,
+but all at once he uttered an exclamation and smote his hands together.
+
+"That boy doesn't know!" he cried. "They're tricking him, these others!"
+
+The lad's face came once more before him, and it was a foolish and
+stubborn face, perhaps, but it was neither vicious nor mean. It was the
+face of an honest, headstrong boy who would be incapable of the cold
+cruelty to which all circumstances seemed to point.
+
+"They're tricking him somehow!" cried Ste. Marie again. "They're lying
+to him and making him think--"
+
+What was it they were making him think, these three conspirators? What
+possible thing could they make him think other than the plain truth?
+Ste. Marie shook a weary head and lay down among his pillows. He wished
+that he had "old Charlie" in a corner of that room with his fingers
+round "old Charlie's" wicked throat. He would soon get at the truth
+then; or O'Hara, either, that grim and saturnine chevalier d'industrie,
+though O'Hara would be a bad handful to manage; or--Ste. Marie's head
+dropped back with a little groan when the face of young Arthur's
+enchantress came between him and the opposite wall of the room and her
+great and tragic eyes looked into his.
+
+It seemed incredible that that queen among goddesses should be what she
+was!
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+XIX
+
+THE INVALID TAKES THE AIR
+
+
+When O'Hara, the next morning, went through the formality of looking in
+upon his patient, and after a taciturn nod was about to go away again,
+Ste. Marie called him back. He said, "Would you mind waiting a moment?"
+and the Irishman halted inside the door. "I made an experiment
+yesterday," said Ste. Marie, "and I find that, after a poor fashion, I
+can walk--that is to say, I can drag myself about a little without any
+great pain if I don't bend the left leg."
+
+O'Hara returned to the bed and made a silent examination of the bullet
+wound, which, it was plain to see, was doing very well indeed. "You'll
+be all right in a few days," said he, "but you'll be lame for a week
+yet--maybe two. As a matter of fact, I've known men to march half a day
+with a hole in the leg worse than yours, though it probably was not
+quite pleasant."
+
+"I'm afraid I couldn't march very far," said Ste. Marie, "but I can
+hobble a bit. The point is, I'm going mad from confinement in this room.
+Do you think I might be allowed to stagger about the garden for an hour,
+or sit there under one of the trees? I don't like to ask favors, but, so
+far as I can see, it could do no harm. I couldn't possibly escape, you
+see. I couldn't climb a fifteen-foot wall even if I had two good legs;
+as it is, with a leg and a half, I couldn't climb anything."
+
+The Irishman looked at him sharply, and was silent for a time, as if
+considering. But at last he said: "Of course there is no reason whatever
+for granting you any favors here. You're on the footing of a spy--a
+captured spy--and you're very lucky not to have got what you deserved
+instead of a trumpery flesh wound." The man's face twisted into a heavy
+scowl. "Unfortunately," said he, "an accident has put me--put us in as
+unpleasant a position toward you as you had put yourself toward us. We
+seem to stand in the position of having tried to poison you, and--well,
+we owe you something for that. Still, I'd meant to keep you locked up in
+this room so long as it was necessary to have you at La Lierre." He
+scowled once more in an intimidating fashion at Ste. Marie, and it was
+evident that he found himself embarrassed. "And," he said, awkwardly, "I
+suppose I owe something to your father's son.... Look here! If you're to
+be allowed in the garden, you must understand that it's at fixed hours
+and not alone. Somebody will always be with you, and old Michel will be
+on hand to shoot you down if you try to run for it or if you try to
+communicate with Arthur Benham. Is that understood?"
+
+"Quite," said Ste. Marie, gayly. "Quite understood and agreed to. And
+many thanks for your courtesy. I sha'n't forget it. We differ rather
+widely on some rather important subjects, you and I, but I must confess
+that you're very generous, and I thank you. The old Michel has my full
+permission to shoot at me if he sees me trying to fly over a
+fifteen-foot wall."
+
+"He'll shoot without asking your permission," said the Irishman, grimly,
+"if you try that on, but I don't think you'll be apt to try it for the
+present--not with a crippled leg." He pulled out his watch and looked at
+it. "Nine o'clock," said he. "If you care to begin to-day you can go out
+at eleven for an hour. I'll see that old Michel is ready at that time."
+
+"Eleven will suit me perfectly," said Ste. Marie. "You're very good.
+Thanks once more!" The Irishman did not seem to hear. He replaced the
+watch in his pocket and turned away in silence. But before he left the
+room he stood a moment beside one of the windows, staring out into the
+morning sunshine, and the other man could see that his face had once
+more settled into the still and melancholic gloom which was
+characteristic of it. Ste. Marie watched, and for the first time the man
+began to interest him as a human being. He had thought of O'Hara before
+merely as a rather shady adventurer of a not very rare type, but he
+looked at the adventurer's face now and he saw that it was the face of a
+man of unspeakable sorrows. When O'Hara looked at one, one saw only a
+pair of singularly keen and hard blue eyes set under a bony brow. When
+those eyes were turned away, the man's attention relaxed, the face
+became a battle-ground furrowed and scarred with wrecked pride and with
+bitterness and with shame and with agony. Most soldiers of fortune have
+faces like that, for the world has used them very ill, and they have
+lost one precious thing after another until all are gone, and they have
+tasted everything that there is in life, and the flavor which remains is
+a very bitter flavor--dry, like ashes.
+
+It came to Ste. Marie, as he lay watching this man, that the story of
+the man's life, if he could be made to tell it, would doubtless be one
+of the most interesting stories in the world, as must be the tale of the
+adventurous career of any one who has slipped down the ladder of
+respectability, rung by rung, into that shadowy no-man's-land where the
+furtive birds of prey foregather and hatch their plots. It was plain
+enough that O'Hara had, as the phrase goes, seen better days. Without
+question he was a villain, but, after all, a generous villain. He had
+been very decent about making amends for that poisoning affair. A
+cheaper rascal would have behaved otherwise. Ste. Marie suddenly
+remembered what a friend of his had once said of this mysterious
+Irishman. The two had been sitting on the terrace of a café, and as
+O'Hara passed by Ste. Marie's friend pointed after him and said: "There
+goes some of the best blood that ever came out of Ireland. See what it
+has fallen to!"
+
+Seemingly it had fallen pretty low. He would have liked very much to
+know about the downward stages, but he knew that he would never hear
+anything of them from the man himself, for O'Hara was clad, as it were,
+in an armor of taciturnity. He was incredibly silent. He wore mail that
+nothing could pierce.
+
+The Irishman turned abruptly away and left the room, and Ste. Marie,
+with all the gay excitement of a little girl preparing for her first
+nursery party, began to get himself ready to go out. The old Michel had
+already been there to help him bathe and shave, so that he had only to
+dress himself and attend to his one conspicuous vanity--the painstaking
+arrangement of his hair, which he wore, according to the fashion of the
+day, parted a little at one side and brushed almost straight back, so
+that it looked rather like a close-fitting and incredibly glossy
+skullcap. Richard Hartley, who was inclined to joke at his friend's
+grave interest in the matter, said that it reminded him of
+patent-leather.
+
+When he was dressed--and he found that putting on his left boot was no
+mean feat--Ste. Marie sat down in a chair by the window and lighted a
+cigarette. He had half an hour to wait, and so he picked up the volume
+of _Bayard_, which Coira O'Hara had not yet taken away from him, and
+began to read in it at random. He became so absorbed that the old
+Michel, come to summon him, took him by surprise. But it was a pleasant
+surprise and very welcome. He followed the old man out of the room with
+a heart that beat fast with eagerness.
+
+The descent of the stairs offered difficulties, for the wounded leg
+protested sharply against being bent more than a very little at the
+knee. But by the aid of Michel's shoulder he made the passage in safety
+and so came to the lower story. At the foot of the stairs some one
+opened a door almost in their faces, but closed it again with great
+haste, and Ste. Marie gave a chuckle of laughter, for, though it was
+almost dark there, he thought he had recognized Captain Stewart.
+
+"So old Charlie's with us to-day, is he?" he said, aloud, and Michel
+queried:
+
+"Comment, Monsieur?" because Ste. Marie had spoken in English.
+
+They came out upon the terrace before the house, and the fresh, sweet
+air bore against their faces, and little flecks of live gold danced and
+shivered about their feet upon the moss-stained tiles. The gardener
+stepped back for an instant into the doorway, and reappeared bearing
+across his arms the short carbine with which Ste. Marie had already made
+acquaintance. The victim looked at this weapon with a laugh, and the old
+Michel's gnomelike countenance distorted itself suddenly and a weird
+cackle came from it.
+
+"It is my old friend?" demanded Ste. Marie, and the gardener cackled
+once more, stroking the barrel of the weapon as if it were a faithful
+dog.
+
+"The same, Monsieur," said he. "But she apologizes for not doing
+better."
+
+"Beg her for me," said the young man, "to cheer up. She may get another
+chance."
+
+Old Michel's face froze into an expression of anxious and rather
+frightened solicitude, but he waved his arm for the prisoner to precede
+him, and Ste. Marie began to limp down across the littered and unkempt
+sweep of turf. Behind him, at the distance of a dozen paces, he heard
+the shambling footfalls of his guard, but he had expected that, and it
+could not rob him of his swelling and exultant joy at treading once more
+upon green grass and looking up into blue sky. He was like a man newly
+released from a dungeon rather than from a sunny and by no means
+uncomfortable upper chamber. He would have liked to dance and sing, to
+run at full speed like a child until he was breathless and red in the
+face. Instead of that he had to drag himself with slow pains and some
+discomfort, but his spirit ran ahead, dancing and singing, and he
+thought that it even halted now and then to roll on the grass.
+
+As he had observed a week before, from the top of the wall, a double row
+of larches led straight down away from the front of the house, making a
+wide and long vista interrupted half-way to its end by a rond point, in
+the centre of which were a pool and a fountain. The double row of trees
+was sadly broken now, and the trees were untrimmed and uncared for. One
+of them had fallen, probably in a wind-storm, and lay dead across the
+way. Ste. Marie turned aside toward the west and found himself presently
+among chestnuts, planted in close rows, whose tops grew in so thick a
+canopy above that but little sunshine came through, and there was no
+turf under foot, only black earth, hard-trodden, mossy here and there.
+
+From beyond, in the direction he had chanced to take, and a little
+toward the west, a soft morning breeze bore to him the scent of roses so
+constant and so sweet, despite its delicacy, that to breathe it was like
+an intoxication. He felt it begin to take hold upon and to sway his
+senses like an exquisite, an insidious wine.
+
+"The flower-gardens, Michel?" he asked, over his shoulder. "They are
+before us?"
+
+"Ahead and to the left, Monsieur," said the old man, and he took up once
+more his slow and difficult progress.
+
+But again, before he had gone many steps, he was halted. There began to
+reach his ears a rich but slender strain of sound, a golden thread of
+melody. At first he thought that it was a 'cello or the lower notes of a
+violin, but presently he became aware that it was a woman singing in a
+half-voice without thought of what she sang--as women croon to a child,
+or over their work, or when they are idle and their thoughts are far
+wandering.
+
+The mistake was not as absurd as it may seem, for it is a fact that the
+voice which is called a contralto, if it is a good and clear and fairly
+resonant voice, sounds at a distance very much indeed like a 'cello or
+the lower register of a violin. And that is especially true when the
+voice is hushed to a half-articulate murmur. Indeed, this is but one of
+the many strange peculiarities of that most beautiful of all human
+organs. The contralto can rarely express the lighter things, and it is
+quite impossible for it to express merriment or gayety, but it can
+thrill the heart as can no other sound emitted by a human throat, and it
+can shake the soul to its very innermost hidden deeps. It is the soft,
+yellow gold of singing--the wine of sound; it is mystery; it is shadowy,
+unknown, beautiful places; it is enchantment. Ste. Marie stood still and
+listened. The sound of low singing came from the right. Without
+realizing that he had moved, he began to make his way in that direction,
+and the old Michel, carbine upon arm, followed behind him. He had no
+doubt of the singer. He knew well who it was, for the girl's speaking
+voice had thrilled him long before this. He came to the eastern margin
+of the grove of chestnuts and found that he was beside the open rond
+point, where the pool lay within its stone circumference, unclean and
+choked with lily-pads, and the fountain--a naked lady holding aloft a
+shell--stood above. The rond point was not in reality round; it was an
+oval with its greater axis at right angles to the long, straight avenue
+of larches. At the two ends of the oval there were stone benches with
+backs, and behind these, tall shrubs grew close and overhung, so that
+even at noonday the spots were shaded.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+XX
+
+THE STONE BENCH AT THE ROND POINT
+
+
+Mlle. Coira O'Hara sat alone upon the stone bench at the hither end of
+the rond point. With a leisurely hand she put fine stitches into a
+mysterious garment of white, with lace on it, and over her not too
+arduous toil she sang, à demi voix, a little German song all about the
+tender passions.
+
+Ste. Marie halted his dragging steps a little way off, but the girl
+heard him and turned to look. After that she rose hurriedly and stood as
+if poised for flight, but Ste. Marie took his hat in his hands and came
+forward.
+
+"If you go away, Mademoiselle," said he, "if you let me drive you from
+your place, I shall limp across to that pool and fall in and drown
+myself, or I shall try to climb the wall yonder and Michel will have to
+shoot me."
+
+He came forward another step.
+
+"If it is impossible," he said, "that you and I should stay here
+together for a few little moments and talk about what a beautiful day it
+is--if that is impossible, why then I must apologize for intruding upon
+you and go on my way, inexorably pursued by the would-be murderer who
+now stands six paces to the rear. Is it impossible, Mademoiselle?" said
+Ste. Marie.
+
+The girl's face was flushed with that deep and splendid understain. She
+looked down upon the white garment in her hand and away across the broad
+rond point, and in the end she looked up very gravely into the face of
+the man who stood leaning upon his stick before her.
+
+"I don't know," she said, in her deep voice, "what my father would wish.
+I did not know that you were coming into the garden this morning, or--"
+
+"Or else," said Ste. Marie, with a little touch of bitterness in his
+tone--"or else you would not have been here. You would have remained in
+the house."
+
+He made a bow.
+
+"To-morrow, Mademoiselle," said he, "and for the remainder of the days
+that I may be at La Lierre, I shall stay in my room. You need have no
+fear of me."
+
+All the man's life he had been spoiled. The girl's bearing hurt him
+absurdly, and a little of the hurt may have betrayed itself in his face
+as he turned away, for she came toward him with a swift movement,
+saying:
+
+"No, no! Wait!--I have hurt you," she said, with a sort of wondering
+distress. "You have let me hurt you.... And yet surely you must see,...
+you must realize on what terms.... Do you forget that you are not among
+your friends... outside?... This is so very different!"
+
+"I had forgotten," said he. "Incredible as it sounds, I had for a moment
+forgotten. Will you grant me your pardon for that? And yet," he
+persisted, after a moment's pause--"yet, Mademoiselle, consider a
+little! It is likely that--circumstances have so fallen that it seems I
+shall be here within your walls for a time, perhaps a long time. I am
+able to walk a little now. Day by day I shall be stronger, better able
+to get about. Is there not some way--are there hot some terms under
+which we could meet without embarrassment? Must we forever glare at each
+other and pass by warily, just because we--well, hold different views
+about--something?"
+
+It was not a premeditated speech at all. It had never until this moment
+occurred to him to suggest any such arrangement with any member of the
+household at La Lierre. At another time he would doubtless have
+considered it undignified, if not downright unwise, to hold intercourse
+of any friendly sort with this band of contemptible adventurers. The
+sudden impulse may have been born of his long week of almost intolerable
+loneliness, or it may have come of the warm exhilaration of this first
+breath of sweet, outdoor air, or perhaps it needed neither of these
+things, for the girl was very beautiful--enchantment breathed from her,
+and, though he knew what she was, in what despicable plot she was
+engaged, he was too much Ste. Marie to be quite indifferent to her.
+Though he looked upon her sorrowfully and with pain and vicarious shame,
+he could not have denied the spell she wielded. After all, he was Ste.
+Marie.
+
+Once more the girl looked up very gravely under her brows, and her eyes
+met the man's eyes. "I don't know," she said. "Truly, I don't know. I
+think I should have to ask my father about it.--I wish," she said, "that
+we might do that. I should like it. I should like to be able to talk to
+some one--about the things I like--and care for. I used to talk with my
+father about things; but not lately. There is no one now." Her eyes
+searched him. "Would it be possible, I wonder," said she. "Could we two
+put everything else aside--forget altogether who we are and why we are
+here. Is that possible?"
+
+"We could only try, Mademoiselle," said Ste. Marie. "If we found it a
+failure we could give it up." He broke into a little laugh. "And
+besides," he said, "I can't help thinking that two people ought to be
+with me all the time I am in the garden here--for safety's sake. I might
+catch the old Michel napping one day, you know, throttle him, take his
+rifle away, and escape. If there were two, I couldn't do it."
+
+For an instant she met his laugh with an answering smile, and the smile
+came upon her sombre beauty like a moment of golden light upon darkness.
+But afterward she was grave again and thoughtful. "Is it not rather
+foolish," she asked, "to warn us--to warn me of possibilities like that?
+You might quite easily do what you have said. You are putting us on our
+guard against you."
+
+"I meant to, Mademoiselle," said Ste. Marie. "I meant to. Consider my
+reasons. Consider what I was pleading for!" And he gave a little laugh
+when the color began again to rise in the girl's cheeks.
+
+She turned away from him, shaking her head, and he thought that he had
+said too much and that she was offended, but after a moment the girl
+looked up, and when she met his eyes she laughed outright.
+
+"I cannot forever be scowling and snarling at you," said she. "It is
+quite too absurd. Will you sit down for a little while? I don't know
+whether or not my father would approve, but we have met here by
+accident, and there can be no harm, surely, in our exchanging a few
+civil words. If you try to bring up forbidden topics I can simply go
+away; and, besides, Michel stands ready to murder you if it should
+become necessary. I think his failure of a week ago is very heavy on his
+conscience."
+
+Ste. Marie sat down in one corner of the long stone bench, and he was
+very glad to do it, for his leg was beginning to cause him some
+discomfort. It felt hot and as if there were a very tight band round it
+above the knee. The relief must have been apparent in his face, for
+Mlle. O'Hara looked at him in silence for a moment, and she gave a
+little, troubled, anxious frown. Men can be quite indifferent to
+suffering in each other if the suffering is not extreme, and women can
+be, too, but men are quite miserable in the presence of a woman who is
+in pain, and women, before a suffering man, while they are not
+miserable, are always full of a desire to do something that will help.
+And that might be a small, additional proof--if any more proof were
+necessary--that they are much the more practical of the two sexes.
+
+The girl's sharp glance seemed to assure her that Ste. Marie was
+comfortable, now that he was sitting down, for the frown went from her
+brows, and she began to arrange the mysterious white garment in her lap
+in preparation to go on with her work.
+
+Ste. Marie watched her for a while in a contented silence. The leaves
+overhead stirred under a puff of air, and a single yellow beam of
+sunlight came down and shivered upon the girl's dark head and played
+about the bundle of white over which her hands were busy. She moved
+aside to avoid it, but it followed her, and when she moved back it
+followed again and danced in her lap as if it were a live thing with a
+malicious sense of humor. It might have been Tinker Bell out of _Peter
+Pan_, only it did not jingle. Mlle. O'Hara uttered an exclamation of
+annoyance, and Ste. Marie laughed at her, but in a moment the leaves
+overhead were still again, and the sunbeam, with a sense of humor, was
+gone to torment some one else.
+
+Still neither of the two spoke, and Ste. Marie continued to watch the
+girl bent above her sewing. He Was thinking of what she had said to him
+when he asked her if she read Spanish--that her mother had been Spanish.
+That would account, then, for her dark eyes. It would account for the
+darkness of her skin, too, but not for its extraordinary clearness and
+delicacy, for Spanish women are apt to have dull skins of an opaque
+texture. This was, he said to himself, an Irish skin with a darker
+stain, and he was quite sure that he had never before seen anything at
+all like it.
+
+Apart from coloring, she was all Irish, of the type which has become
+famous the world over, and which in the opinion of men who have seen
+women in all countries, and have studied them, is the most beautiful
+type that exists in our time.
+
+Ste. Marie was dark himself, and in the ordinary nature of things he
+should have preferred a fair type in women. In theory, for that matter,
+he did prefer it, but it was impossible for him to sit near Coira O'Hara
+and watch her bent head and busy, hovering hands, and remain unstirred
+by her splendid beauty. He found himself wondering why one kind of
+loveliness more than another should exert a potent and mysterious spell
+by virtue of mere proximity, and when the woman who bore it was entirely
+passive. If this girl had been looking at him the matter would have been
+easy to understand, for an eye-glance is often downright hypnotic; but
+she was looking at the work in her hands, and, so far as could be
+judged, she had altogether forgotten his presence; yet the mysterious
+spell, the potent enchantment, breathed from her like a vapor, and he
+could not be insensible to it. It was like sorcery.
+
+The girl looked up so suddenly that Ste. Marie jumped. She said:
+
+"You are not a very talkative person. Are you always as silent as this?"
+
+"No," said he, "I am not. I offer my humblest apologies. It seems as if
+I were not properly grateful for being allowed to sit here with you,
+but, to tell the truth, I was buried in thought."
+
+They had begun to talk in French, but midway of Ste. Marie's speech the
+girl glanced toward the old Michel, who stood a short distance away, and
+so he changed to English.
+
+"In that case," she said, regarding her work with her head on one side
+like a bird--"in that case you might at least tell me what your thoughts
+were. They might be interesting."
+
+Ste. Marie gave a little embarrassed laugh.
+
+"I'm sorry," said he, "but I'm afraid they were too personal. I'm afraid
+if I told you you'd get up and go away and be frigidly polite to me when
+next we passed each other in the garden here. But there's no harm," he
+said, "in telling you one thing that occurred to me. It occurred to me
+that, as far as a young girl can be said to resemble an elderly woman,
+you bear a most remarkable resemblance to a very dear old friend of mine
+who lives near Dublin--Lady Margaret Craith. She's a widow, and almost
+all of her family are dead, I believe--I didn't know any of them--and
+she lives there in a huge old house with a park, quite alone with her
+army of servants. I go to see her whenever I'm in Ireland, because she
+is one of the sweetest souls I have ever known."
+
+He became aware suddenly that Mlle. O'Hara's head was bent very low over
+her sewing and that her face, or as much of it as he could see, was
+crimson.
+
+"Oh, I--I beg your pardon!" cried Ste. Marie. "I've done something
+dreadful. I don't know what it is, but I'm very, very sorry. Please
+forgive me if you can!"
+
+"It is nothing," she said, in a low voice, and after a moment she looked
+up for the swiftest possible glance and down again. "That is my--aunt,"
+she said. "Only--please let us talk about something else! Of course you
+couldn't possibly have known."
+
+"No," said Ste. Marie, gravely. "No, of course. You are very good to
+forgive me."
+
+He was silent a little while, for what the girl had told him surprised
+him very much indeed, and touched him, too. He remembered again the
+remark of his friend when O'Hara had passed them on the boulevard:
+
+"There goes some of the best blood that ever came out of Ireland. See
+what it has fallen to!"
+
+"It is a curious fact," said he, "that you and I are very close
+compatriots in the matter of blood--if 'compatriots' is the word. You
+are Irish and Spanish. My mother was Irish and my people were Béarnais,
+which is about as much Spanish as French; and, indeed, there was a great
+deal of blood from across the mountains in them, for they often married
+Spanish wives."
+
+He pulled the _Bayard_ out of his pocket.
+
+"The Ste. Marie in here married a Spanish lady, didn't he?"
+
+The girl looked up to him once more.
+
+"Yes," she said. "Yes, I remember. He was a brave man, Monsieur. He had
+a great soul. And he died nobly."
+
+"Well, as for that," he said, flushing a little, "the Ste. Maries have
+all died rather well."
+
+He gave a short laugh.
+
+"Though I must admit," said he, "that the last of them came precious
+near falling below the family standard a week ago. I should think that
+probably none of my respected forefathers was killed in climbing over a
+garden-wall. Autres temps, autres moeurs."
+
+He burst out laughing again at what seemed to him rather comic, but
+Mlle. O'Hara did not smile. She looked very gravely into his eyes, and
+there seemed to be something like sorrow in her look. Ste. Marie
+wondered at it, but after a moment it occurred to him that he was very
+near forbidden ground, and that doubtless the girl was trying to give
+him a silent warning of it. He began to turn over the leaves of the book
+in his hand.
+
+"You have marked a great many pages here," said he.
+
+And she said: "It is my best of all books. I read in it very often. I am
+so thankful for it that there are no words to say how thankful I am--how
+glad I am that I have such a world as that to--take refuge in sometimes
+when this world is a little too unbearable. It does for me now what the
+fairy stories did when I was little. And to think that it's true, true!
+To think that once there truly were men like that--sans peur et sans
+reproche! It makes life worth while to think that those men lived even
+if it was long ago."
+
+Ste. Marie bent his head over the little book, for he could not look at
+Mlle. O'Hara just then. It seemed to him well-nigh the most pathetic
+speech that he had ever heard. His heart bled for her. Out of what mean
+shadows had the girl to turn her weary eyes upward to this sunlight of
+ancient heroism!
+
+"And yet, Mademoiselle," said he, gently, "I think there are such men
+alive to-day, if only one will look for them. Remember, they were not
+common even in Bayard's time. Oh yes, I think there are preux chevaliers
+nowadays, only perhaps they don't go about things in quite the same
+fashion. Other times, other manners," he said again.
+
+"Do you know any such men?" she demanded, facing him with shadowy eyes.
+
+And he said: "Yes, I know men who are in all ways as honorable and as
+high-hearted as Bayard was. In his place they would have acted as he
+did, but nowadays one has to practise heroism much less
+conspicuously--in the little things that few people see and that no one
+applauds or writes books about. It is much harder to do brave little
+acts than brave big ones."
+
+"Yes." she agreed, slowly. "Oh yes, of course."
+
+But there was no spirit in her tone, rather a sort of apathy. Once more
+the leaves overhead swayed in the breeze, opened a tiny rift, and the
+little trembling ray of sunshine shot down to her where she sat. She
+stretched out one hand cup-wise, and the sunbeam, after a circling
+gyration, darted into it and lay there like a small golden bird panting,
+as it were, from fright.
+
+"If I were a painter," said Ste. Marie, "I should be in torture and
+anguish of soul until I had painted you sitting there on a stone bench
+and holding a sunbeam in your hand. I don't know what I should call the
+picture, but I think it would be something figurative--symbolic. Can you
+think of a name?"
+
+Coira O'Hara looked up at him with a slight smile, but her eyes were
+gloomy and full of dark shadows. "It might be called any one of a great
+number of things, I should think," said she.
+"Happiness--belief--illusion. See! The sunbeam is gone."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+XXI
+
+A MIST DIMS THE SHINING STAR
+
+
+Ste. Marie remained in his room all the rest of that day, and he did not
+see Mlle. O'Hara again, for Michel brought him his lunch and the old
+Justine his dinner. For the greater part of the time he sat in bed
+reading, but rose now and then and moved about the room. His wound
+seemed to have suffered no great inconvenience from the morning's
+outing. If he stood or walked too long it burned somewhat, and he had
+the sensation of a tight band round the leg; but this passed after he
+had lain down for a little while, or even sat in a chair with the leg
+straight out before him; so he knew that he was not to be crippled very
+much longer, and his thoughts began to turn more and more keenly upon
+the matter of escape.
+
+He realized, of course, that now, since he was once more able to walk,
+he would be guarded with unremitting care every moment of the day, and
+quite possibly every moment of the night as well, though the simple
+bolting of his door on the outside would seem to answer the purpose save
+when he was out-of-doors. Once he went to the two east windows and hung
+out of them, testing as well as he could with his hands the strength and
+tenacity of the ivy which covered that side of the house. He thought it
+seemed strong enough to give hand and foot hold without being torn
+loose, but he was afraid it would make an atrocious amount of noise if
+he should try to climb down it, and, besides, he would need two very
+active legs for that.
+
+At another time a fresh idea struck him, and he put it at once into
+action. There might be just a chance, when out one day with Michel, of
+getting near enough to the wall which ran along the Clamart road to
+throw something over it when the old man was not looking. In one of his
+pockets he had a card-case with a little pencil fitted into a loop at
+the edge, and in the case it was his custom to carry postage-stamps. He
+investigated and found pencil and stamps. Of course he had nothing but
+cards to write upon, and they were useless. He looked about the room and
+went through an empty chest of drawers in vain, but at last, on some
+shelves in the closet where his clothes had hung, he found several large
+sheets of coarse white paper. The shelves were covered with it loosely
+for the sake of cleanliness. He abstracted one of these sheets, and cut
+it into squares of the ordinary note-paper size, and he sat down and
+wrote a brief letter to Richard Hartley, stating where he was, that
+Arthur Benham was there, the O'Haras, and, he thought, Captain Stewart.
+He did not write the names out, but put instead the initial letters of
+each name, knowing that Hartley would understand. He gave careful
+directions as to how the place was to be reached, and he asked Hartley
+to come as soon as possible by night to that wall where he himself had
+made his entrance, to climb up by the cedar-tree, and to drop his answer
+into the thick leaves of the lilac bushes immediately beneath--an answer
+naming a day and hour, preferably by night, when he could return with
+three or four to help him, surprise the household at La Lierre, and
+carry off young Benham.
+
+Ste. Marie wrote this letter four times, and each of the four copies he
+enclosed in an awkwardly fashioned envelope, made with infinite pains so
+that its flaps folded in together, for he had no gum. He addressed and
+stamped the four envelopes, and put them all in his pocket to await the
+first opportunity.
+
+Afterward he lay down for a while, and as, one after another, the books
+he had in the room failed to interest him, his thoughts began to turn
+back to Mlle. Coira O'Hara and his hour with her upon the old stone
+bench in the garden. He realized all at once that he had been putting
+off this reflection as one puts off a reckoning that one a little dreads
+to face, and rather vaguely he realized why.
+
+The spell that the girl wielded--quite without being conscious of it; he
+granted her that grace--was too potent. It was dangerous, and he knew
+it. Even imaginative and very unpractical people can be in some things
+surprisingly matter-of-fact, and Ste. Marie was matter-of-fact about
+this. The girl had made a mysterious and unprecedented appeal to him at
+his very first sight of her, long before, and ever since that time she
+had continued, intermittently at least, to haunt his dreams. Now he was
+in the very house with her. It was quite possible that he might see her
+and speak with her every day, and he knew there was peril in that.
+
+He closed his eyes and she came to him, dark and beautiful, magnetically
+vital, spreading enchantment about her like a fragrance. She sat beside
+him on the moss-stained bench in the garden, holding out her hand
+cup-wise, and a sunbeam lay in the hand like a little, golden,
+fluttering bird. His thoughts ran back to that first morning when he had
+narrowly escaped death by poison. He remembered the girl's agony of fear
+and horror. He felt her hands once more upon his shoulders, and he was
+aware that his breath was coming faster and that his heart beat quickly.
+He got to his feet and went across to one of the windows, and he stood
+there for a long time frowning out into the summer day. If ever in his
+life, he said to himself with some deliberation, he was to need a cool
+and clear head, faculties unclouded and unimpaired by emotion, it was
+now in these next few days. Much more than his own well-being depended
+upon him now. The fates of a whole family, and quite possibly the lives
+of some of them, were in his hands. He must not fail, and he must not,
+in any least way, falter.
+
+For enemies he had a band of desperate adventurers, and the very boy
+himself, the centre and reason for the whole plot, had been, in some
+incomprehensible way, so played upon that he, too, was against him.
+
+The man standing by the window forced himself quite deliberately to look
+the plain facts in the face. He compelled himself to envisage this
+beautiful girl with her tragic eyes for just what his reason knew her to
+be--an adventuress, a decoy, a lure to a callow, impressionable, foolish
+lad, the tool of that arch-villain Stewart and of the lesser villain her
+father. It was like standing by and watching something lovely and
+pitiful vilely befouled. It turned his heart sick within him, but he
+held himself to the task. He brought to aid him the vision of his lady,
+in whose cause he was pursuing this adventure. For strength and
+determination he reached eye and hand to her where she sat enthroned,
+calm-browed, serene.
+
+For the first time since the beginning of all things his lady failed
+him, and Ste. Marie turned cold with fear.
+
+Where was that splendid frenzy that had been wont to sweep him all in an
+instant into upper air--set his feet upon the stars? Where was it? The
+man gave a sudden, voiceless cry of horror. The wings that had such
+countless times upborne him fluttered weakly near the earth and could
+not mount. His lady was there; through infinite space he was aware of
+her, but she was cold and aloof, and her eyes gazed very serenely beyond
+at something he could not see.
+
+He knew well enough that the fault lay somewhere within himself. She was
+as she had ever been, but he lacked the strength to rise to her. Why?
+Why? He searched himself with a desperate earnestness, but he could find
+no answer to his questioning. In himself, as in her, there had come no
+change. She was still to him all that she ever had been--the star of his
+destiny, the pillar of fire by night, of cloud by day, to guide him on
+his path. Where, then, the fine, pure fervor that should, at thought of
+her, whirl him on high and make a god of him?
+
+He stood wrapped in bewilderment and despair, for he could find no
+answer.
+
+In plain words, in commonplace black-and-white, the man's anguish has an
+over-fanciful, a well-nigh absurd look, but to Ste. Marie the thing was
+very real and terrible, as real and as terrible as, to a half-starved
+monk in his lonely cell, the sudden failure of the customary exaltation
+of spirit after a night's long prayer.
+
+He went, after a time, back to the bed, and lay down there with one
+upflung arm across his eyes to shut out the light. He was filled with a
+profound dejection and a sense of hopelessness. Through all the long
+week of his imprisonment he had been cheerful, at times even gay.
+However evil his case might have looked, his elastic spirits had mounted
+above all difficulties and cares, confident in the face of apparent
+defeat. Now at last he lay still, bruised, as it were, and battered and
+weary. The flame of courage burned very low in him. From sheer
+exhaustion he fell after a time into a troubled sleep, but even there
+the enemy followed him and would not let him rest. He seemed to himself
+to be in a place of shadows and fears. He strained his eyes to make out
+above him the bright, clear star of guidance, for so long as that shone
+he was safe; but something had come between--cloud or mist--and his star
+shone dimly in fitful glimpses.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+On the next morning he went out once more with the old Michel into the
+garden. He went with a stronger heart, for the morning had renewed his
+courage, as bright, fresh mornings do. From the anguish of the day
+before he held himself carefully aloof. He kept his mind away from all
+thought of it, and gave his attention to the things about him. It would
+return, doubtless, in the slow, idle hours; he would have to face it
+again and yet again; he would have to contend with it; but for the
+present he put it out of his thoughts, for there were things to do.
+
+It was no more than human of him--and certainly it was very
+characteristic of Ste. Marie--that he should be half glad and half
+disappointed at not finding Coira O'Hara in her place at the rond point.
+It left him free to do what he wished to do--make a careful
+reconnaissance of the whole garden enclosure--but it left him empty of
+something he had, without conscious thought, looked forward to.
+
+His wounded leg was stronger and more flexible than on the day before;
+it burned and prickled less, and could be bent a little at the knee with
+small distress; so he led the old Michel at a good pace down the length
+of the enclosure, past the rose-gardens, a tangle of unkempt sweetness,
+and so to the opposite wall. He found the gates there, very
+formidable-looking, made of vertical iron bars connected by cross-pieces
+and an ornamental scroll. They were fastened together by a heavy chain
+and a padlock. The lock was covered with rust, as were the gates
+themselves, and Ste. Marie observed that the lane outside upon which
+they gave was overgrown with turf and moss, and even with seedling
+shrubs; so he felt sure that this entrance was never used. The lane, he
+noted, swept away to the right toward Issy and not toward the Clamart
+road. He heard, as he stood there, the whir of a tram from far away at
+the left, a tram bound to or from Clamart, and the sound brought to his
+mind what he wished to do. He turned about and began to make his way
+round the rose-gardens, which were partly enclosed by a low brick wall
+some two or three feet high. Beyond them the trees and shrubbery were
+not set out in orderly rows as they were near the house, but grew at
+will without hindrance or care. It was like a bit of the Meudon wood.
+
+He found the going more difficult here for his bad leg, but he pressed
+on, and in a little while saw before him that wall which skirted the
+Clamart road. He felt in his pocket for the four sealed and stamped
+letters, but just then the old Michel spoke behind him:
+
+"Pardon, Monsieur! Ce n'est pas permis."
+
+"What is not permitted?" demanded Ste. Marie, wheeling about.
+
+"To approach that wall, Monsieur," said the old man, with an incredibly
+gnomelike and apologetic grin.
+
+Ste. Marie gave an exclamation of disgust. "Is it believed that I could
+leap over it?" he asked. "A matter of five metres? Merci, non! I am not
+so agile. You flatter me."
+
+The old Michel spread out his two gnarled hands.
+
+"Pas de ma faute. I have orders, Monsieur. It will be my painful duty to
+shoot if Monsieur approaches that wall." He turned his strange head on
+one side and regarded Ste. Marie with his sharp and beadlike eye. The
+smile of apology still distorted his face, and he looked exactly like
+the Punchinello in a street show.
+
+Ste. Marie slowly withdrew from his pocket two louis d'or and held them
+before him in the palm of his hand. He looked down upon them, and Michel
+looked, too, with a gaze so intense that his solitary eye seemed to
+project a very little from his withered face. He was like a hypnotized
+old bird.
+
+"Mon vieux," said Ste. Marie. "I am a man of honor."
+
+"Sûrement! Sûrement, Monsieur!" said the old Michel, politely, but his
+hypnotized gaze did not stir so much as a hair's-breadth. "Ça va sans le
+dire."
+
+"A man of honor," repeated Ste. Marie. "When I give my word I keep it.
+Voilà! I keep it. And," said he, "I have here forty francs. Two louis. A
+large sum. It is yours, my brave Michel, for the mere trouble of turning
+your back just thirty seconds."
+
+"Monsieur," whispered the old man, "it is impossible. He would kill
+me--by torture."
+
+"He will never know," said Ste. Marie, "for I do not mean to try to
+escape. I give you my word of honor that I shall not try to escape.
+Besides, I could not climb over that wall, as you see. Two louis,
+Michel! Forty francs!"
+
+The old man's hands twisted and trembled round the barrel of the
+carbine, and he swallowed once with some difficulty. He seemed to
+hesitate, but in the end he shook his head. It was as if he shook it in
+grief over the grave of his first-born. "It is impossible," he said
+again. "Impossible." He tore the beadlike eye away from those two
+beautiful, glowing golden things, and Ste. Marie saw that there was
+nothing to be done with him just now. He slipped the money back into his
+pocket with a little sigh and turned away toward the rose-gardens.
+
+"Ah, well," said he. "Another time, perhaps. Another time. And there are
+more louis still, mon vieux. Perhaps three or four. Who knows?"
+
+Michel emitted a groan of extreme anguish, and they moved on.
+
+But a few moments later Ste. Marie gave a sudden low exclamation, and
+then a soundless laugh, for he caught sight of a very familiar figure
+seated in apparent dejection upon a fallen tree-trunk and staring across
+the tangled splendor of the roses.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+XXII
+
+A SETTLEMENT REFUSED
+
+
+Captain Stewart had good reason to look depressed on that fresh and
+beautiful morning when Ste. Marie happened upon him beside the
+rose-gardens. Matters had not gone well with him of late. He was ill and
+he was frightened, and he was much nearer than is agreeable to a
+complete nervous breakdown.
+
+It seemed to him that perils beset him upon every side, perils both seen
+and unseen. He felt like a man who is hunted in the dark, hard pressed
+until his strength is gone, and he can flee no farther. He imagined
+himself to be that man shivering in the gloom in a strange place, hiding
+eyes and ears lest he see or hear something from which he cannot escape.
+He imagined the morning light to come, very slow and cold and gray, and
+in it he saw round about him a silent ring of enemies, the men who had
+pursued him and run him down. He saw them standing there in the pale
+dawn, motionless, waiting for the day, and he knew that at last the
+chase was over and he near done for.
+
+Crouching alone in the garden, with the scent of roses in his nostrils,
+he wondered with a great and bitter amazement at that madman--himself of
+only a few months ago--who had sat down deliberately, in his proper
+senses, to play at cards with Fate, the great winner of all games. He
+wondered if, after all, he had been in his proper senses, for the deed
+now loomed before him gigantic and hideous in its criminal folly. His
+mind went drearily back to the beginning of it all, to the tremendous
+debts which had hounded him day and night, to his fear to speak of them
+with his father, who had never had the least mercy upon gamblers. He
+remembered as if it were yesterday the afternoon upon which he learned
+of young Arthur's quarrel with his grandfather, old David's senile
+anger, and the boy's tempestuous exit from the house, vowing never to
+return. He remembered his talk with old David later on about the will,
+in which he learned that he was now to have Arthur's share under certain
+conditions. He remembered how that very evening, three days after his
+disappearance, the lad had come secretly to the rue du Faubourg St.
+Honoré begging his uncle to take him in for a few days, and how, in a
+single instant that was like a lightning flash, the Great Idea had come
+to him.
+
+What gigantic and appalling madness it had all been! And yet for a time
+how easy of execution! For a time. Now.... He gave another quick shiver,
+for his mind came back to what beset him and compassed him round
+about--perils seen and hidden.
+
+The peril seen was ever before his eyes. Against the light of day it
+loomed a gigantic and portentous shadow, and it threatened him--the
+figure of Ste. Marie _who knew_. His reason told him that if due care
+were used this danger need not be too formidable, and, indeed, in his
+heart he rather despised Ste. Marie as an individual; but the man's
+nerve was broken, and in these days fear swept wavelike over reason and
+had its way with him. Fear looked up to this looming, portentous shadow
+and saw there youth and health and strength, courage and hopefulness,
+and, best of all armors, a righteous cause. How was an ill and tired and
+wicked old man to fight against these? It became an obsession, the
+figure of this youth; it darkened the sun at noonday, and at night it
+stood beside Captain Stewart's bed in the darkness and watched him and
+waited, and the very air he breathed came chill and dark from its silent
+presence there.
+
+But there were perils unseen as well as seen. He felt invisible threads
+drawing round him, weaving closer and closer, and he dared not even try
+how strong they were lest they prove to be cables of steel. He was
+almost certain that his niece knew something or at the least suspected.
+As has already been pointed out, the two saw very little of each other,
+but on the occasions of their last few meetings it had seemed to him
+that the girl watched him with a strange stare, and tried always to be
+in her grandfather's chamber when he called to make his inquiries. Once,
+stirred by a moment's bravado, he asked her if M. Ste. Marie had
+returned from his mysterious absence, and the girl said:
+
+"No. He has not come back yet, but I expect him soon now--with news of
+Arthur. We shall all be very glad to see him, grandfather and Richard
+Hartley and I."
+
+It was not a very consequential speech, and, to tell the truth, it was
+what in the girl's own country would be termed pure "bluff," but to
+Captain Stewart it rang harsh and loud with evil significance, and he
+went out of that room cold at heart. What plans were they perfecting
+among them? What invisible nets for his feet?
+
+And there was another thing still. Within the past two or three days he
+had become convinced that his movements were being watched--and that
+would be Richard Hartley at work, he said to himself. Faces vaguely
+familiar began to confront him in the street, in restaurants and cafés.
+Once he thought his rooms had been ransacked during his absence at La
+Lierre, though his servant stoutly maintained that they had never been
+left unoccupied save for a half-hour's marketing. Finally, on the day
+before this morning by the rose-gardens, he was sure that as he came out
+from the city in his car he was followed at a long distance by another
+motor. He saw it behind him after he had left the city gate, the Porte
+de Versailles, and he saw it again after he had left the main route at
+Issy and entered the little rue Barbés which led to La Lierre. Of
+course, he promptly did the only possible thing under the circumstances.
+He dashed on past the long stretch of wall, swung into the main avenue
+beyond, and continued through Clamart to the Meudon wood, as if he were
+going to St. Cloud. In the labyrinth of roads and lanes there he came to
+a halt, and after a half-hour's wait ran slowly back to La Lierre.
+
+There was no further sign of the other car, the pursuer, if so it had
+been, but he passed two or three men on bicycles and others walking, and
+what one of these might not be a spy paid to track him down?
+
+It had frightened him badly, that hour of suspense and flight, and he
+determined to remain at La Lierre for at least a few days, and wrote to
+his servant in the rue du Faubourg to forward his letters there under
+the false name by which he had hired the place.
+
+He was thinking very wearily of all these things as he sat on the fallen
+tree-trunk in the garden and stared unseeing across tangled ranks of
+roses. And after a while his thoughts, as they were wont to do, returned
+to Ste. Marie--that looming shadow which darkened the sunlight, that
+incubus of fear which clung to him night and day. He was so absorbed
+that he did not hear sounds which might otherwise have roused him. He
+heard nothing, saw nothing, save that which his fevered mind projected,
+until a voice spoke his name.
+
+He looked over his shoulder thinking that O'Hara had sought him out. He
+turned a little on the tree-trunk to see more easily, and the image of
+his dread stood there a living and very literal shadow against the
+daylight.
+
+Captain Stewart's overstrained nerves were in no state to bear a sudden
+shock. He gave a voiceless, whispering cry and he began to tremble very
+violently, so that his teeth chattered. All at once he got to his feet
+and began to stumble away backward, but a projecting limb of the fallen
+tree caught him and held him fast. It must be that the man was in a sort
+of frenzy. He must have seen through a red mist just then, for when he
+found that he could not escape his hand went swiftly to his coat-pocket,
+and in his white and contorted face there was murder plain and
+unmistakable.
+
+Ste. Marie was too lame to spring aside or to dash upon the man across
+intervening obstacles and defend himself. He stood still in his place
+and waited. And it was characteristic of him that at that moment he felt
+no fear, only a fine sense of exhilaration. Open danger had no terrors
+for him. It was secret peril that unnerved him, as in the matter of the
+poison a week before.
+
+Captain Stewart's hand fell away empty, and Ste. Marie laughed.
+
+"Left it at the house?" said he. "You seem to have no luck, Stewart.
+First the cat drinks the poison, and then you leave your pistol at home.
+Dear, dear, I'm afraid you're careless."
+
+Captain Stewart stared at the younger man under his brows. His face was
+gray and he was still shivering, but the sudden agony of fear, which had
+been, after all, only a jangle of nerves, was gone away. He looked upon
+Ste. Marie's gay and untroubled face with a dull wonder, and he began to
+feel a grudging admiration for the man who could face death without even
+turning pale. He pulled out his watch and looked at it.
+
+"I did not know," he said, "that this was your hour out-of-doors."
+
+As a matter of fact, he had quite forgotten that the arrangement
+existed. When he had first heard of it he had protested vigorously, but
+had been overborne by O'Hara with the plea that they owed their prisoner
+something for having come near to poisoning him, and Stewart did not
+care to have any further attention called to that matter; it had already
+put a severe strain upon the relations at La Lierre.
+
+"Well," observed Ste. Marie, "I told you you were careless. That proves
+it. Come! Can't we sit down for a little chat? I haven't seen you since
+I was your guest at the other address--the town address. It seems to
+have become a habit of mine--doesn't it?--being your guest." He laughed
+cheerfully, but Captain Stewart continued to regard him without smiling.
+
+"If you imagine," said the elder man, "that this place belongs to me you
+are mistaken. I came here to-day to make a visit."
+
+But Ste. Marie sat down at one end of the tree-trunk and shook his head.
+
+"Oh, come, come!" said he. "Why keep up the pretence? You must know that
+I know all about the whole affair. Why, bless you, I know it all--even
+to the provisions of the will. Did you think I stumbled in here by
+accident? Well, I didn't, though I don't mind admitting to you that I
+remained by accident."
+
+He glanced over his shoulder toward the one-eyed Michel, who stood
+near-by, regarding the two with some alarm.
+
+Captain Stewart looked up sharply at the mention of the will, and he
+wetted his dry lips with his tongue. But after a moment's hesitation he
+sat down upon the tree-trunk, and he seemed to shrink a little together,
+when his limbs and shoulders had relaxed, so that he looked small and
+feeble, like a very tired old man. He remained silent for a few moments,
+but at last he spoke without raising his eyes. He said:
+
+"And now that you--imagine yourself to know so very much, what do you
+expect to do about it?"
+
+Ste. Marie laughed again.
+
+"Ah, that would be telling!" he cried. "You see, in one way I have the
+advantage, though outwardly all the advantage seems to be with your
+side--I know all about your game. I may call it a game? Yes? But you
+don't know mine. You don't know what I--what we may do at any moment.
+That's where we have the better of you."
+
+"It would seem to me," said Captain Stewart, wearily, "that since you
+are a prisoner here and very unlikely to escape, we know with great
+accuracy what you will do--and what you will not."
+
+"Yes," admitted Ste. Marie, "it would seem so. It certainly would seem
+so. But you never can tell, can you?"
+
+And at that the elder man frowned and looked away. Thereafter another
+brief silence fell between the two, but at its end Ste. Marie spoke in a
+new tone, a very serious tone. He said:
+
+"Stewart, listen a moment!"
+
+And the other turned a sharp gaze upon him.
+
+"You mustn't forget," said Ste. Marie, speaking slowly as if to choose
+his words with care--"you mustn't forget that I am not alone in this
+matter. You mustn't forget that there's Richard Hartley--and that there
+are others, too. I'm a prisoner, yes. I'm helpless here for the
+present--perhaps, perhaps--but they are not, _and they know, Stewart.
+They know_."
+
+Captain Stewart's face remained gray and still, but his hands twisted
+and shook upon his knees until he hid them.
+
+"I know well enough what you're waiting for," continued Ste. Marie.
+"You're waiting--you've got to wait--for Arthur Benham to come of age,
+or, better yet, for your father to die." He paused and shook his head.
+"It's no good. You can't hold out as long as that--not by half. We shall
+have won the game long before. Listen to me! Do you know what would
+occur if your father should take a serious turn for the worse
+to-night--or at any time? Do you? Well, I'll tell you. A piece of
+information would be given him that would make another change in that
+will just as quickly as a pen could write the words. That's what would
+happen."
+
+"That is a lie!" said Captain Stewart, in a dry whisper. "A lie!"
+
+And Ste. Marie contented himself with a slight smile by way of answer.
+He was by no means sure that what he had said was true, but he argued
+that since Hartley suspected, or perhaps by this time knew so much, he
+would certainly not allow old David to die without doing what he could
+do in an effort to save young Arthur's fortune from a rascal. In any
+event, true or false, the words had had the desired effect. Captain
+Stewart was plainly frightened by them.
+
+"May I make a suggestion?" asked the younger man.
+
+The other did not answer him, and he made it.
+
+"Give it up!" said he. "You're riding for a tremendous fall, you know.
+We shall smash you completely in the end. It'll mean worse than
+ruin--much worse. Give it up, now, before you're too late. Help me to
+send for Hartley and we'll take the boy back to his home. Some story can
+be managed that will leave you out of the thing altogether, and those
+who know will hold their tongues. It's your last chance, Stewart. I
+advise you to take it."
+
+Captain Stewart turned his gray face slowly and looked at the other man
+with a sort of dull and apathetic wonder.
+
+"Are you mad?" he asked, in a voice which was altogether without feeling
+of any kind. "Are you quite mad?"
+
+"On the contrary," said Ste. Marie, "I am quite sane, and I'm offering
+you a chance to save yourself before it's too late. Don't misunderstand
+me!" he continued. "I am not urging this out of any sympathy for you. I
+urge it because it will bring about what I wish a little more quickly,
+also because it will save your family from the disgrace of your
+smash-up. That's why I'm making my suggestion."
+
+Captain Stewart was silent for a little while, but after that he got
+heavily to his feet. "I think you must be quite mad," said he, as
+before, in a voice altogether devoid of expression. "I cannot talk with
+madmen." He beckoned to the old Michel, who stood near-by, leaning upon
+his carbine, and when the gardener had approached he said, "Take
+this--prisoner back to his room!"
+
+Ste. Marie rose with a little sigh. He said: "I'm sorry, but you'll
+admit I have done my best for you. I've warned you. I sha'n't do it
+again. We shall smash you now, without mercy."
+
+"Take him away!" cried Captain Stewart, in a sudden loud voice, and the
+old Michel touched his charge upon the shoulder. So Ste. Marie went
+without further words. From a little distance he looked back, and the
+other man still stood by the fallen tree-trunk, bent a little, his arms
+hanging lax beside him, and his face, Ste. Marie thought, fancifully,
+was like the face of a man damned.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+XXIII
+
+THE LAST ARROW
+
+
+The one birdlike eye of the old Michel regarded Ste. Marie with a glance
+of mingled cunning and humor. It might have been said to twinkle.
+
+"To the east, Monsieur?" inquired the old Michel.
+
+"Precisely!" said Ste. Marie. "To the east, mon vieux." It was the
+morning of the fourth day after that talk with Captain Stewart beside
+the rose-gardens.
+
+The two bore to the eastward, down among the trees, and presently came
+to the spot where a certain trespasser had once leaped down from the top
+of the high wall and had been shot for his pains. The old Michel halted
+and leaned upon the barrel of his carbine. With an air of complete
+detachment, an air vague and aloof as of one in a revery, he gazed away
+over the tree-tops of the ragged park; but Ste. Marie went in under the
+row of lilac shrubs which stood close against the wall, and a passer-by
+might have thought the man looking for figs on thistles, for lilacs in
+late July. He had gone there with eagerness, with flushed cheeks and
+bright eyes; he emerged after some moments, moving slowly, with downcast
+head.
+
+"There are no lilac blooms now, Monsieur," observed the old Michel, and
+his prisoner said, in a low voice:
+
+"No, mon vieux. No. There are none." He sighed and drew a long breath.
+So the two stood for some time silent, Ste. Marie a little pale, his
+eyes fixed upon the ground, his hands chafing together behind him, the
+gardener with his one bright eye upon his charge. But in the end Ste.
+Marie sighed again and began to move away, followed by the gardener.
+They went across the broad park, past the double row of larches, through
+that space where the chestnut-trees stood in straight, close rows, and
+so came to the west wall which skirted the road to Clamart. Ste. Marie
+felt in his pocket and withdrew the last of the four letters--the last
+there could be, for he had no more stamps. The others he had thrown over
+the wall, one each morning, beginning with the day after he had made the
+first attempt to bribe old Michel. As he had expected, twenty-four hours
+of avaricious reflection had proved too much for that gnomelike being.
+
+One each day he had thrown over the wall, weighted with a pebble tucked
+loosely under the flap of the improvised envelope, in such a manner that
+it would drop but when the letter struck the ground beyond. And each
+following day he had gone with high hopes to the appointed place under
+the cedar-tree to pick figs of thistles, lilac blooms in late July. But
+there had been nothing there.
+
+"Turn your back, Michel!" said Ste. Marie.
+
+And the old man said, from a little distance: "It is turned, Monsieur. I
+see nothing. Monsieur throws little stories at the birds to amuse
+himself. It does not concern me."
+
+Ste. Marie slipped a pebble under the flap of the envelope and threw his
+letter over the wall. It went like a soaring bird, whirling
+horizontally, and it must have fallen far out in the middle of the road
+near the tramway. For the third time that morning the prisoner drew a
+sigh. He said, "You may turn round now, my friend," and the old Michel
+faced him. "We have shot our last arrow," said he. "If this also fails,
+I think--well, I think the bon Dieu will have to help us then.--Michel,"
+he inquired, "do you know how to pray?"
+
+"Sacred thousand swine, no!" cried the ancient gnome, in something
+between astonishment and horror. "No, Monsieur. 'Pas mon métier, ça!" He
+shook his head rapidly from side to side like one of those toys in a
+shop-window whose heads oscillate upon a pivot. But all at once a gleam
+of inspiration sparkled in his lone eye. "There is the old Justine!" he
+suggested. "Toujours sur les genoux, cette imbécile là."
+
+"In that case," said Ste. Marie, "you might ask the lady to say one
+little extra prayer for--the pebble I threw at the birds just now.
+Hein?" He withdrew from his pocket the last two louis d'or, and Michel
+took them in a trembling hand. There remained but the note of fifty
+francs and some silver.
+
+"The prayer shall be said, Monsieur," declared the gardener. "It shall
+be said. She shall pray all night or I will kill her."
+
+"Thank you," said Ste. Marie. "You are kindness itself. A gentle soul."
+
+They turned away to retrace their steps, and Michel rubbed the side of
+his head with a reflective air.
+
+"The old one is a madman," said he. (The "old one" meant Captain
+Stewart.) "A madman. Each day he is madder, and this morning he struck
+me--here on the head, because I was too slow. Eh! a little more of that,
+and--who knows? Just a little more, a small little! Am I a dog, to be
+beaten? Hein? Je ne le crois pas. Hé!" He called Captain Stewart two
+unprintable names, and after a moment's thought he called him an animal,
+which is not so much of an anti-climax as it may seem, because to call
+anybody an animal in French is a serious matter.
+
+The gardener was working himself up into something of a quiet passion,
+and Ste. Marie said:
+
+"Softly, my friend! Softly!" It occurred to him that the man's
+resentment might be of use later on, and he said: "You speak the truth.
+The old one is an animal, and he is also a great rascal."
+
+But Michel betrayed the makings of a philosopher. He said, with profound
+conviction: "Monsieur, all men are great rascals. It is I who say it."
+
+And at that Ste. Marie had to laugh.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+He had not consciously directed his feet, but without direction they led
+him round the corner of the rose-gardens and toward the rond point. He
+knew well whom he would find there. She had not failed him during the
+past three days. Each morning he had found her in her place, and for his
+allotted hour--which more than once stretched itself out to nearly two
+hours, if he had but known--they had sat together on the stone bench,
+or, tiring of that, had walked under the trees beyond.
+
+Long afterward Ste. Marie looked back upon these hours with, among other
+emotions, a great wonder--at himself and at her. It seemed to him then
+one of the strangest relationships--intimacies, for it might well be so
+called--that ever existed between a man and a woman, and he was amazed
+at the ease, the unconsciousness, with which it had come about.
+
+But during this time he did not allow himself to wonder or to examine,
+scarcely even to think. The hours were golden hours, unrelated, he told
+himself, to anything else in his life or in his interests. They were
+like pleasant dreams, very sweet while they endured, but to be put away
+and forgotten upon the waking. Only in that long afterward he knew that
+they had not been put away, that they had been with him always, that the
+morning hour had remained in his thoughts all the rest of the long day,
+and that he had waked upon the morrow with a keen and exquisite sense of
+something sweet to come.
+
+It was a strange fool's paradise that the man dwelt in, and in some
+small, vague measure he must, even at the time, have known it, for it is
+certain that he deliberately held himself away from
+thought--realization; that he deliberately shut his eyes, held his ears
+lest he should hear or see.
+
+That he was not faithless to his duty has been shown. He did his utmost
+there, but he was for the time helpless save for efforts to communicate
+with Richard Hartley, and those efforts could consume no more than ten
+minutes out of the weary day.
+
+So he drifted, wilfully blind to bearings, wilfully deaf to Sound of
+warning or peril, and he found a companionship sweeter and fuller and
+more perfect than he had ever before known in all his life, though that
+is not to say very much, because sympathetic companionships between men
+and women are very rare indeed, and Ste. Marie had never experienced
+anything which could fairly be called by that name. He had had, as has
+been related, many flirtations, and not a few so-called love-affairs,
+but neither of these two sorts of intimacies are of necessity true
+intimacies at all; men often feel varying degrees of love for women
+without the least true understanding or sympathy or real companionship.
+
+He was wondering, as he bore round the corner of the rose-gardens on
+this day, in just what mood he would find her. It seemed to him that in
+their brief acquaintance he had seen her in almost all the moods there
+are, from bitter gloom to the irrepressible gayety of a little child. He
+had told her once that she was like an organ, and she had laughed at him
+for being pretentious and high-flown, though she could upon occasion be
+quite high-flown enough herself for all ordinary purposes.
+
+He reached the cleared margin of the rond point, and a little cold fear
+stirred in him when he did not hear her singing under her breath, as she
+was wont to do when alone, but he went forward and she was there in her
+place upon the stone bench. She had been reading, but the book lay
+forgotten beside her and she sat idle, her head laid back against the
+thick stems of shrubbery which grew behind, her hands in her lap. It was
+a warm, still morning, with the promise of a hot afternoon, and the girl
+was dressed in something very thin and transparent and cool-looking,
+open in a little square at the throat and with sleeves which came only
+to her elbows. The material was pale and dull yellow, with very vaguely
+defined green leaves in it, and against it the girl's dark and clear
+skin glowed rich and warm and living, as pearls glow and seem to throb
+against the dead tints of the fabric upon which they are laid.
+
+She did not move when he came before her, but looked up to him gravely
+without stirring her head.
+
+"I didn't hear you come," said she. "You don't drag your left leg any
+more. You walk almost as well as if you had never been wounded."
+
+"I'm almost all right again," he answered. "I suppose I couldn't run or
+jump, but I certainly can walk very much like a human being. May I sit
+down?"
+
+Mlle. O'Hara put out one hand and drew the book closer to make a place
+for him on the stone bench, and he settled himself comfortably there,
+turned a little so that he was facing toward her.
+
+It was indicative of the state of intimacy into which the two had grown
+that they did not make polite conversation with each other, but indeed
+were silent for some little time after Ste. Marie had seated himself. It
+was he who spoke first. He said:
+
+"You look vaguely classical to-day. I have been trying to guess why, and
+I cannot. Perhaps it's because your--what does one say: frock, dress,
+gown?--because it is cut out square at the throat."
+
+"If you mean by classical, Greek," said she, "it wouldn't be square at
+the neck at all; it would be pointed--V-shaped. And it would be very
+different in other ways, too. You are not an observing person, after
+all."
+
+"For all that," insisted Ste. Marie, "you look classical. You look like
+some lady one reads about in Greek poems--Helen or Iphigenia or Medea or
+somebody."
+
+"Helen had yellow hair, hadn't she?" objected Mlle. O'Hara. "I should
+think I probably look more like Medea--Medea in Colchis before Jason--"
+
+She seemed suddenly to realize that she had hit upon an unfortunate
+example, for she stopped in the middle of her sentence and a wave of
+color swept up over her throat and face.
+
+For a moment Ste. Marie did not understand, then he gave a low
+exclamation, for Medea certainly had been an unhappy name. He remembered
+something that Richard Hartley had said about that lady a long time
+before. He made another mistake, for to lessen the moment's
+embarrassment he gave speech to the first thought which entered his
+mind. He said:
+
+"Some one once remarked that you look like the young Juno--before
+marriage. I expect it's true, too."
+
+She turned upon him swiftly.
+
+"Who said that?" she demanded. "Who has ever talked to you about me?"
+
+"I beg your pardon," he said. "I seem to be singularly stupid this
+morning. A mild lunacy. You must forgive me, if you can. To tell you
+what you ask would be to enter upon forbidden ground, and I mustn't do
+that."
+
+"Still, I should like to know," said the girl, watching him with sombre
+eyes.
+
+"Well, then," said he, "it was a little Jewish photographer in the
+Boulevard de la Madeleine."
+
+And she said, "Oh!" in a rather disappointed tone and looked away.
+
+"We seem to be making conversation chiefly about my personal
+appearance," she said, presently. "There must be other topics if one
+should try hard to find them. Tell me stories. You told me stories
+yesterday; tell me more. You seem to be in a classical mood. You shall
+be Odysseus, and I will be Nausicaa, the interesting laundress. Tell me
+about wanderings and things. Have you any more islands for me?"
+
+"Yes," said Ste. Marie, nodding at her slowly. "Yes, Nausicaa, I have
+more islands for you. The seas are full of islands. What kind do you
+want?"
+
+"A warm one," said the girl. "Even on a hot day like this I choose a
+warm one, because I hate the cold."
+
+She settled herself more comfortably, with a little sigh of content that
+was exactly like a child's happy sigh when stories are going to be told
+before the fire.
+
+"I know an island," said Ste. Marie, "that I think you would like
+because it is warm and beautiful and very far away from troubles of all
+kinds. As well as I could make out, when I went there, nobody on the
+island had ever even heard of trouble. Oh yes, you'd like it. The people
+there are brown, and they're as beautiful as their own island. They wear
+hibiscus flowers stuck in their hair, and they very seldom do any work."
+
+"I want to go there!" cried Mlle. Coira O'Hara. "I want to go there now,
+this afternoon, at once! Where is it?"
+
+"It's in the South Pacific," said he, "not so very far from Samoa and
+Fiji and other groups that you will have heard about, and its name is
+Vavau. It's one of the Tongans. It's a high, volcanic island, not a
+flat, coral one like the southern Tongans. I came to it, one evening,
+sailing north from Nukualofa and Haapai, and it looked to me like a
+single big mountain jutting up out of the sea, black-green against the
+sunset. It was very impressive. But it isn't a single mountain, it's a
+lot of high, broken hills covered with a tangle of vegetation and set
+round a narrow bay, a sort of fjord, three or four miles long, and at
+the inner end of this are the village and the stores of the few white
+traders. I'm afraid," said Ste. Marie, shaking his head--"I'm afraid I
+can't tell you about it, after all. I can't seem to find the words. You
+can't put into language--at least, I can't--those slow, hot, island days
+that are never too hot because the trades blow fresh and strong, or the
+island nights that are more like black velvet with pearls sewed on it
+than anything else. You can't describe the smell of orange groves and
+the look of palm-trees against the sky. You can't tell about the sweet,
+simple, natural hospitality of the natives. They're like little,
+unsuspicious children. In short," said he, "I shall have to give it up,
+after all, just because it's too big for me. I can only say that it's
+beautiful and unspeakably remote from the world, and that I think I
+should like to go back to Vavau and stay a long time, and let the rest
+of the world go hang."
+
+Mlle. O'Hara stared across the park of La Lierre with wide and shadowy
+eyes, and her lips trembled a little.
+
+"Oh, I want to go there!" she cried again. "I want to go there--and
+rest--and forget everything!" She turned upon him with a sudden bitter
+resentment. "Why do you tell me things like that?" she cried. "Oh yes, I
+know. I asked you, but--can't you see? To hide one's self away in a
+place like that!" she said. "To let the sun warm you and the trade-winds
+blow away--all that had ever tortured you! Just to rest and be at
+peace!" She turned her eyes to him once more. "You needn't be afraid
+that you have failed to make me see your island! I see it. I feel it. It
+doesn't need many words. I can shut my eyes and I am there. But it was a
+little cruel. Oh, I know, I asked for it. It's like the garden of the
+Hesperides, isn't it?"
+
+"Very like it," said Ste. Marie, "because there are oranges--groves of
+them. (And they were the golden apples, I take it.) Also, it is very far
+away from the world, and the people live in complete and careless
+ignorance of how the world goes on. Emperors and kings die, wars come
+and go, but they hear only a little faint echo of it all, long
+afterward, and even that doesn't interest them."
+
+"I know," she said. "I understand. Didn't you know I'd understand?"
+
+"Yes," said he, nodding. "I suppose I did. We--feel things rather alike,
+I suppose. We don't have to say them all out."
+
+"I wonder," she said, in a low voice, "if I'm glad or sorry." She stared
+under her brows at the man beside her. "For it is very probable that
+when we have left La Lierre you and I will never meet again. I wonder if
+I'm--"
+
+For some obscure reason she broke off there and turned her eyes away,
+and she remained without speaking for a long time. Her mind, as she sat
+there, seemed to go back to that southern island, and to its peace and
+loveliness, for Ste. Marie, who watched her, saw a little smile come to
+her lips, and he saw her eyes half close and grow soft and tender as if
+what they saw were very sweet to her. He watched many different
+expressions come upon the girl's face and go again, but at last he
+seemed to see the old bitterness return there and struggle with
+something wistful and eager.
+
+"I envy you your wide wanderings," she said, presently. "Oh, I envy you
+more than I can find any words for. Your will is the wind's will. You go
+where your fancy leads you, and you're free--free. We have wandered, you
+know," said she, "my father and I. I can't remember when we ever had a
+home to live in. But that is--that is different--a different kind of
+wandering."
+
+"Yes," said Ste. Marie. "Yes, perhaps." And within himself he said, with
+sorrow and pity, "Different, indeed!"
+
+As if at some sudden thought the girl looked up at him quickly. "Did
+that sound regretful?" she asked. "Did what I say sound--disloyal to my
+father? I didn't mean it to. I don't want you to think that I regret it.
+I don't. It has meant being with my father. Wherever he has gone I have
+gone with him, and if anything ever has been--unpleasant, I was willing,
+oh, I was glad, glad to put up with it for his sake and because I could
+be with him. If I have made his life a little happier by sharing it, I
+am glad of everything. I don't regret."
+
+"And yet," said Ste. Marie, gently, "it must have been hard sometimes."
+He pictured to himself that roving existence lived among such people as
+O'Hara must have known, and it sent a hot wave of anger and distress
+over him from head to foot.
+
+But the girl said: "I had my father. The rest of it didn't matter in the
+face of that." After a little silence she said, "M. Ste. Marie!"
+
+And the man said, "What is it, Mademoiselle?"
+
+"You spoke the other day," she said, hesitating over her words, "about
+my aunt, Lady Margaret Craith. I suppose I ought not to ask you more
+about her, for my father quarrelled with his people very long ago and he
+broke with them altogether. But--surely, it can do no harm--just for a
+moment--just a very little! Could you tell me a little about her, M.
+Ste. Marie--what she is like and--and how she lives--and things like
+that?"
+
+So Ste. Marie told her all that he could of the old Irishwoman who lived
+alone in her great house, and ruled with a slack Irish hand, a sweet
+Irish heart, over tenants and dependants. And when he had come to an end
+the girl drew a little sigh and said:
+
+"Thank you. I am so glad to hear of her. I--wish everything were
+different, so that--I think I should love her very much if I might."
+
+"Mademoiselle," said Ste. Marie, "will you promise me something?"
+
+She looked at him with her sombre eyes, and after a little she said: "I
+am afraid you must tell me first what it is. I cannot promise blindly."
+
+He said: "I want you to promise me that if anything ever should
+happen--any difficulty--trouble--anything to put you in the position of
+needing care or help or sympathy--"
+
+But she broke in upon him with a swift alarm, crying: "What do you mean?
+You're trying to hint at something that I don't know. What difficulty or
+trouble could happen to me? Please tell me just what you mean."
+
+"I'm not hinting at any mystery," said Ste. Marie. "I don't know of
+anything that is going to happen to you, but--will you forgive me for
+saying it?--your father is, I take it, often exposed to--danger of
+various sorts. I'm afraid I can't quite express myself, only, if any
+trouble should come to you, Mademoiselle, will you promise me to go to
+Lady Margaret, your aunt, and tell her who you are and let her care for
+you?"
+
+"There was an absolute break," she said. "Complete."
+
+But the man shook his head, saying:
+
+"Lady Margaret won't think of that. She'll think only of you--that she
+can mother you, perhaps save you grief--and of herself, that in her old
+age she has a daughter. It would make a lonely old woman very happy,
+Mademoiselle."
+
+The girl bent her head away from him, and Ste. Marie saw, for the first
+time since he had known her, tears in her eyes. After a long time she
+said:
+
+"I promise, then. But," she said, "it is very unlikely that it should
+ever come about--for more than one reason. Very unlikely."
+
+"Still, Mademoiselle," said he, "I am glad you have promised. This is an
+uncertain world. One never can tell what will come with the to-morrows."
+
+"I can," the girl said, with a little tired smile that Ste. Marie did
+not understand. "I can tell. I can see all the to-morrows--a long, long
+row of them. I know just what they're going to be like--to the very
+end."
+
+But the man rose to his feet and looked down upon her as she sat before
+him. And he shook his head.
+
+"You are mistaken," he said. "Pardon me, but you are mistaken. No one
+can see to-morrow--or the end of anything. The end may surprise you very
+much."
+
+"I wish it would!" cried Mlle. O'Hara. "Oh, I wish it would!"
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+XXIV
+
+THE JOINT IN THE ARMOR
+
+
+Ste. Marie put down a book as O'Hara came into the room and rose to meet
+his visitor.
+
+"I'm compelled," said the Irishman, "to put you on your honor to-day if
+you are to go out as usual. Michel has been sent on an errand, and I am
+busy with letters. I shall have to put you on your honor not to make any
+effort to escape. Is that agreed to? I shall trust you altogether. You
+could manage to scramble over the wall somehow, I suppose, and get clean
+away, but I think you won't try it if you give your word."
+
+"I give my word gladly," said Ste. Marie. "And thanks very much. You've
+been uncommonly kind to me here. I--regret more than I can say that
+we--that we find ourselves on opposite sides, as it were. I wish we were
+fighting for the same cause."
+
+The Irishman looked at the younger man sharply for an instant, and he
+made as if he would speak, but seemed to think better of it. In the end
+he said:
+
+"Yes, quite so. Quite so. Of course you understand that any
+consideration I have used toward you has been by way of making amends
+for--for an unfortunate occurrence."
+
+Ste. Marie laughed.
+
+"The poison," said he. "Yes, I know. And of course I know who was at the
+bottom of that. By the way, I met Stewart in the garden the other day.
+Did he tell you? He was rather nervous and tried to shoot me, but he had
+left his revolver at the house--at least it wasn't in his pocket when he
+reached for it."
+
+O'Hara's hard face twitched suddenly, as if in anger, and he gave an
+exclamation under his breath, so the younger man inferred that "old
+Charlie" had not spoken of their encounter. And after that the Irishman
+once more turned a sharp, frowning glance upon his prisoner as if he
+were puzzled about something. But, as before, he stopped short of speech
+and at last turned away.
+
+"Just a moment!" said the younger man. He asked: "Is it fair to inquire
+how long I may expect to be confined here? I don't want to presume upon
+your good-nature too far, but if you could tell me I should be glad to
+know."
+
+The Irishman hesitated a moment and then said:--
+
+"I don't know why I shouldn't answer that. It can't help you, so far as
+I can see, to do anything that would hinder us. You'll stay until Arthur
+Benham comes of age, which will be in about two months from now."
+
+"Yes," said the other. "Thanks. I thought so. Until young Arthur comes
+of age and receives his patrimony--or until old David Stewart dies. Of
+course that might happen at any hour."
+
+The Irishman said: "I don't quite see what--Ah, yes, to be sure! Yes, I
+see. Well, I should count upon eight weeks if I were you. In eight weeks
+the boy will be independent of them all, and we shall go to England for
+the wedding."
+
+"The wedding?" cried Ste. Marie. "What wedding?--Ah!"
+
+"Arthur Benham and my daughter are to be married," said O'Hara, "so soon
+as he reaches his majority. I thought you knew that."
+
+In a very vague fashion he realized that he had expected it. And still
+the definite words came to him with a shock which was like a physical
+blow, and he turned his back with a man's natural instinct to hide his
+feeling. Certainly that was the logical conclusion to be drawn from
+known premises. That was to be the O'Haras' reward for their labor. To
+Stewart the great fortune, to the O'Haras a good marriage for the girl
+and an assured future. That was reward enough surely for a few weeks of
+angling and decoying and luring and lying. That was what she had meant,
+on the day before, by saying that she could see all the to-morrows. He
+realized that he must have been expecting something like this, but the
+thought turned him sick, nevertheless. He could not forget the girl as
+he had come to know her during the past week. He could not face with any
+calmness the thought of her as the adventuress who had lured poor Arthur
+Benham on to destruction. It was an impossible thought. He could have
+laughed at it in scornful anger, and yet--What else was she?
+
+He began to realize that his action in turning his back upon the other
+man in the middle of a conversation must look very odd, and he faced
+round again trying to drive from his expression the pain and distress
+which he knew must be there, plain to see. But he need not have troubled
+himself, for the other man was standing before the next window and
+looking out into the morning sunlight, and his hard, bony face had so
+altered that Ste. Marie stared at him with open amazement. He thought
+O'Hara must be ill.
+
+"I want to see her married!" cried the Irishman, suddenly, and it was a
+new voice, a voice Ste. Marie did not know. It shook a little with an
+emotion that sat uncouthly upon this grim, stern man.
+
+"I want to see her married and safe!" he said. "I want her to be rid of
+this damnable, roving, cheap existence. I want her to be rid of me and
+my rotten friends and my rotten life."
+
+He chafed his hands together before him, and his tired eyes fixed
+themselves upon something that he seemed to see out of the window and
+glared at it fiercely.
+
+"I should like," said he, "to die on the day after her wedding, and so
+be out of her way forever. I don't want her to have any shadows cast
+over her from the past. I don't want her to open closet doors and find
+skeletons there. I want her to be free--free to live the sort of life
+she was born to and has a right to."
+
+He turned sharply upon the younger man.
+
+"You've seen her!" he cried. "You've talked to her; you know her! Think
+of that girl dragged about Europe with me ever since she was a little
+child! Think of the people she's had to know, the things she's had to
+see! Do you wonder that I want to have her free of it all, married and
+safe and comfortable and in peace? Do you? I tell you it has driven me
+as nearly mad as a man can be. But I couldn't go mad, because I had to
+take care of her. I couldn't even die, because she'd have been left
+alone without any one to look out for her. She wouldn't leave me. I
+could have settled her somewhere in some quiet place where she'd have
+been quit at least of shady, rotten people, but she wouldn't have it.
+She's stuck to me always, through good times and bad. She's kept my
+heart up when I'd have been ready to cut my throat if I'd been alone.
+She's been the--bravest and faithfulest--Well, I--And look at her! Look
+at her now! Think of what she's had to see and know--the people she's
+had to live with--and look at her! Has any of it stuck to her? Has it
+cheapened her in any littlest way? No, by God! She has come through it
+all like a--like a Sister of Charity through a city slum--like an angel
+through the dark."
+
+The Irishman broke off speaking, for his voice was beyond control, but
+after a moment he went on again, more calmly:
+
+"This boy, this young Benham, is a fool, but he's not a mean fool.
+She'll make a man of him. And, married to him, she'll have the comforts
+that she ought to have and the care and--freedom. She'll have a chance
+to live the life that she 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'Université to this garden, thanking God that you were here at
+the journey's end, and kissing the ground that he dragged himself over
+for sheer joy and gratitude. I should tell them--Oh, I have no words! I
+could tell them so pitifully little of you! I think I should only say,
+'Go to her and see!' I think I should just say that."
+
+The girl turned her head away with a little sob. But 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. Honoré.
+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'Université 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 fiancé and then turned back.
+
+Ste. Marie met her with raised eyebrows, and she shook her head. "I
+don't know," said she. "He is very stubborn. He is frightened and
+bewildered. As he said 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-Elysées. Your eyes, they've haunted me from the very first. There
+was a dream of you," he said, "that I had so often--but I cannot quite
+remember, because my head hurts. What is the matter with my head? I
+was--going somewhere. It was so very important that I should go, but I
+have forgotten where it was and why I had to go there. I remember only
+that you called to me--called me back--and I saw your eyes--and I
+couldn't go. You needed me."
+
+"Ah, sorely, Bayard! Sorely!" cried the girl above him.
+
+"And now," said he, whispering.
+
+"Now?" she said.
+
+"Coira, I love you," said the man on the couch.
+
+And Coira O'Hara gave a single dry sob.
+
+She said: "Oh, my dear love! Now I wish that I might die after hearing
+you say that. My life, Bayard, is full now. It's full of joy and
+gratefulness and everything that is sweet. I wish I might die before
+other things come to spoil it."
+
+Ste. Marie--or that part of him which lay at La Lierre--laughed with a
+fine scorn, albeit very weakly. "Why not live instead?" said he. "And
+what can come to spoil our life for us? _Our life!_" he said again, in a
+whisper. A flash of remembrance seemed to come to him, for he smiled and
+said, "Coira, we'll go to Vavau."
+
+"Anywhere!" said she. "Anywhere!"
+
+"So that we go together."
+
+"Yes," she said, gently, "so that we two go together." She tried with a
+desperate fierceness to make herself like the man before her, to put
+away, by sheer power of will, all memory, the knowledge of everything
+save what was in this little room, but it was the vainest of all vain
+efforts. She saw herself for a thief and a cheat--stealing, for love's
+sake, the mere body of the man she loved while mind and soul were
+absent. In her agony she almost cried out aloud as the words said
+themselves within her. And she denied them. She said: "His mind may be
+absent, but his soul is here. He loves me. It is I, not that other. Can
+I not have my poor little hour of pretence? A little hour out of all a
+lifetime! Shall I have nothing at all?"
+
+But the voice which had accused her said, "If he knew, would he say he
+loves you?" And she hid her face, for she knew that he would not--even
+if it were true.
+
+"Coira!" whispered the man on the couch, and she raised her head. In the
+half darkness he could not have seen how she was suffering. Her face was
+only a warm blur to him, vague and sweet and beautiful, with tender
+eyes. He said: "I think--I'm falling asleep. My head is so very, very
+queer! What is the matter with my head? Coira, do you think I might be
+kissed before I go to sleep?"
+
+She gave a little cry of intolerable anguish. It seemed to her that she
+was being tortured beyond all reason or endurance. She felt suddenly
+very weak, and she was afraid that she was going to faint away. She laid
+her face down upon the couch where Ste. Marie's head lay. Her cheek was
+against his and her hair across his eyes.
+
+The man gave a 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 déjeuner and tell
+him to wait.
+
+"Are you fit to go?" Coira asked.
+
+And he said, "I suppose as fit as I shall be."
+
+He got to his feet, and the things about him swam dangerously, but he
+could walk by using great care. The girl stood white and still, and she
+avoided his eyes.
+
+"It is not good-bye," said he. "I shall see you soon again--and I hope,
+often--often, Coira."
+
+The words had a flat and foolish sound, but he could find no others. It
+was not easy to speak.
+
+"I suppose I must not ask to see your father?" said he.
+
+And she told him that her father had locked himself in his own room and
+would see no one--would not even open his door to take in food.
+
+Ste. Marie went to the stairs leaning upon the shoulder of the stout old
+Justine, but before he had gone Coira checked him for an instant. She
+said:
+
+"Tell Arthur, if he speaks to you about me, that what I said in the note
+I gave him last night I meant quite seriously. I gave him a note to read
+after he reached home. Tell him for me that it was final. Will you do
+that?"
+
+"Yes, of course," said Ste. Marie.
+
+He looked at her with some wonder, because her words had been very
+emphatic.
+
+"Yes," he said, "I will tell him. Is that all?"
+
+"All but good-bye," said she. "Good-bye, Bayard!"
+
+She stood at the head of the stairs while he went down them. And she
+came after him to the landing, 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'Université.
+
+The man who admitted him said that Mademoiselle was alone in the
+drawing-room, and he went there at once. He was dully conscious that
+something was very wrong, but he had suffered too much within the past
+few hours to be analytical, and he did not know what it was that was
+wrong. He should have entered that room with a swift and eager step,
+with shining eyes, with a high-beating heart. He went into it slowly,
+wrapped in a mantle of strange apathy.
+
+Helen Benham came forward to meet him, and took both his hands in hers.
+Ste. Marie was amazed to see that she seemed not to have altered at
+all--in spite of this enormous lapse of time, in spite of all that had
+happened in it. And yet, unaltered, she seemed to him a stranger, a
+charming and gracious stranger with an icily beautiful face. He wondered
+at her and at himself, and he was a little alarmed because he thought
+that he must be ill. That blow upon the head must, after all, have done
+something terrible to him.
+
+"Ah, Ste. Marie!" she said, in her well-remembered voice--and again he
+wondered that the voice should be so high-pitched and so without 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.
+
+"You're well rid of her!" said the old gentleman, when at last he was
+once more able to speak. "You're well rid of her! I congratulate you! I
+am ashamed and humiliated, and a great burden of obligation is shifted
+to me--though I assume it with pleasure--but I congratulate you. You
+might have found out too late what sort of a woman she is."
+
+Ste. Marie began to protest and to explain and to say that Miss Benham
+had been quite right in what she said, but the old gentleman only waved
+an impatient arm to him, and presently, when he saw the valet making
+signs across the bed, and saw that his host was really in a state of
+complete exhaustion after the outburst, he made his adieus and got away.
+
+Young Arthur Benham, who had been sitting almost silent during the
+interview, followed him out of the room and closed the door behind them.
+For the first time Ste. Marie noted that the boy's face was white and
+strained. He pulled a crumpled square of folded paper from his pocket
+and shook it at the other man. "Do you know what this is?" he cried. "Do
+you know what's in this?"
+
+Ste. Marie shook his head, but a sudden recollection came to him.
+
+"Ah," said he, "that must be the note Mlle. O'Hara spoke of! She asked
+me to tell you that she meant it--whatever it may be--quite seriously;
+that it was final. She didn't explain. She just said that--that you were
+to take it as final."
+
+The lad gave a sudden very bitter sob. "She has thrown me over!" he
+said. "She says I'm not to come back to her."
+
+Ste. Marie gave a wordless cry, and he began to tremble.
+
+"You can read it if you want to," the boy said. "Perhaps you can explain
+it. I can't. Do you want to read it?"
+
+The elder man stood staring at him whitely, and the boy repeated his
+words.
+
+He said, "You can read it if you want to," and at last Ste. Marie took
+the paper between stiff hands, and held it to the light.
+
+Coira O'Hara said, briefly, that too much was against their marriage.
+She mentioned his age, the certain hostility of his family, their
+different tastes, a number of other things. But in the end she said she
+had begun to realize that she did not love him as she ought to do if
+they were to marry. And so, the note said, finally, she gave him up to
+his family, she released him altogether, and she begged him not to come
+back to her, or to urge her to change her mind. Also she made the trite
+but very sensible observation that he would be glad of his freedom
+before the year was out.
+
+Ste. Marie's unsteady fingers opened and the crumpled paper slipped
+through them to the floor. Over it the man and the boy looked at each
+other in silence. Young Arthur Benham's face was white, and it was
+strained and contorted with its first grief. But first griefs do not
+last very long. Coira O'Hara had told the truth--before the year was out
+the lad would be glad of his freedom. But the man's face was white also,
+white and still, and his eyes held a strange expression which the boy
+could not understand and at which he wondered. The man was trembling a
+little from head to foot. The boy wondered about that, too, but abruptly
+he cried out: "What's up? Where are you going?" for Ste. Marie had
+turned all at once and was running down the stairs as fast as he could
+run.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+XXX
+
+JASON SAILS BACK TO COLCHIS.--JOURNEY'S END
+
+
+In the hall below, Ste. Marie came violently into contact with and
+nearly overturned Richard Hartley, who was just giving his hat and stick
+to the man who had admitted him. Hartley seized upon him with an
+exclamation of pleasure, and wheeled him round to face the light. He
+said:
+
+"I've been pursuing you all day. You're almost as difficult of access
+here in Paris as you were at La Lierre. How's the head?"
+
+Ste. Marie put up an experimental hand. He had forgotten his injury.
+"Oh, that's all right," said he. "At least, I think so. Anderson fixed
+me up this afternoon. But I haven't time to talk to you. I'm in a hurry.
+To-morrow we'll have a long chin. Oh, how about Stewart?"
+
+He lowered his voice, and Hartley answered him in the same tone.
+
+"The man is in a delirium. Heaven knows how it'll end. He may die and he
+may pull through. I hope he pulls through--except for the sake of the
+family--because then we can make him pay for what he's done. I don't
+want him to go scot free by dying."
+
+"Nor I," said Ste. Marie, fiercely. "Nor I. I want him to pay, too--long
+and slowly and hard; and if he lives I shall see that he does it, family
+or no family. Now I must be off."
+
+Ste. Marie's face was shining and uplifted. The other man looked at it
+with a little envious sigh.
+
+"I see everything is all right," said he, "and I congratulate you. You
+deserve it if ever any one did."
+
+Ste. Marie stared for an instant, uncomprehending. Then he saw.
+
+"Yes," he said, gently, "everything is all right."
+
+It was plain that the Englishman did not know of Miss Benham's decision.
+He was incapable of deceit. Ste. Marie threw an arm over his friend's
+shoulder and went with him a little way toward the drawing-room.
+
+"Go in there," he said. "You'll find some one glad to see you, I think.
+And remember that I said everything is all right."
+
+He came back after he had turned away, and met Hartley's puzzled frown
+with a smile.
+
+"If you've that motor here, may I use it?" he asked. "I want to go
+somewhere in a hurry."
+
+"Of course," the other man said. "Of course. I'll go home in a cab."
+
+So they parted, and Ste. Marie went out to the waiting car.
+
+On the left bank the streets are nearly empty of traffic at night, and
+one can make excellent time over them. Ste. Marie reached the Porte de
+Versailles, at the city's limits, in twenty minutes and dashed through
+Issy five minutes later. In less than half an hour from the time he had
+left the rue de l'Université he was under the walls of La Lierre. He
+looked at his watch, and it was not quite half-past eleven.
+
+He tried the little door in the wall, and it was unlocked, so he passed
+in and closed the door behind him. Inside he found that he was running,
+and he gave a little laugh, but of eagerness and excitement, not of
+mirth. There were dim lights in one or two of the upper windows, but
+none below, and there was no one about. He pulled at the door-bell, and
+after a few impatient moments pulled again and still again. Then he
+noticed that the heavy door was ajar, and, since no one answered his
+ringing, he pushed the door open and went in.
+
+The lower hall was quite dark, but a very faint light came down from
+above through the well of the staircase. He heard dragging feet in the
+upper hall, and then upon one of the upper flights, for the stairs,
+broad below, divided at a half-way landing and continued upward in an
+opposite direction in two narrower flights. A voice, very faint and
+weary, called:
+
+"Who is there? Who is ringing, please?"
+
+And Coira O'Hara, holding a candle in her hand, came upon the
+stair-landing and stood gazing down into the darkness. She wore a sort
+of dressing-gown, a heavy white garment which hung in straight, long
+folds to her feet and fell away from the arm that held the candle on
+high. The yellow beams of light struck down across her head and face,
+and even at the distance the man could see how white she was and
+hollow-eyed and worn--a pale wraith of the splendid beauty that had
+walked in the garden at La Lierre.
+
+"Who is there, please?" she asked again. "I can't see. What is it?"
+
+"It is I, Coira!" said Ste. Marie.
+
+And she gave a sharp cry. The arm which was holding the candle overhead
+shook and fell beside her as if the strength had gone out of it. The
+candle dropped to the floor, spluttered there for an instant and went
+out, but there was still a little light from the hall above.
+
+Ste. Marie sprang up the stairs to where the girl stood, and caught her
+in his arms, for she was on the verge of faintness. Her head fell back
+away from him, and he saw her eyes through half-closed lids, her white
+teeth through parted lips. She was trembling--but, for that matter, so
+was he at the touch of her, the heavy and sweet burden in his arms. She
+tried to speak, and he heard a whisper:
+
+"Why? Why? Why?"
+
+"Because it is my place, Coira!" said he. "Because I cannot live away
+from you. Because we belong together."
+
+The girl struggled weakly and pushed against him. Once more he heard
+whispering words and made out that she tried to say:
+
+"Go back to her! Go back to her! You belong there!"
+
+But at that he laughed aloud.
+
+"I thought so, too," said he, "but she thinks otherwise. She'll have
+none of me, Coira. It's Richard Hartley now. Coira, can you love a
+jilted man? I've been jilted--thrown over--dismissed."
+
+Her head came up in a flash and she stared at him, suddenly rigid and
+tense in his arms.
+
+"Is that true?" she demanded.
+
+"Yes, my love!" said he.
+
+And she began to weep, with long, comfortable sobs, her face hidden in
+the hollow of his shoulder. On one other occasion she had wept before
+him, and he had been horribly embarrassed, but he bore this present
+tempest without, as it were, winking. He gloried in it. He tried to say
+so. He tried to whisper to her, his lips pressed close to the ear that
+was nearest them, but he found that he had no speech. Words would not
+come to his tongue; it trembled and faltered and was still for sheer
+inadequacy.
+
+Rather oddly, in that his thoughts were chaos, swallowed up in the surge
+of feeling, a memory struck through to him of that other exaltation
+which had swept him to the stars. He looked upon it and was amazed
+because now he saw it, in clear light, for the thing it had been. He saw
+it for a fantasy, a self-evoked wraith of the imagination, a dizzy
+flight of the spirit through spirit space. He saw that it had not been
+love at all, and he realized how little a part Helen Benham had ever
+really played in it. A cold and still-eyed figure for him to wrap the
+veil of his imagination round, that was what she had been. There were
+times when the sweep of his upward flight had stirred her a little,
+wakened in her some vague response, but for the most part she had stood
+aside and looked on, wondering.
+
+The mist was rent away from that rainbow-painted cobweb, and at last the
+man saw and understood. He gave an exclamation of wonder, and the girl
+who loved him raised her head once more, and the two looked each into
+the other's eyes for a long time. They fell into hushed and broken
+speech.
+
+"I have loved you so long, so long," she said, "and so hopelessly! I
+never thought--I never believed. To think that in the end you have come
+to me! I cannot believe it!"
+
+"Wait and see!" cried the man. "Wait and see!"
+
+She shivered a little. "If it is not true I should like to die before I
+find out. I should like to die now, Bayard, with your arms holding me up
+and your eyes close, close."
+
+Ste. Marie's arms tightened round her with a sudden fierceness. He hurt
+her, and she smiled up at him. Their two hearts beat one against the
+other, and they beat very fast.
+
+"Don't you understand," he cried, "that life's only just
+beginning--day's just dawning, Coira? We've been lost in the dark. Day's
+coming now. This is only the sunrise."
+
+"I can believe it at last," she said, "because you hold me close and you
+hurt me a little, and I'm glad to be hurt. And I can feel your heart
+beating. Ah, never let me go, Bayard! I should be lost in the dark again
+if you let me go." A sudden thought came to her, and she bent back her
+head to see the better. "Did you speak with Arthur?"
+
+And he said: "Yes. He asked me to read your note, so I read it. That
+poor lad! I came straight to you then--straight and fast."
+
+"You knew why I did it?" she said, and Ste. Marie said:
+
+"Now I know."
+
+"I could not have married him," said she. "I could not. I never thought
+I should see you again, but I loved you and I could not have married
+him. Ah, impossible! And he'll be glad later on. You know that. It will
+save him any more trouble with his family, and besides--he's so very
+young. Already, I think, he was beginning to chafe a little. I thought
+so more than once. Oh, I'm trying to justify myself!" she cried. "I'm
+trying to find reasons; but you know the true reason. You know it."
+
+"I thank God for it," he said.
+
+So they stood clinging together in that dim place, and broken,
+whispering speech passed between them or long silences when speech was
+done. But at last they went down the stairs and out upon the open
+terrace, where the moonlight lay.
+
+"It Was in the open, sweet air," the girl said, "that we came to know
+each other. Let us walk in it now. The house smothers me." She looked up
+when they had passed the west corner of the façade and drew a little
+sigh. "I am worried about my father," said she. "He will not answer me
+when I call to him, and he has eaten nothing all day long. Bayard, I
+think his heart is broken. Ah, but to-morrow we shall mend it again! In
+the morning I shall make him let me in, and I shall tell him--what I
+have to tell."
+
+They turned down under the trees, where the moonlight made silver
+splashes about their feet, and the sweet night air bore soft against
+their faces. Coira went a half-step in advance, her head laid back upon
+the shoulder of the man she loved, and his arm held her up from falling.
+
+So at last we leave them, walking there in the tender moonlight, with
+the breath of roses about them and their eyes turned to the coming day.
+It is still night and there is yet one cloud of sorrow to shadow them
+somewhat, for up-stairs in his locked room a man lies dead across the
+floor, with an empty pistol beside him--heart-broken, as the girl had
+feared. But where a great love is, shadows cannot last very long, not
+even such shadows as this. The morning must dawn--and joy cometh of a
+morning.
+
+So we leave them walking together in the moonlight, their faces turned
+toward the coming day.
+
+THE END
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Jason, by Justus Miles Forman
+
+*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 13261 ***
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+<div>*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 13261 ***</div>
+
+<h1>JASON</h1>
+<h2>A ROMANCE</h2><br />
+<br />
+<h3>BY</h3>
+<h2>JUSTUS MILES FORMAN</h2><br />
+<br />
+<h3>AUTHOR OF</h3>
+<h2>"A STUMBLING BLOCK" "BUCHANAN'S WIFE"</h2>
+<h2>"THE ISLAND OF ENCHANTMENT"</h2>
+<br />
+<h3>WITH ILLUSTRATIONS BY</h3>
+<h2>W. HATHERELL, R.I.</h2>
+<br />
+<h3>HARPER &amp; BROTHERS PUBLISHERS</h3>
+<h3>NEW YORK AND LONDON</h3>
+<h3>MCMIX</h3><br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<h3>Copyright, 1908.</h3>
+
+<hr />
+
+<center><br />
+<b>&Agrave; PARIS</b><br />
+<br />
+M&Egrave;RE MYST&Eacute;RIEUSE ... SOEUR CONSOLATRICE<br />
+ENCHANTERESSE AUX YEUX VOIL&Eacute;S<br />
+J&Eacute; D&Eacute;DIE CE PETIT ROMAN<br />
+EN RECONNAISSANCE<br />
+J.M.F.<br />
+</center><br />
+
+<hr />
+
+</a> <p class="figure"> <a name="jason001"><img
+width="80%" alt="Illustration: MLLE. COIRA O'HARA SAT ALONE UPON THE STONE
+BENCH " src="images/jason001.png" /></a><br /> MLLE. COIRA O'HARA SAT ALONE UPON
+THE STONE BENCH </p>
+
+<hr />
+
+
+
+
+<h2>CONTENTS</h2>
+
+<a href='#I'>I. STE. MARIE HEARS OF A MYSTERY AND MEETS A DARK LADY</a><br />
+<br />
+<a href='#II'>II. THE LADDER TO THE STARS</a><br />
+<br />
+<a href='#III'>III. STE. MARIE MAKES A VOW, BUT A PAIR OF EYES HAUNT HIM</a><br />
+<br />
+<a href='#IV'>IV. OLD DAVID STEWART</a><br />
+<br />
+<a href='#V'>V. JASON SETS FORTH UPON THE GREAT ADVENTURE</a><br />
+<br />
+<a href='#VI'>VI. A BRAVE GENTLEMAN RECEIVES A HURT, BUT VOLUNTEERS IN A GOOD CAUSE</a><br />
+<br />
+<a href='#VII'>VII. CAPTAIN STEWART MAKES A KINDLY OFFER</a><br />
+<br />
+<a href='#VIII'>VIII. JASON MEETS WITH A MISADVENTURE AND DREAMS A DREAM</a><br />
+<br />
+<a href='#IX'>IX. JASON GOES UPON A JOURNEY, AND RICHARD HARTLEY PLEADS FOR HIM</a><br />
+<br />
+<a href='#X'>X. CAPTAIN STEWART ENTERTAINS</a><br />
+<br />
+<a href='#XI'>XI. A GOLDEN LADY ENTERS--THE EYES AGAIN</a><br />
+<br />
+<a href='#XII'>XII. THE NAME OF THE LADY WITH THE EYES--EVIDENCE HEAPS UP SWIFTLY</a><br />
+<br />
+<a href='#XIII'>XIII. THE VOYAGE TO COLCHIS</a><br />
+<br />
+<a href='#XIV'>XIV. THE WALLS OF AEA</a><br />
+<br />
+<a href='#XV'>XV. A CONVERSATION AT LA LIERRE</a><br />
+<br />
+<a href='#XVI'>XVI. THE BLACK CAT</a><br />
+<br />
+<a href='#XVII'>XVII. THOSE WHO WERE LEFT BEHIND</a><br />
+<br />
+<a href='#XVIII'>XVIII. A CONVERSATION OVERHEARD</a><br />
+<br />
+<a href='#XIX'>XIX. THE INVALID TAKES THE AIR</a><br />
+<br />
+<a href='#XX'>XX. THE STONE BENCH AT THE ROND POINT</a><br />
+<br />
+<a href='#XXI'>XXI. A MIST DIMS THE SHINING STAR</a><br />
+<br />
+<a href='#XXII'>XXII. A SETTLEMENT REFUSED</a><br />
+<br />
+<a href='#XXIII'>XXIII. THE LAST ARROW</a><br />
+<br />
+<a href='#XXIV'>XXIV. THE JOINT IN THE ARMOR</a><br />
+<br />
+<a href='#XXV'>XXV. MEDEA GOES OVER TO THE ENEMY</a><br />
+<br />
+<a href='#XXVI'>XXVI. BUT THE FLEECE ELECTS TO REMAIN</a><br />
+<br />
+<a href='#XXVII'>XXVII. THE NIGHT'S WORK</a><br />
+<br />
+<a href='#XXVIII'>XXVIII. MEDEA'S LITTLE HOUR</a><br />
+<br />
+<a href='#XXIX'>XXIX. THE SCALES OF INJUSTICE</a><br />
+<br />
+<a href='#XXX'>XXX. JASON SAILS BACK TO COLCHIS--JOURNEY'S END</a><br />
+
+<hr />
+
+
+
+
+<h2>ILLUSTRATIONS</h2>
+
+<a href='#jason001'>MLLE. COIRA O'HARA SAT ALONE UPON THE
+STONE BENCH</a><br />
+<br />
+<a href='#jason002'>"THE FAMILY IS IN GREAT DISTRESS OF MIND
+OVER THE DISAPPEARANCE OF MY YOUNG
+NEPHEW"</a><br />
+<br />
+<a href='#jason003'>HE SAW CAPTAIN STEWART MOVING AMONG
+THEM</a><br />
+<br />
+<a href='#jason004'>CAPTAIN STEWART LAY HUDDLED AND WRITHING
+UPON THE FLOOR</a><br />
+<br />
+<a href='#jason005'>THERE APPEARED TWO YOUNG PEOPLE MOVING
+SLOWLY IN THE DIRECTION OF THE HOUSE</a><br />
+<br />
+<a href='#jason006'>"TELL ME ABOUT HIM, THIS STE. MARIE! DO
+YOU KNOW ANYTHING ABOUT HIM?"</a><br />
+<br />
+<a href='#jason007'>HIS HAND WENT SWIFTLY TO HIS COAT-POCKET</a><br />
+<br />
+<a href='#jason008'>THE GIRL FUMBLED DESPERATELY WITH THE
+CLUMSY KEY</a><br />
+
+<hr />
+
+
+
+
+<a name="Page_1"></a><h2><a name='I'></a>I</h2>
+
+<h3>STE. MARIE HEARS OF A MYSTERY AND MEETS A DARK LADY</h3>
+
+
+<p>From Ste. Marie's little flat, which overlooked the gardens, they drove
+down the quiet rue du Luxembourg, and at the Place St. Sulpice turned to
+the left. They crossed the Place St. Germain des Pr&eacute;s, where lines
+of home-bound working-people stood waiting for places in the electric
+trams, and groups of students from the Beaux Arts or from Julien's sat
+under the awnings of the Deux Magots, and so, beyond that busy square, they
+came into the long and peaceful stretch of the Boulevard St. Germain. The
+warm, sweet dusk gathered round them as they went, and the evening air was
+fresh and aromatic in their faces. There had been a little gentle shower in
+the late afternoon, and roadway and pavement were still damp with it. It
+had wet the new-grown leaves of the chestnuts and acacias that bordered the
+street. The scent of that living green blended with the scent of laid dust
+and the fragrance of the last late-clinging chestnut blossoms; it caught up
+a fuller, richer burden from the overflowing front of a florist's shop; it
+stole from open windows a savory whiff of cooking, a salt tang of wood
+smoke; and <a name="Page_2"></a>the soft little breeze--the breeze of
+coming summer--mixed all together and tossed them and bore them down the
+long, quiet street; and it was the breath of Paris, and it shall be in your
+nostrils and mine, a keen agony of sweetness, so long as we may live and so
+wide as we may wander--because we have known it and loved it--and in the
+end we shall go back to breathe it when we die.</p>
+
+<p>The strong white horse jogged evenly along over the wooden pavement, its
+head down, the little bell at its neck jingling pleasantly as it went. The
+cocher, a torpid, purplish lump of gross flesh, pyramidal, pearlike, sat
+immobile in his place. The protuberant back gave him an extraordinary
+effect of being buttoned into his fawn-colored coat wrong side before. At
+intervals he jerked the reins like a large strange toy, and his strident
+voice said:</p>
+
+<p>"H&eacute;!" to the stout white horse, which paid no attention whatever.
+Once the beast stumbled and the pearlike lump of flesh insulted it,
+saying:</p>
+
+<p>"H&eacute;! veux tu, cochon!"</p>
+
+<p>Before the War Office a little black slip of a milliner's girl dodged
+under the horse's head, saving herself and the huge box slung to her arm by
+a miracle of agility, and the cocher called her the most frightful names,
+without turning his head and in a perfunctory tone quite free from
+passion.</p>
+
+<p>Young Hartley laughed and turned to look at his companion, but Ste.
+Marie sat still in his place, his hat pulled a little down over his brows
+and his handsome chin buried in the folds of the white silk muffler with
+which for some obscure reason he had swathed his neck.</p>
+
+<p>"This is the first time in many years," said the Englishman, "that I
+have known you to be silent for ten whole <a name="Page_3"></a>minutes. Are
+you ill, or are you making up little epigrams to say at the
+dinner-party?"</p>
+
+<p>Ste. Marie waved a despondent glove.</p>
+
+<p>"I 'ave," said he, "w'at you call ze blue. Papillons noirs--clouds in my
+soul." It was a species of jest with Ste. Marie--and he seemed never to
+tire of it--to pretend that he spoke English very brokenly. As a matter of
+fact, he spoke it quite as well as any Englishman and without the slightest
+trace of accent. He had discovered a long time before this--it may have
+been while the two were at Eton together--that it annoyed Hartley very
+much, particularly when it was done in company and before strangers. In
+consequence he became on such occasions a sort of comic-paper caricature of
+his race, and by dint of much practice, added to a naturally alert mind, he
+became astonishingly ingenious in the torture of that honest but
+unimaginative gentleman whom he considered his best friend. He achieved the
+most surprising expressions by the mere literal translation of French
+idiom, and he could at any time bring Hartley to a crimson agony by calling
+him "my dear "'before other men, whereas at the equivalent "mon cher" the
+Englishman would doubtless never, as the phrase goes, have batted an
+eye.</p>
+
+<p>"Ye-es," he continued, sadly, "I 'ave ze blue. I weep. Weez ze tears
+full ze eyes. Yes." He descended into English. "I think something's going
+to happen to me. There's calamity, or something, in the air. Perhaps I'm
+going to die."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, I know what you are going to do, right enough," said the other man.
+"You're going to meet the most beautiful woman--girl--in the world at
+dinner, and of course you are going to fall in love with her."</p>
+
+<p><a name="Page_4"></a>"Ah, the Miss Benham!" said Ste. Marie, with a
+faint show of interest. "I remember now, you said that she was to be there.
+I had forgotten. Yes, I shall be glad to meet her. One hears so much. But
+why am I of course going to fall in love with her?"</p>
+
+<p>"Well, in the first place," said Hartley, "you always fall in love with
+all pretty women as a matter of habit, and, in the second place,
+everybody--well, I suppose you--no one could help falling in love with her,
+I should think."</p>
+
+<p>"That's high praise to come from you," said the other. And Hartley said,
+with a short, not very mirthful laugh:</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, I don't pretend to be immune. We all--everybody who knows her.
+You'll understand presently."</p>
+
+<p>Ste. Marie turned his head a little and looked curiously at his friend,
+for he considered that he knew the not very expressive intonations of that
+young gentleman's voice rather well, and this was something unusual. He
+wondered what had been happening during his six months' absence from
+Paris.</p>
+
+<p>"I dare say that's what I feel in the air, then," he said, after a
+little pause. "It's not calamity; it's love.</p>
+
+<p>"Or maybe," he said, quaintly, "it's both. L'un n'emp&ecirc;che pas
+I'autre." And he gave an odd little shiver, as if that something in the air
+had suddenly blown chill upon him.</p>
+
+<p>They were passing the corner of the Chamber of Deputies, which faces the
+Pont de la Concorde. Ste. Marie pulled out his watch and looked at it.</p>
+
+<p>"Eight-fifteen," said he. "What time are we asked for--eight-thirty?
+That means nine: It's an English house, and nobody will be on time. It's
+out of fashion to be prompt nowadays."</p>
+
+<p><a name="Page_5"></a>"I should hardly call the Marquis de Saulnes
+English, you know," objected Hartley.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, his wife is," said the other, "and they're altogether English in
+manner. Dinner won't be before nine. Shall we get out, and walk across the
+bridge and up the Champs-Elys&eacute;es? I should like to, I think. I like
+to walk at this time of the evening--between the daylight and the dark."
+Hartley nodded a rather reluctant assent, and Ste. Marie prodded the
+pear-shaped cocher in the back with his stick. So they got down at the
+approach to the bridge, Ste. Marie gave the cocher a piece of two francs,
+and they turned away on foot. The pear-shaped one looked at the coin in his
+fat hand as if it were something unclean and contemptible--something to be
+despised. He glanced at the dial of his taximeter, which had registered one
+franc twenty-five, and pulled the flag up. He spat gloomily out into the
+street, and his purple lips moved in words. He seemed to say something like
+"Sale diable de m&eacute;tier!" which, considering the fact that he had
+just been overpaid, appears unwarrantably pessimistic in tone. Thereafter
+he spat again, picked up his reins and jerked them, saying:</p>
+
+<p>"H&egrave;, Jean Baptiste! Uip, uip!" The unemotional white horse turned
+up the boulevard, trotting evenly at its steady pace, head down, the little
+bell at its neck jingling pleasantly as it went. It occurs to me that the
+white horse was probably unique. I doubt that there was another horse in
+Paris rejoicing in that extraordinary name.</p>
+
+<p>But the two young men walked slowly on across the Pont de la Concorde.
+They went in silence, for Hartley was thinking still of Miss Helen Benham,
+and Ste. Marie was thinking of Heaven knows what. His gloom was
+unaccountable <a name="Page_6"></a>unless he had really meant what he said
+about feeling calamity in the air. It was very unlike him to have nothing
+to say. Midway of the bridge he stopped and turned to look out over the
+river, and the other man halted beside him. The dusk was thickening almost
+perceptibly, but it was yet far from dark. The swift river ran leaden
+beneath them, and the river boats, mouches and hirondelles, darted silently
+under the arches of the bridge, making their last trips for the day. Away
+to the west, where their faces were turned, the sky was still faintly
+washed with color, lemon and dusky orange and pale thin green. A single
+long strip of cirrus cloud was touched with pink, a lifeless old rose, such
+as is popular among decorators for the silk hangings of a woman's boudoir.
+And black against this pallid wash of colors the tour Eiffel stood high and
+slender and rather ghostly. By day it is an ugly thing, a preposterous iron
+finger upthrust by man's vanity against God's serene sky; but the haze of
+evening drapes it in a merciful semi-obscurity and it is beautiful.</p>
+
+<p>Ste. Marie leaned upon the parapet of the bridge, arms folded before him
+and eyes afar. He began to sing, &agrave; demi-voix, a little phrase out of
+<i>Louise</i>--an invocation to Paris--and the Englishman stirred uneasily
+beside him. It seemed to Hartley that to stand on a bridge, in a top-hat
+and evening clothes, and sing operatic airs while people passed back and
+forth behind you, was one of the things that are not done. He tried to
+imagine himself singing in the middle of Westminster Bridge at half-past
+eight of an evening, and he felt quite hot all over at the thought. It was
+not done at all, he said to himself. He looked a little nervously at the
+people who were passing, and it seemed to him that they stared at him and
+at the unconscious <a name="Page_7"></a>Ste. Marie, though in truth they
+did nothing of the sort. He turned back and touched his friend on the arm,
+saying:</p>
+
+<p>"I think we'd best be getting along, you know." But Ste. Marie was very
+far away, and did not hear. So then he fell to watching the man's dark and
+handsome face, and to thinking how little the years at Eton and the year or
+two at Oxford had set any real stamp upon him. He would never be anything
+but Latin, in spite of his Irish mother and his public school. Hartley
+thought what a pity that was. As Englishmen go, he was not illiberal, but,
+no more than he could have altered the color of his eyes, could he have
+believed that anything foreign would not be improved by becoming English.
+That was born in him, as it is born in most Englishmen, and it was a
+perfectly simple and honest belief. He felt a deeper affection for this
+handsome and volatile young man whom all women loved, and who bade fair to
+spend his life at their successive feet--for he certainly had never shown
+the slightest desire to take up any sterner employment--he felt a deeper
+affection for Ste. Marie than for any other man he knew, but he had always
+wished that Ste. Marie were an Englishman, and he had always felt a slight
+sense of shame over his friend's un-English ways.</p>
+
+<p>After a moment he touched him again on the arm, saying:</p>
+
+<p>"Come along! We shall be late, you know. You can finish your little
+concert another time."</p>
+
+<p>"Eh!" cried Ste. Marie. "Quoi, donc?" He turned with a start.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh yes!" said he. "Yes, come along! I was mooning. Allons! Allons, my
+old!" He took Hartley's arm <a name="Page_8"></a>and began to shove him
+along at a rapid walk. "I will moon no more," he said. "Instead, you shall
+tell me about the wonderful Miss Benham whom everybody is talking about.
+Isn't there something odd connected with the family? I vaguely recall
+something unusual--some mystery or misfortune or something. But first a
+moment! One small moment, my old. Regard me that!" They had come to the end
+of the bridge, and the great Place de la Concorde lay before them.</p>
+
+<p>"In all the world," said Ste. Marie--and he spoke the truth--"there is
+not another such square. Regard it, mon brave! Bow yourself before it! It
+is a miracle."</p>
+
+<p>The great bronze lamps were alight, and they cast reflections upon the
+still damp pavement about them. To either side, the trees of the Tuileries
+gardens and of the Cours la Reine and the Champs-Elys&eacute;es lay in a
+solid black mass; in the middle, the obelisk rose slender and straight, its
+pointed top black against the sky; and beneath, the water of the
+N&egrave;reid fountains splashed and gurgled. Far beyond, the gay lights of
+the rue Royale shone in a yellow cluster; and beyond these still, the tall
+columns of the Madeleine ended the long vista. Pedestrians and cabs crept
+across that vast space and seemed curiously little, like black insects, and
+round about it all the eight cities of France sat atop their stone
+pedestals and looked on. Ste. Marie gave a little sigh of pleasure, and the
+two moved forward, bearing to the left, toward the
+Champs-Elys&eacute;es.</p>
+
+<p>"And now," said he, "about these Benhams. What is the thing I cannot
+quite recall? What has happened to them?"</p>
+
+<p>"I suppose," said the other man, "you mean the disappearance of Miss
+Benham's young brother a month ago--before <a name="Page_9"></a>you
+returned to Paris. Yes, that was certainly very odd--that is, it was either
+very odd or very commonplace. And in either case the family is terribly cut
+up about it. The boy's name was Arthur Benham, and he was rather a young
+fool, but not downright vicious, I should think. I never knew him at all
+well, but I know he spent his time chiefly at the Caf&eacute; de Paris and
+at the Olympia and at Longchamps and at Henry's Bar. Well, he just
+disappeared, that is all. He dropped completely out of sight between two
+days, and though the family has had a small army of detectives on his trail
+they've not discovered the smallest clew. It's deuced odd altogether. You
+might think it easy to disappear like that, but it's not."</p>
+
+<p>"No--no," said Ste. Marie, thoughtfully. "No, I should fancy not.</p>
+
+<p>"This boy," he said, after a pause--"I think I had seen him--had him
+pointed out to me--before I went away. I think it was at Henry's Bar, where
+all the young Americans go to drink strange beverages. I am quite sure I
+remember his face. A weak face, but not quite bad."</p>
+
+<p>And after another little pause he asked:</p>
+
+<p>"Was there any reason why he should have gone away--any quarrel or that
+sort of thing?"</p>
+
+<p>"Well," said the other man, "I rather think there was something of the
+sort. The boy's uncle--Captain Stewart--middle-aged, rather prim old
+party--you'll have met him, I dare say--he intimated to me one day that
+there had been some trivial row. You see, the lad isn't of age yet, though
+he is to be in a few months, and so he has had to live on an allowance
+doled out by his grandfather, who's the head of the house. The boy's father
+is dead. There's a quaint old beggar, if you like--the grandfather. He was
+<a name="Page_10"></a>rather a swell in the diplomatic, in his day, it
+seems--rather an important swell. Now he's bedridden. He sits all day in
+bed and plays cards with his granddaughter or with a very superior valet,
+and talks politics with the men who come to see him. Oh yes, he's a quaint
+old beggar. He has a great quantity of white hair and an enormous square
+white beard and the fiercest eyes I ever saw, I should think. Everybody's
+frightened out of their wits of him. Well, he sits up there and rules his
+family in good old patriarchal style, and it seems he came down a bit hard
+on the poor boy one day over some folly or other, and there was a row and
+the boy went out of the house swearing he'd be even."</p>
+
+<p>"Ah, well, then," said Ste. Marie, "the matter seems simple enough. A
+foolish boy's foolish pique. He is staying in hiding somewhere to frighten
+his grandfather. When he thinks the time favorable he will come back and be
+wept over and forgiven."</p>
+
+<p>The other man walked a little way in silence.</p>
+
+<p>"Ye-es," he said, at last. "Yes, possibly. Possibly you are right.
+That's what the grandfather thinks. It's the obvious solution.
+Unfortunately there is more or less against it. The boy went away with--so
+far as can be learned--almost no money, almost none at all. And he has
+already been gone a month. Miss Benham, his sister, is sure that something
+has happened to him, and I'm a bit inclined to think so, too. It's all very
+odd. I should think he might have been kidnapped but that no demand has
+been made for money."</p>
+
+<p>"He was not," suggested Ste. Marie--"not the sort of young man to do
+anything desperate--make away with himself?" Hartley laughed.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, Lord, no!" said he. "Not that sort of young man <a
+name="Page_11"></a>at all. He was a very normal type of rich and spoiled
+and somewhat foolish American boy."</p>
+
+<p>"Rich?" inquired the other, quickly.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh yes; they're beastly rich. Young Arthur is to come into something
+very good at his majority, I believe, from his father's estate, and the old
+grandfather is said to be indecently rich--rolling in it! There's another
+reason why the young idiot wouldn't be likely to stop away of his own
+accord. He wouldn't risk anything like a serious break with the old
+gentleman. It would mean a loss of millions to him, I dare say, for the old
+beggar is quite capable of cutting him off if he takes the notion. Oh, it's
+a bad business all through."</p>
+
+<p>And after they had gone on a bit he said it again, shaking his head:</p>
+
+<p>"It's a bad business! That poor girl, you know. It's hard on her. She
+was fond of the young ass for some reason or other. She's very much broken
+up over it."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes," said Ste. Marie, "it is hard for her--for all the family, of
+course. A bad business, as you say." He spoke absently, for he was looking
+ahead at something which seemed to be a motor accident. They had by this
+time got well up the Champs-Elys&eacute;es and were crossing the Rond
+Point. A motor-car was drawn up alongside the curb just beyond, and a
+little knot of people stood about it and seemed to look at something on the
+ground.</p>
+
+<p>"I think some one has been run down," said Ste. Marie. "Shall we have a
+look?" They quickened their pace and came to where the group of people
+stood in a circle looking upon the ground, and two gendarmes asked many
+questions and wrote voluminously in their little books. It appeared that a
+delivery boy mounted upon a tricycle cart <a name="Page_12"></a>had turned
+into the wrong side of the avenue and had got himself run into and
+overturned by a motor-car going at a moderate rate of speed. For once the
+sentiment of those mysterious birds of prey which flock instantaneously
+from nowhere round an accident, was against the victim and in favor of the
+frightened and gesticulating chauffeur.</p>
+
+<p>Ste. Marie turned an amused face from this voluble being to the other
+occupants of the patently hired car, who stood apart, adding very little to
+the discussion. He saw a tall and bony man with very bright blue eyes and
+what is sometimes called a guardsman's mustache--the drooping, walruslike
+ornament which dates back a good many years now. Beyond this gentleman he
+saw a young woman in a long, gray silk coat and a motoring veil. He was
+aware that the tall man was staring at him rather fixedly and with a
+half-puzzled frown, as though he thought that they had met before and was
+trying to remember when, but Ste. Marie gave the man but a swift glance.
+His eyes were upon the dark face of the young woman beyond, and it seemed
+to him that she called aloud to him in an actual voice that rang in his
+ears. The young woman's very obvious beauty, he thought, had nothing to do
+with the matter. It seemed to him that her eyes called him. Just that.
+Something strange and very potent seemed to take sudden and almost tangible
+hold upon him--a charm, a spell, a magic--something unprecedented, new to
+his experience. He could not take his eyes from hers, and he stood
+staring.</p>
+
+<p>As before, on the Pont de la Concorde, Hartley touched him on the arm,
+and abruptly the chains that had bound him were loosened.</p>
+
+<p><a name="Page_13"></a>"We must be going on, you know," the Englishman
+said, and Ste. Marie said, rather hurriedly:</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, yes, to be sure! Come along!" But at a little distance he turned
+once more to look back. The chauffeur had mounted to his place, the
+delivery boy was upon his feet again, little the worse for his tumble, and
+the knot of bystanders had begun to disperse, but it seemed to Ste. Marie
+that the young woman in the long silk coat stood quite still where she had
+been, and that her face was turned toward him, watching.</p>
+
+<p>"Did you notice that girl?" said Hartley, as they walked on at a brisker
+pace. "Did you see her face? She was rather a tremendous beauty, you know,
+in her gypsyish fashion. Yes, by Jove, she was!"</p>
+
+<p>"Did I see her?" repeated Ste. Marie. "Yes. Oh yes. She had very strange
+eyes. At least, I think it was the eyes. I don't know. I've never seen any
+eyes quite like them. Very odd!"</p>
+
+<p>He said something more in French which Hartley did not hear, and the
+Englishman saw that he was frowning.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, well, I shouldn't have said there was anything strange about them,"
+Hartley said; "but they certainly were beautiful. There's no denying that.
+The man with her looked rather Irish, I thought."</p>
+
+<p>They came to the Etoile, and cut across it toward the Avenue Hoche. Ste.
+Marie glanced back once more, but the motor-car and the delivery boy and
+the gendarmes were gone.</p>
+
+<p>"What did you say?" he asked, idly.</p>
+
+<p>"I said the man looked Irish," repeated his friend. All at once Ste.
+Marie gave a loud exclamation.</p>
+
+<p><a name="Page_14"></a>"Sacred thousand devils! Fool that I am! Dolt! Why
+didn't I think of it before?"</p>
+
+<p>Hartley stared at him, and Ste. Marie stared down the
+Champs-Elys&eacute;es like one in a trance.</p>
+
+<p>"I say," said the Englishman, "we really must be getting on, you know;
+we're late." And as they went along down the Avenue Hoche, he demanded:
+"Why are you a dolt and whatever else it was? What struck you so
+suddenly?"</p>
+
+<p>"I remembered all at once," said Ste. Marie, "where I had seen that man
+before and with whom I last saw him. I'll tell you about it later. Probably
+it's of no importance, though."</p>
+
+<p>"You're talking rather like a mild lunatic," said the other. "Here we
+are at the house!"</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+
+
+
+<a name="Page_15"></a><h2><a name='II'></a>II</h2>
+
+<h3>THE LADDER TO THE STARS</h3>
+
+
+<p>Miss Benham was talking wearily to a strange, fair youth with an
+impediment in his speech, and was wondering why the youth had been asked to
+this house, where in general one was sure of meeting only interesting
+people, when some one spoke her name, and she turned with a little sigh of
+relief. It was Baron de Vries, the Belgian First Secretary of Legation, an
+old friend of her grandfather's, a man made gentle and sweet by infinite
+sorrow. He bowed civilly to the fair youth and bent over the girl's
+hand.</p>
+
+<p>"It is very good," he said, "to see you again in the world. We have need
+of you, nous autres. Madame your mother is well, I hope--and the bear?" He
+called old Mr. Stewart "the bear" in a sort of grave jest, and that fierce
+octogenarian rather liked it.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh yes," the girl said, "we're all fairly well. My mother had one of
+her headaches to-night and so didn't come here, but she's as well as usual,
+and 'the bear'--yes, he's well enough physically, I should think, but he
+has not been quite the same since--during the past month. It has told upon
+him, you know. He grieves over it much more than he will admit."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes," said Baron de Vries, gravely. "Yes, I know." <a
+name="Page_16"></a>He turned about toward the fair young man, but that
+youth had drifted away and joined himself to another group. Miss Benham
+looked after him and gave a little exclamation of relief.</p>
+
+<p>"That person was rather terrible," she said. "I can't think why he is
+here. Marian so seldom has dull people."</p>
+
+<p>"I believe," said the Belgian, "that he is some connection of De
+Saulnes'. That explains his presence." He lowered his voice. "You have
+heard no--news? They have found no trace?"</p>
+
+<p>"No," said she. "Nothing. Nothing at all. I'm rather in despair. It's
+all so hideously mysterious. I am sure, you know, that something has
+happened to him. It's--very, very hard. Sometimes I think I can't bear it.
+But I go on. We all go on."</p>
+
+<p>Baron de Vries nodded his head strongly.</p>
+
+<p>"That, my dear child, is just what you must do," said he. "You must go
+on. That is what needs the real courage, and you have courage. I am not
+afraid for you. And sooner or later you will hear of him--from him. It is
+impossible nowadays to disappear for very long. You will hear from him." He
+smiled at her, his slow, grave smile that was not of mirth but of kindness
+and sympathy and cheer.</p>
+
+<p>"And if I may say so," he said, "you are doing very wisely to come out
+once more among your friends. You can accomplish no good by brooding at
+home. It is better to live one's normal life--even when it is not easy to
+do it. I say so who know."</p>
+
+<p>The girl touched Baron de Vries' arm for an instant with her hand--a
+little gesture that seemed to express thankfulness and trust and
+affection.</p>
+
+<p><a name="Page_17"></a>"If all my friends were like you!" she said to
+him. And after that she drew a quick breath as if to have done with these
+sad matters, and she turned her eyes once more toward the broad room where
+the other guests stood in little groups, all talking at once, very rapidly
+and in loud voices.</p>
+
+<p>"What extraordinarily cosmopolitan affairs these dinner-parties in new
+Paris are!" she said. "They're like diplomatic parties, only we have a
+better time and the men don't wear their orders. How many nationalities
+should you say there are in this room now?"</p>
+
+<p>"Without stopping to consider," said Baron de Vries, "I say ten." They
+counted, and out of fourteen people there were represented nine races.</p>
+
+<p>"I don't see Richard Hartley," Miss Benham said. "I had an idea he was
+to be here. Ah!" she broke off, looking toward the doorway. "Here he comes
+now!" she said. "He's rather late. Who is the Spanish-looking man with him,
+I wonder? He's rather handsome, isn't he?"</p>
+
+<p>Baron de Vries moved a little forward to look, and exclaimed in his
+turn. He said:</p>
+
+<p>"Ah, I did not know he was returned to Paris. That is Ste. Marie." Miss
+Benham's eyes followed the Spanish-looking young man as he made his way
+through the joyous greetings of friends toward his hostess.</p>
+
+<p>"So that is Ste. Marie!" she said, still watching him. "The famous Ste.
+Marie!" She gave a little laugh.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, I don't wonder at the reputation he bears for--gallantry and that
+sort of thing. He looks the part, doesn't he?"</p>
+
+<p>"Ye-es," admitted her friend. "Yes, he is sufficiently beau
+gar&ccedil;on. But--yes--well, that is not all, by any means. You must not
+get the idea that Ste. Marie is nothing but a <a name="Page_18"></a>genial
+and romantic young squire-of-dames. He is much more than that. He has very
+fine qualities. To be sure, he appears to possess no ambition in
+particular, but I should be glad if he were my son. He comes of a very old
+house, and there is no blot upon the history of that house--nothing but
+faithfulness and gallantry and honor. And there is, I think, no blot upon
+Ste. Marie himself. He is fine gold."</p>
+
+<p>The girl turned and stared at Baron de Vries with some astonishment.</p>
+
+<p>"You speak very strongly," said she. "I have never heard you speak so
+strongly of any one, I think."</p>
+
+<p>The Belgian made a little deprecatory gesture with his two hands, and he
+laughed.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, well, I like the boy. And I should hate to have you meet him for
+the first time under a misconception. Listen, my child! When a young man is
+loved equally by both men and women, by both old and young, that young man
+is worthy of friendship and trust. Everybody likes Ste. Marie. In a sense,
+that is his misfortune. The way is made too easy for him. His friends stand
+so thick about him that they shut off his view of the heights. To waken
+ambition in his soul he has need of solitude or misfortune or grief. Or,"
+said the elderly Belgian, laughing gently--"or perhaps the other thing
+might do it best--the more obvious thing?"</p>
+
+<p>The girl's raised eyebrows questioned him, and when he did not answer,
+she said:</p>
+
+<p>"What thing, then?"</p>
+
+<p>"Why, love," said Baron de Vries. "Love, to be sure. Love is said to
+work miracles, and I believe that to be a perfectly true saying. Ah, he is
+coming here!"</p>
+
+<p><a name="Page_19"></a>The Marquise de Saulnes, who was a very pretty
+little Englishwoman with a deceptively doll-like look, approached, dragging
+Ste. Marie in her wake. She said:</p>
+
+<p>"My dearest dear, I give you of my best. Thank me and cherish him! I
+believe he is to lead you to the place where food is, isn't he?" She beamed
+over her shoulder and departed, and Miss Benham found herself confronted by
+the Spanish-looking man. Her first thought was that he was not as handsome
+as he had seemed at a distance, but something much better. For a young man
+she thought his face was rather oddly weather-beaten, as if he might have
+been very much at sea, and it was too dark to be entirely pleasing. But she
+liked his eyes, which were not brown or black, as she had expected, but a
+very unusual dark gray--a sort of slate color. And she liked his mouth,
+too, while disapproving of the fierce little upturned mustache which seemed
+to her a bit operatic. It was her habit--and it is not an unreliable
+habit--to judge people by their eyes and mouths. Ste. Marie's mouth pleased
+her because the lips were neither thin nor thick, they were not drawn into
+an unpleasant line by unpleasant habits, they did not pout as so many Latin
+lips do, and they had at one corner a humorous expression which she found
+curiously agreeable.</p>
+
+<p>"You are to cherish me," Ste. Marie said. "Orders from headquarters. How
+does one cherish people?" The corner of his very expressive mouth twitched,
+and he grinned at her.</p>
+
+<p>Miss Benham did not approve of young men who began an acquaintance in
+this very familiar manner. She thought that there was a certain preliminary
+and more formal stage which ought to be got through with first, but Ste,
+Marie's <a name="Page_20"></a>grin was irresistible. In spite of herself,
+she found that she was laughing.</p>
+
+<p>"I don't quite know," she said. "It sounds rather appalling, doesn't it?
+Marian has such an extraordinary fashion of hurling people at each other's
+heads! She takes my breath away at times."</p>
+
+<p>"Ah, well," said Ste. Marie, "perhaps we can settle upon something when
+I've led you to the place where food is. And, by-the-way, what are we
+waiting for? Are we not all here? There's an even number." He broke off
+with a sudden exclamation of pleasure; and when Miss Benham turned to look,
+she found that Baron de Vries, who had been talking to some friends, had
+once more come up to where she stood.</p>
+
+<p>She watched the greeting between the two men, and its quiet affection
+impressed her very much. She knew Baron de Vries well, and she knew that it
+was not his habit to show or to feel a strong liking for young and idle
+men. This young man must be very worth while to have won the regard of that
+wise old Belgian. Just then Hartley, who had been barricaded behind a
+cordon of friends, came up to her in an abominable temper over his ill
+luck, and a few moments later the dinner procession was formed and they
+went in.</p>
+
+<p>At table Miss Benham found herself between Ste. Marie and the same
+strange, fair youth who had afflicted her in the drawing-room. She looked
+upon him now with a sort of dismayed terror, but it developed that there
+was nothing to fear from the fair youth. He had no attention to waste upon
+social amenities. He fell upon his food with a wolfish passion
+extraordinary to see and also--alas!--to hear. Miss Benham turned from him
+to meet Ste. Marie's delighted eye.</p>
+
+<p><a name="Page_21"></a>"Tell him for me," begged that gentleman, "that
+soup should be seen--not heard."</p>
+
+<p>But Miss Benham gave a little shiver of disgust. "I shall tell him
+nothing whatever," she said. "He's quite too dreadful, really! People
+shouldn't be exposed to that sort of thing. It's not only the noises.
+Plenty of very charming and estimable Germans, for example, make strange
+noises at table. But he behaves like a famished dog over a bone. I refuse
+to have anything to do with him. You must make up the loss to me, M. Ste.
+Marie. You must be as amusing as two people." She smiled across at him in
+her gravely questioning fashion. "I'm wondering," she said, "if I dare ask
+you a very personal question. I hesitate because I don't like people who
+presume too much upon a short acquaintance--and our acquaintance has been
+very, very short, hasn't it? even though we may have heard a great deal
+about each other beforehand. I wonder--"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, I should ask it if I were you!" said Ste. Marie, at once. "I'm an
+extremely good-natured person. And, besides, I quite naturally feel
+flattered at your taking interest enough to ask anything about me."</p>
+
+<p>"Well," said she, "it's this: Why does everybody call you just 'Ste.
+Marie'? Most people are spoken of as Monsieur this or that--if there isn't
+a more august title; but they all call you Ste. Marie without any Monsieur.
+It seems rather odd."</p>
+
+<p>Ste. Marie looked puzzled. "Why," he said, "I don't believe I know,
+just. I'd never thought of that. It's quite true, of course. They never do
+use a Monsieur or anything, do they? How cheeky of them! I wonder why it
+is? I'll ask Hartley."</p>
+
+<p><a name="Page_22"></a>He did ask Hartley later on, and Hartley didn't
+know, either. Miss Benham asked some other people, who were vague about it,
+and in the end she became convinced that it was an odd and quite
+inexplicable form of something like endearment. But nobody seemed to have
+formulated it to himself.</p>
+
+<p>"The name is really 'De Ste. Marie,'" he went on, "and there's a title
+that I don't use, and a string of Christian names that one never employs.
+My people were B&eacute;arnais, and there's a heap of ruins on top of a
+hill in the Pyrenees where they lived. It used to be Ste. Marie de
+Mont-les-Roses, but afterward, after the Revolution, they called it Ste.
+Marie de Mont Perdu. My great-grandfather was killed there, but some old
+servants smuggled his little son away and saved him."</p>
+
+<p>He seemed to Miss Benham to say that in exactly the right manner, not in
+the cheap and scoffing fashion which some young men affect in speaking of
+ancestral fortunes or misfortunes, nor with too much solemnity. And when
+she allowed a little silence to occur at the end, he did not go on with his
+family history, but turned at once to another subject. It pleased her
+curiously.</p>
+
+<p>The fair youth at her other side continued to crouch over his food,
+making fierce and animal-like noises. He never spoke or seemed to wish to
+be spoken to, and Miss Benham found it easy to ignore him altogether. It
+occurred to her once or twice that Ste. Marie's other neighbor might desire
+an occasional word from him, but, after all, she said to herself that was
+his affair and beyond her control. So these two talked together through the
+entire dinner period, and the girl was aware that she was being much more
+deeply affected by the simple, magnetic charm of a <a
+name="Page_23"></a>man than ever before in her life. It made her a little
+angry, because she was unfamiliar with this sort of thing and distrusted
+it. She was rather a perfect type of that phenomenon before which the
+British and Continental world stands in mingled delight and
+exasperation--the American unmarried young woman, the creature of
+extraordinary beauty and still more extraordinary poise, the virgin with
+the bearing and savoir-faire of a woman of the world, the fresh-cheeked
+girl with the calm mind of a savante and the cool judgment, in regard to
+men and things, of an ambassador. The European world says she is cold, and
+that may be true; but it is well enough known that she can love very
+deeply. It says that, like most queens, and for precisely the same set of
+reasons, she later on makes a bad mother; but it is easy to point to queens
+who are the best of mothers. In short, she remains an enigma, and, like all
+other enigmas, forever fascinating.</p>
+
+<p>Miss Benham reflected that she knew almost nothing about Ste. Marie save
+for his reputation as a carpet knight, and Baron de Vries' good opinion,
+which could not be despised. And that made her the more displeased when she
+realized how promptly she was surrendering to his charm. In a moment of
+silence she gave a sudden little laugh which seemed to express a half-angry
+astonishment.</p>
+
+<p>"What was that for?" Ste. Marie demanded.</p>
+
+<p>The girl looked at him for an instant and shook her head.</p>
+
+<p>"I can't tell you," said she. "That's rude, isn't it? I'm sorry. Perhaps
+I will tell you one day, when we know each other better."</p>
+
+<p>But inwardly she was saying: "Why, I suppose this is how they all
+begin--all these regiments of women who make <a name="Page_24"></a>fools of
+themselves about him! I suppose this is exactly what he does to them
+all!"</p>
+
+<p>It made her angry, and she tried quite unfairly to shift the anger, as
+it were, to Ste. Marie--to put him somehow in the wrong. But she was by
+nature very just, and she could not quite do that, particularly as it was
+evident that the man was using no cheap tricks. He did not try to flirt
+with her, and he did not attempt to pay her veiled compliments, though she
+was often aware that when her attention was diverted for a few moments his
+eyes were always upon her, and that is a compliment that few women can find
+it in their hearts to resent.</p>
+
+<p>"You say," said Ste. Marie, "'when we know each other better.' May one
+twist that into a permission to come and see you--I mean, really see
+you--not just leave a card at your door to-morrow by way of observing the
+formalities?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes," she said. "Oh yes, one may twist it into something like that
+without straining it unduly, I think. My mother and I shall be very glad to
+see you. I'm sorry she is not here to-night to say it herself."</p>
+
+<p>Then the hostess began to gather together her flock, and so the two had
+no more speech. But when the women had gone and the men were left about the
+dismantled table, Hartley moved up beside Ste. Marie and shook a sad head
+at him. He said:</p>
+
+<p>"You're a very lucky being. I was quietly hoping, on the way here, that
+I should be the fortunate man, but you always have all the luck. I hope
+you're decently grateful."</p>
+
+<p>"Mon vieux," said Ste. Marie, "my feet are upon the stars. No!" He shook
+his head as if the figure displeased him. "No, my feet are upon the ladder
+to the stars. Grateful? What does a foolish word like grateful mean? Don't
+<a name="Page_25"></a>talk to me. You are not worthy to trample among my
+magnificent thoughts. I am a god upon Olympus."</p>
+
+<p>"You said just now," objected the other man, practically, "that your
+feet were on a ladder. There are no ladders from Olympus to the stars."</p>
+
+<p>"Ho!" said Ste. Marie. "Ho! Aren't there, though? There shall be ladders
+all over Olympus, if I like. What do you know about gods and stars? I shall
+be a god climbing to the heavens, and I shall be an angel of light, and I
+shall be a miserable worm grovelling in the night here below, and I shall
+be a poet, and I shall be anything else I happen to think of--all of them
+at once, if I choose. And you shall be the tongue-tied son of perfidious
+Albion that you are, gaping at my splendors from a fog-bank--a November
+fog-bank in May. Who is the desiccated gentleman bearing down upon us?"</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+
+
+
+<a name="Page_26"></a><h2><a name='III'></a>III</h2>
+
+<h3>STE. MARIE MAKES A VOW, BUT A PAIR OF EYES HAUNT HIM</h3>
+
+
+<p>Hartley looked over his shoulder and gave a little exclamation of
+distaste.</p>
+
+<p>"It's Captain Stewart, Miss Benham's uncle," he said, lowering his
+voice. "I'm off. I shall abandon you to him. He's a good old soul, but he
+bores me." Hartley nodded to the man who was approaching, and then made his
+way to the end of the table, where their host sat discussing aero-club
+matters with a group of the other men.</p>
+
+<p>Captain Stewart dropped into the vacant chair, saying: "May I recall
+myself to you, M. Ste. Marie? We met, I believe, once or twice, a couple of
+years ago. My name's Stewart."</p>
+
+<p>Captain Stewart--the title was vaguely believed to have been borne some
+years before in the American service, but no one appeared to know much
+about it--was not an old man. He could not have been, at this time, much
+more than fifty, but English-speaking acquaintances often called him "old
+Stewart," and others "ce vieux Stewart." Indeed, at a first glance he might
+have passed for anything up to sixty, for his face was a good deal more
+lined and wrinkled than it should have been at his age. Ste. Marie's
+adjective had been rather apt. The man had a desiccated appearance. <a
+name="Page_27"></a>Upon examination, however, one saw that the blood was
+still red in his cheeks and lips, and, although his neck was thin and
+withered like an old man's, his brown eyes still held their fire. The hair
+was almost gone from the top of his large, round head, but it remained at
+the sides--stiff, colorless hair, with a hint of red in it. And there were
+red streaks in his gray mustache, which was trained outward in two loose
+tufts, like shaving-brushes. The mustache and the shallow chin under it
+gave him an odd, catlike appearance. Hartley, who rather disliked the man,
+used to insist that he had heard him mew.</p>
+
+<p>Ste. Marie said something politely non-committal, though he did not at
+all remember the alleged meeting two years before, and he looked at Captain
+Stewart with a real curiosity and interest in his character as Miss
+Benham's uncle. He thought it very civil of the elder man to make these
+friendly advances when it was in no way incumbent upon him to do so.</p>
+
+<p>"I noticed," said Captain Stewart, "that you were placed next my niece,
+Helen Benham, at dinner. This must be the first time you two have met, is
+it not? I remember speaking of you to her some months ago, and I am quite
+sure she said that she had not met you. Ah, yes, of course, you have been
+away from Paris a great deal since she and her mother--her mother is my
+sister: that is to say, my half-sister--have come here to live with my
+father." He gave a little gentle laugh. "I take an elderly uncle's
+privilege," he said, "of being rather proud of Helen. She is called very
+pretty, and she certainly has great poise."</p>
+
+<p>Ste. Marie drew a quick breath, and his eyes began to flash as they had
+done a few moments before when he told Hartley that his feet were upon the
+ladder to the stars.</p>
+
+<p><a name="Page_28"></a>"Miss Benham!" he cried. "Miss Benham is--" He
+hung poised so for a moment, searching, as it were, for words of sufficient
+splendor, but in the end he shook his head and the gleam faded from his
+eyes. He sank back in his chair, sighing. "Miss Benham," said he, "is
+extremely beautiful."</p>
+
+<p>And again her uncle emitted his little gentle laugh, which may have
+deceived Hartley into believing that he had heard the man mew. The sound
+was as much like mewing as it was like anything else.</p>
+
+<p>"I am very glad," Captain Stewart said, "to see her come out once more
+into the world. She needs distraction. We--You may possibly have heard that
+the family is in great distress of mind over the disappearance of my young
+nephew. Helen has suffered particularly, because she is convinced that the
+boy has met with foul play. I myself think it very unlikely--very unlikely
+indeed. The lack of motive, for one thing, and for another--Ah, well, a
+score of reasons! But Helen refuses to be comforted. It seems to me much
+more like a boy's prank--his idea of revenge for what he considered unjust
+treatment at his grandfather's hands. He was always a headstrong youngster,
+and he has been a bit spoiled. Still, of course, the uncertainty is very
+trying for us all--very wearing."</p>
+
+<p>"Of course," said Ste. Marie, gravely. "It is most unfortunate. Ah,
+by-the-way!" He looked up with a sudden interest. "A rather odd thing
+happened," he said, "as Hartley and I were coming here this evening. We
+walked up the Champs-Elys&eacute;es from the Concorde, and on the way
+Hartley had been telling me of your nephew's disappearance. Near the Rond
+Point we came upon a motor-car which was drawn up at the side of the
+street--there <a name="Page_29"></a>had been an accident of no consequence,
+a boy tumbled over but not hurt. Well, one of the two occupants of the
+motor-car was a man whom I used to see about Maxim's and the Caf&eacute; de
+Paris and the Montmartre places, too, some time ago--a rather shady
+character whose name I've forgotten. The odd part of it all was that on the
+last occasion or two on which I saw your nephew he was with this man. I
+think it was in Henry's Bar. Of course, it means nothing at all. Your
+nephew doubtless knew scores of people, and this man is no more likely to
+have information about his present whereabouts than any of the others.
+Still, I should have liked to ask him. I didn't remember who he was till he
+had gone."</p>
+
+<p class="figure"> <a name="jason002"><img
+width="80%" alt="Illustration: THE FAMILY IS IN GREAT DISTRESS OF MIND OVER
+THE DISAPPEARANCE OF MY YOUNG NEPHEW" src="images/jason002.png" /></a><br /> THE
+FAMILY IS IN GREAT DISTRESS OF MIND OVER THE DISAPPEARANCE OF MY YOUNG
+NEPHEW</p>
+
+<p>Captain Stewart shook his head sadly, frowning down upon the cigarette
+from which he had knocked the ash.</p>
+
+<p>"I am afraid poor Arthur did not always choose his friends with the best
+of judgment," said he. "I am not squeamish, and I would not have boys kept
+in a glass case, but--yes, I'm afraid Arthur was not always too careful."
+He replaced the cigarette neatly between his lips. "This man, now--this man
+whom you saw to-night--what sort of looking man will he have been?"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, a tall, lean man," said Ste. Marie. "A tall man with blue eyes and
+a heavy, old-fashioned mustache. I just can't remember the name."</p>
+
+<p>The smoke stood still for an instant over Captain Stewart's cigarette,
+and it seemed to Ste. Marie that a little contortion of anger fled across
+the man's face and was gone again. He stirred slightly in his chair. After
+a moment he said:</p>
+
+<p>"I fancy, from your description--I fancy I know who the man was. If it
+is the man I am thinking of, the name is--Powers. He is, as you have said,
+a rather shady character, <a name="Page_30"></a>and I more than once warned
+my nephew against him. Such people are not good companions for a boy. Yes,
+I warned him."</p>
+
+<p>"Powers," said Ste. Marie, "doesn't sound right to me, you know. I can't
+say the fellow's name myself, but I'm sure--that is, I think--it's not
+Powers."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh yes," said Captain Stewart, with an elderly man's half-querulous
+certainty. "Yes, the name is Powers. I remember it well. And I
+remember--Yes, it was odd, was it not, your meeting him like that, just as
+you were talking of Arthur? You--oh, you didn't speak to him, you say? No,
+no, to be sure! You didn't recognize him at once. Yes, it was odd. Of
+course, the man could have had nothing to do with poor Arthur's
+disappearance. His only interest in the boy at any time would have been for
+what money Arthur might have, and he carried none, or almost none, away
+with him when he vanished. Eh, poor lad! Where can he be to-night, I
+wonder? It's a sad business, M. Ste. Marie--a sad business."</p>
+
+<p>Captain Stewart fell into a sort of brooding silence, frowning down at
+the table before him, and twisting with his thin ringers the little liqueur
+glass and the coffee-cup which were there. Once or twice, Ste. Marie
+thought, the frown deepened and twisted into a sort of scowl, and the man's
+fingers twitched on the cloth of the table; but when at last the group at
+the other end of the board rose and began to move towards the door, Captain
+Stewart rose also and followed them. At the door he seemed to think of
+something, and touched Ste. Marie upon the arm.</p>
+
+<p>"This--ah, Powers," he said, in a low tone--"this man whom you saw
+to-night! You said he was one of two <a name="Page_31"></a>occupants of a
+motor-car. Yes? Did you by any chance recognize the other?"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, the other was a young woman," said Ste. Marie. "No, I never saw her
+before. She was very handsome."</p>
+
+<p>Captain Stewart said something under his breath and turned abruptly
+away. But an instant later he faced about once more, smiling. He said, in a
+man-of-the-world manner, which sat rather oddly upon him:</p>
+
+<p>"Ah, well, we all have our little love-affairs. I dare say this shady
+fellow has his." And for some obscure reason Ste. Marie found the speech
+peculiarly offensive.</p>
+
+<p>In the drawing-room he had opportunity for no more than a word with Miss
+Benham, for Hartley, enraged over his previous ill success, cut in ahead of
+him and manoeuvred that young lady into a corner, where he sat before her,
+turning a square and determined back to the world. Ste. Marie listlessly
+played bridge for a time, but his attention was not upon it, and he was
+glad when the others at the table settled their accounts and departed to
+look in at a dance somewhere. After that he talked for a little with Marian
+de Saulnes, whom he liked and who made no secret of adoring him. She
+complained loudly that he was in a vile temper, which was not true; he was
+only restless and distrait and wanted to be alone; and so, at last, he took
+his leave without waiting for Hartley.</p>
+
+<p>Outside, in the street, he stood for a moment, hesitating, and an
+expectant fiacre drew up before the house, the cocher raising an
+interrogative whip. In the end Ste. Marie shook his head and turned away on
+foot. It was a still, sweet night of soft airs, and a moonless, starlit
+sky, and the man was very fond of walking in the dark. From the Etoile he
+walked down the Champs-Elys&eacute;es, but presently turned <a
+name="Page_32"></a>toward the river. His eyes were upon the mellow stars,
+his feet upon the ladder thereunto. He found himself crossing the Pont des
+Invalides, and halted midway to rest and look. He laid his arms upon the
+bridge's parapet and turned his face outward. Against it bore a little
+gentle breeze that smelled of the purifying water below and of the night
+and of green things growing. Beneath him the river ran black as flowing
+ink, and across its troubled surface the many-colored lights of the many
+bridges glittered very beautifully, swirling arabesques of gold and
+crimson. The noises of the city--beat of hoofs upon wooden pavements, horn
+of train or motor-car, jingle of bell upon cab-horse--came here faintly and
+as if from a great distance. Above the dark trees of the Cours la Reine the
+sky glowed, softly golden, reflecting the million lights of Paris.</p>
+
+<p>Ste. Marie closed his eyes, and against darkness he saw the beautiful
+head of Helen Benham, the clear-cut, exquisite modelling of feature and
+contour, the perfection of form and color. Her eyes met his eyes, and they
+were very serene and calm and confident. She smiled at him, and the new
+contours into which her face fell with the smile were more perfect than
+before. He watched the turn of her head, and the grace of the movement was
+the uttermost effortless grace one dreams that a queen should have. The
+heart of Ste. Marie quickened in him, and he would have gone down upon his
+knees.</p>
+
+<p>He was well aware that with the coming of this girl something
+unprecedented, wholly new to his experience, had befallen him--an awakening
+to a new life. He had been in love a very great many times. He was usually
+in love. And each time his heart had gone through the same sweet and bitter
+anguish, the same sleepless nights had come and <a name="Page_33"></a>gone
+upon him, the eternal and ever new miracle had wakened spring in his soul,
+had passed its summer solstice, had faded through autumnal regrets to
+winter's death; but through it all something within him had waited
+asleep.</p>
+
+<p>He found himself wondering dully what it was--wherein lay the great
+difference?--and he could not answer the question he asked. He knew only
+that whereas before he had loved, he now went down upon prayerful knees to
+worship. In a sudden poignant thrill the knightly fervor of his forefathers
+came upon him, and he saw a sweet and golden lady set far above him upon a
+throne. Her clear eyes gazed afar, serene and untroubled. She sat wrapped
+in a sort of virginal austerity, unaware of the base passions of men. The
+other women whom Ste. Marie had--as he was pleased to term it--loved had
+certainly come at least half-way to meet him, and some of them had come a
+good deal farther than that. He could not, by the wildest flight of
+imagination, conceive this girl doing anything of that sort. She was to be
+won by trial and high endeavor, by prayer and self-purification--not
+captured by a warm eye-glance, a whispered word, a laughing kiss. In fancy
+he looked from the crowding cohorts of these others to that still, sweet
+figure set on high, wrapped in virginal austerity, calm in her serene
+perfection, and his soul abased itself before her. He knelt in an awed and
+worshipful adoration.</p>
+
+<p>So before quest or tournament or battle must those elder Ste.
+Maries--Ste. Maries de Mont-les-Roses---have knelt, each knight at the feet
+of his lady, each knightly soul aglow with the chaste ardor of
+chivalry.</p>
+
+<p>The man's hands tightened upon the parapet of the bridge, he lifted his
+face again to the shining stars where-among, as his fancy had it, she sat
+enthroned. Exultingly <a name="Page_34"></a>he felt under his feet the
+rungs of the ladder, and in the darkness he swore a great oath to have done
+forever with blindness and grovelling, to climb and climb, forever to
+climb, until at last he should stand where she was--cleansed and made
+worthy by long endeavor--at last meet her eyes and touch her hand.</p>
+
+<p>It was a fine and chivalric frenzy, and Ste. Marie was passionately in
+earnest about it, but his guardian angel--indeed, Fate herself--must have
+laughed a little in the dark, knowing what manner of man he was in less
+exalted hours.</p>
+
+<p>It was an odd freak of memory that at last recalled him to earth. Every
+man knows that when a strong and, for the moment, unavailing effort has
+been made to recall something lost to mind, the memory, in some mysterious
+fashion, goes on working long after the attention has been elsewhere
+diverted, and sometimes hours afterward, or even days, produces quite
+suddenly and inappropriately the lost article. Ste. Marie had turned, with
+a little sigh, to take up, once more, his walk across the Pont des
+Invalides, when seemingly from nowhere, and certainly by no conscious
+effort, a name flashed into his mind. He said it aloud:</p>
+
+<p>"O'Hara! O'Hara! That tall, thin chap's name was O'Hara, by Jove! It
+wasn't Powers at all!" He laughed a little as he remembered how very
+positive Captain Stewart had been. And then he frowned, thinking that the
+mistake was an odd one, since Stewart had evidently known a good deal about
+this adventurer. Captain Stewart, though, Ste. Marie reflected, was exactly
+the sort to be very sure he was right about things. He had just the neat
+and precise and semi-scholarly personality of the man who always knows. So
+Ste. Marie dismissed the matter with <a name="Page_35"></a>another brief
+laugh, but a cognate matter was less easy to dismiss. The name brought with
+it a face--a dark and splendid face with tragic eyes that called. He walked
+a long way thinking about them and wondering. The eyes haunted him. It will
+have been reasonably evident that Ste. Marie was a fanciful and imaginative
+soul. He needed but a chance word, the sight of a face in a crowd, the
+glance of an eye, to begin story-building, and he would go on for hours
+about it and work himself up to quite a passion with his imaginings. He
+should have been a writer of fiction.</p>
+
+<p>He began forthwith to construct romances about this lady of the
+motor-car. He wondered why she should have been with the shady Irishman--if
+Irishman he was--O'Hara, and with some anxiety he wondered what the two
+were to each other. Captain Stewart's little cynical jest came to his mind,
+and he was conscious of a sudden desire to kick Miss Benham's middle-aged
+uncle.</p>
+
+<p>The eyes haunted him. What was it they suffered? Out of what misery did
+they call--and for what? He walked all the long way home to his little flat
+overlooking the Luxembourg Gardens, haunted by those eyes. As he climbed
+his stair it suddenly occurred to him that they had quite driven out of his
+mind the image of his beautiful lady who sat among the stars, and the
+realization came to him with a shock.</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+
+
+
+<a name="Page_36"></a><h2><a name='IV'></a>IV</h2>
+
+<h3>OLD DAVID STEWART</h3>
+
+
+<p>It was Miss Benham's custom, upon returning home at night from
+dinner-parties or other entertainments, to look in for a few minutes on her
+grandfather before going to bed. The old gentleman, like most elderly
+people, slept lightly, and often sat up in bed very late into the night,
+reading or playing piquet with his valet. He suffered hideously at times
+from the malady which was killing him by degrees, but when he was free from
+pain the enormous recuperative power, which he had preserved to his
+eighty-sixth year, left him almost as vigorous and clear-minded as if he
+had never been ill at all. Hartley's description of him had not been
+altogether a bad one: "a quaint old beggar... a great quantity of white
+hair and an enormous square white beard and the fiercest eyes I ever
+saw..." He was a rather "quaint old beggar," indeed! He had let his thick,
+white hair grow long, and it hung down over his brows in unparted locks as
+the ancient Greeks wore their hair. He had very shaggy eyebrows, and the
+deep-set eyes under them gleamed from the shadow with a fierceness which
+was rather deceptive but none the less intimidating. He had a great beak of
+a nose, but the mouth below could not be seen. It was hidden by the
+mustache and the enormous square beard. His face was colorless, almost as
+white as <a name="Page_37"></a>hair and beard; there seemed to be no shadow
+or tint anywhere except the cavernous recesses from which the man's eyes
+gleamed and sparkled. Altogether he was certainly "a quaint old
+beggar."</p>
+
+<p>He had, during the day and evening, a good many visitors, for the old
+gentleman's mind was as alert as it ever had been, and important men
+thought him worth consulting. The names which the admirable valet Peters
+announced from time to time were names which meant a great deal in the
+official and diplomatic world of the day. But if old David felt flattered
+over the unusual fashion in which the great of the earth continued to come
+to him, he never betrayed it. Indeed, it is quite probable that this view
+of the situation never once occurred to him. He had been thrown with the
+great of the earth for more than half a century, and he had learned to take
+it as a matter of course.</p>
+
+<p>On her return from the Marquise de Saulnes' dinner-party, Miss Benham
+went at once to her grandfather's wing of the house, which had its own
+street entrance, and knocked lightly at his door. She asked the admirable
+Peters, who opened to her, "Is he awake?" and being assured that he was,
+went into the vast chamber, dropping her cloak on a chair as she
+entered.</p>
+
+<p>David Stewart was sitting up in his monumental bed behind a sort of
+invalid's table which stretched across his knees without touching them. He
+wore over his night-clothes a Chinese mandarin's jacket of old red satin,
+wadded with down, and very gorgeously embroidered with the cloud and bat
+designs, and with large round panels of the imperial five-clawed dragon in
+gold. He had a number of these jackets--they seemed to be his one vanity in
+things external--and they were so made that they could be slipped about him
+<a name="Page_38"></a>without disturbing him in his bed, since they hung
+down only to the waist or thereabouts. They kept the upper part of his
+body, which was not covered by the bedclothes, warm, and they certainly
+made him a very impressive figure.</p>
+
+<p>He said: "Ah, Helen! Come in! Come in! Sit down on the bed there and
+tell me what you have been doing!" He pushed aside the pack of cards which
+was spread out on the invalid's table before him, and with great care
+counted a sum of money in francs and half-francs and nickel twenty-five
+centime pieces. "I've won seven francs fifty from Peters to-night," he
+said, chuckling gently. "That is a very good evening, indeed. Very good!
+Where have you been, and who were there?"</p>
+
+<p>"A dinner-party at the De Saulnes'," said Miss Benham, making herself
+comfortable on the side of the great bed. "It's a very pleasant place.
+Marian is, of course, a dear, and they're quite English and unceremonious.
+You can talk to your neighbor at dinner instead of addressing the house
+from a platform, as it were. French dinner-parties make me nervous."</p>
+
+<p>Old David gave a little growling laugh.</p>
+
+<p>"French dinner-parties at least keep people up to the mark in the art of
+conversation," said he. "But that is a lost art, anyhow, nowadays, so I
+suppose one might as well be quite informal and have done with it. Who were
+there?"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, well"--she considered, "no one, I should think, who would interest
+you. Rather an indifferent set. Pleasant people, but not inspiring. The
+Marquis had some young relative or connection who was quite odious and made
+the most surprising noises over his food. I met a new man whom I think I am
+going to like very much, indeed. He <a name="Page_39"></a>wouldn't interest
+you, because he doesn't mean anything in particular, and of course he
+oughtn't to interest me for the same reason. He's just an idle, pleasant
+young man, but--he has great charm--very great charm. His name is Ste.
+Marie. Baron de Vries seems very fond of him, which surprised me,
+rather."</p>
+
+<p>"Ste. Marie!" exclaimed the old gentleman, in obvious astonishment.
+"Ste. Marie de Mont Perdu?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes," she said. "Yes, that is the name, I believe. You know him, then?
+I wonder he didn't mention it."</p>
+
+<p>"I knew his father," said old David. "And his grandfather, for that
+matter. They're Gascon, I think, or B&eacute;arnais; but this boy's mother
+will have been Irish, unless his father married again.</p>
+
+<p>"So you've been meeting a Ste. Marie, have you?--and finding that he has
+great charm?" The old gentleman broke into one of his growling laughs, and
+reached for a long black cigar, which he lighted, eying his granddaughter
+the while over the flaring match. "Well," he said, when the cigar was
+drawing, "they all have had charm. I should think there has never been a
+Ste. Marie without it. They're a sort of embodiment of romance, that
+family. This boy's great-grandfather lost his life defending a castle
+against a horde of peasants in 1799; his grandfather was killed in the
+French campaign in Mexico in '39--at Vera Cruz it was, I think; and his
+father died in a filibustering expedition ten years ago. I wonder what will
+become of the last Ste. Marie?" Old David's eyes suddenly sharpened.
+"You're not going to fall in love with Ste. Marie and marry him, are you?"
+he demanded.</p>
+
+<p>Miss Benham gave a little angry laugh, but her grandfather saw the color
+rise in her cheeks for all that.</p>
+
+<p><a name="Page_40"></a>"Certainly not," she said, with great decision,
+"What an absurd idea! Because I meet a man at a dinner-party and say I like
+him, must I marry him to-morrow? I meet a great many men at dinners and
+things, and a few of them I like. Heavens!"</p>
+
+<p>"'Methinks the lady doth protest too much,'" muttered old David into his
+huge beard.</p>
+
+<p>"I beg your pardon?" asked Miss Benham, politely.</p>
+
+<p>But he shook his head, still growling inarticulately, and began to draw
+enormous clouds of smoke from the long black cigar. After a time he took
+the cigar once more from his lips and looked thoughtfully at his
+granddaughter, where she sat on the edge of the vast bed, upright and
+beautiful, perfect in the most meticulous detail. Most women when they
+return from a long evening out look more or less the worse for it--deadened
+eyes, pale cheeks, loosened coiffure tell their inevitable tale. Miss
+Benham looked as if she had just come from the hands of a very excellent
+maid. She looked as freshly soign&eacute;e as she might have looked at
+eight that evening instead of at one. Not a wave of her perfectly undulated
+hair was loosened or displaced, not a fold of the lace at her breast had
+departed from its perfect arrangement.</p>
+
+<p>"It is odd," said old David Stewart, "your taking a fancy to young Ste.
+Marie. Of course, it's natural, too, in a way, because you are complete
+opposites, I should think--that is, if this lad is like the rest of his
+race. What I mean is that merely attractive young men don't, as a rule,
+attract you."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, no," she admitted, "they don't usually. Men with brains attract
+me most, I think--men who are making civilization, men who are ruling the
+world, or at least doing <a name="Page_41"></a>important things for it.
+That's your fault, you know. You taught me that."</p>
+
+<p>The old gentleman laughed.</p>
+
+<p>"Possibly," said he. "Possibly. Anyhow, that is the sort of men you
+like, and they like you. You're by no means a fool, Helen; in fact, you're
+a woman with brains. You could wield great influence married to the proper
+sort of man."</p>
+
+<p>"But not to M. Ste. Marie," she suggested, smiling across at him.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, no," he said. "No, not to Ste. Marie. It would be a mistake to
+marry Ste. Marie--if he is what the rest of his house have been. The Ste.
+Maries live a life compounded of romance and imagination and emotion.
+You're not emotional."</p>
+
+<p>"No," said Miss Benham, slowly and thoughtfully. It was as if the idea
+were new to her. "No, I'm not, I suppose. No. Certainly not."</p>
+
+<p>"As a matter of fact," said old David, "you're by nature rather cold.
+I'm not sure it isn't a good thing. Emotional people, I observe, are
+usually in hot water of some sort. When you marry you're very likely to
+choose with a great deal of care and some wisdom. And you're also likely to
+have what is called a career. I repeat that you could wield great influence
+in the proper environment."</p>
+
+<p>The girl frowned across at her grandfather reflectively.</p>
+
+<p>"Do you mean by that," she asked, after a little silence--"do you mean
+that you think I am likely to be moved by sheer ambition and nothing else
+in arranging my life? I've never thought of myself as a very ambitious
+person."</p>
+
+<p>"Let us substitute for ambition common-sense," said old David. "I think
+you have a great deal of common-sense <a name="Page_42"></a>for a
+woman--and so young a woman. How old are you by-the-way? Twenty-two? Yes,
+to be sure. I think you have great common-sense and appreciation of values.
+And I think you're singularly free of the emotionalism that so often plays
+hob with them all. People with common-sense fall in love in the right
+places."</p>
+
+<p>"I don't quite like the sound of it," said Miss Benham. "Perhaps I am
+rather ambitious--I don't know. Yes, perhaps. I should like to play some
+part in the world, I don't deny that. But--am I as cold as you say? I doubt
+it very much. I doubt that."</p>
+
+<p>"You're twenty-two," said her grandfather, "and you have seen a good
+deal of society in several capitals. Have you ever fallen in love?"</p>
+
+<p>Oddly, the face of Ste. Marie came before Miss Benham's eyes as if she
+had summoned it there. But she frowned a little and shook her head,
+saying:</p>
+
+<p>"No, I can't say that I have. But that means nothing. There's plenty of
+time for that. And you know," she said, after a pause--"you know I'm rather
+sure I could fall in love--pretty hard. I'm sure of that. Perhaps I have
+been waiting. Who knows?"</p>
+
+<p>"Aye, who knows?" said David. He seemed all at once to lose interest in
+the subject, as old people often do without apparent reason, for he
+remained silent for a long time, puffing at the long black cigar or rolling
+it absently between his fingers. After awhile he laid it down in a metal
+dish which stood at his elbow, and folded his lean hands before him over
+the invalid's table. He was still so long that at last his granddaughter
+thought he had fallen asleep, and she began to rise from her seat, taking
+care to make no noise; but at that the old man stirred and <a
+name="Page_43"></a>put out his hand once more for the cigar. "Was young
+Richard Hartley at your dinner-party?" he asked, and she said:</p>
+
+<p>"Yes. Oh yes, he was there. He and M. Ste. Marie came together, I
+believe. They are very close friends."</p>
+
+<p>"Another idler," growled old David. "The fellow's a man of parts--and a
+man of family. What's he idling about here for? Why isn't he in Parliament,
+where he belongs?"</p>
+
+<p>"Well," said the girl, "I should think it is because he is too much a
+man of family--as you put it. You see, he'll succeed his cousin, Lord
+Risdale, before very long, and then all his work would have been for
+nothing, because he'll have to take his seat in the Lords. Lord Risdale is
+unmarried, you know, and a hopeless invalid. He may die any day. I think I
+sympathize with poor Mr. Hartley. It would be a pity to build up a career
+for one's self in the lower House, and then suddenly, in the midst of it,
+have to give it all up. The situation is rather paralyzing to endeavor,
+isn't it?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, I dare say," said old David, absently. He looked up sharply.
+"Young Hartley doesn't come here as much as he used to do."</p>
+
+<p>"No," said Miss Benham, "he doesn't." She gave a little laugh. "To avoid
+cross-examination," she said, "I may as well admit that he asked me to
+marry him and I had to refuse. I'm sorry, because I like him very much,
+indeed."</p>
+
+<p>Old David made an inarticulate sound which may have been meant to
+express surprise--or almost anything else. He had not a great range of
+expression.</p>
+
+<p>"I don't want," said he, "to seem to have gone daft on <a
+name="Page_44"></a>the subject of marriage, and I see no reason why you
+should be in any haste about it. Certainly I should hate to lose you, my
+child, but--Hartley as the next Lord Risdale is undoubtedly a good match.
+And you say you like him."</p>
+
+<p>The girl looked up with a sort of defiance, and her face was a little
+flushed.</p>
+
+<p>"I don't love him," she said. "I like him immensely, but I don't love
+him, and, after all--well, you say I'm cold, and I admit I'm more or less
+ambitious, but, after all--well, I just don't quite love him. I want to
+love the man I marry."</p>
+
+<p>Old David Stewart held up his black cigar and gazed thoughtfully at the
+smoke which streamed thin and blue and veil-like from its lighted end.</p>
+
+<p>"Love!" he said, in a reflective tone. "Love!" He repeated the word two
+or three times slowly, and he stirred a little in his bed. "I have
+forgotten what it is," said he. "I expect I must be very old. I have
+forgotten what love--that sort of love--is like. It seems very far away to
+me and rather unimportant. But I remember that I thought it important
+enough once, a century or two ago. Do you know, it strikes me as rather odd
+that I have forgotten what love is like. It strikes me as rather pathetic."
+He gave a sort of uncouth grimace and stuck the black cigar once more into
+his mouth. "Egad!" said he, mumbling indistinctly over the cigar, "how
+foolish love seems when you look back at it across fifty or sixty
+years!"</p>
+
+<p>Miss Benham rose to her feet smiling, and she came and stood near where
+the old man lay propped up against his pillows. She touched his cheek with
+her cool hand, and old David put up one of his own hands and patted it.</p>
+
+<p><a name="Page_45"></a>"I'm going to bed now," said she. "I've sat here
+talking too long. You ought to be asleep, and so ought I."</p>
+
+<p>"Perhaps! Perhaps!" the old man said. "I don't feel sleepy, though. I
+dare say I shall read a little." He held her hand in his and looked up at
+her.</p>
+
+<p>"I've been talking a great deal of nonsense about marriage," said he.
+"Put it out of your head! It's all nonsense. I don't want you to marry for
+a long time. I don't want to lose you." His face twisted a little, quite
+suddenly. "You're precious near all I have left, now," he said.</p>
+
+<p>The girl did not answer at once, for it seemed to her that there was
+nothing to say. She knew that her grandfather was thinking of the lost boy,
+and she knew what a bitter blow the thing had been to him. She often
+thought that it would kill him before his old malady could run its
+course.</p>
+
+<p>But after a moment she said, very gently: "We won't give up hope. We'll
+never give up hope. Think! he might come home to-morrow! Who knows?"</p>
+
+<p>"If he has stayed away of his own accord," cried out old David Stewart,
+in a loud voice, "I'll never forgive him--not if he comes to me to-morrow
+on his knees! Not even if he comes to me on his knees!"</p>
+
+<p>The girl bent over her grandfather, saying: "Hush! hush! You mustn't
+excite yourself." But old David's gray face was working, and his eyes
+gleamed from their cavernous shadows with a savage fire.</p>
+
+<p>"If the boy is staying away out of spite," he repeated, "he need never
+come back to me. I won't forgive him." He beat his unemployed hand upon the
+table before him, and the things which lay there jumped and danced. "And if
+he waits until I'm dead and then comes back," said he, "he'll find he has
+made a mistake--a great mistake. He'll <a name="Page_46"></a>find a
+surprise in store for him, I can tell you that. I won't tell you what I
+have done, but it will be a disagreeable surprise for Master Arthur, you
+may be sure."</p>
+
+<p>The old gentleman fell to frowning and muttering in his choleric
+fashion, but the fierce glitter began to go out of his eyes and his hands
+ceased to tremble and clutch at the things before him. The girl was silent,
+because again there seemed to her to be nothing that she could say. She
+longed very much to plead her brother's cause, but she was sure that would
+only excite her grandfather, and he was growing quieter after his burst of
+anger. She bent down over him and kissed his cheek.</p>
+
+<p>"Try to go to sleep," she said. "And don't torture yourself with
+thinking about all this. I'm as sure that poor Arthur is not staying away
+out of spite as if he were myself. He's foolish and headstrong, but he's
+not spiteful, dear. Try to believe that. And now I'm really going.
+Good-night." She kissed him again and slipped out of the room. And as she
+closed the door she heard her grandfather pull the bell-cord which hung
+beside him and summoned the excellent Peters from the room beyond.</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+
+
+
+<a name="Page_47"></a><h2><a name='V'></a>V</h2>
+
+<h3>JASON SETS FORTH UPON THE GREAT ADVENTURE</h3>
+
+
+<p>Miss Benham stood at one of the long drawing-room windows of the house
+in the rue de l'Universit&eacute;, and looked out between the curtains upon
+the rather grimy little garden, where a few not very prosperous cypresses
+and chestnuts stood guard over the rows of lilac shrubs and the
+box-bordered flower-beds and the usual moss-stained fountain. She was
+thinking of the events of the past month, the month which had elapsed since
+the evening of the De Saulnes' dinner-party. They were not at all startling
+events; in a practical sense there were no events at all, only a quiet
+sequence of affairs which was about as inevitable as the night upon the
+day--the day upon the night again. In a word, this girl, who had considered
+herself very strong and very much the mistress of her feelings, found, for
+the first time in her life, that her strength was as nothing at all against
+the potent charm and magnetism of a man who had almost none of the
+qualities she chiefly admired in men. During the month's time she had
+passed from a phase of angry self-scorn through a period of bewilderment
+not unmixed with fear, and from that she had come into an unknown world, a
+land very strange to her, where old standards and judgments seemed to be
+valueless--a place seemingly ruled altogether by new emotions, sweet and
+thrilling, <a name="Page_48"></a>or full of vague terrors as her mood
+veered here or there.</p>
+
+<p>That sublimated form of guesswork which is called "woman's intuition"
+told her that Ste. Marie would come to her on this afternoon, and that
+something in the nature of a crisis would have to be faced. It can be
+proved even by poor masculine mathematics that guesswork, like other
+gambling ventures, is bound to succeed about half the time, and it
+succeeded on this occasion. Even as Miss Benham stood at the window looking
+out through the curtains, M. Ste. Marie was announced from the doorway.</p>
+
+<p>She turned to meet him with a little frown of determination, for in his
+absence she was often very strong, indeed, and sometimes she made up and
+rehearsed little speeches of great dignity and decision in which she told
+him that he was attempting a quite hopeless thing, and, as a well-wishing
+friend, advised him to go away and attempt it no longer. But as Ste. Marie
+came quickly across the room toward her, the little frown wavered and at
+last fled from her face and another look came there. It was always so. The
+man's bodily presence exerted an absolute spell over her.</p>
+
+<p>"I have been sitting with your grandfather for half an hour," Ste. Marie
+said. And she said:</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, I'm glad! I'm very glad! You always cheer him up. He hasn't been
+too cheerful or too well of late." She unnecessarily twisted a chair about,
+and after a moment sat down in it. And she gave a little laugh. "This
+friendship which has grown up between my grandfather and you," said she--"I
+don't understand it at all. Of course, he knew your father and all that;
+but you two seem such very different types, I shouldn't think you would
+amuse <a name="Page_49"></a>each other at all. There's Mr. Hartley, for
+example. I should expect my grandfather to like him very much better than
+you, but he doesn't--though I fancy he approves of him much more."</p>
+
+<p>She laughed again, but a different laugh; and when he heard it Ste.
+Marie's eyes gleamed a little and his hands moved beside him.</p>
+
+<p>"I expect," said she--"I expect, you know, that he just likes you
+without stopping to think why--as everybody else does. I fancy it's just
+that. What do you think?"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, I?" said the man. "I--how should I know? I know it's a great
+privilege to be allowed to see him--such a man as that. And I know we get
+on wonderfully well. He doesn't condescend, as most old men do who have led
+important lives. We just talk as two men in a club might talk, and I tell
+him stories and make him laugh. Oh yes, we get on wonderfully well."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh," said she, "I've often wondered what you talk about. What did you
+talk about to-day?"</p>
+
+<p>Ste. Marie turned abruptly away from her and went across to one of the
+windows--the window where she had stood earlier, looking out upon the dingy
+garden. She saw him stand there, with his back turned, the head a little
+bent, the hands twisting together behind him, and a sudden fit of nervous
+shivering wrung her. Every woman knows when a certain thing is going to be
+said to her, and usually she is prepared for it, though usually, also, she
+says she is not. Miss Benham knew what was coming now, and she was
+frightened, not of Ste. Marie, but of herself. It meant so very much to
+her--more than to most women at such a time. It meant, if she said yes to
+him, the surrender of almost all the things she had cared for and hoped <a
+name="Page_50"></a>for. It meant the giving up of that career which old
+David Stewart had dwelt upon a month ago.</p>
+
+<p>Ste. Marie turned back into the room. He came a little way toward where
+the girl sat, and halted, and she could see that he was very pale. A sort
+of critical second self noticed that he was pale and was surprised,
+because, although men's faces often turn red, they seldom turn noticeably
+pale except in very great nervous crises--or in works of fiction; while
+women, on the contrary, may turn red and white twenty times a day, and no
+harm done. He raised his hands a little way from his sides in the beginning
+of a gesture, but they dropped again as if there was no strength in
+them.</p>
+
+<p>"I told him," said Ste. Marie, in a flat voice--"I told your grandfather
+that I--loved you more than anything in this world or in the next. I told
+him that my love for you had made another being of me--a new being. I told
+him that I wanted to come to you and to kneel at your feet, and to ask you
+if you could give me just a little, little hope--something to live for, a
+light to climb toward. That is what we talked about, your grandfather and
+I."</p>
+
+<p>"Ste. Marie! Ste. Marie!" said the girl, in a half whisper. "What did my
+grandfather say to you?" she asked, after a silence.</p>
+
+<p>Ste. Marie looked away.</p>
+
+<p>"I cannot tell you," he said. "He--was not quite sympathetic."</p>
+
+<p>The girl gave a little cry.</p>
+
+<p>"Tell me what he said!" she demanded. "I must know what he said."</p>
+
+<p>The man's eyes pleaded with her, but she held him with her gaze, and in
+the end he gave in.</p>
+
+<p><a name="Page_51"></a>"He said I was a damned fool," said Ste.
+Marie.</p>
+
+<p>And the girl, after an instant of staring, broke into a little fit of
+nervous, overwrought laughter, and covered her face with her hands.</p>
+
+<p>He threw himself upon his knees before her, and her laughter died away.
+An Englishman or an American cannot do that. Richard Hartley, for example,
+would have looked like an idiot upon his knees, and he would have felt it.
+But it did not seem extravagant with Ste. Marie. It became him.</p>
+
+<p>"Listen! Listen!" he cried to her, but the girl checked him before he
+could go on.</p>
+
+<p>She dropped her hands from her face, and she bent a little forward over
+the man as he knelt there. She put out her hands and took his head for a
+swift instant between them, looking down into his eyes. At the touch a
+sudden wave of tenderness swept her--almost an engulfing wave; it almost
+overwhelmed her and bore her away from the land she knew. And so when she
+spoke her voice was not quite steady. She said:</p>
+
+<p>"Ah, dear Ste. Marie! I cannot pretend to be cold toward you. You have
+laid a spell upon me, Ste. Marie. You enchant us all, somehow, don't you? I
+suppose I'm not so different from the others as I thought I was. And yet,"
+she said, "he was right, you know. My grandfather was right. No, let me
+talk, now. I must talk for a little. I must try to tell you how it is with
+me--try somehow to find a way. He was right. He meant that you and I were
+utterly unsuited to each other, and so, in calm moments, I know we are. I
+know that well enough. When you're not with me, I feel very sure about it.
+I think of a thousand excellent reasons why you and I ought to be no more
+to each <a name="Page_52"></a>other than friends. Do you know, I think my
+grandfather is a little uncanny. I think he has prophetic powers. They say
+very old people often have. He and I talked about you when I came home from
+that dinner-party at the De Saulnes', a month ago--the dinner-party where
+you and I first met. I told him that I had met a man whom I liked very
+much--a man with great charm; and though I must have said the same sort of
+thing to him before about other men, he was quite oddly disturbed, and
+talked for a long time about it--about the sort of man I ought to marry and
+the sort I ought not to marry. It was unusual for him. He seldom says
+anything of that kind. Yes, he is right. You see, I'm ambitious in a
+particular way. If I marry at all I ought to marry a man who is working
+hard in politics or in something of that kind. I could help him. We could
+do a great deal together."</p>
+
+<p>"I could go into politics!" cried Ste. Marie; but she shook her head,
+smiling down upon him.</p>
+
+<p>"No, not you, my dear. Politics least of all. You could be a soldier, if
+you chose. You could fight as your father and your grandfather and the
+others of your house have done. You could lead a forlorn hope in the field.
+You could suffer and starve and go on fighting. You could die splendidly,
+but--politics, no! That wants a tougher shell than you have. And a
+soldier's wife! Of what use to him is she?"</p>
+
+<p>Ste. Marie's face was very grave. He looked up to her, smiling.</p>
+
+<p>"Do you set ambition before love, my Queen?" he asked, and she did not
+answer him at once.</p>
+
+<p>She looked into his eyes, and she was as grave as he.</p>
+
+<p>"Is love all?" she said, at last. "Is love all? Ought one <a
+name="Page_53"></a>to think of nothing but love when one is settling one's
+life forever? I wonder? I look about me, Ste. Marie," she said, "and in the
+lives of my friends--the people who seem to me to be most worth while, the
+people who are making the world's history for good or ill--and it seems to
+me that in their lives love has the second place--or the third. I wonder if
+one has the right to set it first. There is, of course," she said, "the
+merely domestic type of woman--the woman who has no thought and no interest
+beyond her home. I am not that type of woman. Perhaps I wish I were.
+Certainly they are the happiest. But I was brought up among--well, among
+important people--men of my grandfather's kind. All my training has been
+toward that life. Have I the right, I wonder, to give it all up?"</p>
+
+<p>The man stirred at her feet, and she put out her hands to him
+quickly.</p>
+
+<p>"Do I seem brutal?" she cried. "Oh, I don't want to be! Do I seem very
+ungenerous and wrapped up in my own side of the thing? I don't mean to be
+that, but--I'm not sure. I expect it's that. I'm not sure, and I think I'm
+a little frightened." She gave him a brief, anxious smile that was not
+without its tenderness. "I'm so sure," she said, "when I'm away from you.
+But when you're here--oh, I forget all I've thought of. You lay your spell
+upon me."</p>
+
+<p>Ste. Marie gave a little wordless cry of joy. He caught her two hands in
+his and held them against his lips. Again that great wave of tenderness
+swept her, almost engulfing. But when it had ebbed she sank back once more
+in her chair, and she withdrew her hands from his clasp.</p>
+
+<p>"You make me forget too much," she said. "I think you make me forget
+everything that I ought to remember. <a name="Page_54"></a>Oh, Ste. Marie,
+have I any right to think of love and happiness while this terrible mystery
+is upon us--while we don't know whether poor Arthur is alive or dead?
+You've seen what it has brought my grandfather to! It is killing him. He
+has been much worse in the past fortnight. And my mother is hardly a ghost
+of herself in these days. Ah, it is brutal of me to think of my own
+affairs--to dream of happiness at such a time." She smiled across at him
+very sadly. "You see what you have brought me to!" she said.</p>
+
+<p>Ste. Marie rose to his feet. If Miss Benham, absorbed in that warfare
+which raged within her, had momentarily forgotten the cloud of sorrow under
+which her household lay, so much the more had he, to whom the sorrow was
+less intimate, forgotten it. But he was ever swift to sympathy, Ste.
+Marie--as quick as a woman, and as tender. He could not thrust his love
+upon the girl at such a time as this. He turned a little away from her, and
+so remained for a moment. When he faced about again the flush had gone from
+his cheeks and the fire from his eyes. Only tenderness was left there.</p>
+
+<p>"There has been no news at all this week?" he asked, and the girl shook
+her head.</p>
+
+<p>"None! None! Shall we ever have news of him, I wonder? Must we go on
+always and never know? It seems to me almost incredible that any one could
+disappear so completely. And yet, I dare say, many people have done it
+before and have been as carefully sought for. If only I could believe that
+he is alive! If only I could believe that!"</p>
+
+<p>"I believe it," said Ste. Marie.</p>
+
+<p>"Ah," she said, "you say that to cheer me. You have no reason to
+offer."</p>
+
+<p>"Dead bodies very seldom disappear completely," said <a
+name="Page_55"></a>he. "If your brother died anywhere there would be a
+record of the death. If he were accidentally killed there would be a record
+of that, too; and, of course, you are having all such records constantly
+searched?"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh yes," she said. "Yes, of course--at least, I suppose so. My uncle
+has been directing the search. Of course, he would take an obvious
+precaution like that."</p>
+
+<p>"Naturally," said Ste. Marie. "Your uncle, I should say, is an unusually
+careful man." He paused a moment to smile. "He makes his little mistakes,
+though. I told you about that man O'Hara, and about how sure Captain
+Stewart was that the name was Powers. Do you know"--Ste. Marie had been
+walking up and down the room, but he halted to face her--"do you know, I
+have a very strong feeling that if one could find this man O'Hara, one
+would learn something about what became of your brother? I have no reason
+for thinking that, but I feel it."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh," said the girl, doubtfully, "I hardly think that could be so. What
+motive could the man have for harming my brother?"</p>
+
+<p>"None," said Ste. Marie; "but he might have an excellent motive for
+hiding him away--kidnapping him. Is that the word? Yes, I know, you're
+going to say that no demand has been made for money, and that is where my
+argument--if I can call it an argument--is weak. But the fellow may be
+biding his time. Anyhow, I should like to have five minutes alone with him.
+I'll tell you another thing. It's a trifle, and it may be of no
+consequence, but I add it to my vague and--if you like--foolish feeling,
+and make something out of it. I happened, some days ago, to meet at the
+Caf&eacute; de Paris a man who I knew used to know this O'Hara. He was not,
+I think, a friend of his at all, <a name="Page_56"></a>but an acquaintance.
+I asked him what had become of O'Hara, saying that I hadn't seen him in
+some weeks. Well, this man said O'Hara had gone away somewhere a couple of
+months ago. He didn't seem at all surprised, for it appears the
+Irishman--if he is an Irishman--is decidedly a haphazard sort of person,
+here to-day, gone to-morrow. No, the man wasn't surprised, but he was
+rather angry, because he said O'Hara owed him some money. I said I thought
+he must be mistaken about the fellow's absence, because I'd seen him in the
+street within the month--on the evening of our dinner-party, you
+remember--but this man was very sure that I had made a mistake. He said
+that if O'Hara had been in town he was sure to have known it. Well, the
+point is here. Your brother disappears at a certain time. At the same time
+this Irish adventurer disappears, too, <i>and</i> your brother was known to
+have frequented the Irishman's company. It may be only a coincidence, but I
+can't help feeling that there's something in it."</p>
+
+<p>Miss Benham was sitting up straight in her chair with a little alert
+frown.</p>
+
+<p>"Have you spoken of this to my uncle?" she demanded.</p>
+
+<p>"Well--no," said Ste. Marie. "Not the latter part of it--that is, not my
+having heard of O'Hara's disappearance. In the first place, I learned of
+that only three days ago, and I have not seen Captain Stewart since--I
+rather expected to find him here to-day; and, in the second place, I was
+quite sure that he would only laugh. He has laughed at me two or three
+times for suggesting that this Irishman might know something. Captain
+Stewart is--not easy to convince, you know."</p>
+
+<p>"I know," she said, looking away. "He's always very <a
+name="Page_57"></a>certain that he's right. Well, perhaps he is right. Who
+knows?" She gave a little sob. "Oh!" she cried, "shall we ever have my
+brother back? Shall we ever see him again? It is breaking my heart, Ste.
+Marie, and it is killing my grandfather and, I think, my mother, too! Oh,
+can nothing be done?"</p>
+
+<p>Ste. Marie was walking up and down the floor before her, his hands
+clasped behind his back. When she had finished speaking the girl saw him
+halt beside one of the windows, and after a moment she saw his head go up
+sharply and she heard him give a sudden cry. She thought he had seen
+something from the window which had wrung that exclamation from him, and
+she asked:</p>
+
+<p>"What is it?"</p>
+
+<p>But abruptly the man turned back into the room and came across to where
+she sat. It seemed to her that his face had a new look--a very strange
+exaltation which she had never before seen there. He said:</p>
+
+<p>"Listen! I do not know if anything can be done that has not been done
+already, but if there is anything I shall do it, you may be sure."</p>
+
+<p>"<i>You</i>, Ste. Marie?" she cried, in a sharp voice. "<i>You?</i>"</p>
+
+<p>"And why not I?" he demanded.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, my friend," said she, "you could do nothing! You wouldn't know
+where to turn, how to set to work. Remember that a score of men who are
+skilled in this kind of thing have been searching for two months. What
+could you do that they haven't done?"</p>
+
+<p>"I do not know, my Queen," said Ste. Marie, "but I shall do what I can.
+Who knows? Sometimes the fool who rushes in where angels have feared to
+tread succeeds where they have failed. Oh, let me do this!" he cried out.
+<a name="Page_58"></a>"Let me do it for both our sakes--for yours and for
+mine! It is for your sake most. I swear that! It is to set you at peace
+again, bring back the happiness you have lost. But it is for my sake, too,
+a little. It will be a test of me, a trial. If I can succeed here where so
+many have failed, if I bring back your brother to you--or, at least,
+discover what has become of him--I shall be able to come to you with less
+shame for my--unworthiness."</p>
+
+<p>He looked down upon her with eager, burning eyes, and, after a little,
+the girl rose to face him. She was very white, and she stared at him
+silently.</p>
+
+<p>"When I came to you to-day," he went on, "I knew that I had nothing to
+offer you but my faithful love and my life, which has been a life without
+value. In exchange for that I asked too much. I knew it, and you knew it,
+too. I know well enough what sort of man you ought to marry, and what a
+brilliant career you could make for yourself in the proper place--what
+great influence you could wield. But I asked you to give that all up, and I
+hadn't anything to offer in its place--nothing but love. My Queen, give me
+a chance now to offer you more! If I can bring back your brother or news of
+him, I can come to you without shame and ask you to marry me, because if I
+can succeed in that you will know that I can succeed in other things. You
+will be able to trust me. You'll know that I can climb. It shall be a sort
+of symbol. Let me go!"</p>
+
+<p>The girl broke into a sort of sobbing laughter.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, divine madman!" she cried. "Are you all mad, you Ste. Maries, that
+you must be forever leading forlorn hopes? Oh, how you are, after all, a
+Ste. Marie! Now, at last, I know why one cannot but love you. You're the <a
+name="Page_59"></a>knight of old. You're chivalry come down to us. You're a
+ghost out of the past when men rode in armor with pure hearts seeking the
+Great Adventure. Oh, my friend," she said, "be wise. Give this up in time.
+It is a beautiful thought, and I love you for it, but it is madness--yes,
+yes, a sweet madness, but mad, nevertheless! What possible chance would you
+have of success? And think--think how failure would hurt you--and me! You
+must not do it, Ste. Marie."</p>
+
+<p>"Failure will never hurt me, my Queen," said he, "because there are no
+hurts in the grave, and I shall never give over searching until I succeed
+or until I am dead." His face was uplifted, and there was a sort of
+splendid fervor upon it. It was as if it shone.</p>
+
+<p>The girl stared at him dumbly. She began to realize that the knightly
+spirit of those gallant, long dead gentlemen was indeed descended upon the
+last of their house, that he burnt with the same pure fire which had long
+ago lighted them through quest and adventure, and she was a little afraid
+with an almost superstitious fear. She put out her hands upon the man's
+shoulders, and she moved a little closer to him, holding him.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, madness, madness!" she said, watching his face.</p>
+
+<p>"Let me do it!" said Ste. Marie.</p>
+
+<p>And after a silence that seemed to endure for a long time, she sighed,
+shaking her head, and said she:</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, my friend, there is no strength in me to stop you. I think we are
+both a little mad, and I know that you are very mad, but I cannot say no.
+You seem to have come out of another century to take up this quest. How can
+I prevent you? But listen to one thing. If I accept this sacrifice, if I
+let you give your time and your strength to <a name="Page_60"></a>this
+almost hopeless attempt, it must be understood that it is to be within
+certain limits. I will not accept any indefinite thing. You may give your
+efforts to trying to find trace of my brother for a month if you like, or
+for three months, or six, or even a year, but not for more than that. If he
+is not found in a year's time we shall know that--we shall know that he is
+dead, and that--further search is useless. I cannot say how I--Oh, Ste.
+Marie, Ste. Marie, this is a proof of you, indeed! And I have called you
+idle. I have said hard things of you. It is very bitter to me to think that
+I have said those things."</p>
+
+<p>"They were true, my Queen," said he, smiling. "They were quite, quite
+true. It is for me to prove now that they shall be true no longer." He took
+the girl's hand in his rather ceremoniously, and bent his head and kissed
+it. As he did so he was aware that she stirred, all at once, uneasily, and
+when he had raised his head he looked at her in question.</p>
+
+<p>"I thought some one was coming into the room," she explained, looking
+beyond him. "I thought some one started to come in between the
+porti&egrave;res yonder. It must have been a servant."</p>
+
+<p>"Then it is understood," said Ste. Marie. "To bring you back your
+happiness, and to prove myself in some way worthy of your love, I am to
+devote myself with all my effort and all my strength to finding your
+brother or some trace of him, and until I succeed I will not see your face
+again, my Queen."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, that!" she cried--"that, too?"</p>
+
+<p>"I will not see you," said he, "until I bring you news of him, or until
+my year is passed and I have failed utterly. I know what risk I run. If I
+fail, <a name="Page_61"></a>I lose you. That is understood, too. But if I
+succeed--"</p>
+
+<p>"Then?" she said, breathing quickly. "Then?"</p>
+
+<p>"Then," said he, "I shall come to you, and I shall feel no shame in
+asking you to marry me, because then you will know that there is in me some
+little worthiness, and that in our lives together you need not be buried in
+obscurity--lost to the world."</p>
+
+<p>"I cannot find any words to say," said she. "I am feeling just now very
+humble and very ashamed. It seems that I haven't known you at all. Oh yes,
+I am ashamed."</p>
+
+<p>The girl's face, habitually so cool and composed, was flushed with a
+beautiful flush, and it had softened, and it seemed to quiver between a
+smile and a tear. With a swift movement she leaned close to him, holding by
+his shoulder, and for an instant her cheek was against his. She whispered
+to him:</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, find him quickly, my dear! Find him quickly, and come back to
+me!"</p>
+
+<p>Ste. Marie began to tremble, and she stood away from him. Once he looked
+up, but the flush was gone from Miss Benham's cheeks and she was pale
+again. She stood with her hands tight clasped over her breast. So he bowed
+to her very low, and turned and went out of the room and out of the
+house.</p>
+
+<p>So quickly did he move at this last that a man who had been, for some
+moments, standing just outside the porti&egrave;res of the doorway had
+barely time to step aside into the shadows of the dim hall. As it was, Ste.
+Marie, in a more normal moment, must have seen that the man was there; but
+his eyes were blind, and he saw nothing. He groped for his hat and stick as
+if the place were a place of <a name="Page_62"></a>gloom, and, because the
+footman who should have been at the door was in regions unknown, he let
+himself out, and so went away.</p>
+
+<p>Then the man who stood apart in the shadows crossed the hall to a small
+room which was furnished as a library, but not often used. He closed the
+door behind him, and went to one of the windows which gave upon the street.
+And he stood there for a long time, drawing absurd invisible pictures upon
+the glass with one finger and staring thoughtfully out into the late June
+afternoon.</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+
+
+
+<a name="Page_63"></a><h2><a name='VI'></a>VI</h2>
+
+<h3>A BRAVE GENTLEMAN RECEIVES A HURT, BUT VOLUNTEERS IN A GOOD CAUSE</h3>
+
+
+<p>When Ste. Marie had gone, Miss Benham sat alone in the drawing-room for
+almost an hour. She had been stirred that afternoon more deeply than she
+thought she had ever been stirred before, and she needed time to regain
+that cool poise, that mental equilibrium, which was normal to her and
+necessary for coherent thought.</p>
+
+<p>She was still in a sort of fever of bewilderment and exaltation, still
+all aglow with the man's own high fervor; but the second self which so
+often sat apart from her, and looked on with critical, mocking eyes,
+whispered that to-morrow, the fever past, the fervor cooled, she must see
+the thing in its true light--a glorious lunacy born of a moment of
+enthusiasm. It was finely romantic of him, this mocking second self
+whispered to her--picturesque beyond criticism--but, setting aside the
+practical folly of it, could even the mood last?</p>
+
+<p>The girl rose to her feet with an angry exclamation. She found herself
+intolerable at such times as this.</p>
+
+<p>"If there's a heaven," she cried out, "and by chance I ever go there, I
+suppose I shall walk sneering through the streets and saying to myself: 'Oh
+yes, it's pretty enough, but how absurd and unpractical!'"</p>
+
+<p><a name="Page_64"></a>She passed before one of the small, narrow mirrors
+which were let into the walls of the room in gilt Louis Seize frames with
+candles beside them, and she turned and stared at her very beautiful
+reflection with a resentful wonder.</p>
+
+<p>"Shall I always drag along so far behind him?" she said. "Shall I never
+rise to him, save in the moods of an hour?"</p>
+
+<p>She began suddenly to realize what the man's going away meant--that she
+might not see him again for weeks, months, even a year. For was it at all
+likely that he could succeed in what he had undertaken?</p>
+
+<p>"Why did I let him go?" she cried. "Oh, fool, fool, to let him go!" But
+even as she said it she knew that she could not have held him back.</p>
+
+<p>She began to be afraid, not for him, but of herself. He had taught her
+what it might be to love. For the first time love's premonitory
+thrill--promise of unspeakable, uncomprehended mysteries--had wrung her,
+and the echo of that thrill stirred in her yet; but what might not happen
+in his long absence? She was afraid of that critical and analyzing power of
+mind which she had so long trained to attack all that came to her. What
+might it not work with the new thing that had come? To what pitiful shreds
+might it not be rent while he who only could renew it was away? She looked
+ahead at the weeks and months to come, and she was terribly afraid.</p>
+
+<p>She went out of the room and up to her grandfather's chamber and knocked
+there. The admirable Peters, who opened to her, said that his master had
+not been very well, and was just then asleep, but as they spoke together in
+low tones the old gentleman cried, testily, from within:</p>
+
+<p>"Well? Well? Who's there? Who wants to see me? Who is it?"</p>
+
+<p><a name="Page_65"></a>Miss Benham went into the dim, shaded room, and
+when old David saw who it was he sank back upon his pillows with a pacified
+growl. He certainly looked ill, and he had grown thinner and whiter within
+the past month, and the lines in his waxlike face seemed to be deeper
+scored.</p>
+
+<p>The girl went up beside the bed and stood there a moment, after she had
+bent over and kissed her grandfather's cheek, stroking with her hand the
+absurdly gorgeous mandarin's jacket--an imperial yellow one this time.</p>
+
+<p>"Isn't this new?" she asked. "I seem never to have seen this one before.
+It's quite wonderful."</p>
+
+<p>The old gentleman looked down at it with the pride of a little girl over
+her first party frock. He came as near simpering as a fierce person of
+eighty-six, with a square white beard, can come.</p>
+
+<p>"Rather good--what? What?" said he. "Yes, it's new. De Vries sent it me.
+It is my best one. Imperial yellow. Did you notice the little Show
+medallions with the swastika? Young Ste. Marie was here this afternoon." He
+introduced the name with no pause or change of expression, as if Ste. Marie
+were a part of the decoration of the mandarin's jacket. "I told him he was
+a damned fool."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes," said Miss Benham, "I know. He said you did. I suppose," she said,
+"that in a sort of very informal fashion I am engaged to him. Well, no,
+perhaps not quite that; but he seems to consider himself engaged to me, and
+when he has finished something very important that he has undertaken to do
+he is coming to ask me definitely to marry him. No, I suppose we aren't
+engaged yet; at least, I'm not. But it's almost the same, because I suppose
+I shall accept him whether he fails or succeeds in what he is doing."</p>
+
+<p><a name="Page_66"></a>"If he fails in it, whatever it may be," said old
+David, "he won't give you a chance to accept him; he won't come back. I
+know him well enough for that. He's a romantic fool, but he's a
+thoroughgoing fool. He plays the game." The old man looked up to his
+granddaughter, scowling a little. "You two are absurdly unsuited to each
+other," said he, "and I told Ste. Marie so. I suppose you think you're in
+love with him."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes," said the girl, "I suppose I do."</p>
+
+<p>"Idleness and all? You were rather severe on idleness at one time."</p>
+
+<p>"He isn't idle any more," said she. "He has undertaken--of his own
+accord--to find Arthur. He has some theory about it; and he is not going to
+see me again until he has succeeded--or until a year is past. If he fails,
+I fancy he won't come back."</p>
+
+<p>Old David gave a sudden hoarse exclamation, and his withered hands shook
+and stirred before him. Afterward he fell to half-inarticulate
+muttering.</p>
+
+<p>"The young romantic fool!--Don Quixote--like all the rest of them--those
+Ste. Maries. The fool and the angels. The angels and the fool."</p>
+
+<p>The girl distinguished words from time to time. For the most part, he
+mumbled under his breath. But when he had been silent a long time, he said,
+suddenly:</p>
+
+<p>"It would be ridiculously like him to succeed."</p>
+
+<p>The girl gave a little sigh.</p>
+
+<p>"I wish I dared hope for it," said she. "I wish I dared hope for
+it."</p>
+
+<p>She had left a book that she wanted in the drawing-room, and, when
+presently her grandfather fell asleep in his fitful manner, she went down
+after it. In crossing the <a name="Page_67"></a>hall she came upon Captain
+Stewart, who was dressed for the street and had his hat and stick in his
+hands. He did not live in his father's house, for he had a little flat in
+the rue du Faubourg St. Honor&eacute;, but he was in and out a good deal.
+He paused when he saw his niece, and smiled upon her a benignant smile
+which she rather disliked, because she disliked benignant people. The two
+really saw very little of each other, though Captain Stewart often sat for
+hours together with his sister, up in a little boudoir which she had
+furnished in the execrable taste which to her meant comfort, while that
+timid and colorless lady embroidered strange tea cloths with stranger
+flora, and prattled about the heathen, in whom she had an academic
+interest.</p>
+
+<p>He said: "Ah, my dear! It's you?"</p>
+
+<p>Indisputably it was, and there seemed to be no use of denying it, so
+Miss Benham said nothing, but waited for the man to go on if he had more to
+say.</p>
+
+<p>"I dropped in," he continued, "to see my father, but they told me he was
+asleep, and so I didn't disturb him. I talked a little while with your
+mother instead."</p>
+
+<p>"I have just come from him," said Miss Benham. "He dozed off again as I
+left. Still, if you had anything in particular to tell him, he'd be glad to
+be wakened, I fancy. There's no news?"</p>
+
+<p>"No," said Captain Stewart, sadly--"no, nothing. I do not give up hope,
+but I am, I confess, a little discouraged."</p>
+
+<p>"We are all that, I should think," said Miss Benham, briefly.</p>
+
+<p>She gave him a little nod and turned away into the drawing-room. Her
+uncle's peculiar dry manner irritated <a name="Page_68"></a>her at times
+beyond bearing, and she felt that this was one of the times. She had never
+had any reason for doubting that he Was a good and kindly soul, but she
+disliked him because he bored her. Her mother bored her, too--the poor
+woman bored everybody--but the sense of filial obligation was strong enough
+in the girl to prevent her from acknowledging this even to herself. In
+regard to her uncle she had no sense of obligation whatever, except to be
+as civil to him as possible, and so she kept out of his way. She heard the
+heavy front door close, and gave a little sigh of relief.</p>
+
+<p>"If he had come in here and tried to talk to me," she said, "I should
+have screamed."</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<p>Meanwhile Ste. Marie, a man moving in a dream, uplifted,
+cloud-enwrapped, made his way homeward. He walked all the long
+distance--that is, looking backward upon it, later, he thought he must have
+walked, but the half-hour was a blank to him, an indeterminate, a chaotic
+whirl of things and emotions.</p>
+
+<p>In the little flat in the rue d'Assas he came upon Richard Hartley, who,
+having found the door unlocked and the master of the place absent, had sat
+comfortably down, with a pipe and a stack of <i>Couriers
+Fran&ccedil;ais</i>, to wait. Ste. Marie burst into the doorway of the room
+where his friend sat at ease. Hat, gloves, and stick fell away from him in
+a sort of shower. He extended his arms high in the air. His face was, as it
+were, luminous. The Englishman regarded him morosely. He said:</p>
+
+<p>"You look as if somebody had died and left you money. What the devil you
+looking like that for?"</p>
+
+<p>"H&eacute;!" cried Ste. Marie, in a great voice. "H&eacute;, the <a
+name="Page_69"></a>world is mine! Embrace me, my infant! Sacred name of a
+pig, why do you sit there? Embrace me!"</p>
+
+<p>He began to stride about the room, his head between his hands. Speech
+lofty and ridiculous burst from him in a sort of splutter of fireworks, but
+the Englishman sat still in his chair, and a gray, bleak look came upon
+him, for he began to understand. He was more or less used to these
+outbursts, and he bore them as patiently as he could, but though seven
+times out of the ten they were no more than spasms of pure joy of living,
+and meant, "It's a fine spring day," or "I've just seen two beautiful
+princesses of milliners in the street," an inner voice told him that this
+time it meant another thing. Quite suddenly he realized that he had been
+waiting for this--bracing himself against its onslaught. He had not been
+altogether blind through the past month. Ste. Marie seized him and dragged
+him from his chair.</p>
+
+<p>"Dance, lump of flesh! Dance, sacred English rosbif that you are! Sing,
+gros polisson! Sing!" Abruptly, as usual, the mania departed from him, but
+not the glory; his eyes shone bright and triumphant. "Ah, my old," said he,
+"I am near the stars at last. My feet are on the top rungs of the ladder.
+Tell me that you are glad!"</p>
+
+<p>The Englishman drew a long breath.</p>
+
+<p>"I take it," said he, "that means that you're--that she has accepted
+you, eh?" He held out his hand. He was a brave and honest man. Even in pain
+he was incapable of jealousy. He said: "I ought to want to murder you, but
+I don't. I congratulate you. You're an undeserving beggar, but so were the
+rest of us. It was an open field, and you've won quite honestly. My best
+wishes!"</p>
+
+<p>Then at last Ste. Marie understood, and in a flash the <a
+name="Page_70"></a>glory went out of his face. He cried: "Ah, mon cher ami!
+Pig that I am to forget. Pig! Pig! Animal!"</p>
+
+<p>The other man saw that tears had sprung to his eyes, and was horribly
+embarrassed to the very bottom of his good British soul.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes! Yes!" he said, gruffly. "Quite so, quite so! No consequence!" He
+dragged his hands away from Ste. Marie's grasp, stuck them in his pockets,
+and turned to the window beside which he had been sitting. It looked out
+over the sweet green peace of the Luxembourg Gardens, with their winding
+paths and their clumps of trees and shrubbery, their flaming flower-beds,
+their groups of weather-stained sculpture. A youth in laborer's corduroys
+and an unclean beret strolled along under the high palings; one arm was
+about the ample waist of a woman somewhat the youth's senior, but, as ever,
+love was blind. The youth carolled in a high, clear voice, "Vous &ecirc;tes
+si jolie," a song of abundant sentiment, and the woman put up one hand and
+patted his cheek. So they strolled on and turned up into the rue Vavin.</p>
+
+<p>Ste. Marie, across the room, looked at his friend's square back, and
+knew that in his silent way the man was suffering. A great sadness, the
+recoil from his trembling heights of bliss, came upon him and enveloped
+him. Was it true that one man's joy must inevitably be another's pain? He
+tried to imagine himself in Hartley's place, Hartley in his, and he gave a
+little shiver. He knew that if that bouleversement were actually to take
+place he would be as glad for his friend's sake as poor Hartley was now for
+his, but he knew also that the smile of congratulation would be a grimace
+of almost intolerable pain, and so he knew what Hartley's black hour must
+be like.</p>
+
+<p><a name="Page_71"></a>"You must forgive me," he said. "I had forgotten.
+I don't know why. Well, yes, happiness is a very selfish state of mind, I
+suppose. One thinks of nothing but one's self--and one other. I--during
+this past month I've been in the clouds. You must forgive me."</p>
+
+<p>The Englishman turned back into the room. Ste. Marie saw that his face
+was as completely devoid of expression as it usually was, that his hands,
+when he chose and lighted a cigarette, were quite steady, and he marvelled.
+That would have been impossible for him under such circumstances.</p>
+
+<p>"She has accepted you, I take it?" said Hartley again.</p>
+
+<p>"Not quite that," said he. "Sit down and I'll tell you about it." So he
+told him about his hour with Miss Benham, and about what had been agreed
+upon between them, and about what he had undertaken to do. "Apart from
+wishing to do everything in this world that I can do to make her happy," he
+said--"and she will never be at peace again until she knows the truth about
+her brother--apart from that, I'm purely selfish in the thing. I've got to
+win her respect, as well as--the rest. I want her to respect me, and she
+has never quite done that. I'm an idler. So are you, but you have a
+perfectly good excuse. I have not. I've been an idler because it suited me,
+because nothing turned up, and because I have enough to eat without working
+for my living. I know how she has felt about all that. Well, she shall feel
+it no longer."</p>
+
+<p>"You're taking on a big order," said the other man.</p>
+
+<p>"The bigger the better," said Ste. Marie. "And I shall succeed in it or
+never see her again. I've sworn that."</p>
+
+<p>The odd look of exaltation that Miss Benham had seen in his face, the
+look of knightly fervor, came there again, <a name="Page_72"></a>and
+Hartley saw it, and knew that the man was stirred by no transient whim.
+Oddly enough he thought, as had the girl earlier in the day, of those elder
+Ste. Maries, who had taken sword and lance and gone out into a strange
+world--a place of unknown terrors--afire for the Great Adventure. And this
+was one of their blood.</p>
+
+<p>"I'm afraid you don't realize," he went on, "the difficulties you've got
+to face. Better men than you have failed over this thing, you know."</p>
+
+<p>"A worse might nevertheless succeed," said Ste. Marie. And the other
+said:</p>
+
+<p>"Yes. Oh yes. And there's always luck to be considered, of course. You
+might stumble on some trace." He threw away his cigarette and lighted
+another, and he smoked it down almost to the end before he spoke. At last
+he said: "I want to tell you something. The reason why I want to tell it
+comes a little later. A few weeks before you returned to Paris I asked Miss
+Benham to marry me."</p>
+
+<p>Ste. Marie looked up with a quick sympathy. "Ah," said he. "I have
+sometimes thought--wondered. I have wondered if it went as far as that. Of
+course, I could see that you had known her well, though you seldom go there
+nowadays."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes," said Hartley, "it went as far as that, but no farther. She--well,
+she didn't care for me--not in that way. So I stiffened my back and shut my
+mouth, and got used to the fact that what I'd hoped for was impossible. And
+now comes the reason for telling you what I've told. I want you to let me
+help you in what you're going to do--if you think you can, that is.
+Remember, I--cared for her, too. I'd like to do something for her. It would
+never have occurred to me to do this until you thought of it, but I should
+<a name="Page_73"></a>like very much to lend a hand--do some of the work.
+D'you think you could let me in?"</p>
+
+<p>Ste. Marie stared at him in open astonishment, and, for an instant,
+something like dismay.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, yes! I know what you're thinking," said the Englishman. "You'd
+hoped to do it all yourself. It's <i>your</i> game. I know. Well, it's your
+game even if you let me come in. I'm just a helper. Some one to run
+errands. Some one, perhaps, to take counsel with now and then. Look at it
+on the practical side. Two heads are certainly better than one. Certainly I
+could be of use to you. And besides--well, I want to do something for her.
+I--cared, too, you see. D'you think you could take me in?"</p>
+
+<p>It was the man's love that made his appeal irresistible. No one could
+appeal to Ste. Marie on that score in vain. It was true that he had hoped
+to work alone--to win or lose alone; to stand, in this matter, quite on his
+own feet; but he could not deny the man who had loved her and lost her.
+Ste. Marie thrust out his hand.</p>
+
+<p>"You love her, too!" he said. "That is enough. We work together. I have
+a possibly foolish idea that if we can find a certain man we will learn
+something about Arthur Benham. I'll tell you about it."</p>
+
+<p>But before he could begin the door-bell jangled.</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+
+
+
+<a name="Page_74"></a><h2><a name='VII'></a>VII</h2>
+
+<h3>CAPTAIN STEWART MAKES A KINDLY OFFER</h3>
+
+
+<p>Ste. Marie scowled.</p>
+
+<p>"A caller would come singularly malapropos just now," said he. "I've
+half a mind not to go to the door. I want to talk this thing over with
+you."</p>
+
+<p>"Whoever it is," objected Hartley, "has been told by the concierge that
+you're at home. It may not be a caller, anyhow. It may be a parcel or
+something. You'd best go."</p>
+
+<p>So Ste. Marie went out into the little passage, blaspheming fluently the
+while. The Englishman heard him open the outer door of the flat. He heard
+him exclaim, in great surprise:</p>
+
+<p>"Ah, Captain Stewart! A great pleasure! Come in! Come in!"</p>
+
+<p>And he permitted himself a little blaspheming on his own account, for
+the visitor, as Ste. Marie had said, came most malapropos, and, besides, he
+disliked Miss Benham's uncle. He heard the American say:</p>
+
+<p>"I have been hoping for some weeks to give myself the pleasure of
+calling here, and to-day such an excellent pretext presented itself that I
+came straightaway."</p>
+
+<p>Hartley heard him emit his mewing little laugh, and heard him say, with
+the elephantine archness affected by certain dry and middle-aged
+gentlemen:</p>
+
+<p><a name="Page_75"></a>"I come with congratulations. My niece has told me
+all about it. Lucky young man! Ah--"</p>
+
+<p>He reached the door of the inner room and saw Richard Hartley standing
+by the window, and he began to apologize profusely, saying that he had had
+no idea that Ste. Marie was not alone. But Ste. Marie said:</p>
+
+<p>"It doesn't in the least matter. I have no secrets from Hartley. Indeed,
+I have just been talking with him about this very thing."</p>
+
+<p>But for all that he looked curiously at the elder man, and it struck him
+as very odd that Miss Benham should have gone straight to her uncle and
+told him all this. It did not seem in the least like her, especially as he
+knew the two were on no terms of intimacy. He decided that she must have
+gone up to her grandfather's room to discuss it with that old gentleman--a
+reasonable enough hypothesis--and that Captain Stewart must have come in
+during the discussion. Quite evidently he had wasted no time in setting out
+upon his errand of congratulation.</p>
+
+<p>"Then," said Captain Stewart, "if I am to be good-naturedly forgiven for
+my stupidity, let me go on and say, in my capacity as a member of the
+family, that the news pleased me very much. I was glad to hear it."</p>
+
+<p>He shook Ste. Marie's hand, looking very benignant indeed, and Ste.
+Marie was quite overcome with pleasure and gratitude; it seemed to him such
+a very kindly act in the elder man. He produced things to smoke and drink,
+and Captain Stewart accepted a cigarette and mixed himself a rather stiff
+glass of absinthe--it was between five and six o'clock.</p>
+
+<p>"And now," said he, when he was at ease in the most comfortable of the
+low cane chairs, and the glass of opalescent <a name="Page_76"></a>liquor
+was properly curdled and set at hand--"now, having congratulated you
+and--ah, welcomed you, if I may put it so, as a probable future member of
+the family--I turn to the other feature of the affair."</p>
+
+<p>He had an odd trick of lowering his head and gazing benevolently upon an
+auditor as if over the top of spectacles. It was one of his elderly ways.
+He beamed now upon Ste. Marie in this manner, and, after a moment, turned
+and beamed upon Richard Hartley, who gazed stolidly back at him without
+expression.</p>
+
+<p>"You have determined, I hear," said he, "to join us in our search for
+poor Arthur. Good! Good! I welcome you there, also."</p>
+
+<p>Ste. Marie stirred uneasily in his chair.</p>
+
+<p>"Well," said he, "in a sense, yes. That is, I've determined to devote
+myself to the search, and Hartley is good enough to offer to go in with me;
+but I think, if you don't mind--of course, I know it's very presumptuous
+and doubtless idiotic of us--but, if you don't mind, I think we'll work
+independently. You see--well, I can't quite put it into words, but it's our
+idea to succeed or fail quite by our own efforts. I dare say we shall fail,
+but it won't be for lack of trying."</p>
+
+<p>Captain Stewart looked disappointed.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, I think--" said he. "Pardon me for saying it, but I think you're
+rather foolish to do that." He waved an apologetic hand. "Of course, I
+comprehend your excellent motive. Yes, as you say, you want to succeed
+quite on your own. But look at the practical side! You'll have to go over
+all the weary weeks of useless labor we have gone over. We could save you
+that. We have examined and followed up, and at last given over, a hundred
+clews <a name="Page_77"></a>that on the surface looked quite possible of
+success. You'll be doing that all over again. In short, my dear friend, you
+will merely be following along a couple of months behind us. It seems to me
+a pity. I sha'n't like to see you wasting your time and efforts."</p>
+
+<p>He dropped his eyes to the glass of Pernod which stood beside him, and
+he took it in his hand and turned it slowly and watched the light gleam in
+strange pearl colors upon it. He glanced up again with a little smile which
+the two younger men found oddly pathetic.</p>
+
+<p>"I should like to see you succeed," said Captain Stewart. "I like to see
+youth and courage and high hope succeed." He said: "I am past the age of
+romance, though I am not so very old in years. Romance has passed me by,
+but--I love it still. It still stirs me surprisingly when I see it in other
+people--young people who are simple and earnest, and who--and who are in
+love." He laughed gently, still turning the glass in his hand. "I am afraid
+you will call me a sentimentalist," he said, "and an elderly sentimentalist
+is, as a rule, a ridiculous person. Ridiculous or not, though, I have
+rather set my heart on your success in this undertaking. Who knows? You may
+succeed where we others have failed. Youth has such a way of charging in
+and carrying all before it by assault--such a way of overleaping barriers
+that look unsurmountable to older eyes! Youth! Youth! Eh, my God," said he,
+"to be young again, just for a little while! To feel the blood beat strong
+and eager! Never to be tired! Eh, to be like one of you youngsters! You,
+Ste. Marie, or you, Hartley! There's so little left for people when youth
+is gone!"</p>
+
+<p>He bent his head again, staring down upon the glass before <a
+name="Page_78"></a>him, and for a while there was a silence which neither
+of the younger men cared to break.</p>
+
+<p>"Don't refuse a helping hand," said Captain Stewart, looking up once
+more. "Don't be over-proud. I may be able to set you upon the right path.
+Not that I have anything definite to work upon--I haven't, alas! But each
+day new clews turn up. One day we shall find the real one, and that may be
+one that I have turned over to you to follow out. One never knows."</p>
+
+<p>Ste. Marie looked across at Richard Hartley, but that gentleman was
+blowing smoke-rings and to all outward appearance giving them his entire
+attention. He looked back to Captain Stewart, and Stewart's eyes regarded
+him, smiling a little wistfully, he thought. Ste. Marie scowled out of the
+window at the trees of the Luxembourg Gardens.</p>
+
+<p>"I hardly know," said he. "Of course, I sound a braying ass in
+hesitating even a moment; but, in a way, you understand, I'm so anxious to
+do this or to fail in it quite on my own. You're--so tremendously kind
+about it that I don't know what to say. I must seem very ungrateful, I
+know; but I'm not."</p>
+
+<p>"No," said the elder man, "you don't seem ungrateful at all. I
+understand exactly how you feel about it, and I applaud your feeling--but
+not your judgment. I am afraid that for the sake of a sentiment you're
+taking unnecessary risks of failure."</p>
+
+<p>For the first time Richard Hartley spoke.</p>
+
+<p>"I've an idea, you know," said he, "that it's going to be a matter
+chiefly of luck. One day somebody will stumble on the right trail, and that
+might as well be Ste. Marie or I as your trained detectives. If you don't
+mind my saying <a name="Page_79"></a>so, sir--I don't want to seem
+rude--your trained detectives do not seem to accomplish much in two months,
+do they?"</p>
+
+<p>Captain Stewart looked thoughtfully at the younger man.</p>
+
+<p>"No," he said, at last. "I am sorry to say they don't seem to have
+accomplished much--except to prove that there are a great many places poor
+Arthur has <i>not</i> been to and a great many people who have <i>not</i>
+seen him. After all, that is something--the elimination of ground that need
+not be worked over again." He set down the glass from which he had been
+drinking. "I cannot agree with your theory," he said. "I cannot agree that
+such work as this is best left to an accidental solution. Accidents are too
+rare. We have tried to go at it in as scientific a way as could be
+managed--by covering large areas of territory, by keeping the police
+everywhere on the alert, by watching the boy's old friends and searching
+his favorite haunts. Personally, I am inclined to think that he managed to
+slip away to America very early in the course of events, before we began to
+search for him, and, of course, I am having a careful watch kept there as
+well as here. But no trace has appeared as yet--nothing at all trustworthy.
+Meanwhile, I continue to hope and to work, but I grow a little discouraged.
+In any case, though, we shall hear of him in three months more if he is
+alive."</p>
+
+<p>"Why three months?" asked Ste. Marie. "What do you mean by that?"</p>
+
+<p>"In three months," said Captain Stewart, "Arthur will be of age, and he
+can demand the money left him by his father. If he is alive he will turn up
+for that. I have thought, from the first, that he is merely hiding
+somewhere until this time should be past. He--you must know that he went
+away very angry, after a quarrel with his grandfather? <a
+name="Page_80"></a>My father is not a patient man. He may have been very
+harsh with the boy."</p>
+
+<p>"Ah, yes," said Hartley; "but no boy, however young or angry, would be
+foolish enough to risk an absolute break with the man who is going to leave
+him a large fortune. Young Benham must know that his grandfather would
+never forgive him for staying away all this time if he stayed away of his
+own accord. He must know that he'd be taking tremendous risks of being cut
+off altogether."</p>
+
+<p>"And besides," added Ste. Marie, "it is quite possible that your father,
+sir, may die at any time--any hour. And he's very angry at his grandson. He
+may have cut him off already."</p>
+
+<p>Captain Stewart's eyes sharpened suddenly, but he dropped them to the
+glass in his hand.</p>
+
+<p>"Have you any reason for thinking that?" he asked.</p>
+
+<p>"No," said Ste. Marie. "I beg your pardon. I shouldn't have said it.
+That is a matter which concerns your family alone. I forgot myself. The
+possibility occurred to me suddenly for the first time."</p>
+
+<p>But the elder man looked up at him with a smile.</p>
+
+<p>"Pray don't apologize," said he. "Surely we three can speak frankly
+together! And, frankly, I know nothing of my father's will. But I don't
+think he would cut poor Arthur off, though he is, of course, very angry
+about the boy's leaving in the manner he did. No, I am sure he wouldn't cut
+him off. He was fond of the lad, very fond--as we all were."</p>
+
+<p>Captain Stewart glanced at his watch and rose with a little sigh.</p>
+
+<p>"I must be off," said he. "I have to dine out this evening, and I must
+get home to change. There is a cabstand <a name="Page_81"></a>near you?" He
+looked out of the window. "Ah, yes! Just at the corner of the Gardens."</p>
+
+<p>He turned about to Ste. Marie, and held out his hand with a smile. He
+said:</p>
+
+<p>"You refuse to join forces with us, then? Well, I'm sorry. But, for all
+that, I wish you luck. Go your own way, and I hope you'll succeed. I
+honestly hope that, even though your success may show me up for an
+incompetent bungler."</p>
+
+<p>He gave a little kindly laugh, and Ste. Marie tried to protest.</p>
+
+<p>"Still," said the elder man, "don't throw me over altogether. If I can
+help you in any way, little or big, let me know. If I can give you any
+hints, any advice, anything at all, I want to do it. And if you happen upon
+what seems to be a promising clew come and talk it over with me. Oh, don't
+be afraid! I'll leave it to you to work out. I sha'n't spoil your
+game."</p>
+
+<p>"Ah, now, that's very good of you," said Ste. Marie. "Only you make me
+seem more than ever an ungrateful fool. Thanks, I will come to you with my
+troubles if I may. I have a foolish idea that I want to follow out a little
+first, but doubtless I shall be running to you soon for information."</p>
+
+<p>The elder man's eyes sharpened again with keen interest.</p>
+
+<p>"An idea!" he said, quickly. "You have an idea? What--May I ask what
+sort of an idea?"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, it's nothing," declared Ste. Marie. "You have already laughed at
+it. I just want to find that man O'Hara, that's all. I've a feeling that I
+should learn something from him."</p>
+
+<p><a name="Page_82"></a>"Ah!" said Captain Stewart, slowly. "Yes, the man
+O'Hara. There's nothing in that, I'm afraid. I've made inquiries about
+O'Hara. It seems he left Paris six months ago, saying he was off for
+America. An old friend of his told me that. So you must have been mistaken
+when you thought you saw him in the Champs-Elys&eacute;es; and he couldn't
+very well have had anything to do with poor Arthur. I'm afraid that idea is
+hardly worth following up."</p>
+
+<p>"Perhaps not," said Ste. Marie. "I seem to start badly, don't I? Ah,
+well, I'll have to come to you all the sooner, then."</p>
+
+<p>"You'll be welcome," promised Captain Stewart. "Good-bye to you!
+Good-day, Hartley. Come and see me, both of you. You know where I
+live."</p>
+
+<p>He took his leave then, and Hartley, standing beside the window, watched
+him turn down the street, and at the corner get into one of the fiacres
+there and drive away.</p>
+
+<p>Ste. Marie laughed aloud.</p>
+
+<p>"There's the second time," said he, "that I've had him about O'Hara. If
+he is as careless as that about everything, I don't wonder he hasn't found
+Arthur Benham. O'Hara disappeared from Paris--publicly, that is--at about
+the time young Benham disappeared. As a matter of fact, he remains, or at
+least for a time remained, in the city without letting his friends know,
+because I made no mistake about seeing him in the Champs-Elys&eacute;es.
+All that looks to me suspicious enough to be worth investigation. Of
+course," he admitted, doubtfully--"of course, I'm no detective; but that's
+how it looks to me."</p>
+
+<p>"I don't believe Stewart is any detective, either," said Richard
+Hartley. "He's altogether too cocksure. That sort of man would rather die
+than admit he is wrong about <a name="Page_83"></a>anything. He's a good
+old chap, though, isn't he? I liked him to-day better than ever before. I
+thought he was rather pathetic when he went on about his age."</p>
+
+<p>"He has a good heart," said Ste. Marie. "Very few men under the
+circumstances would come here and be as decent as he was. Most men would
+have thought I was a presumptuous ass, and would have behaved
+accordingly."</p>
+
+<p>Ste. Marie took a turn about the room, and his face began to light up
+with its new excitement and exaltation.</p>
+
+<p>"And to-morrow!" he cried--"to-morrow we begin! To-morrow we set out
+into the world and the Adventure is on foot! God send it success!"</p>
+
+<p>He laughed across at the other man; but it was a laugh of eagerness, not
+of mirth.</p>
+
+<p>"I feel," said he, "like Jason. I feel as if we were to set sail
+to-morrow for Colchis and the Golden Fleece."</p>
+
+<p>"Y-e-s," said the other man, a little dryly--"yes, perhaps. I don't want
+to seem critical, but isn't your figure somewhat ill chosen?"</p>
+
+<p>"'Ill chosen'?" cried Ste. Marie. "What d'you mean? Why ill chosen?"</p>
+
+<p>"I was thinking of Medea," said Richard Hartley.</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+
+
+<a name="Page_84"></a><h2><a name='VIII'></a>VIII</h2>
+
+<h3>JASON MEETS WITH A MISADVENTURE AND DREAMS A DREAM</h3>
+
+
+<p>So on the next day these two rode forth upon their quest, and no quest
+was ever undertaken with a stouter courage or with a grimmer determination
+to succeed. To put it fancifully, they burned their tower behind them, for
+to one of them, at least--to him who led--there was no going back.</p>
+
+<p>But, after all, they set forth under a cloud, and Ste. Marie took a
+heavy heart with him. On the evening before an odd and painful incident had
+befallen--a singularly unfortunate incident.</p>
+
+<p>It chanced that neither of the two men had a dinner engagement that
+evening, and so, after their old habit, they dined together. There was some
+wrangling over where they should go, Hartley insisting upon Armenonville or
+the Madrid, in the Bois, Ste. Marie objecting that these would be full of
+tourists so late in June, and urging the claims of some quiet place in the
+Quarter, where they could talk instead of listening perforce to loud music.
+In the end, for no particular reason, they compromised on the little
+Spanish restaurant in the rue Helder. They went there about eight o'clock,
+without dressing, for it is a very quiet place which the world does not
+visit, and they had a sopa de yerbas, and some langostinos, which are
+shrimps, and a <a name="Page_85"></a>heavenly arroz, with fowl in it, and
+many tender, succulent strips of red pepper. They had a salad made out of a
+little of everything that grows green, with the true Spanish oil, which has
+a tang and a bouquet unappreciated by the Philistine; and then they had a
+strange pastry and some cheese and green almonds. And to make then glad,
+they drank a bottle of old red Valdepenas, and afterward a glass each of a
+special Manzanilla, upon which the restaurant very justly prides
+itself.</p>
+
+<p>It was a simple dinner and a little stodgy for that time of the year,
+but the two men were hungry and sat at table, almost alone in the upper
+room, for a long time, saying how good everything was, and from time to
+time despatching the saturnine waiter, a Madrileno, for more peppers. When
+at last they came out into the narrow street, and thence to the thronged
+Boulevard des Italiens, it was nearly eleven o'clock. They stood for a
+little time in the shelter of a kiosk, looking down the boulevard to where
+the Place de l'Op&eacute;ra opened wide and the lights of the Caf&eacute;
+de la Paix shone garish in the night. And Ste. Marie said:</p>
+
+<p>"There's a street f&ecirc;te in Montmartre. We might drive home that
+way."</p>
+
+<p>"An excellent idea," said the other man. "The fact that Montmartre lies
+in an opposite direction from home makes the plan all the better. And after
+that we might drive home through the Bois. That's much farther in the wrong
+direction. Lead on!"</p>
+
+<p>So they sprang into a waiting fiacre, and were dragged up the steep,
+stone-paved hill to the heights, where La Boh&ecirc;me still reigns, though
+the glory of Moulin Rouge has departed and the trail of the tourist is over
+all. They found Montmartre very much en f&ecirc;te. In the Place Blanche
+were two <a name="Page_86"></a>of the enormous and brilliantly lighted
+merry-go-rounds, which only Paris knows--one furnished with stolid cattle,
+theatrical-looking horses, and Russian sleighs; the other with the
+ever-popular galloping pigs. When these dreadful machines were in rotation,
+mechanical organs, concealed somewhere in their bowels, emitted hideous
+brays and shrieks which mingled with the shrieks of the ladies mounted upon
+the galloping pigs, and together insulted a peaceful sky.</p>
+
+<p>The square was filled with that extremely heterogeneous throng which the
+Parisian street f&ecirc;te gathers together, but it was, for the most part,
+a well-dressed throng, largely recruited from the boulevards, and it was
+quite determined to have a very good time in the cheerful, harmless Latin
+fashion. The two men got down from their fiacre and elbowed a way through
+the good-natured crowd to a place near the more popular of the
+merry-go-rounds. The machine was in rotation. Its garish lights shone and
+glittered, its hidden mechanical organ blared a German waltz tune, the
+huge, pink-varnished pigs galloped gravely up and down as the platform upon
+which they were mounted whirled round and round. A little group of American
+trippers, sight-seeing with a guide, stood near by, and one of the group, a
+pretty girl with red hair, demanded plaintively of the friend upon whose
+arm she hung: "Do you think momma would be shocked if we took a ride?
+Wouldn't I love to!"</p>
+
+<p>Hartley turned, laughing, from this distressed maiden to Ste. Marie. He
+was wondering, with mild amusement, why anybody should wish to do such a
+foolish thing; but Ste. Marie's eyes were fixed upon the galloping pigs,
+and the eyes shone with a wistful excitement. To tell the truth, <a
+name="Page_87"></a>it was impossible for him to look on at any form of
+active amusement without thirsting to join it. A joyous and carefree lady
+in a blue hat, who was mounted astride upon one of the pigs, hurled a paper
+serpentine at him and shrieked with delight when it knocked his hat
+off.</p>
+
+<p>"That's the second time she has hit me with one of those things," he
+said, groping about his feet for the hat. "Here, stop that boy with the
+basket!"</p>
+
+<p>A vendor of the little rolls of paper ribbon was shouting his wares
+through the crowd. Ste. Marie filled his pockets with the things, and when
+the lady with the blue hat came round, on the next turn, lassoed her neatly
+about the neck and held the end of the ribbon till it broke. Then he caught
+a fat gentleman, who was holding himself on by his steed's neck, in the
+ear, and the red-haired American girl laughed aloud.</p>
+
+<p>"When the thing stops," said Ste. Marie, "I'm going to take a ride--just
+one ride. I haven't ridden a pig for many years."</p>
+
+<p>Hartley jeered at him, calling him an infant, but Ste. Marie bought more
+serpentines, and when the platform came to a stop clambered up to it and
+mounted the only unoccupied pig he could find. His friend still scoffed at
+him and called him names, but Ste. Marie tucked his long legs round the
+pig's neck and smiled back, and presently the machine began again to
+revolve.</p>
+
+<p>At the end of the first revolution Hartley gave a shout of delight, for
+he saw that the lady with the blue hat had left her mount and was making
+her way along the platform toward where Ste. Marie sat hurling serpentines
+in the face of the world. By the next time round she had come to where he
+was, mounted astride behind him, and <a name="Page_88"></a>was holding
+herself with one very shapely arm round his neck, while with the other she
+rifled his pockets for ammunition. Ste. Marie grinned, and the public, loud
+in its acclaims, began to pelt the two with serpentines until they were
+hung with many-colored ribbons like a Christmas-tree. Even Richard Hartley
+was so far moved out of the self-consciousness with which his race is
+cursed as to buy a handful of the common missiles, and the lady in the blue
+hat returned his attention with skill and despatch.</p>
+
+<p>But as the machine began to slacken its pace, and the hideous wail and
+blare of the concealed organ died mercifully down, Hartley saw that his
+friend's manner had all at once altered, that he sat leaning forward away
+from the enthusiastic lady with the blue hat, and that the paper
+serpentines had dropped from his hands. Hartley thought that the rapid
+motion must have made him a little giddy, but presently, before the
+merry-go-round had quite stopped, he saw the man leap down and hurry toward
+him through the crowd. Ste. Marie's face was grave and pale. He caught
+Hartley's arm in his hand and turned him round, crying, in a low voice:</p>
+
+<p>"Come out of this as quickly as you can! No, in the other direction. I
+want to get away at once!"</p>
+
+<p>"What's the matter?" Hartley demanded. "Lady in the blue hat too
+friendly? Well, if you're going to play this kind of game you might as well
+play it."</p>
+
+<p>"Helen Benham was down there in the crowd," said Ste. Marie. "On the
+opposite side from you. She was with a party of people who got out of two
+motor-cars to look on. They were in evening things, so they had come from
+dinner somewhere, I suppose. She saw me."</p>
+
+<p>"The devil!" said Hartley, under his breath. Then he <a
+name="Page_89"></a>gave a shout of laughter, demanding: "Well, what of it?
+You weren't committing any crime, were you? There's no harm in riding a
+silly pig in a silly merry-go-round. Everybody does it in these f&ecirc;te
+things." But even as he spoke he knew how extremely unfortunate the meeting
+was, and the laughter went out of his voice.</p>
+
+<p>"I'm afraid," said Ste. Marie, "she won't see the humor of it. Good God,
+what a thing to happen! <i>You</i> know well enough what she'll think of
+me. At five o'clock this afternoon," he said, bitterly, "I left her with a
+great many fine, high-sounding words about the quest I was to give my days
+and nights to--for her sake. I went away from her like a--knight going into
+battle--consecrated. I tell you, there were tears in her eyes when I went.
+And <i>now</i>--now, at midnight--she sees me riding a galloping pig in a
+street f&ecirc;te with a girl from the boulevards sitting on the pig with
+me and holding me round the neck before a thousand people. What will she
+think of me? What but one thing can she possibly think? Oh, I know well
+enough! I saw her face before she turned away. And," he cried, "I can't
+even go to her and explain--if there's anything to explain, and I suppose
+there is not. I can't even go to her. I've sworn not to see her."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, I'll do that," said the other man. "I'll explain it to her, if any
+explanation's necessary. I think you'll find that she will laugh at
+it."</p>
+
+<p>But Ste. Marie shook his head.</p>
+
+<p>"No, she won't," said he.</p>
+
+<p>And Hartley could say no more; for he knew Miss Benham, and he was very
+much afraid that she would not laugh.</p>
+
+<p>They found a fiacre at the side of the square and drove <a
+name="Page_90"></a>home at once. They were almost entirely silent all the
+long way, for Ste. Marie was buried in gloom, and the Englishman, after
+trying once or twice to cheer him up, realized that he was best left to
+himself just then, and so held his tongue. But in the rue d'Assas, as Ste.
+Marie was getting down--Hartley kept the fiacre to go on to his rooms in
+the Avenue de l'Observatoire--he made a last attempt to lighten the man's
+depression. He said:</p>
+
+<p>"Don't you be a silly ass about this! You're making much too much of it,
+you know. I'll go to her to-morrow or next day and explain, and she'll
+laugh---if she hasn't already done so. You know," he said, almost believing
+it himself, "you are paying her a dashed poor compliment in thinking she's
+so dull as to misunderstand a little thing of this kind. Yes, by Jove, you
+are!"</p>
+
+<p>Ste. Marie looked up at him, and his face, in the light of the cab lamp,
+showed a first faint gleam of hope.</p>
+
+<p>"Do you think so?" he demanded. "Do you really think that? Maybe I am.
+But--Oh, Lord, who would understand such an idiocy? Sacred imbecile that I
+am! Why was I ever born? I ask you."</p>
+
+<p>He turned abruptly, and began to ring at the door, casting a brief
+"Good-night" over his shoulder. And after a moment Hartley gave it up and
+drove away.</p>
+
+<p>Above, in the long, shallow front room of his flat, with the three
+windows overlooking the Gardens, Ste. Marie made lights, and after much
+rummaging unearthed a box of cigarettes of a peculiarly delectable flavor
+which had been sent him by a friend in the Khedivial household. He allowed
+himself one or two of them now and then, usually in sorrowful moments, as
+an especial treat; and this seemed to him to be the moment for smoking all
+that were <a name="Page_91"></a>left. Surely his need had never been
+greater. In England he had, of course, learned to smoke a pipe, but
+pipe-smoking always remained with him a species of accomplishment; it never
+brought him the deep and ruminative peace with which it enfolds the
+Anglo-Saxon heart. The "vieux Jacob" of old-fashioned Parisian Bohemia
+inspired in him unconcealed horror, of cigars he was suspicious because, he
+said, most of the unpleasant people he knew smoked cigars, so he soothed
+his soul with cigarettes, and he was usually to be found with one between
+his fingers.</p>
+
+<p>He lighted one of the precious Egyptians, and after a first ecstatic
+inhalation went across to one of the long windows, which was open, and
+stood there with his back to the room, his face to the peaceful, fragrant
+night. A sudden recollection came to him of that other night a month before
+when he had stood on the Pont des Invalides with his eyes upon the stars,
+his feet upon the ladder thereunto. His heart gave a sudden exultant leap
+within him when he thought how far and high he had climbed, but after the
+leap it shivered and stood still when this evening's misadventure came
+before him.</p>
+
+<p>Would she ever understand? He had no fear that Hartley would not do his
+best with her. Hartley was as honest and as faithful as ever a friend was
+in this world. He would do his best. But even then--It was the girl's
+inflexible nature that made the matter so dangerous. He knew that she was
+inflexible, and he took a curious pride in it. He admired it. So must have
+been those calm-eyed, ancient ladies for whom other Ste. Maries went out to
+do battle. It was well-nigh impossible to imagine them lowering their eyes
+to silly revelry. They could not stoop to such as that. It was beneath
+their high dignity. And <a name="Page_92"></a>it was beneath hers also. As
+for himself, he was a thing of patches. Here a patch of exalted chivalry--a
+noble patch--there a patch of bourgeois, childlike love of fun; here a
+patch of melancholic asceticism, there one of something quite the reverse.
+A hopeless patchwork he was. Must she not shrink from him when she knew? He
+could not quite imagine her understanding the wholly trivial and
+meaningless impulse that had prompted him to ride a galloping pig and cast
+paper serpentines at the assembled world.</p>
+
+<p>Apart from her view of the affair, he felt no shame in it. The moment of
+childish gayety had been but a passing mood. It had in no way slackened his
+tense enthusiasm, dulled the keenness of his spirit, lowered his high
+flight. He knew that well enough. But he wondered if she would understand,
+and he could not believe it possible. The mood of exaltation in which they
+had parted that afternoon came to him, and then the sight of her shocked
+face as he had seen it in the laughing crowd in the Place Blanche.</p>
+
+<p>"What must she think of me?" he cried, aloud. "What must she think of
+me?"</p>
+
+<p>So, for an hour or more, he stood in the open window staring into the
+fragrant night, or tramped up and down the long room, his hands behind his
+back, kicking out of his way the chairs and things which impeded him,
+torturing himself with fears and regrets and fancies, until at last, in a
+calmer moment, he realized that he was working himself up into an absurd
+state of nerves over something which was done and could not now be helped.
+The man had an odd streak of fatalism in his nature--that will have come of
+his Southern blood--and it came to him now in his need. For the work upon
+which he was to enter with the <a name="Page_93"></a>morrow he had need of
+clear wits, not scattered ones; a calm judgment, not disordered nerves. So
+he took himself in hand, and it would have been amazing to any one
+unfamiliar with the abrupt changes of the Latin temperament to see how
+suddenly Ste. Marie became quiet and cool and master of himself.</p>
+
+<p>"It is done," he said, with a little shrug, and if his face was for a
+moment bitter it quickly enough became impassive. "It is done, and it
+cannot be undone--unless Hartley can undo it. And now, revenons &agrave;
+nos moutons! Or, at least," said he, looking at his watch--and it was
+between one and two--"at least, to our beds!"</p>
+
+<p>So he went to bed, and, so well had he recovered from his fit of
+excitement, he fell asleep almost at once. But for all that the jangled
+nerves had their revenge. He who commonly slept like the dead, without the
+slightest disturbance, dreamed a strange dream. It seemed to him that he
+stood spent and weary in a twilight place--a waste place at the foot of a
+high hill. At the top of the hill She sat upon a sort of throne, golden in
+a beam of light from heaven--serene, very beautiful, the end and crown of
+his weary labors. His feet were set to the ascent of the height whereon she
+waited, but he was withheld. From the shadows at the hill's foot a voice
+called to him in distress, anguish of spirit--a voice he knew; but he could
+not say whose voice. It besought him out of utter need, and he could not
+turn away from it.</p>
+
+<p>Then from those shadows eyes looked upon him, very great and dark eyes,
+and they besought him, too; he did not know what they asked, but they
+called to him like the low voice, and he could not turn away.</p>
+
+<p>He looked to the far height, and with all his power he <a
+name="Page_94"></a>strove to set his feet toward it--the goal of long labor
+and desire; but the eyes and the piteous voice held him motionless--for
+they needed him.</p>
+
+<p>From this anguish he awoke trembling. And after a long time, when he was
+composed, he fell asleep once more, and once more he dreamed the dream.</p>
+
+<p>So morning found him pallid and unrefreshed. But by daylight he knew
+whose eyes had besought him, and he wondered and was a little afraid.</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+
+
+
+<a name="Page_95"></a><h2><a name='IX'></a>IX</h2>
+
+<h3>JASON GOES UPON A JOURNEY, AND RICHARD HARTLEY PLEADS FOR HIM</h3>
+
+
+<p>It may as well be admitted at the outset that neither Ste. Marie nor
+Richard Hartley proved themselves to be geniuses, hitherto undeveloped, in
+the detective science. They entered upon their self-appointed task with a
+fine fervor, but, as Miss Benham had suggested, with no other
+qualifications in particular. Ste. Marie had a theory that, when engaged in
+work of this nature, you went into questionable parts of the city, ate and
+drank cheek by jowl with questionable people--if possible, got them drunk
+while you remained sober (difficult feat), and sooner or later they said
+things which put you on the right road to your goal, or else confessed to
+you that they themselves had committed the particular crime in which you
+were interested. He argued that this was the way it happened in books, and
+that surely people didn't write books about things of which they were
+ignorant.</p>
+
+<p>Hartley, on the other hand, preferred the newer, or scientific, methods.
+You sat at home with a pipe and a whiskey-and-water--if possible, in a long
+dressing-gown with a cord round its middle. You reviewed all the known
+facts of the case, and you did mathematics about them with Xs and Ys and
+many other symbols, and in the end, by a system of <a
+name="Page_96"></a>elimination, you proved that a certain thing must
+infallibly be true. The chief difficulty for him in this was, he said, that
+he had been at Oxford instead of at Cambridge, and so the mathematics were
+rather beyond him.</p>
+
+<p>In practice, however, they combined the two methods, which was doubtless
+as well as if they hadn't, because for some time they accomplished nothing
+whatever, and so neither one was able to sneer at the other's
+stupidity.</p>
+
+<p>This is not to say that they found nothing in the way of clews. They
+found an embarrassment of them, and for some days went about in a fever of
+excitement over these; but the fever cooled when clew after clew turned out
+to be misleading. Of course, Ste. Marie's first efforts were directed
+toward tracing the movements of the Irishman O'Hara, but the efforts were
+altogether unavailing. The man seemed to have disappeared as noiselessly
+and completely as had young Arthur Benham himself. He was unable even to
+settle with any definiteness the time of the man's departure from Paris.
+Some of O'Hara's old acquaintances maintained that they had seen the last
+of him two months before, but a shifty-eyed person in rather cheaply smart
+clothes came up to Ste. Marie one evening in Maxim's and said he had heard
+that Ste. Marie was making inquiries about M. O'Hara. Ste. Marie said he
+was, and that it was an affair of money; whereupon the cheaply smart
+individual declared that M. O'Hara had left Paris six months before to go
+to the United States of America, and that he had had a picture postal-card
+from him, some weeks since, from New York. The informant accepted an
+expensive cigar and a Dubonnet by way of reward, but presently departed
+into the night, and Ste. Marie was left in some discouragement, his theory
+badly damaged.</p>
+
+<p><a name="Page_97"></a>He spoke of this encounter to Richard Hartley, who
+came on later to join him, and Hartley, after an interval of silence and
+smoke, said: "That was a lie! The man lied!"</p>
+
+<p>"Name of a dog, why?" demanded Ste. Marie; but the Englishman shrugged
+his shoulders.</p>
+
+<p>"I don't know," he said. "But I believe it was a lie. The man came to
+you--sought you out to tell his story, didn't he? And all the others have
+given a different date? Well, there you are! For some reason, this man or
+some one behind him--O'Hara himself, probably--wants you to believe that
+O'Hara is in America. I dare say he's in Paris all the while."</p>
+
+<p>"I hope you're right," said the other. "And I mean to make sure, too. It
+certainly was odd, this strange being hunting me out to tell me that. I
+wonder, by-the-way, how he knew I'd been making inquiries about O'Hara.
+I've questioned only two or three people, and then in the most casual way.
+Yes, it's odd."</p>
+
+<p>It was about a week after this--a fruitless week, full of the alternate
+brightness of hope and the gloom of disappointment--that he met Captain
+Stewart, to whom he had been, more than once, on the point of appealing. He
+happened upon him quite by chance one morning in the rue Royale. Captain
+Stewart was coming out of a shop, a very smart-looking shop, devoted, as
+Ste. Marie, with some surprise and much amusement, observed, to ladies'
+hats, and the price of hats must have depressed him, for he looked in an
+ill humor, and older and more yellow than usual. But his face altered
+suddenly when he saw the younger man, and he stopped and shook Ste. Marie's
+hand with every evidence of pleasure.</p>
+
+<p>"Well met! Well met!" he exclaimed. "If you are not <a
+name="Page_98"></a>in a hurry, come and sit down somewhere and tell me
+about yourself."</p>
+
+<p>They picked their way across the street to the terrace of the Taverne
+Royale, which was almost deserted at that hour, and sat down at one of the
+little tables, well back from the pavement, in a corner.</p>
+
+<p>"Is it fair," queried Captain Stewart--"is it fair, as a rival
+investigator, to ask you what success you have had?"</p>
+
+<p>Ste. Marie laughed rather ruefully, and confessed that he had as yet no
+success at all.</p>
+
+<p>"I've just come," said he, "from pricking one bubble that promised well,
+and Hartley is up in Montmartre destroying another, I fancy. Oh, well, we
+didn't expect it to be child's play."</p>
+
+<p>Captain Stewart raised his little glass of dry vermouth in an
+old-fashioned salute and drank it.</p>
+
+<p>"You," said he--"you were--ah, full of some idea of connecting this man,
+this Irishman O'Hara, with poor Arthur's disappearance. You've found that
+not so promising as you went on, I take it."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, I've been unable to trace O'Hara," said Ste. Marie. "He seems to
+have disappeared as completely as your nephew. I suppose you have no clews
+to spare? I confess I'm out of them at the moment."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, I have plenty," said the elder man. "A hundred. More than I can
+possibly look after." He gave a little chuckling laugh. "I've been waiting
+for you to come to me," he said. "It was a little ungenerous, perhaps, but
+we all love to say, 'I told you so.' Yes, I have a great quantity of clews,
+and of course they all seem to be of the greatest and most exciting
+importance. That's a way clews have."</p>
+
+<p><a name="Page_99"></a>He took an envelope from an inner pocket of his
+coat, and sorted several folded papers which were in it.</p>
+
+<p>"I have here," said he, "memoranda of two--chances, shall I call
+them?--which seem to me very good, though, as I have already said, every
+clew seems good. That is the maddening, the heart-breaking, part of such an
+investigation. I have made these brief notes from letters received, one
+yesterday, one the day before, from an agent of mine who has been searching
+the bains de mer of the north coast. This agent writes that some one very
+much resembling poor Arthur has been seen at Dinard and also at Deauville,
+and he urges me to come there or to send a man there at once to look into
+the matter. You will ask, of course, why this agent himself does not pursue
+the clew he has found. Unfortunately, he has been called to London upon
+some pressing family matter of his own; he is an Englishman."</p>
+
+<p>"Why haven't you gone yourself?" asked Ste. Marie.</p>
+
+<p>But the elder man shrugged his shoulders and smiled a tired, deprecatory
+smile.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, my friend," said he, "if I should attempt personally to investigate
+one-half of these things, I should be compelled to divide myself into
+twenty parts. No, I must stay here. There must be, alas! the spider at the
+centre of the web. I cannot go; but if you think it worth while, I will
+gladly turn over the memoranda of these last clews to you. They may be the
+true clews, they may not. At any rate, some one must look into them. Why
+not you and your partner--or shall I say assistant?"</p>
+
+<p>"Why, thank you!" cried Ste. Marie. "A thousand thanks! Of course, I
+shall be--we shall be glad to try this chance. On the face of it, it sounds
+very reasonable. <a name="Page_100"></a>Your nephew, from what I remember
+of him, is much more apt to be in some place that is amusing, some place of
+gayety, than hiding away where it is merely dull, if he has his choice in
+the matter--that is, if he is free. And yet--" He turned and frowned
+thoughtfully at the elder man. "What I want to know," said he, "is how the
+boy is supporting himself all this time? You say he had no money, or very
+little, when he went away. How is he managing to live if your theory is
+correct--that he is staying away of his own accord? It costs a lot of money
+to live as he likes to live."</p>
+
+<p>Captain Stewart nodded.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, that," said he--"that is a question I have often proposed to
+myself. Frankly, it's beyond me. I can only surmise that poor Arthur, who
+had scattered a small fortune about in foolish loans, managed, before he
+actually disappeared (mind you, we didn't begin to look for him until a
+week had gone by)--managed to collect some of this money, and so went away
+with something in pocket. That, of course, is only a guess."</p>
+
+<p>"It is possible," said Ste. Marie, doubtfully, "but--I don't know. It is
+not very easy to raise money from the sort of people I imagine your nephew
+to have lent it to. They borrow, but they don't repay." He glanced up with
+a half-laughing, half-defiant air. "I can't," said he, "rid myself of a
+belief that the boy is here in Paris, and that he is not free to come or
+go. It's only a feeling, but it is very strong in me. Of course, I shall
+follow out these clews you've been so kind as to give me. I shall go to
+Dinard and Deauville, and Hartley, I imagine, will go with me, but I
+haven't great confidence in them."</p>
+
+<p>Captain Stewart regarded him reflectively for a time, and in the end he
+smiled.</p>
+
+<p><a name="Page_101"></a>"If you will pardon my saying it," he said, "your
+attitude is just a little womanlike. You put away reason for something
+vaguely intuitive. I always distrust intuition myself."</p>
+
+<p>Ste. Marie frowned a little and looked uncomfortable. He did not relish
+being called womanlike--few men do; but he was bound to admit that the
+elder man's criticism was more or less just.</p>
+
+<p>"Moreover," pursued Captain Stewart, "you altogether ignore the point of
+motive--as I may have suggested to you before. There could be no possible
+motive, so far as I am aware, for kidnapping or detaining, or in any way
+harming, my nephew except the desire for money; but, as you know, he had no
+large sum of money with him, and no demand has been made upon us since his
+disappearance. I'm afraid you can't get round that."</p>
+
+<p>"No," said Ste. Marie, "I'm afraid I can't. Indeed, leaving that
+aside--and it can't be left aside--I still have almost nothing with which
+to prop up my theory. I told you it was only a feeling."</p>
+
+<p>He took up the memoranda which Captain Stewart had laid upon the
+marble-topped table between them, and read the notes through.</p>
+
+<p>"Please," said he, "don't think I am ungrateful for this chance. I am
+not. I shall do my best with it, and I hope it may turn out to be
+important." He gave a little wry smile. "I have all sorts of reasons," he
+said, "for wishing to succeed as soon as possible. You may be sure that
+there won't be any delays on my part. And now I must be going on. I am to
+meet Hartley for lunch on the other side of the river, and, if we can
+manage it, I should like to start north this afternoon or evening."</p>
+
+<p><a name="Page_102"></a>"Good!" said Captain Stewart, smiling. "Good!
+That is what I call true promptness. You lose no time at all. Go to Dinard
+and Deauville, by all means, and look into this thing thoroughly. Don't be
+discouraged if you meet with ill success at first. Take Mr. Hartley with
+you, and do your best."</p>
+
+<p>He paid for the two glasses of ap&eacute;ritif, and Ste. Marie could not
+help observing that he left on the table a very small tip. The waiter
+cursed him audibly as the two walked away.</p>
+
+<p>"If you have returned by a week from to-morrow," he said, as they shook
+hands, "I should like to have you keep that evening--Thursday--for me. I am
+having a very informal little party in my rooms. There will be two or three
+of the opera people there, and they will sing for us, and the others will
+be amusing enough. All young--all young. I like young people about me." He
+gave his odd little mewing chuckle. "And the ladies must be beautiful as
+well as young. Come if you are here! I'll drop a line to Mr. Hartley
+also."</p>
+
+<p>He shook Ste. Marie's hand, and went away down the street toward the rue
+du Faubourg St. Honor&eacute; where he lived.</p>
+
+<p>Ste. Marie met Hartley as he expected to do, at lunch, and they talked
+over the possibilities of the Dinard and Deauville expedition. In the end
+they decided that Ste. Marie should go alone, but that he was to telegraph,
+later on, if the clew looked promising. Hartley had two or three
+investigations on foot in Paris, and stayed on to complete these. Also he
+wished, as soon as possible, to see Helen Benham and explain Ste. Marie's
+ride on the galloping pigs. Ten days had elapsed since that evening, but
+Miss <a name="Page_103"></a>Benham had gone into the country the next day
+to make a visit at the De Saulnes' ch&acirc;teau on the Oise.</p>
+
+<p>So Ste. Marie packed a portmanteau with clothes and things, and departed
+by a mid-afternoon train to Dinard, and toward five Richard Hartley walked
+down to the rue de I'Universit&eacute;. He thought it just possible that
+Miss Benham might by now have returned to town, but if not he meant to have
+half an hour's chat with old David Stewart, whom he had not seen for some
+weeks.</p>
+
+<p>At the door he learned that mademoiselle was that very day returned and
+was at home. So he went in to the drawing-room, reserving his visit to old
+David until later. He found the room divided into two camps. At one side
+Mrs. Benham conversed in melancholic monotones with two elderly French
+ladies who were clad in depressing black of a dowdiness surpassed only in
+English provincial towns. It was as if the three mourned together over the
+remains of some dear one who lay dead among them. Hartley bowed low, with
+an uncontrollable shiver, and turned to the tea-table, where Miss Benham
+sat in the seat of authority, flanked by a young American lady whom he had
+met before, and by Baron de Vries, whom he had not seen since the evening
+of the De Saulnes' dinner-party.</p>
+
+<p>Miss Benham greeted him with evident pleasure, and to his great delight
+remembered just how he liked his tea--three pieces of sugar and no milk. It
+always flatters a man when his little tastes of this sort are remembered.
+The four fell at once into conversation together, and the young American
+lady asked Hartley why Ste. Marie was not with him.</p>
+
+<p>"I thought you two always went about together," she <a
+name="Page_104"></a>said--"were never seen apart and all that--a sort of
+modern Damon and Phidias."</p>
+
+<p>Hartley caught Baron de Vries' eye, and looked away again hastily.</p>
+
+<p>"My--ah, Phidias," said he, resisting an irritable desire to correct the
+lady, "got mislaid to-day. It sha'n't happen again, I promise you. He's a
+very busy person just now, though. He hasn't time for social dissipation.
+I'm the butterfly of the pair."</p>
+
+<p>The lady gave a sudden laugh.</p>
+
+<p>"He was busy enough the last time I saw him," she said, crinkling her
+eyelids. She turned to Miss Benham. "Do you remember that evening we were
+going home from the Madrid and motored round by Montmartre to see the
+f&ecirc;te?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes," said Miss Benham, unsmiling, "I remember."</p>
+
+<p>"Your friend Ste. Marie," said the American lady to Hartley, "was
+distinctly the lion of the f&ecirc;te--at the moment we arrived, anyhow. He
+was riding a galloping pig and throwing those paper streamer things--what
+do you call them?--with both hands, and a genial lady in a blue hat was
+riding the same pig and helping him out. It was just like the <i>Vie de
+Boh&egrave;me</i> and the other books. I found it charming."</p>
+
+<p>Baron de Vries emitted an amused chuckle.</p>
+
+<p>"That was very like Ste. Marie," he said. "Ste. Marie is a very
+exceptional young man. He can be an angel one moment, a child playing with
+toys the next, and--well, a rather commonplace social favorite the third.
+It all comes of being romantic--imaginative. Ste. Marie--I know nothing
+about this evening of which you speak, but Ste. Marie is quite capable of
+stopping on his way to a funeral to ride a galloping pig--or on his way to
+his own wedding. <a name="Page_105"></a>And the pleasant part of it is,"
+said Baron de Vries, "that the lad would turn up at either of these two
+ceremonies not a bit the worse, outside or in, for his ride."</p>
+
+<p>"Ah, now, that's an oddly close shot," said Hartley. He paused a moment,
+looking toward Miss Benham, and said: "I beg pardon! Were you going to
+speak?"</p>
+
+<p>"No," said Miss Benham, moving the things about on the tea-table before
+her, and looking down at them. "No, not at all!"</p>
+
+<p>"You came oddly close to the truth," the man went on, turning back to
+Baron de Vries.</p>
+
+<p>He was speaking for Helen Benham's ears, and he knew she would
+understand that, but he did not wish to seem to be watching her.</p>
+
+<p>"I was with Ste. Marie on that evening," he said. "No, I wasn't riding a
+pig, but I was standing down in the crowd throwing serpentines at the
+people who were. And I happen to know that he--that Ste. Marie was on that
+day, that evening, more deeply concerned about something, more absolutely
+wrapped up in it, devoted to it, than I have ever known him to be about
+anything since I first knew him. The galloping pig was an incident that
+made, except for the moment, no impression whatever upon him." Hartley
+nodded his head. "Yes," said he, "Ste. Marie can be an angel one moment and
+a child playing with toys the next. When he sees toys he always plays with
+them, and he plays hard, but when he drops them they go completely out of
+his mind."</p>
+
+<p>The American lady laughed.</p>
+
+<p>"Gracious me!" she cried. "You two are emphatic enough about him, aren't
+you?"</p>
+
+<p>"We know him," said Baron de Vries.</p>
+
+<p><a name="Page_106"></a>Hartley rose to replace his empty cup on the
+tea-table. Miss Benham did not meet his eyes, and as he moved away again
+she spoke to her friend about something they were going to do on the next
+day, so Hartley went across to where Baron de Vries sat at a little
+distance, and took a place beside him on the chaise lounge. The Belgian
+greeted him with raised eyebrows and the little, half-sad, half-humorous
+smile which was characteristic of him in his gentler moments.</p>
+
+<p>"You were defending our friend with a purpose," he said, in a low voice.
+"Good! I am afraid he needs it--here."</p>
+
+<p>The younger man hesitated a moment. Then he said:</p>
+
+<p>"I came on purpose to do that. Ste. Marie knows that she saw him on that
+confounded pig. He was half wild with distress over it, because--well, the
+meeting was singularly unfortunate just then. I can't explain--"</p>
+
+<p>"You needn't explain," said the Belgian, gravely. "I know. Helen told me
+some days ago, though she did not mention this encounter. Yes, defend him
+with all your power, if you will. Stay after we others have gone and--have
+it out with her. The Phidias lady (I must remember that mot, by-the-way) is
+preparing to take her leave now, and I will follow her at once. She shall
+believe that I am enamoured, that I sigh for her. Eh!" said he, shaking his
+head--and the lines in the kindly old face seemed to deepen, but in a sort
+of grave tenderness--"eh, so love has come to the dear lad at last! Ah, of
+course, the hundred other affairs! Yes, yes. But they were light. No
+seriousness in them. The ladies may have loved. He didn't--very much. This
+time, I'm afraid--"</p>
+
+<p>Baron de Vries paused as if he did not mean to finish his sentence, and
+Hartley said:</p>
+
+<p><a name="Page_107"></a>"You say 'afraid'! Why afraid?"</p>
+
+<p>The Belgian looked up at him reflectively.</p>
+
+<p>"Did I say 'afraid'?" he asked. "Well, perhaps it was the word I wanted.
+I wonder if these two are fitted for each other. I am fond of them both. I
+think you know that, but--she's not very flexible, this child. And she
+hasn't much humor. I love her, but I know those things are true. I wonder
+if one ought to marry Ste. Marie without flexibility and without
+humor."</p>
+
+<p>"If they love each other," said Richard Hartley, "I expect the other
+things don't count. Do they?"</p>
+
+<p>Baron de Vries rose to his feet, for he saw that the Phidias lady was
+going.</p>
+
+<p>"Perhaps not," said he; "I hope not. In any case, do your best for him
+with Helen. Make her comprehend if you can. I am afraid she is unhappy over
+the affair."</p>
+
+<p>He made his adieus, and went away with the American lady, to that young
+person's obvious excitement. And after a moment the three ladies across the
+room departed also, Mrs. Benham explaining that she was taking her two
+friends up to her own sitting-room, to show them something vaguely related
+to the heathen. So Hartley was left alone with Helen Benham.</p>
+
+<p>It was not his way to beat about the bush, and he gave battle at once.
+He said, standing, to say it more easily:</p>
+
+<p>"You know why I came here to-day? It was the first chance I've had since
+that--unfortunate evening. I came on Ste. Marie's account."</p>
+
+<p>Miss Benham said a weak "Oh!" And because she was nervous and
+overwrought, and because the thing meant so much to her, she said, cheaply:
+"He owes me no apologies. He has a perfect right to act as he pleases, you
+know."</p>
+
+<p><a name="Page_108"></a>The Englishman frowned across at her. "I didn't
+come to make apologies," said he. "I came to explain. Well, I have
+explained--Baron de Vries and I together. That's just how it happened. And
+that's just how Ste. Marie takes things. The point is that you've got to
+understand it. I've got to make you."</p>
+
+<p>The girl smiled up at him dolefully. "You look," she said, "as if you
+were going to beat me if necessary. You look very warlike."</p>
+
+<p>"I feel warlike," the man said, nodding. He said: "I'm fighting for a
+friend to whom you are doing, in your mind, an injustice. I know him better
+than you do, and I tell you you're doing him a grave injustice. You're
+failing altogether to understand him."</p>
+
+<p>"I wonder," the girl said, looking very thoughtfully down at the table
+before her.</p>
+
+<p>"I know," said he.</p>
+
+<p>Quite suddenly she gave a little overwrought cry, and she put up her
+hands over her face. "Oh, Richard!" she said, "that day when he was here!
+He left me--oh, I cannot tell you at what a height he left me! It was
+something new and beautiful. He swept me to the clouds with him. And I
+might--perhaps I might have lived on there. Who knows? But then that
+hideous evening! Ah, it was too sickening: the fall back to common earth
+again!"</p>
+
+<p>"I know," said the man, gently--"I know. And <i>he</i> knew, too.
+Directly he'd seen you he knew how you would feel about it. I'm not
+pretending that it was of no consequence. It was unfortunate, of course.
+But the point is, it did not mean in him any slackening, any stooping, any
+letting go. It was a moment's incident. We went to the wretched place by
+accident after dinner. Ste. Marie saw <a name="Page_109"></a>those childish
+lunatics at play, and for about two minutes he played with them. The lady
+in the blue hat made it appear a little more extreme, and that's all."</p>
+
+<p>Miss Benham rose to her feet and moved restlessly back and forth. "Oh,
+Richard," she said, "the golden spell is broken--the enchantment he laid
+upon me that day. I'm not like him, you know. Oh, I wish I were! I wish I
+were! I can't change from hour to hour. I can't rise to the clouds again
+after my fall to earth. It has all--become something different. Don't
+misunderstand me!" she cried. "I don't mean that I've ceased to care for
+him. No, far from that! But I was in such an exalted heaven, and now I'm
+not there any more. Perhaps he can lift me to it again. Oh yes, I'm sure he
+can, when I see him once more; but I wanted to go on living there so
+happily while he was away! Do you understand at all?"</p>
+
+<p>"I think I do," the man said, but he looked at her very curiously and a
+little sadly, for it was the first time he had ever seen her swept from her
+superb poise by any emotion, and he hardly recognized her. It was very
+bitter to him to realize that he could never have stirred her to
+this--never, under any conceivable circumstances.</p>
+
+<p>The girl came to him where he stood, and touched his arm with her hand.
+"He is waiting to hear how I feel about it all, isn't he?" she said. "He is
+waiting to know that I understand. Will you tell him a little lie for me,
+Richard? No, you needn't tell a lie. I will tell it. Tell him that I said I
+understood perfectly. Tell him that I was shocked for a moment, but that
+afterward I understood and thought no more about it. Will you tell him I
+said that? It won't be a lie from you, because I did say it. Oh, I will not
+grieve him or hamper him now while he is <a name="Page_110"></a>working in
+my cause! I'll tell him a lie rather than have him grieve."</p>
+
+<p>"Need it be a lie?" said Richard Hartley. "Can't you truly believe what
+you've said?"</p>
+
+<p>She shook her head slowly.</p>
+
+<p>"I'll try," said she, "but--my golden spell is broken and I can't mend
+it alone. I'm sorry."</p>
+
+<p>He turned with a little sigh to leave her, but Miss Benham followed him
+toward the door of the drawing-room.</p>
+
+<p>"You're a good friend, Richard," she said, when she had come
+near--"you're a good friend to him."</p>
+
+<p>"He deserves good friends," said the young man, stoutly. "And besides,"
+said he, "we're brothers in arms nowadays. We've enlisted together to fight
+for the same cause." The girl fell back with a little cry.</p>
+
+<p>"Do you mean," she said, after a moment--"do you mean that <i>you</i>
+are working with him--to find Arthur?"</p>
+
+<p>Hartley nodded.</p>
+
+<p>"But--" said she, stammering. "But, Richard--"</p>
+
+<p>The man checked her.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, I know what I'm doing," said he. "My eyes are open. I know that I'm
+not--well, in the running. I work for no reward except a desire to help you
+and Ste. Marie. That's all. It pleases me to be useful."</p>
+
+<p>He went away with that, not waiting for an answer, and the girl stood
+where he had left her, staring after him.</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+
+
+
+<a name="Page_111"></a><h2><a name='X'></a>X</h2>
+
+<h3>CAPTAIN STEWART ENTERTAINS</h3>
+
+
+<p>Ste. Marie returned, after three days, from Dinard in a depressed and
+somewhat puzzled frame of mind. He had found no trace whatever of Arthur
+Benham, either at Dinard or at Deauville, and, what was more, he was unable
+to discover that any one even remotely resembling that youth had been seen
+at either place. The matter of identification, it seemed to him, should be
+a rather simple one. In the first place, the boy's appearance was not at
+all French, nor, for that matter, English; it was very American. Also, he
+spoke French--so Ste. Marie had been told--very badly, having for the
+language that scornful contempt peculiar to Anglo-Saxons of a certain type.
+His speech, it seemed, was, like his appearance, ultra-American--full of
+strange idioms and oddly pronounced. In short, such a youth would be rather
+sure to be remembered by any hotel management and staff with which he might
+have come in contact.</p>
+
+<p>At first Ste. Marie pursued his investigations quietly and, as it were,
+casually; but after his initial failure he went to the managements of the
+various hotels and lodging-houses, and to the caf&eacute;s and bathing
+establishments, and told them, with all frankness, a part of the
+truth--that he was searching for a young man whose disappearance had caused
+great <a name="Page_112"></a>distress to his family. He was not long in
+discovering that no such young man could have been either in Dinard or
+Deauville.</p>
+
+<p>The thing which puzzled him was that, apart from finding no trace of the
+missing boy, he also found no trace of Captain Stewart's agent--the man who
+had been first on the ground. No one seemed able to recollect that such a
+person had been making inquiries, and Ste. Marie began to suspect that his
+friend was being imposed upon. He determined to warn Stewart that his
+agents were earning their fees too easily.</p>
+
+<p>So he returned to Paris more than a little dejected, and sore over this
+waste of time and effort. He arrived by a noon train, and drove across the
+city in a fiacre to the rue d'Assas. But as he was in the midst of
+unpacking his portmanteau--for he kept no servant; a woman came in once a
+day to "do" the rooms--the door-bell rang. It was Baron de Vries, and Ste.
+Marie admitted him with an exclamation of surprise and pleasure.</p>
+
+<p>"You passed me in the street just now," explained the Belgian, "and as I
+was a few minutes early for a lunch engagement I followed you up." He
+pointed with his stick at the open bag. "Ah, you have been on a journey!
+Detective work?"</p>
+
+<p>Ste. Marie pushed his guest into a chair, gave him cigarettes, and told
+him about the fruitless expedition to Dinard. He spoke, also, of his belief
+that Captain Stewart's agent had never really found a clew at all; and at
+that Baron de Vries nodded his gray head and said, "Ah!" in a tone of some
+significance. Afterward he smoked a little while in silence, but presently
+he said, as if with some hesitation: "May I be permitted to offer a word of
+advice?"</p>
+
+<p><a name="Page_113"></a>"But surely!" cried Ste. Marie, kicking away the
+half-empty portmanteau. "Why not?"</p>
+
+<p>"Do whatever you are going to do in this matter according to your own
+judgment," said the elder man, "or according to Mr. Hartley's and your
+combined judgments. Make your investigations without reference to our
+friend Captain Stewart." He halted there as if that were all he had meant
+to say, but when he saw Ste. Marie's raised eyebrows he frowned and went
+on, slowly, as if picking his words with some care. "I should be sorry," he
+said, "to have Captain Stewart at the head of any investigation of this
+nature in which I was deeply interested--just now, at any rate. I am
+afraid--it is difficult to say; I do not wish to say too much--I am afraid
+he is not quite the man for the position."</p>
+
+<p>Ste. Marie nodded his head with great emphasis. "Ah," he cried, "that's
+just what I have felt, you know, all along! And it's what Hartley felt,
+too, I'm sure. No, Stewart is not the sort for a detective. He's too
+cocksure. He won't admit that he might possibly be wrong now and then. He's
+too--"</p>
+
+<p>"He is too much occupied with other matters," said Baron de Vries.</p>
+
+<p>Ste. Marie sat down on the edge of a chair. "Other matters?" he
+demanded. "That sounds mysterious. What other matters?"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, there is nothing very mysterious about it," said the elder man. He
+frowned down at his cigarette, and brushed some fallen ash neatly from his
+knees. "Captain Stewart," said he, "is badly worried, and has been for the
+past year or so--badly worried over money matters and other things. He has
+lost enormous sums at play, as I happen to know, <a name="Page_114"></a>and
+he has lost still more enormous sums at Auteuil and at Longchamps. Also,
+the ladies are not without their demands."</p>
+
+<p>Ste. Marie gave a shout of laughter. "Comment donc!" he cried. "Ce
+vieillard?"</p>
+
+<p>"Ah, well," deprecated the other man. "Vieillard is putting it rather
+high. He can't be more than fifty, I should think. To be sure, he looks
+older; but then, in his day, he lived a great deal in a short time. Do you
+happen to remember Olga Nilssen?"</p>
+
+<p>"I do," said Ste. Marie. "I remember her very well, indeed. I was a sort
+of go-between in settling up that affair with Morrison. Morrison's people
+asked me to do what I could. Yes, I remember her well, and with some
+pleasure. I felt sorry for her, you know. People didn't quite know the
+truth of that affair. Morrison behaved very badly to her."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes," said Baron de Vries, "and Captain Stewart has behaved very badly
+to her also. She is furious with rage or jealousy--or both. She goes about,
+I am told, threatening to kill him, and it would be rather like her to do
+it one day. Well, I have dragged in all this scandal by way of showing you
+that Stewart has his hands full of his own affairs just now, and so cannot
+give the attention he ought to give to hunting out his nephew. As you
+suggest, his agents may be deceiving him. I don't know. I suppose they
+could do it easily enough. If I were you I should set to work quite
+independently of him."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes," said Ste. Marie, in an absent tone. "Oh yes, I shall do that, you
+may be sure." He gave a sudden smile. "He's a queer type, this Captain
+Stewart. He begins to interest me very much. I had never suspected this
+side of him, though I remember now that I once saw him coming <a
+name="Page_115"></a>out of a milliner's shop. He looks rather an
+ascetic--rather donnish, don't you think? I remember that he talked to me
+one day quite pathetically about feeling his age and about liking young
+people round him. He's an odd character. Fancy him mixed up in an affair
+with Olga Nilssen! Or, rather, fancy her involved in an affair with him!
+What can she have seen in him? She's not mercenary, you know--at least, she
+used not to be."</p>
+
+<p>"Ah! there," said Baron de Vries, "you enter upon a terra incognita. No
+one can say what a woman sees in this man or in that. It's beyond our
+ken."</p>
+
+<p>He rose to take his leave, and Ste. Marie went with him to the door.</p>
+
+<p>"I've been asked to a sort of party at Stewart's rooms this week," Ste.
+Marie said. "I don't know whether I shall go or not. Probably not. I
+suppose I shouldn't find Olga Nilssen there?"</p>
+
+<p>"Well, no," said the Belgian, laughing. "No, I hardly think so.
+Good-bye! Think over what I've told you. Good-bye!"</p>
+
+<p>He went away down the stair, and Ste. Marie returned to his
+unpacking.</p>
+
+<p>Nothing more of consequence occurred in the next few days. Hartley had
+unearthed a somewhat shabby adventurer who swore to having seen the
+Irishman O'Hara in Paris within a month, but it was by no means certain
+that this being did not merely affirm what he believed to be desired of
+him, and in any case the information was of no especial value, since it was
+O'Hara's present whereabouts that was the point at issue. So it came to
+Thursday evening. Ste. Marie received a note from Captain Stewart during
+the day, reminding him that he was to come to the <a
+name="Page_116"></a>rue du Faubourg St. Honor&eacute; that evening, and
+asking him to come early, at ten or thereabouts, so that the two could have
+a comfortable chat before any one else turned up. Ste. Marie had about
+decided not to go at all, but the courtesy of this special invitation from
+Miss Benham's uncle made it rather impossible for him to stay away. He
+tried to persuade Hartley to follow him on later in the evening, but that
+gentleman flatly refused and went away to dine with some English friends at
+Armenonville.</p>
+
+<p>So Ste. Marie, in a vile temper, dined quite alone at Lavenue's, beside
+the Gare Montparnasse, and toward ten o'clock drove across the river to the
+rue du Faubourg. Captain Stewart's flat was up five stories, at the top of
+the building in which it was located, and so, well above the noises of the
+street. Ste. Marie went up in the automatic lift, and at the door above his
+host met him in person, saying that the one servant he kept was busy making
+preparations in the kitchen beyond. They entered a large room, long but
+comparatively shallow, in shape not unlike the sitting-room in the rue
+d'Assas, but very much bigger, and Ste. Marie uttered an exclamation of
+surprise and pleasure, for he had never before seen an interior anything
+like this. The room was decorated and furnished entirely in Chinese and
+Japanese articles of great age and remarkable beauty. Ste. Marie knew
+little of the hieratic art of these two countries, but he fancied that the
+place must be an endless delight to the expert.</p>
+
+<p>The general tone of the room was gold, dulled and softened by great age
+until it had ceased to glitter, and relieved by the dusty Chinese blue and
+by old red faded to rose and by warm ivory tints. The great expanse of the
+walls was covered by a brownish-yellow cloth, coarse like burlap, <a
+name="Page_117"></a>and against it, round the room, hung sixteen large
+panels representing the sixteen Rakan. They were early copies--fifteenth
+century, Captain Stewart said--of those famous originals by the Chinese
+Sung master Ririomin, which have been for six hundred years or more the
+treasures of Japan. They were mounted upon Japanese brocade of blue and
+dull gold, framed in keyaki wood, and out of their brown, time-stained
+shadows the great Rakan scowled or grinned or placidly gazed, grotesquely
+graceful masterpieces of a perished art.</p>
+
+<p>At the far end of the room, under a gilded canopy of intricate
+wood-carving, stood upon his pedestal of many-petalled lotus a great statue
+of Amida Buddha in the yogi attitude of contemplation, and at intervals
+against the other walls other smaller images stood or sat: Buddha, in many
+incarnations; Kwannon, goddess of mercy; Jizo Bosatzu Hotei, pot-bellied,
+god of contentment; Jingo-Kano, god of war. In the centre of the place was
+a Buddhist temple table, and priests' chairs, lacquered and inlaid, stood
+about the room. The floor was covered with Chinese rugs, dull yellow with
+blue flowers, and over a doorway which led into another room was fixed a
+huge rama of Chinese pierced carving, gilded, in which there were trees and
+rocks and little grouped figures of the hundred immortals.</p>
+
+<p>It, was, indeed an extraordinary room. Ste. Marie looked about its
+mellow glow with a half-comprehending wonder, and he looked at the man
+beside him curiously, for here was another side to this many-sided
+character. Captain Stewart smiled.</p>
+
+<p>"You like my museum?" he asked. "Few people care much for it except, of
+course, those who go in for the Oriental arts. Most of my friends think it
+bizarre--too <a name="Page_118"></a>grotesque and unusual. I have tried to
+satisfy them by including those comfortable low divan-couches (they refuse
+altogether to sit in the priests' chairs), but still they are unhappy."</p>
+
+<p>He called his servant, who came to take Ste. Marie's hat and coat and
+returned with smoking things.</p>
+
+<p>"It seems entirely wonderful to me," said the younger man. "I'm not an
+expert at all--I don't know who the gentlemen in those sixteen panels are,
+for example--but it is very beautiful. I have never seen anything like it
+at all." He gave a little laugh. "Will it sound very impertinent in me, I
+wonder, if I express surprise--not surprise at finding this magnificent
+room, but at discovering that this sort of thing is a taste and, very
+evidently, a serious study of yours? You--I remember your saying once with
+some feeling that it was youth and beauty and--well, freshness that you
+liked best to be surrounded by. This," said Ste. Marie, waving an inclusive
+hand, "was young so many centuries ago! It fairly breathes antiquity and
+death."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes," said Captain Stewart, thoughtfully. "Yes, that is quite
+true."</p>
+
+<p>The two had seated themselves upon one of the broad, low benches which
+had been built into the place to satisfy the Philistine.</p>
+
+<p>"I find it hard to explain," he said, "because both things are passions
+of mine. Youth--I could not exist without it. Since I have it no longer in
+my own body, I wish to see it about me. It gives me life. It keeps my heart
+beating. I must have it near. And then this--antiquity and death, beautiful
+things made by hands dead centuries ago in an alien country! I love this,
+too. I didn't speak too <a name="Page_119"></a>strongly; it is a sort of
+passion with me--something quite beyond the collector's mania--quite beyond
+that. Sometimes, do you know, I stay at home in the evening, and I sit here
+quite alone, with the lights half on, and for hours together I smoke and
+watch these things--the quiet, sure, patient smile of that Buddha, for
+example. Think how long he has been smiling like that, and waiting! Waiting
+for what? There is something mysterious beyond all words in that smile of
+his, that fixed, crudely carved wooden smile--no, I'll be hanged if it's
+crude! It is beyond our modern art. The dead men carved better than we do.
+We couldn't manage that with such simple means. We can only reproduce what
+is before us. We can't carve questions--mysteries--everlasting
+riddles."</p>
+
+<p>Through the pale-blue, wreathing smoke of his cigarette Captain Stewart
+gazed down the room to where eternal Buddha stood and smiled eternally. And
+from there the man's eyes moved with slow enjoyment along the opposite wall
+over those who sat or stood there, over the panels of the ancient Rakan,
+over carved lotus, and gilt contorted dragon forever in pursuit of the holy
+pearl. He drew a short breath which seemed to bespeak extreme contentment,
+the keenest height of pleasure, and he stirred a little where he sat and
+settled himself among the cushions. Ste. Marie watched him, and the
+expression of the man's face began to be oddly revolting. It was the face
+of a voluptuary in the presence of his desire. He was uncomfortable, and
+wished to say something to break the silence, but, as often occurs at such
+a time, he could think of nothing to say. So there was a brief silence
+between them. But presently Captain Stewart roused himself with an obvious
+effort.</p>
+
+<p>"Here, this won't do!" said he, in a tone of whimsical <a
+name="Page_120"></a>apology. "This won't do, you know. I'm floating off on
+my hobby (and there's a mixed metaphor that would do credit to your own
+Milesian blood!). I'm boring you to extinction, and I don't want to do
+that, for I'm anxious that you should come here again--and often. I should
+like to have you form the habit. What was it I had in mind to ask you
+about? Ah, yes! The journey to Dinard and Deauville. I am afraid it turned
+out to be fruitless or you would have let me know."</p>
+
+<p>"Entirely fruitless," said Ste. Marie.</p>
+
+<p>He went on to tell the elder man of his investigation, and of his
+certainty that no one resembling Arthur Benham had been at either of the
+two places.</p>
+
+<p>"It's no affair of mine, to be sure," he said, "but I rather suspect
+that your agent was deceiving you--pretending to have accomplished
+something by way of making you think he was busy."</p>
+
+<p>Ste. Marie was so sure the other would immediately disclaim this that he
+waited for the word, and gave a little smothered laugh when Captain Stewart
+said, promptly:</p>
+
+<p>"Oh no! No! That is impossible. I have every confidence in that man. He
+is one of my best. No, you are mistaken there. I am more disappointed than
+you could possibly be over the failure of your efforts, but I am quite sure
+my man thought he had something worth working upon. By-the-way, I have
+received another rather curious communication--from Ostend this time. I
+will show you the letter, and you may try your luck there if you would care
+to." He felt in his pockets and then rose. "I've left the thing in another
+coat," said he; "if you will allow me, I'll fetch it." But before he had
+turned away the door-bell rang and he paused. "Ah, well," he said, "another
+<a name="Page_121"></a>time. Here are some of my guests. They have come
+earlier than I had expected."</p>
+
+<p class="figure"> <a name="jason003"><img
+width="80%" alt="Illustration: HE SAW CAPTAIN STEWART MOVING AMONG THEM"
+src="images/jason003.png" /></a><br /> HE SAW CAPTAIN STEWART MOVING AMONG
+THEM</p>
+
+<p>The new arrivals were three very perfectly dressed ladies, one of them
+an operatic light, who chanced not to be singing that evening and whom Ste.
+Marie had met before. The two others were rather difficult of
+classification, but probably, he thought, ornaments of that mysterious
+border-land between the two worlds which seems to give shelter to so many
+people against whose characters nothing definite is known, but whose
+antecedents and connections are not made topics of conversation. The three
+ladies seemed to be on very friendly terms with Captain Stewart, and
+greeted him with much noisy delight. One of the unclassified two, when her
+host, with a glance toward Ste. Marie, addressed her formally, seemed
+inordinately amused, and laughed for a long time.</p>
+
+<p>Within the next hour ten or a dozen other guests had arrived, and they
+all seemed to know one another very well, and proceeded to make themselves
+quite at home. Ste. Marie regarded them with a reflective and not
+over-enthusiastic eye, and he wondered a good deal why he had been asked
+here to meet them. He was as far from a prig or a snob as any man could
+very well be, and he often went to very Bohemian parties which were given
+by his painter or musician friends, but these people seemed to him quite
+different. The men, with the exception of two eminent opera-singers, who
+quite obviously had been asked because of their voices, were the sort of
+men who abound at such places as Ostend and Monte Carlo, and Baden-Baden in
+the race week. That is not to say that they were ordinary racing touts or
+the cheaper kind of adventurers (there was a count among them, and a
+marquis who had recently been <a name="Page_122"></a>divorced by his
+American wife), but adventurers of a sort they undoubtedly were. There was
+not one of them, so far as Ste. Marie was aware, who was received anywhere
+in good society, and he resented very much being compelled to meet
+them.</p>
+
+<p>Naturally enough, he felt much less concern on the score of the ladies.
+It is an undoubted and well-nigh universal truth that men who would refuse
+outright to meet certain classes of their own sex show no reluctance
+whatever over meeting the women of a corresponding circle--that is, if the
+women are attractive. It is a depressing fact and inclines one to sighs and
+head-shakes, and some moral indignation, until the reverse truth is brought
+to light--namely, that women have identically the same point of view; that,
+while they cast looks of loathing and horror upon certain of their sisters,
+they will meet with pleasure any presentable man whatever his crimes or
+vices.</p>
+
+<p>Ste. Marie was very much puzzled over all this. It seemed to him so
+unnecessary that a man who really had some footing in the newer society of
+Paris should choose to surround himself with people of this type; but as he
+looked on and wondered he became aware of a curious and, in the light of a
+past conversation, significant fact: all of the people in the room were
+young; all of them in their varying fashions and degrees very attractive to
+look upon; all full to overflowing of life and spirits and the
+determination to have a good time. He saw Captain Stewart moving among
+them, playing very gracefully his r&ocirc;le of host, and the man seemed to
+have dropped twenty years from his shoulders. A miracle of rejuvenation
+seemed to have come upon him: his eyes were bright and eager, the color was
+high in his cheeks, and the dry, pedantic tone had gone from his voice. <a
+name="Page_123"></a>Ste. Marie watched him, and at last he thought he
+understood. It was half revolting, half pathetic, he thought, but it
+certainly was interesting to see.</p>
+
+<p>Duval, the great basso of the Op&eacute;ra, accompanied at the piano by
+one of the unclassified ladies, was just finishing Mephistopheles' drinking
+song out of <i>Faust</i> when the door-bell rang.</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+
+
+
+<a name="Page_124"></a><h2><a name='XI'></a>XI</h2>
+
+<h3>A GOLDEN LADY ENTERS--THE EYES AGAIN</h3>
+
+
+<p>The music of voice and piano was very loud just then, so that the
+little, soft, whirring sound of the electric bell reached only one or two
+pairs of ears in the big room. It did not reach the host certainly, and
+neither he nor most of the others observed the servant make his way among
+the groups of seated or standing people and go to the outer door, which
+opened upon a tiny hallway. The song came to an end, and everybody was
+cheering and applauding and crying "Bravo!" or "Bis!" or one of the other
+things that people shout at such times, when, as if in unexpected answer to
+the outburst, a lady appeared between the yellow porti&egrave;res and came
+forward a little way into the room. She was a tall lady of an extraordinary
+and immediately noticeable grace of movement--a lady with rather fair hair;
+but her eyebrows and eyelashes had been stained darker than it was their
+nature to be. She had the classic Greek type of face--and figure, too--all
+but the eyes, which were long and narrow--narrow, perhaps, from a habit of
+going half closed; and when they were a little more than half closed they
+made a straight black line that turned up very slightly at the outer end
+with an Oriental effect which went oddly in that classic face. There is a
+popular piece of sculpture now in the Luxembourg Gallery for which this
+lady "sat" as model to <a name="Page_125"></a>a great artist. Sculptors
+from all over the world go there to dream over its perfect line and
+contour, and little schoolgirls pretend not to see it, and middle-aged
+maiden tourists, with red Baedekers in their hands, regard it furtively and
+pass on, and after a while come back to look again.</p>
+
+<p>The lady was dressed in some very close-clinging material which was not
+cloth of gold, but something very like it, only much duller--something
+which gleamed when she stirred, but did not glitter--and over her splendid
+shoulders was hung an Oriental scarf heavily worked with metallic gold. She
+made an amazing and dramatic picture in that golden room. It was as if she
+had known just what her surroundings would be and had dressed expressly for
+them.</p>
+
+<p>The applause ceased as suddenly as if it had been trained to break off
+at a signal, and the lady came forward a little way, smiling a quiet,
+assured smile. At each step her knee threw out the golden stuff of her gown
+an inch or two, and it flashed suddenly--a dull, subdued flash in the
+overhead light--and died and flashed again. A few of the people in the room
+knew who the lady was, and they looked at one another with raised eyebrows
+and startled faces; but the others stared at her with an eager admiration,
+thinking that they had seldom seen anything so beautiful or so effective.
+Ste. Marie sat forward on the edge of his chair. His eyes sparkled, and he
+gave a little quick sigh of pleasurable excitement. This was drama, and
+very good drama, too, and he suspected that it might at any moment turn
+into a tragedy.</p>
+
+<p>He saw Captain Stewart, who had been among a group of people half-way
+across the room, turn his head to look when the cries and the applause
+ceased so suddenly, and he saw the man's face stiffen by swift degrees, all
+the joyous, <a name="Page_126"></a>buoyant life gone out of it, until it
+was yellow and rigid like a dead man's face; and Ste. Marie, out of his
+knowledge of the relations between these two people, nodded, en
+connaisseur, for he knew that the man was very badly frightened.</p>
+
+<p>So the host of the evening hung back, staring for what must have seemed
+to him a long and terrible time, though in reality it was but an instant;
+then he came forward quickly to greet the new-comer, and if his face was
+still yellow-white there was nothing in his manner but the courtesy
+habitual with him. He took the lady's hand, and she smiled at him, but her
+eyes did not smile--they were hard. Ste. Marie, who was the nearest of the
+others, heard Captain Stewart say:</p>
+
+<p>"This is an unexpected pleasure, my dearest Olga!"</p>
+
+<p>And to that the lady replied, more loudly: "Yes, I returned to Paris
+only to-day. You didn't know, of course. I heard you were entertaining this
+evening, and so I came, knowing that I should be welcome."</p>
+
+<p>"Always!" said Captain Stewart--"always more than welcome!"</p>
+
+<p>He nodded to one or two of the men who stood near, and when they
+approached presented them. Ste. Marie observed that he used the lady's true
+name--she had, at times, found occasion to employ others--and that he
+politely called her "Madame Nilssen" instead of "Mademoiselle." But at that
+moment the lady caught sight of Ste. Marie, and, crying out his name in a
+tone of delighted astonishment, turned away from the other men, brushing
+past them as if they had been furniture, and advanced holding out both her
+hands in greeting.</p>
+
+<p>"Dear Ste. Marie!" she exclaimed. "Fancy finding you <a
+name="Page_127"></a>here! I'm so glad! Oh, I'm so very glad! Take me away
+from these people! Find a corner where we can talk. Ah, there is one with a
+big seat! Allons-y!"</p>
+
+<p>She addressed him for the most part in English, which she spoke
+perfectly--as perfectly as she spoke French and German and, presumably, her
+native tongue, which must have been Swedish.</p>
+
+<p>They went to the broad, low seat, a sort of hard-cushioned bench, which
+stood against one of the walls, and made themselves comfortable there by
+the only possible means, which, owing to the width of the thing, was to sit
+far back with their feet stuck straight out before them. Captain Stewart
+had followed them across the room and showed a strong tendency to remain.
+Ste. Marie observed that his eyes were hard and bright and very alert, and
+that there were two bright spots of color in his yellow cheeks. It occurred
+to Ste. Marie that the man was afraid to leave him alone with Olga Nilssen,
+and he smiled to himself, reflecting that the lady, even if indiscreetly
+inclined, could tell him nothing--save in details--that he did not already
+know. But after a few rather awkward moments Mile. Nilssen waved an
+irritated hand.</p>
+
+<p>"Go away!" she said to her host. "Go away to your other guests! I want
+to talk to Ste. Marie. We have old times to talk over."</p>
+
+<p>And after hesitating awhile uneasily, Captain Stewart turned back into
+the room; but for some time thereafter Ste. Marie was aware that a vigilant
+eye was being kept upon them and that their host was by no means at his
+ease.</p>
+
+<p>When they were left alone together the girl turned to him and patted his
+arm affectionately. She said:</p>
+
+<p><a name="Page_128"></a>"Ah, but it is very good to see you again, mon
+cher ami! It has been so long!" She gave an abrupt frown. "What are you
+doing here?" she demanded.</p>
+
+<p>And she said an unkind thing about her fellow-guests. She called them
+"canaille." She said:</p>
+
+<p>"Why are you wasting your time among these canaille? This is not a place
+for you. Why did you come?"</p>
+
+<p>"I don't know," said Ste. Marie. He was still a little resentful, and he
+said so. He said: "I didn't know it was going to be like this. I came
+because Stewart went rather out of his way to ask me. I'd known him in a
+very different milieu."</p>
+
+<p>"Ah, yes!" she said, reflectively. "Yes, he does go into the world also,
+doesn't he? But this is what he likes, you know." Her lips drew back for an
+instant, and she said: "He is a pig-dog!"</p>
+
+<p>Ste. Marie looked at her gravely. She had used that offensive name with
+a little too much fierceness. Her face had turned for an instant quite
+white, and her eyes had flashed out over the room a look that meant a great
+deal to any one who knew her as well as Ste. Marie did. He sat forward and
+lowered his voice. He said:</p>
+
+<p>"Look here, Olga! I'm going to be very frank for a moment. May I?"</p>
+
+<p>For just an instant the girl drew away from him with suspicion in her
+eyes, and something else, alertly defiant. Then she put out her hands to
+his arm.</p>
+
+<p>"You may be what you like, dear Ste. Marie," she said, "and say what you
+like. I will take it all--and swallow it alive--good as gold. What are you
+going to do to me?"</p>
+
+<p>"I've always been fair with you, haven't I?" he urged. <a
+name="Page_129"></a>"I've had disagreeable things to say or do, but--you
+knew always that I liked you and--where my sympathies were."</p>
+
+<p>"Always! Always, mon cher!" she cried. "I trusted you always in
+everything. And there is no one else I trust. No one! No one!--Ste.
+Marie!"</p>
+
+<p>"What then?" he asked.</p>
+
+<p>"Ste. Marie," she said, "why did you never fall in love with me, as the
+other men did?"</p>
+
+<p>"I wonder!" said he. "I don't know. Upon my word, I really don't
+know."</p>
+
+<p>He was so serious about it that the girl burst into a shriek of
+laughter. And in the end he laughed, too.</p>
+
+<p>"I expect it was because I liked you too well," he said, at last. "But
+come! We're forgetting my lecture. Listen to your grandp&egrave;re Ste.
+Marie! I have heard--certain things--rumors--what you will. Perhaps they
+are foolish lies, and I hope they are. But if not, if the fear I saw in
+Stewart's face when you came here to-night, was--not without cause, let me
+beg you to have a care. You're much too savage, my dear child. Don't be so
+foolish as to--well, turn comedy into the other thing. In the first place,
+it's not worth while, and, in the second place, it recoils always. Revenge
+may be sweet. I don't know. But nowadays, with police courts and all that,
+it entails much more subsequent annoyance than it is worth. Be wise,
+Olga!"</p>
+
+<p>"Some things, Ste. Marie," said the golden lady, "are worth all the
+consequences that may follow them."</p>
+
+<p>She watched Captain Stewart across the room, where he stood chatting
+with a little group of people, and her beautiful face was as hard as marble
+and her eyes were as dark <a name="Page_130"></a>as a stormy night, and her
+mouth, for an instant, was almost like an animal's mouth--cruel and
+relentless.</p>
+
+<p>Ste. Marie saw, and he began to be a bit alarmed in good earnest. In his
+warning he had spoken rather more seriously than he felt the occasion
+demanded, but he began at last to wonder if the occasion was not in reality
+very serious, indeed. He was sure, of course, that Olga Nilssen had come
+here on this evening to annoy Captain Stewart in some fashion. As he put it
+to himself, she probably meant to "make a row," and he would not have been
+in the least surprised if she had made it in the beginning, upon her very
+dramatic entrance. Nothing more calamitous than that had occurred to him.
+But when he saw the woman's face turned a little away and gazing fixedly at
+Captain Stewart, he began to be aware that there was tragedy very near
+him--or all the makings of it.</p>
+
+<p>Mlle. Nilssen turned back to him. Her face was still hard, and her eyes
+dark and narrowed with their oddly Oriental look. She bent her shoulders
+together for an instant and her hands moved slowly in her lap, stretching
+out before her in a gesture very like a cat's when it wakes from sleep and
+yawns and extends its claws, as if to make sure that they are still there
+and ready for use.</p>
+
+<p>"I feel a little like Samson to-night," she said. "I am tired of almost
+everything, and I should like very much to pull the world down on top of me
+and kill everybody in it--except you, Ste. Marie, dear; except you!--and be
+crushed under the ruins!"</p>
+
+<p>"I think," said Ste. Marie, practically--and the speech sounded rather
+like one of Hartley's speeches--"I think it was not quite the world that
+Samson pulled down, but a temple--or a palace--something of that kind."</p>
+
+<p><a name="Page_131"></a>"Well," said the golden lady, "this place is
+rather like a temple--a Chinese temple, with the pig-dog for
+high-priest."</p>
+
+<p>Ste. Marie frowned at her.</p>
+
+<p>"What are you going to do?" he demanded, sharply. "What did you come
+here to do? Mischief of some kind--bien entendu--but what?"</p>
+
+<p>"Do?" she said, looking at him with her narrowed eyes. "I? Why, what
+should I do? Nothing, of course! I merely said I should like to pull the
+place down. Of course, I couldn't do that quite literally, now, could I?
+No. It is merely a mood. I'm not going to do anything."</p>
+
+<p>"You're not being honest with me," he said.</p>
+
+<p>And at that her expression changed, and she patted his arm again with a
+gesture that seemed to beg forgiveness.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, then," she said, "if you must know, maybe I did come here for a
+purpose. I want to have it out with our friend Captain Stewart about
+something. And Ste. Marie, dear," she pleaded, "please, I think you'd
+better go home first. I don't care about these other animals, but I don't
+want you dragged into any row of any sort. Please be a sweet Ste. Marie and
+go home. Yes?"</p>
+
+<p>"Absolutely, no!" said Ste. Marie. "I shall stay, and I shall try my
+utmost to prevent you from doing anything foolish. Understand that! If you
+want to have rows with people, Olga, for Heaven's sake don't pick an
+occasion like this for the purpose. Have your rows in private!"</p>
+
+<p>"I rather think I enjoy an audience," she said, with a reflective air,
+and Ste. Marie laughed aloud because he knew that the na&iuml;ve speech was
+so very true. This lady, with her many good qualities and her bad ones--not
+a <a name="Page_132"></a>few, alas!--had an undeniable passion for red fire
+that had amused him very much on more than one past occasion.</p>
+
+<p>"Please go home!" she said once more.</p>
+
+<p>But when the man only shook his head, she raised her hands a little way
+and dropped them again in her lap, in an odd gesture which seemed to say
+that she had done all she could do, and that if anything disagreeable
+should happen now, and he should be involved in it, it would be entirely
+his fault because she had warned him.</p>
+
+<p>Then quite abruptly a mood of irresponsible gayety seemed to come upon
+her. She refused to have anything more to do with serious topics, and when
+Ste. Marie attempted to introduce them she laughed in his face. As she had
+said in the beginning she wished to do, she harked back to old days (the
+earlier stages of what might be termed the Morrison r&eacute;gime), and it
+seemed to afford her great delight to recall the happenings of that epoch.
+The conversation became a dialogue of reminiscence which would have been
+entirely unintelligible to a third person, and was, indeed, so to Captain
+Stewart, who once came across the room, made a feeble effort to attach
+himself, and presently wandered away again.</p>
+
+<p>They unearthed from the past an exceedingly foolish song all about one
+"Little Willie" and a purple monkey climbing up a yellow stick. It was set
+to a well-known air from <i>Don Giovanni</i>, and when Duval, the basso,
+heard them singing it he came up and insisted upon knowing what it was
+about. He laughed immoderately over the English words when he was told what
+they meant, and made Ste. Marie write them down for him on two
+visiting-cards. So they made a trio out of "Little Willie," the great Duval
+inventing a bass part quite marvellous in its ingenuity, <a
+name="Page_133"></a>and they were compelled to sing it over and over again,
+until Ste. Marie's falsetto imitation of a tenor voice cracked and gave out
+altogether, since he was by nature barytone, if anything at all.</p>
+
+<p>The other guests had crowded round to hear the extraordinary song, and
+when the song was at last finished several of them remained, so that Ste.
+Marie saw he was to be allowed an uninterrupted
+t&ecirc;te-&agrave;-t&ecirc;te with Olga Nilssen no longer. He therefore
+drifted away, after a few moments, and went with Duval and one of the other
+men across the room to look at some small jade objects--snuff-bottles,
+bracelets, buckles, and the like--which were displayed in a cabinet
+cleverly reconstructed out of a Japanese shrine. It was perhaps ten minutes
+later when he looked round the place and discovered that neither Mlle.
+Nilssen nor Captain Stewart was to be seen.</p>
+
+<p>His first thought was of relief, for he said to himself that the two had
+sensibly gone into one of the other rooms to "have it out" in peace and
+quiet. But following that came the recollection of the woman's face when
+she had watched her host across the room. Her words came back to him: "I
+feel a little like Samson to-night.... I should like very much to pull the
+world down on top of me and kill everybody in it!" Ste. Marie thought of
+these things, and he began to be uncomfortable. He found himself watching
+the yellow-hung doorway beyond, with its intricate Chinese carving of trees
+and rocks and little groups of immortals, and he found that unconsciously
+he was listening for something--he did not know what--above the chatter and
+laughter of the people in the room. He endured this for possibly five
+minutes, and all at once found that he could endure it no longer. He began
+to make his <a name="Page_134"></a>way quietly through the groups of people
+toward the curtained doorway.</p>
+
+<p>As he went, one of the women near by complained in a loud tone that the
+servant had disappeared. She wanted, it seemed, a glass of water, having
+already had many glasses of more interesting things. Ste. Marie said he
+would get it for her, and went on his way. He had an excuse now.</p>
+
+<p>He found himself in a square, dimly lighted room much smaller than the
+other. There was a round table in the centre, so he thought it must be
+Stewart's dining-room. At the left a doorway opened into a place where
+there were lights, and at the other side was another door closed. From the
+room at the left there came a sound of voices, and though they were not
+loud, one of them, Mlle. Olga Nilssen's voice, was hard and angry and not
+altogether under control. The man would seem to have been attempting to
+pacify her, and he would seem not to have been very successful.</p>
+
+<p>The first words that Ste. Marie was able to distinguish were from the
+woman. She said, in a low, fierce tone:</p>
+
+<p>"That is a lie, my friend! That is a lie! I know all about the road to
+Clamart, so you needn't lie to me any longer. It's no good."</p>
+
+<p>She paused for just an instant there, and in the pause St. Marie heard
+Stewart give a sort of inarticulate exclamation. It seemed to express anger
+and it seemed also to express fear. But the woman swept on, and her voice
+began to be louder. She said:</p>
+
+<p>"I've given you your chance. You didn't deserve it, but I've given it
+you--and you've told me nothing but lies. Well, you'll lie no more. This
+ends it."</p>
+
+<p>Upon that Ste. Marie heard a sudden stumbling shuffle of feet and a low,
+hoarse cry of utter terror--a cry more <a name="Page_135"></a>animal-like
+than human. He heard the cry break off abruptly in something that was like
+a cough and a whine together, and he heard the sound of a heavy body
+falling with a loose rattle upon the floor.</p>
+
+</a> <p class="figure"> <a name="jason004"><img
+width="80%" alt="Illustration: CAPTAIN STEWART LAY HUDDLED AND WRITHING
+UPON THE FLOOR" src="images/jason004.png" /></a><br /> CAPTAIN STEWART LAY HUDDLED
+AND WRITHING UPON THE FLOOR</p>
+
+<p>With the sound of that falling body he had already reached the doorway
+and torn aside the heavy porti&egrave;re. It was a sleeping-room he looked
+into, a room of medium size with two windows and an ornate bed of the
+Empire style set sidewise against the farther wall. There were electric
+lights upon imitation candles which were grouped in sconces against the
+wall, and these were turned on, so that the room was brightly illuminated.
+Midway between the door and the ornate Empire bed Captain Stewart lay
+huddled and writhing upon the floor, and Olga Nilssen stood upright beside
+him, gazing down upon him quite calmly. In her right hand, which hung at
+her side, she held a little flat black automatic pistol of the type known
+as Brownings--and they look like toys, but they are not.</p>
+
+<p>Ste. Marie sprang at her silently and caught her by the arm, twisting
+the automatic pistol from her grasp, and the woman made no effort whatever
+to resist him. She looked into his face quite frankly and unmoved, and she
+shook her head.</p>
+
+<p>"I haven't harmed him," she said. "I was going to, yes--and then
+myself--but he didn't give me a chance. He fell down in a fit." She nodded
+down toward the man who lay writhing at their feet. "I frightened him," she
+said, "and he fell in a fit. He's an epileptic, you know. Didn't you know
+that? Oh yes."</p>
+
+<p>Abruptly she turned away shivering, and put up her hands over her face.
+And she gave an exclamation of uncontrollable repulsion.</p>
+
+<p><a name="Page_136"></a>"Ugh!" she cried, "it's horrible! Horrible! I
+can't bear to look. I saw him in a fit once before--long ago--and I
+couldn't bear even to speak to him for a month. I thought he had been
+cured. He said--Ah, it's horrible!"</p>
+
+<p>Ste. Marie had dropped upon his knees beside the fallen man, and Mlle.
+Nilssen said, over her shoulder:</p>
+
+<p>"Hold his head up from the floor, if you can bear to. He might hurt
+it."</p>
+
+<p>It was not an easy thing to do, for Ste. Marie had the natural sense of
+repulsion in such matters that most people have, and this man's appearance,
+as Olga Nilssen had said, was horrible. The face was drawn hideously, and
+in the strong, clear light of the electrics it was a deathly yellow. The
+eyes were half closed, and the eyeballs turned up so that only the whites
+of them showed between the lids. There was froth upon the distorted mouth,
+and it clung to the catlike mustache and to the shallow, sunken chin
+beneath. But Ste. Marie exerted all his will power, and took the jerking,
+trembling head in his hands, holding it clear of the floor.</p>
+
+<p>"You'd better call the servant," he said. "There may be something that
+can be done."</p>
+
+<p>But the woman answered, without looking:</p>
+
+<p>"No, there's nothing that can be done, I believe, except to keep him
+from bruising himself. Stimulants--that sort of thing--do more harm than
+good. Could you get him on the bed here?"</p>
+
+<p>"Together we might manage it," said Ste. Marie. "Come and help!"</p>
+
+<p>"I can't!" she cried, nervously. "I can't--touch him. Please, I can't do
+it."</p>
+
+<p>"Come!" said the man, in a sharp tone. "It's no time <a
+name="Page_137"></a>for nerves. I don't like it, either, but it's got to be
+done."</p>
+
+<p>The woman began a half-hysterical sobbing, but after a moment she turned
+and came with slow feet to where Stewart lay.</p>
+
+<p>Ste. Marie slipped his arms under the man's body and began to raise him
+from the floor.</p>
+
+<p>"You needn't help, after all," he said. "He's not heavy."</p>
+
+<p>And, indeed, under his skilfully shaped and padded clothes the man was a
+mere waif of a man--as unbelievably slight as if he were the victim of a
+wasting disease. Ste. Marie held the body in his arms as if it had been a
+child, and carried it across and laid it on the bed; but it was many months
+before he forgot the horror of that awful thing shaking and twitching in
+his hold, the head thumping hideously upon his shoulder, the arms and legs
+beating against him. It was the most difficult task he had ever had to
+perform. He laid Captain Stewart upon the bed and straightened the helpless
+limbs as best he could.</p>
+
+<p>"I suppose," he said, rising again--"I suppose when the man comes out of
+this he'll be frightfully exhausted and drop off to sleep, won't he? We'll
+have to--"</p>
+
+<p>He halted abruptly there, and for a single swift instant he felt the
+black and rushing sensation of one who is going to faint away. The wall
+behind the ornate Empire bed was covered with photographs, some in frames,
+others left, as they had been received, upon the large squares of weird
+cardboard which are termed "art mounts."</p>
+
+<p>"Come here a moment, quickly!" said Ste. Marie, in a sharp voice.</p>
+
+<p>Mlle. Nilssen's sobs had died down to a silent, spasmodic <a
+name="Page_138"></a>catching of the breath, but she was still much
+unnerved, and she approached the bed with obvious unwillingness, dabbing at
+her eyes with a handkerchief. Ste. Marie pointed to an unframed photograph
+which was fastened to the wall by thumb-tacks, and his outstretched hand
+shook as he pointed. Beneath them the other man still writhed and tumbled
+in his epileptic fit.</p>
+
+<p>"Do you know who that woman is?" demanded Ste. Marie, and his tone was
+such that Olga Nilssen turned slowly and stared at him.</p>
+
+<p>"That woman," said she, "is the reason why I wished to pull the world
+down upon Charlie Stewart and me to-night. That's who she is."</p>
+
+<p>Ste. Marie gave a sort of cry.</p>
+
+<p>"Who is she?" he insisted. "What is her name? I--have a particularly
+important reason for wanting to know. I've got to know."</p>
+
+<p>Mlle. Nilssen shook her head, still staring at him.</p>
+
+<p>"I can't tell you that," said she. "I don't know the name. I only know
+that--when he met her, he--I don't know her name, but I know where she
+lives and where he goes every day to see her--a house with a big garden and
+walled park on the road to Clamart. It's on the edge of the wood, not far
+from Fort d'Issy. The Clamart-Vanves-Issy tram runs past the wall of one
+side of the park. That's all I know."</p>
+
+<p>Ste. Marie clasped his head with his hands.</p>
+
+<p>"So near to it!" he groaned, "and yet--Ah!" He bent forward suddenly
+over the bed and spelled out the name of the photographer which was
+pencilled upon the brown cardboard mount. "There's still a chance," he
+said, "There's still one chance."</p>
+
+<p><a name="Page_139"></a>He became aware that the woman was watching him
+curiously, and nodded to her.</p>
+
+<p>"It's something you don't know about," he explained. "I've got to find
+out who this--girl is. Perhaps the photographer can help me. I used to know
+him." All at once his eyes sharpened. "Tell me the simple truth about
+something!" said he. "If ever we have been friends, if you owe me any good
+office, tell me this: Do you know anything about young Arthur Benham's
+disappearance two months ago, or about what has become of him?"</p>
+
+<p>Again the woman shook her head.</p>
+
+<p>"No," said she. "Nothing at all. I hadn't even heard of it. Young Arthur
+Benham! I've met him once or twice. I wonder--I wonder Stewart never spoke
+to me about his disappearance! That's very odd."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes," said Ste. Marie, absently, "it is." He gave a little sigh. "I
+wonder about a good many things," said he.</p>
+
+<p>He glanced down upon the bed before them, and Captain Stewart lay still,
+save for a slight twitching of the hands. Once he moved his head restlessly
+from side to side and said something incoherent in a weak murmur.</p>
+
+<p>"He's out of it," said Olga Nilssen. "He'll sleep now, I think. I
+suppose we must get rid of those people and then leave him to the care of
+his man. A doctor couldn't do anything for him."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes," said Ste. Marie, nodding, "I'll call the servant and tell the
+people that Stewart has been taken ill."</p>
+
+<p>He looked once more toward the photograph on the wall, and under his
+breath he said, with an odd, defiant fierceness: "I won't believe it!" But
+he did not explain what he wouldn't believe. He started out of the room,
+but, half-way, <a name="Page_140"></a>halted and turned back. He looked
+Olga Nilssen full in the eyes, saying:</p>
+
+<p>"It is safe to leave you here with him while I call the servant?
+There'll be no more--?"</p>
+
+<p>But the woman gave a low cry and a violent shiver with it.</p>
+
+<p>"You need have no fear," she said. "I've no desire now to--harm him.
+The--reason is gone. This has cured me. I feel as if I could never bear to
+see him again. Oh, hurry! Please hurry! I want to get away from here!"</p>
+
+<p>Ste. Marie nodded, and went out of the room.</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+
+
+
+<a name="Page_141"></a><h2><a name='XII'></a>XII</h2>
+
+<h3>THE NAME OF THE LADY WITH THE EYES--EVIDENCE HEAPS UP SWIFTLY</h3>
+
+
+<p>Ste. Marie drove home to the rue d'Assas with his head in a whirl, and
+with a sense of great excitement beating somewhere within him--probably in
+the place where his heart ought to be. He had a curiously sure feeling that
+at last his feet were upon the right path. He could not have explained this
+to himself--indeed, there was nothing to explain, and if there had been he
+was in far too great an inner turmoil to manage it. It was a mere
+feeling--the sort of thing which he had once tried to express to Captain
+Stewart and had got laughed at for his pains.</p>
+
+<p>There was, in sober fact, no reason whatever why Captain Stewart's
+possession of a photograph of the beautiful lady whom Ste. Marie had once
+seen in company with O'Hara should be taken as significant of anything
+except an appreciation of beauty on the part of Miss Benham's uncle--not
+even if, as Mlle. Nilssen believed, Captain Stewart was in love with the
+lady. But to Ste. Marie, in his whirl of reawakened excitement, the
+discovery loomed to the skies, and in a series of ingenious but very vague
+leaps of the imagination he saw himself, with the aid of this new evidence
+(which was no evidence at all, if he had been calm enough to realize it),
+victorious in his great <a name="Page_142"></a>quest: leading young Arthur
+Benham back to the arms of an ecstatic family, and kneeling at the feet of
+that youth's sister to claim his reward. All of which seems a rather
+startling flight of the imagination to have had its beginning in the sight
+of one photograph of a young woman. But, then, Ste. Marie was imaginative
+if he was anything.</p>
+
+<p>He fell to thinking of this girl whose eyes, after one sight of them,
+had so long haunted him. He thought of her between those two men, the
+hard-faced Irish adventurer, and the other, Stewart, strange compound of
+intellectual and voluptuary, and his eyes flashed in the dark and he
+gripped his hands together upon his knees. He said again:</p>
+
+<p>"I won't believe it! I won't believe it!" Believe what? one wonders.</p>
+
+<p>He slept hardly at all: only, toward morning, falling into an uneasy
+doze. And in the doze he dreamed once more the dream of the dim, waste
+place and the hill, and the eyes and voice that called him back--because
+they needed him.</p>
+
+<p>As early as he dared, after his morning coffee, he took a fiacre and
+drove across the river to the Boulevard de la Madeleine, where he climbed a
+certain stair, at the foot of which were two glass cases containing
+photographs of, for the most part, well-known ladies of the Parisian stage.
+At the top of the stair he entered the reception-room of a young
+photographer who is famous now the world over, but who, at the beginning of
+his career, when he had nothing but talent and no acquaintance, owed
+certain of his most important commissions to M. Ste. Marie.</p>
+
+<p>The man, whose name was Bernstein, came forward eagerly from the studio
+beyond to greet his visitor, and Ste. Marie complimented him chaffingly
+upon his very sleek and prosperous appearance, and upon the new decorations
+<a name="Page_143"></a>of the little salon, which were, in truth,
+excellently well judged. But after they had talked for a little while of
+such matters, he said:</p>
+
+<p>"I want to know if you keep specimen prints of all the photographs you
+have made within the past few months, and, if so, I should like to see
+them."</p>
+
+<p>The young Jew went to a wooden portfolio-holder which stood in a corner,
+and dragged it out into the light.</p>
+
+<p>"I have them all here," said he--"everything that I have made within the
+past ten or twelve months. If you will let me draw up a chair you can look
+them over comfortably."</p>
+
+<p>He glanced at his former patron with a little polite curiosity as Ste.
+Marie followed his suggestion, and began to turn over the big portfolio's
+contents; but he did not show any surprise nor ask questions. Indeed, he
+guessed, to a certain extent, rather near the truth of the matter. It had
+happened before that young gentlemen--and old ones, too--wanted to look
+over his prints without offering explanations, and they generally picked
+out all the photographs there were of some particular lady and bought them
+if they could be bought.</p>
+
+<p>So he was by no means astonished on this occasion, and he moved about
+the room putting things to rights, and even went for a few moments into the
+studio beyond until he was recalled by a sudden exclamation from his
+visitor--an exclamation which had a sound of mingled delight and
+excitement.</p>
+
+<p>Ste. Marie held in his hands a large photograph, and he turned it toward
+the man who had made it.</p>
+
+<p>"I am going to ask you some questions," said he, "that will sound rather
+indiscreet and irregular, but I beg you <a name="Page_144"></a>to answer
+them if you can, because the matter is of great importance to a number of
+people. Do you remember this lady?"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh yes," said the Jew, readily, "I remember her very well. I never
+forget people who are as beautiful as this lady was." His eyes gleamed with
+retrospective joy. "She was splendid!" he declared. "Sumptuous! No, I
+cannot describe her. I have not the words. And I could not photograph her
+with any justice, either. She was all color: brown skin, with a dull-red
+stain under the cheeks, and a great mass of hair that was not black but
+very nearly black--except in the sun, and then there were red lights in it.
+She was a goddess, that lady, a queen of goddesses-- the young Juno before
+marriage--the--"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes," interrupted Ste. Marie--"yes, I see. Yes, quite evidently she was
+beautiful; but what I wanted in particular to know was her name, if you
+feel that you have a right to give it to me (I remind you again that the
+matter is very important), and any circumstances that you can remember
+about her coming here: who came with her, for instance and things of that
+sort."</p>
+
+<p>The photographer looked a little disappointed at being cut off in the
+middle of his rhapsody, but he began turning over the leaves of an
+order-book which lay upon a table near by.</p>
+
+<p>"Here is the entry," he said, after a few moments. "Yes, I thought so,
+the date was nearly three months ago--April 5th. And the lady's name was
+Mlle. Coira O'Hara."</p>
+
+<p>"What!" cried the other man, sharply. "What did you say?"</p>
+
+<p>"Mlle. Coira O'Hara was the name," repeated the photographer. "I
+remember the occasion perfectly. The <a name="Page_145"></a>lady came here
+with three gentlemen--one tall, thin gentleman with an eyeglass, an
+Englishman, I think, though he spoke very excellent French when he spoke to
+me. Among themselves they spoke, I think, English, though I do not
+understand it, except a few words, such as ''ow moch?' and 'sank you' and
+'rady, pleas', now.'"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes! yes!" cried Ste. Marie, impatiently. And the little Jew could see
+that he was laboring under some very strong excitement, and he wondered
+mildly about it, scenting a love-affair.</p>
+
+<p>"Then," he pursued, "there was a very young man in strange clothes--a
+tourist, I should think, like those Americans and English who come in the
+summer with little red books and sit on the terrace of the Caf&eacute; de
+la Paix." He heard his visitor draw a swift, sharp breath at that, but he
+hurried on before he could be interrupted. "This young man seemed to be
+unable to take his eyes from the lady--and small wonder! He was very much
+&eacute;pris--very much &eacute;pris, indeed. Never have I seen a youth
+more so. Ah, it was something to see, that--a thing to touch the
+heart!"</p>
+
+<p>"What did the young man look like?" demanded Ste. Marie.</p>
+
+<p>The photographer described the youth as best he could from memory, and
+he saw his visitor nod once or twice, and at the end he said:</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, yes; I thought so. Thank you."</p>
+
+<p>The Jew did not know what it was the other thought, but he went on:</p>
+
+<p>"Ah, a thing to touch the heart! Such devotion as that! Alas, that the
+lady should seem so cold to it! Still, a goddess! What would you? A queen
+among goddesses. One would not have them laugh and make little jokes--make
+<a name="Page_146"></a>eyes at love-sick boys. No, indeed!" He shook his
+head rapidly and sighed.</p>
+
+<p>M. Ste. Marie was silent for a little space, but at length he looked up
+as if he had just remembered something.</p>
+
+<p>"And the third man?" he asked.</p>
+
+<p>"Ah, yes, the third gentleman," said Bernstein. "I had forgotten him.
+The third gentleman I knew well. He had often been here. It was he who
+brought these friends to me. He was M. le Capitaine Stewart. Everybody
+knows M. le Capitaine Stewart--everybody in Paris."</p>
+
+<p>Again he observed that his visitor drew a little, swift, sharp breath,
+and that he seemed to be laboring under some excitement.</p>
+
+<p>However, Ste. Marie did not question him further, and so he went on to
+tell the little more he knew of the matter--how the four people had
+remained for an hour or more, trying many poses; how they had returned, all
+but the tall gentleman, three days later to see the proofs and to order
+certain ones to be printed (the young man paying on the spot in advance),
+and how the finished prints had been sent to M. le Capitaine Stewart's
+address.</p>
+
+<p>When he had finished, his visitor sat for a long time silent, his head
+bent a little, frowning upon the floor and chafing his hands together over
+his knees. But at last he rose rather abruptly. He said:</p>
+
+<p>"Thank you very much, indeed. You have done me a great service. If ever
+I can repay it, command me. Thank you!"</p>
+
+<p>The Jew protested, smiling, that he was still too deeply in debt to M.
+Ste. Marie, and so, politely wrangling, they reached the door, and with a
+last expression of gratitude the visitor departed down the stair. A client
+came in just <a name="Page_147"></a>then for a sitting, and so the little
+photographer did not have an opportunity to wonder over the rather odd
+affair as much as he might have done. Indeed, in the press of work, it
+slipped from his mind altogether.</p>
+
+<p>But down in the busy boulevard Ste. Marie stood hesitating on the curb.
+There were so many things to be done, in the light of these new
+developments, that he did not know what to do first.</p>
+
+<p>"Mlle. Coira O'Hara!--<i>Mademoiselle!</i>" The thought gave him a
+sudden sting of inexplicable relief and pleasure. She would be O'Hara's
+daughter, then. And the boy, Arthur Benham (there was no room for doubt in
+the photographer's description) had seemed to be badly in love with her.
+This was a new development, indeed! It wanted thought, reflection,
+consultation with Richard Hartley. He signalled to a fiacre, and when it
+had drawn up before him sprang into it and gave Richard Hartley's address
+in the Avenue de l'Observatoire. But when they had gone a little way he
+changed his mind and gave another address, one in the Boulevard de la Tour
+Maubourg. It was where Mlle. Olga Nilssen lived. She had told him when he
+parted from her the evening before.</p>
+
+<p>On the way he fell to thinking of what he had learned from the little
+photographer Bernstein, to setting the facts, as well as he could, in
+order, endeavoring to make out just how much or how little they signified
+by themselves or added to what he had known before. But he was in far too
+keen a state of excitement to review them at all calmly. As on the previous
+evening, they seemed to him to loom to the skies, and again he saw himself
+successful in his quest--victorious--triumphant. That this leap to
+conclusions was but a little less absurd than the first did not occur to <a
+name="Page_148"></a>him. He was in a fine fever of enthusiasm, and such
+difficulties as his eye perceived lay in a sort of vague mist to be
+dissipated later on, when he should sit quietly down with Hartley and sift
+the wheat from the chaff, laying out a definite scheme of action.</p>
+
+<p>It occurred to him that in his interview with the photographer he had
+forgotten one point, and he determined to go back, later on, and ask about
+it. He had forgotten to inquire as to Captain Stewart's attitude toward the
+beautiful lady. Young Arthur Benham's infatuation had filled his mind at
+the time, and had driven out of it what Olga Nilssen had told him about
+Stewart. He found himself wondering if this point might not be one of great
+importance--the rivalry of the two men for O'Hara's daughter. Assuredly
+that demanded thought and investigation.</p>
+
+<p>He found the prettily furnished apartment in the Avenue de la Tour
+Maubourg a scene of great disorder, presided over by a maid who seemed to
+be packing enormous quantities of garments into large trunks. The maid told
+him that her mistress, after a sleepless night, had departed from Paris by
+an early train, quite alone, leaving the servant to follow on when she had
+telegraphed or written an address. No, Mlle. Nilssen had left no address at
+all--not even for letters or telegrams. In short, the entire proceeding
+was, so the exasperated woman viewed it, everything that is imbecile.</p>
+
+<p>Ste. Marie sat down on a hamper with his stick between his knees, and
+wrote a little note to be sent on when Mlle. Nilssen's whereabouts should
+be known. It was unfortunate, he reflected, that she should have fled away
+just now, but not of great importance to him, because he did not believe
+that he could learn very much more from <a name="Page_149"></a>her than he
+had learned already. Moreover, he sympathized with her desire to get away
+from Paris--as far away as possible from the man whom she had seen in so
+horrible a state on the evening past.</p>
+
+<p>He had kept the fiacre at the door, and he drove at once back to the rue
+d'Assas. As he started to mount the stair the concierge came out of her
+loge to say that Mr. Hartley had called soon after Monsieur had left the
+house that morning, had seemed very much disappointed on not finding
+Monsieur, and before going away again had had himself let into Monsieur's
+apartment with the key of the femme de m&eacute;nage, and had written a
+note which Monsieur would find l&agrave; haut.</p>
+
+<p>Ste. Marie thanked the woman, and went on up to his rooms, wondering why
+Hartley had bothered to leave a note instead of waiting or returning at
+lunch-time, as he usually did. He found the communication on his table and
+read it at once. Hartley said:</p>
+
+<p>I have to go across the river to the Bristol to see some relatives who
+are turning up there to-day, and who will probably keep me until evening,
+and then I shall have to go back there to dine. So I'm leaving a word for
+you about some things I discovered last evening. I met Miss Benham at
+Armenonville, where I dined, and in a t&ecirc;te-&agrave;-t&ecirc;te
+conversation we had after dinner she let fall two facts which seem to me
+very important. They concern Captain S. In the first place, when he told us
+that day, some time ago, that he knew nothing about his father's will or
+any changes that might have been made in it, he lied. It seems that old
+David, shortly after the boy's disappearance, being very angry at what he
+considered, and still considers, a bit of spite on the boy's part, cut
+young Arthur Benham out of his will and transferred that share <a
+name="Page_150"></a>to <i>Captain S.</i> (Miss Benham learned this from the
+old man only yesterday). Also it appears that he did this after talking the
+matter over with Captain S., who affected unwillingness. So, as the will
+reads now, Miss B. and Captain S. stand to share equally the bulk of the
+old man's money, which is several millions--in dollars, of course. Miss
+B.'s mother is to have the interest of half of both shares as long as she
+lives. Now mark this: Prior to this new arrangement, Captain S. was to
+receive only a small legacy, on the ground that he already had a
+respectable fortune left him by his mother, old David's first wife (I've
+heard, by-the-way, that he has squandered a good share of this.)</p>
+
+<p>Miss B. is, of course, much cut up over the injustice to the boy, but
+she can't protest too much, as it only excites old David. She says the old
+man is much weaker.</p>
+
+<p>You see, of course, the significance of all this. If David Stewart dies,
+as he's likely to do, before young Arthur's return, Captain S. gets the
+money.</p>
+
+<p>The second fact I learned was that Miss Benham did not tell her uncle
+about her semi-engagement to you or about your volunteering to search for
+the boy. She thinks her grandfather must have told him. I didn't say so to
+her, but that is hardly possible in view of the fact that Stewart came on
+here to your rooms very soon after you had reached them yourself.</p>
+
+<p>So that makes two lies for our gentle friend--and serious lies, both of
+them. To my mind, they point unmistakably to a certain conclusion.
+<i>Captain S. has been responsible for putting his nephew out of the
+way</i>. He has either hidden him somewhere and is keeping him in
+confinement, or he has killed him.</p>
+
+<p>I wish we could talk it over to-day, but, as you see, I'm helpless.
+Remain in to-night, and I'll come as soon as I can get rid of these
+confounded people of mine.</p>
+
+<p>One word more. Be careful! Miss B. is, up to this <a
+name="Page_151"></a>point, merely puzzled over things. She doesn't suspect
+her uncle of any crookedness, I'm sure. So we shall have to tread softly
+where she is concerned.</p>
+
+<p>I shall see you to-night. R.H.</p>
+
+<p>Ste. Marie read the closely written pages through twice, and he thought
+how like his friend it was to take the time and trouble to put what he had
+learned into this clear, concise form. Another man would have scribbled,
+"Important facts--tell you all about it to-night," or something of that
+kind. Hartley must have spent a quarter of an hour over his writing.</p>
+
+<p>Ste. Marie walked up and down the room with all his strength forcing his
+brain to quiet, reasonable action. Once he said, aloud:</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, you're right, of course. Stewart has been at the bottom of it all
+along." He realized that he had been for some days slowly arriving at that
+conclusion, and that since the night before he had been practically certain
+of it, though he had not yet found time to put his suspicions into logical
+order. Hartley's letter had driven the truth concretely home to him, but he
+would have reached the same truth without it--though that matter of the
+will was of the greatest importance. It gave him a strong weapon to strike
+with.</p>
+
+<p>He halted before one of the front windows, and his eyes gazed unseeing
+across the street into the green shrubbery of the Luxembourg Gardens. The
+lace curtains had been left by the femme de m&eacute;nage hanging straight
+down, and not, as usual, looped back to either side, so he could see
+through them with perfect ease, although he could not be seen from
+outside.</p>
+
+<p><a name="Page_152"></a>He became aware that a man who was walking slowly
+up and down a path inside the high iron palings was in some way familiar to
+him, and his eyes sharpened. The man was inconspicuously dressed, and
+looked like almost any other man whom one might pass in the streets without
+taking any notice of him; but Ste. Marie knew that he had seen him often,
+and he wondered how and where. There was a row of lilac shrubs against the
+iron palings just inside and between the palings and the path, but two of
+the shrubs were dead and leafless, and each time the man passed this spot
+he came into plain view; each time, also, he directed an oblique glance
+toward the house opposite. Presently he turned aside and sat down upon one
+of the public benches, where he was almost, but not quite, hidden by the
+intervening foliage.</p>
+
+<p>Then at last Ste. Marie gave a sudden exclamation and smote his hands
+together.</p>
+
+<p>"The fellow's a spy!" he cried, aloud. "He's watching the house to see
+when I go out." He began to remember how he had seen the man in the street
+and in caf&eacute;s and restaurants, and he remembered that he had once or
+twice thought it odd, but without any second thought of suspicion. So the
+fellow had been set to spy upon him, watch his goings and comings and
+report them to--no need of asking to whom.</p>
+
+<p>Ste. Marie stood behind his curtains and looked across into the pleasant
+expanse of shrubbery and greensward. He was wondering if it would be worth
+while to do anything. Men and women went up and down the path, hurrying or
+slowly, at ease with the world--laborers, students, bonnes with
+market-baskets in their hands and long bread loaves under their arms,
+nurse-maids herding small <a name="Page_153"></a>children, bigger children
+spinning diabolo spools as they walked. A man with a pointed black beard
+and a soft hat passed once and returned to seat himself upon the public
+bench that Ste. Marie was watching. For some minutes he sat there idle,
+holding the soft felt hat upon his knees for coolness. Then he turned and
+looked at the other occupant of the bench, and Ste. Marie thought he saw
+the other man nod, though he could not be sure whether either one spoke or
+not. Presently the new-comer rose, put on the soft hat again, and
+disappeared down the path going toward the gate at the head of the rue du
+Luxembourg.</p>
+
+<p>Five minutes later the door-bell rang.</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+
+
+
+<a name="Page_154"></a><h2><a name='XIII'></a>XIII</h2>
+
+<h3>THE VOYAGE TO COLCHIS</h3>
+
+
+<p>Ste. Marie turned away from the window and crossed to the door. The man
+with the pointed beard removed his soft hat, bowed very politely, and asked
+if he had the honor to address M. Ste. Marie.</p>
+
+<p>"That is my name," said Ste. Marie. "Entrez, Monsieur!" He waved his
+visitor to a chair and stood waiting.</p>
+
+<p>The man with the beard bowed once more. He said:</p>
+
+<p>"I have not the great honor of Monsieur's acquaintance, but
+circumstances, which I will explain later, have put it in my power--have
+made it a sacred duty, if I may be permitted to say the word--to place in
+Monsieur's hands a piece of information."</p>
+
+<p>Ste. Marie smiled slightly and sat down. He said:</p>
+
+<p>"I listen with pleasure--and anticipation. Pray go on!"</p>
+
+<p>"I have information," said the visitor, "of the whereabouts of M. Arthur
+Benham."</p>
+
+<p>Ste. Marie waved his hand.</p>
+
+<p>"I feared as much," said he. "I mean to say, I hoped so. Proceed,
+Monsieur!"</p>
+
+<p>"And learning," continued the other, "that M. Ste. Marie was conducting
+a search for that young gentleman, I hastened at once to place this
+information in his hands."</p>
+
+<p>"At a price," suggested his host. "At a price, to be sure."</p>
+
+<p><a name="Page_155"></a>The man with the beard spread out his hands in a
+beautiful and eloquent gesture which well accompanied his Marseillais
+accent.</p>
+
+<p>"Ah, as to that!" he protested. "My circumstances--I am poor, Monsieur.
+One must gain the livelihood. What would you? A trifle. The merest
+trifle."</p>
+
+<p>"Where is Arthur Benham?" asked Ste. Marie.</p>
+
+<p>"In Marseilles, Monsieur. I saw him a week ago--six days. And, so far as
+I could learn, he had no intention of leaving there immediately--though it
+is, to be sure, hot."</p>
+
+<p>Ste. Marie laughed a laugh of genuine amusement, and the man with the
+pointed beard stared at him with some wonder. Ste. Marie rose and crossed
+the room to a writing-desk which stood against the opposite wall. He
+fumbled in a drawer of this, and returned holding in his hand a
+pink-and-blue note of the Banque de France. He said:</p>
+
+<p>"Monsieur--pardon! I have forgotten to ask the name--you have remarked
+quite truly that one must gain a livelihood. Therefore, I do not presume to
+criticise the way in which you gain yours. Sometimes one cannot choose.
+However, I should like to make a little bargain with you, Monsieur. I know,
+of course, being not altogether imbecile, who sent you here with this story
+and why you were sent--why, also, your friend who sits upon the bench in
+the garden across the street follows me about and spies upon me. I know all
+this, and I laugh at it a little. But, Monsieur, to amuse myself further, I
+have a desire to hear from your own lips the name of the gentleman who is
+your employer. Amusement is almost always expensive, and so I am prepared
+to pay for this. I have here a note of one hundred francs. It is yours in
+return for the name--the <i>right</i> name. Remember, I know it
+already."</p>
+
+<p><a name="Page_156"></a>The man with the pointed beard sprang to his feet
+quivering with righteous indignation. All Southern Frenchmen, like all
+other Latins, are magnificent actors. He shook one clinched hand in the
+air, his face was pale, and his fine eyes glittered. Richard Hartley would
+have put himself promptly in an attitude of defence, but Ste. Marie nodded
+a smiling head in appreciation. He was half a Southern Frenchman
+himself.</p>
+
+<p>"Monsieur!" cried his visitor, in a choked voice, "Monsieur, have a
+care! You insult me! Have a care, Monsieur! I am dangerous! My anger, when
+roused, is terrible!"</p>
+
+<p>"I am cowed," observed Ste. Marie, lighting a cigarette. "I quail."</p>
+
+<p>"Never," declaimed the gentleman from Marseilles, "have I received an
+insult without returning blow for blow! My blood boils!"</p>
+
+<p>"The hundred francs, Monsieur," said Ste. Marie, "will doubtless cool
+it. Besides, we stray from our sheep. Reflect, my friend! I have not
+insulted you. I have asked you a simple question. To be sure, I have said
+that I knew your errand here was not--not altogether sincere, but I
+protest, Monsieur, that no blame attaches to yourself. The blame is your
+employer's. You have performed your mission with the greatest of
+honesty--the most delicate and faithful sense of honor. That is
+understood."</p>
+
+<p>The gentleman with the beard strode across to one of the windows and
+leaned his head upon his hand. His shoulders still heaved with emotion, but
+he no longer trembled. The terrible crisis bade fair to pass. Then,
+abruptly, in the frank and open Latin way, he burst into tears, and wept
+with copious profusion, while Ste. Marie smoked his cigarette and
+waited.</p>
+
+<p><a name="Page_157"></a>When at length the Marseillais turned back into
+the room he was calm once more, but there remained traces of storm and
+flood. He made a gesture of indescribable and pathetic resignation.</p>
+
+<p>"Monsieur," he exclaimed, "you have a heart of gold--of gold, Monsieur!
+You understand. Behold us, two men of honor! Monsieur," he said, "I had no
+choice. I was poor. I saw myself face to face with the mis&egrave;re. What
+would you? I fell. We are all weak flesh. I accepted the commission of the
+pig who sent me here to you."</p>
+
+<p>Ste. Marie smoothed the pink-and-blue bank-note in his hands, and the
+other man's eye clung to it as though he were starving and the bank-note
+was food.</p>
+
+<p>"The name?" prompted Ste. Marie.</p>
+
+<p>The gentleman from Marseilles tossed up his hands.</p>
+
+<p>"Monsieur already knows it. Why should I hesitate? The name is
+Ducrot."</p>
+
+<p>"What!" cried Ste. Marie, sharply. "What is that? Ducrot?"</p>
+
+<p>"But naturally!" said the other man, with some wonder. "Monsieur said he
+knew. Certainly, Ducrot. A little, withered man, bald on the top of the
+head, creases down the cheeks, a mustache like this"--he made a descriptive
+gesture--"a little chin. A man like an elderly cat. M. Ducrot."</p>
+
+<p>Ste. Marie gave a sigh of relief.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, yes," said he. "Ducrot is as good a name as another. The gentleman
+has more than one, it appears. Monsieur, the hundred-franc note is
+yours."</p>
+
+<p>The gentleman from Marseilles took it with a slightly trembling hand,
+and began to bow himself toward the door <a name="Page_158"></a>as if he
+feared that his host would experience a change of heart; but Ste. Marie
+checked him, saying:</p>
+
+<p>"One moment. I was thinking," said he, "that you would perhaps not care
+to present yourself to your--employer, M. Ducrot, immediately--not for a
+few days, at least, in view of the fact that certain actions of mine will
+show him your mission has--well, miscarried. It would, perhaps, be well for
+you not to communicate with M. Ducrot. He might be displeased with
+you."</p>
+
+<p>"Monsieur," said the gentleman with the beard, "you speak with acumen
+and wisdom. I shall neglect to report myself to M. Ducrot, who, I repeat,
+is a pig."</p>
+
+<p>"And," pursued Ste. Marie, "the individual on the bench across the
+street?"</p>
+
+<p>"It is not necessary that I meet that individual, either!" said the
+Marseillais, hastily. "Monsieur, I bid you adieu!" He bowed again, a
+profound, a scraping bow, and disappeared through the door.</p>
+
+<p>Ste. Marie crossed to the window and looked down upon the pavement
+below. He saw his late visitor emerge from the house and slip rapidly down
+the street toward the rue Vavin. He glanced across into the gardens and the
+spy still sat there on his bench, but his head lay back and he slept--the
+sleep of the unjust. One imagined that he must be snoring, for an
+incredibly small urchin in a blue apron stood on the path before him and
+watched with the open mouth of astonishment.</p>
+
+<p>Ste. Marie turned back into the room, and began to tramp up and down as
+was his way in a perplexity or in any time of serious thought. He wished
+very much that Richard Hartley were there to consult with. He considered
+Hartley to have a judicial mind--a mind to establish, <a
+name="Page_159"></a>out of confusion, something like logical order, and he
+was very well aware that he himself had not that sort of mind at all. In
+action he was sufficiently confident of himself, but to construct a course
+of action he was afraid, and he knew that a misstep now, at this critical
+point, might be fatal--turn success into disaster.</p>
+
+<p>He fell to thinking of Captain Stewart (alias M. Ducrot) and he longed
+most passionately to leap into a fiacre at the corner below, to drive at a
+gallop across the city to the rue du Faubourg St. Honor&eacute;, to fall
+upon that smiling hypocrite in his beautiful treasure-house, to seize him
+by the withered throat and say:</p>
+
+<p>"Tell me what you have done with Arthur Benham before I tear your head
+from your miserable body!"</p>
+
+<p>Indeed, he was far from sure that this was not what it would come to, in
+the end, for he reflected that he had not only a tremendous accumulation of
+evidence with which to face Captain Stewart, but also a very terrible
+weapon to hold over his head--the threat of exposure to the old man who lay
+slowly dying in the rue de l'Universit&eacute;! A few words in old David's
+ear, a few proofs of their truth, and the great fortune for which the son
+had sold his soul--if he had any left to sell--must pass forever out of his
+reach, like gold seen in a dream.</p>
+
+<p>This is what it might well come to, he said to himself. Indeed, it
+seemed to him at that moment far the most feasible plan, for to such
+accusations, such demands as that, Captain Stewart could offer no defence.
+To save himself from a more complete ruin he would have to give up the boy
+or tell what he knew of him. But Ste. Marie was unwilling to risk
+everything on this throw without <a name="Page_160"></a>seeing Richard
+Hartley first, and Hartley was not to be had until evening.</p>
+
+<p>He told himself that, after all, there was no immediate hurry, for he
+was quite sure the man would be compelled to keep to his bed for a day or
+two. He did not know much about epilepsy, but he knew that its paroxysms
+were followed by great exhaustion, and he felt sure that Stewart was far
+too weak in body to recuperate quickly from any severe call upon his
+strength. He remembered how light that burden had been in his arms the
+night before, and then an uncontrollable shiver of disgust went over him as
+he remembered the sight of the horribly twisted and contorted face, felt
+again the shaking, thumping head as it beat against his shoulder. He
+wondered how much Stewart knew, how much he would be able to remember of
+the events of the evening before, and he was at a loss there because of his
+unfamiliarity with epileptic seizures. Of one thing, however, he was almost
+certain, and that was that the man could scarcely have been conscious of
+who were beside him when the fit was over. If he had come at all to his
+proper senses before the ensuing slumber of exhaustion, it must have been
+after Mlle. Nilssen and himself had gone away.</p>
+
+<p>Upon that he fell to wondering about the spy and the gentleman from
+Marseilles--he was a little sorry that Hartley could not have seen the
+gentleman from Marseilles--but he reflected that the two were, without
+doubt, acting upon old orders, and that the latter had probably been
+stalking him for some days before he found him at home.</p>
+
+<p>He looked at his watch and it was half-past twelve. There was nothing to
+be done, he considered, but wait--get through the day somehow; and so,
+presently, he went <a name="Page_161"></a>out to lunch. He went up the rue
+Vavin to the Boulevard Montparnasse and down that broad thoroughfare to
+Lavenue's, on the busy Place de Rennes, where the cooking is the best in
+all this quarter, and can, indeed, hold up its head without shame in the
+face of those other more widely famous restaurants across the river,
+frequented by the smart world and by the travelling gourmet.</p>
+
+<p>He went through to the inner room, which is built like a raised loggia
+round two sides of a little garden, and which is always cool and fresh in
+summer. He ordered a rather elaborate lunch, and thought that he sat a very
+long time at it, but when he looked again at his watch only an hour and a
+half had gone by. It was a quarter-past two. Ste. Marie was depressed.
+There remained almost all of the afternoon to be got through, and Heaven
+alone could say how much of the evening, before he could have his
+consultation with Richard Hartley. He tried to think of some way of passing
+the time, but although he was not usually at a loss he found his mind empty
+of ideas. None of his common occupations recommended themselves to him. He
+knew that whatever he tried to do he would interrupt it with pulling out
+his watch every half-hour or so and cursing the time because it lagged so
+slowly. He went out to the terrace for coffee, very low in his mind.</p>
+
+<p>But half an hour later, as he sat behind his little marble-topped table,
+smoking and sipping a liqueur, his eyes fell upon something across the
+square which brought him to his feet with a sudden exclamation. One of the
+big electric trams that ply between the Place St. Germain des Pr&eacute;s
+and Clamart, by way of the Porte de Versailles and Vanves, was dragging its
+unwieldy bulk round the turn from the rue de Rennes into the boulevard. He
+could <a name="Page_162"></a>see the sign-board along the
+imp&eacute;riale--"Clamart-St. Germain des Pr&eacute;s," with "Issy" and
+"Vanves" in brackets between.</p>
+
+<p>Ste. Marie clinked a franc upon the table and made off across the Place
+at a run. Omnibuses from Batignolles and Menilmontant got in his way,
+fiacres tried to run him down, and a motor-car in a hurry pulled up just in
+time to save his life, but Ste. Marie ran on and caught the tram before it
+had completed the negotiation of the long curve and gathered speed for its
+dash down the boulevard. He sprang upon the step, and the conductor
+reluctantly unfastened the chain to admit him. So he climbed up to the top
+and seated himself, panting. The dial high on the fa&ccedil;ade of the Gare
+Montparnasse said ten minutes to three.</p>
+
+<p>He had no definite plan of action. He had started off in this headlong
+fashion upon the spur of a moment's impulse, and because he knew where the
+tram was going. Now, embarked, he began to wonder if he was not a fool. He
+knew every foot of the way to Clamart, for it was a favorite half-day's
+excursion with him to ride there in this fashion, walk thence through the
+beautiful Meudon wood across to the river, and from Bellevue or Bas-Meudon
+take a Suresnes boat back into the city. He knew, or thought he knew, just
+where lay the house, surrounded by garden and half-wild park, of which Olga
+Nilssen had told him; he had often wondered whose place it was as the tram
+rolled along the length of its high wall. But he knew, also, that he could
+do nothing there, single-handed and without excuse or preparation. He could
+not boldly ring the bell, demand speech with Mile. Coira O'Hara, and ask
+her if she knew anything of the whereabouts of young Arthur Benham, whom a
+photographer had suspected of being in love with <a
+name="Page_163"></a>her. He certainly could not do that. And there seemed
+to be nothing else that--Ste. Marie broke off this somewhat despondent
+course of reasoning with a sudden little voiceless cry. For the first time
+it occurred to him to connect the house on the Clamart road and Mlle. Coira
+O'Hara and young Arthur Benham (it will be remembered that the man had not
+yet had time to arrange his suddenly acquired mass of evidence in logical
+order and to make deductions from it), for the first time he began to put
+two and two together. Stewart had hidden away his nephew; this nephew was
+known to have been much enamoured of the girl Coira O'Hara; Coira O'Hara
+was said to be living--with her father, probably--in the house on the
+outskirts of Paris, where she was visited by Captain Stewart. Was not the
+inference plain enough--sufficiently reasonable? It left, without doubt,
+many puzzling things to be explained--perhaps too many; but Ste. Marie sat
+forward in his seat, his eyes gleaming, his face tense with excitement.</p>
+
+<p>"Is young Arthur Benham in the house on the Clamart road?"</p>
+
+<p>He said the words almost aloud, and he became aware that the fat woman
+with a live fowl at her feet and the butcher's boy on his other side were
+looking at him curiously. He realized that he was behaving in an excited
+manner, and so sat back and lowered his eyes. But over and over within him
+the words said themselves--over and over, until they made a sort of mad,
+foolish refrain.</p>
+
+<p>"Is Arthur Benham in the house on the Clamart road? Is Arthur Benham in
+the house on the Clamart road?" He was afraid that he would say it aloud
+once more, and, he tried to keep a firm hold upon himself.</p>
+
+<p><a name="Page_164"></a>The tram swung into the rue de Sevres, and rolled
+smoothly out the long, uninteresting stretch of the rue Lecourbe, far out
+to where the houses, became scattered, where mounds and pyramids of red
+tiles stood alongside the factory where they had been made, where an acre
+of little glass hemispheres in long, straight rows winked and glistened in
+the afternoon sun--the forcing-beds of some market gardener; out to the
+Porte de Versailles at the city wall, where a group of customs officers
+sprawled at ease before their little sentry-box or loafed over to inspect
+an incoming tram.</p>
+
+<p>A bugle sounded and a drum beat from the great fosse under the wall, and
+a company of piou-pious, red-capped, red-trousered, shambled through their
+evolutions in a manner to break the heart of a British or a German
+drill-sergeant. Then out past level fields to little Vanves, with its steep
+streets and its old gray church, and past the splendid grounds of the
+Lyc&eacute;e beyond. The fat woman got down, her live fowl shrieking
+protest to the movement, and the butcher's boy got down, too, so that Ste.
+Marie was left alone upon the imp&eacute;riale save for a snuffy old
+gentleman in a pot-hat who sat in a corner buried behind the day's
+<i>Droits de l'Homme</i>.</p>
+
+<p>Ste. Marie moved forward once more and laid his arms upon the iron rail
+before him. They were coming near. They ran past plum and apple orchards
+and past humble little detached villas, each with a bit of garden in front
+and an acacia or two at the gate-posts. But presently, on the right, the
+way began to be bordered by a high stone wall, very long, behind which
+showed the trees of a park, and among them, far back from the wall beyond a
+little rise of ground, the gables and chimneys of a house could <a
+name="Page_165"></a>be made out. The wall went on for perhaps a quarter of
+a mile in a straight sweep, but half-way the road swung apart from it to
+the left, dipped under a stone railway bridge, and so presently ended at
+the village of Clamart.</p>
+
+<p>As the tram approached the beginning of that long stone wall it began to
+slacken speed, there was a grating noise from underneath, and presently it
+came to an abrupt halt. Ste. Marie looked over the guard-rail and saw that
+the driver had left his place and was kneeling in the dust beside the car
+peering at its underworks. The conductor strolled round to him after a
+moment and stood indifferently by, remarking upon the strange vicissitudes
+to which electrical propulsion is subject. The driver, without looking up,
+called his colleague a number of the most surprising and, it is to be
+hoped, unwarranted names, and suddenly began to burrow under the tram,
+wriggling his way after the manner of a serpent until nothing could be seen
+of him but two unrestful feet. His voice, though muffled, was still
+tolerably distinct. It cursed, in an unceasing staccato and with admirable
+ingenuity, the tram, the conductor, the sacred dog of an impediment which
+had got itself wedged into one of the trucks, and the world in general.</p>
+
+<p>Ste. Marie, sitting aloft, laughed for a moment, and then turned his
+eager eyes upon what lay across the road. The halt had taken place almost
+exactly at the beginning of that long stretch of park wall which ran beside
+the road and the tramway. From where he sat he could see the other wing
+which led inward from the road at something like a right angle, but was
+presently lost to sight because of a sparse and unkempt patch of young
+trees and shrubs, well-nigh choked with undergrowth, which extended for
+some <a name="Page_166"></a>distance from the park wall backward along the
+road-side toward Vanves. Whoever owned that stretch of land had seemingly
+not thought it worth while to cultivate it or to build upon it or even to
+clear it off.</p>
+
+<p>Ste. Marie's first thought, as his eye scanned the two long stretches of
+wall and looked over their tops to the trees of the park and the far-off
+gables and chimneys of the house, was to wonder where the entrance to the
+place could be, and he decided that it must be on the side opposite to the
+Clamart tram-line. He did not know the smaller roads hereabouts, but he
+guessed that there must be one somewhere beyond, between the route de
+Clamart and Fort d'Issy, and he was right. There is a little road between
+the two; it sweeps round in a long curve and ends near the tiny public
+garden in Issy, and it is called the rue Barb&eacute;s.</p>
+
+<p>His second thought was that this unkempt patch of tree and brush offered
+excellent cover for any one who might wish to pass an observant hour
+alongside that high stone wall; for any one who might desire to cast a
+glance over the lie of the land, to see at closer range that house of which
+so little could be seen from the route de Clamart, to look over the wall's
+coping into park and garden.</p>
+
+<p>The thought brought him to his feet with a leaping heart, and before he
+realized that he had moved he found himself in the road beside the halted
+tram. The conductor brushed past him, mounting to his place, and from the
+platform beckoned, crying out:</p>
+
+<p>"En voiture, Monsieur! En voiture!"</p>
+
+<p>Again something within Ste. Marie that was not his conscious direction
+acted for him, and he shook his head. The conductor gave two little blasts
+upon his horn, the tram <a name="Page_167"></a>wheezed and moved forward.
+In a moment it was on its way, swinging along at full speed toward the
+curve in the line that bore to the left and dipped under the railway
+bridge. Ste. Marie stood in the middle of that empty road, staring after it
+until it had disappeared from view.</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+
+
+
+<a name="Page_168"></a><h2><a name='XIV'></a>XIV</h2>
+
+<h3>THE WALLS OF AEA</h3>
+
+
+<p>Ste. Marie had acted upon an impulse of which he was scarcely conscious
+at all, and when he found himself standing alone in the road and watching
+the Clamart tram disappear under the railway bridge he called himself hard
+names and wondered what he was to do next. He looked before and behind him,
+and there was no living soul in sight. He bent his eyes again upon that
+unkempt patch of young trees and undergrowth, and once more the thought
+forced itself to his brain that it would make excellent cover for one who
+wished to observe a little--to reconnoitre.</p>
+
+<p>He knew that it was the part of wisdom to turn his back upon this place,
+to walk on to Clamart or return to Vanves and mount upon a homeward-bound
+tram. He knew that it was the part of folly, of madness even, to expose
+himself to possible discovery by some one within the walled enclosure. What
+though no one there were able to recognize him, still the sight of a man
+prowling about the walls, seeking to spy over them, might excite an alarm
+that would lead to all sorts of undesirable complications. Dimly Ste. Marie
+realized all this, and he tried to turn his back and walk away, but the
+patch of little trees and shrubbery drew him with an irresistible
+fascination. "Just a little <a name="Page_169"></a>look along that unknown
+wall," he said to himself, "just the briefest of all brief reconnaissances,
+the merest glance beyond the masking screen of wood growth, so that in case
+of sudden future need he might have the lie of the place clear in his
+mind;" for without any sound reason for it he was somehow confident that
+this walled house and garden were to play an important part in the rescue
+of Arthur Benham. It was once more a matter of feeling. The rather
+womanlike intuition which had warned him that O'Hara was concerned in young
+Benham's disappearance, and that the two were not far from Paris, was again
+at work in him, and he trusted it as he had done before.</p>
+
+<p>He gave a little nod of determination, as one who, for good or ill,
+casts a die, and he crossed the road. There was a deep ditch, and he had to
+climb down into it and up its farther side, for it was too broad to be
+jumped. So he came into the shelter of the young poplars and elms and oaks.
+The underbrush caught at his clothes, and the dead leaves of past seasons
+crackled underfoot; but after a little space he came to somewhat clearer
+ground, though the saplings still stood thick about him and hid him
+securely.</p>
+
+<p>He made his way inward along the wall, keeping a short distance back
+from it, and he saw that after twenty or thirty yards it turned again at a
+very obtuse angle away from him and once more ran on in a long straight
+line. Just beyond this angle he came upon a little wooden door thickly
+studded with nails. It was made to open inward, and on the outside there
+was no knob or handle of any kind, only a large key-hole of the simple,
+old-fashioned sort. Slipping up near to look, Ste. Marie observed that the
+edges of the key-hole were rusty, but scratched a little through the rust
+with <a name="Page_170"></a>recent marks; so the door, it seemed, was
+sometimes used. He observed another thing. The ground near by was less
+encumbered with trees than at any other point, and the turf was depressed
+with many wheel marks--broad marks, such as are made only by the wheels of
+a motor-car. He followed these tracks for a little distance, and they wound
+in and out among the trees, and beyond the thin fringe of wood swept away
+in a curve toward Issy, doubtless to join the road which he had already
+imagined to lie somewhere beyond the enclosure.</p>
+
+<p>Beyond the more open space about this little door the young trees stood
+thick together again, and Ste. Marie pressed cautiously on. He stopped now
+and then to listen, and once he thought that he heard from within the sound
+of a woman's laugh, but he could not be sure. The slight change of
+direction had confused him a little, and he was uncertain as to where the
+house lay. The wall was twelve or fifteen feet high, and from the level of
+the ground he could, of course, see nothing over it but tree tops. He went
+on for what may have been a hundred yards, but it seemed to him very much
+more than that, and he came to a tall gnarled cedar-tree which stood almost
+against the high wall. It was half dead, but its twisted limbs were thick
+and strong, and by force of the tree's cramped position they had grown in
+strange and grotesque forms. One of them stretched across the very top of
+the stone wall, and with the wind's action it had scraped away the coping
+of tiles and bottle-glass and had made a little depression there to rest
+in.</p>
+
+<p>Ste. Marie looked up along this natural ladder, and temptation smote him
+sorely. It was so easy and so safe! There was enough foliage left upon the
+half-dead tree to screen him well, but whether or no it is probable that he
+<a name="Page_171"></a>would have yielded to the proffered lure. There
+seems to have been more than chance in Ste. Marie's movements upon this
+day; there seems to have been something like the hand of Fate in them--as
+doubtless there is in most things, if one but knew.</p>
+
+<p>He left his hat and stick behind him, under a shrub, and he began to
+make his way up the half-bare branches of the gnarled cedar. They bore him
+well, without crack or rustle, and the way was very easy. No ladder made by
+man could have offered a much simpler ascent. So, mounting slowly and with
+care, his head came level with the top of the wall. He climbed to the next
+branch, a foot higher, and rested there. The drooping foliage from the
+upper part of the cedar-tree, which was still alive, hung down over him and
+cloaked him from view, but through its aromatic screen he could see as
+freely as through the window curtain in the rue d'Assas.</p>
+
+<p>The house lay before him, a little to the left and perhaps a hundred
+yards away. It was a disappointing house to find in that great enclosure,
+for though it was certainly neither small nor trivial, it was as certainly
+far from possessing anything like grandeur. It had been in its day a
+respectable, unpretentious square structure of three stories, entirely
+without architectural beauty, but also entirely without the ornate
+hideousness of the modern villas along the route de Clamart. Now, however,
+the stucco was gone in great patches from its stone walls, giving them an
+unpleasantly diseased look, and long neglect of all decent cares had lent
+the place the air almost of desertion. Anciently the grounds before the
+house had been laid out in the formal fashion with a terrace and
+geometrical lawns and a pool and a fountain and a rather fine, long vista
+<a name="Page_172"></a>between clipped larches, but the same neglect which
+had made shabby the stuccoed house had allowed grass and weeds to grow over
+the gravel paths, underbrush to spring up and to encroach upon the
+geometrical turf-plots, the long double row of clipped larches to flourish
+at will or to die or to fall prostrate and lie where they had fallen.</p>
+
+<p>So all the broad enclosure was a scene of heedless neglect, a riot of
+unrestrained and wanton growth, where should have been decorous and orderly
+beauty. It was a sight to bring tears to a gardener's eyes, but it had a
+certain untamed charm of its own, for all that. The very riot of it, the
+wanton prodigality of untouched natural growth, produced an effect that was
+by no means all disagreeable.</p>
+
+<p>An odd and whimsical thought came into Ste. Marie's mind that thus must
+have looked the garden and park round the castle of the sleeping beauty
+when the prince came to wake her.</p>
+
+<p>But sleeping beauties and unkempt grounds went from him in a flash when
+he became aware of a sound which was like the sound of voices.
+Instinctively he drew farther back into the shelter of his aromatic screen.
+His eyes swept the space below him from right to left, and could see no
+one. So he sat very still, save for the thunderous beat of a heart which
+seemed to him like drum-beats when soldiers are marching, and he
+listened--"all ears," as the phrase goes.</p>
+
+<p>The sound was in truth a sound of voices. He was presently assured of
+that, but for some time he could not make out from which direction it came.
+And so he was the more startled when quite suddenly there appeared from
+behind a row of tall shrubs two young people moving slowly together up the
+untrimmed turf in the direction of the house.</p>
+
+<p class="figure"> <a name="jason005"><img
+width="80%" alt="Illustration: THERE APPEARED TWO YOUNG PEOPLE MOVING
+SLOWLY IN THE DIRECTION OF THE HOUSE" src="images/jason005.png" /></a><br /> THERE
+APPEARED TWO YOUNG PEOPLE MOVING SLOWLY IN THE DIRECTION OF THE
+HOUSE</p>
+
+<p><a name="Page_173"></a>The two young people were Mlle. Coira O'Hara and
+Arthur Benham, and upon the brow of this latter youth there was no sign of
+dungeon pallor, upon his free-moving limbs no ball and chain. There was no
+apparent reason why he should not hasten back to the eager arms in the rue
+de l'Universit&eacute; if he chose to--unless, indeed, his undissembling
+attitude toward Mlle. Coira O'Hara might serve as a reason. The young man
+followed at her heel with much the manner and somewhat the appearance of a
+small dog humbly conscious of unworthiness, but hopeful nevertheless of an
+occasional kind word or pat on the head.</p>
+
+<p>The world wheeled multi-colored and kaleidoscopic before Ste. Marie's
+eyes, and in his ears there was a rushing of great winds, but he set his
+teeth and clung with all the strength he had to the tree which sheltered
+him. His first feeling, after that initial giddiness, was anger, sheer
+anger, a bewildered and astonished fury. He had thought to find this poor
+youth in captivity, pining through prison bars for the home and the loved
+ones and the familiar life from which he had been ruthlessly torn. Yet here
+he was strolling in a suburban garden with a lady--free, free as air, or so
+he seemed. Ste. Marie thought of the grim and sorrowful old man in Paris
+who was sinking untimely into his grave because his grandson did not return
+to him; he thought of that timid soul--more shadow than woman--the boy's
+mother; he thought of Helen Benham's tragic eyes, and he could have beaten
+young Arthur half to death in that moment in the righteous rage that
+stormed within him.</p>
+
+<p>But he turned his eyes from this wretched youth to the girl who walked
+beside, a little in advance, and the rage died in him swiftly.</p>
+
+<p><a name="Page_174"></a>After all, was she not one to make any boy--or
+any man--forget duty, home, friends, everything?</p>
+
+<p>Rather oddly his mind flashed back to the morning and to the words of
+the little photographer, Bernstein. Perhaps the Jew had put it as well as
+any man could:</p>
+
+<p>"She was a goddess, that lady, a queen of goddesses ... the young Juno
+before marriage...."</p>
+
+<p>Ste. Marie nodded his head. Yes, she was just that. The little Jew had
+spoken well. It could not be more fairly put--though without doubt it could
+have been expressed at much greater length and with a great deal more
+eloquence. The photographer's other words came also to his mind, the more
+detailed description, and again he nodded his head, for this, too, was
+true.</p>
+
+<p>"She was all color--brown skin with a dull-red stain under the cheeks,
+and a great mass of hair that was not black but very nearly black--except
+in the sun, and then there were red lights in it."</p>
+
+<p>It occurred to Ste. Marie, whimsically, that the two young people might
+have stepped out of the door of Bernstein's studio straight into this
+garden, judging from their bearing each to the other.</p>
+
+<p>"Ah, a thing to touch the heart! Such devotion as that! Alas, that the
+lady should seem so cold to it! ... Still, a goddess! What would you? A
+queen among goddesses! ... One would not have them laugh and make little
+jokes.... Make eyes at love-sick boys. No, indeed!"</p>
+
+<p>Certainly Mlle. Coira O'Hara was not making eyes at the love-sick boy
+who followed at her heel this afternoon. Perhaps it would be going too far
+to say that she was cold to him, but it was very plain to see that she was
+bored and weary, and that she wished she might be almost anywhere <a
+name="Page_175"></a>else than where she was. She turned her beautiful face
+a little toward the wall where Ste. Marie lay perdu, and he could see that
+her eyes had the same dark fire, the same tragic look of appeal that he had
+seen in them before--once in the Champs-Elys&eacute;es and again in his
+dreams.</p>
+
+<p>Abruptly he became aware that while he gazed, like a man in a trance,
+the two young people walked on their way and were on the point of passing
+beyond reach of eye or ear. He made a sudden involuntary movement as if he
+would call them back, and for the first time his faithful hiding-place,
+strained beyond silent endurance, betrayed him with a loud rustle of shaken
+branches. Ste. Marie shrank back, his heart in his throat. It was too late
+to retreat now down the tree. The damage was already done. He saw the two
+young people halt and turn to look, and after a moment he saw the boy come
+slowly forward, staring. He heard him say:</p>
+
+<p>"What's up in that tree? There's something in the tree." And he heard
+the girl answer: "It's only birds fighting. Don't bother!" But young Arthur
+Benham came on, staring up curiously until he was almost under the high
+wall.</p>
+
+<p>Then Ste. Marie's strange madness, or the hand of Fate, or whatever
+power it was which governed him on that day, thrust him on to the ultimate
+pitch of recklessness. He bent forward from his insecure perch over the
+wall until his head and shoulders were in plain sight, and he called down
+to the lad below in a loud whisper:</p>
+
+<p>"Benham! Benham!"</p>
+
+<p>The boy gave a sharp cry of alarm and began to back away. And after a
+moment Ste. Marie heard the cry echoed from Coira O'Hara. He heard her
+say:</p>
+
+<p><a name="Page_176"></a>"Be careful! Be careful, Arthur! Come away! Oh,
+come away quickly!"</p>
+
+<p>Ste. Marie raised his own voice to a sort of cry. He said:</p>
+
+<p>"Wait! I tell you to wait, Benham! I must have a word with you. I come
+from your family--from Helen!"</p>
+
+<p>To his amazement the lad turned about and began to run toward where the
+girl stood waiting; and so, without a moment's hesitation, Ste. Marie threw
+himself across the top of the wall, hung for an instant by his hands, and
+dropped upon the soft turf. Scarcely waiting to recover his balance, he
+stumbled forward, shouting:</p>
+
+<p>"Wait! I tell you, wait! Are you mad? Wait, I say! Listen to me!"</p>
+
+<p>Vaguely, in the midst of his great excitement, he had heard a whistle
+sound as he dropped inside the wall. He did not know then whence the shrill
+call had come, but afterward he knew that Coira O' Hara had blown it. And
+now, as he ran forward toward the two who stood at a distance staring at
+him, he heard other steps and he slackened his pace to look.</p>
+
+<p>A man came running down among the black-boled trees, a strange, squat,
+gnomelike man whose gait was as uncouth as his dwarfish figure. He held
+something in his two hands as he ran, and when he came near he threw this
+thing with a swift movement up before him, but he did not pause in his odd,
+scrambling run.</p>
+
+<p>Ste. Marie felt a violent blow upon his left leg between hip and knee.
+He thought that somebody had crept up behind him and struck him; but as he
+whirled about he saw that there was no one there, and then he heard a noise
+and knew that the gnomelike running man had shot him. He faced about once
+more toward the two young people. <a name="Page_177"></a>He was very angry
+and he wished to say so, and very much he wished to explain why he had
+trespassed there, and why they had no right to shoot him as if he were some
+wretched thief. But he found that in some quite absurd fashion he was as if
+fixed to the ground. It was as if he had suddenly become of the most
+ponderous and incredible weight, like lead--or that other metal, not gold,
+which is the heaviest of all. Only the metal, seemingly, was not only heavy
+but fiery hot, and his strength was incapable of holding it up any longer.
+His eyes fixed themselves in a bewildered stare upon the figure of Mlle.
+Coira O'Hara; he had time to observe that she had put up her two hands over
+her face, then he fell down forward, his head struck something very hard,
+and he knew no more.</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+
+
+
+<a name="Page_178"></a><h2><a name='XV'></a>XV</h2>
+
+<h3>A CONVERSATION AT LA LIERRE</h3>
+
+
+<p>Captain Stewart walked nervously up and down the small inner
+drawing-room at La Lierre, his restless hands fumbling together behind him,
+and his eyes turning every half-minute with a sharp eagerness to the closed
+door. But at last, as if he were very tired, he threw himself down in a
+chair which stood near one of the windows, and all his tense body seemed to
+relax in utter exhaustion. It was not a very comfortable chair that he had
+sat down in, but there were no comfortable chairs in the room--nor, for
+that matter, in all the house. When he had taken the place, about two
+months before this time, he had taken it furnished, but that does not mean
+very much in France. No French country-houses--or town-houses, either--are
+in the least comfortable, by Anglo-Saxon standards, and that is at least
+one excellent reason why Frenchmen spend just as little time in them as
+they possibly can. Half the caf&eacute;s in Paris would promptly put up
+their shutters if Parisian homes could all at once turn themselves into
+something like English or American ones. As for La Lierre, it was even more
+dreary and bare and tomblike than other country-houses, because it was,
+after all, a sort of ruin, and had not been lived in for fifteen years,
+save by an ancient caretaker and his nearly as ancient wife. And that was,
+perhaps, <a name="Page_179"></a>why it could be taken on a short lease at
+such a very low price.</p>
+
+<p>The room in which Captain Stewart sat was behind the large drawing-room,
+which was always kept closed now, and it looked out by one window to the
+west, and by two windows to the north, over a corner of the kitchen garden
+and a vista of trees beyond. It was a high-ceiled room with walls bare
+except for two large mirrors in the Empire fashion, which stared at each
+other across the way with dull and flaking eyes. Under each of these stood
+a heavy gilt and ebony console with a top of chocolate-colored marble, and
+in the centre of the room there was a table of a like fashion to the
+consoles. Further than this there was nothing save three chairs, upon one
+of which lay Captain Stewart's dust-coat and motoring cap and goggles.</p>
+
+<p>A shaft of golden light from the low sun slanted into the place through
+the western window from which the Venetians had been pulled back, and fell
+across the face of the man who lay still and lax in his chair, eyes closed
+and chin dropped a little so that his mouth hung weakly open. He looked
+very ill, as, indeed, any one might look after such an attack as he had
+suffered on the night previous. That one long moment of deathly fear before
+he had fallen down in a fit had nearly killed him. All through this
+following day it had continued to recur until he thought he should go mad.
+And there was worse still. How much did Olga Nilssen know? And how much had
+she told? She had astonished and frightened him when she had said that she
+knew about the house on the road to Clamart, for he thought he had hidden
+his visits to La Lierre well. He wondered rather drearily how she had
+discovered them, and he wondered how much she knew more than she had <a
+name="Page_180"></a>admitted. He had a half-suspicion of something like the
+truth, that Mlle. Nilssen knew only of Coira O'Hara's presence here, and
+drew a rather natural inference. If that was all, there was no danger from
+her--no more, that is, than had already borne its fruit, for Stewart knew
+well enough that Ste. Marie must have learned of the place from her. In any
+case Olga Nilssen had left Paris--he had discovered that fact during the
+day--and so for the present she might be eliminated as a source of
+peril.</p>
+
+<p>The man in the chair gave a little groan and rolled his head wearily to
+and fro against the uncomfortable chair-back, for now he came to the real
+and immediate danger, and he was so very tired and ill, and his head ached
+so sickeningly that it was almost beyond him to bring himself face to face
+with it.</p>
+
+<p>There was the man who lay helpless upon a bed up-stairs! And there were
+the man's friends, who were not at all helpless or bedridden or in
+captivity!</p>
+
+<p>A wave of almost intolerable pain swept through Stewart's aching head,
+and he gave another groan which was almost like a child's sob. But at just
+that moment the door which led into the central hall opened, and the
+Irishman O'Hara came into the room. Captain Stewart sprang to his feet to
+meet him, and he caught the other man by the arm in his eagerness.</p>
+
+<p>"How is he?" he cried out. "How is he? How badly was he hurt?"</p>
+
+<p>"The patient?" said O'Hara. "Let go my arm! Hang it, man, you're
+pinching me! Oh, he'll do well enough. He'll be fit to hobble about in a
+week or ten days. The bullet went clean through his leg and out again
+without cutting an artery. It was a sort of miracle--and a damned <a
+name="Page_181"></a>lucky miracle for all hands, too! If we'd had a
+splintered bone or a severed artery to deal with I should have had to call
+in a doctor. Then the fellow would have talked, and there'd have been the
+devil to pay. As it is, I shall be able to manage well enough with my own
+small skill. I've dressed worse wounds than that in my time. By Jove, it
+was a miracle, though!" A sudden little gust of rage swept him. He cried
+out: "That confounded fool of a gardener, that one-eyed Michel, ought to be
+beaten to death. Why couldn't he have slipped up behind this fellow and
+knocked him on the head, instead of shooting him from ten paces away? The
+benighted idiot! He came near upsetting the whole boat!"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes," said Captain Stewart, with a sharp, hard breath, "he should have
+shot straighter or not at all."</p>
+
+<p>The Irishman stared at him with his bright blue eyes, and after a moment
+he gave a short laugh.</p>
+
+<p>"Jove, you're a bloodthirsty beggar, Stewart!" said he. "That would have
+been a rum go, if you like! Killing the fellow! All his friends down on us
+like hawks, and the police and all that! You can't go about killing people
+in the outskirts of Paris, you know--at least not people with friends. And
+this chap looks like a gentleman, more or less, so I take it he has
+friends. As a matter of fact, his face is rather familiar. I think I've
+seen him before, somewhere. You looked at him just now through the crack of
+the door; do you know who he is? Coira tells me he called out to Arthur by
+name, but Arthur says he never saw him before and doesn't know him at
+all."</p>
+
+<p>Captain Stewart shivered. It had not been a pleasant moment for him,
+that moment when he had looked through the crack of the door and recognized
+Ste. Marie.</p>
+
+<p><a name="Page_182"></a>"Yes," he said, half under his breath--"yes, I
+know who he is. A friend of the family."</p>
+
+<p>The Irishman's lips puckered to a low whistle. He said:</p>
+
+<p>"Spying, then, as I thought. He has run us to earth."</p>
+
+<p>And the other nodded. O'Hara took a turn across the room and back.</p>
+
+<p>"In that case," he said, presently--"in that case, then, we must keep
+him prisoner here so long as we remain. That's certain." He spun round
+sharply with an exclamation. "Look here!" he cried, in a lower tone, "how
+about this fellow's friends? It isn't likely he's doing his dirty work
+alone. How about his friends, when he doesn't turn up to-night? If they
+know he was coming here to spy on us; if they know where the place is; if
+they know, in short, what he seems to have known, we're done for. We'll
+have to run, get out, disappear. Hang it, man, d'you understand? We're not
+safe here for an hour."</p>
+
+<p>Captain Stewart's hands shook a little as he gripped them together
+behind him, and a dew of perspiration stood out suddenly upon his forehead
+and cheek-bones, but his voice, when he spoke, was well under control.</p>
+
+<p>"It's an odd thing," said he--"another miracle, if you like--but I
+believe we are safe--reasonably safe. I--have reason to think that this
+fellow learned about La Lierre only last evening from some one who left
+Paris to-day to be gone a long time. And I also have reason to believe that
+the fellow has not seen the one friend who is in his confidence, since he
+obtained his information. By chance I met the friend, the other man, in the
+street this afternoon. I asked after this fellow whom we have here, and the
+friend said he hadn't seen him for twenty-four hours--was going to see him
+to-night."</p>
+
+<p><a name="Page_183"></a>"By the Lord!" cried the Irishman, with a great
+laugh of relief. "What luck! What monumental luck! If all that's true,
+we're safe. Why, man, we're as safe as a fox in his hole. The lad's friends
+won't have the ghost of an idea of where he's gone to.... Wait, though!
+Stop a bit! He won't have left written word behind him, eh? He won't have
+done that--for safety?"</p>
+
+<p>"I think not," said Captain Stewart, but he breathed hard, for he knew
+well enough that there lay the gravest danger. "I think not," he said
+again.</p>
+
+<p>He made a rather surprisingly accurate guess at the truth--that Ste.
+Marie had started out upon impulse, without intending more than a general
+reconnaissance, and therefore without leaving any word behind him. Still,
+the shadow of danger uplifted itself before the man and he was afraid. A
+sudden gust of weak anger shook him like a wind.</p>
+
+<p>"In Heaven's name," he cried, shrilly, "why didn't that one-eyed fool
+kill the fellow while he was about it? There's danger for us every moment
+while he is alive here. Why didn't that shambling idiot kill him?"</p>
+
+<p>Captain Stewart's outflung hand jumped and trembled and his face was
+twisted into a sort of grinning snarl. He looked like an angry and wicked
+cat, the other man thought.</p>
+
+<p>"If I weren't an over-civilized fool," he said, viciously, "I'd go
+up-stairs and kill him now with my hands while he can't help himself. We're
+all too scrupulous by half."</p>
+
+<p>The Irishman stared at him and presently broke into amazed laughter.</p>
+
+<p>"Scrupulous!" said he. "Well, yes, I'm too scrupulous to murder a man in
+his bed, if you like. I'm not squeamish, but--Good Lord!"</p>
+
+<p><a name="Page_184"></a>"Do you realize," demanded Captain Stewart, "what
+risks we run while that fellow is alive--knowing what he knows?"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh yes, I realize that," said O'Hara. "But I don't see why <i>you</i>
+should have heart failure over it."</p>
+
+<p>Captain Stewart's pale lips drew back again in their catlike
+fashion.</p>
+
+<p>"Never mind about me," he said. "But I can't help thinking you're
+peculiarly indifferent in the face of danger."</p>
+
+<p>"No, I'm not!" said the Irishman, quickly. "No, I'm not. Don't you run
+away with that idea! I merely said," he went oh--"I merely said that I'd
+stop short of murder. I don't set any foolish value on life--my own or any
+other. I've had to take life more than once, but it was in fair fight or in
+self-defence, and I don't regret it. It was your coldblooded joke about
+going up-stairs and killing this chap in his bed that put me on edge.
+Naturally I know you didn't mean it. Don't you go thinking that I'm
+lukewarm or that I'm indifferent to danger. I know there's danger from this
+lad up-stairs, and I mean to be on guard against it. He stays here under
+strict guard until--what we're after is accomplished--until young Arthur
+comes of age. If there's danger," said he, "why, we know where it lies, and
+we can guard against it. That kind of danger is not very formidable. The
+dangerous dangers are the ones that you don't know about--the hidden
+ones."</p>
+
+<p>He came forward a little, and his lean face was as hard and as impassive
+as ever, and the bright blue eyes shone from it steady and unwinking.
+Stewart looked up to him with a sort of peevish resentment at the man's
+confidence and cool poise. It was an odd reversal of their ordinary
+relations. For the hour the duller villain, the man who was <a
+name="Page_185"></a>wont to take orders and to refrain from overmuch
+thought or question, seemed to have become master. Sheer physical
+exhaustion and the constant maddening pain had had their will of Captain
+Stewart. A sudden shiver wrung him so that his dry fingers rattled against
+the wood of the chair-arms.</p>
+
+<p>"All the same," he cried, "I'm afraid. I've been confident enough until
+now. Now I'm afraid. I wish the fellow had been killed."</p>
+
+<p>"Kill him, then!" laughed the Irishman. "I won't give you up to the
+police."</p>
+
+<p>He crossed the room to the door, but halted short of it and turned about
+again, and he looked back very curiously at the man who sat crouched in his
+chair by the window. It had occurred to him several times that Stewart was
+very unlike himself. The man was quite evidently tired and ill, and that
+might account for some of the nervousness, but this fierce malignity was
+something a little beyond O'Hara's comprehension. It seemed to him that the
+elder man had the air of one frightened beyond the point the circumstances
+warranted.</p>
+
+<p>"Are you going back to town," he asked, "or do you mean to stay the
+night?"</p>
+
+<p>"I shall stay the night," Stewart said. "I'm too tired to bear the
+ride." He glanced up and caught the other's eyes fixed upon him. "Well!" he
+cried, angrily. "What is it? What are you looking at me like that for? What
+do you want?"</p>
+
+<p>"I want nothing," said the Irishman, a little sharply. "And I wasn't
+aware that I'd been looking at you in any unusual way. You're precious
+jumpy to-day, if you want to know.... Look here!" He came back a step,
+frowning. <a name="Page_186"></a>"Look here!" he repeated. "I don't quite
+make you out. Are you keeping back anything? Because if you are, for
+Heaven's sake have it out here and now! We're all in this game together,
+and we can't afford to be anything but frank with one another. We can't
+afford to make reservations. It's altogether too dangerous for everybody.
+You're too much frightened. There's no apparent reason for being so
+frightened as that."</p>
+
+<p>Captain Stewart drew a long breath between closed teeth, and afterward
+he looked up at the younger man coldly.</p>
+
+<p>"We need not discuss my personal feelings, I think," said he. "They have
+no--no bearing on the point at issue. As you say, we are all in this thing
+together, and you need not fear that I shall fail to do my part, as I have
+done it in the past.... That's all, I believe."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, <i>as</i> you like! As you like!" said the Irishman, in the tone of
+one rebuffed. He turned again and left the room, closing the door behind
+him. Outside on the stairs it occurred to him that he had forgotten to ask
+the other man what this fellow's name was--the fellow who lay wounded
+up-stairs. No, he had asked once, but in the interest of the conversation
+the question had been lost. He determined to inquire again that evening at
+dinner.</p>
+
+<p>But Captain Stewart, left thus alone, sank deeper in the uncomfortable
+chair, and his head once more stirred and sought vainly for ease against
+the chair's high back. The pain swept him in regular throbbing waves that
+were like the waves of the sea--waves which surge and crash and tear upon a
+beach. But between the throbs of physical pain there was something else
+that was always present while the waves came and went. Pain and exhaustion,
+if <a name="Page_187"></a>they are sufficiently extreme, can well nigh
+paralyze mind as well as body, and for some time Captain Stewart wondered
+what this thing might be which lurked at the bottom of him still under the
+surges of agony. Then at last he had the strength to look at it, and it was
+fear, cold and still and silent. He was afraid to the very depths of his
+soul.</p>
+
+<p>True, as O'Hara had said, there did not seem to be any very desperate
+peril to face, but Stewart was afraid with the gambler's unreasoning,
+half-superstitious fear, and that is the worst fear of all. He realized
+that he had been afraid of Ste. Marie from the beginning, and that, of
+course, was why he had tried to draw him into partnership with himself in
+his own official and wholly mythical search for Arthur Benham. He could
+have had the other man under his eye then. He could have kept him busy for
+months running down false scents. As it was, Ste. Marie's uncanny instinct
+about the Irishman O'Hara had led him true--that and what he doubtless
+learned from Olga Nilssen.</p>
+
+<p>If Stewart had been in a condition and mood to philosophize, he would
+doubtless have reflected that seven-tenths of the desperate causes, both
+good and bad, which fail in this world, fail because they are wrecked by
+some woman's love or jealousy--or both. But it is unlikely that he was able
+just at this time to make such a reflection, though certainly he wondered
+how much Olga Nilssen had known, and how much Ste. Marie had had to put
+together out of her knowledge and any previous suspicions which he may have
+had.</p>
+
+<p>The man would have been amazed if he could have known what a mountain of
+information and evidence had piled itself up over his head all in twelve
+hours. He would have been amazed and, if possible, even more frightened <a
+name="Page_188"></a>than he was, but he was without question sufficiently
+frightened, for here was Ste. Marie in the very house, he had seen Arthur
+Benham, and quite obviously he knew all there was to know, or at least
+enough to ruin Arthur Benham's uncle beyond all recovery or hope of
+recovery--irretrievably.</p>
+
+<p>Captain Stewart tried to think what it would mean to him--failure in
+this desperate scheme--but he had not the strength or the courage. He
+shrank from the picture as one shrinks from something horrible in a bad
+dream. There could be no question of failure. He had to succeed at any
+cost, however desperate or fantastic. Once more the spasm of childish,
+futile rage swept over him and shook him like a wind.</p>
+
+<p>"Why couldn't the fellow have been killed by that one-eyed fool?" he
+cried, sobbing. "Why couldn't he have been killed? He's the only one who
+knows--the only thing in the way. Why couldn't he have keen killed?"</p>
+
+<p>Quite suddenly Captain Stewart ceased to sob and shiver, and sat still
+in his chair, gripping the arms with white and tense fingers. His eyes
+began to widen, and they became fixed in a long, strange stare. He drew a
+deep breath.</p>
+
+<p>"I wonder!" he said, aloud. "I wonder, now."</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+
+
+
+<a name="Page_189"></a><h2><a name='XVI'></a>XVI</h2>
+
+<h3>THE BLACK CAT</h3>
+
+
+<p>That providential stone or tree-root, or whatever it may have been,
+proved a genuine blessing in disguise to Ste. Marie. It gave him a
+splitting headache for a few hours, but it saved him a good deal of
+discomfort the while his bullet wound was being more or less probed and
+very skilfully cleansed and dressed by O'Hara. For he did not regain
+consciousness until this surgical work was almost at its end, and then he
+wanted to fight the Irishman for tying the bandages too tight.</p>
+
+<p>But when O'Hara had gone away and left him alone he lay still--or as
+still as the smarting, burning pain in his leg and the ache in his head
+would let him--and stared at the wall beyond his bed, and bit by bit the
+events of the past hour came back to him, and he knew where he was. He
+cursed himself very bitterly, as he well might do, for a bungling idiot.
+The whole thing had been in his hands, he said, with perfect truth--Arthur
+Benham's whereabouts proved Stewart's responsibility or, at the very least,
+complicity and the sordid motive therefor. Remained--had Ste. Marie been a
+sane being instead of an impulsive fool--remained but to face Stewart down
+in the presence of witnesses, threaten him with exposure, and so, with
+perfect ease, bring back the lost boy in triumph to his family.</p>
+
+<p><a name="Page_190"></a>It should all have been so simple, so easy, so
+effortless! Yet now it was ruined by a moment's rash folly, and Heaven
+alone knew what would come of it. He remembered that he had left behind him
+no indication whatever of where he meant to spend the afternoon. Hartley
+would come hurrying across town that evening to the rue d'Assas, and would
+find no one there to receive him. He would wait and wait, and at last go
+home. He would come again on the next morning, and then he would begin to
+be alarmed and would start a second search--but with what to reckon by?
+Nobody knew about the house on the road to Clamart but Mlle. Olga Nilssen,
+and she was far away.</p>
+
+<p>He thought of Captain Stewart, and he wondered if that gentleman was by
+any chance here in the house, or if he was still in bed in the rue du
+Faubourg St. Honor&eacute;, recovering from his epileptic fit.</p>
+
+<p>After that he fell once more to cursing himself and his incredible
+stupidity, and he could have wept for sheer bitterness of chagrin.</p>
+
+<p>He was still engaged in this unpleasant occupation when the door of the
+room opened and the Irishman O'Hara entered, having finished his interview
+with Captain Stewart below. He came up beside the bed and looked down not
+unkindly upon the man who lay there, but Ste. Marie scowled back at him,
+for he was in a good deal of pain and a vile humor.</p>
+
+<p>"How's the leg--<i>and</i> the head?" asked the amateur surgeon. To do
+him justice, he was very skilful, indeed, through much experience.</p>
+
+<p>"They hurt," said Ste. Marie, shortly. "My head aches like the devil,
+and my leg burns."</p>
+
+<p><a name="Page_191"></a>O'Hara made a sound which was rather like a gruff
+laugh, and nodded.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, and they'll go on doing it, too," said he. "At least the leg will.
+Your head will be all right again in a day or so. Do you want anything to
+eat? It's near dinner-time. I suppose we can't let you starve--though you
+deserve it."</p>
+
+<p>"Thanks; I want nothing," said Ste. Marie. "Pray don't trouble about
+me."</p>
+
+<p>The other man nodded again indifferently and turned to go out of the
+room, but in the doorway he halted and looked back.</p>
+
+<p>"As we're to have the pleasure of your company for some time to come,"
+said he, "you might suggest a name to call you by. Of course I don't expect
+you to tell your own name--though I can learn that easily enough."</p>
+
+<p>"Easily enough, to be sure," said the man on the bed. "Ask Stewart. He
+knows only too well."</p>
+
+<p>The Irishman scowled. And after a moment he said:</p>
+
+<p>"I don't know any Stewart."</p>
+
+<p>But at that Ste. Marie gave a laugh, and a tinge of red came over the
+Irishman's cheeks.</p>
+
+<p>"And so, to save Captain Stewart the trouble," continued the wounded
+man, "I'll tell you my name with pleasure. I don't know why I shouldn't.
+It's Ste. Marie."</p>
+
+<p>"What?" cried O'Hara, hoarsely. "What? Say that again!"</p>
+
+<p>He came forward a swift step or two into the room, and he stared at the
+man on the bed as if he were staring at a ghost.</p>
+
+<p>"Ste. Marie?" he cried, in a whisper. "It's impossible! <a
+name="Page_192"></a>What are you," he demanded, "to Gilles, Comte de Ste.
+Marie de Mont-Perdu? What are you to him?"</p>
+
+<p>"He was my father," said the younger man; "but he is dead. He has been
+dead for ten years."</p>
+
+<p>He raised his head, with a little grimace of pain, to look curiously
+after the Irishman, who had all at once turned away across the room and
+stood still beside a window with bent head.</p>
+
+<p>"Why?" he questioned. "What about my father? Why did you ask that?"</p>
+
+<p>O'Hara did not answer at once, and he did not stir from his place by the
+window, but after a while he said:</p>
+
+<p>"I knew him.... That's all."</p>
+
+<p>And after another space he came back beside the bed, and once more
+looked down upon the young man who lay there. His face was veiled,
+inscrutable. It betrayed nothing.</p>
+
+<p>"You have a look of your father," said he. "That was what puzzled me a
+little. I was just saying to--I was just thinking that there was something
+familiar about you.... Ah, well, we've all come down in the world since
+then. The Ste. Marie blood, though. Who'd have thought it?"</p>
+
+<p>The man shook his head a little sorrowfully, but Ste. Marie stared up at
+him in frowning incomprehension. The pain had dulled him somewhat. And
+presently O'Hara again moved toward the door. On the way he said:</p>
+
+<p>"I'll bring or send you something to eat--not too much. And later on
+I'll give you a sleeping-powder. With that head of yours you may have
+trouble in getting to sleep. Understand, I'm doing this for your father's
+son, and not because you've any right yourself to consideration."</p>
+
+<p>Ste. Marie raised himself with difficulty on one elbow.</p>
+
+<p><a name="Page_193"></a>"Wait!" said he. "Wait a moment!" and the other
+halted just inside the door. "You seem to have known my father," said Ste.
+Marie, "and to have respected him. For my father's sake, will you listen to
+me for five minutes?"</p>
+
+<p>"No, I won't," said the Irishman, sharply. "So you may as well hold your
+tongue. Nothing you can say to me or to any one in this house will have the
+slightest effect. We know what you came spying here for. We know all about
+it."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes," said Ste. Marie, with a little sigh, and he fell back upon the
+pillows. "Yes, I suppose you do. I was rather a fool to speak. You wouldn't
+all be doing what you're doing if words could affect you. I was a fool to
+speak."</p>
+
+<p>The Irishman stared at him for another moment, and went out of the room,
+closing the door behind him.</p>
+
+<p>So he was left once more alone to his pain and his bitter
+self-reproaches and his wild and futile plans for escape. But O'Hara
+returned in an hour or thereabout with food for him--a cup of broth and a
+slice of bread; and when Ste. Marie had eaten these the Irishman looked
+once more to his wounded leg, and gave him a sleeping-powder dissolved in
+water.</p>
+
+<p>He lay restless and wide-eyed for an hour, and then drifted away through
+intermediate mists into a sleep full of horrible dreams, but it was at
+least relief from bodily suffering, and when he awoke in the morning his
+headache was almost gone.</p>
+
+<p>He awoke to sunshine and fresh, sweet odors and the twittering of birds.
+By good chance O'Hara had been the last to enter the room on the evening
+before, and so no one had come to close the shutters or draw the blinds.
+The windows were open wide, and the morning breeze, very soft <a
+name="Page_194"></a>and aromatic, blew in and out and filled the place with
+sweetness. The room was a corner room, with windows that looked south and
+east, and the early sun slanted in and lay in golden squares across the
+floor.</p>
+
+<p>Ste. Marie opened his eyes with none of the dazed bewilderment that he
+might have expected. The events of the preceding day came back to him
+instantly and without shock. He put up an experimental hand, and found that
+his head was still very sore where he had struck it in falling, but the
+ache was almost gone. He tried to stir his leg, and a protesting pain shot
+through it. It burned dully, even when it was quiet, but the pain was not
+at all severe. He realized that he was to get off rather well, considering
+what might have happened, and he was so grateful for this that he almost
+forgot to be angry with himself over his monumental folly.</p>
+
+<p>A small bird chased by another wheeled in through the southern window
+and back again into free air. Finally, the two settled down upon the
+parapet of the little shallow balcony which was there to have their
+disagreement out, and they talked it over with a great deal of noise and
+many threatening gestures and a complete loss of temper on both sides. Ste.
+Marie, from his bed, cheered them on, but there came a commotion in the ivy
+which draped the wall below, and the two birds fled in ignominious haste,
+and just in the nick of time, for when the cause of the commotion shot into
+view it was a large black cat, of great bodily activity and an ardent
+single-heartedness of aim.</p>
+
+<p>The black cat gazed for a moment resentfully after its vanished prey,
+and then composed its sleek body upon the iron rail, tail and paws tucked
+neatly under. Ste. Marie chirruped, and the cat turned yellow eyes upon him
+in mild <a name="Page_195"></a>astonishment, as one who should say, "Who
+the deuce are you, and what the deuce are you doing here?" He chirruped
+again, and the cat, after an ostentatious yawn and stretch, came to
+him--beating up to windward, as it were, and making the bed in three tacks.
+When O'Hara entered the room some time later he found his patient in a very
+cheerful frame of mind, and the black cat sitting on his chest purring like
+a dynamo and kneading like an industrious baker.</p>
+
+<p>"Ho," said the Irishman, "you seem to have found a friend!"</p>
+
+<p>"Well, I need one friend here," argued Ste. Marie. "I'm in the enemy's
+stronghold. You needn't be alarmed; the cat can't tell me anything, and it
+can't help me to escape. It can only sit on me and purr. That's harmless
+enough."</p>
+
+<p>O'Hara began one of his gruff laughs, but he seemed to remember himself
+in the middle of it and assumed an intimidating scowl instead.</p>
+
+<p>"How's the leg?" he demanded, shortly. "Let me see it." He took off the
+bandages and cleansed and sprayed the wound with some antiseptic liquid
+that he had brought in a bottle. "There's a little fever," said he, "but
+that can't be avoided. You're going on very well--a good deal better than
+you'd any right to expect." He had to inflict not a little pain in his
+examination and redressing of the wound. He knew that, and once or twice he
+glanced up at Ste. Marie's face with a sort of reluctant admiration for the
+man who could bear so much without any sign whatever. In the end he put
+together his things and nodded with professional satisfaction. "You'll do
+well enough now for the rest of the day," he said. "I'll send up old Michel
+to valet you. He's the gardener who shot you yesterday, and he may take <a
+name="Page_196"></a>it into his head to finish the job this morning. If he
+does I sha'n't try to stop him."</p>
+
+<p>"Nor I," said Ste. Marie. "Thanks very much for your trouble. An
+excellent surgeon was lost in you."</p>
+
+<p>O'Hara left the room, and presently the old caretaker, one-eyed,
+gnomelike, shambling like a bear, sidled in and proceeded to set things to
+rights. He looked, Ste. Marie said to himself, like something in an old
+German drawing, or in those imitations of old drawings that one sometimes
+sees nowadays in <i>Fliegende Bl&auml;tter</i>. He tried to make the
+strange creature talk, but Michel went about his task with an air
+half-frightened, half-stolid, and refused to speak more than an occasional
+"oui" or a "bien, Monsieur," in answer to orders. Ste. Marie asked if he
+might have some coffee and bread, and the old Michel nodded and slipped
+from the room as silently as he had entered it.</p>
+
+<p>Thereafter Ste. Marie trifled with the cat and got one hand well
+scratched for his trouble, but in five minutes there came a knocking at the
+door. He laughed a little. "Michel grows ceremonious when it's a question
+of food," he said. "Entrez, mon vieux!"</p>
+
+<p>The door opened, and Ste. Marie caught his breath.</p>
+
+<p>"Michel is busy," said Coira O'Hara, "so I have brought your
+coffee."</p>
+
+<p>She came into the sunlit room holding the steaming bowl of caf&eacute;
+au lait before her in her two hands. Over it her eyes went out to the man
+who lay in his bed, a long and steady and very grave look. "A goddess that
+lady, a queen among goddesses--" Thus the little Jew of the Boulevard de la
+Madeleine. Ste. Marie gazed back at her, and his heart was sick within him
+to think of the contemptible r&ocirc;le Fate had laid upon this girl to
+play: the candle to the <a name="Page_197"></a>moth, the bait to the eager,
+unskilled fish, the lure to charm a foolish boy.</p>
+
+<p>The girl's splendid beauty seemed to fill all that bright room with, as
+it were, a richer, subtler light. There could be no doubt of her potency.
+Older and wiser heads than young Arthur Benham's might well forget the
+world for her. Ste. Marie watched, and the heartsickness within him was
+like a physical pain, keen and bitter. He thought of that first and only
+previous meeting--the single minute in the Champs-Elys&eacute;es, when her
+eyes had held him, had seemed to beseech him out of some deep agony. He
+thought of how they had haunted him afterward both by day and by
+night--calling eyes--and he gave a little groan of sheer bitterness, for he
+realized that all this while she was laying her snares about the feet of an
+inexperienced boy, decoying him to his ruin. There was a name for such
+women, an ugly name. They were called adventuresses.</p>
+
+<p>The girl set the bowl which she carried down upon a table not far from
+the bed. "You will need a tray or something," said she. "I suppose you can
+sit up against your pillows? I'll bring a tray and you can hold it on your
+knees and eat from it." She spoke in a tone of very deliberate indifference
+and detachment. There seemed even to be an edge of scorn in it, but nothing
+could make that deep and golden voice harsh or unlovely. As the girl's
+extraordinary beauty had filled all the room with its light, so the sound
+of her voice seemed to fill it with a sumptuous and hushed resonance like a
+temple bell muffled in velvet. "I must bring something to eat, too," she
+said. "Would you prefer croissants or brioches or plain bread-and-butter?
+You might as well have what you like."</p>
+
+<p>"Thank you!" said Ste. Marie. "It doesn't matter. <a
+name="Page_198"></a>Anything. You are most kind. You are Hebe,
+Mademoiselle, server of feasts." The girl turned her head for a moment and
+looked at him with some surprise.</p>
+
+<p>"If I am not mistaken," she said, "Hebe served to gods." Then she went
+out of the room, and Ste. Marie broke into a sudden delighted laugh behind
+her. She would seem to be a young woman with a tongue in her head. She had
+seized the rash opening without an instant's hesitation.</p>
+
+<p>The black cat, which had been cruising, after the inquisitive fashion of
+its kind, in far corners of the room, strolled back and looked up to the
+table where the bowl of coffee steamed and waited.</p>
+
+<p>"Get out!" cried Ste. Marie. "Va t'en, sale petit animal! Go and eat
+birds! That's <i>my</i> coffee. Va! Sauve toi! H&eacute;, voleur que tu
+es!" He sought for something by way of missile, but there was nothing
+within reach.</p>
+
+<p>The black cat turned its calm and yellow eyes toward him, looked back to
+the aromatic feast, and leaped expertly to the top of the table. Ste. Marie
+shouted and made horrible threats. He waved an impotent pillow, not daring
+to hurl it for fear of smashing the table's entire contents, but the black
+cat did not even glance toward him. It smelled the coffee, sneezed over it
+because it was hot, and finally proceeded to lap very daintily, pausing
+often to take breath or to shake its head, for cats disapprove of hot
+dishes, though they will partake of them at a pinch.</p>
+
+<p>There came a step outside the door, and the thief leaped down with some
+haste, yet not quite in time to escape observation. Mlle. O'Hara came in,
+breathing terrible threats.</p>
+
+<p>"Has that wretched animal touched your coffee?" she cried. "I hope not."
+But Ste. Marie laughed weakly from his bed, and the guilty beast stood in
+mid-floor, <a name="Page_199"></a>brown drops beading its black chin and
+hanging upon its whiskers.</p>
+
+<p>"I did what I could, Mademoiselle," said Ste. Marie, "but there was
+nothing to throw. I am sorry to be the cause of so much trouble."</p>
+
+<p>"It is nothing," said she. "I will bring some more coffee, only it will
+take ten minutes, because I shall have to make some fresh." She made as if
+she would smile a little in answer to him, but her face turned grave once
+more and she went out of the room with averted eyes.</p>
+
+<p>Thereafter Ste. Marie occupied himself with watching idly the movements
+of the black cat, and, as he watched, something icy cold began to grow
+within him, a sensation more terrible than he had ever known before. He
+found himself shivering as if that summer day had all at once turned to
+January, and he found that his face was wet with a chill perspiration.</p>
+
+<p>When the girl at length returned she found him lying still, his face to
+the wall. The black cat was in her path as she crossed the room, so that
+she had to thrust it out of the way with her foot, and she called it names
+for moving with such lethargy.</p>
+
+<p>"Here is the coffee at last," she said. "I made it fresh. And I have
+brought some brioches. Will you sit up and have the tray on your
+knees?"</p>
+
+<p>"Thank you," said Ste. Marie. "I do not wish anything."</p>
+
+<p>"You do not--" she repeated after him. "But I have made the coffee
+especially for you," she protested. "I thought you wanted it. I don't
+understand."</p>
+
+<p>With a sudden movement the man turned toward her a white and drawn
+face.</p>
+
+<p><a name="Page_200"></a>"Mademoiselle," he cried, "it would have been
+more merciful to let your gardener shoot again yesterday. Much more
+merciful, Mademoiselle."</p>
+
+<p>She stared at him under her straight, black brows.</p>
+
+<p>"What do you mean?" she demanded. "More merciful? What do you mean by
+that?"</p>
+
+<p>Ste. Marie stretched out a pointing finger, and the girl followed it.
+She gave, after a tense instant, a single, sharp scream. And upon that:</p>
+
+<p>"No, no! It's not true! It's not possible!"</p>
+
+<p>Moving stiffly, she set down the bowl she carried, and the hot liquid
+splashed up round her wrists. For a moment she hung there, drooping,
+holding herself up by the strength of her hands upon the table. It was as
+if she had been seized with faintness. Then she sprang to where the cat
+crouched beside a chair. She dropped upon her knees and tried to raise it
+in her arms, but the beast bit and scratched at her feebly, and crept away
+to a little distance, where it lay struggling and very unpleasant to
+see.</p>
+
+<p>"Poison!" she said, in a choked, gasping whisper. "Poison!" She looked
+once toward the man upon the bed, and she was white and shivering. "It's
+not true!" she cried again. "I--won't believe it! It's because the cat--was
+not used to coffee. Because it was hot. I won't believe it! I won't believe
+it!" She began to sob, holding her hands over her white face.</p>
+
+<p>Ste. Marie watched her with puzzled eyes. If this was acting, it was
+very good acting. A little glimmer of hope began to burn in him--hope that
+in this last shameful thing, at least, the girl had had no part.</p>
+
+<p>"It's impossible," she insisted, piteously. "I tell you it's impossible.
+I brought the coffee myself from the <a name="Page_201"></a>kitchen. I took
+it from the pot there--the same pot we had all had ours from. It was never
+out of my sight--or, that is--I mean--"</p>
+
+<p>She halted there, and Ste. Marie saw her eyes turn slowly toward the
+door, and he saw a crimson flush come up over her cheeks and die away,
+leaving her white again. He drew a little breath of relief and gladness,
+for he was sure of her now. She had had no part in it.</p>
+
+<p>"It is nothing, Mademoiselle," said he, cheerfully. "Think no more of
+it. It is nothing."</p>
+
+<p>"Nothing?" she cried, in a loud voice. "Do you call poison nothing?" She
+began to shiver again very violently. "You would have drunk it!" she said,
+staring at him in a white agony. "But for a miracle you would have drunk
+it--and died!"</p>
+
+<p>Abruptly she came beside the bed and threw herself upon her knees there.
+In her excitement and horror she seemed to have forgotten what they two
+were to each other. She caught him by the shoulders with her two hands, and
+the girl's violent trembling shook them both.</p>
+
+<p>"Will you believe," she cried, "that I had nothing to do with this? Will
+you believe me? You must believe me!"</p>
+
+<p>There was no acting in that moment. She was wrung with a frank anguish,
+an utter horror, and between her words there were hard and terrible
+sobs.</p>
+
+<p>"I believe you, Mademoiselle," said the man, gently. "I believe you.
+Pray think no more about it."</p>
+
+<p>He smiled up into the girl's beautiful face, though within him he was
+still cold and a-shiver, as even the bravest man might well be at such an
+escape, and after a moment she turned away again. With unsteady hands she
+put the new-made bowl of coffee and the brioches and other things <a
+name="Page_202"></a>together upon the tray and started to carry it across
+the room to the bed, but half-way she turned back again and set the tray
+down. She looked about and found an empty glass, and she poured a little of
+the coffee into it. Ste. Marie, who was watching her, gave a sudden
+cry.</p>
+
+<p>"No, no, Mademoiselle, I beg you! You must not!"</p>
+
+<p>But the girl shook her head at him gravely over the glass.</p>
+
+<p>"There is no danger," she said, "but I must be sure."</p>
+
+<p>She drank what was in the glass, and afterward went across to one of the
+windows and stood there with her back to the room for a little time.</p>
+
+<p>In the end she returned and once more brought the breakfast-tray to the
+bed. Ste. Marie raised himself to a sitting posture and took the thing upon
+his knees, but his hands were shaking.</p>
+
+<p>"If I were not as helpless as a dead man, Mademoiselle," said he, "you
+should not have done that. If I could have stopped you, you should not have
+done it, Mademoiselle."</p>
+
+<p>A wave of color spread up under the brown skin of the girl's face, but
+she did not speak. She stood by for a moment to see if he was supplied with
+everything he needed, and when Ste. Marie expressed his gratitude for her
+pains she only bowed her head. Then presently she turned away and left the
+room.</p>
+
+<p>Outside the door she met some one who was approaching. Ste. Marie heard
+her break into rapid and excited speech, and he heard O'Hara's voice in
+answer. The voice expressed astonishment and indignation and a sort of
+gruff horror, but the man who listened could hear only the tones, not the
+words that were spoken.</p>
+
+<p>The Irishman came quickly into the room. He glanced <a
+name="Page_203"></a>once toward the bed where Ste. Marie sat eating his
+breakfast with apparent unconcern--there may have been a little bravado in
+this--and then bent over the thing which lay moving feebly beside a chair.
+When he rose again his face was hard and tense and his blue eyes glittered
+in a fashion that boded trouble for somebody.</p>
+
+<p>"This looks very bad for us," he said, gruffly. "I should--I should like
+to have you believe that neither my daughter nor I had any part in it. When
+I fight I fight openly, I don't use poison. Not even with spies."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, that's all right," said Ste. Marie, taking an ostentatious sip of
+coffee. "That's understood. I know well enough who tried to poison me. If
+you'll just keep your friend Stewart out of the kitchen I sha'n't worry
+about my food."</p>
+
+<p>The Irishman's cheeks reddened with a quick flush and he dropped his
+eyes. But in an instant he raised them again and looked full into the eyes
+of the man who sat in bed.</p>
+
+<p>"You seem," said he, "to be laboring under a curious misapprehension.
+There is no Stewart here, and I don't know any man of that name."</p>
+
+<p>Ste. Marie laughed.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, don't you?" he said. "That's my mistake then. Well, if you don't
+know him, you ought to. You have interests in common."</p>
+
+<p>O'Hara favored his patient with a long and frowning stare. But at the
+end he turned without a word and went out of the room.</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+
+
+
+<a name="Page_204"></a><h2><a name='XVII'></a>XVII</h2>
+
+<h3>THOSE WHO WERE LEFT BEHIND</h3>
+
+
+<p>That meeting with Richard Hartley of which Captain Stewart, in the small
+drawing-room at La Lierre, spoke to the Irishman O'Hara, took place at
+Stewart's own door in the rue du Faubourg St. Honor&eacute;, and it must
+have been at just about the time when Ste. Marie, concealed among the
+branches of his cedar, looked over the wall and saw Arthur Benham walking
+with Mlle. Coira O'Hara. Hartley had lunched at Durand's with his friends,
+whose name--though it does not at all matter here--was Reeves-Davis, and
+after lunch the four of them, Major and Lady Reeves-Davis, Reeves-Davis'
+sister, Mrs. Carsten, and Hartley, spent an hour at a certain
+picture-dealer's near the Madeleine. After that Lady Reeves-Davis wanted to
+go in search of an antiquary's shop which was somewhere in the rue du
+Faubourg, and she did not know just where. They went in from the rue
+Royale, and amused themselves by looking at the attractive windows on the
+way.</p>
+
+<p>During one of their frequent halts, while the two ladies were
+passionately absorbed in a display of hats, and Reeves-Davis was making
+derisive comments from the rear, Hartley, who was too much bored to pay
+attention, saw a figure which seemed to him familiar emerge from an
+adjacent doorway and start to cross the pavement to a large touring-car,
+with <a name="Page_205"></a>the top up, which stood at the curb. The man
+wore a dust-coat and a cap, and he moved as if he were in a hurry, but as
+he went he cast a quick look about him and his eye fell upon Richard
+Hartley. Hartley nodded, and he thought the elder man gave a violent start;
+but then he looked very white and ill and might have started at anything.
+For an instant Captain Stewart made as if he would go on his way without
+taking notice, but he seemed to change his mind and turned back. He held
+out his hand with a rather wan and nervous smile, saying:</p>
+
+<p>"Ah, Hartley! It is you, then! I wasn't sure." He glanced over the
+other's shoulder and said, "Is that our friend Ste. Marie with you?"</p>
+
+<p>"No," said Richard Hartley, "some English friends of mine. I haven't
+seen Ste. Marie to-day. I'm to meet him this evening. You've seen him since
+I have, as a matter of fact. He came to your party last night, didn't he?
+Sorry I couldn't come. They must have tired you out, I should think. You
+look ill."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes," said the other man, absently. "Yes, I had an attack of--an old
+malady last night. I am rather stale to-day. You say you haven't seen Ste.
+Marie? No, to be sure. If you see him later on you might say that I mean to
+drop in on him to-morrow to make my apologies. He'll understand.
+Good-day."</p>
+
+<p>So he turned away to the motor which was waiting for him, and Hartley
+went back to his friends, wondering a little what it was that Stewart had
+to apologize for.</p>
+
+<p>As for Captain Stewart, he must have gone at once out to La Lierre. What
+he found there has already been set forth.</p>
+
+<p>It was about ten that evening when Hartley, who had <a
+name="Page_206"></a>left his people, after dinner was over, at the Marigny,
+reached the rue d'Assas. The street door was already closed for the night,
+and so he had to ring for the cordon. When the door clicked open and he had
+closed it behind him he called out his name before crossing the court to
+Ste. Marie's stair; but as he went on his way the voice of the concierge
+reached him from the little loge.</p>
+
+<p>"M. Ste. Marie n'est pas l&agrave;,"</p>
+
+<p>Now, the Parisian concierge, as every one knows who has lived under his
+iron sway, is a being set apart from the rest of mankind. He has, in
+general, no human attributes, and certainly no human sympathy. His hand is
+against all the world, and the hand of all the world is against him. Still,
+here and there among this peculiar race are to be found a very few beings
+who are of softer substance--men and women instead of spies and harpies.
+The concierge who had charge of the house wherein Ste. Marie dwelt was an
+old woman, undeniably severe upon occasion, but for the most part a kindly
+and even jovial soul. She must have become a concierge through some
+unfortunate mistake.</p>
+
+<p>She snapped open her little square window and stuck out into the moonlit
+court a dishevelled gray head.</p>
+
+<p>"Il n'est pas l&agrave;." she said again, beaming upon Richard Hartley,
+whom she liked, and, when he protested that he had a definite and important
+appointment with her lodger, went on to explain that Ste. Marie had gone
+out, doubtless to lunch, before one o'clock and had never returned.</p>
+
+<p>"He may have left word for me up-stairs," Hartley said; "I'll go up and
+wait, if I may." So the woman got him her extra key, and he went up, let
+himself into the flat, and made lights there.</p>
+
+<p><a name="Page_207"></a>Naturally he found no word, but his own note of
+that morning lay spread out upon a table where Ste. Marie had left it, and
+so he knew that his friend was in possession of the two facts he had
+learned about Stewart. He made himself comfortable with a book and some
+cigarettes, and settled down to wait.</p>
+
+<p>Ste. Marie out at La Lierre, with a bullet-hole in his leg, was deep in
+a drugged sleep just then, but Hartley waited for him, looking up now and
+then from his book with a scowl of impatience, until the little clock on
+the mantel said that it was one o'clock. Then he went home in a very bad
+temper, after writing another note and leaving it on the table, to say that
+he would return early in the morning.</p>
+
+<p>But in the morning he began to be alarmed. He questioned the concierge
+very closely as to Ste. Marie's movements on the day previous, but she
+could tell him little, save to mention the brief visit of a man with an
+accent of Toulouse or Marseilles, and there seemed to be no one else to
+whom he could go. He spent the entire morning in the flat, and returned
+there after a hasty lunch. But at mid-afternoon he took a fiacre at the
+corner of the Gardens and drove to the rue du Faubourg St.
+Honor&eacute;.</p>
+
+<p>Captain Stewart was at home. He was in a dressing-gown, and still looked
+fagged and unwell. He certainly betrayed some surprise at sight of his
+visitor, but he made Hartley welcome at once and insisted upon having
+cigars and things to drink brought out for him. On the whole he presented
+an astonishingly normal exterior, for within him he must have been cold
+with fear, and in his ears a question must have rung and shouted and rung
+again unceasingly--"What does this fellow know? What does he know?"</p>
+
+<p>Hartley's very presence there had a perilous look.</p>
+
+<p><a name="Page_208"></a>The younger man shook his head at the servant who
+asked him what he wished to drink.</p>
+
+<p>"Thanks, you're very good," he said to Captain Stewart, and that
+gentleman eyed him silently. "I can't stay but a moment. I just dropped in
+to ask if you'd any idea what can have become of Ste. Marie."</p>
+
+<p>"Ste. Marie?" said Captain Stewart. "What do you mean--'become of him'?"
+He moistened his lips to speak, but he said the words without a tremor.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, what I meant was," said Hartley, "that you'd seen him last. He
+was here Thursday evening. Did he say anything to you about going anywhere
+in particular the next day--yesterday? He left his rooms about noon and
+hasn't turned up since."</p>
+
+<p>Captain Stewart drew a short breath and sat down, abruptly, in a near-by
+chair, for all at once his knees had begun to tremble under him. He was
+conscious of a great and blissful wave of relief and well-being, and he
+wanted to laugh. He wanted so much to laugh that it became a torture to
+keep his face in repose.</p>
+
+<p>So Ste. Marie had left no word behind him, and the danger was past!</p>
+
+<p>With a great effort he looked up from where he sat to Richard Hartley,
+who stood anxious and frowning before him.</p>
+
+<p>"Forgive me for sitting down," he said, "and sit down yourself, I beg.
+I'm still very shaky from my attack of illness. Ste. Marie--Ste. Marie has
+disappeared? How very extraordinary! It's like poor Arthur. Still--a single
+day! He might be anywhere for a single day, might he not? For all that,
+though, it's very odd. Why, no. No, I don't think he said anything about
+going away. At least I remember <a name="Page_209"></a>nothing about it."
+The relief and triumph within him burst out in a sudden little chuckle of
+malicious fun. "I can think of only one thing," said he, "that might be of
+use to you. Ste. Marie seemed to take a very great fancy to one of the
+ladies here the other evening. And, I must confess, the lady seemed to
+return it. It had all the look of a desperate flirtation--a most desperate
+flirtation. They spent the evening in a corner together. You don't
+suppose," he said, still chuckling gently, "that Ste. Marie is taking a
+little holiday, do you? You don't suppose that the lady could account for
+him?"</p>
+
+<p>"No," said Richard Hartley, "I don't. And if you knew Ste. Marie a
+little better you wouldn't suppose it, either." But after a pause he said:
+"Could you give me the--lady's name, by any chance? Of course, I don't want
+to leave any stone unturned."</p>
+
+<p>And once more the other man emitted his pleased little chuckle that was
+so like a cat's mew.</p>
+
+<p>"I can give you her name," said he. "The name is Mlle.---- Bertrand.
+Elise Bertrand. But I regret to say I haven't the address by me. She came
+with some friends. I will try and get it and send it you. Will that be all
+right?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, thanks!" said Richard Hartley. "You're very good. And now I must
+be going on. I'm rather in a hurry."</p>
+
+<p>Captain Stewart protested against this great haste, and pressed the
+younger man to sit down and tell him more about his friend's disappearance,
+but Hartley excused himself, repeating that he was in a great hurry, and
+went off.</p>
+
+<p>When he had gone Captain Stewart lay back in his chair and laughed until
+he was weak and ached from it, the <a name="Page_210"></a>furious, helpless
+laughter which comes after the sudden release from a terrible strain. He
+was not, as a rule, a demonstrative man, but he became aware that he would
+like to dance and sing, and probably he would have done both if it had not
+been for the servant in the next room.</p>
+
+<p>So there was no danger to be feared, and his terrors of the night
+past--he shivered a little to think of them--had been, after all, useless
+terrors! As for the prisoner out at La Lierre, nothing was to be feared
+from him so long as a careful watch was kept. Later on he might have to be
+disposed of, since both bullet and poison had failed--he scowled over that,
+remembering a bad quarter of an hour with O'Hara early this morning--but
+that matter could wait. Some way would present itself. He thought of the
+wholly gratuitous lie he had told Hartley, a thing born of a moment's
+malice, and he laughed again. It struck him that it would be very humorous
+if Hartley should come to suspect his friend of turning aside from his
+great endeavors to enter upon an affair with a lady. He dimly remembered
+that Ste. Marie's name had, from time to time, been a good deal involved in
+romantic histories, and he said to himself that his lie had been very well
+chosen, indeed, and might be expected to cause Richard Hartley much anguish
+of spirit.</p>
+
+<p>After that he lighted a very large cigarette, half as big as a cigar,
+and he lay back in his low, comfortable chair and began to think of the
+outcome of all this plotting and planning. As is very apt to be the case
+when a great danger has been escaped, he was in a mood of extreme
+hopefulness and confidence. Vaguely he felt as if the recent happenings had
+set him ahead a pace toward his goal, though of course they had done
+nothing of the kind. The <a name="Page_211"></a>danger that would exist so
+long as Ste. Marie, who knew everything, was alive, seemed in some
+miraculous fashion to have dwindled to insignificance; in this rebound from
+fear and despair difficulties were swept away and the path was clear. The
+man's mind leaped to his goal, and a little shiver of prospective joy ran
+over him. Once that goal gained he could defy the world. Let eyes look
+askance, let tongues wag, he would be safe then--safe for all the rest of
+his life, and rich, rich, rich!</p>
+
+<p>For he was playing against a feeble old man's life. Day by day he
+watched the low flame sink lower as the flame of an exhausted lamp sinks
+and flickers. It was slow, for the old man had still a little strength
+left, but the will to live--which was the oil in the lamp--was almost gone,
+and the waiting could not be long now. One day, quite suddenly, the flame
+would sink down to almost nothing, as at last it does in the spent lamp. It
+would flicker up and down rapidly for a few moments, and all at once there
+would be no flame there. Old David would be dead, and a servant would be
+sent across the river in haste to the rue du Faubourg St. Honor&eacute;.
+Stewart lay back in his chair and tried to imagine that it was true, that
+it had already happened, as happen it must before long, and once more the
+little shiver, which was like a shiver of voluptuous delight, ran up and
+down his limbs, and his breath began to come fast and hard.</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<p>But Richard Hartley drove at once back to the rue d'Assas. He was not
+very much disappointed in having learned nothing from Stewart, though he
+was thoroughly angry at that gentleman's hint about Ste. Marie and the
+unknown lady. He had gone to the rue du Faubourg <a
+name="Page_212"></a>because, as he had said, he wished to leave no stone
+unturned, and, after all, he had thought it quite possible that Stewart
+could give him some information which would be of value. Hartley firmly
+believed the elder man to be a rascal, but of course he knew nothing
+definite save the two facts which he had accidentally learned from Helen
+Benham, and it had occurred to him that Captain Stewart might have sent
+Ste. Marie off upon another wild-goose chase such as the expedition to
+Dinard had been. He would have been sure that the elder man had had
+something to do with Ste. Marie's disappearance if the latter had not been
+seen since Stewart's party, but instead of that Ste. Marie had come home,
+slept, gone out the next morning, returned again, received a visitor, and
+gone out to lunch. It was all very puzzling and mysterious.</p>
+
+<p>His mind went back to the brief interview with Stewart and dwelt upon
+it. Little things which had at the time made no impression upon him began
+to recur and to take on significance. He remembered the elder man's odd and
+strained manner at the beginning, his sudden and causeless change to ease
+and to something that was almost like a triumphant excitement, and then his
+absurd story about Ste. Marie's flirtation with a lady. Hartley thought of
+these things; he thought also of the fact that Ste. Marie had disappeared
+immediately after hearing grave accusations against Stewart. Could he have
+lost his head, rushed across the city at once to confront the middle-aged
+villain, and then--disappeared from human ken? It would have been very like
+him to do something rashly impulsive upon reading that note.</p>
+
+<p>Hartley broke into a sudden laugh of sheer amusement when he realized to
+what a wild and improbable flight his <a name="Page_213"></a>fancy was
+soaring. He could not quite rid himself of a feeling that Stewart was, in
+some mysterious fashion, responsible for his friend's vanishing, but he was
+unlike Ste. Marie: he did not trust his feelings, either good or bad,
+unless they were backed by excellent evidence, and he had to admit that
+there was not a single scrap of evidence in this instance against Miss
+Benham's uncle.</p>
+
+<p>The girl's name recalled him to another duty. He must tell her about
+Ste. Marie. He was by this time half-way up the Boulevard St. Germain, but
+he gave a new order, and the fiacre turned back to the rue de
+l'Universit&eacute;. The footman at the door said that Mademoiselle was not
+in the drawing-room, as it was only four o'clock, but that he thought she
+was in the house. So Hartley sent up his name and went in to wait.</p>
+
+<p>Miss Benham came down looking a little pale and anxious.</p>
+
+<p>"I've been with grandfather," she explained. "He had some sort of
+sinking-spell last night and we were very much frightened. He's much
+better, but--well, he couldn't have many such spells and live. I'm afraid
+he grows a good deal weaker day by day now. He sees hardly any one outside
+the family, except Baron de Vries." She sat down with a little sigh of
+fatigue and smiled up at her visitor. "I'm glad you've come," said she.
+"You'll cheer me up, and I rather need it. What are you looking so solemn
+about, though? You won't cheer me up if you look like that."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, you see," said Hartley, "I came at this impossible hour to bring
+you some bad news. I'm sorry. Perhaps," he modified, "bad news is putting
+it with too much seriousness. Strange news is better. To be brief, Ste.
+Marie has disappeared--vanished into thin air. I thought you ought to
+know."</p>
+
+<p><a name="Page_214"></a>"Ste. Marie!" cried the girl. "How? What do you
+mean--vanished? When did he vanish?"</p>
+
+<p>She gave a sudden exclamation of relief.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, he has come upon some clew or other and has rushed off to follow
+it. That's all. How dare you frighten me so?"</p>
+
+<p>"He went without luggage," said the man, shaking his head, "and he left
+no word of any kind behind him. He went out to lunch yesterday about noon,
+and, as I said, simply vanished, leaving no trace whatever behind him. I've
+just been to see your uncle, thinking that he might know something, but he
+doesn't."</p>
+
+<p>The girl looked up quickly.</p>
+
+<p>"My uncle?" she said. "Why my uncle?"</p>
+
+<p>"Well," said Hartley, "you see, Ste. Marie went to a little party at
+your uncle's flat on the night before he disappeared, and I thought your
+uncle might have heard him say something that would throw light on his
+movements the next day."</p>
+
+<p>Hartley remembered the unfortunate incident of the galloping pigs, and
+hurried on:</p>
+
+<p>"He went to the party more for the purpose of having a talk with your
+uncle than for any other reason, I think. I was to have gone myself, but
+gave it up at the eleventh hour for the Cains' dinner at Armenonville.
+Well, the next morning after Captain Stewart's party he went out early. I
+called at his rooms to see him about something important that I thought he
+ought to know. I missed him, and so left a note for him which he got on his
+return and read. I found it open on his table later on. At noon he went out
+again, and that's all. Frankly, I'm worried about him."</p>
+
+<p>Miss Benham watched the man with thoughtful eyes, and when he had
+finished she asked:</p>
+
+<p><a name="Page_215"></a>"Could you tell me what was in this note that you
+left for Ste. Marie?"</p>
+
+<p>Hartley was by nature a very open and frank young man, and in
+consequence an unusually bad liar. He hesitated and looked away, and he
+began to turn red.</p>
+
+<p>"Well--no," he said, after a moment--"no, I'm afraid I can't. It was
+something you wouldn't understand--wouldn't know about."</p>
+
+<p>And the girl said, "Oh!" and remained for a little while silent. But at
+the end she looked up and met his eyes, and the man saw that she was very
+grave. She said:</p>
+
+<p>"Richard, there is something that you and I have been avoiding and
+pretending not to see. It has gone too far now, and we've got to face it
+with perfect frankness. I know what was in your note to Ste. Marie. It was
+what you found out the other evening about--my uncle--the matter of the
+will and the other matter. He knew about the will, but he told you and Ste.
+Marie that he didn't. He said to you, also, that I had told him about my
+engagement and Ste. Marie's determination to search for Arthur, and that
+was--a lie. I didn't tell him, and grandfather didn't tell him. He listened
+in the door yonder and heard it himself. I have a good reason for knowing
+that. And then," she said, "he tried very hard to persuade you and Ste.
+Marie to take up your search under his direction, and he partly succeeded.
+He sent Ste. Marie upon a foolish expedition to Dinard, and he gave him and
+gave you other clews just as foolish as that one. Richard, do you believe
+that my uncle has hidden poor Arthur away somewhere or--worse than that? Do
+you? Tell me the truth!"</p>
+
+<p>"There is not," said Hartley, "one particle of real evidence <a
+name="Page_216"></a>against him that I'm aware of. There's plenty of
+motive, if you like, but motive is not evidence."</p>
+
+<p>"I asked you a question," the girl said. "Do you believe my uncle has
+been responsible for Arthur's disappearance?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes," said Richard Hartley, "I'm afraid I do."</p>
+
+<p>"Then," she said, "he has been responsible for Ste. Marie's
+disappearance also. Ste. Marie became dangerous to him, and so vanished.
+What can we do, Richard? What can we do?"</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+
+
+
+<a name="Page_217"></a><h2><a name='XVIII'></a>XVIII</h2>
+
+<h3>A CONVERSATION OVERHEARD</h3>
+
+
+<p>In the upper chamber at La Lierre the days dragged very slowly by, and
+the man who lay in bed there counted interminable hours and prayed for the
+coming of night with its merciful oblivion of sleep. His inaction was made
+bitterer by the fact that the days were days of green and gold, of
+breeze-stirred tree-tops without his windows, of vagrant sweet airs that
+stole in upon his solitude, bringing him all the warm fragrance of summer
+and of green things growing.</p>
+
+<p>He suffered little pain. There was, for the first three or four days, a
+dull and feverish ache in his wounded leg, but presently even that passed,
+and the leg hurt him only when he moved it. He thought sometimes that he
+would be grateful for a bit of physical anguish to make the hours pass more
+quickly.</p>
+
+<p>The other inmates of the house held aloof from him. Once a day O'Hara
+came in to see to the wound, but he maintained a well-nigh complete silence
+over his work, and answered questions only with a brief yes or no.
+Sometimes he did not answer them at all. The old Michel came twice daily,
+but this strange being had quite plainly been frightened into dumbness, and
+there was nothing to be got out of him. He shambled hastily about the
+place, his one scared <a name="Page_218"></a>eye upon the man in bed, and
+as soon as possible fled away, closing the door behind him. Sometimes
+Michel brought in the meals, sometimes his wife, a creature so like him
+that the two might well have passed for twin survivors of some unknown
+race; sometimes--thrice altogether in that first week--Coira O'Hara brought
+the tray, and she was as silent as the others.</p>
+
+<p>So Ste. Marie was left alone to get through the interminable days as
+best he might, and ever afterward the week remained in his memory as a sort
+of nightmare. Lying idle in his bed, he evolved many surprising and
+fantastic schemes for escape, for getting word to the outside world of his
+presence here, and one by one he gave them up in disgust as their
+impossibility forced itself upon him. Plans and schemes were useless while
+he lay bedridden, unfamiliar even with the house wherein he dwelt, with the
+garden and park that surrounded it.</p>
+
+<p>As for aid from any of the inmates of the place, that was to be laughed
+at. They were engaged together in a scheme so desperate that failure must
+mean utter ruin to them all. He sometimes wondered if the two servants
+could be bribed. Avarice unmistakable gleamed from their little,
+glittering, ratlike eyes, but he was sure that they would sell out for no
+small sum, and in so far as he could remember there had been in his
+pockets, when he came here, not more than five or six louis. Doubtless the
+old Michel had managed to abstract those in his daily offices about the
+room, for Ste. Marie knew that the clothes hung in a closet across from his
+bed. He had seen them there once when the closet-door was open.</p>
+
+<p>Any help that might come to him must come from outside--and what help
+was to be expected there? Over and <a name="Page_219"></a>over again he
+reminded himself of how little Richard Hartley knew. He might suspect
+Stewart of complicity in this new disappearance, but how was he to find out
+anything definite? How was any one to do so?</p>
+
+<p>It was at such times as this, when brain and nerves were strained and
+worn almost to breaking-point, that Ste. Marie had occasion to be grateful
+for the Southern blood that was in him, the strong tinge of fatalism which
+is common alike to Latin and to Oriental. It rescued him more than once
+from something like nervous breakdown, calmed him suddenly, lifted his
+burdens from outwearied shoulders, and left him in peace to wait until some
+action should be possible. Then, in such hours, he would fall to thinking
+of the girl for whose sake, in whose cause, he lay bedridden, beset with
+dangers. As long before, she came to him in a sort of waking vision--a
+being but half earthly, enthroned high above him, calm-browed, very pure,
+with passionless eyes that gazed into far distance and were unaware of the
+base things below. What would she think of him, who had sworn to be true
+knight to her, if she could know how he had bungled and failed? He was glad
+that she did not know, that if he had blundered into peril the knowledge of
+it could not reach her to hurt her pride.</p>
+
+<p>And sometimes, also, with a great sadness and pity, he thought of poor
+Coira O'Hara and of the pathetic wreck her life had fallen into. The girl
+was so patently fit for better things! Her splendid beauty was not a cheap
+beauty. She was no coarse-blown, gorgeous flower, imperfect at telltale
+points. It was good blood that had modelled her dark perfection, good blood
+that had shaped her long and slim and tapering hands.</p>
+
+<p>"A queen among goddesses!" The words remained with <a
+name="Page_220"></a>him, and he knew that they were true. She might have
+held up her head among the greatest, this adventurer's girl; but what
+chance had she had? What merest ghost of a chance?</p>
+
+<p>He watched her on the rare occasions when she came into the room. He
+watched the poise of her head, her walk, the movements she made, and he
+said to himself that there was no woman of his acquaintance whose grace was
+more perfect--certainly none whose grace was so native.</p>
+
+<p>Once he complained to her of the desperate idleness of his days, and
+asked her to lend him a book of some kind, a review, even a daily
+newspaper, though it be a week old.</p>
+
+<p>"I should read the very advertisements with joy," he said.</p>
+
+<p>She went out of the room and returned presently with an armful of books,
+which she laid upon the bed without comment.</p>
+
+<p>"In my prayers, Mademoiselle," cried Ste. Marie, "you shall be foremost
+forever!" He glanced at the row of titles and looked up in sheer
+astonishment. "May I ask whose books these are?" he said.</p>
+
+<p>"They are mine," said the girl. "I caught up the ones that lay first at
+hand. If you don't care for any of them, I will choose others."</p>
+
+<p>The books were: <i>Diana of the Crossways, Richard Feverel,</i> Henri
+Lavedan's <i>Le Duel</i>, Maeterlinck's <i>Pelleas et M&eacute;lisande, Don
+Quixote de la Mancha</i>, in Spanish, a volume of Virgil's <i>Eclogues</i>,
+and the <i>Life of the Chevalier Bayard</i>, by the Loyal Servitor. Ste.
+Marie stared at her.</p>
+
+<p>"Do you read Spanish," he demanded, "and Latin, as well as French and
+English?"</p>
+
+<p>"My mother was Spanish," said she. "And as for Latin, <a
+name="Page_221"></a>I began to read it with my father when I was a child.
+Shall I leave the books here?"</p>
+
+<p>Ste. Marie took up the <i>Bayard</i> and held it between his hands.</p>
+
+<p>"It is worn from much reading, Mademoiselle," he said.</p>
+
+<p>"It is the best of all," said she. "The very best of all. I didn't know
+I had brought you that."</p>
+
+<p>She made a step toward him as if she would take the book away, and over
+it their eyes met and were held. In that moment it may have come to them
+both who she was, who so loved the knight without fear and without
+reproach--the daughter of art Irish adventurer of ill repute--for their
+faces began suddenly to flush with red, and after an instant the girl
+turned away.</p>
+
+<p>"It is of no consequence," said she. "You may keep the book if you care
+to."</p>
+
+<p>And Ste. Marie said, very gently: "Thank you, Mademoiselle. I will keep
+it for a little while."</p>
+
+<p>So she went out of the room and left him alone.</p>
+
+<p>This was at noon on the sixth day, and, after he had swallowed hastily
+the lunch which had been set before him, Ste. Marie fell upon the books
+like a child upon a new box of sweets. Like the child again, it was
+difficult for him to choose among them. He opened one and then another,
+gloating over them all, but in the end he chose the <i>Bayard</i>, and for
+hours lost himself among the high deeds of the Preux Chevalier and his
+faithful friends--among whom, by the way, there was a Ste. Marie who died
+nobly for France. It was late afternoon when at last he laid the book down
+with a sigh and settled himself more comfortably among the pillows.</p>
+
+<p>The sun was not in the room at that hour, but from where <a
+name="Page_222"></a>he lay he could see it on the tree-tops, gold upon
+green. Outside his south window the leaves of a chestnut which stood there
+quivered and rustled gently under a soft breeze. Delectable odors floated
+in to Ste. Marie's nostrils, and he thought how very pleasant it would be
+if he were lying on the turf under the trees instead of bedridden in this
+upper chamber, which he had come to hate with a bitter hatred.</p>
+
+<p>He began to wonder if it would be possible to drag himself across the
+floor to that south window, and so to lie down for a while with his head in
+the tiny balcony beyond, his eyes turned to the blue sky. Astir with the
+new thought, he sat up in bed and carefully swung his feet out till they
+hung to the floor. The wound in the left leg smarted and burned, but not
+too severely, and with slow pains Ste. Marie stood up. He almost cried out
+when he discovered that it could be done quite easily. He essayed to walk,
+and he was a little weak, but by no means helpless. He found that it gave
+him pain to raise his left leg in the ordinary action of walking or to bend
+that knee, but he could get about well enough by dragging the injured
+member beside him, for when it was straight it supported him without
+protest.</p>
+
+<p>He took his pillows across to the window and disposed them there, for it
+was a French window opening to the floor, and the level of the little
+balcony outside was but a few inches above the level of the room. Then the
+desire seized him to make a tour of his prison walls. He went first to the
+closet where he had seen his clothes hanging, and they were still there. He
+felt in the pockets and withdrew his little English pigskin
+sovereign-purse. It had not been tampered with, and he gave an exclamation
+of relief over that, for he might later on have use for money. There were
+eight louis in it, each in its little separate compartment, <a
+name="Page_223"></a>and in another pocket he found a fifty-franc note and
+some silver. He went to the two east windows and looked out. The trees
+stood thick together on that side of the house, but between two of them he
+could see the park wall fifty yards away. He glanced down, and the side of
+the house was covered thick with the ivy which had given the place its
+name, but there was no water-pipe near, nor any other thing which seemed to
+offer foot or hand hold, unless, perhaps, the ivy might prove strong enough
+to bear a man's weight. Ste. Marie made a mental note to look into that
+when he was a little stronger, and turned back to the south window where he
+had disposed his pillows.</p>
+
+<p>The unaccustomed activity was making his wound smart and prickle, and he
+lay down at once with head and shoulders in the open air, and out of the
+warm and golden sunshine and the emerald shade the breath of summer came to
+him and wrapped him round with sweetness and pillowed him upon its fragrant
+breast.</p>
+
+<p>He became aware after a long time of voices below, and turned upon his
+elbows to look. The ivy had clambered upon and partly covered the iron
+grille of the little balcony, and he could observe without being seen.
+Young Arthur Benham and Coira O'Hara had come out of the door of the house,
+and they stood upon the raised and paved terrace which ran the width of the
+fa&ccedil;ade, and seemed to hesitate as to the direction they should take.
+Ste. Marie heard the girl say:</p>
+
+<p>"It's cooler here in the shade of the house," and after a moment the two
+came along the shady terrace whose outer margin was set at intervals with
+stained and discolored marble nymphs upon pedestals, and between the <a
+name="Page_224"></a>nymphs with moss-grown stone benches. They halted
+before a bench upon which, earlier in the day, a rug had been spread out to
+dry in the sun and had been forgotten, and after a moment's further
+hesitation they sat down upon it. Their faces were turned toward the house,
+and every word that they spoke mounted in that still air clear and distinct
+to the ears of the man above.</p>
+
+<p>Ste. Marie wriggled back into the room and sat up to consider. The
+thought of deliberately listening to a conversation not meant for him sent
+a hot flush to his cheeks. He told himself that it could not be done, and
+that there was an end to the matter. Whatever might hang upon it, it could
+not be asked of him that he should stoop to dishonor. But at that the heavy
+and grave responsibility, which really did hang upon him and upon his
+actions, came before his mind's eye and loomed there mountainous. The fate
+of this foolish boy who was set round with thieves and adventurers--even
+though his eyes were open and he knew where he stood--that came to Ste.
+Marie and confronted him; and the picture of a bitter old man who was dying
+of grief came to him; and a mother's face; and <i>hers</i>. There could be
+no dishonor in the face of all this, only a duty very clear and plain. He
+crept back to his place, his arms folded beneath him as he lay, his eyes at
+the thin screen of ivy which cloaked the balcony grille.</p>
+
+<p>Young Arthur Benham appeared to be giving tongue to a rather sharp
+attack of homesickness. It may be that long confinement within the walls of
+La Lierre was beginning to try him somewhat.</p>
+
+<p>"Mind you," he declared, as Ste. Marie's ears came once more within
+range--"mind you, I'm not saying that Paris hasn't got its points. It has.
+Oh yes! And so has London, <a name="Page_225"></a>and so has Ostend, and so
+has Monte Carlo. Verree much so! I like Paris. I like the theatres and the
+vaudeville shows in the Champs-Elys&eacute;es, and I like Longchamps. I
+like the boys who hang around Henry's Bar. They're good sports all right,
+all right! But, by golly, I want to go home! Put me off at the corner of
+Forty-second Street and Broadway, and I'll ask no more. Set me down at 7
+P.M., right there on the corner outside the Knickerbocker, for that's where
+I would live and die." There came into the lad's somewhat strident voice a
+softness that was almost pathetic. "You don't know Broadway, Coira, do you?
+Nix! of course not. Little girl, it's the one street of all this large
+world. It's the equator that runs north and south instead of east and west.
+It's a long, bright, gay, live wire!--that's what Broadway is. And I give
+you my word of honor, like a little man, that it--is--not--slow. No-o,
+indeed! When I was there last it was being called the 'Gay White Way.' It
+is not called the 'Gay White Way' now. It has had forty other new, good
+names since then, and I don't know what they are, but I do know that it is
+forever gay, and that the electric signs are still blazing all along the
+street, and the street-cars are still killing people in the good old
+fashion, and the news-boys are still dodging under the automobiles to sell
+you a <i>Woild</i> or a <i>Choinal</i> or, if it's after twelve at night, a
+<i>Morning Telegraph</i>. Coira, my girl, standing on that corner after
+dark you can see the electric signs of fifteen theatres, not one of them
+more than five minutes' walk away; and just round the corner there are
+more. I want to go home! I want to take one large, unparalleled leap from
+here and come down at the corner I told you about. D'you know what I'd do?
+We'll say it's 7 P.M. and beginning to get dark. I'd dive into the
+Knickerbocker--that's the hotel <a name="Page_226"></a>that the bright and
+happy people go to for dinner or supper--and I'd engage a table up on the
+terrace. Then I'd telephone to a little friend of mine whose name is
+Doe--John Doe--and in about ten minutes he'd have left the crowd he was
+standing in line with and he'd come galloping up, that glad to see me you'd
+cry to watch him. We'd go up on the terrace, where the potted palms grow,
+for our dinner, and the tables all around us would be full of people that
+would know Johnnie Doe and me, and they'd all make us drink drinks and tell
+us how glad they were to see us aboard again. And after dinner," said young
+Arthur Benham, with wide and smiling eyes--"after dinner we'd go to see one
+of the roof-garden shows. Let me tell you they've got the Marigny or the
+Ambassadeurs or the Jardin de Paris beaten to a pulp--to--a--pulp! And
+after the show we'd slip round to the stage-door--you bet we would!--and
+capture the two most beautiful ladies in the world and take 'em off to
+supper."</p>
+
+<p>He wrinkled his young brow in great perplexity. "Now I wonder," said he,
+anxiously--"I wonder where we'd go for supper. You see," he apologized,
+"it's two years since I left the Real Street, and, gee! what a lot can
+happen on Broadway in two years! There's probably half a dozen new
+supper-places that I don't know anything about, and one of them's the place
+where the crowd goes. Well, anyhow, we'd go to that place, and there'd be a
+band playing, and the electric fans would go round and round, and Johnnie
+Doe and I and the two most beautiful ladies would put it all over the other
+pikers there."</p>
+
+<p>Young Benham gave a little sigh of pleasure and excitement. "That's what
+I'd like to do to-night," said he, "and that's what I'll do, you can bet
+your sh--boots, when <a name="Page_227"></a>all this silly mess is over and
+I'm a free man. I'll hike back to good old Broadway, and if ever you see
+any one trying to pry me loose from it again you can laugh yourself to
+death, because he'll never, never succeed.</p>
+
+<p>"That's where I'll go," he said, nodding, "when this waiting is
+over--straight back to Liberty Land and the bright lights. The rest of the
+family can stay here till they die, if they want to--and I suppose they
+do--<i>I'm</i> going home as soon as I've got my money. Old Charlie'll
+manage all that for me. He'll get a lawyer to look after it, and I won't
+have to see anybody in the family at all.</p>
+
+<p>"Nine more weeks shut in by stone walls!" said the boy, staring about
+him with a sort of bitterness. "Nine weeks more!"</p>
+
+<p>"Is it so hard as that?" asked the girl.</p>
+
+<p>There was no foolish coquetry in her tone. She spoke as if the words
+involved no personal question at all, but there was a little smile at her
+lips, and Arthur Benham turned toward her quickly and caught at her
+hands.</p>
+
+<p>"No, no!" he cried. "I didn't mean that. You know I didn't mean that.
+You're worth nine years' waiting. You're the best--d'you hear?--the best
+there is. There's nobody anywhere that can touch you. Only--well, this
+place is getting on my nerves. It's got me worn to a frazzle. I feel like a
+criminal doing time."</p>
+
+<p>"You came very near having to do time somewhere else," said the girl.
+"If this M. Ste. Marie hadn't blundered we should have had them all round
+our ears, and you'd have had to run for it."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes," the boy said, nodding gravely. "Yes, that was great luck."</p>
+
+<p><a name="Page_228"></a>He raised his head and looked up along the
+windows above him.</p>
+
+<p>"Which is his room?" he asked, and Mlle. O'Hara said:</p>
+
+<p>"The one just overhead, but he's in bed far back from the window. He
+couldn't possibly hear us talking."</p>
+
+<p>She paused for a moment in frowning hesitation, and in the end said:</p>
+
+<p>"Tell me about him, this Ste. Marie! Do you know anything about
+him?"</p>
+
+<p>"No," said Arthur Benham, "I don't--not personally, that is. Of course
+I've heard of him. Lots of people have spoken of him to me. And the odd
+part of it is that they all had a good word to say. Everybody seemed to
+like him. I got the idea that he was the best ever. I wanted to know him. I
+never thought he'd take on a piece of dirty work like this."</p>
+
+<p>"Nor I," said the girl, in a low voice. "Nor I."</p>
+
+<p>The boy looked up.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, you've heard of him, too, then?" said he.</p>
+
+<p>And she said, still in her low voice, "I--saw him once."</p>
+
+<p>"Well," declared young Benham, "it's beyond me. I give it up. You never
+can tell about people, can you? I guess they'll all go wrong when there's
+enough in it to make it worth while. That's what old Charlie always says.
+He says most people are straight enough when there's nothing in it, but
+make the pot big enough and they'll all go crooked."</p>
+
+<p>The young man's face turned suddenly hard and old and bitter.</p>
+
+<p>"Gee! I ought to know that well enough, oughtn't I?" he said. "I guess
+nobody knows that better than I do after what happened to me.... Come along
+and take a walk in the garden, Maud! I'm sick of sitting still."</p>
+
+<p class="figure"> <a name="jason006"><img
+width="80%" alt="Illustration: TELL ME ABOUT HIM, THIS STE. MARIE! DO YOU
+KNOW ANYTHING ABOUT HIM?" src="images/jason006.png" /></a><br /> TELL ME ABOUT
+HIM, THIS STE. MARIE! DO YOU KNOW ANYTHING ABOUT HIM?</p>
+
+<p><a name="Page_229"></a>Mlle. Coira O'Hara looked up with a start, as if
+she had not been listening, but she rose when the boy held out his hand to
+her, and the two went down from the terrace and moved off toward the
+west.</p>
+
+<p>Ste. Marie watched them until they had disappeared among the trees, and
+then turned on his back, staring up into the softly stirring canopy of
+green above him and the little rifts of bright blue sky. He did not
+understand at all. Something mysterious had crept in where all had seemed
+so plain to the eye. Certain words that young Arthur Benham had spoken
+repeated themselves in his mind, and he could not at once make them out.
+Assuredly there was something mysterious here.</p>
+
+<p>In the first place, what did the boy mean by "dirty work"? To be sure,
+spying, in its usual sense, is not held to be one of the noblest of
+occupations, but--in such a cause as this! It was absurd, ridiculous, to
+call it "dirty work." And what did he mean by the words which he had used
+afterward? Ste. Marie did not quite follow the idiom about the "big enough
+pot," but he assumed that it referred to money. Did the young fool think he
+was being paid for his efforts? That was ridiculous, too.</p>
+
+<p>The boy's face came before him as it had looked with that sudden hard
+and bitter expression. What did he mean by saying that no one knew the
+crookedness of humanity under money temptation better than he knew it after
+something that had happened to him? In a sense his words were doubtless
+very true. Captain Stewart--and he must have been "old Charlie"; Ste. Marie
+remembered that the name was Charles--O'Hara, and O'Hara's daughter stood
+excellent examples of that bit of cynicism, but obviously the boy had not
+spoken in that sense--certainly <a name="Page_230"></a>not before Mlle.
+O'Hara! He meant something else, then. But what--what?</p>
+
+<p>Ste. Marie rose with some difficulty to his feet and carried the pillows
+back to the bed whence he had taken them. He sat down upon the edge of the
+bed, staring in great perplexity across the room at the open window, but
+all at once he uttered an exclamation and smote his hands together.</p>
+
+<p>"That boy doesn't know!" he cried. "They're tricking him, these
+others!"</p>
+
+<p>The lad's face came once more before him, and it was a foolish and
+stubborn face, perhaps, but it was neither vicious nor mean. It was the
+face of an honest, headstrong boy who would be incapable of the cold
+cruelty to which all circumstances seemed to point.</p>
+
+<p>"They're tricking him somehow!" cried Ste. Marie again. "They're lying
+to him and making him think--"</p>
+
+<p>What was it they were making him think, these three conspirators? What
+possible thing could they make him think other than the plain truth? Ste.
+Marie shook a weary head and lay down among his pillows. He wished that he
+had "old Charlie" in a corner of that room with his fingers round "old
+Charlie's" wicked throat. He would soon get at the truth then; or O'Hara,
+either, that grim and saturnine chevalier d'industrie, though O'Hara would
+be a bad handful to manage; or--Ste. Marie's head dropped back with a
+little groan when the face of young Arthur's enchantress came between him
+and the opposite wall of the room and her great and tragic eyes looked into
+his.</p>
+
+<p>It seemed incredible that that queen among goddesses should be what she
+was!</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+
+
+
+<a name="Page_231"></a><h2><a name='XIX'></a>XIX</h2>
+
+<h3>THE INVALID TAKES THE AIR</h3>
+
+
+<p>When O'Hara, the next morning, went through the formality of looking in
+upon his patient, and after a taciturn nod was about to go away again, Ste.
+Marie called him back. He said, "Would you mind waiting a moment?" and the
+Irishman halted inside the door. "I made an experiment yesterday," said
+Ste. Marie, "and I find that, after a poor fashion, I can walk--that is to
+say, I can drag myself about a little without any great pain if I don't
+bend the left leg."</p>
+
+<p>O'Hara returned to the bed and made a silent examination of the bullet
+wound, which, it was plain to see, was doing very well indeed. "You'll be
+all right in a few days," said he, "but you'll be lame for a week
+yet--maybe two. As a matter of fact, I've known men to march half a day
+with a hole in the leg worse than yours, though it probably was not quite
+pleasant."</p>
+
+<p>"I'm afraid I couldn't march very far," said Ste. Marie, "but I can
+hobble a bit. The point is, I'm going mad from confinement in this room. Do
+you think I might be allowed to stagger about the garden for an hour, or
+sit there under one of the trees? I don't like to ask favors, but, so far
+as I can see, it could do no harm. I couldn't possibly escape, you see. I
+couldn't climb a fifteen-foot wall even <a name="Page_232"></a>if I had two
+good legs; as it is, with a leg and a half, I couldn't climb anything."</p>
+
+<p>The Irishman looked at him sharply, and was silent for a time, as if
+considering. But at last he said: "Of course there is no reason whatever
+for granting you any favors here. You're on the footing of a spy--a
+captured spy--and you're very lucky not to have got what you deserved
+instead of a trumpery flesh wound." The man's face twisted into a heavy
+scowl. "Unfortunately," said he, "an accident has put me--put us in as
+unpleasant a position toward you as you had put yourself toward us. We seem
+to stand in the position of having tried to poison you, and--well, we owe
+you something for that. Still, I'd meant to keep you locked up in this room
+so long as it was necessary to have you at La Lierre." He scowled once more
+in an intimidating fashion at Ste. Marie, and it was evident that he found
+himself embarrassed. "And," he said, awkwardly, "I suppose I owe something
+to your father's son.... Look here! If you're to be allowed in the garden,
+you must understand that it's at fixed hours and not alone. Somebody will
+always be with you, and old Michel will be on hand to shoot you down if you
+try to run for it or if you try to communicate with Arthur Benham. Is that
+understood?"</p>
+
+<p>"Quite," said Ste. Marie, gayly. "Quite understood and agreed to. And
+many thanks for your courtesy. I sha'n't forget it. We differ rather widely
+on some rather important subjects, you and I, but I must confess that
+you're very generous, and I thank you. The old Michel has my full
+permission to shoot at me if he sees me trying to fly over a fifteen-foot
+wall."</p>
+
+<p>"He'll shoot without asking your permission," said the Irishman, grimly,
+"if you try that on, but I don't think <a name="Page_233"></a>you'll be apt
+to try it for the present--not with a crippled leg." He pulled out his
+watch and looked at it. "Nine o'clock," said he. "If you care to begin
+to-day you can go out at eleven for an hour. I'll see that old Michel is
+ready at that time."</p>
+
+<p>"Eleven will suit me perfectly," said Ste. Marie. "You're very good.
+Thanks once more!" The Irishman did not seem to hear. He replaced the watch
+in his pocket and turned away in silence. But before he left the room he
+stood a moment beside one of the windows, staring out into the morning
+sunshine, and the other man could see that his face had once more settled
+into the still and melancholic gloom which was characteristic of it. Ste.
+Marie watched, and for the first time the man began to interest him as a
+human being. He had thought of O'Hara before merely as a rather shady
+adventurer of a not very rare type, but he looked at the adventurer's face
+now and he saw that it was the face of a man of unspeakable sorrows. When
+O'Hara looked at one, one saw only a pair of singularly keen and hard blue
+eyes set under a bony brow. When those eyes were turned away, the man's
+attention relaxed, the face became a battle-ground furrowed and scarred
+with wrecked pride and with bitterness and with shame and with agony. Most
+soldiers of fortune have faces like that, for the world has used them very
+ill, and they have lost one precious thing after another until all are
+gone, and they have tasted everything that there is in life, and the flavor
+which remains is a very bitter flavor--dry, like ashes.</p>
+
+<p>It came to Ste. Marie, as he lay watching this man, that the story of
+the man's life, if he could be made to tell it, would doubtless be one of
+the most interesting stories in the world, as must be the tale of the
+adventurous career of any <a name="Page_234"></a>one who has slipped down
+the ladder of respectability, rung by rung, into that shadowy no-man's-land
+where the furtive birds of prey foregather and hatch their plots. It was
+plain enough that O'Hara had, as the phrase goes, seen better days. Without
+question he was a villain, but, after all, a generous villain. He had been
+very decent about making amends for that poisoning affair. A cheaper rascal
+would have behaved otherwise. Ste. Marie suddenly remembered what a friend
+of his had once said of this mysterious Irishman. The two had been sitting
+on the terrace of a caf&eacute;, and as O'Hara passed by Ste. Marie's
+friend pointed after him and said: "There goes some of the best blood that
+ever came out of Ireland. See what it has fallen to!"</p>
+
+<p>Seemingly it had fallen pretty low. He would have liked very much to
+know about the downward stages, but he knew that he would never hear
+anything of them from the man himself, for O'Hara was clad, as it were, in
+an armor of taciturnity. He was incredibly silent. He wore mail that
+nothing could pierce.</p>
+
+<p>The Irishman turned abruptly away and left the room, and Ste. Marie,
+with all the gay excitement of a little girl preparing for her first
+nursery party, began to get himself ready to go out. The old Michel had
+already been there to help him bathe and shave, so that he had only to
+dress himself and attend to his one conspicuous vanity--the painstaking
+arrangement of his hair, which he wore, according to the fashion of the
+day, parted a little at one side and brushed almost straight back, so that
+it looked rather like a close-fitting and incredibly glossy skullcap.
+Richard Hartley, who was inclined to joke at his friend's grave interest in
+the matter, said that it reminded him of patent-leather.</p>
+
+<p>When he was dressed--and he found that putting on <a
+name="Page_235"></a>his left boot was no mean feat--Ste. Marie sat down in
+a chair by the window and lighted a cigarette. He had half an hour to wait,
+and so he picked up the volume of <i>Bayard</i>, which Coira O'Hara had not
+yet taken away from him, and began to read in it at random. He became so
+absorbed that the old Michel, come to summon him, took him by surprise. But
+it was a pleasant surprise and very welcome. He followed the old man out of
+the room with a heart that beat fast with eagerness.</p>
+
+<p>The descent of the stairs offered difficulties, for the wounded leg
+protested sharply against being bent more than a very little at the knee.
+But by the aid of Michel's shoulder he made the passage in safety and so
+came to the lower story. At the foot of the stairs some one opened a door
+almost in their faces, but closed it again with great haste, and Ste. Marie
+gave a chuckle of laughter, for, though it was almost dark there, he
+thought he had recognized Captain Stewart.</p>
+
+<p>"So old Charlie's with us to-day, is he?" he said, aloud, and Michel
+queried:</p>
+
+<p>"Comment, Monsieur?" because Ste. Marie had spoken in English.</p>
+
+<p>They came out upon the terrace before the house, and the fresh, sweet
+air bore against their faces, and little flecks of live gold danced and
+shivered about their feet upon the moss-stained tiles. The gardener stepped
+back for an instant into the doorway, and reappeared bearing across his
+arms the short carbine with which Ste. Marie had already made acquaintance.
+The victim looked at this weapon with a laugh, and the old Michel's
+gnomelike countenance distorted itself suddenly and a weird cackle came
+from it.</p>
+
+<p><a name="Page_236"></a>"It is my old friend?" demanded Ste. Marie, and
+the gardener cackled once more, stroking the barrel of the weapon as if it
+were a faithful dog.</p>
+
+<p>"The same, Monsieur," said he. "But she apologizes for not doing
+better."</p>
+
+<p>"Beg her for me," said the young man, "to cheer up. She may get another
+chance."</p>
+
+<p>Old Michel's face froze into an expression of anxious and rather
+frightened solicitude, but he waved his arm for the prisoner to precede
+him, and Ste. Marie began to limp down across the littered and unkempt
+sweep of turf. Behind him, at the distance of a dozen paces, he heard the
+shambling footfalls of his guard, but he had expected that, and it could
+not rob him of his swelling and exultant joy at treading once more upon
+green grass and looking up into blue sky. He was like a man newly released
+from a dungeon rather than from a sunny and by no means uncomfortable upper
+chamber. He would have liked to dance and sing, to run at full speed like a
+child until he was breathless and red in the face. Instead of that he had
+to drag himself with slow pains and some discomfort, but his spirit ran
+ahead, dancing and singing, and he thought that it even halted now and then
+to roll on the grass.</p>
+
+<p>As he had observed a week before, from the top of the wall, a double row
+of larches led straight down away from the front of the house, making a
+wide and long vista interrupted half-way to its end by a rond point, in the
+centre of which were a pool and a fountain. The double row of trees was
+sadly broken now, and the trees were untrimmed and uncared for. One of them
+had fallen, probably in a wind-storm, and lay dead across the way. Ste.
+Marie turned aside toward the west and found himself presently <a
+name="Page_237"></a>among chestnuts, planted in close rows, whose tops grew
+in so thick a canopy above that but little sunshine came through, and there
+was no turf under foot, only black earth, hard-trodden, mossy here and
+there.</p>
+
+<p>From beyond, in the direction he had chanced to take, and a little
+toward the west, a soft morning breeze bore to him the scent of roses so
+constant and so sweet, despite its delicacy, that to breathe it was like an
+intoxication. He felt it begin to take hold upon and to sway his senses
+like an exquisite, an insidious wine.</p>
+
+<p>"The flower-gardens, Michel?" he asked, over his shoulder. "They are
+before us?"</p>
+
+<p>"Ahead and to the left, Monsieur," said the old man, and he took up once
+more his slow and difficult progress.</p>
+
+<p>But again, before he had gone many steps, he was halted. There began to
+reach his ears a rich but slender strain of sound, a golden thread of
+melody. At first he thought that it was a 'cello or the lower notes of a
+violin, but presently he became aware that it was a woman singing in a
+half-voice without thought of what she sang--as women croon to a child, or
+over their work, or when they are idle and their thoughts are far
+wandering.</p>
+
+<p>The mistake was not as absurd as it may seem, for it is a fact that the
+voice which is called a contralto, if it is a good and clear and fairly
+resonant voice, sounds at a distance very much indeed like a 'cello or the
+lower register of a violin. And that is especially true when the voice is
+hushed to a half-articulate murmur. Indeed, this is but one of the many
+strange peculiarities of that most beautiful of all human organs. The
+contralto can rarely express the lighter things, and it is quite impossible
+for it to express merriment or gayety, but it can thrill the heart as can
+no <a name="Page_238"></a>other sound emitted by a human throat, and it can
+shake the soul to its very innermost hidden deeps. It is the soft, yellow
+gold of singing--the wine of sound; it is mystery; it is shadowy, unknown,
+beautiful places; it is enchantment. Ste. Marie stood still and listened.
+The sound of low singing came from the right. Without realizing that he had
+moved, he began to make his way in that direction, and the old Michel,
+carbine upon arm, followed behind him. He had no doubt of the singer. He
+knew well who it was, for the girl's speaking voice had thrilled him long
+before this. He came to the eastern margin of the grove of chestnuts and
+found that he was beside the open rond point, where the pool lay within its
+stone circumference, unclean and choked with lily-pads, and the fountain--a
+naked lady holding aloft a shell--stood above. The rond point was not in
+reality round; it was an oval with its greater axis at right angles to the
+long, straight avenue of larches. At the two ends of the oval there were
+stone benches with backs, and behind these, tall shrubs grew close and
+overhung, so that even at noonday the spots were shaded.</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+
+
+
+<a name="Page_239"></a><h2><a name='XX'></a>XX</h2>
+
+<h3>THE STONE BENCH AT THE ROND POINT</h3>
+
+
+<p>Mlle. Coira O'Hara sat alone upon the stone bench at the hither end of
+the rond point. With a leisurely hand she put fine stitches into a
+mysterious garment of white, with lace on it, and over her not too arduous
+toil she sang, &agrave; demi voix, a little German song all about the
+tender passions.</p>
+
+<p>Ste. Marie halted his dragging steps a little way off, but the girl
+heard him and turned to look. After that she rose hurriedly and stood as if
+poised for flight, but Ste. Marie took his hat in his hands and came
+forward.</p>
+
+<p>"If you go away, Mademoiselle," said he, "if you let me drive you from
+your place, I shall limp across to that pool and fall in and drown myself,
+or I shall try to climb the wall yonder and Michel will have to shoot
+me."</p>
+
+<p>He came forward another step.</p>
+
+<p>"If it is impossible," he said, "that you and I should stay here
+together for a few little moments and talk about what a beautiful day it
+is--if that is impossible, why then I must apologize for intruding upon you
+and go on my way, inexorably pursued by the would-be murderer who now
+stands six paces to the rear. Is it impossible, Mademoiselle?" said Ste.
+Marie.</p>
+
+<p>The girl's face was flushed with that deep and splendid <a
+name="Page_240"></a>understain. She looked down upon the white garment in
+her hand and away across the broad rond point, and in the end she looked up
+very gravely into the face of the man who stood leaning upon his stick
+before her.</p>
+
+<p>"I don't know," she said, in her deep voice, "what my father would wish.
+I did not know that you were coming into the garden this morning, or--"</p>
+
+<p>"Or else," said Ste. Marie, with a little touch of bitterness in his
+tone--"or else you would not have been here. You would have remained in the
+house."</p>
+
+<p>He made a bow.</p>
+
+<p>"To-morrow, Mademoiselle," said he, "and for the remainder of the days
+that I may be at La Lierre, I shall stay in my room. You need have no fear
+of me."</p>
+
+<p>All the man's life he had been spoiled. The girl's bearing hurt him
+absurdly, and a little of the hurt may have betrayed itself in his face as
+he turned away, for she came toward him with a swift movement, saying:</p>
+
+<p>"No, no! Wait!--I have hurt you," she said, with a sort of wondering
+distress. "You have let me hurt you.... And yet surely you must see,... you
+must realize on what terms.... Do you forget that you are not among your
+friends... outside?... This is so very different!"</p>
+
+<p>"I had forgotten," said he. "Incredible as it sounds, I had for a moment
+forgotten. Will you grant me your pardon for that? And yet," he persisted,
+after a moment's pause--"yet, Mademoiselle, consider a little! It is likely
+that--circumstances have so fallen that it seems I shall be here within
+your walls for a time, perhaps a long time. I am able to walk a little now.
+Day by day I shall be stronger, better able to get about. Is there not some
+way--are there hot some terms under which we could meet without
+embarrassment? <a name="Page_241"></a>Must we forever glare at each other
+and pass by warily, just because we--well, hold different views
+about--something?"</p>
+
+<p>It was not a premeditated speech at all. It had never until this moment
+occurred to him to suggest any such arrangement with any member of the
+household at La Lierre. At another time he would doubtless have considered
+it undignified, if not downright unwise, to hold intercourse of any
+friendly sort with this band of contemptible adventurers. The sudden
+impulse may have been born of his long week of almost intolerable
+loneliness, or it may have come of the warm exhilaration of this first
+breath of sweet, outdoor air, or perhaps it needed neither of these things,
+for the girl was very beautiful--enchantment breathed from her, and, though
+he knew what she was, in what despicable plot she was engaged, he was too
+much Ste. Marie to be quite indifferent to her. Though he looked upon her
+sorrowfully and with pain and vicarious shame, he could not have denied the
+spell she wielded. After all, he was Ste. Marie.</p>
+
+<p>Once more the girl looked up very gravely under her brows, and her eyes
+met the man's eyes. "I don't know," she said. "Truly, I don't know. I think
+I should have to ask my father about it.--I wish," she said, "that we might
+do that. I should like it. I should like to be able to talk to some
+one--about the things I like--and care for. I used to talk with my father
+about things; but not lately. There is no one now." Her eyes searched him.
+"Would it be possible, I wonder," said she. "Could we two put everything
+else aside--forget altogether who we are and why we are here. Is that
+possible?"</p>
+
+<p>"We could only try, Mademoiselle," said Ste. Marie. <a
+name="Page_242"></a>"If we found it a failure we could give it up." He
+broke into a little laugh. "And besides," he said, "I can't help thinking
+that two people ought to be with me all the time I am in the garden
+here--for safety's sake. I might catch the old Michel napping one day, you
+know, throttle him, take his rifle away, and escape. If there were two, I
+couldn't do it."</p>
+
+<p>For an instant she met his laugh with an answering smile, and the smile
+came upon her sombre beauty like a moment of golden light upon darkness.
+But afterward she was grave again and thoughtful. "Is it not rather
+foolish," she asked, "to warn us--to warn me of possibilities like that?
+You might quite easily do what you have said. You are putting us on our
+guard against you."</p>
+
+<p>"I meant to, Mademoiselle," said Ste. Marie. "I meant to. Consider my
+reasons. Consider what I was pleading for!" And he gave a little laugh when
+the color began again to rise in the girl's cheeks.</p>
+
+<p>She turned away from him, shaking her head, and he thought that he had
+said too much and that she was offended, but after a moment the girl looked
+up, and when she met his eyes she laughed outright.</p>
+
+<p>"I cannot forever be scowling and snarling at you," said she. "It is
+quite too absurd. Will you sit down for a little while? I don't know
+whether or not my father would approve, but we have met here by accident,
+and there can be no harm, surely, in our exchanging a few civil words. If
+you try to bring up forbidden topics I can simply go away; and, besides,
+Michel stands ready to murder you if it should become necessary. I think
+his failure of a week ago is very heavy on his conscience."</p>
+
+<p>Ste. Marie sat down in one corner of the long stone bench, <a
+name="Page_243"></a>and he was very glad to do it, for his leg was
+beginning to cause him some discomfort. It felt hot and as if there were a
+very tight band round it above the knee. The relief must have been apparent
+in his face, for Mlle. O'Hara looked at him in silence for a moment, and
+she gave a little, troubled, anxious frown. Men can be quite indifferent to
+suffering in each other if the suffering is not extreme, and women can be,
+too, but men are quite miserable in the presence of a woman who is in pain,
+and women, before a suffering man, while they are not miserable, are always
+full of a desire to do something that will help. And that might be a small,
+additional proof--if any more proof were necessary--that they are much the
+more practical of the two sexes.</p>
+
+<p>The girl's sharp glance seemed to assure her that Ste. Marie was
+comfortable, now that he was sitting down, for the frown went from her
+brows, and she began to arrange the mysterious white garment in her lap in
+preparation to go on with her work.</p>
+
+<p>Ste. Marie watched her for a while in a contented silence. The leaves
+overhead stirred under a puff of air, and a single yellow beam of sunlight
+came down and shivered upon the girl's dark head and played about the
+bundle of white over which her hands were busy. She moved aside to avoid
+it, but it followed her, and when she moved back it followed again and
+danced in her lap as if it were a live thing with a malicious sense of
+humor. It might have been Tinker Bell out of <i>Peter Pan</i>, only it did
+not jingle. Mlle. O'Hara uttered an exclamation of annoyance, and Ste.
+Marie laughed at her, but in a moment the leaves overhead were still again,
+and the sunbeam, with a sense of humor, was gone to torment some one
+else.</p>
+
+<p>Still neither of the two spoke, and Ste. Marie continued <a
+name="Page_244"></a>to watch the girl bent above her sewing. He Was
+thinking of what she had said to him when he asked her if she read
+Spanish--that her mother had been Spanish. That would account, then, for
+her dark eyes. It would account for the darkness of her skin, too, but not
+for its extraordinary clearness and delicacy, for Spanish women are apt to
+have dull skins of an opaque texture. This was, he said to himself, an
+Irish skin with a darker stain, and he was quite sure that he had never
+before seen anything at all like it.</p>
+
+<p>Apart from coloring, she was all Irish, of the type which has become
+famous the world over, and which in the opinion of men who have seen women
+in all countries, and have studied them, is the most beautiful type that
+exists in our time.</p>
+
+<p>Ste. Marie was dark himself, and in the ordinary nature of things he
+should have preferred a fair type in women. In theory, for that matter, he
+did prefer it, but it was impossible for him to sit near Coira O'Hara and
+watch her bent head and busy, hovering hands, and remain unstirred by her
+splendid beauty. He found himself wondering why one kind of loveliness more
+than another should exert a potent and mysterious spell by virtue of mere
+proximity, and when the woman who bore it was entirely passive. If this
+girl had been looking at him the matter would have been easy to understand,
+for an eye-glance is often downright hypnotic; but she was looking at the
+work in her hands, and, so far as could be judged, she had altogether
+forgotten his presence; yet the mysterious spell, the potent enchantment,
+breathed from her like a vapor, and he could not be insensible to it. It
+was like sorcery.</p>
+
+<p>The girl looked up so suddenly that Ste. Marie jumped. She said:</p>
+
+<p><a name="Page_245"></a>"You are not a very talkative person. Are you
+always as silent as this?"</p>
+
+<p>"No," said he, "I am not. I offer my humblest apologies. It seems as if
+I were not properly grateful for being allowed to sit here with you, but,
+to tell the truth, I was buried in thought."</p>
+
+<p>They had begun to talk in French, but midway of Ste. Marie's speech the
+girl glanced toward the old Michel, who stood a short distance away, and so
+he changed to English.</p>
+
+<p>"In that case," she said, regarding her work with her head on one side
+like a bird--"in that case you might at least tell me what your thoughts
+were. They might be interesting."</p>
+
+<p>Ste. Marie gave a little embarrassed laugh.</p>
+
+<p>"I'm sorry," said he, "but I'm afraid they were too personal. I'm afraid
+if I told you you'd get up and go away and be frigidly polite to me when
+next we passed each other in the garden here. But there's no harm," he
+said, "in telling you one thing that occurred to me. It occurred to me
+that, as far as a young girl can be said to resemble an elderly woman, you
+bear a most remarkable resemblance to a very dear old friend of mine who
+lives near Dublin--Lady Margaret Craith. She's a widow, and almost all of
+her family are dead, I believe--I didn't know any of them--and she lives
+there in a huge old house with a park, quite alone with her army of
+servants. I go to see her whenever I'm in Ireland, because she is one of
+the sweetest souls I have ever known."</p>
+
+<p>He became aware suddenly that Mlle. O'Hara's head was bent very low over
+her sewing and that her face, or as much of it as he could see, was
+crimson.</p>
+
+<p><a name="Page_246"></a>"Oh, I--I beg your pardon!" cried Ste. Marie.
+"I've done something dreadful. I don't know what it is, but I'm very, very
+sorry. Please forgive me if you can!"</p>
+
+<p>"It is nothing," she said, in a low voice, and after a moment she looked
+up for the swiftest possible glance and down again. "That is my--aunt," she
+said. "Only--please let us talk about something else! Of course you
+couldn't possibly have known."</p>
+
+<p>"No," said Ste. Marie, gravely. "No, of course. You are very good to
+forgive me."</p>
+
+<p>He was silent a little while, for what the girl had told him surprised
+him very much indeed, and touched him, too. He remembered again the remark
+of his friend when O'Hara had passed them on the boulevard:</p>
+
+<p>"There goes some of the best blood that ever came out of Ireland. See
+what it has fallen to!"</p>
+
+<p>"It is a curious fact," said he, "that you and I are very close
+compatriots in the matter of blood--if 'compatriots' is the word. You are
+Irish and Spanish. My mother was Irish and my people were B&eacute;arnais,
+which is about as much Spanish as French; and, indeed, there was a great
+deal of blood from across the mountains in them, for they often married
+Spanish wives."</p>
+
+<p>He pulled the <i>Bayard</i> out of his pocket.</p>
+
+<p>"The Ste. Marie in here married a Spanish lady, didn't he?"</p>
+
+<p>The girl looked up to him once more.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes," she said. "Yes, I remember. He was a brave man, Monsieur. He had
+a great soul. And he died nobly."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, as for that," he said, flushing a little, "the Ste. Maries have
+all died rather well."</p>
+
+<p><a name="Page_247"></a>He gave a short laugh.</p>
+
+<p>"Though I must admit," said he, "that the last of them came precious
+near falling below the family standard a week ago. I should think that
+probably none of my respected forefathers was killed in climbing over a
+garden-wall. Autres temps, autres moeurs."</p>
+
+<p>He burst out laughing again at what seemed to him rather comic, but
+Mlle. O'Hara did not smile. She looked very gravely into his eyes, and
+there seemed to be something like sorrow in her look. Ste. Marie wondered
+at it, but after a moment it occurred to him that he was very near
+forbidden ground, and that doubtless the girl was trying to give him a
+silent warning of it. He began to turn over the leaves of the book in his
+hand.</p>
+
+<p>"You have marked a great many pages here," said he.</p>
+
+<p>And she said: "It is my best of all books. I read in it very often. I am
+so thankful for it that there are no words to say how thankful I am--how
+glad I am that I have such a world as that to--take refuge in sometimes
+when this world is a little too unbearable. It does for me now what the
+fairy stories did when I was little. And to think that it's true, true! To
+think that once there truly were men like that--sans peur et sans reproche!
+It makes life worth while to think that those men lived even if it was long
+ago."</p>
+
+<p>Ste. Marie bent his head over the little book, for he could not look at
+Mlle. O'Hara just then. It seemed to him well-nigh the most pathetic speech
+that he had ever heard. His heart bled for her. Out of what mean shadows
+had the girl to turn her weary eyes upward to this sunlight of ancient
+heroism!</p>
+
+<p>"And yet, Mademoiselle," said he, gently, "I think there are such men
+alive to-day, if only one will look for them. <a
+name="Page_248"></a>Remember, they were not common even in Bayard's time.
+Oh yes, I think there are preux chevaliers nowadays, only perhaps they
+don't go about things in quite the same fashion. Other times, other
+manners," he said again.</p>
+
+<p>"Do you know any such men?" she demanded, facing him with shadowy
+eyes.</p>
+
+<p>And he said: "Yes, I know men who are in all ways as honorable and as
+high-hearted as Bayard was. In his place they would have acted as he did,
+but nowadays one has to practise heroism much less conspicuously--in the
+little things that few people see and that no one applauds or writes books
+about. It is much harder to do brave little acts than brave big ones."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes." she agreed, slowly. "Oh yes, of course."</p>
+
+<p>But there was no spirit in her tone, rather a sort of apathy. Once more
+the leaves overhead swayed in the breeze, opened a tiny rift, and the
+little trembling ray of sunshine shot down to her where she sat. She
+stretched out one hand cup-wise, and the sunbeam, after a circling
+gyration, darted into it and lay there like a small golden bird panting, as
+it were, from fright.</p>
+
+<p>"If I were a painter," said Ste. Marie, "I should be in torture and
+anguish of soul until I had painted you sitting there on a stone bench and
+holding a sunbeam in your hand. I don't know what I should call the
+picture, but I think it would be something figurative--symbolic. Can you
+think of a name?"</p>
+
+<p>Coira O'Hara looked up at him with a slight smile, but her eyes were
+gloomy and full of dark shadows. "It might be called any one of a great
+number of things, I should think," said she. "Happiness--belief--illusion.
+See! The sunbeam is gone."</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+
+
+
+<a name="Page_249"></a><h2><a name='XXI'></a>XXI</h2>
+
+<h3>A MIST DIMS THE SHINING STAR</h3>
+
+
+<p>Ste. Marie remained in his room all the rest of that day, and he did not
+see Mlle. O'Hara again, for Michel brought him his lunch and the old
+Justine his dinner. For the greater part of the time he sat in bed reading,
+but rose now and then and moved about the room. His wound seemed to have
+suffered no great inconvenience from the morning's outing. If he stood or
+walked too long it burned somewhat, and he had the sensation of a tight
+band round the leg; but this passed after he had lain down for a little
+while, or even sat in a chair with the leg straight out before him; so he
+knew that he was not to be crippled very much longer, and his thoughts
+began to turn more and more keenly upon the matter of escape.</p>
+
+<p>He realized, of course, that now, since he was once more able to walk,
+he would be guarded with unremitting care every moment of the day, and
+quite possibly every moment of the night as well, though the simple bolting
+of his door on the outside would seem to answer the purpose save when he
+was out-of-doors. Once he went to the two east windows and hung out of
+them, testing as well as he could with his hands the strength and tenacity
+of the ivy which covered that side of the house. He thought it seemed
+strong enough to give hand and foot hold without being torn <a
+name="Page_250"></a>loose, but he was afraid it would make an atrocious
+amount of noise if he should try to climb down it, and, besides, he would
+need two very active legs for that.</p>
+
+<p>At another time a fresh idea struck him, and he put it at once into
+action. There might be just a chance, when out one day with Michel, of
+getting near enough to the wall which ran along the Clamart road to throw
+something over it when the old man was not looking. In one of his pockets
+he had a card-case with a little pencil fitted into a loop at the edge, and
+in the case it was his custom to carry postage-stamps. He investigated and
+found pencil and stamps. Of course he had nothing but cards to write upon,
+and they were useless. He looked about the room and went through an empty
+chest of drawers in vain, but at last, on some shelves in the closet where
+his clothes had hung, he found several large sheets of coarse white paper.
+The shelves were covered with it loosely for the sake of cleanliness. He
+abstracted one of these sheets, and cut it into squares of the ordinary
+note-paper size, and he sat down and wrote a brief letter to Richard
+Hartley, stating where he was, that Arthur Benham was there, the O'Haras,
+and, he thought, Captain Stewart. He did not write the names out, but put
+instead the initial letters of each name, knowing that Hartley would
+understand. He gave careful directions as to how the place was to be
+reached, and he asked Hartley to come as soon as possible by night to that
+wall where he himself had made his entrance, to climb up by the cedar-tree,
+and to drop his answer into the thick leaves of the lilac bushes
+immediately beneath--an answer naming a day and hour, preferably by night,
+when he could return with three or four to help him, surprise the household
+at La Lierre, and carry off young Benham.</p>
+
+<p><a name="Page_251"></a>Ste. Marie wrote this letter four times, and each
+of the four copies he enclosed in an awkwardly fashioned envelope, made
+with infinite pains so that its flaps folded in together, for he had no
+gum. He addressed and stamped the four envelopes, and put them all in his
+pocket to await the first opportunity.</p>
+
+<p>Afterward he lay down for a while, and as, one after another, the books
+he had in the room failed to interest him, his thoughts began to turn back
+to Mlle. Coira O'Hara and his hour with her upon the old stone bench in the
+garden. He realized all at once that he had been putting off this
+reflection as one puts off a reckoning that one a little dreads to face,
+and rather vaguely he realized why.</p>
+
+<p>The spell that the girl wielded--quite without being conscious of it; he
+granted her that grace--was too potent. It was dangerous, and he knew it.
+Even imaginative and very unpractical people can be in some things
+surprisingly matter-of-fact, and Ste. Marie was matter-of-fact about this.
+The girl had made a mysterious and unprecedented appeal to him at his very
+first sight of her, long before, and ever since that time she had
+continued, intermittently at least, to haunt his dreams. Now he was in the
+very house with her. It was quite possible that he might see her and speak
+with her every day, and he knew there was peril in that.</p>
+
+<p>He closed his eyes and she came to him, dark and beautiful, magnetically
+vital, spreading enchantment about her like a fragrance. She sat beside him
+on the moss-stained bench in the garden, holding out her hand cup-wise, and
+a sunbeam lay in the hand like a little, golden, fluttering bird. His
+thoughts ran back to that first morning when he had narrowly escaped death
+by poison. He remembered <a name="Page_252"></a>the girl's agony of fear
+and horror. He felt her hands once more upon his shoulders, and he was
+aware that his breath was coming faster and that his heart beat quickly. He
+got to his feet and went across to one of the windows, and he stood there
+for a long time frowning out into the summer day. If ever in his life, he
+said to himself with some deliberation, he was to need a cool and clear
+head, faculties unclouded and unimpaired by emotion, it was now in these
+next few days. Much more than his own well-being depended upon him now. The
+fates of a whole family, and quite possibly the lives of some of them, were
+in his hands. He must not fail, and he must not, in any least way,
+falter.</p>
+
+<p>For enemies he had a band of desperate adventurers, and the very boy
+himself, the centre and reason for the whole plot, had been, in some
+incomprehensible way, so played upon that he, too, was against him.</p>
+
+<p>The man standing by the window forced himself quite deliberately to look
+the plain facts in the face. He compelled himself to envisage this
+beautiful girl with her tragic eyes for just what his reason knew her to
+be--an adventuress, a decoy, a lure to a callow, impressionable, foolish
+lad, the tool of that arch-villain Stewart and of the lesser villain her
+father. It was like standing by and watching something lovely and pitiful
+vilely befouled. It turned his heart sick within him, but he held himself
+to the task. He brought to aid him the vision of his lady, in whose cause
+he was pursuing this adventure. For strength and determination he reached
+eye and hand to her where she sat enthroned, calm-browed, serene.</p>
+
+<p>For the first time since the beginning of all things his lady failed
+him, and Ste. Marie turned cold with fear.</p>
+
+<p>Where was that splendid frenzy that had been wont to <a
+name="Page_253"></a>sweep him all in an instant into upper air--set his
+feet upon the stars? Where was it? The man gave a sudden, voiceless cry of
+horror. The wings that had such countless times upborne him fluttered
+weakly near the earth and could not mount. His lady was there; through
+infinite space he was aware of her, but she was cold and aloof, and her
+eyes gazed very serenely beyond at something he could not see.</p>
+
+<p>He knew well enough that the fault lay somewhere within himself. She was
+as she had ever been, but he lacked the strength to rise to her. Why? Why?
+He searched himself with a desperate earnestness, but he could find no
+answer to his questioning. In himself, as in her, there had come no change.
+She was still to him all that she ever had been--the star of his destiny,
+the pillar of fire by night, of cloud by day, to guide him on his path.
+Where, then, the fine, pure fervor that should, at thought of her, whirl
+him on high and make a god of him?</p>
+
+<p>He stood wrapped in bewilderment and despair, for he could find no
+answer.</p>
+
+<p>In plain words, in commonplace black-and-white, the man's anguish has an
+over-fanciful, a well-nigh absurd look, but to Ste. Marie the thing was
+very real and terrible, as real and as terrible as, to a half-starved monk
+in his lonely cell, the sudden failure of the customary exaltation of
+spirit after a night's long prayer.</p>
+
+<p>He went, after a time, back to the bed, and lay down there with one
+upflung arm across his eyes to shut out the light. He was filled with a
+profound dejection and a sense of hopelessness. Through all the long week
+of his imprisonment he had been cheerful, at times even gay. However evil
+his case might have looked, his elastic spirits had <a
+name="Page_254"></a>mounted above all difficulties and cares, confident in
+the face of apparent defeat. Now at last he lay still, bruised, as it were,
+and battered and weary. The flame of courage burned very low in him. From
+sheer exhaustion he fell after a time into a troubled sleep, but even there
+the enemy followed him and would not let him rest. He seemed to himself to
+be in a place of shadows and fears. He strained his eyes to make out above
+him the bright, clear star of guidance, for so long as that shone he was
+safe; but something had come between--cloud or mist--and his star shone
+dimly in fitful glimpses.</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<p>On the next morning he went out once more with the old Michel into the
+garden. He went with a stronger heart, for the morning had renewed his
+courage, as bright, fresh mornings do. From the anguish of the day before
+he held himself carefully aloof. He kept his mind away from all thought of
+it, and gave his attention to the things about him. It would return,
+doubtless, in the slow, idle hours; he would have to face it again and yet
+again; he would have to contend with it; but for the present he put it out
+of his thoughts, for there were things to do.</p>
+
+<p>It was no more than human of him--and certainly it was very
+characteristic of Ste. Marie--that he should be half glad and half
+disappointed at not finding Coira O'Hara in her place at the rond point. It
+left him free to do what he wished to do--make a careful reconnaissance of
+the whole garden enclosure--but it left him empty of something he had,
+without conscious thought, looked forward to.</p>
+
+<p>His wounded leg was stronger and more flexible than on the day before;
+it burned and prickled less, and could be bent a little at the knee with
+small distress; so he led the <a name="Page_255"></a>old Michel at a good
+pace down the length of the enclosure, past the rose-gardens, a tangle of
+unkempt sweetness, and so to the opposite wall. He found the gates there,
+very formidable-looking, made of vertical iron bars connected by
+cross-pieces and an ornamental scroll. They were fastened together by a
+heavy chain and a padlock. The lock was covered with rust, as were the
+gates themselves, and Ste. Marie observed that the lane outside upon which
+they gave was overgrown with turf and moss, and even with seedling shrubs;
+so he felt sure that this entrance was never used. The lane, he noted,
+swept away to the right toward Issy and not toward the Clamart road. He
+heard, as he stood there, the whir of a tram from far away at the left, a
+tram bound to or from Clamart, and the sound brought to his mind what he
+wished to do. He turned about and began to make his way round the
+rose-gardens, which were partly enclosed by a low brick wall some two or
+three feet high. Beyond them the trees and shrubbery were not set out in
+orderly rows as they were near the house, but grew at will without
+hindrance or care. It was like a bit of the Meudon wood.</p>
+
+<p>He found the going more difficult here for his bad leg, but he pressed
+on, and in a little while saw before him that wall which skirted the
+Clamart road. He felt in his pocket for the four sealed and stamped
+letters, but just then the old Michel spoke behind him:</p>
+
+<p>"Pardon, Monsieur! Ce n'est pas permis."</p>
+
+<p>"What is not permitted?" demanded Ste. Marie, wheeling about.</p>
+
+<p>"To approach that wall, Monsieur," said the old man, with an incredibly
+gnomelike and apologetic grin.</p>
+
+<p>Ste. Marie gave an exclamation of disgust. "Is it believed <a
+name="Page_256"></a>that I could leap over it?" he asked. "A matter of five
+metres? Merci, non! I am not so agile. You flatter me."</p>
+
+<p>The old Michel spread out his two gnarled hands.</p>
+
+<p>"Pas de ma faute. I have orders, Monsieur. It will be my painful duty to
+shoot if Monsieur approaches that wall." He turned his strange head on one
+side and regarded Ste. Marie with his sharp and beadlike eye. The smile of
+apology still distorted his face, and he looked exactly like the
+Punchinello in a street show.</p>
+
+<p>Ste. Marie slowly withdrew from his pocket two louis d'or and held them
+before him in the palm of his hand. He looked down upon them, and Michel
+looked, too, with a gaze so intense that his solitary eye seemed to project
+a very little from his withered face. He was like a hypnotized old
+bird.</p>
+
+<p>"Mon vieux," said Ste. Marie. "I am a man of honor."</p>
+
+<p>"Sûrement! Sûrement, Monsieur!" said the old Michel, politely, but his
+hypnotized gaze did not stir so much as a hair's-breadth. "&Ccedil;a va
+sans le dire."</p>
+
+<p>"A man of honor," repeated Ste. Marie. "When I give my word I keep it.
+Voil&agrave;! I keep it. And," said he, "I have here forty francs. Two
+louis. A large sum. It is yours, my brave Michel, for the mere trouble of
+turning your back just thirty seconds."</p>
+
+<p>"Monsieur," whispered the old man, "it is impossible. He would kill
+me--by torture."</p>
+
+<p>"He will never know," said Ste. Marie, "for I do not mean to try to
+escape. I give you my word of honor that I shall not try to escape.
+Besides, I could not climb over that wall, as you see. Two louis, Michel!
+Forty francs!"</p>
+
+<p>The old man's hands twisted and trembled round the <a
+name="Page_257"></a>barrel of the carbine, and he swallowed once with some
+difficulty. He seemed to hesitate, but in the end he shook his head. It was
+as if he shook it in grief over the grave of his first-born. "It is
+impossible," he said again. "Impossible." He tore the beadlike eye away
+from those two beautiful, glowing golden things, and Ste. Marie saw that
+there was nothing to be done with him just now. He slipped the money back
+into his pocket with a little sigh and turned away toward the
+rose-gardens.</p>
+
+<p>"Ah, well," said he. "Another time, perhaps. Another time. And there are
+more louis still, mon vieux. Perhaps three or four. Who knows?"</p>
+
+<p>Michel emitted a groan of extreme anguish, and they moved on.</p>
+
+<p>But a few moments later Ste. Marie gave a sudden low exclamation, and
+then a soundless laugh, for he caught sight of a very familiar figure
+seated in apparent dejection upon a fallen tree-trunk and staring across
+the tangled splendor of the roses.</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+
+
+
+<a name="Page_258"></a><h2><a name='XXII'></a>XXII</h2>
+
+<h3>A SETTLEMENT REFUSED</h3>
+
+
+<p>Captain Stewart had good reason to look depressed on that fresh and
+beautiful morning when Ste. Marie happened upon him beside the
+rose-gardens. Matters had not gone well with him of late. He was ill and he
+was frightened, and he was much nearer than is agreeable to a complete
+nervous breakdown.</p>
+
+<p>It seemed to him that perils beset him upon every side, perils both seen
+and unseen. He felt like a man who is hunted in the dark, hard pressed
+until his strength is gone, and he can flee no farther. He imagined himself
+to be that man shivering in the gloom in a strange place, hiding eyes and
+ears lest he see or hear something from which he cannot escape. He imagined
+the morning light to come, very slow and cold and gray, and in it he saw
+round about him a silent ring of enemies, the men who had pursued him and
+run him down. He saw them standing there in the pale dawn, motionless,
+waiting for the day, and he knew that at last the chase was over and he
+near done for.</p>
+
+<p>Crouching alone in the garden, with the scent of roses in his nostrils,
+he wondered with a great and bitter amazement at that madman--himself of
+only a few months ago--who had sat down deliberately, in his proper senses,
+to play at cards with Fate, the great winner of all games. He <a
+name="Page_259"></a>wondered if, after all, he had been in his proper
+senses, for the deed now loomed before him gigantic and hideous in its
+criminal folly. His mind went drearily back to the beginning of it all, to
+the tremendous debts which had hounded him day and night, to his fear to
+speak of them with his father, who had never had the least mercy upon
+gamblers. He remembered as if it were yesterday the afternoon upon which he
+learned of young Arthur's quarrel with his grandfather, old David's senile
+anger, and the boy's tempestuous exit from the house, vowing never to
+return. He remembered his talk with old David later on about the will, in
+which he learned that he was now to have Arthur's share under certain
+conditions. He remembered how that very evening, three days after his
+disappearance, the lad had come secretly to the rue du Faubourg St.
+Honor&eacute; begging his uncle to take him in for a few days, and how, in
+a single instant that was like a lightning flash, the Great Idea had come
+to him.</p>
+
+<p>What gigantic and appalling madness it had all been! And yet for a time
+how easy of execution! For a time. Now.... He gave another quick shiver,
+for his mind came back to what beset him and compassed him round
+about--perils seen and hidden.</p>
+
+<p>The peril seen was ever before his eyes. Against the light of day it
+loomed a gigantic and portentous shadow, and it threatened him--the figure
+of Ste. Marie <i>who knew</i>. His reason told him that if due care were
+used this danger need not be too formidable, and, indeed, in his heart he
+rather despised Ste. Marie as an individual; but the man's nerve was
+broken, and in these days fear swept wavelike over reason and had its way
+with him. Fear looked up to this looming, portentous shadow and saw there
+<a name="Page_260"></a>youth and health and strength, courage and
+hopefulness, and, best of all armors, a righteous cause. How was an ill and
+tired and wicked old man to fight against these? It became an obsession,
+the figure of this youth; it darkened the sun at noonday, and at night it
+stood beside Captain Stewart's bed in the darkness and watched him and
+waited, and the very air he breathed came chill and dark from its silent
+presence there.</p>
+
+<p>But there were perils unseen as well as seen. He felt invisible threads
+drawing round him, weaving closer and closer, and he dared not even try how
+strong they were lest they prove to be cables of steel. He was almost
+certain that his niece knew something or at the least suspected. As has
+already been pointed out, the two saw very little of each other, but on the
+occasions of their last few meetings it had seemed to him that the girl
+watched him with a strange stare, and tried always to be in her
+grandfather's chamber when he called to make his inquiries. Once, stirred
+by a moment's bravado, he asked her if M. Ste. Marie had returned from his
+mysterious absence, and the girl said:</p>
+
+<p>"No. He has not come back yet, but I expect him soon now--with news of
+Arthur. We shall all be very glad to see him, grandfather and Richard
+Hartley and I."</p>
+
+<p>It was not a very consequential speech, and, to tell the truth, it was
+what in the girl's own country would be termed pure "bluff," but to Captain
+Stewart it rang harsh and loud with evil significance, and he went out of
+that room cold at heart. What plans were they perfecting among them? What
+invisible nets for his feet?</p>
+
+<p>And there was another thing still. Within the past two or three days he
+had become convinced that his movements <a name="Page_261"></a>were being
+watched--and that would be Richard Hartley at work, he said to himself.
+Faces vaguely familiar began to confront him in the street, in restaurants
+and caf&eacute;s. Once he thought his rooms had been ransacked during his
+absence at La Lierre, though his servant stoutly maintained that they had
+never been left unoccupied save for a half-hour's marketing. Finally, on
+the day before this morning by the rose-gardens, he was sure that as he
+came out from the city in his car he was followed at a long distance by
+another motor. He saw it behind him after he had left the city gate, the
+Porte de Versailles, and he saw it again after he had left the main route
+at Issy and entered the little rue Barb&eacute;s which led to La Lierre. Of
+course, he promptly did the only possible thing under the circumstances. He
+dashed on past the long stretch of wall, swung into the main avenue beyond,
+and continued through Clamart to the Meudon wood, as if he were going to
+St. Cloud. In the labyrinth of roads and lanes there he came to a halt, and
+after a half-hour's wait ran slowly back to La Lierre.</p>
+
+<p>There was no further sign of the other car, the pursuer, if so it had
+been, but he passed two or three men on bicycles and others walking, and
+what one of these might not be a spy paid to track him down?</p>
+
+<p>It had frightened him badly, that hour of suspense and flight, and he
+determined to remain at La Lierre for at least a few days, and wrote to his
+servant in the rue du Faubourg to forward his letters there under the false
+name by which he had hired the place.</p>
+
+<p>He was thinking very wearily of all these things as he sat on the fallen
+tree-trunk in the garden and stared unseeing across tangled ranks of roses.
+And after a while his thoughts, as they were wont to do, returned to Ste.
+Marie--that <a name="Page_262"></a>looming shadow which darkened the
+sunlight, that incubus of fear which clung to him night and day. He was so
+absorbed that he did not hear sounds which might otherwise have roused him.
+He heard nothing, saw nothing, save that which his fevered mind projected,
+until a voice spoke his name.</p>
+
+<p>He looked over his shoulder thinking that O'Hara had sought him out. He
+turned a little on the tree-trunk to see more easily, and the image of his
+dread stood there a living and very literal shadow against the
+daylight.</p>
+
+<p>Captain Stewart's overstrained nerves were in no state to bear a sudden
+shock. He gave a voiceless, whispering cry and he began to tremble very
+violently, so that his teeth chattered. All at once he got to his feet and
+began to stumble away backward, but a projecting limb of the fallen tree
+caught him and held him fast. It must be that the man was in a sort of
+frenzy. He must have seen through a red mist just then, for when he found
+that he could not escape his hand went swiftly to his coat-pocket, and in
+his white and contorted face there was murder plain and unmistakable.</p>
+
+<p>Ste. Marie was too lame to spring aside or to dash upon the man across
+intervening obstacles and defend himself. He stood still in his place and
+waited. And it was characteristic of him that at that moment he felt no
+fear, only a fine sense of exhilaration. Open danger had no terrors for
+him. It was secret peril that unnerved him, as in the matter of the poison
+a week before.</p>
+
+<p>Captain Stewart's hand fell away empty, and Ste. Marie laughed.</p>
+
+<p>"Left it at the house?" said he. "You seem to have no luck, Stewart.
+First the cat drinks the poison, and then <a name="Page_263"></a>you leave
+your pistol at home. Dear, dear, I'm afraid you're careless."</p>
+
+<p class="figure"> <a name="jason007"><img
+width="80%" alt="Illustration: HIS HAND WENT SWIFTLY TO HIS COAT-POCKET"
+src="images/jason007.png" /></a><br /> HIS HAND WENT SWIFTLY TO HIS
+COAT-POCKET</p>
+
+<p>Captain Stewart stared at the younger man under his brows. His face was
+gray and he was still shivering, but the sudden agony of fear, which had
+been, after all, only a jangle of nerves, was gone away. He looked upon
+Ste. Marie's gay and untroubled face with a dull wonder, and he began to
+feel a grudging admiration for the man who could face death without even
+turning pale. He pulled out his watch and looked at it.</p>
+
+<p>"I did not know," he said, "that this was your hour out-of-doors."</p>
+
+<p>As a matter of fact, he had quite forgotten that the arrangement
+existed. When he had first heard of it he had protested vigorously, but had
+been overborne by O'Hara with the plea that they owed their prisoner
+something for having come near to poisoning him, and Stewart did not care
+to have any further attention called to that matter; it had already put a
+severe strain upon the relations at La Lierre.</p>
+
+<p>"Well," observed Ste. Marie, "I told you you were careless. That proves
+it. Come! Can't we sit down for a little chat? I haven't seen you since I
+was your guest at the other address--the town address. It seems to have
+become a habit of mine--doesn't it?--being your guest." He laughed
+cheerfully, but Captain Stewart continued to regard him without
+smiling.</p>
+
+<p>"If you imagine," said the elder man, "that this place belongs to me you
+are mistaken. I came here to-day to make a visit."</p>
+
+<p>But Ste. Marie sat down at one end of the tree-trunk and shook his
+head.</p>
+
+<p><a name="Page_264"></a>"Oh, come, come!" said he. "Why keep up the
+pretence? You must know that I know all about the whole affair. Why, bless
+you, I know it all--even to the provisions of the will. Did you think I
+stumbled in here by accident? Well, I didn't, though I don't mind admitting
+to you that I remained by accident."</p>
+
+<p>He glanced over his shoulder toward the one-eyed Michel, who stood
+near-by, regarding the two with some alarm.</p>
+
+<p>Captain Stewart looked up sharply at the mention of the will, and he
+wetted his dry lips with his tongue. But after a moment's hesitation he sat
+down upon the tree-trunk, and he seemed to shrink a little together, when
+his limbs and shoulders had relaxed, so that he looked small and feeble,
+like a very tired old man. He remained silent for a few moments, but at
+last he spoke without raising his eyes. He said:</p>
+
+<p>"And now that you--imagine yourself to know so very much, what do you
+expect to do about it?"</p>
+
+<p>Ste. Marie laughed again.</p>
+
+<p>"Ah, that would be telling!" he cried. "You see, in one way I have the
+advantage, though outwardly all the advantage seems to be with your side--I
+know all about your game. I may call it a game? Yes? But you don't know
+mine. You don't know what I--what we may do at any moment. That's where we
+have the better of you."</p>
+
+<p>"It would seem to me," said Captain Stewart, wearily, "that since you
+are a prisoner here and very unlikely to escape, we know with great
+accuracy what you will do--and what you will not."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes," admitted Ste. Marie, "it would seem so. It certainly would seem
+so. But you never can tell, can you?"</p>
+
+<p><a name="Page_265"></a>And at that the elder man frowned and looked
+away. Thereafter another brief silence fell between the two, but at its end
+Ste. Marie spoke in a new tone, a very serious tone. He said:</p>
+
+<p>"Stewart, listen a moment!"</p>
+
+<p>And the other turned a sharp gaze upon him.</p>
+
+<p>"You mustn't forget," said Ste. Marie, speaking slowly as if to choose
+his words with care--"you mustn't forget that I am not alone in this
+matter. You mustn't forget that there's Richard Hartley--and that there are
+others, too. I'm a prisoner, yes. I'm helpless here for the
+present--perhaps, perhaps--but they are not, <i>and they know, Stewart.
+They know</i>."</p>
+
+<p>Captain Stewart's face remained gray and still, but his hands twisted
+and shook upon his knees until he hid them.</p>
+
+<p>"I know well enough what you're waiting for," continued Ste. Marie.
+"You're waiting--you've got to wait--for Arthur Benham to come of age, or,
+better yet, for your father to die." He paused and shook his head. "It's no
+good. You can't hold out as long as that--not by half. We shall have won
+the game long before. Listen to me! Do you know what would occur if your
+father should take a serious turn for the worse to-night--or at any time?
+Do you? Well, I'll tell you. A piece of information would be given him that
+would make another change in that will just as quickly as a pen could write
+the words. That's what would happen."</p>
+
+<p>"That is a lie!" said Captain Stewart, in a dry whisper. "A lie!"</p>
+
+<p>And Ste. Marie contented himself with a slight smile by way of answer.
+He was by no means sure that what he had said was true, but he argued that
+since Hartley suspected, <a name="Page_266"></a>or perhaps by this time
+knew so much, he would certainly not allow old David to die without doing
+what he could do in an effort to save young Arthur's fortune from a rascal.
+In any event, true or false, the words had had the desired effect. Captain
+Stewart was plainly frightened by them.</p>
+
+<p>"May I make a suggestion?" asked the younger man.</p>
+
+<p>The other did not answer him, and he made it.</p>
+
+<p>"Give it up!" said he. "You're riding for a tremendous fall, you know.
+We shall smash you completely in the end. It'll mean worse than ruin--much
+worse. Give it up, now, before you're too late. Help me to send for Hartley
+and we'll take the boy back to his home. Some story can be managed that
+will leave you out of the thing altogether, and those who know will hold
+their tongues. It's your last chance, Stewart. I advise you to take
+it."</p>
+
+<p>Captain Stewart turned his gray face slowly and looked at the other man
+with a sort of dull and apathetic wonder.</p>
+
+<p>"Are you mad?" he asked, in a voice which was altogether without feeling
+of any kind. "Are you quite mad?"</p>
+
+<p>"On the contrary," said Ste. Marie, "I am quite sane, and I'm offering
+you a chance to save yourself before it's too late. Don't misunderstand
+me!" he continued. "I am not urging this out of any sympathy for you. I
+urge it because it will bring about what I wish a little more quickly, also
+because it will save your family from the disgrace of your smash-up. That's
+why I'm making my suggestion."</p>
+
+<p>Captain Stewart was silent for a little while, but after that he got
+heavily to his feet. "I think you must be quite mad," said he, as before,
+in a voice altogether devoid of expression. "I cannot talk with madmen." He
+beckoned to the old Michel, who stood near-by, leaning upon his <a
+name="Page_267"></a>carbine, and when the gardener had approached he said,
+"Take this--prisoner back to his room!"</p>
+
+<p>Ste. Marie rose with a little sigh. He said: "I'm sorry, but you'll
+admit I have done my best for you. I've warned you. I sha'n't do it again.
+We shall smash you now, without mercy."</p>
+
+<p>"Take him away!" cried Captain Stewart, in a sudden loud voice, and the
+old Michel touched his charge upon the shoulder. So Ste. Marie went without
+further words. From a little distance he looked back, and the other man
+still stood by the fallen tree-trunk, bent a little, his arms hanging lax
+beside him, and his face, Ste. Marie thought, fancifully, was like the face
+of a man damned.</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+
+
+
+<a name="Page_268"></a><h2><a name='XXIII'></a>XXIII</h2>
+
+<h3>THE LAST ARROW</h3>
+
+
+<p>The one birdlike eye of the old Michel regarded Ste. Marie with a glance
+of mingled cunning and humor. It might have been said to twinkle.</p>
+
+<p>"To the east, Monsieur?" inquired the old Michel.</p>
+
+<p>"Precisely!" said Ste. Marie. "To the east, mon vieux." It was the
+morning of the fourth day after that talk with Captain Stewart beside the
+rose-gardens.</p>
+
+<p>The two bore to the eastward, down among the trees, and presently came
+to the spot where a certain trespasser had once leaped down from the top of
+the high wall and had been shot for his pains. The old Michel halted and
+leaned upon the barrel of his carbine. With an air of complete detachment,
+an air vague and aloof as of one in a revery, he gazed away over the
+tree-tops of the ragged park; but Ste. Marie went in under the row of lilac
+shrubs which stood close against the wall, and a passer-by might have
+thought the man looking for figs on thistles, for lilacs in late July. He
+had gone there with eagerness, with flushed cheeks and bright eyes; he
+emerged after some moments, moving slowly, with downcast head.</p>
+
+<p>"There are no lilac blooms now, Monsieur," observed the old Michel, and
+his prisoner said, in a low voice:</p>
+
+<p>"No, mon vieux. No. There are none." He sighed <a
+name="Page_269"></a>and drew a long breath. So the two stood for some time
+silent, Ste. Marie a little pale, his eyes fixed upon the ground, his hands
+chafing together behind him, the gardener with his one bright eye upon his
+charge. But in the end Ste. Marie sighed again and began to move away,
+followed by the gardener. They went across the broad park, past the double
+row of larches, through that space where the chestnut-trees stood in
+straight, close rows, and so came to the west wall which skirted the road
+to Clamart. Ste. Marie felt in his pocket and withdrew the last of the four
+letters--the last there could be, for he had no more stamps. The others he
+had thrown over the wall, one each morning, beginning with the day after he
+had made the first attempt to bribe old Michel. As he had expected,
+twenty-four hours of avaricious reflection had proved too much for that
+gnomelike being.</p>
+
+<p>One each day he had thrown over the wall, weighted with a pebble tucked
+loosely under the flap of the improvised envelope, in such a manner that it
+would drop but when the letter struck the ground beyond. And each following
+day he had gone with high hopes to the appointed place under the cedar-tree
+to pick figs of thistles, lilac blooms in late July. But there had been
+nothing there.</p>
+
+<p>"Turn your back, Michel!" said Ste. Marie.</p>
+
+<p>And the old man said, from a little distance: "It is turned, Monsieur. I
+see nothing. Monsieur throws little stories at the birds to amuse himself.
+It does not concern me."</p>
+
+<p>Ste. Marie slipped a pebble under the flap of the envelope and threw his
+letter over the wall. It went like a soaring bird, whirling horizontally,
+and it must have fallen far out in the middle of the road near the tramway.
+For the third time that morning the prisoner drew a sigh. He <a
+name="Page_270"></a>said, "You may turn round now, my friend," and the old
+Michel faced him. "We have shot our last arrow," said he. "If this also
+fails, I think--well, I think the bon Dieu will have to help us
+then.--Michel," he inquired, "do you know how to pray?"</p>
+
+<p>"Sacred thousand swine, no!" cried the ancient gnome, in something
+between astonishment and horror. "No, Monsieur. 'Pas mon m&eacute;tier,
+&ccedil;a!" He shook his head rapidly from side to side like one of those
+toys in a shop-window whose heads oscillate upon a pivot. But all at once a
+gleam of inspiration sparkled in his lone eye. "There is the old Justine!"
+he suggested. "Toujours sur les genoux, cette imb&eacute;cile
+l&agrave;."</p>
+
+<p>"In that case," said Ste. Marie, "you might ask the lady to say one
+little extra prayer for--the pebble I threw at the birds just now. Hein?"
+He withdrew from his pocket the last two louis d'or, and Michel took them
+in a trembling hand. There remained but the note of fifty francs and some
+silver.</p>
+
+<p>"The prayer shall be said, Monsieur," declared the gardener. "It shall
+be said. She shall pray all night or I will kill her."</p>
+
+<p>"Thank you," said Ste. Marie. "You are kindness itself. A gentle
+soul."</p>
+
+<p>They turned away to retrace their steps, and Michel rubbed the side of
+his head with a reflective air.</p>
+
+<p>"The old one is a madman," said he. (The "old one" meant Captain
+Stewart.) "A madman. Each day he is madder, and this morning he struck
+me--here on the head, because I was too slow. Eh! a little more of that,
+and--who knows? Just a little more, a small little! Am I a dog, to be
+beaten? Hein? Je ne le crois pas. H&eacute;!" <a name="Page_271"></a>He
+called Captain Stewart two unprintable names, and after a moment's thought
+he called him an animal, which is not so much of an anti-climax as it may
+seem, because to call anybody an animal in French is a serious matter.</p>
+
+<p>The gardener was working himself up into something of a quiet passion,
+and Ste. Marie said:</p>
+
+<p>"Softly, my friend! Softly!" It occurred to him that the man's
+resentment might be of use later on, and he said: "You speak the truth. The
+old one is an animal, and he is also a great rascal."</p>
+
+<p>But Michel betrayed the makings of a philosopher. He said, with profound
+conviction: "Monsieur, all men are great rascals. It is I who say it."</p>
+
+<p>And at that Ste. Marie had to laugh.</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<p>He had not consciously directed his feet, but without direction they led
+him round the corner of the rose-gardens and toward the rond point. He knew
+well whom he would find there. She had not failed him during the past three
+days. Each morning he had found her in her place, and for his allotted
+hour--which more than once stretched itself out to nearly two hours, if he
+had but known--they had sat together on the stone bench, or, tiring of
+that, had walked under the trees beyond.</p>
+
+<p>Long afterward Ste. Marie looked back upon these hours with, among other
+emotions, a great wonder--at himself and at her. It seemed to him then one
+of the strangest relationships--intimacies, for it might well be so
+called--that ever existed between a man and a woman, and he was amazed at
+the ease, the unconsciousness, with which it had come about.</p>
+
+<p>But during this time he did not allow himself to wonder <a
+name="Page_272"></a>or to examine, scarcely even to think. The hours were
+golden hours, unrelated, he told himself, to anything else in his life or
+in his interests. They were like pleasant dreams, very sweet while they
+endured, but to be put away and forgotten upon the waking. Only in that
+long afterward he knew that they had not been put away, that they had been
+with him always, that the morning hour had remained in his thoughts all the
+rest of the long day, and that he had waked upon the morrow with a keen and
+exquisite sense of something sweet to come.</p>
+
+<p>It was a strange fool's paradise that the man dwelt in, and in some
+small, vague measure he must, even at the time, have known it, for it is
+certain that he deliberately held himself away from thought--realization;
+that he deliberately shut his eyes, held his ears lest he should hear or
+see.</p>
+
+<p>That he was not faithless to his duty has been shown. He did his utmost
+there, but he was for the time helpless save for efforts to communicate
+with Richard Hartley, and those efforts could consume no more than ten
+minutes out of the weary day.</p>
+
+<p>So he drifted, wilfully blind to bearings, wilfully deaf to Sound of
+warning or peril, and he found a companionship sweeter and fuller and more
+perfect than he had ever before known in all his life, though that is not
+to say very much, because sympathetic companionships between men and women
+are very rare indeed, and Ste. Marie had never experienced anything which
+could fairly be called by that name. He had had, as has been related, many
+flirtations, and not a few so-called love-affairs, but neither of these two
+sorts of intimacies are of necessity true intimacies at all; men often feel
+varying degrees of love for women without <a name="Page_273"></a>the least
+true understanding or sympathy or real companionship.</p>
+
+<p>He was wondering, as he bore round the corner of the rose-gardens on
+this day, in just what mood he would find her. It seemed to him that in
+their brief acquaintance he had seen her in almost all the moods there are,
+from bitter gloom to the irrepressible gayety of a little child. He had
+told her once that she was like an organ, and she had laughed at him for
+being pretentious and high-flown, though she could upon occasion be quite
+high-flown enough herself for all ordinary purposes.</p>
+
+<p>He reached the cleared margin of the rond point, and a little cold fear
+stirred in him when he did not hear her singing under her breath, as she
+was wont to do when alone, but he went forward and she was there in her
+place upon the stone bench. She had been reading, but the book lay
+forgotten beside her and she sat idle, her head laid back against the thick
+stems of shrubbery which grew behind, her hands in her lap. It was a warm,
+still morning, with the promise of a hot afternoon, and the girl was
+dressed in something very thin and transparent and cool-looking, open in a
+little square at the throat and with sleeves which came only to her elbows.
+The material was pale and dull yellow, with very vaguely defined green
+leaves in it, and against it the girl's dark and clear skin glowed rich and
+warm and living, as pearls glow and seem to throb against the dead tints of
+the fabric upon which they are laid.</p>
+
+<p>She did not move when he came before her, but looked up to him gravely
+without stirring her head.</p>
+
+<p>"I didn't hear you come," said she. "You don't drag your left leg any
+more. You walk almost as well as if you had never been wounded."</p>
+
+<p><a name="Page_274"></a>"I'm almost all right again," he answered. "I
+suppose I couldn't run or jump, but I certainly can walk very much like a
+human being. May I sit down?"</p>
+
+<p>Mlle. O'Hara put out one hand and drew the book closer to make a place
+for him on the stone bench, and he settled himself comfortably there,
+turned a little so that he was facing toward her.</p>
+
+<p>It was indicative of the state of intimacy into which the two had grown
+that they did not make polite conversation with each other, but indeed were
+silent for some little time after Ste. Marie had seated himself. It was he
+who spoke first. He said:</p>
+
+<p>"You look vaguely classical to-day. I have been trying to guess why, and
+I cannot. Perhaps it's because your--what does one say: frock, dress,
+gown?--because it is cut out square at the throat."</p>
+
+<p>"If you mean by classical, Greek," said she, "it wouldn't be square at
+the neck at all; it would be pointed--V-shaped. And it would be very
+different in other ways, too. You are not an observing person, after
+all."</p>
+
+<p>"For all that," insisted Ste. Marie, "you look classical. You look like
+some lady one reads about in Greek poems--Helen or Iphigenia or Medea or
+somebody."</p>
+
+<p>"Helen had yellow hair, hadn't she?" objected Mlle. O'Hara. "I should
+think I probably look more like Medea--Medea in Colchis before Jason--"</p>
+
+<p>She seemed suddenly to realize that she had hit upon an unfortunate
+example, for she stopped in the middle of her sentence and a wave of color
+swept up over her throat and face.</p>
+
+<p>For a moment Ste. Marie did not understand, then he gave a low
+exclamation, for Medea certainly had been an <a name="Page_275"></a>unhappy
+name. He remembered something that Richard Hartley had said about that lady
+a long time before. He made another mistake, for to lessen the moment's
+embarrassment he gave speech to the first thought which entered his mind.
+He said:</p>
+
+<p>"Some one once remarked that you look like the young Juno--before
+marriage. I expect it's true, too."</p>
+
+<p>She turned upon him swiftly.</p>
+
+<p>"Who said that?" she demanded. "Who has ever talked to you about
+me?"</p>
+
+<p>"I beg your pardon," he said. "I seem to be singularly stupid this
+morning. A mild lunacy. You must forgive me, if you can. To tell you what
+you ask would be to enter upon forbidden ground, and I mustn't do
+that."</p>
+
+<p>"Still, I should like to know," said the girl, watching him with sombre
+eyes.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, then," said he, "it was a little Jewish photographer in the
+Boulevard de la Madeleine."</p>
+
+<p>And she said, "Oh!" in a rather disappointed tone and looked away.</p>
+
+<p>"We seem to be making conversation chiefly about my personal
+appearance," she said, presently. "There must be other topics if one should
+try hard to find them. Tell me stories. You told me stories yesterday; tell
+me more. You seem to be in a classical mood. You shall be Odysseus, and I
+will be Nausicaa, the interesting laundress. Tell me about wanderings and
+things. Have you any more islands for me?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes," said Ste. Marie, nodding at her slowly. "Yes, Nausicaa, I have
+more islands for you. The seas are full of islands. What kind do you
+want?"</p>
+
+<p><a name="Page_276"></a>"A warm one," said the girl. "Even on a hot day
+like this I choose a warm one, because I hate the cold."</p>
+
+<p>She settled herself more comfortably, with a little sigh of content that
+was exactly like a child's happy sigh when stories are going to be told
+before the fire.</p>
+
+<p>"I know an island," said Ste. Marie, "that I think you would like
+because it is warm and beautiful and very far away from troubles of all
+kinds. As well as I could make out, when I went there, nobody on the island
+had ever even heard of trouble. Oh yes, you'd like it. The people there are
+brown, and they're as beautiful as their own island. They wear hibiscus
+flowers stuck in their hair, and they very seldom do any work."</p>
+
+<p>"I want to go there!" cried Mlle. Coira O'Hara. "I want to go there now,
+this afternoon, at once! Where is it?"</p>
+
+<p>"It's in the South Pacific," said he, "not so very far from Samoa and
+Fiji and other groups that you will have heard about, and its name is
+Vavau. It's one of the Tongans. It's a high, volcanic island, not a flat,
+coral one like the southern Tongans. I came to it, one evening, sailing
+north from Nukualofa and Haapai, and it looked to me like a single big
+mountain jutting up out of the sea, black-green against the sunset. It was
+very impressive. But it isn't a single mountain, it's a lot of high, broken
+hills covered with a tangle of vegetation and set round a narrow bay, a
+sort of fjord, three or four miles long, and at the inner end of this are
+the village and the stores of the few white traders. I'm afraid," said Ste.
+Marie, shaking his head--"I'm afraid I can't tell you about it, after all.
+I can't seem to find the words. You can't put into language--at least, I
+can't--those slow, hot, island days that are never too hot because <a
+name="Page_277"></a>the trades blow fresh and strong, or the island nights
+that are more like black velvet with pearls sewed on it than anything else.
+You can't describe the smell of orange groves and the look of palm-trees
+against the sky. You can't tell about the sweet, simple, natural
+hospitality of the natives. They're like little, unsuspicious children. In
+short," said he, "I shall have to give it up, after all, just because it's
+too big for me. I can only say that it's beautiful and unspeakably remote
+from the world, and that I think I should like to go back to Vavau and stay
+a long time, and let the rest of the world go hang."</p>
+
+<p>Mlle. O'Hara stared across the park of La Lierre with wide and shadowy
+eyes, and her lips trembled a little.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, I want to go there!" she cried again. "I want to go there--and
+rest--and forget everything!" She turned upon him with a sudden bitter
+resentment. "Why do you tell me things like that?" she cried. "Oh yes, I
+know. I asked you, but--can't you see? To hide one's self away in a place
+like that!" she said. "To let the sun warm you and the trade-winds blow
+away--all that had ever tortured you! Just to rest and be at peace!" She
+turned her eyes to him once more. "You needn't be afraid that you have
+failed to make me see your island! I see it. I feel it. It doesn't need
+many words. I can shut my eyes and I am there. But it was a little cruel.
+Oh, I know, I asked for it. It's like the garden of the Hesperides, isn't
+it?"</p>
+
+<p>"Very like it," said Ste. Marie, "because there are oranges--groves of
+them. (And they were the golden apples, I take it.) Also, it is very far
+away from the world, and the people live in complete and careless ignorance
+of how the world goes on. Emperors and kings die, wars come and <a
+name="Page_278"></a>go, but they hear only a little faint echo of it all,
+long afterward, and even that doesn't interest them."</p>
+
+<p>"I know," she said. "I understand. Didn't you know I'd understand?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes," said he, nodding. "I suppose I did. We--feel things rather alike,
+I suppose. We don't have to say them all out."</p>
+
+<p>"I wonder," she said, in a low voice, "if I'm glad or sorry." She stared
+under her brows at the man beside her. "For it is very probable that when
+we have left La Lierre you and I will never meet again. I wonder if
+I'm--"</p>
+
+<p>For some obscure reason she broke off there and turned her eyes away,
+and she remained without speaking for a long time. Her mind, as she sat
+there, seemed to go back to that southern island, and to its peace and
+loveliness, for Ste. Marie, who watched her, saw a little smile come to her
+lips, and he saw her eyes half close and grow soft and tender as if what
+they saw were very sweet to her. He watched many different expressions come
+upon the girl's face and go again, but at last he seemed to see the old
+bitterness return there and struggle with something wistful and eager.</p>
+
+<p>"I envy you your wide wanderings," she said, presently. "Oh, I envy you
+more than I can find any words for. Your will is the wind's will. You go
+where your fancy leads you, and you're free--free. We have wandered, you
+know," said she, "my father and I. I can't remember when we ever had a home
+to live in. But that is--that is different--a different kind of
+wandering."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes," said Ste. Marie. "Yes, perhaps." And within himself he said, with
+sorrow and pity, "Different, indeed!"</p>
+
+<p>As if at some sudden thought the girl looked up at him <a
+name="Page_279"></a>quickly. "Did that sound regretful?" she asked. "Did
+what I say sound--disloyal to my father? I didn't mean it to. I don't want
+you to think that I regret it. I don't. It has meant being with my father.
+Wherever he has gone I have gone with him, and if anything ever has
+been--unpleasant, I was willing, oh, I was glad, glad to put up with it for
+his sake and because I could be with him. If I have made his life a little
+happier by sharing it, I am glad of everything. I don't regret."</p>
+
+<p>"And yet," said Ste. Marie, gently, "it must have been hard sometimes."
+He pictured to himself that roving existence lived among such people as
+O'Hara must have known, and it sent a hot wave of anger and distress over
+him from head to foot.</p>
+
+<p>But the girl said: "I had my father. The rest of it didn't matter in the
+face of that." After a little silence she said, "M. Ste. Marie!"</p>
+
+<p>And the man said, "What is it, Mademoiselle?"</p>
+
+<p>"You spoke the other day," she said, hesitating over her words, "about
+my aunt, Lady Margaret Craith. I suppose I ought not to ask you more about
+her, for my father quarrelled with his people very long ago and he broke
+with them altogether. But--surely, it can do no harm--just for a
+moment--just a very little! Could you tell me a little about her, M. Ste.
+Marie--what she is like and--and how she lives--and things like that?"</p>
+
+<p>So Ste. Marie told her all that he could of the old Irishwoman who lived
+alone in her great house, and ruled with a slack Irish hand, a sweet Irish
+heart, over tenants and dependants. And when he had come to an end the girl
+drew a little sigh and said:</p>
+
+<p>"Thank you. I am so glad to hear of her. I--wish <a
+name="Page_280"></a>everything were different, so that--I think I should
+love her very much if I might."</p>
+
+<p>"Mademoiselle," said Ste. Marie, "will you promise me something?"</p>
+
+<p>She looked at him with her sombre eyes, and after a little she said: "I
+am afraid you must tell me first what it is. I cannot promise blindly."</p>
+
+<p>He said: "I want you to promise me that if anything ever should
+happen--any difficulty--trouble--anything to put you in the position of
+needing care or help or sympathy--"</p>
+
+<p>But she broke in upon him with a swift alarm, crying: "What do you mean?
+You're trying to hint at something that I don't know. What difficulty or
+trouble could happen to me? Please tell me just what you mean."</p>
+
+<p>"I'm not hinting at any mystery," said Ste. Marie. "I don't know of
+anything that is going to happen to you, but--will you forgive me for
+saying it?--your father is, I take it, often exposed to--danger of various
+sorts. I'm afraid I can't quite express myself, only, if any trouble should
+come to you, Mademoiselle, will you promise me to go to Lady Margaret, your
+aunt, and tell her who you are and let her care for you?"</p>
+
+<p>"There was an absolute break," she said. "Complete."</p>
+
+<p>But the man shook his head, saying:</p>
+
+<p>"Lady Margaret won't think of that. She'll think only of you--that she
+can mother you, perhaps save you grief--and of herself, that in her old age
+she has a daughter. It would make a lonely old woman very happy,
+Mademoiselle."</p>
+
+<p>The girl bent her head away from him, and Ste. Marie saw, for the first
+time since he had known her, tears in her eyes. After a long time she
+said:</p>
+
+<p>"I promise, then. But," she said, "it is very unlikely <a
+name="Page_281"></a>that it should ever come about--for more than one
+reason. Very unlikely."</p>
+
+<p>"Still, Mademoiselle," said he, "I am glad you have promised. This is an
+uncertain world. One never can tell what will come with the
+to-morrows."</p>
+
+<p>"I can," the girl said, with a little tired smile that Ste. Marie did
+not understand. "I can tell. I can see all the to-morrows--a long, long row
+of them. I know just what they're going to be like--to the very end."</p>
+
+<p>But the man rose to his feet and looked down upon her as she sat before
+him. And he shook his head.</p>
+
+<p>"You are mistaken," he said. "Pardon me, but you are mistaken. No one
+can see to-morrow--or the end of anything. The end may surprise you very
+much."</p>
+
+<p>"I wish it would!" cried Mlle. O'Hara. "Oh, I wish it would!"</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+
+
+
+<a name="Page_282"></a><h2><a name='XXIV'></a>XXIV</h2>
+
+<h3>THE JOINT IN THE ARMOR</h3>
+
+
+<p>Ste. Marie put down a book as O'Hara came into the room and rose to meet
+his visitor.</p>
+
+<p>"I'm compelled," said the Irishman, "to put you on your honor to-day if
+you are to go out as usual. Michel has been sent on an errand, and I am
+busy with letters. I shall have to put you on your honor not to make any
+effort to escape. Is that agreed to? I shall trust you altogether. You
+could manage to scramble over the wall somehow, I suppose, and get clean
+away, but I think you won't try it if you give your word."</p>
+
+<p>"I give my word gladly," said Ste. Marie. "And thanks very much. You've
+been uncommonly kind to me here. I--regret more than I can say that
+we--that we find ourselves on opposite sides, as it were. I wish we were
+fighting for the same cause."</p>
+
+<p>The Irishman looked at the younger man sharply for an instant, and he
+made as if he would speak, but seemed to think better of it. In the end he
+said:</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, quite so. Quite so. Of course you understand that any
+consideration I have used toward you has been by way of making amends
+for--for an unfortunate occurrence."</p>
+
+<p>Ste. Marie laughed.</p>
+
+<p><a name="Page_283"></a>"The poison," said he. "Yes, I know. And of
+course I know who was at the bottom of that. By the way, I met Stewart in
+the garden the other day. Did he tell you? He was rather nervous and tried
+to shoot me, but he had left his revolver at the house--at least it wasn't
+in his pocket when he reached for it."</p>
+
+<p>O'Hara's hard face twitched suddenly, as if in anger, and he gave an
+exclamation under his breath, so the younger man inferred that "old
+Charlie" had not spoken of their encounter. And after that the Irishman
+once more turned a sharp, frowning glance upon his prisoner as if he were
+puzzled about something. But, as before, he stopped short of speech and at
+last turned away.</p>
+
+<p>"Just a moment!" said the younger man. He asked: "Is it fair to inquire
+how long I may expect to be confined here? I don't want to presume upon
+your good-nature too far, but if you could tell me I should be glad to
+know."</p>
+
+<p>The Irishman hesitated a moment and then said:--</p>
+
+<p>"I don't know why I shouldn't answer that. It can't help you, so far as
+I can see, to do anything that would hinder us. You'll stay until Arthur
+Benham comes of age, which will be in about two months from now."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes," said the other. "Thanks. I thought so. Until young Arthur comes
+of age and receives his patrimony--or until old David Stewart dies. Of
+course that might happen at any hour."</p>
+
+<p>The Irishman said: "I don't quite see what--Ah, yes, to be sure! Yes, I
+see. Well, I should count upon eight weeks if I were you. In eight weeks
+the boy will be independent of them all, and we shall go to England for the
+wedding."</p>
+
+<p><a name="Page_284"></a>"The wedding?" cried Ste. Marie. "What
+wedding?--Ah!"</p>
+
+<p>"Arthur Benham and my daughter are to be married," said O'Hara, "so soon
+as he reaches his majority. I thought you knew that."</p>
+
+<p>In a very vague fashion he realized that he had expected it. And still
+the definite words came to him with a shock which was like a physical blow,
+and he turned his back with a man's natural instinct to hide his feeling.
+Certainly that was the logical conclusion to be drawn from known premises.
+That was to be the O'Haras' reward for their labor. To Stewart the great
+fortune, to the O'Haras a good marriage for the girl and an assured future.
+That was reward enough surely for a few weeks of angling and decoying and
+luring and lying. That was what she had meant, on the day before, by saying
+that she could see all the to-morrows. He realized that he must have been
+expecting something like this, but the thought turned him sick,
+nevertheless. He could not forget the girl as he had come to know her
+during the past week. He could not face with any calmness the thought of
+her as the adventuress who had lured poor Arthur Benham on to destruction.
+It was an impossible thought. He could have laughed at it in scornful
+anger, and yet--What else was she?</p>
+
+<p>He began to realize that his action in turning his back upon the other
+man in the middle of a conversation must look very odd, and he faced round
+again trying to drive from his expression the pain and distress which he
+knew must be there, plain to see. But he need not have troubled himself,
+for the other man was standing before the next window and looking out into
+the morning sunlight, and his <a name="Page_285"></a>hard, bony face had so
+altered that Ste. Marie stared at him with open amazement. He thought
+O'Hara must be ill.</p>
+
+<p>"I want to see her married!" cried the Irishman, suddenly, and it was a
+new voice, a voice Ste. Marie did not know. It shook a little with an
+emotion that sat uncouthly upon this grim, stern man.</p>
+
+<p>"I want to see her married and safe!" he said. "I want her to be rid of
+this damnable, roving, cheap existence. I want her to be rid of me and my
+rotten friends and my rotten life."</p>
+
+<p>He chafed his hands together before him, and his tired eyes fixed
+themselves upon something that he seemed to see out of the window and
+glared at it fiercely.</p>
+
+<p>"I should like," said he, "to die on the day after her wedding, and so
+be out of her way forever. I don't want her to have any shadows cast over
+her from the past. I don't want her to open closet doors and find skeletons
+there. I want her to be free--free to live the sort of life she was born to
+and has a right to."</p>
+
+<p>He turned sharply upon the younger man.</p>
+
+<p>"You've seen her!" he cried. "You've talked to her; you know her! Think
+of that girl dragged about Europe with me ever since she was a little
+child! Think of the people she's had to know, the things she's had to see!
+Do you wonder that I want to have her free of it all, married and safe and
+comfortable and in peace? Do you? I tell you it has driven me as nearly mad
+as a man can be. But I couldn't go mad, because I had to take care of her.
+I couldn't even die, because she'd have been left alone without any one to
+look out for her. She wouldn't leave me. I could have settled her somewhere
+in some quiet place where <a name="Page_286"></a>she'd have been quit at
+least of shady, rotten people, but she wouldn't have it. She's stuck to me
+always, through good times and bad. She's kept my heart up when I'd have
+been ready to cut my throat if I'd been alone. She's been the--bravest and
+faithfulest--Well, I--And look at her! Look at her now! Think of what she's
+had to see and know--the people she's had to live with--and look at her!
+Has any of it stuck to her? Has it cheapened her in any littlest way? No,
+by God! She has come through it all like a--like a Sister of Charity
+through a city slum--like an angel through the dark."</p>
+
+<p>The Irishman broke off speaking, for his voice was beyond control, but
+after a moment he went on again, more calmly:</p>
+
+<p>"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."</p>
+
+<p>He said this last sentence over several times, standing before the
+window and staring out at the sun upon the tree-tops.</p>
+
+<p>"I'm not afraid for her.... I'm not afraid for her."</p>
+
+<p>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 <a name="Page_287"></a>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:</p>
+
+<p>"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."</p>
+
+<p>He seemed a little embarrassed and ill at ease, and Ste. Marie said:</p>
+
+<p>"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--"</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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--<i>the girl was to be married to young Arthur Benham</i>. 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 <a name="Page_288"></a>words to be reflected upon later
+in their own time.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>"She is going to be married. She is going to be married."</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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:</p>
+
+<p>"The last arrow! God send it reached home!" and so went in under the
+lilac shrubs.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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 <a
+name="Page_289"></a>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+
+
+
+<a name="Page_290"></a><h2><a name='XXV'></a>XXV</h2>
+
+<h3>MEDEA GOES OVER TO THE ENEMY</h3>
+
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>"I was just on my way to--our bench beyond the fountain," said she.</p>
+
+<p>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:</p>
+
+<p>"What is it? Something has happened. Please tell me what it is."</p>
+
+<p>Something like the pale foreshadow of fear came over her beautiful face
+and shrouded her golden voice as if it had been a veil.</p>
+
+<p>"Your father," said Ste. Marie, heavily, "has just been telling me--that
+you are to marry young Arthur Benham. He has been telling me."</p>
+
+<p>She drew a quick breath, looking at him, but after a moment she
+said:</p>
+
+<p>"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, <i>did</i> you think?" she cried, as if
+with a sort of anger at his dulness.</p>
+
+<p><a name="Page_291"></a>The man rubbed one hand wearily across his
+eyes.</p>
+
+<p>"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."</p>
+
+<p>Abruptly his eyes sharpened upon her, and he moved a step forward.</p>
+
+<p>"Tell me the truth!" he said. "Do you love this boy?"</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>"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."</p>
+
+<p>Quite suddenly and without warning the fire of her anger burned up
+again. She flamed defiance in the man's face.</p>
+
+<p>"How dare you question me?" she cried. "What right have you to ask me
+questions about such a thing? You--what you are!"</p>
+
+<p>Ste. Marie bent his head.</p>
+
+<p>"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."</p>
+
+<p>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 <a name="Page_292"></a>end with a high head. It was a little less
+base, done proudly. He could not have borne it otherwise.</p>
+
+<p>"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."</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>She spread out her arms before him, a splendid and tragic figure.</p>
+
+<p>"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. <a name="Page_293"></a>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."</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>"Mademoiselle!" cried Ste. Marie. "Mademoiselle, are you telling me the
+truth?"</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>"You--knew Arthur Benham last winter?" he said. "Long before his--before
+he left his home? Before that?"</p>
+
+<p>"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--"</p>
+
+<p>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!"</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>"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!"</p>
+
+<p>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, <a name="Page_294"></a>and it touched the man's
+head. As if the touch were a stroke of magic, he sprang upright before
+her.</p>
+
+<p>"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?"</p>
+
+<p>"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. "<i>You</i> 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."</p>
+
+<p>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 <a name="Page_295"></a>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?</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>"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."</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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, <a name="Page_296"></a>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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!"</p>
+
+<p>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?"</p>
+
+<p><a name="Page_297"></a>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!"</p>
+
+<p>The man turned his eyes away, and she gave a sobbing cry.</p>
+
+<p>"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?"</p>
+
+<p>"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.</p>
+
+<p>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 <a name="Page_298"></a>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>"So now at last," said she, "I have back my Bayard. And I think the
+rest--doesn't matter very much."</p>
+
+<p>"Bayard?" said he, wondering. "I don't understand," he said.</p>
+
+<p>"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."</p>
+
+<p>"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."</p>
+
+<p>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 <a name="Page_299"></a>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?"</p>
+
+<p>"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 <i>you</i>, Coira!" said he,
+stammering. "But <i>you</i>! 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.</p>
+
+<p>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--"</p>
+
+<p><a name="Page_300"></a>Ste. Marie looked away.</p>
+
+<p>"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!"</p>
+
+<p>"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?"</p>
+
+<p>A wave of color flooded the man's face and his eyes shone. He cried:</p>
+
+<p>"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'Universit&eacute; 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."</p>
+
+<p>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:</p>
+
+<p>"For love of whom, Ste. Marie, did you undertake this quest--this search
+for Arthur Benham? It was not in idleness <a name="Page_301"></a>or by way
+of a whim. It was for love. For love of whom?"</p>
+
+<p>For some strange and inexplicable reason the words struck him like a
+blow and he stared whitely.</p>
+
+<p>"I came," he said, at last, and his voice was oddly flat, "for his
+sister's sake. For love of her."</p>
+
+<p>Coira O'Hara dropped her eyes. But presently she looked up again with a
+smile. She said, "God make you happy, my friend."</p>
+
+<p>And she turned and moved away from him up among the trees. At a little
+distance she turned, saying:</p>
+
+<p>"Wait where you are. I will fetch Arthur or send him to you. He must be
+told at once."</p>
+
+<p>Then she went on and was lost to sight.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>He was making for that spot which was overhung by the half-dead
+cedar-tree.</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+
+
+
+<a name="Page_302"></a><h2><a name='XXVI'></a>XXVI</h2>
+
+<h3>BUT THE FLEECE ELECTS TO REMAIN</h3>
+
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>"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?"</p>
+
+<p>"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 <a name="Page_303"></a>door that you passed.
+Have you any money in your pockets? I may want to bribe the gardener."</p>
+
+<p>Hartley searched in his pockets, and while he did so the man beneath
+asked:</p>
+
+<p>"Is old David Stewart alive?"</p>
+
+<p>"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."</p>
+
+<p>"He's here, I think," said Ste. Marie. "I saw him a few days ago."</p>
+
+<p>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. Honor&eacute;.
+Afterward he glanced up and said:</p>
+
+<p>"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."</p>
+
+<p>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
+<a name="Page_304"></a>natural and easy. He might have spared himself the
+pains.</p>
+
+<p>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:</p>
+
+<p>"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!"</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>"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.</p>
+
+<p>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."</p>
+
+<p>The boy gave a short, contemptuous laugh.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, I don't want to hear it," said he.</p>
+
+<p>He was looking toward the girl. He said:</p>
+
+<p>"This fellow may be able to hypnotize you, all right, but not Willie.
+Little Willie's wise to guys like him."</p>
+
+<p>And swinging about to Ste. Marie, he cried:</p>
+
+<p><a name="Page_305"></a>"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."</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>"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?"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, slush!" said the boy. "Anybody'll be dishonest if it's worth his
+while."</p>
+
+<p>"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."</p>
+
+<p>The boy looked nervously from Ste. Marie to Mlle. <a
+name="Page_306"></a>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.</p>
+
+<p>"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."</p>
+
+<p>"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."</p>
+
+<p>"Ah, they're all--they're all against me!" the lad cried. "They've
+always stood together against me. Helen, too!"</p>
+
+<p>"You wouldn't think they were against you if you could just see them
+once now," said Ste. Marie.</p>
+
+<p>And Arthur Benham gave a sort of shamefaced sob, saying:</p>
+
+<p>"Ah, cut it out! Cut it out! Go on, then, and talk, if you want to,
+<i>I</i> don't care. I don't have to listen. Talk, if you're pining for
+it."</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>"If you will look back as calmly and carefully as you can," he said,
+"you will find that you didn't begin to suspect <a name="Page_307"></a>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."</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>"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."</p>
+
+<p>And from where she stood, a little aside, Coira O'Hara said: "I beg you,
+too, Arthur. Go back to them."</p>
+
+<p>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:</p>
+
+<p>"What will he do?" For everything was in Arthur Benham's weak hands
+now.</p>
+
+<p>For a little time, which seemed hours to all who were there, the lad sat
+still, hiding his face, but suddenly he <a name="Page_308"></a>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."</p>
+
+<p>"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."</p>
+
+<p>"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!"</p>
+
+<p>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. <a name="Page_309"></a>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.</p>
+
+<p>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."</p>
+
+<p>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. <i>You</i> 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."</p>
+
+<p>Ste. Marie started to speak, but the girl checked him. <a
+name="Page_310"></a>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."</p>
+
+<p>"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."</p>
+
+<p>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."</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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'Universit&eacute; 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 <a
+name="Page_311"></a>doubt of the Benhams' and even of old David Stewart's
+view of the affair. They would oppose the marriage with all their
+strength.</p>
+
+<p>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?</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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 fianc&eacute; and then turned back.</p>
+
+<p><a name="Page_312"></a>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."</p>
+
+<p>"He won't go to your father and make a scene?" said Ste. Marie, and the
+girl shook her head.</p>
+
+<p>"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."</p>
+
+<p>"I am sure he did not know," said the man. "Stewart lied to him."</p>
+
+<p>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."</p>
+
+<p>"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?"</p>
+
+<p>"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."</p>
+
+<p><a name="Page_313"></a>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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:</p>
+
+<p>"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."</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p><a name="Page_314"></a>So the two remained there for a little while
+longer in silence, but at last Coira O'Hara said:</p>
+
+<p>"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."</p>
+
+<p>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:</p>
+
+<p>"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?"</p>
+
+<p>"What else?" said the girl.</p>
+
+<p>And there was no answer to that. Their separate ways were determined for
+them--marked plain to see.</p>
+
+<p>"But afterward!" he cried. "Afterward--after we have got the boy back to
+his home! What then?"</p>
+
+<p>"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."</p>
+
+<p><a name="Page_315"></a>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>"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?"</p>
+
+<p>The gnome made a choked, croaking sound in his throat.</p>
+
+<p>"It is yours," said Ste. Marie, "for a small service--for doing nothing
+at all."</p>
+
+<p>The beadlike eye rose to his and sharpened intelligently.</p>
+
+<p>"I desire only," said he, "that you should sleep well to-night, very
+well--without waking."</p>
+
+<p>"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."</p>
+
+<p>"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."</p>
+
+<p><a name="Page_316"></a>"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."</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>"Monsieur! Monsieur!" he groaned.</p>
+
+<p>"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?"</p>
+
+<p>The withered face of the old man expanded slowly into a senile grin.</p>
+
+<p>"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!"</p>
+
+<p>Into his trembling claw he took the notes; he made an odd bow and
+shambled away about his business.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+
+
+
+<a name="Page_317"></a><h2><a name='XXVII'></a>XXVII</h2>
+
+<h3>THE NIGHT'S WORK</h3>
+
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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. <a
+name="Page_318"></a>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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:</p>
+
+<p>"He will go with you. Wait by the door in the wall."</p>
+
+<p>The man nearly cried out with joy.</p>
+
+<p>He struck another match and looked at his watch. <a
+name="Page_319"></a>It was a quarter to ten. Four hours left out of the
+fourteen.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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
+<a name="Page_320"></a>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p><a name="Page_321"></a>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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:</p>
+
+<p>"The boy has promised to come with us. We sha'n't have to fight for
+it."</p>
+
+<p>Richard Hartley said, "Thank God!" He spoke to <a
+name="Page_322"></a>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?"</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>"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?"</p>
+
+<p>Ste. Marie did not answer, but he was breathing very fast and he could
+not keep his hands still.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>"I'm going a little way toward the house," said Ste. Marie, at last. "We
+can't see the terrace from here."</p>
+
+<p>But before he had started they heard the sound of hurrying feet, and
+Richard Hartley began to curse under his breath. He said:</p>
+
+<p><a name="Page_323"></a>"Does the young idiot want to rouse the whole
+place? Why can't he come quietly?"</p>
+
+<p class="figure"> <a name="jason008"><img
+width="80%" alt="Illustration: THE GIRL FUMBLED DESPERATELY WITH THE CLUMSY
+KEY" src="images/jason008.png" /></a><br /> THE GIRL FUMBLED DESPERATELY WITH THE
+CLUMSY KEY</p>
+
+<p>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:</p>
+
+<p>"Go to the door in the wall! The door in the wall! Oh, be quick!"</p>
+
+<p>He fell into step beside her, and as they ran he said,</p>
+
+<p>"You're going with him? You're coming with us?"</p>
+
+<p>The girl answered him, "No, no!" and she sprang to the little, low door
+and began to fit the iron key into the lock.</p>
+
+<p>The three men stood about her, and young Arthur Benham drew his breath
+in great, shivering gasps that were like sobs.</p>
+
+<p>"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!"</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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 <a name="Page_324"></a>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.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, hurry, hurry!" said the girl. "Can't you be quick? They're
+coming."</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>"I'm getting it, I think," said Richard Hartley, between his teeth. "I'm
+getting it. Turn, you beast! Turn!"</p>
+
+<p>There was a sound of hurrying feet, and Ste. Marie spun about. He
+cried:</p>
+
+<p>"Don't wait for me! Jump into the car and go! Don't wait anywhere! Come
+back after you've left Benham at home!"</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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, <a name="Page_325"></a>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+
+
+
+<a name="Page_326"></a><h2><a name='XXVIII'></a>XXVIII</h2>
+
+<h3>MEDEA'S LITTLE HOUR</h3>
+
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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, <a name="Page_327"></a>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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 <a
+name="Page_328"></a>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>"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."</p>
+
+<p>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 <a
+name="Page_329"></a>broke into a fit of weak cursing, and the girl laughed
+over him tenderly and let him be.</p>
+
+<p>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:</p>
+
+<p>"Coira! Coira!"</p>
+
+<p>And she said, "I am here."</p>
+
+<p>But the man was in a strange border-land of half-consciousness and his
+ears were deaf. He said, gazing up at her:</p>
+
+<p>"Is it--another dream?"</p>
+
+<p>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:</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, beautiful--and sweet--and true!"</p>
+
+<p>The girl gave a little sob and hid her face.</p>
+
+<p>"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!"</p>
+
+<p>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!"</p>
+
+<p>"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 <a name="Page_330"></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?"</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>"<i>Real!</i>" he cried, whispering. "Real? ... Not a dream?"</p>
+
+<p>"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!"</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>"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 <i>her</i> and never know. And I shall
+never even see him again. Why can't I have my little sweet hour?"</p>
+
+<p>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!"</p>
+
+<p>"Do you dream of me, Bayard?" she asked.</p>
+
+<p>And he said: "From the very first. From that evening <a
+name="Page_331"></a>in the Champs-Elys&eacute;es. 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."</p>
+
+<p>"Ah, sorely, Bayard! Sorely!" cried the girl above him.</p>
+
+<p>"And now," said he, whispering.</p>
+
+<p>"Now?" she said.</p>
+
+<p>"Coira, I love you," said the man on the couch.</p>
+
+<p>And Coira O'Hara gave a single dry sob.</p>
+
+<p>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."</p>
+
+<p>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? <i>Our life!</i>" 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."</p>
+
+<p>"Anywhere!" said she. "Anywhere!"</p>
+
+<p>"So that we go together."</p>
+
+<p>"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, <a
+name="Page_332"></a>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?"</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>"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?"</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>The man gave a contented sigh and fell asleep.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>In the hall outside she stood a moment considering, and <a
+name="Page_333"></a>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>"What is the matter with you?" she asked. "Why are you about at this
+hour?"</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>"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."</p>
+
+<p>The old man stared at her with open mouth for a breathless <a
+name="Page_334"></a>moment, and then shambled hastily away, looking over
+his shoulder at intervals until he was out of sight.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>He cried at once: "Where's Ste. Marie? Where is he? He hasn't tried to
+walk into the city?"</p>
+
+<p>"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?"</p>
+
+<p>"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.</p>
+
+<p>"You want to make sure," said she. "Of course! Yes, come in. He's
+sleeping very soundly." She led the man <a name="Page_335"></a>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.</p>
+
+<p>"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!"</p>
+
+<p>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."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes," said Hartley, "I understand. Arthur Benham told me how Stewart
+lied to you all. Was it he who struck Ste. Marie?"</p>
+
+<p>She nodded. "And then tried to shoot him; but he didn't succeed in that.
+I wonder where he is--Captain Stewart?"</p>
+
+<p>"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?"</p>
+
+<p>The girl shook her head, for she did not know of Stewart's epileptic
+seizures. She thought it quite possible <a name="Page_336"></a>that he had
+suffered a stroke of apoplexy as Hartley suggested, for she remembered the
+half-mad state he had been in.</p>
+
+<p>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?"</p>
+
+<p>"I think he will be all right," she said, "save for the pain. He was
+only stunned."</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+
+
+
+<a name="Page_337"></a><h2><a name='XXIX'></a>XXIX</h2>
+
+<h3>THE SCALES OF INJUSTICE</h3>
+
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>"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."</p>
+
+<p>Ste. Marie looked up at her. "Do I seem glad, Coira?" said he.</p>
+
+<p>And she said: "You will be glad to-morrow--and always, I hope and pray.
+Always! Always!"</p>
+
+<p><a name="Page_338"></a>The man held one hand over his aching eyes.</p>
+
+<p>"I have," he said, "queer half-memories. I wish I could remember
+distinctly."</p>
+
+<p>He looked up at her again.</p>
+
+<p>"I dropped down by the gate in the wall. When I awoke I was in a room in
+the house. How did that happen?"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh," she said, turning her face away, "we got you up to the house
+almost at once."</p>
+
+<p>But Ste. Marie frowned thoughtfully.</p>
+
+<p>"'We'? Who do you mean by 'we'?"</p>
+
+<p>"Well, then, I," the girl said. "It was not difficult."</p>
+
+<p>"Coira," cried the man, "do you mean that you carried me bodily all that
+long distance? <i>You</i>?"</p>
+
+<p>"Carried or dragged," she said. "As much one as the other. It was not
+very difficult. I'm strong for a woman."</p>
+
+<p>"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."</p>
+
+<p>He covered his eyes again as if the memory were intolerable. But after
+awhile he said:</p>
+
+<p>"You saved my life, you know."</p>
+
+<p>And the girl answered him:</p>
+
+<p>"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."</p>
+
+<p>She saw that he did not at all remember that hour in the little
+room--her hour of bitterness--and she was glad. <a name="Page_339"></a>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.</p>
+
+<p>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 d&eacute;jeuner and
+tell him to wait.</p>
+
+<p>"Are you fit to go?" Coira asked.</p>
+
+<p>And he said, "I suppose as fit as I shall be."</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>"It is not good-bye," said he. "I shall see you soon again--and I hope,
+often--often, Coira."</p>
+
+<p>The words had a flat and foolish sound, but he could find no others. It
+was not easy to speak.</p>
+
+<p>"I suppose I must not ask to see your father?" said he.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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:</p>
+
+<p>"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?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, of course," said Ste. Marie.</p>
+
+<p>He looked at her with some wonder, because her words had been very
+emphatic.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes," he said, "I will tell him. Is that all?"</p>
+
+<p>"All but good-bye," said she. "Good-bye, Bayard!"</p>
+
+<p><a name="Page_340"></a>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p><a name="Page_341"></a>"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."</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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'Universit&eacute;.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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
+name="Page_342"></a>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.</p>
+
+<p>"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!"</p>
+
+<p>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:</p>
+
+<p>"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."</p>
+
+<p>"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."</p>
+
+<p><a name="Page_343"></a>"Still," she said, "such a man!"</p>
+
+<p>Ste. Marie looked at her, frowning, and the girl turned her eyes away.
+She may have had the grace to be a little ashamed.</p>
+
+<p>"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."</p>
+
+<p>There was reason if not justice in that, and Ste. Marie was forced to
+admit it. He said:</p>
+
+<p>"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."</p>
+
+<p>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:</p>
+
+<p>"Ah, but--but have you, dear Ste. Marie? Have you?"</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>"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?"</p>
+
+<p>The man fairly blinked at her, owl-like. He was beyond speech.</p>
+
+<p><a name="Page_344"></a>"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."</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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 <a name="Page_345"></a>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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:</p>
+
+<p>"Yes. Yes, I--see. I see what you mean. Yes, <a
+name="Page_346"></a>Hartley did all you say. I hadn't meant to rob Hartley
+of the credit he deserves. I suppose you're right."</p>
+
+<p>He was possessed of a sudden longing to get away out of that room, and
+he rose to his feet.</p>
+
+<p>"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?"</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>"Thanks! I won't stay," said he. "Not just now. I--think I'd better
+go."</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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:</p>
+
+<p>"Ah, here's Jason at last, back from Colchis! Welcome <a
+name="Page_347"></a>home to--whatever the name of the place was! Welcome
+home!"</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>"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?"</p>
+
+<p>"You mean--?" asked the younger man.</p>
+
+<p>And old David said: "I mean Helen, of course. What else?"</p>
+
+<p>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:</p>
+
+<p>"Oh--yes! I suppose--I suppose I ought to tell you that Miss
+Benham--well, she has changed her mind. That is to say--"</p>
+
+<p>"What!" shouted old David Stewart, in his great voice. "What is
+that?"</p>
+
+<p>"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."</p>
+
+<p><a name="Page_348"></a>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?"</p>
+
+<p>"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."</p>
+
+<p>"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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>"You're well rid of her!" said the old gentleman, when at last he was
+once more able to speak. "You're well rid of her! I congratulate you! I am
+ashamed and humiliated, and a great burden of obligation is shifted to
+me--though I assume it with pleasure--but I congratulate you. You might
+have found out too late what sort of a woman she is."</p>
+
+<p>Ste. Marie began to protest and to explain and to say that Miss Benham
+had been quite right in what she said, but the old gentleman only waved an
+impatient arm to him, and presently, when he saw the valet making signs
+across the bed, and saw that his host was really in a state of complete <a
+name="Page_349"></a>exhaustion after the outburst, he made his adieus and
+got away.</p>
+
+<p>Young Arthur Benham, who had been sitting almost silent during the
+interview, followed him out of the room and closed the door behind them.
+For the first time Ste. Marie noted that the boy's face was white and
+strained. He pulled a crumpled square of folded paper from his pocket and
+shook it at the other man. "Do you know what this is?" he cried. "Do you
+know what's in this?"</p>
+
+<p>Ste. Marie shook his head, but a sudden recollection came to him.</p>
+
+<p>"Ah," said he, "that must be the note Mlle. O'Hara spoke of! She asked
+me to tell you that she meant it--whatever it may be--quite seriously; that
+it was final. She didn't explain. She just said that--that you were to take
+it as final."</p>
+
+<p>The lad gave a sudden very bitter sob. "She has thrown me over!" he
+said. "She says I'm not to come back to her."</p>
+
+<p>Ste. Marie gave a wordless cry, and he began to tremble.</p>
+
+<p>"You can read it if you want to," the boy said. "Perhaps you can explain
+it. I can't. Do you want to read it?"</p>
+
+<p>The elder man stood staring at him whitely, and the boy repeated his
+words.</p>
+
+<p>He said, "You can read it if you want to," and at last Ste. Marie took
+the paper between stiff hands, and held it to the light.</p>
+
+<p>Coira O'Hara said, briefly, that too much was against their marriage.
+She mentioned his age, the certain hostility of his family, their different
+tastes, a number of other things. But in the end she said she had begun to
+realize that she did not love him as she ought to do if they <a
+name="Page_350"></a>were to marry. And so, the note said, finally, she gave
+him up to his family, she released him altogether, and she begged him not
+to come back to her, or to urge her to change her mind. Also she made the
+trite but very sensible observation that he would be glad of his freedom
+before the year was out.</p>
+
+<p>Ste. Marie's unsteady fingers opened and the crumpled paper slipped
+through them to the floor. Over it the man and the boy looked at each other
+in silence. Young Arthur Benham's face was white, and it was strained and
+contorted with its first grief. But first griefs do not last very long.
+Coira O'Hara had told the truth--before the year was out the lad would be
+glad of his freedom. But the man's face was white also, white and still,
+and his eyes held a strange expression which the boy could not understand
+and at which he wondered. The man was trembling a little from head to foot.
+The boy wondered about that, too, but abruptly he cried out: "What's up?
+Where are you going?" for Ste. Marie had turned all at once and was running
+down the stairs as fast as he could run.</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+
+
+
+<a name="Page_351"></a><h2><a name='XXX'></a>XXX</h2>
+
+<h3>JASON SAILS BACK TO COLCHIS.--JOURNEY'S END</h3>
+
+
+<p>In the hall below, Ste. Marie came violently into contact with and
+nearly overturned Richard Hartley, who was just giving his hat and stick to
+the man who had admitted him. Hartley seized upon him with an exclamation
+of pleasure, and wheeled him round to face the light. He said:</p>
+
+<p>"I've been pursuing you all day. You're almost as difficult of access
+here in Paris as you were at La Lierre. How's the head?"</p>
+
+<p>Ste. Marie put up an experimental hand. He had forgotten his injury.
+"Oh, that's all right," said he. "At least, I think so. Anderson fixed me
+up this afternoon. But I haven't time to talk to you. I'm in a hurry.
+To-morrow we'll have a long chin. Oh, how about Stewart?"</p>
+
+<p>He lowered his voice, and Hartley answered him in the same tone.</p>
+
+<p>"The man is in a delirium. Heaven knows how it'll end. He may die and he
+may pull through. I hope he pulls through--except for the sake of the
+family--because then we can make him pay for what he's done. I don't want
+him to go scot free by dying."</p>
+
+<p>"Nor I," said Ste. Marie, fiercely. "Nor I. I want him to pay, too--long
+and slowly and hard; and if he lives <a name="Page_352"></a>I shall see
+that he does it, family or no family. Now I must be off."</p>
+
+<p>Ste. Marie's face was shining and uplifted. The other man looked at it
+with a little envious sigh.</p>
+
+<p>"I see everything is all right," said he, "and I congratulate you. You
+deserve it if ever any one did."</p>
+
+<p>Ste. Marie stared for an instant, uncomprehending. Then he saw.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes," he said, gently, "everything is all right."</p>
+
+<p>It was plain that the Englishman did not know of Miss Benham's decision.
+He was incapable of deceit. Ste. Marie threw an arm over his friend's
+shoulder and went with him a little way toward the drawing-room.</p>
+
+<p>"Go in there," he said. "You'll find some one glad to see you, I think.
+And remember that I said everything is all right."</p>
+
+<p>He came back after he had turned away, and met Hartley's puzzled frown
+with a smile.</p>
+
+<p>"If you've that motor here, may I use it?" he asked. "I want to go
+somewhere in a hurry."</p>
+
+<p>"Of course," the other man said. "Of course. I'll go home in a cab."</p>
+
+<p>So they parted, and Ste. Marie went out to the waiting car.</p>
+
+<p>On the left bank the streets are nearly empty of traffic at night, and
+one can make excellent time over them. Ste. Marie reached the Porte de
+Versailles, at the city's limits, in twenty minutes and dashed through Issy
+five minutes later. In less than half an hour from the time he had left the
+rue de l'Universit&eacute; he was under the walls of La Lierre. He looked
+at his watch, and it was not quite half-past eleven.</p>
+
+<p><a name="Page_353"></a>He tried the little door in the wall, and it was
+unlocked, so he passed in and closed the door behind him. Inside he found
+that he was running, and he gave a little laugh, but of eagerness and
+excitement, not of mirth. There were dim lights in one or two of the upper
+windows, but none below, and there was no one about. He pulled at the
+door-bell, and after a few impatient moments pulled again and still again.
+Then he noticed that the heavy door was ajar, and, since no one answered
+his ringing, he pushed the door open and went in.</p>
+
+<p>The lower hall was quite dark, but a very faint light came down from
+above through the well of the staircase. He heard dragging feet in the
+upper hall, and then upon one of the upper flights, for the stairs, broad
+below, divided at a half-way landing and continued upward in an opposite
+direction in two narrower flights. A voice, very faint and weary,
+called:</p>
+
+<p>"Who is there? Who is ringing, please?"</p>
+
+<p>And Coira O'Hara, holding a candle in her hand, came upon the
+stair-landing and stood gazing down into the darkness. She wore a sort of
+dressing-gown, a heavy white garment which hung in straight, long folds to
+her feet and fell away from the arm that held the candle on high. The
+yellow beams of light struck down across her head and face, and even at the
+distance the man could see how white she was and hollow-eyed and worn--a
+pale wraith of the splendid beauty that had walked in the garden at La
+Lierre.</p>
+
+<p>"Who is there, please?" she asked again. "I can't see. What is it?"</p>
+
+<p>"It is I, Coira!" said Ste. Marie.</p>
+
+<p>And she gave a sharp cry. The arm which was holding <a
+name="Page_354"></a>the candle overhead shook and fell beside her as if the
+strength had gone out of it. The candle dropped to the floor, spluttered
+there for an instant and went out, but there was still a little light from
+the hall above.</p>
+
+<p>Ste. Marie sprang up the stairs to where the girl stood, and caught her
+in his arms, for she was on the verge of faintness. Her head fell back away
+from him, and he saw her eyes through half-closed lids, her white teeth
+through parted lips. She was trembling--but, for that matter, so was he at
+the touch of her, the heavy and sweet burden in his arms. She tried to
+speak, and he heard a whisper:</p>
+
+<p>"Why? Why? Why?"</p>
+
+<p>"Because it is my place, Coira!" said he. "Because I cannot live away
+from you. Because we belong together."</p>
+
+<p>The girl struggled weakly and pushed against him. Once more he heard
+whispering words and made out that she tried to say:</p>
+
+<p>"Go back to her! Go back to her! You belong there!"</p>
+
+<p>But at that he laughed aloud.</p>
+
+<p>"I thought so, too," said he, "but she thinks otherwise. She'll have
+none of me, Coira. It's Richard Hartley now. Coira, can you love a jilted
+man? I've been jilted--thrown over--dismissed."</p>
+
+<p>Her head came up in a flash and she stared at him, suddenly rigid and
+tense in his arms.</p>
+
+<p>"Is that true?" she demanded.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, my love!" said he.</p>
+
+<p>And she began to weep, with long, comfortable sobs, her face hidden in
+the hollow of his shoulder. On one other occasion she had wept before him,
+and he had been horribly embarrassed, but he bore this present tempest
+without, as it were, winking. He gloried in it. He tried to say so. <a
+name="Page_355"></a>He tried to whisper to her, his lips pressed close to
+the ear that was nearest them, but he found that he had no speech. Words
+would not come to his tongue; it trembled and faltered and was still for
+sheer inadequacy.</p>
+
+<p>Rather oddly, in that his thoughts were chaos, swallowed up in the surge
+of feeling, a memory struck through to him of that other exaltation which
+had swept him to the stars. He looked upon it and was amazed because now he
+saw it, in clear light, for the thing it had been. He saw it for a fantasy,
+a self-evoked wraith of the imagination, a dizzy flight of the spirit
+through spirit space. He saw that it had not been love at all, and he
+realized how little a part Helen Benham had ever really played in it. A
+cold and still-eyed figure for him to wrap the veil of his imagination
+round, that was what she had been. There were times when the sweep of his
+upward flight had stirred her a little, wakened in her some vague response,
+but for the most part she had stood aside and looked on, wondering.</p>
+
+<p>The mist was rent away from that rainbow-painted cobweb, and at last the
+man saw and understood. He gave an exclamation of wonder, and the girl who
+loved him raised her head once more, and the two looked each into the
+other's eyes for a long time. They fell into hushed and broken speech.</p>
+
+<p>"I have loved you so long, so long," she said, "and so hopelessly! I
+never thought--I never believed. To think that in the end you have come to
+me! I cannot believe it!"</p>
+
+<p>"Wait and see!" cried the man. "Wait and see!"</p>
+
+<p>She shivered a little. "If it is not true I should like to die before I
+find out. I should like to die now, Bayard, with your arms holding me up
+and your eyes close, close."</p>
+
+<p>Ste. Marie's arms tightened round her with a sudden <a
+name="Page_356"></a>fierceness. He hurt her, and she smiled up at him.
+Their two hearts beat one against the other, and they beat very fast.</p>
+
+<p>"Don't you understand," he cried, "that life's only just
+beginning--day's just dawning, Coira? We've been lost in the dark. Day's
+coming now. This is only the sunrise."</p>
+
+<p>"I can believe it at last," she said, "because you hold me close and you
+hurt me a little, and I'm glad to be hurt. And I can feel your heart
+beating. Ah, never let me go, Bayard! I should be lost in the dark again if
+you let me go." A sudden thought came to her, and she bent back her head to
+see the better. "Did you speak with Arthur?"</p>
+
+<p>And he said: "Yes. He asked me to read your note, so I read it. That
+poor lad! I came straight to you then--straight and fast."</p>
+
+<p>"You knew why I did it?" she said, and Ste. Marie said:</p>
+
+<p>"Now I know."</p>
+
+<p>"I could not have married him," said she. "I could not. I never thought
+I should see you again, but I loved you and I could not have married him.
+Ah, impossible! And he'll be glad later on. You know that. It will save him
+any more trouble with his family, and besides--he's so very young. Already,
+I think, he was beginning to chafe a little. I thought so more than once.
+Oh, I'm trying to justify myself!" she cried. "I'm trying to find reasons;
+but you know the true reason. You know it."</p>
+
+<p>"I thank God for it," he said.</p>
+
+<p>So they stood clinging together in that dim place, and broken,
+whispering speech passed between them or long silences when speech was
+done. But at last they went down the stairs and out upon the open terrace,
+where the moonlight lay.</p>
+
+<p><a name="Page_357"></a>"It Was in the open, sweet air," the girl said,
+"that we came to know each other. Let us walk in it now. The house smothers
+me." She looked up when they had passed the west corner of the
+fa&ccedil;ade and drew a little sigh. "I am worried about my father," said
+she. "He will not answer me when I call to him, and he has eaten nothing
+all day long. Bayard, I think his heart is broken. Ah, but to-morrow we
+shall mend it again! In the morning I shall make him let me in, and I shall
+tell him--what I have to tell."</p>
+
+<p>They turned down under the trees, where the moonlight made silver
+splashes about their feet, and the sweet night air bore soft against their
+faces. Coira went a half-step in advance, her head laid back upon the
+shoulder of the man she loved, and his arm held her up from falling.</p>
+
+<p>So at last we leave them, walking there in the tender moonlight, with
+the breath of roses about them and their eyes turned to the coming day. It
+is still night and there is yet one cloud of sorrow to shadow them
+somewhat, for up-stairs in his locked room a man lies dead across the
+floor, with an empty pistol beside him--heart-broken, as the girl had
+feared. But where a great love is, shadows cannot last very long, not even
+such shadows as this. The morning must dawn--and joy cometh of a
+morning.</p>
+
+<p>So we leave them walking together in the moonlight, their faces turned
+toward the coming day.</p>
+
+<p>THE END</p>
+
+<div>*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 13261 ***</div>
+</body>
+</html>
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+This eBook, including all associated images, markup, improvements,
+metadata, and any other content or labor, has been confirmed to be
+in the PUBLIC DOMAIN IN THE UNITED STATES.
+
+Procedures for determining public domain status are described in
+the "Copyright How-To" at https://www.gutenberg.org.
+
+No investigation has been made concerning possible copyrights in
+jurisdictions other than the United States. Anyone seeking to utilize
+this eBook outside of the United States should confirm copyright
+status under the laws that apply to them.
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+Project Gutenberg (https://www.gutenberg.org) public repository for
+eBook #13261 (https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/13261)
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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of Jason, by Justus Miles Forman
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: Jason
+
+Author: Justus Miles Forman
+
+Release Date: August 23, 2004 [EBook #13261]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK JASON ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Kevin Handy, John Hagerson, and the Project Gutenberg
+Online Distributed Proofreaders Team
+
+
+
+
+
+JASON
+
+A ROMANCE
+
+BY
+JUSTUS MILES FORMAN
+
+AUTHOR OF
+"A STUMBLING BLOCK" "BUCHANAN'S WIFE"
+"THE ISLAND OF ENCHANTMENT"
+
+WITH ILLUSTRATIONS BY
+W. HATHERELL, R.I.
+
+HARPER & BROTHERS PUBLISHERS
+NEW YORK AND LONDON
+MCMIX
+
+
+COPYRIGHT, 1908.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+À PARIS
+
+MÈRE MYSTÉRIEUSE ... SOEUR CONSOLATRICE
+ENCHANTERESSE AUX YEUX VOILÉS
+JÉ DÉDIE CE PETIT ROMAN
+EN RECONNAISSANCE
+J.M.F.
+
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS
+
+     I. STE. MARIE HEARS OF A MYSTERY AND MEETS A DARK LADY
+
+    II. THE LADDER TO THE STARS
+
+   III. STE. MARIE MAKES A VOW, BUT A PAIR OF EYES HAUNT HIM
+
+    IV. OLD DAVID STEWART
+
+     V. JASON SETS FORTH UPON THE GREAT ADVENTURE
+
+    VI. A BRAVE GENTLEMAN RECEIVES A HURT, BUT VOLUNTEERS IN A GOOD CAUSE
+
+   VII. CAPTAIN STEWART MAKES A KINDLY OFFER
+
+  VIII. JASON MEETS WITH A MISADVENTURE AND DREAMS A DREAM
+
+    IX. JASON GOES UPON A JOURNEY, AND RICHARD HARTLEY PLEADS FOR HIM
+
+     X. CAPTAIN STEWART ENTERTAINS
+
+    XI. A GOLDEN LADY ENTERS--THE EYES AGAIN
+
+   XII. THE NAME OF THE LADY WITH THE EYES--EVIDENCE HEAPS UP SWIFTLY
+
+  XIII. THE VOYAGE TO COLCHIS
+
+   XIV. THE WALLS OF AEA
+
+    XV. A CONVERSATION AT LA LIERRE
+
+   XVI. THE BLACK CAT
+
+  XVII. THOSE WHO WERE LEFT BEHIND
+
+ XVIII. A CONVERSATION OVERHEARD
+
+   XIX. THE INVALID TAKES THE AIR
+
+    XX. THE STONE BENCH AT THE ROND POINT
+
+   XXI. A MIST DIMS THE SHINING STAR
+
+  XXII. A SETTLEMENT REFUSED
+
+ XXIII. THE LAST ARROW
+
+  XXIV. THE JOINT IN THE ARMOR
+
+   XXV. MEDEA GOES OVER TO THE ENEMY
+
+  XXVI. BUT THE FLEECE ELECTS TO REMAIN
+
+ XXVII. THE NIGHT'S WORK
+
+XXVIII. MEDEA'S LITTLE HOUR
+
+  XXIX. THE SCALES OF INJUSTICE
+
+   XXX. JASON SAILS BACK TO COLCHIS--JOURNEY'S END
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+I
+
+STE. MARIE HEARS OF A MYSTERY AND MEETS A DARK LADY
+
+
+From Ste. Marie's little flat, which overlooked the gardens, they drove
+down the quiet rue du Luxembourg, and at the Place St. Sulpice turned to
+the left. They crossed the Place St. Germain des Prés, where lines of
+home-bound working-people stood waiting for places in the electric
+trams, and groups of students from the Beaux Arts or from Julien's sat
+under the awnings of the Deux Magots, and so, beyond that busy square,
+they came into the long and peaceful stretch of the Boulevard St.
+Germain. The warm, sweet dusk gathered round them as they went, and the
+evening air was fresh and aromatic in their faces. There had been a
+little gentle shower in the late afternoon, and roadway and pavement
+were still damp with it. It had wet the new-grown leaves of the
+chestnuts and acacias that bordered the street. The scent of that living
+green blended with the scent of laid dust and the fragrance of the last
+late-clinging chestnut blossoms; it caught up a fuller, richer burden
+from the overflowing front of a florist's shop; it stole from open
+windows a savory whiff of cooking, a salt tang of wood smoke; and the
+soft little breeze--the breeze of coming summer--mixed all together and
+tossed them and bore them down the long, quiet street; and it was the
+breath of Paris, and it shall be in your nostrils and mine, a keen agony
+of sweetness, so long as we may live and so wide as we may
+wander--because we have known it and loved it--and in the end we shall
+go back to breathe it when we die.
+
+The strong white horse jogged evenly along over the wooden pavement, its
+head down, the little bell at its neck jingling pleasantly as it went.
+The cocher, a torpid, purplish lump of gross flesh, pyramidal, pearlike,
+sat immobile in his place. The protuberant back gave him an
+extraordinary effect of being buttoned into his fawn-colored coat wrong
+side before. At intervals he jerked the reins like a large strange toy,
+and his strident voice said:
+
+"Hé!" to the stout white horse, which paid no attention whatever. Once
+the beast stumbled and the pearlike lump of flesh insulted it, saying:
+
+"Hé! veux tu, cochon!"
+
+Before the War Office a little black slip of a milliner's girl dodged
+under the horse's head, saving herself and the huge box slung to her arm
+by a miracle of agility, and the cocher called her the most frightful
+names, without turning his head and in a perfunctory tone quite free
+from passion.
+
+Young Hartley laughed and turned to look at his companion, but Ste.
+Marie sat still in his place, his hat pulled a little down over his
+brows and his handsome chin buried in the folds of the white silk
+muffler with which for some obscure reason he had swathed his neck.
+
+"This is the first time in many years," said the Englishman, "that I
+have known you to be silent for ten whole minutes. Are you ill, or are
+you making up little epigrams to say at the dinner-party?"
+
+Ste. Marie waved a despondent glove.
+
+"I 'ave," said he, "w'at you call ze blue. Papillons noirs--clouds in my
+soul." It was a species of jest with Ste. Marie--and he seemed never to
+tire of it--to pretend that he spoke English very brokenly. As a matter
+of fact, he spoke it quite as well as any Englishman and without the
+slightest trace of accent. He had discovered a long time before this--it
+may have been while the two were at Eton together--that it annoyed
+Hartley very much, particularly when it was done in company and before
+strangers. In consequence he became on such occasions a sort of
+comic-paper caricature of his race, and by dint of much practice, added
+to a naturally alert mind, he became astonishingly ingenious in the
+torture of that honest but unimaginative gentleman whom he considered
+his best friend. He achieved the most surprising expressions by the mere
+literal translation of French idiom, and he could at any time bring
+Hartley to a crimson agony by calling him "my dear "'before other men,
+whereas at the equivalent "mon cher" the Englishman would doubtless
+never, as the phrase goes, have batted an eye.
+
+"Ye-es," he continued, sadly, "I 'ave ze blue. I weep. Weez ze tears
+full ze eyes. Yes." He descended into English. "I think something's
+going to happen to me. There's calamity, or something, in the air.
+Perhaps I'm going to die."
+
+"Oh, I know what you are going to do, right enough," said the other man.
+"You're going to meet the most beautiful woman--girl--in the world at
+dinner, and of course you are going to fall in love with her."
+
+"Ah, the Miss Benham!" said Ste. Marie, with a faint show of interest.
+"I remember now, you said that she was to be there. I had forgotten.
+Yes, I shall be glad to meet her. One hears so much. But why am I of
+course going to fall in love with her?"
+
+"Well, in the first place," said Hartley, "you always fall in love with
+all pretty women as a matter of habit, and, in the second place,
+everybody--well, I suppose you--no one could help falling in love with
+her, I should think."
+
+"That's high praise to come from you," said the other. And Hartley said,
+with a short, not very mirthful laugh:
+
+"Oh, I don't pretend to be immune. We all--everybody who knows her.
+You'll understand presently."
+
+Ste. Marie turned his head a little and looked curiously at his friend,
+for he considered that he knew the not very expressive intonations of
+that young gentleman's voice rather well, and this was something
+unusual. He wondered what had been happening during his six months'
+absence from Paris.
+
+"I dare say that's what I feel in the air, then," he said, after a
+little pause. "It's not calamity; it's love.
+
+"Or maybe," he said, quaintly, "it's both. L'un n'empêche pas I'autre."
+And he gave an odd little shiver, as if that something in the air had
+suddenly blown chill upon him.
+
+They were passing the corner of the Chamber of Deputies, which faces the
+Pont de la Concorde. Ste. Marie pulled out his watch and looked at it.
+
+"Eight-fifteen," said he. "What time are we asked for--eight-thirty?
+That means nine: It's an English house, and nobody will be on time. It's
+out of fashion to be prompt nowadays."
+
+"I should hardly call the Marquis de Saulnes English, you know,"
+objected Hartley.
+
+"Well, his wife is," said the other, "and they're altogether English in
+manner. Dinner won't be before nine. Shall we get out, and walk across
+the bridge and up the Champs-Elysées? I should like to, I think. I like
+to walk at this time of the evening--between the daylight and the dark."
+Hartley nodded a rather reluctant assent, and Ste. Marie prodded the
+pear-shaped cocher in the back with his stick. So they got down at the
+approach to the bridge, Ste. Marie gave the cocher a piece of two
+francs, and they turned away on foot. The pear-shaped one looked at the
+coin in his fat hand as if it were something unclean and
+contemptible--something to be despised. He glanced at the dial of his
+taximeter, which had registered one franc twenty-five, and pulled the
+flag up. He spat gloomily out into the street, and his purple lips moved
+in words. He seemed to say something like "Sale diable de métier!"
+which, considering the fact that he had just been overpaid, appears
+unwarrantably pessimistic in tone. Thereafter he spat again, picked up
+his reins and jerked them, saying:
+
+"Hè, Jean Baptiste! Uip, uip!" The unemotional white horse turned up the
+boulevard, trotting evenly at its steady pace, head down, the little
+bell at its neck jingling pleasantly as it went. It occurs to me that
+the white horse was probably unique. I doubt that there was another
+horse in Paris rejoicing in that extraordinary name.
+
+But the two young men walked slowly on across the Pont de la Concorde.
+They went in silence, for Hartley was thinking still of Miss Helen
+Benham, and Ste. Marie was thinking of Heaven knows what. His gloom was
+unaccountable unless he had really meant what he said about feeling
+calamity in the air. It was very unlike him to have nothing to say.
+Midway of the bridge he stopped and turned to look out over the river,
+and the other man halted beside him. The dusk was thickening almost
+perceptibly, but it was yet far from dark. The swift river ran leaden
+beneath them, and the river boats, mouches and hirondelles, darted
+silently under the arches of the bridge, making their last trips for the
+day. Away to the west, where their faces were turned, the sky was still
+faintly washed with color, lemon and dusky orange and pale thin green. A
+single long strip of cirrus cloud was touched with pink, a lifeless old
+rose, such as is popular among decorators for the silk hangings of a
+woman's boudoir. And black against this pallid wash of colors the tour
+Eiffel stood high and slender and rather ghostly. By day it is an ugly
+thing, a preposterous iron finger upthrust by man's vanity against God's
+serene sky; but the haze of evening drapes it in a merciful
+semi-obscurity and it is beautiful.
+
+Ste. Marie leaned upon the parapet of the bridge, arms folded before him
+and eyes afar. He began to sing, à demi-voix, a little phrase out of
+_Louise_--an invocation to Paris--and the Englishman stirred uneasily
+beside him. It seemed to Hartley that to stand on a bridge, in a top-hat
+and evening clothes, and sing operatic airs while people passed back and
+forth behind you, was one of the things that are not done. He tried to
+imagine himself singing in the middle of Westminster Bridge at half-past
+eight of an evening, and he felt quite hot all over at the thought. It
+was not done at all, he said to himself. He looked a little nervously at
+the people who were passing, and it seemed to him that they stared at
+him and at the unconscious Ste. Marie, though in truth they did nothing
+of the sort. He turned back and touched his friend on the arm, saying:
+
+"I think we'd best be getting along, you know." But Ste. Marie was very
+far away, and did not hear. So then he fell to watching the man's dark
+and handsome face, and to thinking how little the years at Eton and the
+year or two at Oxford had set any real stamp upon him. He would never be
+anything but Latin, in spite of his Irish mother and his public school.
+Hartley thought what a pity that was. As Englishmen go, he was not
+illiberal, but, no more than he could have altered the color of his
+eyes, could he have believed that anything foreign would not be improved
+by becoming English. That was born in him, as it is born in most
+Englishmen, and it was a perfectly simple and honest belief. He felt a
+deeper affection for this handsome and volatile young man whom all women
+loved, and who bade fair to spend his life at their successive feet--for
+he certainly had never shown the slightest desire to take up any sterner
+employment--he felt a deeper affection for Ste. Marie than for any other
+man he knew, but he had always wished that Ste. Marie were an
+Englishman, and he had always felt a slight sense of shame over his
+friend's un-English ways.
+
+After a moment he touched him again on the arm, saying:
+
+"Come along! We shall be late, you know. You can finish your little
+concert another time."
+
+"Eh!" cried Ste. Marie. "Quoi, donc?" He turned with a start.
+
+"Oh yes!" said he. "Yes, come along! I was mooning. Allons! Allons, my
+old!" He took Hartley's arm and began to shove him along at a rapid
+walk. "I will moon no more," he said. "Instead, you shall tell me about
+the wonderful Miss Benham whom everybody is talking about. Isn't there
+something odd connected with the family? I vaguely recall something
+unusual--some mystery or misfortune or something. But first a moment!
+One small moment, my old. Regard me that!" They had come to the end of
+the bridge, and the great Place de la Concorde lay before them.
+
+"In all the world," said Ste. Marie--and he spoke the truth--"there is
+not another such square. Regard it, mon brave! Bow yourself before it!
+It is a miracle."
+
+The great bronze lamps were alight, and they cast reflections upon the
+still damp pavement about them. To either side, the trees of the
+Tuileries gardens and of the Cours la Reine and the Champs-Elysées lay
+in a solid black mass; in the middle, the obelisk rose slender and
+straight, its pointed top black against the sky; and beneath, the water
+of the Nèreid fountains splashed and gurgled. Far beyond, the gay lights
+of the rue Royale shone in a yellow cluster; and beyond these still, the
+tall columns of the Madeleine ended the long vista. Pedestrians and cabs
+crept across that vast space and seemed curiously little, like black
+insects, and round about it all the eight cities of France sat atop
+their stone pedestals and looked on. Ste. Marie gave a little sigh of
+pleasure, and the two moved forward, bearing to the left, toward the
+Champs-Elysées.
+
+"And now," said he, "about these Benhams. What is the thing I cannot
+quite recall? What has happened to them?"
+
+"I suppose," said the other man, "you mean the disappearance of Miss
+Benham's young brother a month ago--before you returned to Paris. Yes,
+that was certainly very odd--that is, it was either very odd or very
+commonplace. And in either case the family is terribly cut up about it.
+The boy's name was Arthur Benham, and he was rather a young fool, but
+not downright vicious, I should think. I never knew him at all well, but
+I know he spent his time chiefly at the Café de Paris and at the Olympia
+and at Longchamps and at Henry's Bar. Well, he just disappeared, that is
+all. He dropped completely out of sight between two days, and though the
+family has had a small army of detectives on his trail they've not
+discovered the smallest clew. It's deuced odd altogether. You might
+think it easy to disappear like that, but it's not."
+
+"No--no," said Ste. Marie, thoughtfully. "No, I should fancy not.
+
+"This boy," he said, after a pause--"I think I had seen him--had him
+pointed out to me--before I went away. I think it was at Henry's Bar,
+where all the young Americans go to drink strange beverages. I am quite
+sure I remember his face. A weak face, but not quite bad."
+
+And after another little pause he asked:
+
+"Was there any reason why he should have gone away--any quarrel or that
+sort of thing?"
+
+"Well," said the other man, "I rather think there was something of the
+sort. The boy's uncle--Captain Stewart--middle-aged, rather prim old
+party--you'll have met him, I dare say--he intimated to me one day that
+there had been some trivial row. You see, the lad isn't of age yet,
+though he is to be in a few months, and so he has had to live on an
+allowance doled out by his grandfather, who's the head of the house. The
+boy's father is dead. There's a quaint old beggar, if you like--the
+grandfather. He was rather a swell in the diplomatic, in his day, it
+seems--rather an important swell. Now he's bedridden. He sits all day in
+bed and plays cards with his granddaughter or with a very superior
+valet, and talks politics with the men who come to see him. Oh yes, he's
+a quaint old beggar. He has a great quantity of white hair and an
+enormous square white beard and the fiercest eyes I ever saw, I should
+think. Everybody's frightened out of their wits of him. Well, he sits up
+there and rules his family in good old patriarchal style, and it seems
+he came down a bit hard on the poor boy one day over some folly or
+other, and there was a row and the boy went out of the house swearing
+he'd be even."
+
+"Ah, well, then," said Ste. Marie, "the matter seems simple enough. A
+foolish boy's foolish pique. He is staying in hiding somewhere to
+frighten his grandfather. When he thinks the time favorable he will come
+back and be wept over and forgiven."
+
+The other man walked a little way in silence.
+
+"Ye-es," he said, at last. "Yes, possibly. Possibly you are right.
+That's what the grandfather thinks. It's the obvious solution.
+Unfortunately there is more or less against it. The boy went away
+with--so far as can be learned--almost no money, almost none at all. And
+he has already been gone a month. Miss Benham, his sister, is sure that
+something has happened to him, and I'm a bit inclined to think so, too.
+It's all very odd. I should think he might have been kidnapped but that
+no demand has been made for money."
+
+"He was not," suggested Ste. Marie--"not the sort of young man to do
+anything desperate--make away with himself?" Hartley laughed.
+
+"Oh, Lord, no!" said he. "Not that sort of young man at all. He was a
+very normal type of rich and spoiled and somewhat foolish American boy."
+
+"Rich?" inquired the other, quickly.
+
+"Oh yes; they're beastly rich. Young Arthur is to come into something
+very good at his majority, I believe, from his father's estate, and the
+old grandfather is said to be indecently rich--rolling in it! There's
+another reason why the young idiot wouldn't be likely to stop away of
+his own accord. He wouldn't risk anything like a serious break with the
+old gentleman. It would mean a loss of millions to him, I dare say, for
+the old beggar is quite capable of cutting him off if he takes the
+notion. Oh, it's a bad business all through."
+
+And after they had gone on a bit he said it again, shaking his head:
+
+"It's a bad business! That poor girl, you know. It's hard on her. She
+was fond of the young ass for some reason or other. She's very much
+broken up over it."
+
+"Yes," said Ste. Marie, "it is hard for her--for all the family, of
+course. A bad business, as you say." He spoke absently, for he was
+looking ahead at something which seemed to be a motor accident. They had
+by this time got well up the Champs-Elysées and were crossing the Rond
+Point. A motor-car was drawn up alongside the curb just beyond, and a
+little knot of people stood about it and seemed to look at something on
+the ground.
+
+"I think some one has been run down," said Ste. Marie. "Shall we have a
+look?" They quickened their pace and came to where the group of people
+stood in a circle looking upon the ground, and two gendarmes asked many
+questions and wrote voluminously in their little books. It appeared that
+a delivery boy mounted upon a tricycle cart had turned into the wrong
+side of the avenue and had got himself run into and overturned by a
+motor-car going at a moderate rate of speed. For once the sentiment of
+those mysterious birds of prey which flock instantaneously from nowhere
+round an accident, was against the victim and in favor of the frightened
+and gesticulating chauffeur.
+
+Ste. Marie turned an amused face from this voluble being to the other
+occupants of the patently hired car, who stood apart, adding very little
+to the discussion. He saw a tall and bony man with very bright blue eyes
+and what is sometimes called a guardsman's mustache--the drooping,
+walruslike ornament which dates back a good many years now. Beyond this
+gentleman he saw a young woman in a long, gray silk coat and a motoring
+veil. He was aware that the tall man was staring at him rather fixedly
+and with a half-puzzled frown, as though he thought that they had met
+before and was trying to remember when, but Ste. Marie gave the man but
+a swift glance. His eyes were upon the dark face of the young woman
+beyond, and it seemed to him that she called aloud to him in an actual
+voice that rang in his ears. The young woman's very obvious beauty, he
+thought, had nothing to do with the matter. It seemed to him that her
+eyes called him. Just that. Something strange and very potent seemed to
+take sudden and almost tangible hold upon him--a charm, a spell, a
+magic--something unprecedented, new to his experience. He could not take
+his eyes from hers, and he stood staring.
+
+As before, on the Pont de la Concorde, Hartley touched him on the arm,
+and abruptly the chains that had bound him were loosened.
+
+"We must be going on, you know," the Englishman said, and Ste. Marie
+said, rather hurriedly:
+
+"Yes, yes, to be sure! Come along!" But at a little distance he turned
+once more to look back. The chauffeur had mounted to his place, the
+delivery boy was upon his feet again, little the worse for his tumble,
+and the knot of bystanders had begun to disperse, but it seemed to Ste.
+Marie that the young woman in the long silk coat stood quite still where
+she had been, and that her face was turned toward him, watching.
+
+"Did you notice that girl?" said Hartley, as they walked on at a brisker
+pace. "Did you see her face? She was rather a tremendous beauty, you
+know, in her gypsyish fashion. Yes, by Jove, she was!"
+
+"Did I see her?" repeated Ste. Marie. "Yes. Oh yes. She had very strange
+eyes. At least, I think it was the eyes. I don't know. I've never seen
+any eyes quite like them. Very odd!"
+
+He said something more in French which Hartley did not hear, and the
+Englishman saw that he was frowning.
+
+"Oh, well, I shouldn't have said there was anything strange about them,"
+Hartley said; "but they certainly were beautiful. There's no denying
+that. The man with her looked rather Irish, I thought."
+
+They came to the Etoile, and cut across it toward the Avenue Hoche. Ste.
+Marie glanced back once more, but the motor-car and the delivery boy and
+the gendarmes were gone.
+
+"What did you say?" he asked, idly.
+
+"I said the man looked Irish," repeated his friend. All at once Ste.
+Marie gave a loud exclamation.
+
+"Sacred thousand devils! Fool that I am! Dolt! Why didn't I think of it
+before?"
+
+Hartley stared at him, and Ste. Marie stared down the Champs-Elysées
+like one in a trance.
+
+"I say," said the Englishman, "we really must be getting on, you know;
+we're late." And as they went along down the Avenue Hoche, he demanded:
+"Why are you a dolt and whatever else it was? What struck you so
+suddenly?"
+
+"I remembered all at once," said Ste. Marie, "where I had seen that man
+before and with whom I last saw him. I'll tell you about it later.
+Probably it's of no importance, though."
+
+"You're talking rather like a mild lunatic," said the other. "Here we
+are at the house!"
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+II
+
+THE LADDER TO THE STARS
+
+
+Miss Benham was talking wearily to a strange, fair youth with an
+impediment in his speech, and was wondering why the youth had been asked
+to this house, where in general one was sure of meeting only interesting
+people, when some one spoke her name, and she turned with a little sigh
+of relief. It was Baron de Vries, the Belgian First Secretary of
+Legation, an old friend of her grandfather's, a man made gentle and
+sweet by infinite sorrow. He bowed civilly to the fair youth and bent
+over the girl's hand.
+
+"It is very good," he said, "to see you again in the world. We have need
+of you, nous autres. Madame your mother is well, I hope--and the bear?"
+He called old Mr. Stewart "the bear" in a sort of grave jest, and that
+fierce octogenarian rather liked it.
+
+"Oh yes," the girl said, "we're all fairly well. My mother had one of
+her headaches to-night and so didn't come here, but she's as well as
+usual, and 'the bear'--yes, he's well enough physically, I should think,
+but he has not been quite the same since--during the past month. It has
+told upon him, you know. He grieves over it much more than he will
+admit."
+
+"Yes," said Baron de Vries, gravely. "Yes, I know." He turned about
+toward the fair young man, but that youth had drifted away and joined
+himself to another group. Miss Benham looked after him and gave a little
+exclamation of relief.
+
+"That person was rather terrible," she said. "I can't think why he is
+here. Marian so seldom has dull people."
+
+"I believe," said the Belgian, "that he is some connection of De
+Saulnes'. That explains his presence." He lowered his voice. "You have
+heard no--news? They have found no trace?"
+
+"No," said she. "Nothing. Nothing at all. I'm rather in despair. It's
+all so hideously mysterious. I am sure, you know, that something has
+happened to him. It's--very, very hard. Sometimes I think I can't bear
+it. But I go on. We all go on."
+
+Baron de Vries nodded his head strongly.
+
+"That, my dear child, is just what you must do," said he. "You must go
+on. That is what needs the real courage, and you have courage. I am not
+afraid for you. And sooner or later you will hear of him--from him. It
+is impossible nowadays to disappear for very long. You will hear from
+him." He smiled at her, his slow, grave smile that was not of mirth but
+of kindness and sympathy and cheer.
+
+"And if I may say so," he said, "you are doing very wisely to come out
+once more among your friends. You can accomplish no good by brooding at
+home. It is better to live one's normal life--even when it is not easy
+to do it. I say so who know."
+
+The girl touched Baron de Vries' arm for an instant with her hand--a
+little gesture that seemed to express thankfulness and trust and
+affection.
+
+"If all my friends were like you!" she said to him. And after that she
+drew a quick breath as if to have done with these sad matters, and she
+turned her eyes once more toward the broad room where the other guests
+stood in little groups, all talking at once, very rapidly and in loud
+voices.
+
+"What extraordinarily cosmopolitan affairs these dinner-parties in new
+Paris are!" she said. "They're like diplomatic parties, only we have a
+better time and the men don't wear their orders. How many nationalities
+should you say there are in this room now?"
+
+"Without stopping to consider," said Baron de Vries, "I say ten." They
+counted, and out of fourteen people there were represented nine races.
+
+"I don't see Richard Hartley," Miss Benham said. "I had an idea he was
+to be here. Ah!" she broke off, looking toward the doorway. "Here he
+comes now!" she said. "He's rather late. Who is the Spanish-looking man
+with him, I wonder? He's rather handsome, isn't he?"
+
+Baron de Vries moved a little forward to look, and exclaimed in his
+turn. He said:
+
+"Ah, I did not know he was returned to Paris. That is Ste. Marie." Miss
+Benham's eyes followed the Spanish-looking young man as he made his way
+through the joyous greetings of friends toward his hostess.
+
+"So that is Ste. Marie!" she said, still watching him. "The famous Ste.
+Marie!" She gave a little laugh.
+
+"Well, I don't wonder at the reputation he bears for--gallantry and that
+sort of thing. He looks the part, doesn't he?"
+
+"Ye-es," admitted her friend. "Yes, he is sufficiently beau garçon.
+But--yes--well, that is not all, by any means. You must not get the idea
+that Ste. Marie is nothing but a genial and romantic young
+squire-of-dames. He is much more than that. He has very fine qualities.
+To be sure, he appears to possess no ambition in particular, but I
+should be glad if he were my son. He comes of a very old house, and
+there is no blot upon the history of that house--nothing but
+faithfulness and gallantry and honor. And there is, I think, no blot
+upon Ste. Marie himself. He is fine gold."
+
+The girl turned and stared at Baron de Vries with some astonishment.
+
+"You speak very strongly," said she. "I have never heard you speak so
+strongly of any one, I think."
+
+The Belgian made a little deprecatory gesture with his two hands, and he
+laughed.
+
+"Oh, well, I like the boy. And I should hate to have you meet him for
+the first time under a misconception. Listen, my child! When a young man
+is loved equally by both men and women, by both old and young, that
+young man is worthy of friendship and trust. Everybody likes Ste. Marie.
+In a sense, that is his misfortune. The way is made too easy for him.
+His friends stand so thick about him that they shut off his view of the
+heights. To waken ambition in his soul he has need of solitude or
+misfortune or grief. Or," said the elderly Belgian, laughing gently--"or
+perhaps the other thing might do it best--the more obvious thing?"
+
+The girl's raised eyebrows questioned him, and when he did not answer,
+she said:
+
+"What thing, then?"
+
+"Why, love," said Baron de Vries. "Love, to be sure. Love is said to
+work miracles, and I believe that to be a perfectly true saying. Ah, he
+is coming here!"
+
+The Marquise de Saulnes, who was a very pretty little Englishwoman with
+a deceptively doll-like look, approached, dragging Ste. Marie in her
+wake. She said:
+
+"My dearest dear, I give you of my best. Thank me and cherish him! I
+believe he is to lead you to the place where food is, isn't he?" She
+beamed over her shoulder and departed, and Miss Benham found herself
+confronted by the Spanish-looking man. Her first thought was that he was
+not as handsome as he had seemed at a distance, but something much
+better. For a young man she thought his face was rather oddly
+weather-beaten, as if he might have been very much at sea, and it was
+too dark to be entirely pleasing. But she liked his eyes, which were not
+brown or black, as she had expected, but a very unusual dark gray--a
+sort of slate color. And she liked his mouth, too, while disapproving of
+the fierce little upturned mustache which seemed to her a bit operatic.
+It was her habit--and it is not an unreliable habit--to judge people by
+their eyes and mouths. Ste. Marie's mouth pleased her because the lips
+were neither thin nor thick, they were not drawn into an unpleasant line
+by unpleasant habits, they did not pout as so many Latin lips do, and
+they had at one corner a humorous expression which she found curiously
+agreeable.
+
+"You are to cherish me," Ste. Marie said. "Orders from headquarters. How
+does one cherish people?" The corner of his very expressive mouth
+twitched, and he grinned at her.
+
+Miss Benham did not approve of young men who began an acquaintance in
+this very familiar manner. She thought that there was a certain
+preliminary and more formal stage which ought to be got through with
+first, but Ste, Marie's grin was irresistible. In spite of herself, she
+found that she was laughing.
+
+"I don't quite know," she said. "It sounds rather appalling, doesn't it?
+Marian has such an extraordinary fashion of hurling people at each
+other's heads! She takes my breath away at times."
+
+"Ah, well," said Ste. Marie, "perhaps we can settle upon something when
+I've led you to the place where food is. And, by-the-way, what are we
+waiting for? Are we not all here? There's an even number." He broke off
+with a sudden exclamation of pleasure; and when Miss Benham turned to
+look, she found that Baron de Vries, who had been talking to some
+friends, had once more come up to where she stood.
+
+She watched the greeting between the two men, and its quiet affection
+impressed her very much. She knew Baron de Vries well, and she knew that
+it was not his habit to show or to feel a strong liking for young and
+idle men. This young man must be very worth while to have won the regard
+of that wise old Belgian. Just then Hartley, who had been barricaded
+behind a cordon of friends, came up to her in an abominable temper over
+his ill luck, and a few moments later the dinner procession was formed
+and they went in.
+
+At table Miss Benham found herself between Ste. Marie and the same
+strange, fair youth who had afflicted her in the drawing-room. She
+looked upon him now with a sort of dismayed terror, but it developed
+that there was nothing to fear from the fair youth. He had no attention
+to waste upon social amenities. He fell upon his food with a wolfish
+passion extraordinary to see and also--alas!--to hear. Miss Benham
+turned from him to meet Ste. Marie's delighted eye.
+
+"Tell him for me," begged that gentleman, "that soup should be seen--not
+heard."
+
+But Miss Benham gave a little shiver of disgust. "I shall tell him
+nothing whatever," she said. "He's quite too dreadful, really! People
+shouldn't be exposed to that sort of thing. It's not only the noises.
+Plenty of very charming and estimable Germans, for example, make strange
+noises at table. But he behaves like a famished dog over a bone. I
+refuse to have anything to do with him. You must make up the loss to me,
+M. Ste. Marie. You must be as amusing as two people." She smiled across
+at him in her gravely questioning fashion. "I'm wondering," she said,
+"if I dare ask you a very personal question. I hesitate because I don't
+like people who presume too much upon a short acquaintance--and our
+acquaintance has been very, very short, hasn't it? even though we may
+have heard a great deal about each other beforehand. I wonder--"
+
+"Oh, I should ask it if I were you!" said Ste. Marie, at once. "I'm an
+extremely good-natured person. And, besides, I quite naturally feel
+flattered at your taking interest enough to ask anything about me."
+
+"Well," said she, "it's this: Why does everybody call you just 'Ste.
+Marie'? Most people are spoken of as Monsieur this or that--if there
+isn't a more august title; but they all call you Ste. Marie without any
+Monsieur. It seems rather odd."
+
+Ste. Marie looked puzzled. "Why," he said, "I don't believe I know,
+just. I'd never thought of that. It's quite true, of course. They never
+do use a Monsieur or anything, do they? How cheeky of them! I wonder why
+it is? I'll ask Hartley."
+
+He did ask Hartley later on, and Hartley didn't know, either. Miss
+Benham asked some other people, who were vague about it, and in the end
+she became convinced that it was an odd and quite inexplicable form of
+something like endearment. But nobody seemed to have formulated it to
+himself.
+
+"The name is really 'De Ste. Marie,'" he went on, "and there's a title
+that I don't use, and a string of Christian names that one never
+employs. My people were Béarnais, and there's a heap of ruins on top of
+a hill in the Pyrenees where they lived. It used to be Ste. Marie de
+Mont-les-Roses, but afterward, after the Revolution, they called it Ste.
+Marie de Mont Perdu. My great-grandfather was killed there, but some old
+servants smuggled his little son away and saved him."
+
+He seemed to Miss Benham to say that in exactly the right manner, not in
+the cheap and scoffing fashion which some young men affect in speaking
+of ancestral fortunes or misfortunes, nor with too much solemnity. And
+when she allowed a little silence to occur at the end, he did not go on
+with his family history, but turned at once to another subject. It
+pleased her curiously.
+
+The fair youth at her other side continued to crouch over his food,
+making fierce and animal-like noises. He never spoke or seemed to wish
+to be spoken to, and Miss Benham found it easy to ignore him altogether.
+It occurred to her once or twice that Ste. Marie's other neighbor might
+desire an occasional word from him, but, after all, she said to herself
+that was his affair and beyond her control. So these two talked together
+through the entire dinner period, and the girl was aware that she was
+being much more deeply affected by the simple, magnetic charm of a man
+than ever before in her life. It made her a little angry, because she
+was unfamiliar with this sort of thing and distrusted it. She was rather
+a perfect type of that phenomenon before which the British and
+Continental world stands in mingled delight and exasperation--the
+American unmarried young woman, the creature of extraordinary beauty and
+still more extraordinary poise, the virgin with the bearing and
+savoir-faire of a woman of the world, the fresh-cheeked girl with the
+calm mind of a savante and the cool judgment, in regard to men and
+things, of an ambassador. The European world says she is cold, and that
+may be true; but it is well enough known that she can love very deeply.
+It says that, like most queens, and for precisely the same set of
+reasons, she later on makes a bad mother; but it is easy to point to
+queens who are the best of mothers. In short, she remains an enigma,
+and, like all other enigmas, forever fascinating.
+
+Miss Benham reflected that she knew almost nothing about Ste. Marie save
+for his reputation as a carpet knight, and Baron de Vries' good opinion,
+which could not be despised. And that made her the more displeased when
+she realized how promptly she was surrendering to his charm. In a moment
+of silence she gave a sudden little laugh which seemed to express a
+half-angry astonishment.
+
+"What was that for?" Ste. Marie demanded.
+
+The girl looked at him for an instant and shook her head.
+
+"I can't tell you," said she. "That's rude, isn't it? I'm sorry. Perhaps
+I will tell you one day, when we know each other better."
+
+But inwardly she was saying: "Why, I suppose this is how they all
+begin--all these regiments of women who make fools of themselves about
+him! I suppose this is exactly what he does to them all!"
+
+It made her angry, and she tried quite unfairly to shift the anger, as
+it were, to Ste. Marie--to put him somehow in the wrong. But she was by
+nature very just, and she could not quite do that, particularly as it
+was evident that the man was using no cheap tricks. He did not try to
+flirt with her, and he did not attempt to pay her veiled compliments,
+though she was often aware that when her attention was diverted for a
+few moments his eyes were always upon her, and that is a compliment that
+few women can find it in their hearts to resent.
+
+"You say," said Ste. Marie, "'when we know each other better.' May one
+twist that into a permission to come and see you--I mean, really see
+you--not just leave a card at your door to-morrow by way of observing
+the formalities?"
+
+"Yes," she said. "Oh yes, one may twist it into something like that
+without straining it unduly, I think. My mother and I shall be very glad
+to see you. I'm sorry she is not here to-night to say it herself."
+
+Then the hostess began to gather together her flock, and so the two had
+no more speech. But when the women had gone and the men were left about
+the dismantled table, Hartley moved up beside Ste. Marie and shook a sad
+head at him. He said:
+
+"You're a very lucky being. I was quietly hoping, on the way here, that
+I should be the fortunate man, but you always have all the luck. I hope
+you're decently grateful."
+
+"Mon vieux," said Ste. Marie, "my feet are upon the stars. No!" He shook
+his head as if the figure displeased him. "No, my feet are upon the
+ladder to the stars. Grateful? What does a foolish word like grateful
+mean? Don't talk to me. You are not worthy to trample among my
+magnificent thoughts. I am a god upon Olympus."
+
+"You said just now," objected the other man, practically, "that your
+feet were on a ladder. There are no ladders from Olympus to the stars."
+
+"Ho!" said Ste. Marie. "Ho! Aren't there, though? There shall be ladders
+all over Olympus, if I like. What do you know about gods and stars? I
+shall be a god climbing to the heavens, and I shall be an angel of
+light, and I shall be a miserable worm grovelling in the night here
+below, and I shall be a poet, and I shall be anything else I happen to
+think of--all of them at once, if I choose. And you shall be the
+tongue-tied son of perfidious Albion that you are, gaping at my
+splendors from a fog-bank--a November fog-bank in May. Who is the
+desiccated gentleman bearing down upon us?"
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+III
+
+STE. MARIE MAKES A VOW, BUT A PAIR OF EYES HAUNT HIM
+
+
+Hartley looked over his shoulder and gave a little exclamation of
+distaste.
+
+"It's Captain Stewart, Miss Benham's uncle," he said, lowering his
+voice. "I'm off. I shall abandon you to him. He's a good old soul, but
+he bores me." Hartley nodded to the man who was approaching, and then
+made his way to the end of the table, where their host sat discussing
+aero-club matters with a group of the other men.
+
+Captain Stewart dropped into the vacant chair, saying: "May I recall
+myself to you, M. Ste. Marie? We met, I believe, once or twice, a couple
+of years ago. My name's Stewart."
+
+Captain Stewart--the title was vaguely believed to have been borne some
+years before in the American service, but no one appeared to know much
+about it--was not an old man. He could not have been, at this time, much
+more than fifty, but English-speaking acquaintances often called him
+"old Stewart," and others "ce vieux Stewart." Indeed, at a first glance
+he might have passed for anything up to sixty, for his face was a good
+deal more lined and wrinkled than it should have been at his age. Ste.
+Marie's adjective had been rather apt. The man had a desiccated
+appearance. Upon examination, however, one saw that the blood was still
+red in his cheeks and lips, and, although his neck was thin and withered
+like an old man's, his brown eyes still held their fire. The hair was
+almost gone from the top of his large, round head, but it remained at
+the sides--stiff, colorless hair, with a hint of red in it. And there
+were red streaks in his gray mustache, which was trained outward in two
+loose tufts, like shaving-brushes. The mustache and the shallow chin
+under it gave him an odd, catlike appearance. Hartley, who rather
+disliked the man, used to insist that he had heard him mew.
+
+Ste. Marie said something politely non-committal, though he did not at
+all remember the alleged meeting two years before, and he looked at
+Captain Stewart with a real curiosity and interest in his character as
+Miss Benham's uncle. He thought it very civil of the elder man to make
+these friendly advances when it was in no way incumbent upon him to do
+so.
+
+"I noticed," said Captain Stewart, "that you were placed next my niece,
+Helen Benham, at dinner. This must be the first time you two have met,
+is it not? I remember speaking of you to her some months ago, and I am
+quite sure she said that she had not met you. Ah, yes, of course, you
+have been away from Paris a great deal since she and her mother--her
+mother is my sister: that is to say, my half-sister--have come here to
+live with my father." He gave a little gentle laugh. "I take an elderly
+uncle's privilege," he said, "of being rather proud of Helen. She is
+called very pretty, and she certainly has great poise."
+
+Ste. Marie drew a quick breath, and his eyes began to flash as they had
+done a few moments before when he told Hartley that his feet were upon
+the ladder to the stars.
+
+"Miss Benham!" he cried. "Miss Benham is--" He hung poised so for a
+moment, searching, as it were, for words of sufficient splendor, but in
+the end he shook his head and the gleam faded from his eyes. He sank
+back in his chair, sighing. "Miss Benham," said he, "is extremely
+beautiful."
+
+And again her uncle emitted his little gentle laugh, which may have
+deceived Hartley into believing that he had heard the man mew. The sound
+was as much like mewing as it was like anything else.
+
+"I am very glad," Captain Stewart said, "to see her come out once more
+into the world. She needs distraction. We--You may possibly have heard
+that the family is in great distress of mind over the disappearance of
+my young nephew. Helen has suffered particularly, because she is
+convinced that the boy has met with foul play. I myself think it very
+unlikely--very unlikely indeed. The lack of motive, for one thing, and
+for another--Ah, well, a score of reasons! But Helen refuses to be
+comforted. It seems to me much more like a boy's prank--his idea of
+revenge for what he considered unjust treatment at his grandfather's
+hands. He was always a headstrong youngster, and he has been a bit
+spoiled. Still, of course, the uncertainty is very trying for us
+all--very wearing."
+
+"Of course," said Ste. Marie, gravely. "It is most unfortunate. Ah,
+by-the-way!" He looked up with a sudden interest. "A rather odd thing
+happened," he said, "as Hartley and I were coming here this evening. We
+walked up the Champs-Elysées from the Concorde, and on the way Hartley
+had been telling me of your nephew's disappearance. Near the Rond Point
+we came upon a motor-car which was drawn up at the side of the
+street--there had been an accident of no consequence, a boy tumbled over
+but not hurt. Well, one of the two occupants of the motor-car was a man
+whom I used to see about Maxim's and the Café de Paris and the
+Montmartre places, too, some time ago--a rather shady character whose
+name I've forgotten. The odd part of it all was that on the last
+occasion or two on which I saw your nephew he was with this man. I think
+it was in Henry's Bar. Of course, it means nothing at all. Your nephew
+doubtless knew scores of people, and this man is no more likely to have
+information about his present whereabouts than any of the others. Still,
+I should have liked to ask him. I didn't remember who he was till he had
+gone."
+
+Captain Stewart shook his head sadly, frowning down upon the cigarette
+from which he had knocked the ash.
+
+"I am afraid poor Arthur did not always choose his friends with the best
+of judgment," said he. "I am not squeamish, and I would not have boys
+kept in a glass case, but--yes, I'm afraid Arthur was not always too
+careful." He replaced the cigarette neatly between his lips. "This man,
+now--this man whom you saw to-night--what sort of looking man will he
+have been?"
+
+"Oh, a tall, lean man," said Ste. Marie. "A tall man with blue eyes and
+a heavy, old-fashioned mustache. I just can't remember the name."
+
+The smoke stood still for an instant over Captain Stewart's cigarette,
+and it seemed to Ste. Marie that a little contortion of anger fled
+across the man's face and was gone again. He stirred slightly in his
+chair. After a moment he said:
+
+"I fancy, from your description--I fancy I know who the man was. If it
+is the man I am thinking of, the name is--Powers. He is, as you have
+said, a rather shady character, and I more than once warned my nephew
+against him. Such people are not good companions for a boy. Yes, I
+warned him."
+
+"Powers," said Ste. Marie, "doesn't sound right to me, you know. I can't
+say the fellow's name myself, but I'm sure--that is, I think--it's not
+Powers."
+
+"Oh yes," said Captain Stewart, with an elderly man's half-querulous
+certainty. "Yes, the name is Powers. I remember it well. And I
+remember--Yes, it was odd, was it not, your meeting him like that, just
+as you were talking of Arthur? You--oh, you didn't speak to him, you
+say? No, no, to be sure! You didn't recognize him at once. Yes, it was
+odd. Of course, the man could have had nothing to do with poor Arthur's
+disappearance. His only interest in the boy at any time would have been
+for what money Arthur might have, and he carried none, or almost none,
+away with him when he vanished. Eh, poor lad! Where can he be to-night,
+I wonder? It's a sad business, M. Ste. Marie--a sad business."
+
+Captain Stewart fell into a sort of brooding silence, frowning down at
+the table before him, and twisting with his thin ringers the little
+liqueur glass and the coffee-cup which were there. Once or twice, Ste.
+Marie thought, the frown deepened and twisted into a sort of scowl, and
+the man's fingers twitched on the cloth of the table; but when at last
+the group at the other end of the board rose and began to move towards
+the door, Captain Stewart rose also and followed them. At the door he
+seemed to think of something, and touched Ste. Marie upon the arm.
+
+"This--ah, Powers," he said, in a low tone--"this man whom you saw
+to-night! You said he was one of two occupants of a motor-car. Yes? Did
+you by any chance recognize the other?"
+
+"Oh, the other was a young woman," said Ste. Marie. "No, I never saw her
+before. She was very handsome."
+
+Captain Stewart said something under his breath and turned abruptly
+away. But an instant later he faced about once more, smiling. He said,
+in a man-of-the-world manner, which sat rather oddly upon him:
+
+"Ah, well, we all have our little love-affairs. I dare say this shady
+fellow has his." And for some obscure reason Ste. Marie found the speech
+peculiarly offensive.
+
+In the drawing-room he had opportunity for no more than a word with Miss
+Benham, for Hartley, enraged over his previous ill success, cut in ahead
+of him and manoeuvred that young lady into a corner, where he sat before
+her, turning a square and determined back to the world. Ste. Marie
+listlessly played bridge for a time, but his attention was not upon it,
+and he was glad when the others at the table settled their accounts and
+departed to look in at a dance somewhere. After that he talked for a
+little with Marian de Saulnes, whom he liked and who made no secret of
+adoring him. She complained loudly that he was in a vile temper, which
+was not true; he was only restless and distrait and wanted to be alone;
+and so, at last, he took his leave without waiting for Hartley.
+
+Outside, in the street, he stood for a moment, hesitating, and an
+expectant fiacre drew up before the house, the cocher raising an
+interrogative whip. In the end Ste. Marie shook his head and turned away
+on foot. It was a still, sweet night of soft airs, and a moonless,
+starlit sky, and the man was very fond of walking in the dark. From the
+Etoile he walked down the Champs-Elysées, but presently turned toward
+the river. His eyes were upon the mellow stars, his feet upon the ladder
+thereunto. He found himself crossing the Pont des Invalides, and halted
+midway to rest and look. He laid his arms upon the bridge's parapet and
+turned his face outward. Against it bore a little gentle breeze that
+smelled of the purifying water below and of the night and of green
+things growing. Beneath him the river ran black as flowing ink, and
+across its troubled surface the many-colored lights of the many bridges
+glittered very beautifully, swirling arabesques of gold and crimson. The
+noises of the city--beat of hoofs upon wooden pavements, horn of train
+or motor-car, jingle of bell upon cab-horse--came here faintly and as if
+from a great distance. Above the dark trees of the Cours la Reine the
+sky glowed, softly golden, reflecting the million lights of Paris.
+
+Ste. Marie closed his eyes, and against darkness he saw the beautiful
+head of Helen Benham, the clear-cut, exquisite modelling of feature and
+contour, the perfection of form and color. Her eyes met his eyes, and
+they were very serene and calm and confident. She smiled at him, and the
+new contours into which her face fell with the smile were more perfect
+than before. He watched the turn of her head, and the grace of the
+movement was the uttermost effortless grace one dreams that a queen
+should have. The heart of Ste. Marie quickened in him, and he would have
+gone down upon his knees.
+
+He was well aware that with the coming of this girl something
+unprecedented, wholly new to his experience, had befallen him--an
+awakening to a new life. He had been in love a very great many times. He
+was usually in love. And each time his heart had gone through the same
+sweet and bitter anguish, the same sleepless nights had come and gone
+upon him, the eternal and ever new miracle had wakened spring in his
+soul, had passed its summer solstice, had faded through autumnal regrets
+to winter's death; but through it all something within him had waited
+asleep.
+
+He found himself wondering dully what it was--wherein lay the great
+difference?--and he could not answer the question he asked. He knew only
+that whereas before he had loved, he now went down upon prayerful knees
+to worship. In a sudden poignant thrill the knightly fervor of his
+forefathers came upon him, and he saw a sweet and golden lady set far
+above him upon a throne. Her clear eyes gazed afar, serene and
+untroubled. She sat wrapped in a sort of virginal austerity, unaware of
+the base passions of men. The other women whom Ste. Marie had--as he was
+pleased to term it--loved had certainly come at least half-way to meet
+him, and some of them had come a good deal farther than that. He could
+not, by the wildest flight of imagination, conceive this girl doing
+anything of that sort. She was to be won by trial and high endeavor, by
+prayer and self-purification--not captured by a warm eye-glance, a
+whispered word, a laughing kiss. In fancy he looked from the crowding
+cohorts of these others to that still, sweet figure set on high, wrapped
+in virginal austerity, calm in her serene perfection, and his soul
+abased itself before her. He knelt in an awed and worshipful adoration.
+
+So before quest or tournament or battle must those elder Ste.
+Maries--Ste. Maries de Mont-les-Roses---have knelt, each knight at the
+feet of his lady, each knightly soul aglow with the chaste ardor of
+chivalry.
+
+The man's hands tightened upon the parapet of the bridge, he lifted his
+face again to the shining stars where-among, as his fancy had it, she
+sat enthroned. Exultingly he felt under his feet the rungs of the
+ladder, and in the darkness he swore a great oath to have done forever
+with blindness and grovelling, to climb and climb, forever to climb,
+until at last he should stand where she was--cleansed and made worthy by
+long endeavor--at last meet her eyes and touch her hand.
+
+It was a fine and chivalric frenzy, and Ste. Marie was passionately in
+earnest about it, but his guardian angel--indeed, Fate herself--must
+have laughed a little in the dark, knowing what manner of man he was in
+less exalted hours.
+
+It was an odd freak of memory that at last recalled him to earth. Every
+man knows that when a strong and, for the moment, unavailing effort has
+been made to recall something lost to mind, the memory, in some
+mysterious fashion, goes on working long after the attention has been
+elsewhere diverted, and sometimes hours afterward, or even days,
+produces quite suddenly and inappropriately the lost article. Ste. Marie
+had turned, with a little sigh, to take up, once more, his walk across
+the Pont des Invalides, when seemingly from nowhere, and certainly by no
+conscious effort, a name flashed into his mind. He said it aloud:
+
+"O'Hara! O'Hara! That tall, thin chap's name was O'Hara, by Jove! It
+wasn't Powers at all!" He laughed a little as he remembered how very
+positive Captain Stewart had been. And then he frowned, thinking that
+the mistake was an odd one, since Stewart had evidently known a good
+deal about this adventurer. Captain Stewart, though, Ste. Marie
+reflected, was exactly the sort to be very sure he was right about
+things. He had just the neat and precise and semi-scholarly personality
+of the man who always knows. So Ste. Marie dismissed the matter with
+another brief laugh, but a cognate matter was less easy to dismiss. The
+name brought with it a face--a dark and splendid face with tragic eyes
+that called. He walked a long way thinking about them and wondering. The
+eyes haunted him. It will have been reasonably evident that Ste. Marie
+was a fanciful and imaginative soul. He needed but a chance word, the
+sight of a face in a crowd, the glance of an eye, to begin
+story-building, and he would go on for hours about it and work himself
+up to quite a passion with his imaginings. He should have been a writer
+of fiction.
+
+He began forthwith to construct romances about this lady of the
+motor-car. He wondered why she should have been with the shady
+Irishman--if Irishman he was--O'Hara, and with some anxiety he wondered
+what the two were to each other. Captain Stewart's little cynical jest
+came to his mind, and he was conscious of a sudden desire to kick Miss
+Benham's middle-aged uncle.
+
+The eyes haunted him. What was it they suffered? Out of what misery did
+they call--and for what? He walked all the long way home to his little
+flat overlooking the Luxembourg Gardens, haunted by those eyes. As he
+climbed his stair it suddenly occurred to him that they had quite driven
+out of his mind the image of his beautiful lady who sat among the stars,
+and the realization came to him with a shock.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+IV
+
+OLD DAVID STEWART
+
+
+It was Miss Benham's custom, upon returning home at night from
+dinner-parties or other entertainments, to look in for a few minutes on
+her grandfather before going to bed. The old gentleman, like most
+elderly people, slept lightly, and often sat up in bed very late into
+the night, reading or playing piquet with his valet. He suffered
+hideously at times from the malady which was killing him by degrees, but
+when he was free from pain the enormous recuperative power, which he had
+preserved to his eighty-sixth year, left him almost as vigorous and
+clear-minded as if he had never been ill at all. Hartley's description
+of him had not been altogether a bad one: "a quaint old beggar... a
+great quantity of white hair and an enormous square white beard and the
+fiercest eyes I ever saw..." He was a rather "quaint old beggar,"
+indeed! He had let his thick, white hair grow long, and it hung down
+over his brows in unparted locks as the ancient Greeks wore their hair.
+He had very shaggy eyebrows, and the deep-set eyes under them gleamed
+from the shadow with a fierceness which was rather deceptive but none
+the less intimidating. He had a great beak of a nose, but the mouth
+below could not be seen. It was hidden by the mustache and the enormous
+square beard. His face was colorless, almost as white as hair and beard;
+there seemed to be no shadow or tint anywhere except the cavernous
+recesses from which the man's eyes gleamed and sparkled. Altogether he
+was certainly "a quaint old beggar."
+
+He had, during the day and evening, a good many visitors, for the old
+gentleman's mind was as alert as it ever had been, and important men
+thought him worth consulting. The names which the admirable valet Peters
+announced from time to time were names which meant a great deal in the
+official and diplomatic world of the day. But if old David felt
+flattered over the unusual fashion in which the great of the earth
+continued to come to him, he never betrayed it. Indeed, it is quite
+probable that this view of the situation never once occurred to him. He
+had been thrown with the great of the earth for more than half a
+century, and he had learned to take it as a matter of course.
+
+On her return from the Marquise de Saulnes' dinner-party, Miss Benham
+went at once to her grandfather's wing of the house, which had its own
+street entrance, and knocked lightly at his door. She asked the
+admirable Peters, who opened to her, "Is he awake?" and being assured
+that he was, went into the vast chamber, dropping her cloak on a chair
+as she entered.
+
+David Stewart was sitting up in his monumental bed behind a sort of
+invalid's table which stretched across his knees without touching them.
+He wore over his night-clothes a Chinese mandarin's jacket of old red
+satin, wadded with down, and very gorgeously embroidered with the cloud
+and bat designs, and with large round panels of the imperial five-clawed
+dragon in gold. He had a number of these jackets--they seemed to be his
+one vanity in things external--and they were so made that they could be
+slipped about him without disturbing him in his bed, since they hung
+down only to the waist or thereabouts. They kept the upper part of his
+body, which was not covered by the bedclothes, warm, and they certainly
+made him a very impressive figure.
+
+He said: "Ah, Helen! Come in! Come in! Sit down on the bed there and
+tell me what you have been doing!" He pushed aside the pack of cards
+which was spread out on the invalid's table before him, and with great
+care counted a sum of money in francs and half-francs and nickel
+twenty-five centime pieces. "I've won seven francs fifty from Peters
+to-night," he said, chuckling gently. "That is a very good evening,
+indeed. Very good! Where have you been, and who were there?"
+
+"A dinner-party at the De Saulnes'," said Miss Benham, making herself
+comfortable on the side of the great bed. "It's a very pleasant place.
+Marian is, of course, a dear, and they're quite English and
+unceremonious. You can talk to your neighbor at dinner instead of
+addressing the house from a platform, as it were. French dinner-parties
+make me nervous."
+
+Old David gave a little growling laugh.
+
+"French dinner-parties at least keep people up to the mark in the art of
+conversation," said he. "But that is a lost art, anyhow, nowadays, so I
+suppose one might as well be quite informal and have done with it. Who
+were there?"
+
+"Oh, well"--she considered, "no one, I should think, who would interest
+you. Rather an indifferent set. Pleasant people, but not inspiring. The
+Marquis had some young relative or connection who was quite odious and
+made the most surprising noises over his food. I met a new man whom I
+think I am going to like very much, indeed. He wouldn't interest you,
+because he doesn't mean anything in particular, and of course he
+oughtn't to interest me for the same reason. He's just an idle, pleasant
+young man, but--he has great charm--very great charm. His name is Ste.
+Marie. Baron de Vries seems very fond of him, which surprised me,
+rather."
+
+"Ste. Marie!" exclaimed the old gentleman, in obvious astonishment.
+"Ste. Marie de Mont Perdu?"
+
+"Yes," she said. "Yes, that is the name, I believe. You know him, then?
+I wonder he didn't mention it."
+
+"I knew his father," said old David. "And his grandfather, for that
+matter. They're Gascon, I think, or Béarnais; but this boy's mother will
+have been Irish, unless his father married again.
+
+"So you've been meeting a Ste. Marie, have you?--and finding that he has
+great charm?" The old gentleman broke into one of his growling laughs,
+and reached for a long black cigar, which he lighted, eying his
+granddaughter the while over the flaring match. "Well," he said, when
+the cigar was drawing, "they all have had charm. I should think there
+has never been a Ste. Marie without it. They're a sort of embodiment of
+romance, that family. This boy's great-grandfather lost his life
+defending a castle against a horde of peasants in 1799; his grandfather
+was killed in the French campaign in Mexico in '39--at Vera Cruz it was,
+I think; and his father died in a filibustering expedition ten years
+ago. I wonder what will become of the last Ste. Marie?" Old David's eyes
+suddenly sharpened. "You're not going to fall in love with Ste. Marie
+and marry him, are you?" he demanded.
+
+Miss Benham gave a little angry laugh, but her grandfather saw the color
+rise in her cheeks for all that.
+
+"Certainly not," she said, with great decision, "What an absurd idea!
+Because I meet a man at a dinner-party and say I like him, must I marry
+him to-morrow? I meet a great many men at dinners and things, and a few
+of them I like. Heavens!"
+
+"'Methinks the lady doth protest too much,'" muttered old David into his
+huge beard.
+
+"I beg your pardon?" asked Miss Benham, politely.
+
+But he shook his head, still growling inarticulately, and began to draw
+enormous clouds of smoke from the long black cigar. After a time he took
+the cigar once more from his lips and looked thoughtfully at his
+granddaughter, where she sat on the edge of the vast bed, upright and
+beautiful, perfect in the most meticulous detail. Most women when they
+return from a long evening out look more or less the worse for
+it--deadened eyes, pale cheeks, loosened coiffure tell their inevitable
+tale. Miss Benham looked as if she had just come from the hands of a
+very excellent maid. She looked as freshly soignée as she might have
+looked at eight that evening instead of at one. Not a wave of her
+perfectly undulated hair was loosened or displaced, not a fold of the
+lace at her breast had departed from its perfect arrangement.
+
+"It is odd," said old David Stewart, "your taking a fancy to young Ste.
+Marie. Of course, it's natural, too, in a way, because you are complete
+opposites, I should think--that is, if this lad is like the rest of his
+race. What I mean is that merely attractive young men don't, as a rule,
+attract you."
+
+"Well, no," she admitted, "they don't usually. Men with brains attract
+me most, I think--men who are making civilization, men who are ruling
+the world, or at least doing important things for it. That's your fault,
+you know. You taught me that."
+
+The old gentleman laughed.
+
+"Possibly," said he. "Possibly. Anyhow, that is the sort of men you
+like, and they like you. You're by no means a fool, Helen; in fact,
+you're a woman with brains. You could wield great influence married to
+the proper sort of man."
+
+"But not to M. Ste. Marie," she suggested, smiling across at him.
+
+"Well, no," he said. "No, not to Ste. Marie. It would be a mistake to
+marry Ste. Marie--if he is what the rest of his house have been. The
+Ste. Maries live a life compounded of romance and imagination and
+emotion. You're not emotional."
+
+"No," said Miss Benham, slowly and thoughtfully. It was as if the idea
+were new to her. "No, I'm not, I suppose. No. Certainly not."
+
+"As a matter of fact," said old David, "you're by nature rather cold.
+I'm not sure it isn't a good thing. Emotional people, I observe, are
+usually in hot water of some sort. When you marry you're very likely to
+choose with a great deal of care and some wisdom. And you're also likely
+to have what is called a career. I repeat that you could wield great
+influence in the proper environment."
+
+The girl frowned across at her grandfather reflectively.
+
+"Do you mean by that," she asked, after a little silence--"do you mean
+that you think I am likely to be moved by sheer ambition and nothing
+else in arranging my life? I've never thought of myself as a very
+ambitious person."
+
+"Let us substitute for ambition common-sense," said old David. "I think
+you have a great deal of common-sense for a woman--and so young a woman.
+How old are you by-the-way? Twenty-two? Yes, to be sure. I think you
+have great common-sense and appreciation of values. And I think you're
+singularly free of the emotionalism that so often plays hob with them
+all. People with common-sense fall in love in the right places."
+
+"I don't quite like the sound of it," said Miss Benham. "Perhaps I am
+rather ambitious--I don't know. Yes, perhaps. I should like to play some
+part in the world, I don't deny that. But--am I as cold as you say? I
+doubt it very much. I doubt that."
+
+"You're twenty-two," said her grandfather, "and you have seen a good
+deal of society in several capitals. Have you ever fallen in love?"
+
+Oddly, the face of Ste. Marie came before Miss Benham's eyes as if she
+had summoned it there. But she frowned a little and shook her head,
+saying:
+
+"No, I can't say that I have. But that means nothing. There's plenty of
+time for that. And you know," she said, after a pause--"you know I'm
+rather sure I could fall in love--pretty hard. I'm sure of that. Perhaps
+I have been waiting. Who knows?"
+
+"Aye, who knows?" said David. He seemed all at once to lose interest in
+the subject, as old people often do without apparent reason, for he
+remained silent for a long time, puffing at the long black cigar or
+rolling it absently between his fingers. After awhile he laid it down in
+a metal dish which stood at his elbow, and folded his lean hands before
+him over the invalid's table. He was still so long that at last his
+granddaughter thought he had fallen asleep, and she began to rise from
+her seat, taking care to make no noise; but at that the old man stirred
+and put out his hand once more for the cigar. "Was young Richard Hartley
+at your dinner-party?" he asked, and she said:
+
+"Yes. Oh yes, he was there. He and M. Ste. Marie came together, I
+believe. They are very close friends."
+
+"Another idler," growled old David. "The fellow's a man of parts--and a
+man of family. What's he idling about here for? Why isn't he in
+Parliament, where he belongs?"
+
+"Well," said the girl, "I should think it is because he is too much a
+man of family--as you put it. You see, he'll succeed his cousin, Lord
+Risdale, before very long, and then all his work would have been for
+nothing, because he'll have to take his seat in the Lords. Lord Risdale
+is unmarried, you know, and a hopeless invalid. He may die any day. I
+think I sympathize with poor Mr. Hartley. It would be a pity to build up
+a career for one's self in the lower House, and then suddenly, in the
+midst of it, have to give it all up. The situation is rather paralyzing
+to endeavor, isn't it?"
+
+"Yes, I dare say," said old David, absently. He looked up sharply.
+"Young Hartley doesn't come here as much as he used to do."
+
+"No," said Miss Benham, "he doesn't." She gave a little laugh. "To avoid
+cross-examination," she said, "I may as well admit that he asked me to
+marry him and I had to refuse. I'm sorry, because I like him very much,
+indeed."
+
+Old David made an inarticulate sound which may have been meant to
+express surprise--or almost anything else. He had not a great range of
+expression.
+
+"I don't want," said he, "to seem to have gone daft on the subject of
+marriage, and I see no reason why you should be in any haste about it.
+Certainly I should hate to lose you, my child, but--Hartley as the next
+Lord Risdale is undoubtedly a good match. And you say you like him."
+
+The girl looked up with a sort of defiance, and her face was a little
+flushed.
+
+"I don't love him," she said. "I like him immensely, but I don't love
+him, and, after all--well, you say I'm cold, and I admit I'm more or
+less ambitious, but, after all--well, I just don't quite love him. I
+want to love the man I marry."
+
+Old David Stewart held up his black cigar and gazed thoughtfully at the
+smoke which streamed thin and blue and veil-like from its lighted end.
+
+"Love!" he said, in a reflective tone. "Love!" He repeated the word two
+or three times slowly, and he stirred a little in his bed. "I have
+forgotten what it is," said he. "I expect I must be very old. I have
+forgotten what love--that sort of love--is like. It seems very far away
+to me and rather unimportant. But I remember that I thought it important
+enough once, a century or two ago. Do you know, it strikes me as rather
+odd that I have forgotten what love is like. It strikes me as rather
+pathetic." He gave a sort of uncouth grimace and stuck the black cigar
+once more into his mouth. "Egad!" said he, mumbling indistinctly over
+the cigar, "how foolish love seems when you look back at it across fifty
+or sixty years!"
+
+Miss Benham rose to her feet smiling, and she came and stood near where
+the old man lay propped up against his pillows. She touched his cheek
+with her cool hand, and old David put up one of his own hands and patted
+it.
+
+"I'm going to bed now," said she. "I've sat here talking too long. You
+ought to be asleep, and so ought I."
+
+"Perhaps! Perhaps!" the old man said. "I don't feel sleepy, though. I
+dare say I shall read a little." He held her hand in his and looked up
+at her.
+
+"I've been talking a great deal of nonsense about marriage," said he.
+"Put it out of your head! It's all nonsense. I don't want you to marry
+for a long time. I don't want to lose you." His face twisted a little,
+quite suddenly. "You're precious near all I have left, now," he said.
+
+The girl did not answer at once, for it seemed to her that there was
+nothing to say. She knew that her grandfather was thinking of the lost
+boy, and she knew what a bitter blow the thing had been to him. She
+often thought that it would kill him before his old malady could run its
+course.
+
+But after a moment she said, very gently: "We won't give up hope. We'll
+never give up hope. Think! he might come home to-morrow! Who knows?"
+
+"If he has stayed away of his own accord," cried out old David Stewart,
+in a loud voice, "I'll never forgive him--not if he comes to me
+to-morrow on his knees! Not even if he comes to me on his knees!"
+
+The girl bent over her grandfather, saying: "Hush! hush! You mustn't
+excite yourself." But old David's gray face was working, and his eyes
+gleamed from their cavernous shadows with a savage fire.
+
+"If the boy is staying away out of spite," he repeated, "he need never
+come back to me. I won't forgive him." He beat his unemployed hand upon
+the table before him, and the things which lay there jumped and danced.
+"And if he waits until I'm dead and then comes back," said he, "he'll
+find he has made a mistake--a great mistake. He'll find a surprise in
+store for him, I can tell you that. I won't tell you what I have done,
+but it will be a disagreeable surprise for Master Arthur, you may be
+sure."
+
+The old gentleman fell to frowning and muttering in his choleric
+fashion, but the fierce glitter began to go out of his eyes and his
+hands ceased to tremble and clutch at the things before him. The girl
+was silent, because again there seemed to her to be nothing that she
+could say. She longed very much to plead her brother's cause, but she
+was sure that would only excite her grandfather, and he was growing
+quieter after his burst of anger. She bent down over him and kissed his
+cheek.
+
+"Try to go to sleep," she said. "And don't torture yourself with
+thinking about all this. I'm as sure that poor Arthur is not staying
+away out of spite as if he were myself. He's foolish and headstrong, but
+he's not spiteful, dear. Try to believe that. And now I'm really going.
+Good-night." She kissed him again and slipped out of the room. And as
+she closed the door she heard her grandfather pull the bell-cord which
+hung beside him and summoned the excellent Peters from the room beyond.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+V
+
+JASON SETS FORTH UPON THE GREAT ADVENTURE
+
+
+Miss Benham stood at one of the long drawing-room windows of the house
+in the rue de l'Université, and looked out between the curtains upon the
+rather grimy little garden, where a few not very prosperous cypresses
+and chestnuts stood guard over the rows of lilac shrubs and the
+box-bordered flower-beds and the usual moss-stained fountain. She was
+thinking of the events of the past month, the month which had elapsed
+since the evening of the De Saulnes' dinner-party. They were not at all
+startling events; in a practical sense there were no events at all, only
+a quiet sequence of affairs which was about as inevitable as the night
+upon the day--the day upon the night again. In a word, this girl, who
+had considered herself very strong and very much the mistress of her
+feelings, found, for the first time in her life, that her strength was
+as nothing at all against the potent charm and magnetism of a man who
+had almost none of the qualities she chiefly admired in men. During the
+month's time she had passed from a phase of angry self-scorn through a
+period of bewilderment not unmixed with fear, and from that she had come
+into an unknown world, a land very strange to her, where old standards
+and judgments seemed to be valueless--a place seemingly ruled altogether
+by new emotions, sweet and thrilling, or full of vague terrors as her
+mood veered here or there.
+
+That sublimated form of guesswork which is called "woman's intuition"
+told her that Ste. Marie would come to her on this afternoon, and that
+something in the nature of a crisis would have to be faced. It can be
+proved even by poor masculine mathematics that guesswork, like other
+gambling ventures, is bound to succeed about half the time, and it
+succeeded on this occasion. Even as Miss Benham stood at the window
+looking out through the curtains, M. Ste. Marie was announced from the
+doorway.
+
+She turned to meet him with a little frown of determination, for in his
+absence she was often very strong, indeed, and sometimes she made up and
+rehearsed little speeches of great dignity and decision in which she
+told him that he was attempting a quite hopeless thing, and, as a
+well-wishing friend, advised him to go away and attempt it no longer.
+But as Ste. Marie came quickly across the room toward her, the little
+frown wavered and at last fled from her face and another look came
+there. It was always so. The man's bodily presence exerted an absolute
+spell over her.
+
+"I have been sitting with your grandfather for half an hour," Ste. Marie
+said. And she said:
+
+"Oh, I'm glad! I'm very glad! You always cheer him up. He hasn't been
+too cheerful or too well of late." She unnecessarily twisted a chair
+about, and after a moment sat down in it. And she gave a little laugh.
+"This friendship which has grown up between my grandfather and you,"
+said she--"I don't understand it at all. Of course, he knew your father
+and all that; but you two seem such very different types, I shouldn't
+think you would amuse each other at all. There's Mr. Hartley, for
+example. I should expect my grandfather to like him very much better
+than you, but he doesn't--though I fancy he approves of him much more."
+
+She laughed again, but a different laugh; and when he heard it Ste.
+Marie's eyes gleamed a little and his hands moved beside him.
+
+"I expect," said she--"I expect, you know, that he just likes you
+without stopping to think why--as everybody else does. I fancy it's just
+that. What do you think?"
+
+"Oh, I?" said the man. "I--how should I know? I know it's a great
+privilege to be allowed to see him--such a man as that. And I know we
+get on wonderfully well. He doesn't condescend, as most old men do who
+have led important lives. We just talk as two men in a club might talk,
+and I tell him stories and make him laugh. Oh yes, we get on wonderfully
+well."
+
+"Oh," said she, "I've often wondered what you talk about. What did you
+talk about to-day?"
+
+Ste. Marie turned abruptly away from her and went across to one of the
+windows--the window where she had stood earlier, looking out upon the
+dingy garden. She saw him stand there, with his back turned, the head a
+little bent, the hands twisting together behind him, and a sudden fit of
+nervous shivering wrung her. Every woman knows when a certain thing is
+going to be said to her, and usually she is prepared for it, though
+usually, also, she says she is not. Miss Benham knew what was coming
+now, and she was frightened, not of Ste. Marie, but of herself. It meant
+so very much to her--more than to most women at such a time. It meant,
+if she said yes to him, the surrender of almost all the things she had
+cared for and hoped for. It meant the giving up of that career which old
+David Stewart had dwelt upon a month ago.
+
+Ste. Marie turned back into the room. He came a little way toward where
+the girl sat, and halted, and she could see that he was very pale. A
+sort of critical second self noticed that he was pale and was surprised,
+because, although men's faces often turn red, they seldom turn
+noticeably pale except in very great nervous crises--or in works of
+fiction; while women, on the contrary, may turn red and white twenty
+times a day, and no harm done. He raised his hands a little way from his
+sides in the beginning of a gesture, but they dropped again as if there
+was no strength in them.
+
+"I told him," said Ste. Marie, in a flat voice--"I told your grandfather
+that I--loved you more than anything in this world or in the next. I
+told him that my love for you had made another being of me--a new being.
+I told him that I wanted to come to you and to kneel at your feet, and
+to ask you if you could give me just a little, little hope--something to
+live for, a light to climb toward. That is what we talked about, your
+grandfather and I."
+
+"Ste. Marie! Ste. Marie!" said the girl, in a half whisper. "What did my
+grandfather say to you?" she asked, after a silence.
+
+Ste. Marie looked away.
+
+"I cannot tell you," he said. "He--was not quite sympathetic."
+
+The girl gave a little cry.
+
+"Tell me what he said!" she demanded. "I must know what he said."
+
+The man's eyes pleaded with her, but she held him with her gaze, and in
+the end he gave in.
+
+"He said I was a damned fool," said Ste. Marie.
+
+And the girl, after an instant of staring, broke into a little fit of
+nervous, overwrought laughter, and covered her face with her hands.
+
+He threw himself upon his knees before her, and her laughter died away.
+An Englishman or an American cannot do that. Richard Hartley, for
+example, would have looked like an idiot upon his knees, and he would
+have felt it. But it did not seem extravagant with Ste. Marie. It became
+him.
+
+"Listen! Listen!" he cried to her, but the girl checked him before he
+could go on.
+
+She dropped her hands from her face, and she bent a little forward over
+the man as he knelt there. She put out her hands and took his head for a
+swift instant between them, looking down into his eyes. At the touch a
+sudden wave of tenderness swept her--almost an engulfing wave; it almost
+overwhelmed her and bore her away from the land she knew. And so when
+she spoke her voice was not quite steady. She said:
+
+"Ah, dear Ste. Marie! I cannot pretend to be cold toward you. You have
+laid a spell upon me, Ste. Marie. You enchant us all, somehow, don't
+you? I suppose I'm not so different from the others as I thought I was.
+And yet," she said, "he was right, you know. My grandfather was right.
+No, let me talk, now. I must talk for a little. I must try to tell you
+how it is with me--try somehow to find a way. He was right. He meant
+that you and I were utterly unsuited to each other, and so, in calm
+moments, I know we are. I know that well enough. When you're not with
+me, I feel very sure about it. I think of a thousand excellent reasons
+why you and I ought to be no more to each other than friends. Do you
+know, I think my grandfather is a little uncanny. I think he has
+prophetic powers. They say very old people often have. He and I talked
+about you when I came home from that dinner-party at the De Saulnes', a
+month ago--the dinner-party where you and I first met. I told him that I
+had met a man whom I liked very much--a man with great charm; and though
+I must have said the same sort of thing to him before about other men,
+he was quite oddly disturbed, and talked for a long time about it--about
+the sort of man I ought to marry and the sort I ought not to marry. It
+was unusual for him. He seldom says anything of that kind. Yes, he is
+right. You see, I'm ambitious in a particular way. If I marry at all I
+ought to marry a man who is working hard in politics or in something of
+that kind. I could help him. We could do a great deal together."
+
+"I could go into politics!" cried Ste. Marie; but she shook her head,
+smiling down upon him.
+
+"No, not you, my dear. Politics least of all. You could be a soldier, if
+you chose. You could fight as your father and your grandfather and the
+others of your house have done. You could lead a forlorn hope in the
+field. You could suffer and starve and go on fighting. You could die
+splendidly, but--politics, no! That wants a tougher shell than you have.
+And a soldier's wife! Of what use to him is she?"
+
+Ste. Marie's face was very grave. He looked up to her, smiling.
+
+"Do you set ambition before love, my Queen?" he asked, and she did not
+answer him at once.
+
+She looked into his eyes, and she was as grave as he.
+
+"Is love all?" she said, at last. "Is love all? Ought one to think of
+nothing but love when one is settling one's life forever? I wonder? I
+look about me, Ste. Marie," she said, "and in the lives of my
+friends--the people who seem to me to be most worth while, the people
+who are making the world's history for good or ill--and it seems to me
+that in their lives love has the second place--or the third. I wonder if
+one has the right to set it first. There is, of course," she said, "the
+merely domestic type of woman--the woman who has no thought and no
+interest beyond her home. I am not that type of woman. Perhaps I wish I
+were. Certainly they are the happiest. But I was brought up among--well,
+among important people--men of my grandfather's kind. All my training
+has been toward that life. Have I the right, I wonder, to give it all
+up?"
+
+The man stirred at her feet, and she put out her hands to him quickly.
+
+"Do I seem brutal?" she cried. "Oh, I don't want to be! Do I seem very
+ungenerous and wrapped up in my own side of the thing? I don't mean to
+be that, but--I'm not sure. I expect it's that. I'm not sure, and I
+think I'm a little frightened." She gave him a brief, anxious smile that
+was not without its tenderness. "I'm so sure," she said, "when I'm away
+from you. But when you're here--oh, I forget all I've thought of. You
+lay your spell upon me."
+
+Ste. Marie gave a little wordless cry of joy. He caught her two hands in
+his and held them against his lips. Again that great wave of tenderness
+swept her, almost engulfing. But when it had ebbed she sank back once
+more in her chair, and she withdrew her hands from his clasp.
+
+"You make me forget too much," she said. "I think you make me forget
+everything that I ought to remember. Oh, Ste. Marie, have I any right to
+think of love and happiness while this terrible mystery is upon
+us--while we don't know whether poor Arthur is alive or dead? You've
+seen what it has brought my grandfather to! It is killing him. He has
+been much worse in the past fortnight. And my mother is hardly a ghost
+of herself in these days. Ah, it is brutal of me to think of my own
+affairs--to dream of happiness at such a time." She smiled across at him
+very sadly. "You see what you have brought me to!" she said.
+
+Ste. Marie rose to his feet. If Miss Benham, absorbed in that warfare
+which raged within her, had momentarily forgotten the cloud of sorrow
+under which her household lay, so much the more had he, to whom the
+sorrow was less intimate, forgotten it. But he was ever swift to
+sympathy, Ste. Marie--as quick as a woman, and as tender. He could not
+thrust his love upon the girl at such a time as this. He turned a little
+away from her, and so remained for a moment. When he faced about again
+the flush had gone from his cheeks and the fire from his eyes. Only
+tenderness was left there.
+
+"There has been no news at all this week?" he asked, and the girl shook
+her head.
+
+"None! None! Shall we ever have news of him, I wonder? Must we go on
+always and never know? It seems to me almost incredible that any one
+could disappear so completely. And yet, I dare say, many people have
+done it before and have been as carefully sought for. If only I could
+believe that he is alive! If only I could believe that!"
+
+"I believe it," said Ste. Marie.
+
+"Ah," she said, "you say that to cheer me. You have no reason to offer."
+
+"Dead bodies very seldom disappear completely," said he. "If your
+brother died anywhere there would be a record of the death. If he were
+accidentally killed there would be a record of that, too; and, of
+course, you are having all such records constantly searched?"
+
+"Oh yes," she said. "Yes, of course--at least, I suppose so. My uncle
+has been directing the search. Of course, he would take an obvious
+precaution like that."
+
+"Naturally," said Ste. Marie. "Your uncle, I should say, is an unusually
+careful man." He paused a moment to smile. "He makes his little
+mistakes, though. I told you about that man O'Hara, and about how sure
+Captain Stewart was that the name was Powers. Do you know"--Ste. Marie
+had been walking up and down the room, but he halted to face her--"do
+you know, I have a very strong feeling that if one could find this man
+O'Hara, one would learn something about what became of your brother? I
+have no reason for thinking that, but I feel it."
+
+"Oh," said the girl, doubtfully, "I hardly think that could be so. What
+motive could the man have for harming my brother?"
+
+"None," said Ste. Marie; "but he might have an excellent motive for
+hiding him away--kidnapping him. Is that the word? Yes, I know, you're
+going to say that no demand has been made for money, and that is where
+my argument--if I can call it an argument--is weak. But the fellow may
+be biding his time. Anyhow, I should like to have five minutes alone
+with him. I'll tell you another thing. It's a trifle, and it may be of
+no consequence, but I add it to my vague and--if you like--foolish
+feeling, and make something out of it. I happened, some days ago, to
+meet at the Café de Paris a man who I knew used to know this O'Hara. He
+was not, I think, a friend of his at all, but an acquaintance. I asked
+him what had become of O'Hara, saying that I hadn't seen him in some
+weeks. Well, this man said O'Hara had gone away somewhere a couple of
+months ago. He didn't seem at all surprised, for it appears the
+Irishman--if he is an Irishman--is decidedly a haphazard sort of person,
+here to-day, gone to-morrow. No, the man wasn't surprised, but he was
+rather angry, because he said O'Hara owed him some money. I said I
+thought he must be mistaken about the fellow's absence, because I'd seen
+him in the street within the month--on the evening of our dinner-party,
+you remember--but this man was very sure that I had made a mistake. He
+said that if O'Hara had been in town he was sure to have known it. Well,
+the point is here. Your brother disappears at a certain time. At the
+same time this Irish adventurer disappears, too, _and_ your brother was
+known to have frequented the Irishman's company. It may be only a
+coincidence, but I can't help feeling that there's something in it."
+
+Miss Benham was sitting up straight in her chair with a little alert
+frown.
+
+"Have you spoken of this to my uncle?" she demanded.
+
+"Well--no," said Ste. Marie. "Not the latter part of it--that is, not my
+having heard of O'Hara's disappearance. In the first place, I learned of
+that only three days ago, and I have not seen Captain Stewart since--I
+rather expected to find him here to-day; and, in the second place, I was
+quite sure that he would only laugh. He has laughed at me two or three
+times for suggesting that this Irishman might know something. Captain
+Stewart is--not easy to convince, you know."
+
+"I know," she said, looking away. "He's always very certain that he's
+right. Well, perhaps he is right. Who knows?" She gave a little sob.
+"Oh!" she cried, "shall we ever have my brother back? Shall we ever see
+him again? It is breaking my heart, Ste. Marie, and it is killing my
+grandfather and, I think, my mother, too! Oh, can nothing be done?"
+
+Ste. Marie was walking up and down the floor before her, his hands
+clasped behind his back. When she had finished speaking the girl saw him
+halt beside one of the windows, and after a moment she saw his head go
+up sharply and she heard him give a sudden cry. She thought he had seen
+something from the window which had wrung that exclamation from him, and
+she asked:
+
+"What is it?"
+
+But abruptly the man turned back into the room and came across to where
+she sat. It seemed to her that his face had a new look--a very strange
+exaltation which she had never before seen there. He said:
+
+"Listen! I do not know if anything can be done that has not been done
+already, but if there is anything I shall do it, you may be sure."
+
+"_You_, Ste. Marie?" she cried, in a sharp voice. "_You?_"
+
+"And why not I?" he demanded.
+
+"Oh, my friend," said she, "you could do nothing! You wouldn't know
+where to turn, how to set to work. Remember that a score of men who are
+skilled in this kind of thing have been searching for two months. What
+could you do that they haven't done?"
+
+"I do not know, my Queen," said Ste. Marie, "but I shall do what I can.
+Who knows? Sometimes the fool who rushes in where angels have feared to
+tread succeeds where they have failed. Oh, let me do this!" he cried
+out. "Let me do it for both our sakes--for yours and for mine! It is for
+your sake most. I swear that! It is to set you at peace again, bring
+back the happiness you have lost. But it is for my sake, too, a little.
+It will be a test of me, a trial. If I can succeed here where so many
+have failed, if I bring back your brother to you--or, at least, discover
+what has become of him--I shall be able to come to you with less shame
+for my--unworthiness."
+
+He looked down upon her with eager, burning eyes, and, after a little,
+the girl rose to face him. She was very white, and she stared at him
+silently.
+
+"When I came to you to-day," he went on, "I knew that I had nothing to
+offer you but my faithful love and my life, which has been a life
+without value. In exchange for that I asked too much. I knew it, and you
+knew it, too. I know well enough what sort of man you ought to marry,
+and what a brilliant career you could make for yourself in the proper
+place--what great influence you could wield. But I asked you to give
+that all up, and I hadn't anything to offer in its place--nothing but
+love. My Queen, give me a chance now to offer you more! If I can bring
+back your brother or news of him, I can come to you without shame and
+ask you to marry me, because if I can succeed in that you will know that
+I can succeed in other things. You will be able to trust me. You'll know
+that I can climb. It shall be a sort of symbol. Let me go!"
+
+The girl broke into a sort of sobbing laughter.
+
+"Oh, divine madman!" she cried. "Are you all mad, you Ste. Maries, that
+you must be forever leading forlorn hopes? Oh, how you are, after all, a
+Ste. Marie! Now, at last, I know why one cannot but love you. You're the
+knight of old. You're chivalry come down to us. You're a ghost out of
+the past when men rode in armor with pure hearts seeking the Great
+Adventure. Oh, my friend," she said, "be wise. Give this up in time. It
+is a beautiful thought, and I love you for it, but it is madness--yes,
+yes, a sweet madness, but mad, nevertheless! What possible chance would
+you have of success? And think--think how failure would hurt you--and
+me! You must not do it, Ste. Marie."
+
+"Failure will never hurt me, my Queen," said he, "because there are no
+hurts in the grave, and I shall never give over searching until I
+succeed or until I am dead." His face was uplifted, and there was a sort
+of splendid fervor upon it. It was as if it shone.
+
+The girl stared at him dumbly. She began to realize that the knightly
+spirit of those gallant, long dead gentlemen was indeed descended upon
+the last of their house, that he burnt with the same pure fire which had
+long ago lighted them through quest and adventure, and she was a little
+afraid with an almost superstitious fear. She put out her hands upon the
+man's shoulders, and she moved a little closer to him, holding him.
+
+"Oh, madness, madness!" she said, watching his face.
+
+"Let me do it!" said Ste. Marie.
+
+And after a silence that seemed to endure for a long time, she sighed,
+shaking her head, and said she:
+
+"Oh, my friend, there is no strength in me to stop you. I think we are
+both a little mad, and I know that you are very mad, but I cannot say
+no. You seem to have come out of another century to take up this quest.
+How can I prevent you? But listen to one thing. If I accept this
+sacrifice, if I let you give your time and your strength to this almost
+hopeless attempt, it must be understood that it is to be within certain
+limits. I will not accept any indefinite thing. You may give your
+efforts to trying to find trace of my brother for a month if you like,
+or for three months, or six, or even a year, but not for more than that.
+If he is not found in a year's time we shall know that--we shall know
+that he is dead, and that--further search is useless. I cannot say how
+I--Oh, Ste. Marie, Ste. Marie, this is a proof of you, indeed! And I
+have called you idle. I have said hard things of you. It is very bitter
+to me to think that I have said those things."
+
+"They were true, my Queen," said he, smiling. "They were quite, quite
+true. It is for me to prove now that they shall be true no longer." He
+took the girl's hand in his rather ceremoniously, and bent his head and
+kissed it. As he did so he was aware that she stirred, all at once,
+uneasily, and when he had raised his head he looked at her in question.
+
+"I thought some one was coming into the room," she explained, looking
+beyond him. "I thought some one started to come in between the portières
+yonder. It must have been a servant."
+
+"Then it is understood," said Ste. Marie. "To bring you back your
+happiness, and to prove myself in some way worthy of your love, I am to
+devote myself with all my effort and all my strength to finding your
+brother or some trace of him, and until I succeed I will not see your
+face again, my Queen."
+
+"Oh, that!" she cried--"that, too?"
+
+"I will not see you," said he, "until I bring you news of him, or until
+my year is passed and I have failed utterly. I know what risk I run. If
+I fail, I lose you. That is understood, too. But if I succeed--"
+
+"Then?" she said, breathing quickly. "Then?"
+
+"Then," said he, "I shall come to you, and I shall feel no shame in
+asking you to marry me, because then you will know that there is in me
+some little worthiness, and that in our lives together you need not be
+buried in obscurity--lost to the world."
+
+"I cannot find any words to say," said she. "I am feeling just now very
+humble and very ashamed. It seems that I haven't known you at all. Oh
+yes, I am ashamed."
+
+The girl's face, habitually so cool and composed, was flushed with a
+beautiful flush, and it had softened, and it seemed to quiver between a
+smile and a tear. With a swift movement she leaned close to him, holding
+by his shoulder, and for an instant her cheek was against his. She
+whispered to him:
+
+"Oh, find him quickly, my dear! Find him quickly, and come back to me!"
+
+Ste. Marie began to tremble, and she stood away from him. Once he looked
+up, but the flush was gone from Miss Benham's cheeks and she was pale
+again. She stood with her hands tight clasped over her breast. So he
+bowed to her very low, and turned and went out of the room and out of
+the house.
+
+So quickly did he move at this last that a man who had been, for some
+moments, standing just outside the portières of the doorway had barely
+time to step aside into the shadows of the dim hall. As it was, Ste.
+Marie, in a more normal moment, must have seen that the man was there;
+but his eyes were blind, and he saw nothing. He groped for his hat and
+stick as if the place were a place of gloom, and, because the footman
+who should have been at the door was in regions unknown, he let himself
+out, and so went away.
+
+Then the man who stood apart in the shadows crossed the hall to a small
+room which was furnished as a library, but not often used. He closed the
+door behind him, and went to one of the windows which gave upon the
+street. And he stood there for a long time, drawing absurd invisible
+pictures upon the glass with one finger and staring thoughtfully out
+into the late June afternoon.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+VI
+
+A BRAVE GENTLEMAN RECEIVES A HURT, BUT VOLUNTEERS IN A GOOD CAUSE
+
+
+When Ste. Marie had gone, Miss Benham sat alone in the drawing-room for
+almost an hour. She had been stirred that afternoon more deeply than she
+thought she had ever been stirred before, and she needed time to regain
+that cool poise, that mental equilibrium, which was normal to her and
+necessary for coherent thought.
+
+She was still in a sort of fever of bewilderment and exaltation, still
+all aglow with the man's own high fervor; but the second self which so
+often sat apart from her, and looked on with critical, mocking eyes,
+whispered that to-morrow, the fever past, the fervor cooled, she must
+see the thing in its true light--a glorious lunacy born of a moment of
+enthusiasm. It was finely romantic of him, this mocking second self
+whispered to her--picturesque beyond criticism--but, setting aside the
+practical folly of it, could even the mood last?
+
+The girl rose to her feet with an angry exclamation. She found herself
+intolerable at such times as this.
+
+"If there's a heaven," she cried out, "and by chance I ever go there, I
+suppose I shall walk sneering through the streets and saying to myself:
+'Oh yes, it's pretty enough, but how absurd and unpractical!'"
+
+She passed before one of the small, narrow mirrors which were let into
+the walls of the room in gilt Louis Seize frames with candles beside
+them, and she turned and stared at her very beautiful reflection with a
+resentful wonder.
+
+"Shall I always drag along so far behind him?" she said. "Shall I never
+rise to him, save in the moods of an hour?"
+
+She began suddenly to realize what the man's going away meant--that she
+might not see him again for weeks, months, even a year. For was it at
+all likely that he could succeed in what he had undertaken?
+
+"Why did I let him go?" she cried. "Oh, fool, fool, to let him go!" But
+even as she said it she knew that she could not have held him back.
+
+She began to be afraid, not for him, but of herself. He had taught her
+what it might be to love. For the first time love's premonitory
+thrill--promise of unspeakable, uncomprehended mysteries--had wrung her,
+and the echo of that thrill stirred in her yet; but what might not
+happen in his long absence? She was afraid of that critical and
+analyzing power of mind which she had so long trained to attack all that
+came to her. What might it not work with the new thing that had come? To
+what pitiful shreds might it not be rent while he who only could renew
+it was away? She looked ahead at the weeks and months to come, and she
+was terribly afraid.
+
+She went out of the room and up to her grandfather's chamber and knocked
+there. The admirable Peters, who opened to her, said that his master had
+not been very well, and was just then asleep, but as they spoke together
+in low tones the old gentleman cried, testily, from within:
+
+"Well? Well? Who's there? Who wants to see me? Who is it?"
+
+Miss Benham went into the dim, shaded room, and when old David saw who
+it was he sank back upon his pillows with a pacified growl. He certainly
+looked ill, and he had grown thinner and whiter within the past month,
+and the lines in his waxlike face seemed to be deeper scored.
+
+The girl went up beside the bed and stood there a moment, after she had
+bent over and kissed her grandfather's cheek, stroking with her hand the
+absurdly gorgeous mandarin's jacket--an imperial yellow one this time.
+
+"Isn't this new?" she asked. "I seem never to have seen this one before.
+It's quite wonderful."
+
+The old gentleman looked down at it with the pride of a little girl over
+her first party frock. He came as near simpering as a fierce person of
+eighty-six, with a square white beard, can come.
+
+"Rather good--what? What?" said he. "Yes, it's new. De Vries sent it me.
+It is my best one. Imperial yellow. Did you notice the little Show
+medallions with the swastika? Young Ste. Marie was here this afternoon."
+He introduced the name with no pause or change of expression, as if Ste.
+Marie were a part of the decoration of the mandarin's jacket. "I told
+him he was a damned fool."
+
+"Yes," said Miss Benham, "I know. He said you did. I suppose," she said,
+"that in a sort of very informal fashion I am engaged to him. Well, no,
+perhaps not quite that; but he seems to consider himself engaged to me,
+and when he has finished something very important that he has undertaken
+to do he is coming to ask me definitely to marry him. No, I suppose we
+aren't engaged yet; at least, I'm not. But it's almost the same, because
+I suppose I shall accept him whether he fails or succeeds in what he is
+doing."
+
+"If he fails in it, whatever it may be," said old David, "he won't give
+you a chance to accept him; he won't come back. I know him well enough
+for that. He's a romantic fool, but he's a thoroughgoing fool. He plays
+the game." The old man looked up to his granddaughter, scowling a
+little. "You two are absurdly unsuited to each other," said he, "and I
+told Ste. Marie so. I suppose you think you're in love with him."
+
+"Yes," said the girl, "I suppose I do."
+
+"Idleness and all? You were rather severe on idleness at one time."
+
+"He isn't idle any more," said she. "He has undertaken--of his own
+accord--to find Arthur. He has some theory about it; and he is not going
+to see me again until he has succeeded--or until a year is past. If he
+fails, I fancy he won't come back."
+
+Old David gave a sudden hoarse exclamation, and his withered hands shook
+and stirred before him. Afterward he fell to half-inarticulate
+muttering.
+
+"The young romantic fool!--Don Quixote--like all the rest of them--those
+Ste. Maries. The fool and the angels. The angels and the fool."
+
+The girl distinguished words from time to time. For the most part, he
+mumbled under his breath. But when he had been silent a long time, he
+said, suddenly:
+
+"It would be ridiculously like him to succeed."
+
+The girl gave a little sigh.
+
+"I wish I dared hope for it," said she. "I wish I dared hope for it."
+
+She had left a book that she wanted in the drawing-room, and, when
+presently her grandfather fell asleep in his fitful manner, she went
+down after it. In crossing the hall she came upon Captain Stewart, who
+was dressed for the street and had his hat and stick in his hands. He
+did not live in his father's house, for he had a little flat in the rue
+du Faubourg St. Honoré, but he was in and out a good deal. He paused
+when he saw his niece, and smiled upon her a benignant smile which she
+rather disliked, because she disliked benignant people. The two really
+saw very little of each other, though Captain Stewart often sat for
+hours together with his sister, up in a little boudoir which she had
+furnished in the execrable taste which to her meant comfort, while that
+timid and colorless lady embroidered strange tea cloths with stranger
+flora, and prattled about the heathen, in whom she had an academic
+interest.
+
+He said: "Ah, my dear! It's you?"
+
+Indisputably it was, and there seemed to be no use of denying it, so
+Miss Benham said nothing, but waited for the man to go on if he had more
+to say.
+
+"I dropped in," he continued, "to see my father, but they told me he was
+asleep, and so I didn't disturb him. I talked a little while with your
+mother instead."
+
+"I have just come from him," said Miss Benham. "He dozed off again as I
+left. Still, if you had anything in particular to tell him, he'd be glad
+to be wakened, I fancy. There's no news?"
+
+"No," said Captain Stewart, sadly--"no, nothing. I do not give up hope,
+but I am, I confess, a little discouraged."
+
+"We are all that, I should think," said Miss Benham, briefly.
+
+She gave him a little nod and turned away into the drawing-room. Her
+uncle's peculiar dry manner irritated her at times beyond bearing, and
+she felt that this was one of the times. She had never had any reason
+for doubting that he Was a good and kindly soul, but she disliked him
+because he bored her. Her mother bored her, too--the poor woman bored
+everybody--but the sense of filial obligation was strong enough in the
+girl to prevent her from acknowledging this even to herself. In regard
+to her uncle she had no sense of obligation whatever, except to be as
+civil to him as possible, and so she kept out of his way. She heard the
+heavy front door close, and gave a little sigh of relief.
+
+"If he had come in here and tried to talk to me," she said, "I should
+have screamed."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Meanwhile Ste. Marie, a man moving in a dream, uplifted,
+cloud-enwrapped, made his way homeward. He walked all the long
+distance--that is, looking backward upon it, later, he thought he must
+have walked, but the half-hour was a blank to him, an indeterminate, a
+chaotic whirl of things and emotions.
+
+In the little flat in the rue d'Assas he came upon Richard Hartley, who,
+having found the door unlocked and the master of the place absent, had
+sat comfortably down, with a pipe and a stack of _Couriers Français_, to
+wait. Ste. Marie burst into the doorway of the room where his friend sat
+at ease. Hat, gloves, and stick fell away from him in a sort of shower.
+He extended his arms high in the air. His face was, as it were,
+luminous. The Englishman regarded him morosely. He said:
+
+"You look as if somebody had died and left you money. What the devil you
+looking like that for?"
+
+"Hé!" cried Ste. Marie, in a great voice. "Hé, the world is mine!
+Embrace me, my infant! Sacred name of a pig, why do you sit there?
+Embrace me!"
+
+He began to stride about the room, his head between his hands. Speech
+lofty and ridiculous burst from him in a sort of splutter of fireworks,
+but the Englishman sat still in his chair, and a gray, bleak look came
+upon him, for he began to understand. He was more or less used to these
+outbursts, and he bore them as patiently as he could, but though seven
+times out of the ten they were no more than spasms of pure joy of
+living, and meant, "It's a fine spring day," or "I've just seen two
+beautiful princesses of milliners in the street," an inner voice told
+him that this time it meant another thing. Quite suddenly he realized
+that he had been waiting for this--bracing himself against its
+onslaught. He had not been altogether blind through the past month. Ste.
+Marie seized him and dragged him from his chair.
+
+"Dance, lump of flesh! Dance, sacred English rosbif that you are! Sing,
+gros polisson! Sing!" Abruptly, as usual, the mania departed from him,
+but not the glory; his eyes shone bright and triumphant. "Ah, my old,"
+said he, "I am near the stars at last. My feet are on the top rungs of
+the ladder. Tell me that you are glad!"
+
+The Englishman drew a long breath.
+
+"I take it," said he, "that means that you're--that she has accepted
+you, eh?" He held out his hand. He was a brave and honest man. Even in
+pain he was incapable of jealousy. He said: "I ought to want to murder
+you, but I don't. I congratulate you. You're an undeserving beggar, but
+so were the rest of us. It was an open field, and you've won quite
+honestly. My best wishes!"
+
+Then at last Ste. Marie understood, and in a flash the glory went out of
+his face. He cried: "Ah, mon cher ami! Pig that I am to forget. Pig!
+Pig! Animal!"
+
+The other man saw that tears had sprung to his eyes, and was horribly
+embarrassed to the very bottom of his good British soul.
+
+"Yes! Yes!" he said, gruffly. "Quite so, quite so! No consequence!" He
+dragged his hands away from Ste. Marie's grasp, stuck them in his
+pockets, and turned to the window beside which he had been sitting. It
+looked out over the sweet green peace of the Luxembourg Gardens, with
+their winding paths and their clumps of trees and shrubbery, their
+flaming flower-beds, their groups of weather-stained sculpture. A youth
+in laborer's corduroys and an unclean beret strolled along under the
+high palings; one arm was about the ample waist of a woman somewhat the
+youth's senior, but, as ever, love was blind. The youth carolled in a
+high, clear voice, "Vous êtes si jolie," a song of abundant sentiment,
+and the woman put up one hand and patted his cheek. So they strolled on
+and turned up into the rue Vavin.
+
+Ste. Marie, across the room, looked at his friend's square back, and
+knew that in his silent way the man was suffering. A great sadness, the
+recoil from his trembling heights of bliss, came upon him and enveloped
+him. Was it true that one man's joy must inevitably be another's pain?
+He tried to imagine himself in Hartley's place, Hartley in his, and he
+gave a little shiver. He knew that if that bouleversement were actually
+to take place he would be as glad for his friend's sake as poor Hartley
+was now for his, but he knew also that the smile of congratulation would
+be a grimace of almost intolerable pain, and so he knew what Hartley's
+black hour must be like.
+
+"You must forgive me," he said. "I had forgotten. I don't know why.
+Well, yes, happiness is a very selfish state of mind, I suppose. One
+thinks of nothing but one's self--and one other. I--during this past
+month I've been in the clouds. You must forgive me."
+
+The Englishman turned back into the room. Ste. Marie saw that his face
+was as completely devoid of expression as it usually was, that his
+hands, when he chose and lighted a cigarette, were quite steady, and he
+marvelled. That would have been impossible for him under such
+circumstances.
+
+"She has accepted you, I take it?" said Hartley again.
+
+"Not quite that," said he. "Sit down and I'll tell you about it." So he
+told him about his hour with Miss Benham, and about what had been agreed
+upon between them, and about what he had undertaken to do. "Apart from
+wishing to do everything in this world that I can do to make her happy,"
+he said--"and she will never be at peace again until she knows the truth
+about her brother--apart from that, I'm purely selfish in the thing.
+I've got to win her respect, as well as--the rest. I want her to respect
+me, and she has never quite done that. I'm an idler. So are you, but you
+have a perfectly good excuse. I have not. I've been an idler because it
+suited me, because nothing turned up, and because I have enough to eat
+without working for my living. I know how she has felt about all that.
+Well, she shall feel it no longer."
+
+"You're taking on a big order," said the other man.
+
+"The bigger the better," said Ste. Marie. "And I shall succeed in it or
+never see her again. I've sworn that."
+
+The odd look of exaltation that Miss Benham had seen in his face, the
+look of knightly fervor, came there again, and Hartley saw it, and knew
+that the man was stirred by no transient whim. Oddly enough he thought,
+as had the girl earlier in the day, of those elder Ste. Maries, who had
+taken sword and lance and gone out into a strange world--a place of
+unknown terrors--afire for the Great Adventure. And this was one of
+their blood.
+
+"I'm afraid you don't realize," he went on, "the difficulties you've got
+to face. Better men than you have failed over this thing, you know."
+
+"A worse might nevertheless succeed," said Ste. Marie. And the other
+said:
+
+"Yes. Oh yes. And there's always luck to be considered, of course. You
+might stumble on some trace." He threw away his cigarette and lighted
+another, and he smoked it down almost to the end before he spoke. At
+last he said: "I want to tell you something. The reason why I want to
+tell it comes a little later. A few weeks before you returned to Paris I
+asked Miss Benham to marry me."
+
+Ste. Marie looked up with a quick sympathy. "Ah," said he. "I have
+sometimes thought--wondered. I have wondered if it went as far as that.
+Of course, I could see that you had known her well, though you seldom go
+there nowadays."
+
+"Yes," said Hartley, "it went as far as that, but no farther. She--well,
+she didn't care for me--not in that way. So I stiffened my back and shut
+my mouth, and got used to the fact that what I'd hoped for was
+impossible. And now comes the reason for telling you what I've told. I
+want you to let me help you in what you're going to do--if you think you
+can, that is. Remember, I--cared for her, too. I'd like to do something
+for her. It would never have occurred to me to do this until you thought
+of it, but I should like very much to lend a hand--do some of the work.
+D'you think you could let me in?"
+
+Ste. Marie stared at him in open astonishment, and, for an instant,
+something like dismay.
+
+"Yes, yes! I know what you're thinking," said the Englishman. "You'd
+hoped to do it all yourself. It's _your_ game. I know. Well, it's your
+game even if you let me come in. I'm just a helper. Some one to run
+errands. Some one, perhaps, to take counsel with now and then. Look at
+it on the practical side. Two heads are certainly better than one.
+Certainly I could be of use to you. And besides--well, I want to do
+something for her. I--cared, too, you see. D'you think you could take me
+in?"
+
+It was the man's love that made his appeal irresistible. No one could
+appeal to Ste. Marie on that score in vain. It was true that he had
+hoped to work alone--to win or lose alone; to stand, in this matter,
+quite on his own feet; but he could not deny the man who had loved her
+and lost her. Ste. Marie thrust out his hand.
+
+"You love her, too!" he said. "That is enough. We work together. I have
+a possibly foolish idea that if we can find a certain man we will learn
+something about Arthur Benham. I'll tell you about it."
+
+But before he could begin the door-bell jangled.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+VII
+
+CAPTAIN STEWART MAKES A KINDLY OFFER
+
+
+Ste. Marie scowled.
+
+"A caller would come singularly malapropos just now," said he. "I've
+half a mind not to go to the door. I want to talk this thing over with
+you."
+
+"Whoever it is," objected Hartley, "has been told by the concierge that
+you're at home. It may not be a caller, anyhow. It may be a parcel or
+something. You'd best go."
+
+So Ste. Marie went out into the little passage, blaspheming fluently the
+while. The Englishman heard him open the outer door of the flat. He
+heard him exclaim, in great surprise:
+
+"Ah, Captain Stewart! A great pleasure! Come in! Come in!"
+
+And he permitted himself a little blaspheming on his own account, for
+the visitor, as Ste. Marie had said, came most malapropos, and, besides,
+he disliked Miss Benham's uncle. He heard the American say:
+
+"I have been hoping for some weeks to give myself the pleasure of
+calling here, and to-day such an excellent pretext presented itself that
+I came straightaway."
+
+Hartley heard him emit his mewing little laugh, and heard him say, with
+the elephantine archness affected by certain dry and middle-aged
+gentlemen:
+
+"I come with congratulations. My niece has told me all about it. Lucky
+young man! Ah--"
+
+He reached the door of the inner room and saw Richard Hartley standing
+by the window, and he began to apologize profusely, saying that he had
+had no idea that Ste. Marie was not alone. But Ste. Marie said:
+
+"It doesn't in the least matter. I have no secrets from Hartley. Indeed,
+I have just been talking with him about this very thing."
+
+But for all that he looked curiously at the elder man, and it struck him
+as very odd that Miss Benham should have gone straight to her uncle and
+told him all this. It did not seem in the least like her, especially as
+he knew the two were on no terms of intimacy. He decided that she must
+have gone up to her grandfather's room to discuss it with that old
+gentleman--a reasonable enough hypothesis--and that Captain Stewart must
+have come in during the discussion. Quite evidently he had wasted no
+time in setting out upon his errand of congratulation.
+
+"Then," said Captain Stewart, "if I am to be good-naturedly forgiven for
+my stupidity, let me go on and say, in my capacity as a member of the
+family, that the news pleased me very much. I was glad to hear it."
+
+He shook Ste. Marie's hand, looking very benignant indeed, and Ste.
+Marie was quite overcome with pleasure and gratitude; it seemed to him
+such a very kindly act in the elder man. He produced things to smoke and
+drink, and Captain Stewart accepted a cigarette and mixed himself a
+rather stiff glass of absinthe--it was between five and six o'clock.
+
+"And now," said he, when he was at ease in the most comfortable of the
+low cane chairs, and the glass of opalescent liquor was properly curdled
+and set at hand--"now, having congratulated you and--ah, welcomed you,
+if I may put it so, as a probable future member of the family--I turn to
+the other feature of the affair."
+
+He had an odd trick of lowering his head and gazing benevolently upon an
+auditor as if over the top of spectacles. It was one of his elderly
+ways. He beamed now upon Ste. Marie in this manner, and, after a moment,
+turned and beamed upon Richard Hartley, who gazed stolidly back at him
+without expression.
+
+"You have determined, I hear," said he, "to join us in our search for
+poor Arthur. Good! Good! I welcome you there, also."
+
+Ste. Marie stirred uneasily in his chair.
+
+"Well," said he, "in a sense, yes. That is, I've determined to devote
+myself to the search, and Hartley is good enough to offer to go in with
+me; but I think, if you don't mind--of course, I know it's very
+presumptuous and doubtless idiotic of us--but, if you don't mind, I
+think we'll work independently. You see--well, I can't quite put it into
+words, but it's our idea to succeed or fail quite by our own efforts. I
+dare say we shall fail, but it won't be for lack of trying."
+
+Captain Stewart looked disappointed.
+
+"Oh, I think--" said he. "Pardon me for saying it, but I think you're
+rather foolish to do that." He waved an apologetic hand. "Of course, I
+comprehend your excellent motive. Yes, as you say, you want to succeed
+quite on your own. But look at the practical side! You'll have to go
+over all the weary weeks of useless labor we have gone over. We could
+save you that. We have examined and followed up, and at last given over,
+a hundred clews that on the surface looked quite possible of success.
+You'll be doing that all over again. In short, my dear friend, you will
+merely be following along a couple of months behind us. It seems to me a
+pity. I sha'n't like to see you wasting your time and efforts."
+
+He dropped his eyes to the glass of Pernod which stood beside him, and
+he took it in his hand and turned it slowly and watched the light gleam
+in strange pearl colors upon it. He glanced up again with a little smile
+which the two younger men found oddly pathetic.
+
+"I should like to see you succeed," said Captain Stewart. "I like to see
+youth and courage and high hope succeed." He said: "I am past the age of
+romance, though I am not so very old in years. Romance has passed me by,
+but--I love it still. It still stirs me surprisingly when I see it in
+other people--young people who are simple and earnest, and who--and who
+are in love." He laughed gently, still turning the glass in his hand. "I
+am afraid you will call me a sentimentalist," he said, "and an elderly
+sentimentalist is, as a rule, a ridiculous person. Ridiculous or not,
+though, I have rather set my heart on your success in this undertaking.
+Who knows? You may succeed where we others have failed. Youth has such a
+way of charging in and carrying all before it by assault--such a way of
+overleaping barriers that look unsurmountable to older eyes! Youth!
+Youth! Eh, my God," said he, "to be young again, just for a little
+while! To feel the blood beat strong and eager! Never to be tired! Eh,
+to be like one of you youngsters! You, Ste. Marie, or you, Hartley!
+There's so little left for people when youth is gone!"
+
+He bent his head again, staring down upon the glass before him, and for
+a while there was a silence which neither of the younger men cared to
+break.
+
+"Don't refuse a helping hand," said Captain Stewart, looking up once
+more. "Don't be over-proud. I may be able to set you upon the right
+path. Not that I have anything definite to work upon--I haven't, alas!
+But each day new clews turn up. One day we shall find the real one, and
+that may be one that I have turned over to you to follow out. One never
+knows."
+
+Ste. Marie looked across at Richard Hartley, but that gentleman was
+blowing smoke-rings and to all outward appearance giving them his entire
+attention. He looked back to Captain Stewart, and Stewart's eyes
+regarded him, smiling a little wistfully, he thought. Ste. Marie scowled
+out of the window at the trees of the Luxembourg Gardens.
+
+"I hardly know," said he. "Of course, I sound a braying ass in
+hesitating even a moment; but, in a way, you understand, I'm so anxious
+to do this or to fail in it quite on my own. You're--so tremendously
+kind about it that I don't know what to say. I must seem very
+ungrateful, I know; but I'm not."
+
+"No," said the elder man, "you don't seem ungrateful at all. I
+understand exactly how you feel about it, and I applaud your
+feeling--but not your judgment. I am afraid that for the sake of a
+sentiment you're taking unnecessary risks of failure."
+
+For the first time Richard Hartley spoke.
+
+"I've an idea, you know," said he, "that it's going to be a matter
+chiefly of luck. One day somebody will stumble on the right trail, and
+that might as well be Ste. Marie or I as your trained detectives. If you
+don't mind my saying so, sir--I don't want to seem rude--your trained
+detectives do not seem to accomplish much in two months, do they?"
+
+Captain Stewart looked thoughtfully at the younger man.
+
+"No," he said, at last. "I am sorry to say they don't seem to have
+accomplished much--except to prove that there are a great many places
+poor Arthur has _not_ been to and a great many people who have _not_
+seen him. After all, that is something--the elimination of ground that
+need not be worked over again." He set down the glass from which he had
+been drinking. "I cannot agree with your theory," he said. "I cannot
+agree that such work as this is best left to an accidental solution.
+Accidents are too rare. We have tried to go at it in as scientific a way
+as could be managed--by covering large areas of territory, by keeping
+the police everywhere on the alert, by watching the boy's old friends
+and searching his favorite haunts. Personally, I am inclined to think
+that he managed to slip away to America very early in the course of
+events, before we began to search for him, and, of course, I am having a
+careful watch kept there as well as here. But no trace has appeared as
+yet--nothing at all trustworthy. Meanwhile, I continue to hope and to
+work, but I grow a little discouraged. In any case, though, we shall
+hear of him in three months more if he is alive."
+
+"Why three months?" asked Ste. Marie. "What do you mean by that?"
+
+"In three months," said Captain Stewart, "Arthur will be of age, and he
+can demand the money left him by his father. If he is alive he will turn
+up for that. I have thought, from the first, that he is merely hiding
+somewhere until this time should be past. He--you must know that he went
+away very angry, after a quarrel with his grandfather? My father is not
+a patient man. He may have been very harsh with the boy."
+
+"Ah, yes," said Hartley; "but no boy, however young or angry, would be
+foolish enough to risk an absolute break with the man who is going to
+leave him a large fortune. Young Benham must know that his grandfather
+would never forgive him for staying away all this time if he stayed away
+of his own accord. He must know that he'd be taking tremendous risks of
+being cut off altogether."
+
+"And besides," added Ste. Marie, "it is quite possible that your father,
+sir, may die at any time--any hour. And he's very angry at his grandson.
+He may have cut him off already."
+
+Captain Stewart's eyes sharpened suddenly, but he dropped them to the
+glass in his hand.
+
+"Have you any reason for thinking that?" he asked.
+
+"No," said Ste. Marie. "I beg your pardon. I shouldn't have said it.
+That is a matter which concerns your family alone. I forgot myself. The
+possibility occurred to me suddenly for the first time."
+
+But the elder man looked up at him with a smile.
+
+"Pray don't apologize," said he. "Surely we three can speak frankly
+together! And, frankly, I know nothing of my father's will. But I don't
+think he would cut poor Arthur off, though he is, of course, very angry
+about the boy's leaving in the manner he did. No, I am sure he wouldn't
+cut him off. He was fond of the lad, very fond--as we all were."
+
+Captain Stewart glanced at his watch and rose with a little sigh.
+
+"I must be off," said he. "I have to dine out this evening, and I must
+get home to change. There is a cabstand near you?" He looked out of the
+window. "Ah, yes! Just at the corner of the Gardens."
+
+He turned about to Ste. Marie, and held out his hand with a smile. He
+said:
+
+"You refuse to join forces with us, then? Well, I'm sorry. But, for all
+that, I wish you luck. Go your own way, and I hope you'll succeed. I
+honestly hope that, even though your success may show me up for an
+incompetent bungler."
+
+He gave a little kindly laugh, and Ste. Marie tried to protest.
+
+"Still," said the elder man, "don't throw me over altogether. If I can
+help you in any way, little or big, let me know. If I can give you any
+hints, any advice, anything at all, I want to do it. And if you happen
+upon what seems to be a promising clew come and talk it over with me.
+Oh, don't be afraid! I'll leave it to you to work out. I sha'n't spoil
+your game."
+
+"Ah, now, that's very good of you," said Ste. Marie. "Only you make me
+seem more than ever an ungrateful fool. Thanks, I will come to you with
+my troubles if I may. I have a foolish idea that I want to follow out a
+little first, but doubtless I shall be running to you soon for
+information."
+
+The elder man's eyes sharpened again with keen interest.
+
+"An idea!" he said, quickly. "You have an idea? What--May I ask what
+sort of an idea?"
+
+"Oh, it's nothing," declared Ste. Marie. "You have already laughed at
+it. I just want to find that man O'Hara, that's all. I've a feeling that
+I should learn something from him."
+
+"Ah!" said Captain Stewart, slowly. "Yes, the man O'Hara. There's
+nothing in that, I'm afraid. I've made inquiries about O'Hara. It seems
+he left Paris six months ago, saying he was off for America. An old
+friend of his told me that. So you must have been mistaken when you
+thought you saw him in the Champs-Elysées; and he couldn't very well
+have had anything to do with poor Arthur. I'm afraid that idea is hardly
+worth following up."
+
+"Perhaps not," said Ste. Marie. "I seem to start badly, don't I? Ah,
+well, I'll have to come to you all the sooner, then."
+
+"You'll be welcome," promised Captain Stewart. "Good-bye to you!
+Good-day, Hartley. Come and see me, both of you. You know where I live."
+
+He took his leave then, and Hartley, standing beside the window, watched
+him turn down the street, and at the corner get into one of the fiacres
+there and drive away.
+
+Ste. Marie laughed aloud.
+
+"There's the second time," said he, "that I've had him about O'Hara. If
+he is as careless as that about everything, I don't wonder he hasn't
+found Arthur Benham. O'Hara disappeared from Paris--publicly, that
+is--at about the time young Benham disappeared. As a matter of fact, he
+remains, or at least for a time remained, in the city without letting
+his friends know, because I made no mistake about seeing him in the
+Champs-Elysées. All that looks to me suspicious enough to be worth
+investigation. Of course," he admitted, doubtfully--"of course, I'm no
+detective; but that's how it looks to me."
+
+"I don't believe Stewart is any detective, either," said Richard
+Hartley. "He's altogether too cocksure. That sort of man would rather
+die than admit he is wrong about anything. He's a good old chap, though,
+isn't he? I liked him to-day better than ever before. I thought he was
+rather pathetic when he went on about his age."
+
+"He has a good heart," said Ste. Marie. "Very few men under the
+circumstances would come here and be as decent as he was. Most men would
+have thought I was a presumptuous ass, and would have behaved
+accordingly."
+
+Ste. Marie took a turn about the room, and his face began to light up
+with its new excitement and exaltation.
+
+"And to-morrow!" he cried--"to-morrow we begin! To-morrow we set out
+into the world and the Adventure is on foot! God send it success!"
+
+He laughed across at the other man; but it was a laugh of eagerness, not
+of mirth.
+
+"I feel," said he, "like Jason. I feel as if we were to set sail
+to-morrow for Colchis and the Golden Fleece."
+
+"Y-e-s," said the other man, a little dryly--"yes, perhaps. I don't want
+to seem critical, but isn't your figure somewhat ill chosen?"
+
+"'Ill chosen'?" cried Ste. Marie. "What d'you mean? Why ill chosen?"
+
+"I was thinking of Medea," said Richard Hartley.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+VIII
+
+JASON MEETS WITH A MISADVENTURE AND DREAMS A DREAM
+
+
+So on the next day these two rode forth upon their quest, and no quest
+was ever undertaken with a stouter courage or with a grimmer
+determination to succeed. To put it fancifully, they burned their tower
+behind them, for to one of them, at least--to him who led--there was no
+going back.
+
+But, after all, they set forth under a cloud, and Ste. Marie took a
+heavy heart with him. On the evening before an odd and painful incident
+had befallen--a singularly unfortunate incident.
+
+It chanced that neither of the two men had a dinner engagement that
+evening, and so, after their old habit, they dined together. There was
+some wrangling over where they should go, Hartley insisting upon
+Armenonville or the Madrid, in the Bois, Ste. Marie objecting that these
+would be full of tourists so late in June, and urging the claims of some
+quiet place in the Quarter, where they could talk instead of listening
+perforce to loud music. In the end, for no particular reason, they
+compromised on the little Spanish restaurant in the rue Helder. They
+went there about eight o'clock, without dressing, for it is a very quiet
+place which the world does not visit, and they had a sopa de yerbas, and
+some langostinos, which are shrimps, and a heavenly arroz, with fowl in
+it, and many tender, succulent strips of red pepper. They had a salad
+made out of a little of everything that grows green, with the true
+Spanish oil, which has a tang and a bouquet unappreciated by the
+Philistine; and then they had a strange pastry and some cheese and green
+almonds. And to make then glad, they drank a bottle of old red
+Valdepenas, and afterward a glass each of a special Manzanilla, upon
+which the restaurant very justly prides itself.
+
+It was a simple dinner and a little stodgy for that time of the year,
+but the two men were hungry and sat at table, almost alone in the upper
+room, for a long time, saying how good everything was, and from time to
+time despatching the saturnine waiter, a Madrileno, for more peppers.
+When at last they came out into the narrow street, and thence to the
+thronged Boulevard des Italiens, it was nearly eleven o'clock. They
+stood for a little time in the shelter of a kiosk, looking down the
+boulevard to where the Place de l'Opéra opened wide and the lights of
+the Café de la Paix shone garish in the night. And Ste. Marie said:
+
+"There's a street fête in Montmartre. We might drive home that way."
+
+"An excellent idea," said the other man. "The fact that Montmartre lies
+in an opposite direction from home makes the plan all the better. And
+after that we might drive home through the Bois. That's much farther in
+the wrong direction. Lead on!"
+
+So they sprang into a waiting fiacre, and were dragged up the steep,
+stone-paved hill to the heights, where La Bohême still reigns, though
+the glory of Moulin Rouge has departed and the trail of the tourist is
+over all. They found Montmartre very much en fête. In the Place Blanche
+were two of the enormous and brilliantly lighted merry-go-rounds, which
+only Paris knows--one furnished with stolid cattle, theatrical-looking
+horses, and Russian sleighs; the other with the ever-popular galloping
+pigs. When these dreadful machines were in rotation, mechanical organs,
+concealed somewhere in their bowels, emitted hideous brays and shrieks
+which mingled with the shrieks of the ladies mounted upon the galloping
+pigs, and together insulted a peaceful sky.
+
+The square was filled with that extremely heterogeneous throng which the
+Parisian street fête gathers together, but it was, for the most part, a
+well-dressed throng, largely recruited from the boulevards, and it was
+quite determined to have a very good time in the cheerful, harmless
+Latin fashion. The two men got down from their fiacre and elbowed a way
+through the good-natured crowd to a place near the more popular of the
+merry-go-rounds. The machine was in rotation. Its garish lights shone
+and glittered, its hidden mechanical organ blared a German waltz tune,
+the huge, pink-varnished pigs galloped gravely up and down as the
+platform upon which they were mounted whirled round and round. A little
+group of American trippers, sight-seeing with a guide, stood near by,
+and one of the group, a pretty girl with red hair, demanded plaintively
+of the friend upon whose arm she hung: "Do you think momma would be
+shocked if we took a ride? Wouldn't I love to!"
+
+Hartley turned, laughing, from this distressed maiden to Ste. Marie. He
+was wondering, with mild amusement, why anybody should wish to do such a
+foolish thing; but Ste. Marie's eyes were fixed upon the galloping pigs,
+and the eyes shone with a wistful excitement. To tell the truth, it was
+impossible for him to look on at any form of active amusement without
+thirsting to join it. A joyous and carefree lady in a blue hat, who was
+mounted astride upon one of the pigs, hurled a paper serpentine at him
+and shrieked with delight when it knocked his hat off.
+
+"That's the second time she has hit me with one of those things," he
+said, groping about his feet for the hat. "Here, stop that boy with the
+basket!"
+
+A vendor of the little rolls of paper ribbon was shouting his wares
+through the crowd. Ste. Marie filled his pockets with the things, and
+when the lady with the blue hat came round, on the next turn, lassoed
+her neatly about the neck and held the end of the ribbon till it broke.
+Then he caught a fat gentleman, who was holding himself on by his
+steed's neck, in the ear, and the red-haired American girl laughed
+aloud.
+
+"When the thing stops," said Ste. Marie, "I'm going to take a ride--just
+one ride. I haven't ridden a pig for many years."
+
+Hartley jeered at him, calling him an infant, but Ste. Marie bought more
+serpentines, and when the platform came to a stop clambered up to it and
+mounted the only unoccupied pig he could find. His friend still scoffed
+at him and called him names, but Ste. Marie tucked his long legs round
+the pig's neck and smiled back, and presently the machine began again to
+revolve.
+
+At the end of the first revolution Hartley gave a shout of delight, for
+he saw that the lady with the blue hat had left her mount and was making
+her way along the platform toward where Ste. Marie sat hurling
+serpentines in the face of the world. By the next time round she had
+come to where he was, mounted astride behind him, and was holding
+herself with one very shapely arm round his neck, while with the other
+she rifled his pockets for ammunition. Ste. Marie grinned, and the
+public, loud in its acclaims, began to pelt the two with serpentines
+until they were hung with many-colored ribbons like a Christmas-tree.
+Even Richard Hartley was so far moved out of the self-consciousness with
+which his race is cursed as to buy a handful of the common missiles, and
+the lady in the blue hat returned his attention with skill and despatch.
+
+But as the machine began to slacken its pace, and the hideous wail and
+blare of the concealed organ died mercifully down, Hartley saw that his
+friend's manner had all at once altered, that he sat leaning forward
+away from the enthusiastic lady with the blue hat, and that the paper
+serpentines had dropped from his hands. Hartley thought that the rapid
+motion must have made him a little giddy, but presently, before the
+merry-go-round had quite stopped, he saw the man leap down and hurry
+toward him through the crowd. Ste. Marie's face was grave and pale. He
+caught Hartley's arm in his hand and turned him round, crying, in a low
+voice:
+
+"Come out of this as quickly as you can! No, in the other direction. I
+want to get away at once!"
+
+"What's the matter?" Hartley demanded. "Lady in the blue hat too
+friendly? Well, if you're going to play this kind of game you might as
+well play it."
+
+"Helen Benham was down there in the crowd," said Ste. Marie. "On the
+opposite side from you. She was with a party of people who got out of
+two motor-cars to look on. They were in evening things, so they had come
+from dinner somewhere, I suppose. She saw me."
+
+"The devil!" said Hartley, under his breath. Then he gave a shout of
+laughter, demanding: "Well, what of it? You weren't committing any
+crime, were you? There's no harm in riding a silly pig in a silly
+merry-go-round. Everybody does it in these fête things." But even as he
+spoke he knew how extremely unfortunate the meeting was, and the
+laughter went out of his voice.
+
+"I'm afraid," said Ste. Marie, "she won't see the humor of it. Good God,
+what a thing to happen! _You_ know well enough what she'll think of me.
+At five o'clock this afternoon," he said, bitterly, "I left her with a
+great many fine, high-sounding words about the quest I was to give my
+days and nights to--for her sake. I went away from her like a--knight
+going into battle--consecrated. I tell you, there were tears in her eyes
+when I went. And _now_--now, at midnight--she sees me riding a galloping
+pig in a street fête with a girl from the boulevards sitting on the pig
+with me and holding me round the neck before a thousand people. What
+will she think of me? What but one thing can she possibly think? Oh, I
+know well enough! I saw her face before she turned away. And," he cried,
+"I can't even go to her and explain--if there's anything to explain, and
+I suppose there is not. I can't even go to her. I've sworn not to see
+her."
+
+"Oh, I'll do that," said the other man. "I'll explain it to her, if any
+explanation's necessary. I think you'll find that she will laugh at it."
+
+But Ste. Marie shook his head.
+
+"No, she won't," said he.
+
+And Hartley could say no more; for he knew Miss Benham, and he was very
+much afraid that she would not laugh.
+
+They found a fiacre at the side of the square and drove home at once.
+They were almost entirely silent all the long way, for Ste. Marie was
+buried in gloom, and the Englishman, after trying once or twice to cheer
+him up, realized that he was best left to himself just then, and so held
+his tongue. But in the rue d'Assas, as Ste. Marie was getting
+down--Hartley kept the fiacre to go on to his rooms in the Avenue de
+l'Observatoire--he made a last attempt to lighten the man's depression.
+He said:
+
+"Don't you be a silly ass about this! You're making much too much of it,
+you know. I'll go to her to-morrow or next day and explain, and she'll
+laugh---if she hasn't already done so. You know," he said, almost
+believing it himself, "you are paying her a dashed poor compliment in
+thinking she's so dull as to misunderstand a little thing of this kind.
+Yes, by Jove, you are!"
+
+Ste. Marie looked up at him, and his face, in the light of the cab lamp,
+showed a first faint gleam of hope.
+
+"Do you think so?" he demanded. "Do you really think that? Maybe I am.
+But--Oh, Lord, who would understand such an idiocy? Sacred imbecile that
+I am! Why was I ever born? I ask you."
+
+He turned abruptly, and began to ring at the door, casting a brief
+"Good-night" over his shoulder. And after a moment Hartley gave it up
+and drove away.
+
+Above, in the long, shallow front room of his flat, with the three
+windows overlooking the Gardens, Ste. Marie made lights, and after much
+rummaging unearthed a box of cigarettes of a peculiarly delectable
+flavor which had been sent him by a friend in the Khedivial household.
+He allowed himself one or two of them now and then, usually in sorrowful
+moments, as an especial treat; and this seemed to him to be the moment
+for smoking all that were left. Surely his need had never been greater.
+In England he had, of course, learned to smoke a pipe, but pipe-smoking
+always remained with him a species of accomplishment; it never brought
+him the deep and ruminative peace with which it enfolds the Anglo-Saxon
+heart. The "vieux Jacob" of old-fashioned Parisian Bohemia inspired in
+him unconcealed horror, of cigars he was suspicious because, he said,
+most of the unpleasant people he knew smoked cigars, so he soothed his
+soul with cigarettes, and he was usually to be found with one between
+his fingers.
+
+He lighted one of the precious Egyptians, and after a first ecstatic
+inhalation went across to one of the long windows, which was open, and
+stood there with his back to the room, his face to the peaceful,
+fragrant night. A sudden recollection came to him of that other night a
+month before when he had stood on the Pont des Invalides with his eyes
+upon the stars, his feet upon the ladder thereunto. His heart gave a
+sudden exultant leap within him when he thought how far and high he had
+climbed, but after the leap it shivered and stood still when this
+evening's misadventure came before him.
+
+Would she ever understand? He had no fear that Hartley would not do his
+best with her. Hartley was as honest and as faithful as ever a friend
+was in this world. He would do his best. But even then--It was the
+girl's inflexible nature that made the matter so dangerous. He knew that
+she was inflexible, and he took a curious pride in it. He admired it. So
+must have been those calm-eyed, ancient ladies for whom other Ste.
+Maries went out to do battle. It was well-nigh impossible to imagine
+them lowering their eyes to silly revelry. They could not stoop to such
+as that. It was beneath their high dignity. And it was beneath hers
+also. As for himself, he was a thing of patches. Here a patch of exalted
+chivalry--a noble patch--there a patch of bourgeois, childlike love of
+fun; here a patch of melancholic asceticism, there one of something
+quite the reverse. A hopeless patchwork he was. Must she not shrink from
+him when she knew? He could not quite imagine her understanding the
+wholly trivial and meaningless impulse that had prompted him to ride a
+galloping pig and cast paper serpentines at the assembled world.
+
+Apart from her view of the affair, he felt no shame in it. The moment of
+childish gayety had been but a passing mood. It had in no way slackened
+his tense enthusiasm, dulled the keenness of his spirit, lowered his
+high flight. He knew that well enough. But he wondered if she would
+understand, and he could not believe it possible. The mood of exaltation
+in which they had parted that afternoon came to him, and then the sight
+of her shocked face as he had seen it in the laughing crowd in the Place
+Blanche.
+
+"What must she think of me?" he cried, aloud. "What must she think of
+me?"
+
+So, for an hour or more, he stood in the open window staring into the
+fragrant night, or tramped up and down the long room, his hands behind
+his back, kicking out of his way the chairs and things which impeded
+him, torturing himself with fears and regrets and fancies, until at
+last, in a calmer moment, he realized that he was working himself up
+into an absurd state of nerves over something which was done and could
+not now be helped. The man had an odd streak of fatalism in his
+nature--that will have come of his Southern blood--and it came to him
+now in his need. For the work upon which he was to enter with the morrow
+he had need of clear wits, not scattered ones; a calm judgment, not
+disordered nerves. So he took himself in hand, and it would have been
+amazing to any one unfamiliar with the abrupt changes of the Latin
+temperament to see how suddenly Ste. Marie became quiet and cool and
+master of himself.
+
+"It is done," he said, with a little shrug, and if his face was for a
+moment bitter it quickly enough became impassive. "It is done, and it
+cannot be undone--unless Hartley can undo it. And now, revenons à nos
+moutons! Or, at least," said he, looking at his watch--and it was
+between one and two--"at least, to our beds!"
+
+So he went to bed, and, so well had he recovered from his fit of
+excitement, he fell asleep almost at once. But for all that the jangled
+nerves had their revenge. He who commonly slept like the dead, without
+the slightest disturbance, dreamed a strange dream. It seemed to him
+that he stood spent and weary in a twilight place--a waste place at the
+foot of a high hill. At the top of the hill She sat upon a sort of
+throne, golden in a beam of light from heaven--serene, very beautiful,
+the end and crown of his weary labors. His feet were set to the ascent
+of the height whereon she waited, but he was withheld. From the shadows
+at the hill's foot a voice called to him in distress, anguish of
+spirit--a voice he knew; but he could not say whose voice. It besought
+him out of utter need, and he could not turn away from it.
+
+Then from those shadows eyes looked upon him, very great and dark eyes,
+and they besought him, too; he did not know what they asked, but they
+called to him like the low voice, and he could not turn away.
+
+He looked to the far height, and with all his power he strove to set his
+feet toward it--the goal of long labor and desire; but the eyes and the
+piteous voice held him motionless--for they needed him.
+
+From this anguish he awoke trembling. And after a long time, when he was
+composed, he fell asleep once more, and once more he dreamed the dream.
+
+So morning found him pallid and unrefreshed. But by daylight he knew
+whose eyes had besought him, and he wondered and was a little afraid.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+IX
+
+JASON GOES UPON A JOURNEY, AND RICHARD HARTLEY PLEADS FOR HIM
+
+
+It may as well be admitted at the outset that neither Ste. Marie nor
+Richard Hartley proved themselves to be geniuses, hitherto undeveloped,
+in the detective science. They entered upon their self-appointed task
+with a fine fervor, but, as Miss Benham had suggested, with no other
+qualifications in particular. Ste. Marie had a theory that, when engaged
+in work of this nature, you went into questionable parts of the city,
+ate and drank cheek by jowl with questionable people--if possible, got
+them drunk while you remained sober (difficult feat), and sooner or
+later they said things which put you on the right road to your goal, or
+else confessed to you that they themselves had committed the particular
+crime in which you were interested. He argued that this was the way it
+happened in books, and that surely people didn't write books about
+things of which they were ignorant.
+
+Hartley, on the other hand, preferred the newer, or scientific, methods.
+You sat at home with a pipe and a whiskey-and-water--if possible, in a
+long dressing-gown with a cord round its middle. You reviewed all the
+known facts of the case, and you did mathematics about them with Xs and
+Ys and many other symbols, and in the end, by a system of elimination,
+you proved that a certain thing must infallibly be true. The chief
+difficulty for him in this was, he said, that he had been at Oxford
+instead of at Cambridge, and so the mathematics were rather beyond him.
+
+In practice, however, they combined the two methods, which was doubtless
+as well as if they hadn't, because for some time they accomplished
+nothing whatever, and so neither one was able to sneer at the other's
+stupidity.
+
+This is not to say that they found nothing in the way of clews. They
+found an embarrassment of them, and for some days went about in a fever
+of excitement over these; but the fever cooled when clew after clew
+turned out to be misleading. Of course, Ste. Marie's first efforts were
+directed toward tracing the movements of the Irishman O'Hara, but the
+efforts were altogether unavailing. The man seemed to have disappeared
+as noiselessly and completely as had young Arthur Benham himself. He was
+unable even to settle with any definiteness the time of the man's
+departure from Paris. Some of O'Hara's old acquaintances maintained that
+they had seen the last of him two months before, but a shifty-eyed
+person in rather cheaply smart clothes came up to Ste. Marie one evening
+in Maxim's and said he had heard that Ste. Marie was making inquiries
+about M. O'Hara. Ste. Marie said he was, and that it was an affair of
+money; whereupon the cheaply smart individual declared that M. O'Hara
+had left Paris six months before to go to the United States of America,
+and that he had had a picture postal-card from him, some weeks since,
+from New York. The informant accepted an expensive cigar and a Dubonnet
+by way of reward, but presently departed into the night, and Ste. Marie
+was left in some discouragement, his theory badly damaged.
+
+He spoke of this encounter to Richard Hartley, who came on later to join
+him, and Hartley, after an interval of silence and smoke, said: "That
+was a lie! The man lied!"
+
+"Name of a dog, why?" demanded Ste. Marie; but the Englishman shrugged
+his shoulders.
+
+"I don't know," he said. "But I believe it was a lie. The man came to
+you--sought you out to tell his story, didn't he? And all the others
+have given a different date? Well, there you are! For some reason, this
+man or some one behind him--O'Hara himself, probably--wants you to
+believe that O'Hara is in America. I dare say he's in Paris all the
+while."
+
+"I hope you're right," said the other. "And I mean to make sure, too. It
+certainly was odd, this strange being hunting me out to tell me that. I
+wonder, by-the-way, how he knew I'd been making inquiries about O'Hara.
+I've questioned only two or three people, and then in the most casual
+way. Yes, it's odd."
+
+It was about a week after this--a fruitless week, full of the alternate
+brightness of hope and the gloom of disappointment--that he met Captain
+Stewart, to whom he had been, more than once, on the point of appealing.
+He happened upon him quite by chance one morning in the rue Royale.
+Captain Stewart was coming out of a shop, a very smart-looking shop,
+devoted, as Ste. Marie, with some surprise and much amusement, observed,
+to ladies' hats, and the price of hats must have depressed him, for he
+looked in an ill humor, and older and more yellow than usual. But his
+face altered suddenly when he saw the younger man, and he stopped and
+shook Ste. Marie's hand with every evidence of pleasure.
+
+"Well met! Well met!" he exclaimed. "If you are not in a hurry, come and
+sit down somewhere and tell me about yourself."
+
+They picked their way across the street to the terrace of the Taverne
+Royale, which was almost deserted at that hour, and sat down at one of
+the little tables, well back from the pavement, in a corner.
+
+"Is it fair," queried Captain Stewart--"is it fair, as a rival
+investigator, to ask you what success you have had?"
+
+Ste. Marie laughed rather ruefully, and confessed that he had as yet no
+success at all.
+
+"I've just come," said he, "from pricking one bubble that promised well,
+and Hartley is up in Montmartre destroying another, I fancy. Oh, well,
+we didn't expect it to be child's play."
+
+Captain Stewart raised his little glass of dry vermouth in an
+old-fashioned salute and drank it.
+
+"You," said he--"you were--ah, full of some idea of connecting this man,
+this Irishman O'Hara, with poor Arthur's disappearance. You've found
+that not so promising as you went on, I take it."
+
+"Well, I've been unable to trace O'Hara," said Ste. Marie. "He seems to
+have disappeared as completely as your nephew. I suppose you have no
+clews to spare? I confess I'm out of them at the moment."
+
+"Oh, I have plenty," said the elder man. "A hundred. More than I can
+possibly look after." He gave a little chuckling laugh. "I've been
+waiting for you to come to me," he said. "It was a little ungenerous,
+perhaps, but we all love to say, 'I told you so.' Yes, I have a great
+quantity of clews, and of course they all seem to be of the greatest and
+most exciting importance. That's a way clews have."
+
+He took an envelope from an inner pocket of his coat, and sorted several
+folded papers which were in it.
+
+"I have here," said he, "memoranda of two--chances, shall I call
+them?--which seem to me very good, though, as I have already said, every
+clew seems good. That is the maddening, the heart-breaking, part of such
+an investigation. I have made these brief notes from letters received,
+one yesterday, one the day before, from an agent of mine who has been
+searching the bains de mer of the north coast. This agent writes that
+some one very much resembling poor Arthur has been seen at Dinard and
+also at Deauville, and he urges me to come there or to send a man there
+at once to look into the matter. You will ask, of course, why this agent
+himself does not pursue the clew he has found. Unfortunately, he has
+been called to London upon some pressing family matter of his own; he is
+an Englishman."
+
+"Why haven't you gone yourself?" asked Ste. Marie.
+
+But the elder man shrugged his shoulders and smiled a tired, deprecatory
+smile.
+
+"Oh, my friend," said he, "if I should attempt personally to investigate
+one-half of these things, I should be compelled to divide myself into
+twenty parts. No, I must stay here. There must be, alas! the spider at
+the centre of the web. I cannot go; but if you think it worth while, I
+will gladly turn over the memoranda of these last clews to you. They may
+be the true clews, they may not. At any rate, some one must look into
+them. Why not you and your partner--or shall I say assistant?"
+
+"Why, thank you!" cried Ste. Marie. "A thousand thanks! Of course, I
+shall be--we shall be glad to try this chance. On the face of it, it
+sounds very reasonable. Your nephew, from what I remember of him, is
+much more apt to be in some place that is amusing, some place of gayety,
+than hiding away where it is merely dull, if he has his choice in the
+matter--that is, if he is free. And yet--" He turned and frowned
+thoughtfully at the elder man. "What I want to know," said he, "is how
+the boy is supporting himself all this time? You say he had no money, or
+very little, when he went away. How is he managing to live if your
+theory is correct--that he is staying away of his own accord? It costs a
+lot of money to live as he likes to live."
+
+Captain Stewart nodded.
+
+"Oh, that," said he--"that is a question I have often proposed to
+myself. Frankly, it's beyond me. I can only surmise that poor Arthur,
+who had scattered a small fortune about in foolish loans, managed,
+before he actually disappeared (mind you, we didn't begin to look for
+him until a week had gone by)--managed to collect some of this money,
+and so went away with something in pocket. That, of course, is only a
+guess."
+
+"It is possible," said Ste. Marie, doubtfully, "but--I don't know. It is
+not very easy to raise money from the sort of people I imagine your
+nephew to have lent it to. They borrow, but they don't repay." He
+glanced up with a half-laughing, half-defiant air. "I can't," said he,
+"rid myself of a belief that the boy is here in Paris, and that he is
+not free to come or go. It's only a feeling, but it is very strong in
+me. Of course, I shall follow out these clews you've been so kind as to
+give me. I shall go to Dinard and Deauville, and Hartley, I imagine,
+will go with me, but I haven't great confidence in them."
+
+Captain Stewart regarded him reflectively for a time, and in the end he
+smiled.
+
+"If you will pardon my saying it," he said, "your attitude is just a
+little womanlike. You put away reason for something vaguely intuitive. I
+always distrust intuition myself."
+
+Ste. Marie frowned a little and looked uncomfortable. He did not relish
+being called womanlike--few men do; but he was bound to admit that the
+elder man's criticism was more or less just.
+
+"Moreover," pursued Captain Stewart, "you altogether ignore the point of
+motive--as I may have suggested to you before. There could be no
+possible motive, so far as I am aware, for kidnapping or detaining, or
+in any way harming, my nephew except the desire for money; but, as you
+know, he had no large sum of money with him, and no demand has been made
+upon us since his disappearance. I'm afraid you can't get round that."
+
+"No," said Ste. Marie, "I'm afraid I can't. Indeed, leaving that
+aside--and it can't be left aside--I still have almost nothing with
+which to prop up my theory. I told you it was only a feeling."
+
+He took up the memoranda which Captain Stewart had laid upon the
+marble-topped table between them, and read the notes through.
+
+"Please," said he, "don't think I am ungrateful for this chance. I am
+not. I shall do my best with it, and I hope it may turn out to be
+important." He gave a little wry smile. "I have all sorts of reasons,"
+he said, "for wishing to succeed as soon as possible. You may be sure
+that there won't be any delays on my part. And now I must be going on. I
+am to meet Hartley for lunch on the other side of the river, and, if we
+can manage it, I should like to start north this afternoon or evening."
+
+"Good!" said Captain Stewart, smiling. "Good! That is what I call true
+promptness. You lose no time at all. Go to Dinard and Deauville, by all
+means, and look into this thing thoroughly. Don't be discouraged if you
+meet with ill success at first. Take Mr. Hartley with you, and do your
+best."
+
+He paid for the two glasses of apéritif, and Ste. Marie could not help
+observing that he left on the table a very small tip. The waiter cursed
+him audibly as the two walked away.
+
+"If you have returned by a week from to-morrow," he said, as they shook
+hands, "I should like to have you keep that evening--Thursday--for me. I
+am having a very informal little party in my rooms. There will be two or
+three of the opera people there, and they will sing for us, and the
+others will be amusing enough. All young--all young. I like young people
+about me." He gave his odd little mewing chuckle. "And the ladies must
+be beautiful as well as young. Come if you are here! I'll drop a line to
+Mr. Hartley also."
+
+He shook Ste. Marie's hand, and went away down the street toward the rue
+du Faubourg St. Honoré where he lived.
+
+Ste. Marie met Hartley as he expected to do, at lunch, and they talked
+over the possibilities of the Dinard and Deauville expedition. In the
+end they decided that Ste. Marie should go alone, but that he was to
+telegraph, later on, if the clew looked promising. Hartley had two or
+three investigations on foot in Paris, and stayed on to complete these.
+Also he wished, as soon as possible, to see Helen Benham and explain
+Ste. Marie's ride on the galloping pigs. Ten days had elapsed since that
+evening, but Miss Benham had gone into the country the next day to make
+a visit at the De Saulnes' château on the Oise.
+
+So Ste. Marie packed a portmanteau with clothes and things, and departed
+by a mid-afternoon train to Dinard, and toward five Richard Hartley
+walked down to the rue de I'Université. He thought it just possible that
+Miss Benham might by now have returned to town, but if not he meant to
+have half an hour's chat with old David Stewart, whom he had not seen
+for some weeks.
+
+At the door he learned that mademoiselle was that very day returned and
+was at home. So he went in to the drawing-room, reserving his visit to
+old David until later. He found the room divided into two camps. At one
+side Mrs. Benham conversed in melancholic monotones with two elderly
+French ladies who were clad in depressing black of a dowdiness surpassed
+only in English provincial towns. It was as if the three mourned
+together over the remains of some dear one who lay dead among them.
+Hartley bowed low, with an uncontrollable shiver, and turned to the
+tea-table, where Miss Benham sat in the seat of authority, flanked by a
+young American lady whom he had met before, and by Baron de Vries, whom
+he had not seen since the evening of the De Saulnes' dinner-party.
+
+Miss Benham greeted him with evident pleasure, and to his great delight
+remembered just how he liked his tea--three pieces of sugar and no milk.
+It always flatters a man when his little tastes of this sort are
+remembered. The four fell at once into conversation together, and the
+young American lady asked Hartley why Ste. Marie was not with him.
+
+"I thought you two always went about together," she said--"were never
+seen apart and all that--a sort of modern Damon and Phidias."
+
+Hartley caught Baron de Vries' eye, and looked away again hastily.
+
+"My--ah, Phidias," said he, resisting an irritable desire to correct the
+lady, "got mislaid to-day. It sha'n't happen again, I promise you. He's
+a very busy person just now, though. He hasn't time for social
+dissipation. I'm the butterfly of the pair."
+
+The lady gave a sudden laugh.
+
+"He was busy enough the last time I saw him," she said, crinkling her
+eyelids. She turned to Miss Benham. "Do you remember that evening we
+were going home from the Madrid and motored round by Montmartre to see
+the fête?"
+
+"Yes," said Miss Benham, unsmiling, "I remember."
+
+"Your friend Ste. Marie," said the American lady to Hartley, "was
+distinctly the lion of the fête--at the moment we arrived, anyhow. He
+was riding a galloping pig and throwing those paper streamer
+things--what do you call them?--with both hands, and a genial lady in a
+blue hat was riding the same pig and helping him out. It was just like
+the _Vie de Bohème_ and the other books. I found it charming."
+
+Baron de Vries emitted an amused chuckle.
+
+"That was very like Ste. Marie," he said. "Ste. Marie is a very
+exceptional young man. He can be an angel one moment, a child playing
+with toys the next, and--well, a rather commonplace social favorite the
+third. It all comes of being romantic--imaginative. Ste. Marie--I know
+nothing about this evening of which you speak, but Ste. Marie is quite
+capable of stopping on his way to a funeral to ride a galloping pig--or
+on his way to his own wedding. And the pleasant part of it is," said
+Baron de Vries, "that the lad would turn up at either of these two
+ceremonies not a bit the worse, outside or in, for his ride."
+
+"Ah, now, that's an oddly close shot," said Hartley. He paused a moment,
+looking toward Miss Benham, and said: "I beg pardon! Were you going to
+speak?"
+
+"No," said Miss Benham, moving the things about on the tea-table before
+her, and looking down at them. "No, not at all!"
+
+"You came oddly close to the truth," the man went on, turning back to
+Baron de Vries.
+
+He was speaking for Helen Benham's ears, and he knew she would
+understand that, but he did not wish to seem to be watching her.
+
+"I was with Ste. Marie on that evening," he said. "No, I wasn't riding a
+pig, but I was standing down in the crowd throwing serpentines at the
+people who were. And I happen to know that he--that Ste. Marie was on
+that day, that evening, more deeply concerned about something, more
+absolutely wrapped up in it, devoted to it, than I have ever known him
+to be about anything since I first knew him. The galloping pig was an
+incident that made, except for the moment, no impression whatever upon
+him." Hartley nodded his head. "Yes," said he, "Ste. Marie can be an
+angel one moment and a child playing with toys the next. When he sees
+toys he always plays with them, and he plays hard, but when he drops
+them they go completely out of his mind."
+
+The American lady laughed.
+
+"Gracious me!" she cried. "You two are emphatic enough about him, aren't
+you?"
+
+"We know him," said Baron de Vries.
+
+Hartley rose to replace his empty cup on the tea-table. Miss Benham did
+not meet his eyes, and as he moved away again she spoke to her friend
+about something they were going to do on the next day, so Hartley went
+across to where Baron de Vries sat at a little distance, and took a
+place beside him on the chaise lounge. The Belgian greeted him with
+raised eyebrows and the little, half-sad, half-humorous smile which was
+characteristic of him in his gentler moments.
+
+"You were defending our friend with a purpose," he said, in a low voice.
+"Good! I am afraid he needs it--here."
+
+The younger man hesitated a moment. Then he said:
+
+"I came on purpose to do that. Ste. Marie knows that she saw him on that
+confounded pig. He was half wild with distress over it, because--well,
+the meeting was singularly unfortunate just then. I can't explain--"
+
+"You needn't explain," said the Belgian, gravely. "I know. Helen told me
+some days ago, though she did not mention this encounter. Yes, defend
+him with all your power, if you will. Stay after we others have gone
+and--have it out with her. The Phidias lady (I must remember that mot,
+by-the-way) is preparing to take her leave now, and I will follow her at
+once. She shall believe that I am enamoured, that I sigh for her. Eh!"
+said he, shaking his head--and the lines in the kindly old face seemed
+to deepen, but in a sort of grave tenderness--"eh, so love has come to
+the dear lad at last! Ah, of course, the hundred other affairs! Yes,
+yes. But they were light. No seriousness in them. The ladies may have
+loved. He didn't--very much. This time, I'm afraid--"
+
+Baron de Vries paused as if he did not mean to finish his sentence, and
+Hartley said:
+
+"You say 'afraid'! Why afraid?"
+
+The Belgian looked up at him reflectively.
+
+"Did I say 'afraid'?" he asked. "Well, perhaps it was the word I wanted.
+I wonder if these two are fitted for each other. I am fond of them both.
+I think you know that, but--she's not very flexible, this child. And she
+hasn't much humor. I love her, but I know those things are true. I
+wonder if one ought to marry Ste. Marie without flexibility and without
+humor."
+
+"If they love each other," said Richard Hartley, "I expect the other
+things don't count. Do they?"
+
+Baron de Vries rose to his feet, for he saw that the Phidias lady was
+going.
+
+"Perhaps not," said he; "I hope not. In any case, do your best for him
+with Helen. Make her comprehend if you can. I am afraid she is unhappy
+over the affair."
+
+He made his adieus, and went away with the American lady, to that young
+person's obvious excitement. And after a moment the three ladies across
+the room departed also, Mrs. Benham explaining that she was taking her
+two friends up to her own sitting-room, to show them something vaguely
+related to the heathen. So Hartley was left alone with Helen Benham.
+
+It was not his way to beat about the bush, and he gave battle at once.
+He said, standing, to say it more easily:
+
+"You know why I came here to-day? It was the first chance I've had since
+that--unfortunate evening. I came on Ste. Marie's account."
+
+Miss Benham said a weak "Oh!" And because she was nervous and
+overwrought, and because the thing meant so much to her, she said,
+cheaply: "He owes me no apologies. He has a perfect right to act as he
+pleases, you know."
+
+The Englishman frowned across at her. "I didn't come to make apologies,"
+said he. "I came to explain. Well, I have explained--Baron de Vries and
+I together. That's just how it happened. And that's just how Ste. Marie
+takes things. The point is that you've got to understand it. I've got to
+make you."
+
+The girl smiled up at him dolefully. "You look," she said, "as if you
+were going to beat me if necessary. You look very warlike."
+
+"I feel warlike," the man said, nodding. He said: "I'm fighting for a
+friend to whom you are doing, in your mind, an injustice. I know him
+better than you do, and I tell you you're doing him a grave injustice.
+You're failing altogether to understand him."
+
+"I wonder," the girl said, looking very thoughtfully down at the table
+before her.
+
+"I know," said he.
+
+Quite suddenly she gave a little overwrought cry, and she put up her
+hands over her face. "Oh, Richard!" she said, "that day when he was
+here! He left me--oh, I cannot tell you at what a height he left me! It
+was something new and beautiful. He swept me to the clouds with him. And
+I might--perhaps I might have lived on there. Who knows? But then that
+hideous evening! Ah, it was too sickening: the fall back to common earth
+again!"
+
+"I know," said the man, gently--"I know. And _he_ knew, too. Directly
+he'd seen you he knew how you would feel about it. I'm not pretending
+that it was of no consequence. It was unfortunate, of course. But the
+point is, it did not mean in him any slackening, any stooping, any
+letting go. It was a moment's incident. We went to the wretched place by
+accident after dinner. Ste. Marie saw those childish lunatics at play,
+and for about two minutes he played with them. The lady in the blue hat
+made it appear a little more extreme, and that's all."
+
+Miss Benham rose to her feet and moved restlessly back and forth. "Oh,
+Richard," she said, "the golden spell is broken--the enchantment he laid
+upon me that day. I'm not like him, you know. Oh, I wish I were! I wish
+I were! I can't change from hour to hour. I can't rise to the clouds
+again after my fall to earth. It has all--become something different.
+Don't misunderstand me!" she cried. "I don't mean that I've ceased to
+care for him. No, far from that! But I was in such an exalted heaven,
+and now I'm not there any more. Perhaps he can lift me to it again. Oh
+yes, I'm sure he can, when I see him once more; but I wanted to go on
+living there so happily while he was away! Do you understand at all?"
+
+"I think I do," the man said, but he looked at her very curiously and a
+little sadly, for it was the first time he had ever seen her swept from
+her superb poise by any emotion, and he hardly recognized her. It was
+very bitter to him to realize that he could never have stirred her to
+this--never, under any conceivable circumstances.
+
+The girl came to him where he stood, and touched his arm with her hand.
+"He is waiting to hear how I feel about it all, isn't he?" she said. "He
+is waiting to know that I understand. Will you tell him a little lie for
+me, Richard? No, you needn't tell a lie. I will tell it. Tell him that I
+said I understood perfectly. Tell him that I was shocked for a moment,
+but that afterward I understood and thought no more about it. Will you
+tell him I said that? It won't be a lie from you, because I did say it.
+Oh, I will not grieve him or hamper him now while he is working in my
+cause! I'll tell him a lie rather than have him grieve."
+
+"Need it be a lie?" said Richard Hartley. "Can't you truly believe what
+you've said?"
+
+She shook her head slowly.
+
+"I'll try," said she, "but--my golden spell is broken and I can't mend
+it alone. I'm sorry."
+
+He turned with a little sigh to leave her, but Miss Benham followed him
+toward the door of the drawing-room.
+
+"You're a good friend, Richard," she said, when she had come
+near--"you're a good friend to him."
+
+"He deserves good friends," said the young man, stoutly. "And besides,"
+said he, "we're brothers in arms nowadays. We've enlisted together to
+fight for the same cause." The girl fell back with a little cry.
+
+"Do you mean," she said, after a moment--"do you mean that _you_ are
+working with him--to find Arthur?"
+
+Hartley nodded.
+
+"But--" said she, stammering. "But, Richard--"
+
+The man checked her.
+
+"Oh, I know what I'm doing," said he. "My eyes are open. I know that I'm
+not--well, in the running. I work for no reward except a desire to help
+you and Ste. Marie. That's all. It pleases me to be useful."
+
+He went away with that, not waiting for an answer, and the girl stood
+where he had left her, staring after him.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+X
+
+CAPTAIN STEWART ENTERTAINS
+
+
+Ste. Marie returned, after three days, from Dinard in a depressed and
+somewhat puzzled frame of mind. He had found no trace whatever of Arthur
+Benham, either at Dinard or at Deauville, and, what was more, he was
+unable to discover that any one even remotely resembling that youth had
+been seen at either place. The matter of identification, it seemed to
+him, should be a rather simple one. In the first place, the boy's
+appearance was not at all French, nor, for that matter, English; it was
+very American. Also, he spoke French--so Ste. Marie had been told--very
+badly, having for the language that scornful contempt peculiar to
+Anglo-Saxons of a certain type. His speech, it seemed, was, like his
+appearance, ultra-American--full of strange idioms and oddly pronounced.
+In short, such a youth would be rather sure to be remembered by any
+hotel management and staff with which he might have come in contact.
+
+At first Ste. Marie pursued his investigations quietly and, as it were,
+casually; but after his initial failure he went to the managements of
+the various hotels and lodging-houses, and to the cafés and bathing
+establishments, and told them, with all frankness, a part of the
+truth--that he was searching for a young man whose disappearance had
+caused great distress to his family. He was not long in discovering that
+no such young man could have been either in Dinard or Deauville.
+
+The thing which puzzled him was that, apart from finding no trace of the
+missing boy, he also found no trace of Captain Stewart's agent--the man
+who had been first on the ground. No one seemed able to recollect that
+such a person had been making inquiries, and Ste. Marie began to suspect
+that his friend was being imposed upon. He determined to warn Stewart
+that his agents were earning their fees too easily.
+
+So he returned to Paris more than a little dejected, and sore over this
+waste of time and effort. He arrived by a noon train, and drove across
+the city in a fiacre to the rue d'Assas. But as he was in the midst of
+unpacking his portmanteau--for he kept no servant; a woman came in once
+a day to "do" the rooms--the door-bell rang. It was Baron de Vries, and
+Ste. Marie admitted him with an exclamation of surprise and pleasure.
+
+"You passed me in the street just now," explained the Belgian, "and as I
+was a few minutes early for a lunch engagement I followed you up." He
+pointed with his stick at the open bag. "Ah, you have been on a journey!
+Detective work?"
+
+Ste. Marie pushed his guest into a chair, gave him cigarettes, and told
+him about the fruitless expedition to Dinard. He spoke, also, of his
+belief that Captain Stewart's agent had never really found a clew at
+all; and at that Baron de Vries nodded his gray head and said, "Ah!" in
+a tone of some significance. Afterward he smoked a little while in
+silence, but presently he said, as if with some hesitation: "May I be
+permitted to offer a word of advice?"
+
+"But surely!" cried Ste. Marie, kicking away the half-empty portmanteau.
+"Why not?"
+
+"Do whatever you are going to do in this matter according to your own
+judgment," said the elder man, "or according to Mr. Hartley's and your
+combined judgments. Make your investigations without reference to our
+friend Captain Stewart." He halted there as if that were all he had
+meant to say, but when he saw Ste. Marie's raised eyebrows he frowned
+and went on, slowly, as if picking his words with some care. "I should
+be sorry," he said, "to have Captain Stewart at the head of any
+investigation of this nature in which I was deeply interested--just now,
+at any rate. I am afraid--it is difficult to say; I do not wish to say
+too much--I am afraid he is not quite the man for the position."
+
+Ste. Marie nodded his head with great emphasis. "Ah," he cried, "that's
+just what I have felt, you know, all along! And it's what Hartley felt,
+too, I'm sure. No, Stewart is not the sort for a detective. He's too
+cocksure. He won't admit that he might possibly be wrong now and then.
+He's too--"
+
+"He is too much occupied with other matters," said Baron de Vries.
+
+Ste. Marie sat down on the edge of a chair. "Other matters?" he
+demanded. "That sounds mysterious. What other matters?"
+
+"Oh, there is nothing very mysterious about it," said the elder man. He
+frowned down at his cigarette, and brushed some fallen ash neatly from
+his knees. "Captain Stewart," said he, "is badly worried, and has been
+for the past year or so--badly worried over money matters and other
+things. He has lost enormous sums at play, as I happen to know, and he
+has lost still more enormous sums at Auteuil and at Longchamps. Also,
+the ladies are not without their demands."
+
+Ste. Marie gave a shout of laughter. "Comment donc!" he cried. "Ce
+vieillard?"
+
+"Ah, well," deprecated the other man. "Vieillard is putting it rather
+high. He can't be more than fifty, I should think. To be sure, he looks
+older; but then, in his day, he lived a great deal in a short time. Do
+you happen to remember Olga Nilssen?"
+
+"I do," said Ste. Marie. "I remember her very well, indeed. I was a sort
+of go-between in settling up that affair with Morrison. Morrison's
+people asked me to do what I could. Yes, I remember her well, and with
+some pleasure. I felt sorry for her, you know. People didn't quite know
+the truth of that affair. Morrison behaved very badly to her."
+
+"Yes," said Baron de Vries, "and Captain Stewart has behaved very badly
+to her also. She is furious with rage or jealousy--or both. She goes
+about, I am told, threatening to kill him, and it would be rather like
+her to do it one day. Well, I have dragged in all this scandal by way of
+showing you that Stewart has his hands full of his own affairs just now,
+and so cannot give the attention he ought to give to hunting out his
+nephew. As you suggest, his agents may be deceiving him. I don't know. I
+suppose they could do it easily enough. If I were you I should set to
+work quite independently of him."
+
+"Yes," said Ste. Marie, in an absent tone. "Oh yes, I shall do that, you
+may be sure." He gave a sudden smile. "He's a queer type, this Captain
+Stewart. He begins to interest me very much. I had never suspected this
+side of him, though I remember now that I once saw him coming out of a
+milliner's shop. He looks rather an ascetic--rather donnish, don't you
+think? I remember that he talked to me one day quite pathetically about
+feeling his age and about liking young people round him. He's an odd
+character. Fancy him mixed up in an affair with Olga Nilssen! Or,
+rather, fancy her involved in an affair with him! What can she have seen
+in him? She's not mercenary, you know--at least, she used not to be."
+
+"Ah! there," said Baron de Vries, "you enter upon a terra incognita. No
+one can say what a woman sees in this man or in that. It's beyond our
+ken."
+
+He rose to take his leave, and Ste. Marie went with him to the door.
+
+"I've been asked to a sort of party at Stewart's rooms this week," Ste.
+Marie said. "I don't know whether I shall go or not. Probably not. I
+suppose I shouldn't find Olga Nilssen there?"
+
+"Well, no," said the Belgian, laughing. "No, I hardly think so.
+Good-bye! Think over what I've told you. Good-bye!"
+
+He went away down the stair, and Ste. Marie returned to his unpacking.
+
+Nothing more of consequence occurred in the next few days. Hartley had
+unearthed a somewhat shabby adventurer who swore to having seen the
+Irishman O'Hara in Paris within a month, but it was by no means certain
+that this being did not merely affirm what he believed to be desired of
+him, and in any case the information was of no especial value, since it
+was O'Hara's present whereabouts that was the point at issue. So it came
+to Thursday evening. Ste. Marie received a note from Captain Stewart
+during the day, reminding him that he was to come to the rue du Faubourg
+St. Honoré that evening, and asking him to come early, at ten or
+thereabouts, so that the two could have a comfortable chat before any
+one else turned up. Ste. Marie had about decided not to go at all, but
+the courtesy of this special invitation from Miss Benham's uncle made it
+rather impossible for him to stay away. He tried to persuade Hartley to
+follow him on later in the evening, but that gentleman flatly refused
+and went away to dine with some English friends at Armenonville.
+
+So Ste. Marie, in a vile temper, dined quite alone at Lavenue's, beside
+the Gare Montparnasse, and toward ten o'clock drove across the river to
+the rue du Faubourg. Captain Stewart's flat was up five stories, at the
+top of the building in which it was located, and so, well above the
+noises of the street. Ste. Marie went up in the automatic lift, and at
+the door above his host met him in person, saying that the one servant
+he kept was busy making preparations in the kitchen beyond. They entered
+a large room, long but comparatively shallow, in shape not unlike the
+sitting-room in the rue d'Assas, but very much bigger, and Ste. Marie
+uttered an exclamation of surprise and pleasure, for he had never before
+seen an interior anything like this. The room was decorated and
+furnished entirely in Chinese and Japanese articles of great age and
+remarkable beauty. Ste. Marie knew little of the hieratic art of these
+two countries, but he fancied that the place must be an endless delight
+to the expert.
+
+The general tone of the room was gold, dulled and softened by great age
+until it had ceased to glitter, and relieved by the dusty Chinese blue
+and by old red faded to rose and by warm ivory tints. The great expanse
+of the walls was covered by a brownish-yellow cloth, coarse like burlap,
+and against it, round the room, hung sixteen large panels representing
+the sixteen Rakan. They were early copies--fifteenth century, Captain
+Stewart said--of those famous originals by the Chinese Sung master
+Ririomin, which have been for six hundred years or more the treasures of
+Japan. They were mounted upon Japanese brocade of blue and dull gold,
+framed in keyaki wood, and out of their brown, time-stained shadows the
+great Rakan scowled or grinned or placidly gazed, grotesquely graceful
+masterpieces of a perished art.
+
+At the far end of the room, under a gilded canopy of intricate
+wood-carving, stood upon his pedestal of many-petalled lotus a great
+statue of Amida Buddha in the yogi attitude of contemplation, and at
+intervals against the other walls other smaller images stood or sat:
+Buddha, in many incarnations; Kwannon, goddess of mercy; Jizo Bosatzu
+Hotei, pot-bellied, god of contentment; Jingo-Kano, god of war. In the
+centre of the place was a Buddhist temple table, and priests' chairs,
+lacquered and inlaid, stood about the room. The floor was covered with
+Chinese rugs, dull yellow with blue flowers, and over a doorway which
+led into another room was fixed a huge rama of Chinese pierced carving,
+gilded, in which there were trees and rocks and little grouped figures
+of the hundred immortals.
+
+It, was, indeed an extraordinary room. Ste. Marie looked about its
+mellow glow with a half-comprehending wonder, and he looked at the man
+beside him curiously, for here was another side to this many-sided
+character. Captain Stewart smiled.
+
+"You like my museum?" he asked. "Few people care much for it except, of
+course, those who go in for the Oriental arts. Most of my friends think
+it bizarre--too grotesque and unusual. I have tried to satisfy them by
+including those comfortable low divan-couches (they refuse altogether to
+sit in the priests' chairs), but still they are unhappy."
+
+He called his servant, who came to take Ste. Marie's hat and coat and
+returned with smoking things.
+
+"It seems entirely wonderful to me," said the younger man. "I'm not an
+expert at all--I don't know who the gentlemen in those sixteen panels
+are, for example--but it is very beautiful. I have never seen anything
+like it at all." He gave a little laugh. "Will it sound very impertinent
+in me, I wonder, if I express surprise--not surprise at finding this
+magnificent room, but at discovering that this sort of thing is a taste
+and, very evidently, a serious study of yours? You--I remember your
+saying once with some feeling that it was youth and beauty and--well,
+freshness that you liked best to be surrounded by. This," said Ste.
+Marie, waving an inclusive hand, "was young so many centuries ago! It
+fairly breathes antiquity and death."
+
+"Yes," said Captain Stewart, thoughtfully. "Yes, that is quite true."
+
+The two had seated themselves upon one of the broad, low benches which
+had been built into the place to satisfy the Philistine.
+
+"I find it hard to explain," he said, "because both things are passions
+of mine. Youth--I could not exist without it. Since I have it no longer
+in my own body, I wish to see it about me. It gives me life. It keeps my
+heart beating. I must have it near. And then this--antiquity and death,
+beautiful things made by hands dead centuries ago in an alien country! I
+love this, too. I didn't speak too strongly; it is a sort of passion
+with me--something quite beyond the collector's mania--quite beyond
+that. Sometimes, do you know, I stay at home in the evening, and I sit
+here quite alone, with the lights half on, and for hours together I
+smoke and watch these things--the quiet, sure, patient smile of that
+Buddha, for example. Think how long he has been smiling like that, and
+waiting! Waiting for what? There is something mysterious beyond all
+words in that smile of his, that fixed, crudely carved wooden smile--no,
+I'll be hanged if it's crude! It is beyond our modern art. The dead men
+carved better than we do. We couldn't manage that with such simple
+means. We can only reproduce what is before us. We can't carve
+questions--mysteries--everlasting riddles."
+
+Through the pale-blue, wreathing smoke of his cigarette Captain Stewart
+gazed down the room to where eternal Buddha stood and smiled eternally.
+And from there the man's eyes moved with slow enjoyment along the
+opposite wall over those who sat or stood there, over the panels of the
+ancient Rakan, over carved lotus, and gilt contorted dragon forever in
+pursuit of the holy pearl. He drew a short breath which seemed to
+bespeak extreme contentment, the keenest height of pleasure, and he
+stirred a little where he sat and settled himself among the cushions.
+Ste. Marie watched him, and the expression of the man's face began to be
+oddly revolting. It was the face of a voluptuary in the presence of his
+desire. He was uncomfortable, and wished to say something to break the
+silence, but, as often occurs at such a time, he could think of nothing
+to say. So there was a brief silence between them. But presently Captain
+Stewart roused himself with an obvious effort.
+
+"Here, this won't do!" said he, in a tone of whimsical apology. "This
+won't do, you know. I'm floating off on my hobby (and there's a mixed
+metaphor that would do credit to your own Milesian blood!). I'm boring
+you to extinction, and I don't want to do that, for I'm anxious that you
+should come here again--and often. I should like to have you form the
+habit. What was it I had in mind to ask you about? Ah, yes! The journey
+to Dinard and Deauville. I am afraid it turned out to be fruitless or
+you would have let me know."
+
+"Entirely fruitless," said Ste. Marie.
+
+He went on to tell the elder man of his investigation, and of his
+certainty that no one resembling Arthur Benham had been at either of the
+two places.
+
+"It's no affair of mine, to be sure," he said, "but I rather suspect
+that your agent was deceiving you--pretending to have accomplished
+something by way of making you think he was busy."
+
+Ste. Marie was so sure the other would immediately disclaim this that he
+waited for the word, and gave a little smothered laugh when Captain
+Stewart said, promptly:
+
+"Oh no! No! That is impossible. I have every confidence in that man. He
+is one of my best. No, you are mistaken there. I am more disappointed
+than you could possibly be over the failure of your efforts, but I am
+quite sure my man thought he had something worth working upon.
+By-the-way, I have received another rather curious communication--from
+Ostend this time. I will show you the letter, and you may try your luck
+there if you would care to." He felt in his pockets and then rose. "I've
+left the thing in another coat," said he; "if you will allow me, I'll
+fetch it." But before he had turned away the door-bell rang and he
+paused. "Ah, well," he said, "another time. Here are some of my guests.
+They have come earlier than I had expected."
+
+The new arrivals were three very perfectly dressed ladies, one of them
+an operatic light, who chanced not to be singing that evening and whom
+Ste. Marie had met before. The two others were rather difficult of
+classification, but probably, he thought, ornaments of that mysterious
+border-land between the two worlds which seems to give shelter to so
+many people against whose characters nothing definite is known, but
+whose antecedents and connections are not made topics of conversation.
+The three ladies seemed to be on very friendly terms with Captain
+Stewart, and greeted him with much noisy delight. One of the
+unclassified two, when her host, with a glance toward Ste. Marie,
+addressed her formally, seemed inordinately amused, and laughed for a
+long time.
+
+Within the next hour ten or a dozen other guests had arrived, and they
+all seemed to know one another very well, and proceeded to make
+themselves quite at home. Ste. Marie regarded them with a reflective and
+not over-enthusiastic eye, and he wondered a good deal why he had been
+asked here to meet them. He was as far from a prig or a snob as any man
+could very well be, and he often went to very Bohemian parties which
+were given by his painter or musician friends, but these people seemed
+to him quite different. The men, with the exception of two eminent
+opera-singers, who quite obviously had been asked because of their
+voices, were the sort of men who abound at such places as Ostend and
+Monte Carlo, and Baden-Baden in the race week. That is not to say that
+they were ordinary racing touts or the cheaper kind of adventurers
+(there was a count among them, and a marquis who had recently been
+divorced by his American wife), but adventurers of a sort they
+undoubtedly were. There was not one of them, so far as Ste. Marie was
+aware, who was received anywhere in good society, and he resented very
+much being compelled to meet them.
+
+Naturally enough, he felt much less concern on the score of the ladies.
+It is an undoubted and well-nigh universal truth that men who would
+refuse outright to meet certain classes of their own sex show no
+reluctance whatever over meeting the women of a corresponding
+circle--that is, if the women are attractive. It is a depressing fact
+and inclines one to sighs and head-shakes, and some moral indignation,
+until the reverse truth is brought to light--namely, that women have
+identically the same point of view; that, while they cast looks of
+loathing and horror upon certain of their sisters, they will meet with
+pleasure any presentable man whatever his crimes or vices.
+
+Ste. Marie was very much puzzled over all this. It seemed to him so
+unnecessary that a man who really had some footing in the newer society
+of Paris should choose to surround himself with people of this type; but
+as he looked on and wondered he became aware of a curious and, in the
+light of a past conversation, significant fact: all of the people in the
+room were young; all of them in their varying fashions and degrees very
+attractive to look upon; all full to overflowing of life and spirits and
+the determination to have a good time. He saw Captain Stewart moving
+among them, playing very gracefully his rôle of host, and the man seemed
+to have dropped twenty years from his shoulders. A miracle of
+rejuvenation seemed to have come upon him: his eyes were bright and
+eager, the color was high in his cheeks, and the dry, pedantic tone had
+gone from his voice. Ste. Marie watched him, and at last he thought he
+understood. It was half revolting, half pathetic, he thought, but it
+certainly was interesting to see.
+
+Duval, the great basso of the Opéra, accompanied at the piano by one of
+the unclassified ladies, was just finishing Mephistopheles' drinking
+song out of _Faust_ when the door-bell rang.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+XI
+
+A GOLDEN LADY ENTERS--THE EYES AGAIN
+
+
+The music of voice and piano was very loud just then, so that the
+little, soft, whirring sound of the electric bell reached only one or
+two pairs of ears in the big room. It did not reach the host certainly,
+and neither he nor most of the others observed the servant make his way
+among the groups of seated or standing people and go to the outer door,
+which opened upon a tiny hallway. The song came to an end, and everybody
+was cheering and applauding and crying "Bravo!" or "Bis!" or one of the
+other things that people shout at such times, when, as if in unexpected
+answer to the outburst, a lady appeared between the yellow portières and
+came forward a little way into the room. She was a tall lady of an
+extraordinary and immediately noticeable grace of movement--a lady with
+rather fair hair; but her eyebrows and eyelashes had been stained darker
+than it was their nature to be. She had the classic Greek type of
+face--and figure, too--all but the eyes, which were long and
+narrow--narrow, perhaps, from a habit of going half closed; and when
+they were a little more than half closed they made a straight black line
+that turned up very slightly at the outer end with an Oriental effect
+which went oddly in that classic face. There is a popular piece of
+sculpture now in the Luxembourg Gallery for which this lady "sat" as
+model to a great artist. Sculptors from all over the world go there to
+dream over its perfect line and contour, and little schoolgirls pretend
+not to see it, and middle-aged maiden tourists, with red Baedekers in
+their hands, regard it furtively and pass on, and after a while come
+back to look again.
+
+The lady was dressed in some very close-clinging material which was not
+cloth of gold, but something very like it, only much duller--something
+which gleamed when she stirred, but did not glitter--and over her
+splendid shoulders was hung an Oriental scarf heavily worked with
+metallic gold. She made an amazing and dramatic picture in that golden
+room. It was as if she had known just what her surroundings would be and
+had dressed expressly for them.
+
+The applause ceased as suddenly as if it had been trained to break off
+at a signal, and the lady came forward a little way, smiling a quiet,
+assured smile. At each step her knee threw out the golden stuff of her
+gown an inch or two, and it flashed suddenly--a dull, subdued flash in
+the overhead light--and died and flashed again. A few of the people in
+the room knew who the lady was, and they looked at one another with
+raised eyebrows and startled faces; but the others stared at her with an
+eager admiration, thinking that they had seldom seen anything so
+beautiful or so effective. Ste. Marie sat forward on the edge of his
+chair. His eyes sparkled, and he gave a little quick sigh of pleasurable
+excitement. This was drama, and very good drama, too, and he suspected
+that it might at any moment turn into a tragedy.
+
+He saw Captain Stewart, who had been among a group of people half-way
+across the room, turn his head to look when the cries and the applause
+ceased so suddenly, and he saw the man's face stiffen by swift degrees,
+all the joyous, buoyant life gone out of it, until it was yellow and
+rigid like a dead man's face; and Ste. Marie, out of his knowledge of
+the relations between these two people, nodded, en connaisseur, for he
+knew that the man was very badly frightened.
+
+So the host of the evening hung back, staring for what must have seemed
+to him a long and terrible time, though in reality it was but an
+instant; then he came forward quickly to greet the new-comer, and if his
+face was still yellow-white there was nothing in his manner but the
+courtesy habitual with him. He took the lady's hand, and she smiled at
+him, but her eyes did not smile--they were hard. Ste. Marie, who was the
+nearest of the others, heard Captain Stewart say:
+
+"This is an unexpected pleasure, my dearest Olga!"
+
+And to that the lady replied, more loudly: "Yes, I returned to Paris
+only to-day. You didn't know, of course. I heard you were entertaining
+this evening, and so I came, knowing that I should be welcome."
+
+"Always!" said Captain Stewart--"always more than welcome!"
+
+He nodded to one or two of the men who stood near, and when they
+approached presented them. Ste. Marie observed that he used the lady's
+true name--she had, at times, found occasion to employ others--and that
+he politely called her "Madame Nilssen" instead of "Mademoiselle." But
+at that moment the lady caught sight of Ste. Marie, and, crying out his
+name in a tone of delighted astonishment, turned away from the other
+men, brushing past them as if they had been furniture, and advanced
+holding out both her hands in greeting.
+
+"Dear Ste. Marie!" she exclaimed. "Fancy finding you here! I'm so glad!
+Oh, I'm so very glad! Take me away from these people! Find a corner
+where we can talk. Ah, there is one with a big seat! Allons-y!"
+
+She addressed him for the most part in English, which she spoke
+perfectly--as perfectly as she spoke French and German and, presumably,
+her native tongue, which must have been Swedish.
+
+They went to the broad, low seat, a sort of hard-cushioned bench, which
+stood against one of the walls, and made themselves comfortable there by
+the only possible means, which, owing to the width of the thing, was to
+sit far back with their feet stuck straight out before them. Captain
+Stewart had followed them across the room and showed a strong tendency
+to remain. Ste. Marie observed that his eyes were hard and bright and
+very alert, and that there were two bright spots of color in his yellow
+cheeks. It occurred to Ste. Marie that the man was afraid to leave him
+alone with Olga Nilssen, and he smiled to himself, reflecting that the
+lady, even if indiscreetly inclined, could tell him nothing--save in
+details--that he did not already know. But after a few rather awkward
+moments Mile. Nilssen waved an irritated hand.
+
+"Go away!" she said to her host. "Go away to your other guests! I want
+to talk to Ste. Marie. We have old times to talk over."
+
+And after hesitating awhile uneasily, Captain Stewart turned back into
+the room; but for some time thereafter Ste. Marie was aware that a
+vigilant eye was being kept upon them and that their host was by no
+means at his ease.
+
+When they were left alone together the girl turned to him and patted his
+arm affectionately. She said:
+
+"Ah, but it is very good to see you again, mon cher ami! It has been so
+long!" She gave an abrupt frown. "What are you doing here?" she
+demanded.
+
+And she said an unkind thing about her fellow-guests. She called them
+"canaille." She said:
+
+"Why are you wasting your time among these canaille? This is not a place
+for you. Why did you come?"
+
+"I don't know," said Ste. Marie. He was still a little resentful, and he
+said so. He said: "I didn't know it was going to be like this. I came
+because Stewart went rather out of his way to ask me. I'd known him in a
+very different milieu."
+
+"Ah, yes!" she said, reflectively. "Yes, he does go into the world also,
+doesn't he? But this is what he likes, you know." Her lips drew back for
+an instant, and she said: "He is a pig-dog!"
+
+Ste. Marie looked at her gravely. She had used that offensive name with
+a little too much fierceness. Her face had turned for an instant quite
+white, and her eyes had flashed out over the room a look that meant a
+great deal to any one who knew her as well as Ste. Marie did. He sat
+forward and lowered his voice. He said:
+
+"Look here, Olga! I'm going to be very frank for a moment. May I?"
+
+For just an instant the girl drew away from him with suspicion in her
+eyes, and something else, alertly defiant. Then she put out her hands to
+his arm.
+
+"You may be what you like, dear Ste. Marie," she said, "and say what you
+like. I will take it all--and swallow it alive--good as gold. What are
+you going to do to me?"
+
+"I've always been fair with you, haven't I?" he urged. "I've had
+disagreeable things to say or do, but--you knew always that I liked you
+and--where my sympathies were."
+
+"Always! Always, mon cher!" she cried. "I trusted you always in
+everything. And there is no one else I trust. No one! No one!--Ste.
+Marie!"
+
+"What then?" he asked.
+
+"Ste. Marie," she said, "why did you never fall in love with me, as the
+other men did?"
+
+"I wonder!" said he. "I don't know. Upon my word, I really don't know."
+
+He was so serious about it that the girl burst into a shriek of
+laughter. And in the end he laughed, too.
+
+"I expect it was because I liked you too well," he said, at last. "But
+come! We're forgetting my lecture. Listen to your grandpère Ste. Marie!
+I have heard--certain things--rumors--what you will. Perhaps they are
+foolish lies, and I hope they are. But if not, if the fear I saw in
+Stewart's face when you came here to-night, was--not without cause, let
+me beg you to have a care. You're much too savage, my dear child. Don't
+be so foolish as to--well, turn comedy into the other thing. In the
+first place, it's not worth while, and, in the second place, it recoils
+always. Revenge may be sweet. I don't know. But nowadays, with police
+courts and all that, it entails much more subsequent annoyance than it
+is worth. Be wise, Olga!"
+
+"Some things, Ste. Marie," said the golden lady, "are worth all the
+consequences that may follow them."
+
+She watched Captain Stewart across the room, where he stood chatting
+with a little group of people, and her beautiful face was as hard as
+marble and her eyes were as dark as a stormy night, and her mouth, for
+an instant, was almost like an animal's mouth--cruel and relentless.
+
+Ste. Marie saw, and he began to be a bit alarmed in good earnest. In his
+warning he had spoken rather more seriously than he felt the occasion
+demanded, but he began at last to wonder if the occasion was not in
+reality very serious, indeed. He was sure, of course, that Olga Nilssen
+had come here on this evening to annoy Captain Stewart in some fashion.
+As he put it to himself, she probably meant to "make a row," and he
+would not have been in the least surprised if she had made it in the
+beginning, upon her very dramatic entrance. Nothing more calamitous than
+that had occurred to him. But when he saw the woman's face turned a
+little away and gazing fixedly at Captain Stewart, he began to be aware
+that there was tragedy very near him--or all the makings of it.
+
+Mlle. Nilssen turned back to him. Her face was still hard, and her eyes
+dark and narrowed with their oddly Oriental look. She bent her shoulders
+together for an instant and her hands moved slowly in her lap,
+stretching out before her in a gesture very like a cat's when it wakes
+from sleep and yawns and extends its claws, as if to make sure that they
+are still there and ready for use.
+
+"I feel a little like Samson to-night," she said. "I am tired of almost
+everything, and I should like very much to pull the world down on top of
+me and kill everybody in it--except you, Ste. Marie, dear; except
+you!--and be crushed under the ruins!"
+
+"I think," said Ste. Marie, practically--and the speech sounded rather
+like one of Hartley's speeches--"I think it was not quite the world that
+Samson pulled down, but a temple--or a palace--something of that kind."
+
+"Well," said the golden lady, "this place is rather like a temple--a
+Chinese temple, with the pig-dog for high-priest."
+
+Ste. Marie frowned at her.
+
+"What are you going to do?" he demanded, sharply. "What did you come
+here to do? Mischief of some kind--bien entendu--but what?"
+
+"Do?" she said, looking at him with her narrowed eyes. "I? Why, what
+should I do? Nothing, of course! I merely said I should like to pull the
+place down. Of course, I couldn't do that quite literally, now, could I?
+No. It is merely a mood. I'm not going to do anything."
+
+"You're not being honest with me," he said.
+
+And at that her expression changed, and she patted his arm again with a
+gesture that seemed to beg forgiveness.
+
+"Well, then," she said, "if you must know, maybe I did come here for a
+purpose. I want to have it out with our friend Captain Stewart about
+something. And Ste. Marie, dear," she pleaded, "please, I think you'd
+better go home first. I don't care about these other animals, but I
+don't want you dragged into any row of any sort. Please be a sweet Ste.
+Marie and go home. Yes?"
+
+"Absolutely, no!" said Ste. Marie. "I shall stay, and I shall try my
+utmost to prevent you from doing anything foolish. Understand that! If
+you want to have rows with people, Olga, for Heaven's sake don't pick an
+occasion like this for the purpose. Have your rows in private!"
+
+"I rather think I enjoy an audience," she said, with a reflective air,
+and Ste. Marie laughed aloud because he knew that the naïve speech was
+so very true. This lady, with her many good qualities and her bad
+ones--not a few, alas!--had an undeniable passion for red fire that had
+amused him very much on more than one past occasion.
+
+"Please go home!" she said once more.
+
+But when the man only shook his head, she raised her hands a little way
+and dropped them again in her lap, in an odd gesture which seemed to say
+that she had done all she could do, and that if anything disagreeable
+should happen now, and he should be involved in it, it would be entirely
+his fault because she had warned him.
+
+Then quite abruptly a mood of irresponsible gayety seemed to come upon
+her. She refused to have anything more to do with serious topics, and
+when Ste. Marie attempted to introduce them she laughed in his face. As
+she had said in the beginning she wished to do, she harked back to old
+days (the earlier stages of what might be termed the Morrison régime),
+and it seemed to afford her great delight to recall the happenings of
+that epoch. The conversation became a dialogue of reminiscence which
+would have been entirely unintelligible to a third person, and was,
+indeed, so to Captain Stewart, who once came across the room, made a
+feeble effort to attach himself, and presently wandered away again.
+
+They unearthed from the past an exceedingly foolish song all about one
+"Little Willie" and a purple monkey climbing up a yellow stick. It was
+set to a well-known air from _Don Giovanni_, and when Duval, the basso,
+heard them singing it he came up and insisted upon knowing what it was
+about. He laughed immoderately over the English words when he was told
+what they meant, and made Ste. Marie write them down for him on two
+visiting-cards. So they made a trio out of "Little Willie," the great
+Duval inventing a bass part quite marvellous in its ingenuity, and they
+were compelled to sing it over and over again, until Ste. Marie's
+falsetto imitation of a tenor voice cracked and gave out altogether,
+since he was by nature barytone, if anything at all.
+
+The other guests had crowded round to hear the extraordinary song, and
+when the song was at last finished several of them remained, so that
+Ste. Marie saw he was to be allowed an uninterrupted tête-à-tête with
+Olga Nilssen no longer. He therefore drifted away, after a few moments,
+and went with Duval and one of the other men across the room to look at
+some small jade objects--snuff-bottles, bracelets, buckles, and the
+like--which were displayed in a cabinet cleverly reconstructed out of a
+Japanese shrine. It was perhaps ten minutes later when he looked round
+the place and discovered that neither Mlle. Nilssen nor Captain Stewart
+was to be seen.
+
+His first thought was of relief, for he said to himself that the two had
+sensibly gone into one of the other rooms to "have it out" in peace and
+quiet. But following that came the recollection of the woman's face when
+she had watched her host across the room. Her words came back to him: "I
+feel a little like Samson to-night.... I should like very much to pull
+the world down on top of me and kill everybody in it!" Ste. Marie
+thought of these things, and he began to be uncomfortable. He found
+himself watching the yellow-hung doorway beyond, with its intricate
+Chinese carving of trees and rocks and little groups of immortals, and
+he found that unconsciously he was listening for something--he did not
+know what--above the chatter and laughter of the people in the room. He
+endured this for possibly five minutes, and all at once found that he
+could endure it no longer. He began to make his way quietly through the
+groups of people toward the curtained doorway.
+
+As he went, one of the women near by complained in a loud tone that the
+servant had disappeared. She wanted, it seemed, a glass of water, having
+already had many glasses of more interesting things. Ste. Marie said he
+would get it for her, and went on his way. He had an excuse now.
+
+He found himself in a square, dimly lighted room much smaller than the
+other. There was a round table in the centre, so he thought it must be
+Stewart's dining-room. At the left a doorway opened into a place where
+there were lights, and at the other side was another door closed. From
+the room at the left there came a sound of voices, and though they were
+not loud, one of them, Mlle. Olga Nilssen's voice, was hard and angry
+and not altogether under control. The man would seem to have been
+attempting to pacify her, and he would seem not to have been very
+successful.
+
+The first words that Ste. Marie was able to distinguish were from the
+woman. She said, in a low, fierce tone:
+
+"That is a lie, my friend! That is a lie! I know all about the road to
+Clamart, so you needn't lie to me any longer. It's no good."
+
+She paused for just an instant there, and in the pause St. Marie heard
+Stewart give a sort of inarticulate exclamation. It seemed to express
+anger and it seemed also to express fear. But the woman swept on, and
+her voice began to be louder. She said:
+
+"I've given you your chance. You didn't deserve it, but I've given it
+you--and you've told me nothing but lies. Well, you'll lie no more. This
+ends it."
+
+Upon that Ste. Marie heard a sudden stumbling shuffle of feet and a low,
+hoarse cry of utter terror--a cry more animal-like than human. He heard
+the cry break off abruptly in something that was like a cough and a
+whine together, and he heard the sound of a heavy body falling with a
+loose rattle upon the floor.
+
+With the sound of that falling body he had already reached the doorway
+and torn aside the heavy portière. It was a sleeping-room he looked
+into, a room of medium size with two windows and an ornate bed of the
+Empire style set sidewise against the farther wall. There were electric
+lights upon imitation candles which were grouped in sconces against the
+wall, and these were turned on, so that the room was brightly
+illuminated. Midway between the door and the ornate Empire bed Captain
+Stewart lay huddled and writhing upon the floor, and Olga Nilssen stood
+upright beside him, gazing down upon him quite calmly. In her right
+hand, which hung at her side, she held a little flat black automatic
+pistol of the type known as Brownings--and they look like toys, but they
+are not.
+
+Ste. Marie sprang at her silently and caught her by the arm, twisting
+the automatic pistol from her grasp, and the woman made no effort
+whatever to resist him. She looked into his face quite frankly and
+unmoved, and she shook her head.
+
+"I haven't harmed him," she said. "I was going to, yes--and then
+myself--but he didn't give me a chance. He fell down in a fit." She
+nodded down toward the man who lay writhing at their feet. "I frightened
+him," she said, "and he fell in a fit. He's an epileptic, you know.
+Didn't you know that? Oh yes."
+
+Abruptly she turned away shivering, and put up her hands over her face.
+And she gave an exclamation of uncontrollable repulsion.
+
+"Ugh!" she cried, "it's horrible! Horrible! I can't bear to look. I saw
+him in a fit once before--long ago--and I couldn't bear even to speak to
+him for a month. I thought he had been cured. He said--Ah, it's
+horrible!"
+
+Ste. Marie had dropped upon his knees beside the fallen man, and Mlle.
+Nilssen said, over her shoulder:
+
+"Hold his head up from the floor, if you can bear to. He might hurt it."
+
+It was not an easy thing to do, for Ste. Marie had the natural sense of
+repulsion in such matters that most people have, and this man's
+appearance, as Olga Nilssen had said, was horrible. The face was drawn
+hideously, and in the strong, clear light of the electrics it was a
+deathly yellow. The eyes were half closed, and the eyeballs turned up so
+that only the whites of them showed between the lids. There was froth
+upon the distorted mouth, and it clung to the catlike mustache and to
+the shallow, sunken chin beneath. But Ste. Marie exerted all his will
+power, and took the jerking, trembling head in his hands, holding it
+clear of the floor.
+
+"You'd better call the servant," he said. "There may be something that
+can be done."
+
+But the woman answered, without looking:
+
+"No, there's nothing that can be done, I believe, except to keep him
+from bruising himself. Stimulants--that sort of thing--do more harm than
+good. Could you get him on the bed here?"
+
+"Together we might manage it," said Ste. Marie. "Come and help!"
+
+"I can't!" she cried, nervously. "I can't--touch him. Please, I can't do
+it."
+
+"Come!" said the man, in a sharp tone. "It's no time for nerves. I don't
+like it, either, but it's got to be done."
+
+The woman began a half-hysterical sobbing, but after a moment she turned
+and came with slow feet to where Stewart lay.
+
+Ste. Marie slipped his arms under the man's body and began to raise him
+from the floor.
+
+"You needn't help, after all," he said. "He's not heavy."
+
+And, indeed, under his skilfully shaped and padded clothes the man was a
+mere waif of a man--as unbelievably slight as if he were the victim of a
+wasting disease. Ste. Marie held the body in his arms as if it had been
+a child, and carried it across and laid it on the bed; but it was many
+months before he forgot the horror of that awful thing shaking and
+twitching in his hold, the head thumping hideously upon his shoulder,
+the arms and legs beating against him. It was the most difficult task he
+had ever had to perform. He laid Captain Stewart upon the bed and
+straightened the helpless limbs as best he could.
+
+"I suppose," he said, rising again--"I suppose when the man comes out of
+this he'll be frightfully exhausted and drop off to sleep, won't he?
+We'll have to--"
+
+He halted abruptly there, and for a single swift instant he felt the
+black and rushing sensation of one who is going to faint away. The wall
+behind the ornate Empire bed was covered with photographs, some in
+frames, others left, as they had been received, upon the large squares
+of weird cardboard which are termed "art mounts."
+
+"Come here a moment, quickly!" said Ste. Marie, in a sharp voice.
+
+Mlle. Nilssen's sobs had died down to a silent, spasmodic catching of
+the breath, but she was still much unnerved, and she approached the bed
+with obvious unwillingness, dabbing at her eyes with a handkerchief.
+Ste. Marie pointed to an unframed photograph which was fastened to the
+wall by thumb-tacks, and his outstretched hand shook as he pointed.
+Beneath them the other man still writhed and tumbled in his epileptic
+fit.
+
+"Do you know who that woman is?" demanded Ste. Marie, and his tone was
+such that Olga Nilssen turned slowly and stared at him.
+
+"That woman," said she, "is the reason why I wished to pull the world
+down upon Charlie Stewart and me to-night. That's who she is."
+
+Ste. Marie gave a sort of cry.
+
+"Who is she?" he insisted. "What is her name? I--have a particularly
+important reason for wanting to know. I've got to know."
+
+Mlle. Nilssen shook her head, still staring at him.
+
+"I can't tell you that," said she. "I don't know the name. I only know
+that--when he met her, he--I don't know her name, but I know where she
+lives and where he goes every day to see her--a house with a big garden
+and walled park on the road to Clamart. It's on the edge of the wood,
+not far from Fort d'Issy. The Clamart-Vanves-Issy tram runs past the
+wall of one side of the park. That's all I know."
+
+Ste. Marie clasped his head with his hands.
+
+"So near to it!" he groaned, "and yet--Ah!" He bent forward suddenly
+over the bed and spelled out the name of the photographer which was
+pencilled upon the brown cardboard mount. "There's still a chance," he
+said, "There's still one chance."
+
+He became aware that the woman was watching him curiously, and nodded to
+her.
+
+"It's something you don't know about," he explained. "I've got to find
+out who this--girl is. Perhaps the photographer can help me. I used to
+know him." All at once his eyes sharpened. "Tell me the simple truth
+about something!" said he. "If ever we have been friends, if you owe me
+any good office, tell me this: Do you know anything about young Arthur
+Benham's disappearance two months ago, or about what has become of him?"
+
+Again the woman shook her head.
+
+"No," said she. "Nothing at all. I hadn't even heard of it. Young Arthur
+Benham! I've met him once or twice. I wonder--I wonder Stewart never
+spoke to me about his disappearance! That's very odd."
+
+"Yes," said Ste. Marie, absently, "it is." He gave a little sigh. "I
+wonder about a good many things," said he.
+
+He glanced down upon the bed before them, and Captain Stewart lay still,
+save for a slight twitching of the hands. Once he moved his head
+restlessly from side to side and said something incoherent in a weak
+murmur.
+
+"He's out of it," said Olga Nilssen. "He'll sleep now, I think. I
+suppose we must get rid of those people and then leave him to the care
+of his man. A doctor couldn't do anything for him."
+
+"Yes," said Ste. Marie, nodding, "I'll call the servant and tell the
+people that Stewart has been taken ill."
+
+He looked once more toward the photograph on the wall, and under his
+breath he said, with an odd, defiant fierceness: "I won't believe it!"
+But he did not explain what he wouldn't believe. He started out of the
+room, but, half-way, halted and turned back. He looked Olga Nilssen full
+in the eyes, saying:
+
+"It is safe to leave you here with him while I call the servant?
+There'll be no more--?"
+
+But the woman gave a low cry and a violent shiver with it.
+
+"You need have no fear," she said. "I've no desire now to--harm him.
+The--reason is gone. This has cured me. I feel as if I could never bear
+to see him again. Oh, hurry! Please hurry! I want to get away from
+here!"
+
+Ste. Marie nodded, and went out of the room.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+XII
+
+THE NAME OF THE LADY WITH THE EYES--EVIDENCE HEAPS UP SWIFTLY
+
+
+Ste. Marie drove home to the rue d'Assas with his head in a whirl, and
+with a sense of great excitement beating somewhere within him--probably
+in the place where his heart ought to be. He had a curiously sure
+feeling that at last his feet were upon the right path. He could not
+have explained this to himself--indeed, there was nothing to explain,
+and if there had been he was in far too great an inner turmoil to manage
+it. It was a mere feeling--the sort of thing which he had once tried to
+express to Captain Stewart and had got laughed at for his pains.
+
+There was, in sober fact, no reason whatever why Captain Stewart's
+possession of a photograph of the beautiful lady whom Ste. Marie had
+once seen in company with O'Hara should be taken as significant of
+anything except an appreciation of beauty on the part of Miss Benham's
+uncle--not even if, as Mlle. Nilssen believed, Captain Stewart was in
+love with the lady. But to Ste. Marie, in his whirl of reawakened
+excitement, the discovery loomed to the skies, and in a series of
+ingenious but very vague leaps of the imagination he saw himself, with
+the aid of this new evidence (which was no evidence at all, if he had
+been calm enough to realize it), victorious in his great quest: leading
+young Arthur Benham back to the arms of an ecstatic family, and kneeling
+at the feet of that youth's sister to claim his reward. All of which
+seems a rather startling flight of the imagination to have had its
+beginning in the sight of one photograph of a young woman. But, then,
+Ste. Marie was imaginative if he was anything.
+
+He fell to thinking of this girl whose eyes, after one sight of them,
+had so long haunted him. He thought of her between those two men, the
+hard-faced Irish adventurer, and the other, Stewart, strange compound of
+intellectual and voluptuary, and his eyes flashed in the dark and he
+gripped his hands together upon his knees. He said again:
+
+"I won't believe it! I won't believe it!" Believe what? one wonders.
+
+He slept hardly at all: only, toward morning, falling into an uneasy
+doze. And in the doze he dreamed once more the dream of the dim, waste
+place and the hill, and the eyes and voice that called him back--because
+they needed him.
+
+As early as he dared, after his morning coffee, he took a fiacre and
+drove across the river to the Boulevard de la Madeleine, where he
+climbed a certain stair, at the foot of which were two glass cases
+containing photographs of, for the most part, well-known ladies of the
+Parisian stage. At the top of the stair he entered the reception-room of
+a young photographer who is famous now the world over, but who, at the
+beginning of his career, when he had nothing but talent and no
+acquaintance, owed certain of his most important commissions to M. Ste.
+Marie.
+
+The man, whose name was Bernstein, came forward eagerly from the studio
+beyond to greet his visitor, and Ste. Marie complimented him chaffingly
+upon his very sleek and prosperous appearance, and upon the new
+decorations of the little salon, which were, in truth, excellently well
+judged. But after they had talked for a little while of such matters, he
+said:
+
+"I want to know if you keep specimen prints of all the photographs you
+have made within the past few months, and, if so, I should like to see
+them."
+
+The young Jew went to a wooden portfolio-holder which stood in a corner,
+and dragged it out into the light.
+
+"I have them all here," said he--"everything that I have made within the
+past ten or twelve months. If you will let me draw up a chair you can
+look them over comfortably."
+
+He glanced at his former patron with a little polite curiosity as Ste.
+Marie followed his suggestion, and began to turn over the big
+portfolio's contents; but he did not show any surprise nor ask
+questions. Indeed, he guessed, to a certain extent, rather near the
+truth of the matter. It had happened before that young gentlemen--and
+old ones, too--wanted to look over his prints without offering
+explanations, and they generally picked out all the photographs there
+were of some particular lady and bought them if they could be bought.
+
+So he was by no means astonished on this occasion, and he moved about
+the room putting things to rights, and even went for a few moments into
+the studio beyond until he was recalled by a sudden exclamation from his
+visitor--an exclamation which had a sound of mingled delight and
+excitement.
+
+Ste. Marie held in his hands a large photograph, and he turned it toward
+the man who had made it.
+
+"I am going to ask you some questions," said he, "that will sound rather
+indiscreet and irregular, but I beg you to answer them if you can,
+because the matter is of great importance to a number of people. Do you
+remember this lady?"
+
+"Oh yes," said the Jew, readily, "I remember her very well. I never
+forget people who are as beautiful as this lady was." His eyes gleamed
+with retrospective joy. "She was splendid!" he declared. "Sumptuous! No,
+I cannot describe her. I have not the words. And I could not photograph
+her with any justice, either. She was all color: brown skin, with a
+dull-red stain under the cheeks, and a great mass of hair that was not
+black but very nearly black--except in the sun, and then there were red
+lights in it. She was a goddess, that lady, a queen of goddesses-- the
+young Juno before marriage--the--"
+
+"Yes," interrupted Ste. Marie--"yes, I see. Yes, quite evidently she was
+beautiful; but what I wanted in particular to know was her name, if you
+feel that you have a right to give it to me (I remind you again that the
+matter is very important), and any circumstances that you can remember
+about her coming here: who came with her, for instance and things of
+that sort."
+
+The photographer looked a little disappointed at being cut off in the
+middle of his rhapsody, but he began turning over the leaves of an
+order-book which lay upon a table near by.
+
+"Here is the entry," he said, after a few moments. "Yes, I thought so,
+the date was nearly three months ago--April 5th. And the lady's name was
+Mlle. Coira O'Hara."
+
+"What!" cried the other man, sharply. "What did you say?"
+
+"Mlle. Coira O'Hara was the name," repeated the photographer. "I
+remember the occasion perfectly. The lady came here with three
+gentlemen--one tall, thin gentleman with an eyeglass, an Englishman, I
+think, though he spoke very excellent French when he spoke to me. Among
+themselves they spoke, I think, English, though I do not understand it,
+except a few words, such as ''ow moch?' and 'sank you' and 'rady,
+pleas', now.'"
+
+"Yes! yes!" cried Ste. Marie, impatiently. And the little Jew could see
+that he was laboring under some very strong excitement, and he wondered
+mildly about it, scenting a love-affair.
+
+"Then," he pursued, "there was a very young man in strange clothes--a
+tourist, I should think, like those Americans and English who come in
+the summer with little red books and sit on the terrace of the Café de
+la Paix." He heard his visitor draw a swift, sharp breath at that, but
+he hurried on before he could be interrupted. "This young man seemed to
+be unable to take his eyes from the lady--and small wonder! He was very
+much épris--very much épris, indeed. Never have I seen a youth more so.
+Ah, it was something to see, that--a thing to touch the heart!"
+
+"What did the young man look like?" demanded Ste. Marie.
+
+The photographer described the youth as best he could from memory, and
+he saw his visitor nod once or twice, and at the end he said:
+
+"Yes, yes; I thought so. Thank you."
+
+The Jew did not know what it was the other thought, but he went on:
+
+"Ah, a thing to touch the heart! Such devotion as that! Alas, that the
+lady should seem so cold to it! Still, a goddess! What would you? A
+queen among goddesses. One would not have them laugh and make little
+jokes--make eyes at love-sick boys. No, indeed!" He shook his head
+rapidly and sighed.
+
+M. Ste. Marie was silent for a little space, but at length he looked up
+as if he had just remembered something.
+
+"And the third man?" he asked.
+
+"Ah, yes, the third gentleman," said Bernstein. "I had forgotten him.
+The third gentleman I knew well. He had often been here. It was he who
+brought these friends to me. He was M. le Capitaine Stewart. Everybody
+knows M. le Capitaine Stewart--everybody in Paris."
+
+Again he observed that his visitor drew a little, swift, sharp breath,
+and that he seemed to be laboring under some excitement.
+
+However, Ste. Marie did not question him further, and so he went on to
+tell the little more he knew of the matter--how the four people had
+remained for an hour or more, trying many poses; how they had returned,
+all but the tall gentleman, three days later to see the proofs and to
+order certain ones to be printed (the young man paying on the spot in
+advance), and how the finished prints had been sent to M. le Capitaine
+Stewart's address.
+
+When he had finished, his visitor sat for a long time silent, his head
+bent a little, frowning upon the floor and chafing his hands together
+over his knees. But at last he rose rather abruptly. He said:
+
+"Thank you very much, indeed. You have done me a great service. If ever
+I can repay it, command me. Thank you!"
+
+The Jew protested, smiling, that he was still too deeply in debt to M.
+Ste. Marie, and so, politely wrangling, they reached the door, and with
+a last expression of gratitude the visitor departed down the stair. A
+client came in just then for a sitting, and so the little photographer
+did not have an opportunity to wonder over the rather odd affair as much
+as he might have done. Indeed, in the press of work, it slipped from his
+mind altogether.
+
+But down in the busy boulevard Ste. Marie stood hesitating on the curb.
+There were so many things to be done, in the light of these new
+developments, that he did not know what to do first.
+
+"Mlle. Coira O'Hara!--_Mademoiselle!_" The thought gave him a sudden
+sting of inexplicable relief and pleasure. She would be O'Hara's
+daughter, then. And the boy, Arthur Benham (there was no room for doubt
+in the photographer's description) had seemed to be badly in love with
+her. This was a new development, indeed! It wanted thought, reflection,
+consultation with Richard Hartley. He signalled to a fiacre, and when it
+had drawn up before him sprang into it and gave Richard Hartley's
+address in the Avenue de l'Observatoire. But when they had gone a little
+way he changed his mind and gave another address, one in the Boulevard
+de la Tour Maubourg. It was where Mlle. Olga Nilssen lived. She had told
+him when he parted from her the evening before.
+
+On the way he fell to thinking of what he had learned from the little
+photographer Bernstein, to setting the facts, as well as he could, in
+order, endeavoring to make out just how much or how little they
+signified by themselves or added to what he had known before. But he was
+in far too keen a state of excitement to review them at all calmly. As
+on the previous evening, they seemed to him to loom to the skies, and
+again he saw himself successful in his quest--victorious--triumphant.
+That this leap to conclusions was but a little less absurd than the
+first did not occur to him. He was in a fine fever of enthusiasm, and
+such difficulties as his eye perceived lay in a sort of vague mist to be
+dissipated later on, when he should sit quietly down with Hartley and
+sift the wheat from the chaff, laying out a definite scheme of action.
+
+It occurred to him that in his interview with the photographer he had
+forgotten one point, and he determined to go back, later on, and ask
+about it. He had forgotten to inquire as to Captain Stewart's attitude
+toward the beautiful lady. Young Arthur Benham's infatuation had filled
+his mind at the time, and had driven out of it what Olga Nilssen had
+told him about Stewart. He found himself wondering if this point might
+not be one of great importance--the rivalry of the two men for O'Hara's
+daughter. Assuredly that demanded thought and investigation.
+
+He found the prettily furnished apartment in the Avenue de la Tour
+Maubourg a scene of great disorder, presided over by a maid who seemed
+to be packing enormous quantities of garments into large trunks. The
+maid told him that her mistress, after a sleepless night, had departed
+from Paris by an early train, quite alone, leaving the servant to follow
+on when she had telegraphed or written an address. No, Mlle. Nilssen had
+left no address at all--not even for letters or telegrams. In short, the
+entire proceeding was, so the exasperated woman viewed it, everything
+that is imbecile.
+
+Ste. Marie sat down on a hamper with his stick between his knees, and
+wrote a little note to be sent on when Mlle. Nilssen's whereabouts
+should be known. It was unfortunate, he reflected, that she should have
+fled away just now, but not of great importance to him, because he did
+not believe that he could learn very much more from her than he had
+learned already. Moreover, he sympathized with her desire to get away
+from Paris--as far away as possible from the man whom she had seen in so
+horrible a state on the evening past.
+
+He had kept the fiacre at the door, and he drove at once back to the rue
+d'Assas. As he started to mount the stair the concierge came out of her
+loge to say that Mr. Hartley had called soon after Monsieur had left the
+house that morning, had seemed very much disappointed on not finding
+Monsieur, and before going away again had had himself let into
+Monsieur's apartment with the key of the femme de ménage, and had
+written a note which Monsieur would find là haut.
+
+Ste. Marie thanked the woman, and went on up to his rooms, wondering why
+Hartley had bothered to leave a note instead of waiting or returning at
+lunch-time, as he usually did. He found the communication on his table
+and read it at once. Hartley said:
+
+I have to go across the river to the Bristol to see some relatives who
+are turning up there to-day, and who will probably keep me until
+evening, and then I shall have to go back there to dine. So I'm leaving
+a word for you about some things I discovered last evening. I met Miss
+Benham at Armenonville, where I dined, and in a tête-à-tête conversation
+we had after dinner she let fall two facts which seem to me very
+important. They concern Captain S. In the first place, when he told us
+that day, some time ago, that he knew nothing about his father's will or
+any changes that might have been made in it, he lied. It seems that old
+David, shortly after the boy's disappearance, being very angry at what
+he considered, and still considers, a bit of spite on the boy's part,
+cut young Arthur Benham out of his will and transferred that share to
+_Captain S._ (Miss Benham learned this from the old man only yesterday).
+Also it appears that he did this after talking the matter over with
+Captain S., who affected unwillingness. So, as the will reads now, Miss
+B. and Captain S. stand to share equally the bulk of the old man's
+money, which is several millions--in dollars, of course. Miss B.'s
+mother is to have the interest of half of both shares as long as she
+lives. Now mark this: Prior to this new arrangement, Captain S. was to
+receive only a small legacy, on the ground that he already had a
+respectable fortune left him by his mother, old David's first wife (I've
+heard, by-the-way, that he has squandered a good share of this.)
+
+Miss B. is, of course, much cut up over the injustice to the boy, but
+she can't protest too much, as it only excites old David. She says the
+old man is much weaker.
+
+You see, of course, the significance of all this. If David Stewart dies,
+as he's likely to do, before young Arthur's return, Captain S. gets the
+money.
+
+The second fact I learned was that Miss Benham did not tell her uncle
+about her semi-engagement to you or about your volunteering to search
+for the boy. She thinks her grandfather must have told him. I didn't say
+so to her, but that is hardly possible in view of the fact that Stewart
+came on here to your rooms very soon after you had reached them
+yourself.
+
+So that makes two lies for our gentle friend--and serious lies, both of
+them. To my mind, they point unmistakably to a certain conclusion.
+_Captain S. has been responsible for putting his nephew out of the way_.
+He has either hidden him somewhere and is keeping him in confinement, or
+he has killed him.
+
+I wish we could talk it over to-day, but, as you see, I'm helpless.
+Remain in to-night, and I'll come as soon as I can get rid of these
+confounded people of mine.
+
+One word more. Be careful! Miss B. is, up to this point, merely puzzled
+over things. She doesn't suspect her uncle of any crookedness, I'm sure.
+So we shall have to tread softly where she is concerned.
+
+I shall see you to-night. R.H.
+
+Ste. Marie read the closely written pages through twice, and he thought
+how like his friend it was to take the time and trouble to put what he
+had learned into this clear, concise form. Another man would have
+scribbled, "Important facts--tell you all about it to-night," or
+something of that kind. Hartley must have spent a quarter of an hour
+over his writing.
+
+Ste. Marie walked up and down the room with all his strength forcing his
+brain to quiet, reasonable action. Once he said, aloud:
+
+"Yes, you're right, of course. Stewart has been at the bottom of it all
+along." He realized that he had been for some days slowly arriving at
+that conclusion, and that since the night before he had been practically
+certain of it, though he had not yet found time to put his suspicions
+into logical order. Hartley's letter had driven the truth concretely
+home to him, but he would have reached the same truth without it--though
+that matter of the will was of the greatest importance. It gave him a
+strong weapon to strike with.
+
+He halted before one of the front windows, and his eyes gazed unseeing
+across the street into the green shrubbery of the Luxembourg Gardens.
+The lace curtains had been left by the femme de ménage hanging straight
+down, and not, as usual, looped back to either side, so he could see
+through them with perfect ease, although he could not be seen from
+outside.
+
+He became aware that a man who was walking slowly up and down a path
+inside the high iron palings was in some way familiar to him, and his
+eyes sharpened. The man was inconspicuously dressed, and looked like
+almost any other man whom one might pass in the streets without taking
+any notice of him; but Ste. Marie knew that he had seen him often, and
+he wondered how and where. There was a row of lilac shrubs against the
+iron palings just inside and between the palings and the path, but two
+of the shrubs were dead and leafless, and each time the man passed this
+spot he came into plain view; each time, also, he directed an oblique
+glance toward the house opposite. Presently he turned aside and sat down
+upon one of the public benches, where he was almost, but not quite,
+hidden by the intervening foliage.
+
+Then at last Ste. Marie gave a sudden exclamation and smote his hands
+together.
+
+"The fellow's a spy!" he cried, aloud. "He's watching the house to see
+when I go out." He began to remember how he had seen the man in the
+street and in cafés and restaurants, and he remembered that he had once
+or twice thought it odd, but without any second thought of suspicion. So
+the fellow had been set to spy upon him, watch his goings and comings
+and report them to--no need of asking to whom.
+
+Ste. Marie stood behind his curtains and looked across into the pleasant
+expanse of shrubbery and greensward. He was wondering if it would be
+worth while to do anything. Men and women went up and down the path,
+hurrying or slowly, at ease with the world--laborers, students, bonnes
+with market-baskets in their hands and long bread loaves under their
+arms, nurse-maids herding small children, bigger children spinning
+diabolo spools as they walked. A man with a pointed black beard and a
+soft hat passed once and returned to seat himself upon the public bench
+that Ste. Marie was watching. For some minutes he sat there idle,
+holding the soft felt hat upon his knees for coolness. Then he turned
+and looked at the other occupant of the bench, and Ste. Marie thought he
+saw the other man nod, though he could not be sure whether either one
+spoke or not. Presently the new-comer rose, put on the soft hat again,
+and disappeared down the path going toward the gate at the head of the
+rue du Luxembourg.
+
+Five minutes later the door-bell rang.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+XIII
+
+THE VOYAGE TO COLCHIS
+
+
+Ste. Marie turned away from the window and crossed to the door. The man
+with the pointed beard removed his soft hat, bowed very politely, and
+asked if he had the honor to address M. Ste. Marie.
+
+"That is my name," said Ste. Marie. "Entrez, Monsieur!" He waved his
+visitor to a chair and stood waiting.
+
+The man with the beard bowed once more. He said:
+
+"I have not the great honor of Monsieur's acquaintance, but
+circumstances, which I will explain later, have put it in my power--have
+made it a sacred duty, if I may be permitted to say the word--to place
+in Monsieur's hands a piece of information."
+
+Ste. Marie smiled slightly and sat down. He said:
+
+"I listen with pleasure--and anticipation. Pray go on!"
+
+"I have information," said the visitor, "of the whereabouts of M. Arthur
+Benham."
+
+Ste. Marie waved his hand.
+
+"I feared as much," said he. "I mean to say, I hoped so. Proceed,
+Monsieur!"
+
+"And learning," continued the other, "that M. Ste. Marie was conducting
+a search for that young gentleman, I hastened at once to place this
+information in his hands."
+
+"At a price," suggested his host. "At a price, to be sure."
+
+The man with the beard spread out his hands in a beautiful and eloquent
+gesture which well accompanied his Marseillais accent.
+
+"Ah, as to that!" he protested. "My circumstances--I am poor, Monsieur.
+One must gain the livelihood. What would you? A trifle. The merest
+trifle."
+
+"Where is Arthur Benham?" asked Ste. Marie.
+
+"In Marseilles, Monsieur. I saw him a week ago--six days. And, so far as
+I could learn, he had no intention of leaving there immediately--though
+it is, to be sure, hot."
+
+Ste. Marie laughed a laugh of genuine amusement, and the man with the
+pointed beard stared at him with some wonder. Ste. Marie rose and
+crossed the room to a writing-desk which stood against the opposite
+wall. He fumbled in a drawer of this, and returned holding in his hand a
+pink-and-blue note of the Banque de France. He said:
+
+"Monsieur--pardon! I have forgotten to ask the name--you have remarked
+quite truly that one must gain a livelihood. Therefore, I do not presume
+to criticise the way in which you gain yours. Sometimes one cannot
+choose. However, I should like to make a little bargain with you,
+Monsieur. I know, of course, being not altogether imbecile, who sent you
+here with this story and why you were sent--why, also, your friend who
+sits upon the bench in the garden across the street follows me about and
+spies upon me. I know all this, and I laugh at it a little. But,
+Monsieur, to amuse myself further, I have a desire to hear from your own
+lips the name of the gentleman who is your employer. Amusement is almost
+always expensive, and so I am prepared to pay for this. I have here a
+note of one hundred francs. It is yours in return for the name--the
+_right_ name. Remember, I know it already."
+
+The man with the pointed beard sprang to his feet quivering with
+righteous indignation. All Southern Frenchmen, like all other Latins,
+are magnificent actors. He shook one clinched hand in the air, his face
+was pale, and his fine eyes glittered. Richard Hartley would have put
+himself promptly in an attitude of defence, but Ste. Marie nodded a
+smiling head in appreciation. He was half a Southern Frenchman himself.
+
+"Monsieur!" cried his visitor, in a choked voice, "Monsieur, have a
+care! You insult me! Have a care, Monsieur! I am dangerous! My anger,
+when roused, is terrible!"
+
+"I am cowed," observed Ste. Marie, lighting a cigarette. "I quail."
+
+"Never," declaimed the gentleman from Marseilles, "have I received an
+insult without returning blow for blow! My blood boils!"
+
+"The hundred francs, Monsieur," said Ste. Marie, "will doubtless cool
+it. Besides, we stray from our sheep. Reflect, my friend! I have not
+insulted you. I have asked you a simple question. To be sure, I have
+said that I knew your errand here was not--not altogether sincere, but I
+protest, Monsieur, that no blame attaches to yourself. The blame is your
+employer's. You have performed your mission with the greatest of
+honesty--the most delicate and faithful sense of honor. That is
+understood."
+
+The gentleman with the beard strode across to one of the windows and
+leaned his head upon his hand. His shoulders still heaved with emotion,
+but he no longer trembled. The terrible crisis bade fair to pass. Then,
+abruptly, in the frank and open Latin way, he burst into tears, and wept
+with copious profusion, while Ste. Marie smoked his cigarette and
+waited.
+
+When at length the Marseillais turned back into the room he was calm
+once more, but there remained traces of storm and flood. He made a
+gesture of indescribable and pathetic resignation.
+
+"Monsieur," he exclaimed, "you have a heart of gold--of gold, Monsieur!
+You understand. Behold us, two men of honor! Monsieur," he said, "I had
+no choice. I was poor. I saw myself face to face with the misère. What
+would you? I fell. We are all weak flesh. I accepted the commission of
+the pig who sent me here to you."
+
+Ste. Marie smoothed the pink-and-blue bank-note in his hands, and the
+other man's eye clung to it as though he were starving and the bank-note
+was food.
+
+"The name?" prompted Ste. Marie.
+
+The gentleman from Marseilles tossed up his hands.
+
+"Monsieur already knows it. Why should I hesitate? The name is Ducrot."
+
+"What!" cried Ste. Marie, sharply. "What is that? Ducrot?"
+
+"But naturally!" said the other man, with some wonder. "Monsieur said he
+knew. Certainly, Ducrot. A little, withered man, bald on the top of the
+head, creases down the cheeks, a mustache like this"--he made a
+descriptive gesture--"a little chin. A man like an elderly cat. M.
+Ducrot."
+
+Ste. Marie gave a sigh of relief.
+
+"Yes, yes," said he. "Ducrot is as good a name as another. The gentleman
+has more than one, it appears. Monsieur, the hundred-franc note is
+yours."
+
+The gentleman from Marseilles took it with a slightly trembling hand,
+and began to bow himself toward the door as if he feared that his host
+would experience a change of heart; but Ste. Marie checked him, saying:
+
+"One moment. I was thinking," said he, "that you would perhaps not care
+to present yourself to your--employer, M. Ducrot, immediately--not for a
+few days, at least, in view of the fact that certain actions of mine
+will show him your mission has--well, miscarried. It would, perhaps, be
+well for you not to communicate with M. Ducrot. He might be displeased
+with you."
+
+"Monsieur," said the gentleman with the beard, "you speak with acumen
+and wisdom. I shall neglect to report myself to M. Ducrot, who, I
+repeat, is a pig."
+
+"And," pursued Ste. Marie, "the individual on the bench across the
+street?"
+
+"It is not necessary that I meet that individual, either!" said the
+Marseillais, hastily. "Monsieur, I bid you adieu!" He bowed again, a
+profound, a scraping bow, and disappeared through the door.
+
+Ste. Marie crossed to the window and looked down upon the pavement
+below. He saw his late visitor emerge from the house and slip rapidly
+down the street toward the rue Vavin. He glanced across into the gardens
+and the spy still sat there on his bench, but his head lay back and he
+slept--the sleep of the unjust. One imagined that he must be snoring,
+for an incredibly small urchin in a blue apron stood on the path before
+him and watched with the open mouth of astonishment.
+
+Ste. Marie turned back into the room, and began to tramp up and down as
+was his way in a perplexity or in any time of serious thought. He wished
+very much that Richard Hartley were there to consult with. He considered
+Hartley to have a judicial mind--a mind to establish, out of confusion,
+something like logical order, and he was very well aware that he himself
+had not that sort of mind at all. In action he was sufficiently
+confident of himself, but to construct a course of action he was afraid,
+and he knew that a misstep now, at this critical point, might be
+fatal--turn success into disaster.
+
+He fell to thinking of Captain Stewart (alias M. Ducrot) and he longed
+most passionately to leap into a fiacre at the corner below, to drive at
+a gallop across the city to the rue du Faubourg St. Honoré, to fall upon
+that smiling hypocrite in his beautiful treasure-house, to seize him by
+the withered throat and say:
+
+"Tell me what you have done with Arthur Benham before I tear your head
+from your miserable body!"
+
+Indeed, he was far from sure that this was not what it would come to, in
+the end, for he reflected that he had not only a tremendous accumulation
+of evidence with which to face Captain Stewart, but also a very terrible
+weapon to hold over his head--the threat of exposure to the old man who
+lay slowly dying in the rue de l'Université! A few words in old David's
+ear, a few proofs of their truth, and the great fortune for which the
+son had sold his soul--if he had any left to sell--must pass forever out
+of his reach, like gold seen in a dream.
+
+This is what it might well come to, he said to himself. Indeed, it
+seemed to him at that moment far the most feasible plan, for to such
+accusations, such demands as that, Captain Stewart could offer no
+defence. To save himself from a more complete ruin he would have to give
+up the boy or tell what he knew of him. But Ste. Marie was unwilling to
+risk everything on this throw without seeing Richard Hartley first, and
+Hartley was not to be had until evening.
+
+He told himself that, after all, there was no immediate hurry, for he
+was quite sure the man would be compelled to keep to his bed for a day
+or two. He did not know much about epilepsy, but he knew that its
+paroxysms were followed by great exhaustion, and he felt sure that
+Stewart was far too weak in body to recuperate quickly from any severe
+call upon his strength. He remembered how light that burden had been in
+his arms the night before, and then an uncontrollable shiver of disgust
+went over him as he remembered the sight of the horribly twisted and
+contorted face, felt again the shaking, thumping head as it beat against
+his shoulder. He wondered how much Stewart knew, how much he would be
+able to remember of the events of the evening before, and he was at a
+loss there because of his unfamiliarity with epileptic seizures. Of one
+thing, however, he was almost certain, and that was that the man could
+scarcely have been conscious of who were beside him when the fit was
+over. If he had come at all to his proper senses before the ensuing
+slumber of exhaustion, it must have been after Mlle. Nilssen and himself
+had gone away.
+
+Upon that he fell to wondering about the spy and the gentleman from
+Marseilles--he was a little sorry that Hartley could not have seen the
+gentleman from Marseilles--but he reflected that the two were, without
+doubt, acting upon old orders, and that the latter had probably been
+stalking him for some days before he found him at home.
+
+He looked at his watch and it was half-past twelve. There was nothing to
+be done, he considered, but wait--get through the day somehow; and so,
+presently, he went out to lunch. He went up the rue Vavin to the
+Boulevard Montparnasse and down that broad thoroughfare to Lavenue's, on
+the busy Place de Rennes, where the cooking is the best in all this
+quarter, and can, indeed, hold up its head without shame in the face of
+those other more widely famous restaurants across the river, frequented
+by the smart world and by the travelling gourmet.
+
+He went through to the inner room, which is built like a raised loggia
+round two sides of a little garden, and which is always cool and fresh
+in summer. He ordered a rather elaborate lunch, and thought that he sat
+a very long time at it, but when he looked again at his watch only an
+hour and a half had gone by. It was a quarter-past two. Ste. Marie was
+depressed. There remained almost all of the afternoon to be got through,
+and Heaven alone could say how much of the evening, before he could have
+his consultation with Richard Hartley. He tried to think of some way of
+passing the time, but although he was not usually at a loss he found his
+mind empty of ideas. None of his common occupations recommended
+themselves to him. He knew that whatever he tried to do he would
+interrupt it with pulling out his watch every half-hour or so and
+cursing the time because it lagged so slowly. He went out to the terrace
+for coffee, very low in his mind.
+
+But half an hour later, as he sat behind his little marble-topped table,
+smoking and sipping a liqueur, his eyes fell upon something across the
+square which brought him to his feet with a sudden exclamation. One of
+the big electric trams that ply between the Place St. Germain des Prés
+and Clamart, by way of the Porte de Versailles and Vanves, was dragging
+its unwieldy bulk round the turn from the rue de Rennes into the
+boulevard. He could see the sign-board along the impériale--"Clamart-St.
+Germain des Prés," with "Issy" and "Vanves" in brackets between.
+
+Ste. Marie clinked a franc upon the table and made off across the Place
+at a run. Omnibuses from Batignolles and Menilmontant got in his way,
+fiacres tried to run him down, and a motor-car in a hurry pulled up just
+in time to save his life, but Ste. Marie ran on and caught the tram
+before it had completed the negotiation of the long curve and gathered
+speed for its dash down the boulevard. He sprang upon the step, and the
+conductor reluctantly unfastened the chain to admit him. So he climbed
+up to the top and seated himself, panting. The dial high on the façade
+of the Gare Montparnasse said ten minutes to three.
+
+He had no definite plan of action. He had started off in this headlong
+fashion upon the spur of a moment's impulse, and because he knew where
+the tram was going. Now, embarked, he began to wonder if he was not a
+fool. He knew every foot of the way to Clamart, for it was a favorite
+half-day's excursion with him to ride there in this fashion, walk thence
+through the beautiful Meudon wood across to the river, and from Bellevue
+or Bas-Meudon take a Suresnes boat back into the city. He knew, or
+thought he knew, just where lay the house, surrounded by garden and
+half-wild park, of which Olga Nilssen had told him; he had often
+wondered whose place it was as the tram rolled along the length of its
+high wall. But he knew, also, that he could do nothing there,
+single-handed and without excuse or preparation. He could not boldly
+ring the bell, demand speech with Mile. Coira O'Hara, and ask her if she
+knew anything of the whereabouts of young Arthur Benham, whom a
+photographer had suspected of being in love with her. He certainly could
+not do that. And there seemed to be nothing else that--Ste. Marie broke
+off this somewhat despondent course of reasoning with a sudden little
+voiceless cry. For the first time it occurred to him to connect the
+house on the Clamart road and Mlle. Coira O'Hara and young Arthur Benham
+(it will be remembered that the man had not yet had time to arrange his
+suddenly acquired mass of evidence in logical order and to make
+deductions from it), for the first time he began to put two and two
+together. Stewart had hidden away his nephew; this nephew was known to
+have been much enamoured of the girl Coira O'Hara; Coira O'Hara was said
+to be living--with her father, probably--in the house on the outskirts
+of Paris, where she was visited by Captain Stewart. Was not the
+inference plain enough--sufficiently reasonable? It left, without doubt,
+many puzzling things to be explained--perhaps too many; but Ste. Marie
+sat forward in his seat, his eyes gleaming, his face tense with
+excitement.
+
+"Is young Arthur Benham in the house on the Clamart road?"
+
+He said the words almost aloud, and he became aware that the fat woman
+with a live fowl at her feet and the butcher's boy on his other side
+were looking at him curiously. He realized that he was behaving in an
+excited manner, and so sat back and lowered his eyes. But over and over
+within him the words said themselves--over and over, until they made a
+sort of mad, foolish refrain.
+
+"Is Arthur Benham in the house on the Clamart road? Is Arthur Benham in
+the house on the Clamart road?" He was afraid that he would say it aloud
+once more, and, he tried to keep a firm hold upon himself.
+
+The tram swung into the rue de Sevres, and rolled smoothly out the long,
+uninteresting stretch of the rue Lecourbe, far out to where the houses,
+became scattered, where mounds and pyramids of red tiles stood alongside
+the factory where they had been made, where an acre of little glass
+hemispheres in long, straight rows winked and glistened in the afternoon
+sun--the forcing-beds of some market gardener; out to the Porte de
+Versailles at the city wall, where a group of customs officers sprawled
+at ease before their little sentry-box or loafed over to inspect an
+incoming tram.
+
+A bugle sounded and a drum beat from the great fosse under the wall, and
+a company of piou-pious, red-capped, red-trousered, shambled through
+their evolutions in a manner to break the heart of a British or a German
+drill-sergeant. Then out past level fields to little Vanves, with its
+steep streets and its old gray church, and past the splendid grounds of
+the Lycée beyond. The fat woman got down, her live fowl shrieking
+protest to the movement, and the butcher's boy got down, too, so that
+Ste. Marie was left alone upon the impériale save for a snuffy old
+gentleman in a pot-hat who sat in a corner buried behind the day's
+_Droits de l'Homme_.
+
+Ste. Marie moved forward once more and laid his arms upon the iron rail
+before him. They were coming near. They ran past plum and apple orchards
+and past humble little detached villas, each with a bit of garden in
+front and an acacia or two at the gate-posts. But presently, on the
+right, the way began to be bordered by a high stone wall, very long,
+behind which showed the trees of a park, and among them, far back from
+the wall beyond a little rise of ground, the gables and chimneys of a
+house could be made out. The wall went on for perhaps a quarter of a
+mile in a straight sweep, but half-way the road swung apart from it to
+the left, dipped under a stone railway bridge, and so presently ended at
+the village of Clamart.
+
+As the tram approached the beginning of that long stone wall it began to
+slacken speed, there was a grating noise from underneath, and presently
+it came to an abrupt halt. Ste. Marie looked over the guard-rail and saw
+that the driver had left his place and was kneeling in the dust beside
+the car peering at its underworks. The conductor strolled round to him
+after a moment and stood indifferently by, remarking upon the strange
+vicissitudes to which electrical propulsion is subject. The driver,
+without looking up, called his colleague a number of the most surprising
+and, it is to be hoped, unwarranted names, and suddenly began to burrow
+under the tram, wriggling his way after the manner of a serpent until
+nothing could be seen of him but two unrestful feet. His voice, though
+muffled, was still tolerably distinct. It cursed, in an unceasing
+staccato and with admirable ingenuity, the tram, the conductor, the
+sacred dog of an impediment which had got itself wedged into one of the
+trucks, and the world in general.
+
+Ste. Marie, sitting aloft, laughed for a moment, and then turned his
+eager eyes upon what lay across the road. The halt had taken place
+almost exactly at the beginning of that long stretch of park wall which
+ran beside the road and the tramway. From where he sat he could see the
+other wing which led inward from the road at something like a right
+angle, but was presently lost to sight because of a sparse and unkempt
+patch of young trees and shrubs, well-nigh choked with undergrowth,
+which extended for some distance from the park wall backward along the
+road-side toward Vanves. Whoever owned that stretch of land had
+seemingly not thought it worth while to cultivate it or to build upon it
+or even to clear it off.
+
+Ste. Marie's first thought, as his eye scanned the two long stretches of
+wall and looked over their tops to the trees of the park and the far-off
+gables and chimneys of the house, was to wonder where the entrance to
+the place could be, and he decided that it must be on the side opposite
+to the Clamart tram-line. He did not know the smaller roads hereabouts,
+but he guessed that there must be one somewhere beyond, between the
+route de Clamart and Fort d'Issy, and he was right. There is a little
+road between the two; it sweeps round in a long curve and ends near the
+tiny public garden in Issy, and it is called the rue Barbés.
+
+His second thought was that this unkempt patch of tree and brush offered
+excellent cover for any one who might wish to pass an observant hour
+alongside that high stone wall; for any one who might desire to cast a
+glance over the lie of the land, to see at closer range that house of
+which so little could be seen from the route de Clamart, to look over
+the wall's coping into park and garden.
+
+The thought brought him to his feet with a leaping heart, and before he
+realized that he had moved he found himself in the road beside the
+halted tram. The conductor brushed past him, mounting to his place, and
+from the platform beckoned, crying out:
+
+"En voiture, Monsieur! En voiture!"
+
+Again something within Ste. Marie that was not his conscious direction
+acted for him, and he shook his head. The conductor gave two little
+blasts upon his horn, the tram wheezed and moved forward. In a moment it
+was on its way, swinging along at full speed toward the curve in the
+line that bore to the left and dipped under the railway bridge. Ste.
+Marie stood in the middle of that empty road, staring after it until it
+had disappeared from view.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+XIV
+
+THE WALLS OF AEA
+
+
+Ste. Marie had acted upon an impulse of which he was scarcely conscious
+at all, and when he found himself standing alone in the road and
+watching the Clamart tram disappear under the railway bridge he called
+himself hard names and wondered what he was to do next. He looked before
+and behind him, and there was no living soul in sight. He bent his eyes
+again upon that unkempt patch of young trees and undergrowth, and once
+more the thought forced itself to his brain that it would make excellent
+cover for one who wished to observe a little--to reconnoitre.
+
+He knew that it was the part of wisdom to turn his back upon this place,
+to walk on to Clamart or return to Vanves and mount upon a
+homeward-bound tram. He knew that it was the part of folly, of madness
+even, to expose himself to possible discovery by some one within the
+walled enclosure. What though no one there were able to recognize him,
+still the sight of a man prowling about the walls, seeking to spy over
+them, might excite an alarm that would lead to all sorts of undesirable
+complications. Dimly Ste. Marie realized all this, and he tried to turn
+his back and walk away, but the patch of little trees and shrubbery drew
+him with an irresistible fascination. "Just a little look along that
+unknown wall," he said to himself, "just the briefest of all brief
+reconnaissances, the merest glance beyond the masking screen of wood
+growth, so that in case of sudden future need he might have the lie of
+the place clear in his mind;" for without any sound reason for it he was
+somehow confident that this walled house and garden were to play an
+important part in the rescue of Arthur Benham. It was once more a matter
+of feeling. The rather womanlike intuition which had warned him that
+O'Hara was concerned in young Benham's disappearance, and that the two
+were not far from Paris, was again at work in him, and he trusted it as
+he had done before.
+
+He gave a little nod of determination, as one who, for good or ill,
+casts a die, and he crossed the road. There was a deep ditch, and he had
+to climb down into it and up its farther side, for it was too broad to
+be jumped. So he came into the shelter of the young poplars and elms and
+oaks. The underbrush caught at his clothes, and the dead leaves of past
+seasons crackled underfoot; but after a little space he came to somewhat
+clearer ground, though the saplings still stood thick about him and hid
+him securely.
+
+He made his way inward along the wall, keeping a short distance back
+from it, and he saw that after twenty or thirty yards it turned again at
+a very obtuse angle away from him and once more ran on in a long
+straight line. Just beyond this angle he came upon a little wooden door
+thickly studded with nails. It was made to open inward, and on the
+outside there was no knob or handle of any kind, only a large key-hole
+of the simple, old-fashioned sort. Slipping up near to look, Ste. Marie
+observed that the edges of the key-hole were rusty, but scratched a
+little through the rust with recent marks; so the door, it seemed, was
+sometimes used. He observed another thing. The ground near by was less
+encumbered with trees than at any other point, and the turf was
+depressed with many wheel marks--broad marks, such as are made only by
+the wheels of a motor-car. He followed these tracks for a little
+distance, and they wound in and out among the trees, and beyond the thin
+fringe of wood swept away in a curve toward Issy, doubtless to join the
+road which he had already imagined to lie somewhere beyond the
+enclosure.
+
+Beyond the more open space about this little door the young trees stood
+thick together again, and Ste. Marie pressed cautiously on. He stopped
+now and then to listen, and once he thought that he heard from within
+the sound of a woman's laugh, but he could not be sure. The slight
+change of direction had confused him a little, and he was uncertain as
+to where the house lay. The wall was twelve or fifteen feet high, and
+from the level of the ground he could, of course, see nothing over it
+but tree tops. He went on for what may have been a hundred yards, but it
+seemed to him very much more than that, and he came to a tall gnarled
+cedar-tree which stood almost against the high wall. It was half dead,
+but its twisted limbs were thick and strong, and by force of the tree's
+cramped position they had grown in strange and grotesque forms. One of
+them stretched across the very top of the stone wall, and with the
+wind's action it had scraped away the coping of tiles and bottle-glass
+and had made a little depression there to rest in.
+
+Ste. Marie looked up along this natural ladder, and temptation smote him
+sorely. It was so easy and so safe! There was enough foliage left upon
+the half-dead tree to screen him well, but whether or no it is probable
+that he would have yielded to the proffered lure. There seems to have
+been more than chance in Ste. Marie's movements upon this day; there
+seems to have been something like the hand of Fate in them--as doubtless
+there is in most things, if one but knew.
+
+He left his hat and stick behind him, under a shrub, and he began to
+make his way up the half-bare branches of the gnarled cedar. They bore
+him well, without crack or rustle, and the way was very easy. No ladder
+made by man could have offered a much simpler ascent. So, mounting
+slowly and with care, his head came level with the top of the wall. He
+climbed to the next branch, a foot higher, and rested there. The
+drooping foliage from the upper part of the cedar-tree, which was still
+alive, hung down over him and cloaked him from view, but through its
+aromatic screen he could see as freely as through the window curtain in
+the rue d'Assas.
+
+The house lay before him, a little to the left and perhaps a hundred
+yards away. It was a disappointing house to find in that great
+enclosure, for though it was certainly neither small nor trivial, it was
+as certainly far from possessing anything like grandeur. It had been in
+its day a respectable, unpretentious square structure of three stories,
+entirely without architectural beauty, but also entirely without the
+ornate hideousness of the modern villas along the route de Clamart. Now,
+however, the stucco was gone in great patches from its stone walls,
+giving them an unpleasantly diseased look, and long neglect of all
+decent cares had lent the place the air almost of desertion. Anciently
+the grounds before the house had been laid out in the formal fashion
+with a terrace and geometrical lawns and a pool and a fountain and a
+rather fine, long vista between clipped larches, but the same neglect
+which had made shabby the stuccoed house had allowed grass and weeds to
+grow over the gravel paths, underbrush to spring up and to encroach upon
+the geometrical turf-plots, the long double row of clipped larches to
+flourish at will or to die or to fall prostrate and lie where they had
+fallen.
+
+So all the broad enclosure was a scene of heedless neglect, a riot of
+unrestrained and wanton growth, where should have been decorous and
+orderly beauty. It was a sight to bring tears to a gardener's eyes, but
+it had a certain untamed charm of its own, for all that. The very riot
+of it, the wanton prodigality of untouched natural growth, produced an
+effect that was by no means all disagreeable.
+
+An odd and whimsical thought came into Ste. Marie's mind that thus must
+have looked the garden and park round the castle of the sleeping beauty
+when the prince came to wake her.
+
+But sleeping beauties and unkempt grounds went from him in a flash when
+he became aware of a sound which was like the sound of voices.
+Instinctively he drew farther back into the shelter of his aromatic
+screen. His eyes swept the space below him from right to left, and could
+see no one. So he sat very still, save for the thunderous beat of a
+heart which seemed to him like drum-beats when soldiers are marching,
+and he listened--"all ears," as the phrase goes.
+
+The sound was in truth a sound of voices. He was presently assured of
+that, but for some time he could not make out from which direction it
+came. And so he was the more startled when quite suddenly there appeared
+from behind a row of tall shrubs two young people moving slowly together
+up the untrimmed turf in the direction of the house.
+
+The two young people were Mlle. Coira O'Hara and Arthur Benham, and upon
+the brow of this latter youth there was no sign of dungeon pallor, upon
+his free-moving limbs no ball and chain. There was no apparent reason
+why he should not hasten back to the eager arms in the rue de
+l'Université if he chose to--unless, indeed, his undissembling attitude
+toward Mlle. Coira O'Hara might serve as a reason. The young man
+followed at her heel with much the manner and somewhat the appearance of
+a small dog humbly conscious of unworthiness, but hopeful nevertheless
+of an occasional kind word or pat on the head.
+
+The world wheeled multi-colored and kaleidoscopic before Ste. Marie's
+eyes, and in his ears there was a rushing of great winds, but he set his
+teeth and clung with all the strength he had to the tree which sheltered
+him. His first feeling, after that initial giddiness, was anger, sheer
+anger, a bewildered and astonished fury. He had thought to find this
+poor youth in captivity, pining through prison bars for the home and the
+loved ones and the familiar life from which he had been ruthlessly torn.
+Yet here he was strolling in a suburban garden with a lady--free, free
+as air, or so he seemed. Ste. Marie thought of the grim and sorrowful
+old man in Paris who was sinking untimely into his grave because his
+grandson did not return to him; he thought of that timid soul--more
+shadow than woman--the boy's mother; he thought of Helen Benham's tragic
+eyes, and he could have beaten young Arthur half to death in that moment
+in the righteous rage that stormed within him.
+
+But he turned his eyes from this wretched youth to the girl who walked
+beside, a little in advance, and the rage died in him swiftly.
+
+After all, was she not one to make any boy--or any man--forget duty,
+home, friends, everything?
+
+Rather oddly his mind flashed back to the morning and to the words of
+the little photographer, Bernstein. Perhaps the Jew had put it as well
+as any man could:
+
+"She was a goddess, that lady, a queen of goddesses ... the young Juno
+before marriage...."
+
+Ste. Marie nodded his head. Yes, she was just that. The little Jew had
+spoken well. It could not be more fairly put--though without doubt it
+could have been expressed at much greater length and with a great deal
+more eloquence. The photographer's other words came also to his mind,
+the more detailed description, and again he nodded his head, for this,
+too, was true.
+
+"She was all color--brown skin with a dull-red stain under the cheeks,
+and a great mass of hair that was not black but very nearly
+black--except in the sun, and then there were red lights in it."
+
+It occurred to Ste. Marie, whimsically, that the two young people might
+have stepped out of the door of Bernstein's studio straight into this
+garden, judging from their bearing each to the other.
+
+"Ah, a thing to touch the heart! Such devotion as that! Alas, that the
+lady should seem so cold to it! ... Still, a goddess! What would you? A
+queen among goddesses! ... One would not have them laugh and make little
+jokes.... Make eyes at love-sick boys. No, indeed!"
+
+Certainly Mlle. Coira O'Hara was not making eyes at the love-sick boy
+who followed at her heel this afternoon. Perhaps it would be going too
+far to say that she was cold to him, but it was very plain to see that
+she was bored and weary, and that she wished she might be almost
+anywhere else than where she was. She turned her beautiful face a little
+toward the wall where Ste. Marie lay perdu, and he could see that her
+eyes had the same dark fire, the same tragic look of appeal that he had
+seen in them before--once in the Champs-Elysées and again in his dreams.
+
+Abruptly he became aware that while he gazed, like a man in a trance,
+the two young people walked on their way and were on the point of
+passing beyond reach of eye or ear. He made a sudden involuntary
+movement as if he would call them back, and for the first time his
+faithful hiding-place, strained beyond silent endurance, betrayed him
+with a loud rustle of shaken branches. Ste. Marie shrank back, his heart
+in his throat. It was too late to retreat now down the tree. The damage
+was already done. He saw the two young people halt and turn to look, and
+after a moment he saw the boy come slowly forward, staring. He heard him
+say:
+
+"What's up in that tree? There's something in the tree." And he heard
+the girl answer: "It's only birds fighting. Don't bother!" But young
+Arthur Benham came on, staring up curiously until he was almost under
+the high wall.
+
+Then Ste. Marie's strange madness, or the hand of Fate, or whatever
+power it was which governed him on that day, thrust him on to the
+ultimate pitch of recklessness. He bent forward from his insecure perch
+over the wall until his head and shoulders were in plain sight, and he
+called down to the lad below in a loud whisper:
+
+"Benham! Benham!"
+
+The boy gave a sharp cry of alarm and began to back away. And after a
+moment Ste. Marie heard the cry echoed from Coira O'Hara. He heard her
+say:
+
+"Be careful! Be careful, Arthur! Come away! Oh, come away quickly!"
+
+Ste. Marie raised his own voice to a sort of cry. He said:
+
+"Wait! I tell you to wait, Benham! I must have a word with you. I come
+from your family--from Helen!"
+
+To his amazement the lad turned about and began to run toward where the
+girl stood waiting; and so, without a moment's hesitation, Ste. Marie
+threw himself across the top of the wall, hung for an instant by his
+hands, and dropped upon the soft turf. Scarcely waiting to recover his
+balance, he stumbled forward, shouting:
+
+"Wait! I tell you, wait! Are you mad? Wait, I say! Listen to me!"
+
+Vaguely, in the midst of his great excitement, he had heard a whistle
+sound as he dropped inside the wall. He did not know then whence the
+shrill call had come, but afterward he knew that Coira O' Hara had blown
+it. And now, as he ran forward toward the two who stood at a distance
+staring at him, he heard other steps and he slackened his pace to look.
+
+A man came running down among the black-boled trees, a strange, squat,
+gnomelike man whose gait was as uncouth as his dwarfish figure. He held
+something in his two hands as he ran, and when he came near he threw
+this thing with a swift movement up before him, but he did not pause in
+his odd, scrambling run.
+
+Ste. Marie felt a violent blow upon his left leg between hip and knee.
+He thought that somebody had crept up behind him and struck him; but as
+he whirled about he saw that there was no one there, and then he heard a
+noise and knew that the gnomelike running man had shot him. He faced
+about once more toward the two young people. He was very angry and he
+wished to say so, and very much he wished to explain why he had
+trespassed there, and why they had no right to shoot him as if he were
+some wretched thief. But he found that in some quite absurd fashion he
+was as if fixed to the ground. It was as if he had suddenly become of
+the most ponderous and incredible weight, like lead--or that other
+metal, not gold, which is the heaviest of all. Only the metal,
+seemingly, was not only heavy but fiery hot, and his strength was
+incapable of holding it up any longer. His eyes fixed themselves in a
+bewildered stare upon the figure of Mlle. Coira O'Hara; he had time to
+observe that she had put up her two hands over her face, then he fell
+down forward, his head struck something very hard, and he knew no more.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+XV
+
+A CONVERSATION AT LA LIERRE
+
+
+Captain Stewart walked nervously up and down the small inner
+drawing-room at La Lierre, his restless hands fumbling together behind
+him, and his eyes turning every half-minute with a sharp eagerness to
+the closed door. But at last, as if he were very tired, he threw himself
+down in a chair which stood near one of the windows, and all his tense
+body seemed to relax in utter exhaustion. It was not a very comfortable
+chair that he had sat down in, but there were no comfortable chairs in
+the room--nor, for that matter, in all the house. When he had taken the
+place, about two months before this time, he had taken it furnished, but
+that does not mean very much in France. No French country-houses--or
+town-houses, either--are in the least comfortable, by Anglo-Saxon
+standards, and that is at least one excellent reason why Frenchmen spend
+just as little time in them as they possibly can. Half the cafés in
+Paris would promptly put up their shutters if Parisian homes could all
+at once turn themselves into something like English or American ones. As
+for La Lierre, it was even more dreary and bare and tomblike than other
+country-houses, because it was, after all, a sort of ruin, and had not
+been lived in for fifteen years, save by an ancient caretaker and his
+nearly as ancient wife. And that was, perhaps, why it could be taken on
+a short lease at such a very low price.
+
+The room in which Captain Stewart sat was behind the large drawing-room,
+which was always kept closed now, and it looked out by one window to the
+west, and by two windows to the north, over a corner of the kitchen
+garden and a vista of trees beyond. It was a high-ceiled room with walls
+bare except for two large mirrors in the Empire fashion, which stared at
+each other across the way with dull and flaking eyes. Under each of
+these stood a heavy gilt and ebony console with a top of
+chocolate-colored marble, and in the centre of the room there was a
+table of a like fashion to the consoles. Further than this there was
+nothing save three chairs, upon one of which lay Captain Stewart's
+dust-coat and motoring cap and goggles.
+
+A shaft of golden light from the low sun slanted into the place through
+the western window from which the Venetians had been pulled back, and
+fell across the face of the man who lay still and lax in his chair, eyes
+closed and chin dropped a little so that his mouth hung weakly open. He
+looked very ill, as, indeed, any one might look after such an attack as
+he had suffered on the night previous. That one long moment of deathly
+fear before he had fallen down in a fit had nearly killed him. All
+through this following day it had continued to recur until he thought he
+should go mad. And there was worse still. How much did Olga Nilssen
+know? And how much had she told? She had astonished and frightened him
+when she had said that she knew about the house on the road to Clamart,
+for he thought he had hidden his visits to La Lierre well. He wondered
+rather drearily how she had discovered them, and he wondered how much
+she knew more than she had admitted. He had a half-suspicion of
+something like the truth, that Mlle. Nilssen knew only of Coira O'Hara's
+presence here, and drew a rather natural inference. If that was all,
+there was no danger from her--no more, that is, than had already borne
+its fruit, for Stewart knew well enough that Ste. Marie must have
+learned of the place from her. In any case Olga Nilssen had left
+Paris--he had discovered that fact during the day--and so for the
+present she might be eliminated as a source of peril.
+
+The man in the chair gave a little groan and rolled his head wearily to
+and fro against the uncomfortable chair-back, for now he came to the
+real and immediate danger, and he was so very tired and ill, and his
+head ached so sickeningly that it was almost beyond him to bring himself
+face to face with it.
+
+There was the man who lay helpless upon a bed up-stairs! And there were
+the man's friends, who were not at all helpless or bedridden or in
+captivity!
+
+A wave of almost intolerable pain swept through Stewart's aching head,
+and he gave another groan which was almost like a child's sob. But at
+just that moment the door which led into the central hall opened, and
+the Irishman O'Hara came into the room. Captain Stewart sprang to his
+feet to meet him, and he caught the other man by the arm in his
+eagerness.
+
+"How is he?" he cried out. "How is he? How badly was he hurt?"
+
+"The patient?" said O'Hara. "Let go my arm! Hang it, man, you're
+pinching me! Oh, he'll do well enough. He'll be fit to hobble about in a
+week or ten days. The bullet went clean through his leg and out again
+without cutting an artery. It was a sort of miracle--and a damned lucky
+miracle for all hands, too! If we'd had a splintered bone or a severed
+artery to deal with I should have had to call in a doctor. Then the
+fellow would have talked, and there'd have been the devil to pay. As it
+is, I shall be able to manage well enough with my own small skill. I've
+dressed worse wounds than that in my time. By Jove, it was a miracle,
+though!" A sudden little gust of rage swept him. He cried out: "That
+confounded fool of a gardener, that one-eyed Michel, ought to be beaten
+to death. Why couldn't he have slipped up behind this fellow and knocked
+him on the head, instead of shooting him from ten paces away? The
+benighted idiot! He came near upsetting the whole boat!"
+
+"Yes," said Captain Stewart, with a sharp, hard breath, "he should have
+shot straighter or not at all."
+
+The Irishman stared at him with his bright blue eyes, and after a moment
+he gave a short laugh.
+
+"Jove, you're a bloodthirsty beggar, Stewart!" said he. "That would have
+been a rum go, if you like! Killing the fellow! All his friends down on
+us like hawks, and the police and all that! You can't go about killing
+people in the outskirts of Paris, you know--at least not people with
+friends. And this chap looks like a gentleman, more or less, so I take
+it he has friends. As a matter of fact, his face is rather familiar. I
+think I've seen him before, somewhere. You looked at him just now
+through the crack of the door; do you know who he is? Coira tells me he
+called out to Arthur by name, but Arthur says he never saw him before
+and doesn't know him at all."
+
+Captain Stewart shivered. It had not been a pleasant moment for him,
+that moment when he had looked through the crack of the door and
+recognized Ste. Marie.
+
+"Yes," he said, half under his breath--"yes, I know who he is. A friend
+of the family."
+
+The Irishman's lips puckered to a low whistle. He said:
+
+"Spying, then, as I thought. He has run us to earth."
+
+And the other nodded. O'Hara took a turn across the room and back.
+
+"In that case," he said, presently--"in that case, then, we must keep
+him prisoner here so long as we remain. That's certain." He spun round
+sharply with an exclamation. "Look here!" he cried, in a lower tone,
+"how about this fellow's friends? It isn't likely he's doing his dirty
+work alone. How about his friends, when he doesn't turn up to-night? If
+they know he was coming here to spy on us; if they know where the place
+is; if they know, in short, what he seems to have known, we're done for.
+We'll have to run, get out, disappear. Hang it, man, d'you understand?
+We're not safe here for an hour."
+
+Captain Stewart's hands shook a little as he gripped them together
+behind him, and a dew of perspiration stood out suddenly upon his
+forehead and cheek-bones, but his voice, when he spoke, was well under
+control.
+
+"It's an odd thing," said he--"another miracle, if you like--but I
+believe we are safe--reasonably safe. I--have reason to think that this
+fellow learned about La Lierre only last evening from some one who left
+Paris to-day to be gone a long time. And I also have reason to believe
+that the fellow has not seen the one friend who is in his confidence,
+since he obtained his information. By chance I met the friend, the other
+man, in the street this afternoon. I asked after this fellow whom we
+have here, and the friend said he hadn't seen him for twenty-four
+hours--was going to see him to-night."
+
+"By the Lord!" cried the Irishman, with a great laugh of relief. "What
+luck! What monumental luck! If all that's true, we're safe. Why, man,
+we're as safe as a fox in his hole. The lad's friends won't have the
+ghost of an idea of where he's gone to.... Wait, though! Stop a bit! He
+won't have left written word behind him, eh? He won't have done
+that--for safety?"
+
+"I think not," said Captain Stewart, but he breathed hard, for he knew
+well enough that there lay the gravest danger. "I think not," he said
+again.
+
+He made a rather surprisingly accurate guess at the truth--that Ste.
+Marie had started out upon impulse, without intending more than a
+general reconnaissance, and therefore without leaving any word behind
+him. Still, the shadow of danger uplifted itself before the man and he
+was afraid. A sudden gust of weak anger shook him like a wind.
+
+"In Heaven's name," he cried, shrilly, "why didn't that one-eyed fool
+kill the fellow while he was about it? There's danger for us every
+moment while he is alive here. Why didn't that shambling idiot kill
+him?"
+
+Captain Stewart's outflung hand jumped and trembled and his face was
+twisted into a sort of grinning snarl. He looked like an angry and
+wicked cat, the other man thought.
+
+"If I weren't an over-civilized fool," he said, viciously, "I'd go
+up-stairs and kill him now with my hands while he can't help himself.
+We're all too scrupulous by half."
+
+The Irishman stared at him and presently broke into amazed laughter.
+
+"Scrupulous!" said he. "Well, yes, I'm too scrupulous to murder a man in
+his bed, if you like. I'm not squeamish, but--Good Lord!"
+
+"Do you realize," demanded Captain Stewart, "what risks we run while
+that fellow is alive--knowing what he knows?"
+
+"Oh yes, I realize that," said O'Hara. "But I don't see why _you_ should
+have heart failure over it."
+
+Captain Stewart's pale lips drew back again in their catlike fashion.
+
+"Never mind about me," he said. "But I can't help thinking you're
+peculiarly indifferent in the face of danger."
+
+"No, I'm not!" said the Irishman, quickly. "No, I'm not. Don't you run
+away with that idea! I merely said," he went oh--"I merely said that I'd
+stop short of murder. I don't set any foolish value on life--my own or
+any other. I've had to take life more than once, but it was in fair
+fight or in self-defence, and I don't regret it. It was your coldblooded
+joke about going up-stairs and killing this chap in his bed that put me
+on edge. Naturally I know you didn't mean it. Don't you go thinking that
+I'm lukewarm or that I'm indifferent to danger. I know there's danger
+from this lad up-stairs, and I mean to be on guard against it. He stays
+here under strict guard until--what we're after is accomplished--until
+young Arthur comes of age. If there's danger," said he, "why, we know
+where it lies, and we can guard against it. That kind of danger is not
+very formidable. The dangerous dangers are the ones that you don't know
+about--the hidden ones."
+
+He came forward a little, and his lean face was as hard and as impassive
+as ever, and the bright blue eyes shone from it steady and unwinking.
+Stewart looked up to him with a sort of peevish resentment at the man's
+confidence and cool poise. It was an odd reversal of their ordinary
+relations. For the hour the duller villain, the man who was wont to take
+orders and to refrain from overmuch thought or question, seemed to have
+become master. Sheer physical exhaustion and the constant maddening pain
+had had their will of Captain Stewart. A sudden shiver wrung him so that
+his dry fingers rattled against the wood of the chair-arms.
+
+"All the same," he cried, "I'm afraid. I've been confident enough until
+now. Now I'm afraid. I wish the fellow had been killed."
+
+"Kill him, then!" laughed the Irishman. "I won't give you up to the
+police."
+
+He crossed the room to the door, but halted short of it and turned about
+again, and he looked back very curiously at the man who sat crouched in
+his chair by the window. It had occurred to him several times that
+Stewart was very unlike himself. The man was quite evidently tired and
+ill, and that might account for some of the nervousness, but this fierce
+malignity was something a little beyond O'Hara's comprehension. It
+seemed to him that the elder man had the air of one frightened beyond
+the point the circumstances warranted.
+
+"Are you going back to town," he asked, "or do you mean to stay the
+night?"
+
+"I shall stay the night," Stewart said. "I'm too tired to bear the
+ride." He glanced up and caught the other's eyes fixed upon him. "Well!"
+he cried, angrily. "What is it? What are you looking at me like that
+for? What do you want?"
+
+"I want nothing," said the Irishman, a little sharply. "And I wasn't
+aware that I'd been looking at you in any unusual way. You're precious
+jumpy to-day, if you want to know.... Look here!" He came back a step,
+frowning. "Look here!" he repeated. "I don't quite make you out. Are you
+keeping back anything? Because if you are, for Heaven's sake have it out
+here and now! We're all in this game together, and we can't afford to be
+anything but frank with one another. We can't afford to make
+reservations. It's altogether too dangerous for everybody. You're too
+much frightened. There's no apparent reason for being so frightened as
+that."
+
+Captain Stewart drew a long breath between closed teeth, and afterward
+he looked up at the younger man coldly.
+
+"We need not discuss my personal feelings, I think," said he. "They have
+no--no bearing on the point at issue. As you say, we are all in this
+thing together, and you need not fear that I shall fail to do my part,
+as I have done it in the past.... That's all, I believe."
+
+"Oh, _as_ you like! As you like!" said the Irishman, in the tone of one
+rebuffed. He turned again and left the room, closing the door behind
+him. Outside on the stairs it occurred to him that he had forgotten to
+ask the other man what this fellow's name was--the fellow who lay
+wounded up-stairs. No, he had asked once, but in the interest of the
+conversation the question had been lost. He determined to inquire again
+that evening at dinner.
+
+But Captain Stewart, left thus alone, sank deeper in the uncomfortable
+chair, and his head once more stirred and sought vainly for ease against
+the chair's high back. The pain swept him in regular throbbing waves
+that were like the waves of the sea--waves which surge and crash and
+tear upon a beach. But between the throbs of physical pain there was
+something else that was always present while the waves came and went.
+Pain and exhaustion, if they are sufficiently extreme, can well nigh
+paralyze mind as well as body, and for some time Captain Stewart
+wondered what this thing might be which lurked at the bottom of him
+still under the surges of agony. Then at last he had the strength to
+look at it, and it was fear, cold and still and silent. He was afraid to
+the very depths of his soul.
+
+True, as O'Hara had said, there did not seem to be any very desperate
+peril to face, but Stewart was afraid with the gambler's unreasoning,
+half-superstitious fear, and that is the worst fear of all. He realized
+that he had been afraid of Ste. Marie from the beginning, and that, of
+course, was why he had tried to draw him into partnership with himself
+in his own official and wholly mythical search for Arthur Benham. He
+could have had the other man under his eye then. He could have kept him
+busy for months running down false scents. As it was, Ste. Marie's
+uncanny instinct about the Irishman O'Hara had led him true--that and
+what he doubtless learned from Olga Nilssen.
+
+If Stewart had been in a condition and mood to philosophize, he would
+doubtless have reflected that seven-tenths of the desperate causes, both
+good and bad, which fail in this world, fail because they are wrecked by
+some woman's love or jealousy--or both. But it is unlikely that he was
+able just at this time to make such a reflection, though certainly he
+wondered how much Olga Nilssen had known, and how much Ste. Marie had
+had to put together out of her knowledge and any previous suspicions
+which he may have had.
+
+The man would have been amazed if he could have known what a mountain of
+information and evidence had piled itself up over his head all in twelve
+hours. He would have been amazed and, if possible, even more frightened
+than he was, but he was without question sufficiently frightened, for
+here was Ste. Marie in the very house, he had seen Arthur Benham, and
+quite obviously he knew all there was to know, or at least enough to
+ruin Arthur Benham's uncle beyond all recovery or hope of
+recovery--irretrievably.
+
+Captain Stewart tried to think what it would mean to him--failure in
+this desperate scheme--but he had not the strength or the courage. He
+shrank from the picture as one shrinks from something horrible in a bad
+dream. There could be no question of failure. He had to succeed at any
+cost, however desperate or fantastic. Once more the spasm of childish,
+futile rage swept over him and shook him like a wind.
+
+"Why couldn't the fellow have been killed by that one-eyed fool?" he
+cried, sobbing. "Why couldn't he have been killed? He's the only one who
+knows--the only thing in the way. Why couldn't he have keen killed?"
+
+Quite suddenly Captain Stewart ceased to sob and shiver, and sat still
+in his chair, gripping the arms with white and tense fingers. His eyes
+began to widen, and they became fixed in a long, strange stare. He drew
+a deep breath.
+
+"I wonder!" he said, aloud. "I wonder, now."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+XVI
+
+THE BLACK CAT
+
+
+That providential stone or tree-root, or whatever it may have been,
+proved a genuine blessing in disguise to Ste. Marie. It gave him a
+splitting headache for a few hours, but it saved him a good deal of
+discomfort the while his bullet wound was being more or less probed and
+very skilfully cleansed and dressed by O'Hara. For he did not regain
+consciousness until this surgical work was almost at its end, and then
+he wanted to fight the Irishman for tying the bandages too tight.
+
+But when O'Hara had gone away and left him alone he lay still--or as
+still as the smarting, burning pain in his leg and the ache in his head
+would let him--and stared at the wall beyond his bed, and bit by bit the
+events of the past hour came back to him, and he knew where he was. He
+cursed himself very bitterly, as he well might do, for a bungling idiot.
+The whole thing had been in his hands, he said, with perfect
+truth--Arthur Benham's whereabouts proved Stewart's responsibility or,
+at the very least, complicity and the sordid motive therefor.
+Remained--had Ste. Marie been a sane being instead of an impulsive
+fool--remained but to face Stewart down in the presence of witnesses,
+threaten him with exposure, and so, with perfect ease, bring back the
+lost boy in triumph to his family.
+
+It should all have been so simple, so easy, so effortless! Yet now it
+was ruined by a moment's rash folly, and Heaven alone knew what would
+come of it. He remembered that he had left behind him no indication
+whatever of where he meant to spend the afternoon. Hartley would come
+hurrying across town that evening to the rue d'Assas, and would find no
+one there to receive him. He would wait and wait, and at last go home.
+He would come again on the next morning, and then he would begin to be
+alarmed and would start a second search--but with what to reckon by?
+Nobody knew about the house on the road to Clamart but Mlle. Olga
+Nilssen, and she was far away.
+
+He thought of Captain Stewart, and he wondered if that gentleman was by
+any chance here in the house, or if he was still in bed in the rue du
+Faubourg St. Honoré, recovering from his epileptic fit.
+
+After that he fell once more to cursing himself and his incredible
+stupidity, and he could have wept for sheer bitterness of chagrin.
+
+He was still engaged in this unpleasant occupation when the door of the
+room opened and the Irishman O'Hara entered, having finished his
+interview with Captain Stewart below. He came up beside the bed and
+looked down not unkindly upon the man who lay there, but Ste. Marie
+scowled back at him, for he was in a good deal of pain and a vile humor.
+
+"How's the leg--_and_ the head?" asked the amateur surgeon. To do him
+justice, he was very skilful, indeed, through much experience.
+
+"They hurt," said Ste. Marie, shortly. "My head aches like the devil,
+and my leg burns."
+
+O'Hara made a sound which was rather like a gruff laugh, and nodded.
+
+"Yes, and they'll go on doing it, too," said he. "At least the leg will.
+Your head will be all right again in a day or so. Do you want anything
+to eat? It's near dinner-time. I suppose we can't let you starve--though
+you deserve it."
+
+"Thanks; I want nothing," said Ste. Marie. "Pray don't trouble about
+me."
+
+The other man nodded again indifferently and turned to go out of the
+room, but in the doorway he halted and looked back.
+
+"As we're to have the pleasure of your company for some time to come,"
+said he, "you might suggest a name to call you by. Of course I don't
+expect you to tell your own name--though I can learn that easily
+enough."
+
+"Easily enough, to be sure," said the man on the bed. "Ask Stewart. He
+knows only too well."
+
+The Irishman scowled. And after a moment he said:
+
+"I don't know any Stewart."
+
+But at that Ste. Marie gave a laugh, and a tinge of red came over the
+Irishman's cheeks.
+
+"And so, to save Captain Stewart the trouble," continued the wounded
+man, "I'll tell you my name with pleasure. I don't know why I shouldn't.
+It's Ste. Marie."
+
+"What?" cried O'Hara, hoarsely. "What? Say that again!"
+
+He came forward a swift step or two into the room, and he stared at the
+man on the bed as if he were staring at a ghost.
+
+"Ste. Marie?" he cried, in a whisper. "It's impossible! What are you,"
+he demanded, "to Gilles, Comte de Ste. Marie de Mont-Perdu? What are you
+to him?"
+
+"He was my father," said the younger man; "but he is dead. He has been
+dead for ten years."
+
+He raised his head, with a little grimace of pain, to look curiously
+after the Irishman, who had all at once turned away across the room and
+stood still beside a window with bent head.
+
+"Why?" he questioned. "What about my father? Why did you ask that?"
+
+O'Hara did not answer at once, and he did not stir from his place by the
+window, but after a while he said:
+
+"I knew him.... That's all."
+
+And after another space he came back beside the bed, and once more
+looked down upon the young man who lay there. His face was veiled,
+inscrutable. It betrayed nothing.
+
+"You have a look of your father," said he. "That was what puzzled me a
+little. I was just saying to--I was just thinking that there was
+something familiar about you.... Ah, well, we've all come down in the
+world since then. The Ste. Marie blood, though. Who'd have thought it?"
+
+The man shook his head a little sorrowfully, but Ste. Marie stared up at
+him in frowning incomprehension. The pain had dulled him somewhat. And
+presently O'Hara again moved toward the door. On the way he said:
+
+"I'll bring or send you something to eat--not too much. And later on
+I'll give you a sleeping-powder. With that head of yours you may have
+trouble in getting to sleep. Understand, I'm doing this for your
+father's son, and not because you've any right yourself to
+consideration."
+
+Ste. Marie raised himself with difficulty on one elbow.
+
+"Wait!" said he. "Wait a moment!" and the other halted just inside the
+door. "You seem to have known my father," said Ste. Marie, "and to have
+respected him. For my father's sake, will you listen to me for five
+minutes?"
+
+"No, I won't," said the Irishman, sharply. "So you may as well hold your
+tongue. Nothing you can say to me or to any one in this house will have
+the slightest effect. We know what you came spying here for. We know all
+about it."
+
+"Yes," said Ste. Marie, with a little sigh, and he fell back upon the
+pillows. "Yes, I suppose you do. I was rather a fool to speak. You
+wouldn't all be doing what you're doing if words could affect you. I was
+a fool to speak."
+
+The Irishman stared at him for another moment, and went out of the room,
+closing the door behind him.
+
+So he was left once more alone to his pain and his bitter
+self-reproaches and his wild and futile plans for escape. But O'Hara
+returned in an hour or thereabout with food for him--a cup of broth and
+a slice of bread; and when Ste. Marie had eaten these the Irishman
+looked once more to his wounded leg, and gave him a sleeping-powder
+dissolved in water.
+
+He lay restless and wide-eyed for an hour, and then drifted away through
+intermediate mists into a sleep full of horrible dreams, but it was at
+least relief from bodily suffering, and when he awoke in the morning his
+headache was almost gone.
+
+He awoke to sunshine and fresh, sweet odors and the twittering of birds.
+By good chance O'Hara had been the last to enter the room on the evening
+before, and so no one had come to close the shutters or draw the blinds.
+The windows were open wide, and the morning breeze, very soft and
+aromatic, blew in and out and filled the place with sweetness. The room
+was a corner room, with windows that looked south and east, and the
+early sun slanted in and lay in golden squares across the floor.
+
+Ste. Marie opened his eyes with none of the dazed bewilderment that he
+might have expected. The events of the preceding day came back to him
+instantly and without shock. He put up an experimental hand, and found
+that his head was still very sore where he had struck it in falling, but
+the ache was almost gone. He tried to stir his leg, and a protesting
+pain shot through it. It burned dully, even when it was quiet, but the
+pain was not at all severe. He realized that he was to get off rather
+well, considering what might have happened, and he was so grateful for
+this that he almost forgot to be angry with himself over his monumental
+folly.
+
+A small bird chased by another wheeled in through the southern window
+and back again into free air. Finally, the two settled down upon the
+parapet of the little shallow balcony which was there to have their
+disagreement out, and they talked it over with a great deal of noise and
+many threatening gestures and a complete loss of temper on both sides.
+Ste. Marie, from his bed, cheered them on, but there came a commotion in
+the ivy which draped the wall below, and the two birds fled in
+ignominious haste, and just in the nick of time, for when the cause of
+the commotion shot into view it was a large black cat, of great bodily
+activity and an ardent single-heartedness of aim.
+
+The black cat gazed for a moment resentfully after its vanished prey,
+and then composed its sleek body upon the iron rail, tail and paws
+tucked neatly under. Ste. Marie chirruped, and the cat turned yellow
+eyes upon him in mild astonishment, as one who should say, "Who the
+deuce are you, and what the deuce are you doing here?" He chirruped
+again, and the cat, after an ostentatious yawn and stretch, came to
+him--beating up to windward, as it were, and making the bed in three
+tacks. When O'Hara entered the room some time later he found his patient
+in a very cheerful frame of mind, and the black cat sitting on his chest
+purring like a dynamo and kneading like an industrious baker.
+
+"Ho," said the Irishman, "you seem to have found a friend!"
+
+"Well, I need one friend here," argued Ste. Marie. "I'm in the enemy's
+stronghold. You needn't be alarmed; the cat can't tell me anything, and
+it can't help me to escape. It can only sit on me and purr. That's
+harmless enough."
+
+O'Hara began one of his gruff laughs, but he seemed to remember himself
+in the middle of it and assumed an intimidating scowl instead.
+
+"How's the leg?" he demanded, shortly. "Let me see it." He took off the
+bandages and cleansed and sprayed the wound with some antiseptic liquid
+that he had brought in a bottle. "There's a little fever," said he, "but
+that can't be avoided. You're going on very well--a good deal better
+than you'd any right to expect." He had to inflict not a little pain in
+his examination and redressing of the wound. He knew that, and once or
+twice he glanced up at Ste. Marie's face with a sort of reluctant
+admiration for the man who could bear so much without any sign whatever.
+In the end he put together his things and nodded with professional
+satisfaction. "You'll do well enough now for the rest of the day," he
+said. "I'll send up old Michel to valet you. He's the gardener who shot
+you yesterday, and he may take it into his head to finish the job this
+morning. If he does I sha'n't try to stop him."
+
+"Nor I," said Ste. Marie. "Thanks very much for your trouble. An
+excellent surgeon was lost in you."
+
+O'Hara left the room, and presently the old caretaker, one-eyed,
+gnomelike, shambling like a bear, sidled in and proceeded to set things
+to rights. He looked, Ste. Marie said to himself, like something in an
+old German drawing, or in those imitations of old drawings that one
+sometimes sees nowadays in _Fliegende Blätter_. He tried to make the
+strange creature talk, but Michel went about his task with an air
+half-frightened, half-stolid, and refused to speak more than an
+occasional "oui" or a "bien, Monsieur," in answer to orders. Ste. Marie
+asked if he might have some coffee and bread, and the old Michel nodded
+and slipped from the room as silently as he had entered it.
+
+Thereafter Ste. Marie trifled with the cat and got one hand well
+scratched for his trouble, but in five minutes there came a knocking at
+the door. He laughed a little. "Michel grows ceremonious when it's a
+question of food," he said. "Entrez, mon vieux!"
+
+The door opened, and Ste. Marie caught his breath.
+
+"Michel is busy," said Coira O'Hara, "so I have brought your coffee."
+
+She came into the sunlit room holding the steaming bowl of café au lait
+before her in her two hands. Over it her eyes went out to the man who
+lay in his bed, a long and steady and very grave look. "A goddess that
+lady, a queen among goddesses--" Thus the little Jew of the Boulevard de
+la Madeleine. Ste. Marie gazed back at her, and his heart was sick
+within him to think of the contemptible rôle Fate had laid upon this
+girl to play: the candle to the moth, the bait to the eager, unskilled
+fish, the lure to charm a foolish boy.
+
+The girl's splendid beauty seemed to fill all that bright room with, as
+it were, a richer, subtler light. There could be no doubt of her
+potency. Older and wiser heads than young Arthur Benham's might well
+forget the world for her. Ste. Marie watched, and the heartsickness
+within him was like a physical pain, keen and bitter. He thought of that
+first and only previous meeting--the single minute in the
+Champs-Elysées, when her eyes had held him, had seemed to beseech him
+out of some deep agony. He thought of how they had haunted him afterward
+both by day and by night--calling eyes--and he gave a little groan of
+sheer bitterness, for he realized that all this while she was laying her
+snares about the feet of an inexperienced boy, decoying him to his ruin.
+There was a name for such women, an ugly name. They were called
+adventuresses.
+
+The girl set the bowl which she carried down upon a table not far from
+the bed. "You will need a tray or something," said she. "I suppose you
+can sit up against your pillows? I'll bring a tray and you can hold it
+on your knees and eat from it." She spoke in a tone of very deliberate
+indifference and detachment. There seemed even to be an edge of scorn in
+it, but nothing could make that deep and golden voice harsh or unlovely.
+As the girl's extraordinary beauty had filled all the room with its
+light, so the sound of her voice seemed to fill it with a sumptuous and
+hushed resonance like a temple bell muffled in velvet. "I must bring
+something to eat, too," she said. "Would you prefer croissants or
+brioches or plain bread-and-butter? You might as well have what you
+like."
+
+"Thank you!" said Ste. Marie. "It doesn't matter. Anything. You are most
+kind. You are Hebe, Mademoiselle, server of feasts." The girl turned her
+head for a moment and looked at him with some surprise.
+
+"If I am not mistaken," she said, "Hebe served to gods." Then she went
+out of the room, and Ste. Marie broke into a sudden delighted laugh
+behind her. She would seem to be a young woman with a tongue in her
+head. She had seized the rash opening without an instant's hesitation.
+
+The black cat, which had been cruising, after the inquisitive fashion of
+its kind, in far corners of the room, strolled back and looked up to the
+table where the bowl of coffee steamed and waited.
+
+"Get out!" cried Ste. Marie. "Va t'en, sale petit animal! Go and eat
+birds! That's _my_ coffee. Va! Sauve toi! Hé, voleur que tu es!" He
+sought for something by way of missile, but there was nothing within
+reach.
+
+The black cat turned its calm and yellow eyes toward him, looked back to
+the aromatic feast, and leaped expertly to the top of the table. Ste.
+Marie shouted and made horrible threats. He waved an impotent pillow,
+not daring to hurl it for fear of smashing the table's entire contents,
+but the black cat did not even glance toward him. It smelled the coffee,
+sneezed over it because it was hot, and finally proceeded to lap very
+daintily, pausing often to take breath or to shake its head, for cats
+disapprove of hot dishes, though they will partake of them at a pinch.
+
+There came a step outside the door, and the thief leaped down with some
+haste, yet not quite in time to escape observation. Mlle. O'Hara came
+in, breathing terrible threats.
+
+"Has that wretched animal touched your coffee?" she cried. "I hope not."
+But Ste. Marie laughed weakly from his bed, and the guilty beast stood
+in mid-floor, brown drops beading its black chin and hanging upon its
+whiskers.
+
+"I did what I could, Mademoiselle," said Ste. Marie, "but there was
+nothing to throw. I am sorry to be the cause of so much trouble."
+
+"It is nothing," said she. "I will bring some more coffee, only it will
+take ten minutes, because I shall have to make some fresh." She made as
+if she would smile a little in answer to him, but her face turned grave
+once more and she went out of the room with averted eyes.
+
+Thereafter Ste. Marie occupied himself with watching idly the movements
+of the black cat, and, as he watched, something icy cold began to grow
+within him, a sensation more terrible than he had ever known before. He
+found himself shivering as if that summer day had all at once turned to
+January, and he found that his face was wet with a chill perspiration.
+
+When the girl at length returned she found him lying still, his face to
+the wall. The black cat was in her path as she crossed the room, so that
+she had to thrust it out of the way with her foot, and she called it
+names for moving with such lethargy.
+
+"Here is the coffee at last," she said. "I made it fresh. And I have
+brought some brioches. Will you sit up and have the tray on your knees?"
+
+"Thank you," said Ste. Marie. "I do not wish anything."
+
+"You do not--" she repeated after him. "But I have made the coffee
+especially for you," she protested. "I thought you wanted it. I don't
+understand."
+
+With a sudden movement the man turned toward her a white and drawn face.
+
+"Mademoiselle," he cried, "it would have been more merciful to let your
+gardener shoot again yesterday. Much more merciful, Mademoiselle."
+
+She stared at him under her straight, black brows.
+
+"What do you mean?" she demanded. "More merciful? What do you mean by
+that?"
+
+Ste. Marie stretched out a pointing finger, and the girl followed it.
+She gave, after a tense instant, a single, sharp scream. And upon that:
+
+"No, no! It's not true! It's not possible!"
+
+Moving stiffly, she set down the bowl she carried, and the hot liquid
+splashed up round her wrists. For a moment she hung there, drooping,
+holding herself up by the strength of her hands upon the table. It was
+as if she had been seized with faintness. Then she sprang to where the
+cat crouched beside a chair. She dropped upon her knees and tried to
+raise it in her arms, but the beast bit and scratched at her feebly, and
+crept away to a little distance, where it lay struggling and very
+unpleasant to see.
+
+"Poison!" she said, in a choked, gasping whisper. "Poison!" She looked
+once toward the man upon the bed, and she was white and shivering. "It's
+not true!" she cried again. "I--won't believe it! It's because the
+cat--was not used to coffee. Because it was hot. I won't believe it! I
+won't believe it!" She began to sob, holding her hands over her white
+face.
+
+Ste. Marie watched her with puzzled eyes. If this was acting, it was
+very good acting. A little glimmer of hope began to burn in him--hope
+that in this last shameful thing, at least, the girl had had no part.
+
+"It's impossible," she insisted, piteously. "I tell you it's impossible.
+I brought the coffee myself from the kitchen. I took it from the pot
+there--the same pot we had all had ours from. It was never out of my
+sight--or, that is--I mean--"
+
+She halted there, and Ste. Marie saw her eyes turn slowly toward the
+door, and he saw a crimson flush come up over her cheeks and die away,
+leaving her white again. He drew a little breath of relief and gladness,
+for he was sure of her now. She had had no part in it.
+
+"It is nothing, Mademoiselle," said he, cheerfully. "Think no more of
+it. It is nothing."
+
+"Nothing?" she cried, in a loud voice. "Do you call poison nothing?" She
+began to shiver again very violently. "You would have drunk it!" she
+said, staring at him in a white agony. "But for a miracle you would have
+drunk it--and died!"
+
+Abruptly she came beside the bed and threw herself upon her knees there.
+In her excitement and horror she seemed to have forgotten what they two
+were to each other. She caught him by the shoulders with her two hands,
+and the girl's violent trembling shook them both.
+
+"Will you believe," she cried, "that I had nothing to do with this? Will
+you believe me? You must believe me!"
+
+There was no acting in that moment. She was wrung with a frank anguish,
+an utter horror, and between her words there were hard and terrible
+sobs.
+
+"I believe you, Mademoiselle," said the man, gently. "I believe you.
+Pray think no more about it."
+
+He smiled up into the girl's beautiful face, though within him he was
+still cold and a-shiver, as even the bravest man might well be at such
+an escape, and after a moment she turned away again. With unsteady hands
+she put the new-made bowl of coffee and the brioches and other things
+together upon the tray and started to carry it across the room to the
+bed, but half-way she turned back again and set the tray down. She
+looked about and found an empty glass, and she poured a little of the
+coffee into it. Ste. Marie, who was watching her, gave a sudden cry.
+
+"No, no, Mademoiselle, I beg you! You must not!"
+
+But the girl shook her head at him gravely over the glass.
+
+"There is no danger," she said, "but I must be sure."
+
+She drank what was in the glass, and afterward went across to one of the
+windows and stood there with her back to the room for a little time.
+
+In the end she returned and once more brought the breakfast-tray to the
+bed. Ste. Marie raised himself to a sitting posture and took the thing
+upon his knees, but his hands were shaking.
+
+"If I were not as helpless as a dead man, Mademoiselle," said he, "you
+should not have done that. If I could have stopped you, you should not
+have done it, Mademoiselle."
+
+A wave of color spread up under the brown skin of the girl's face, but
+she did not speak. She stood by for a moment to see if he was supplied
+with everything he needed, and when Ste. Marie expressed his gratitude
+for her pains she only bowed her head. Then presently she turned away
+and left the room.
+
+Outside the door she met some one who was approaching. Ste. Marie heard
+her break into rapid and excited speech, and he heard O'Hara's voice in
+answer. The voice expressed astonishment and indignation and a sort of
+gruff horror, but the man who listened could hear only the tones, not
+the words that were spoken.
+
+The Irishman came quickly into the room. He glanced once toward the bed
+where Ste. Marie sat eating his breakfast with apparent unconcern--there
+may have been a little bravado in this--and then bent over the thing
+which lay moving feebly beside a chair. When he rose again his face was
+hard and tense and his blue eyes glittered in a fashion that boded
+trouble for somebody.
+
+"This looks very bad for us," he said, gruffly. "I should--I should like
+to have you believe that neither my daughter nor I had any part in it.
+When I fight I fight openly, I don't use poison. Not even with spies."
+
+"Oh, that's all right," said Ste. Marie, taking an ostentatious sip of
+coffee. "That's understood. I know well enough who tried to poison me.
+If you'll just keep your friend Stewart out of the kitchen I sha'n't
+worry about my food."
+
+The Irishman's cheeks reddened with a quick flush and he dropped his
+eyes. But in an instant he raised them again and looked full into the
+eyes of the man who sat in bed.
+
+"You seem," said he, "to be laboring under a curious misapprehension.
+There is no Stewart here, and I don't know any man of that name."
+
+Ste. Marie laughed.
+
+"Oh, don't you?" he said. "That's my mistake then. Well, if you don't
+know him, you ought to. You have interests in common."
+
+O'Hara favored his patient with a long and frowning stare. But at the
+end he turned without a word and went out of the room.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+XVII
+
+THOSE WHO WERE LEFT BEHIND
+
+
+That meeting with Richard Hartley of which Captain Stewart, in the small
+drawing-room at La Lierre, spoke to the Irishman O'Hara, took place at
+Stewart's own door in the rue du Faubourg St. Honoré, and it must have
+been at just about the time when Ste. Marie, concealed among the
+branches of his cedar, looked over the wall and saw Arthur Benham
+walking with Mlle. Coira O'Hara. Hartley had lunched at Durand's with
+his friends, whose name--though it does not at all matter here--was
+Reeves-Davis, and after lunch the four of them, Major and Lady
+Reeves-Davis, Reeves-Davis' sister, Mrs. Carsten, and Hartley, spent an
+hour at a certain picture-dealer's near the Madeleine. After that Lady
+Reeves-Davis wanted to go in search of an antiquary's shop which was
+somewhere in the rue du Faubourg, and she did not know just where. They
+went in from the rue Royale, and amused themselves by looking at the
+attractive windows on the way.
+
+During one of their frequent halts, while the two ladies were
+passionately absorbed in a display of hats, and Reeves-Davis was making
+derisive comments from the rear, Hartley, who was too much bored to pay
+attention, saw a figure which seemed to him familiar emerge from an
+adjacent doorway and start to cross the pavement to a large touring-car,
+with the top up, which stood at the curb. The man wore a dust-coat and a
+cap, and he moved as if he were in a hurry, but as he went he cast a
+quick look about him and his eye fell upon Richard Hartley. Hartley
+nodded, and he thought the elder man gave a violent start; but then he
+looked very white and ill and might have started at anything. For an
+instant Captain Stewart made as if he would go on his way without taking
+notice, but he seemed to change his mind and turned back. He held out
+his hand with a rather wan and nervous smile, saying:
+
+"Ah, Hartley! It is you, then! I wasn't sure." He glanced over the
+other's shoulder and said, "Is that our friend Ste. Marie with you?"
+
+"No," said Richard Hartley, "some English friends of mine. I haven't
+seen Ste. Marie to-day. I'm to meet him this evening. You've seen him
+since I have, as a matter of fact. He came to your party last night,
+didn't he? Sorry I couldn't come. They must have tired you out, I should
+think. You look ill."
+
+"Yes," said the other man, absently. "Yes, I had an attack of--an old
+malady last night. I am rather stale to-day. You say you haven't seen
+Ste. Marie? No, to be sure. If you see him later on you might say that I
+mean to drop in on him to-morrow to make my apologies. He'll understand.
+Good-day."
+
+So he turned away to the motor which was waiting for him, and Hartley
+went back to his friends, wondering a little what it was that Stewart
+had to apologize for.
+
+As for Captain Stewart, he must have gone at once out to La Lierre. What
+he found there has already been set forth.
+
+It was about ten that evening when Hartley, who had left his people,
+after dinner was over, at the Marigny, reached the rue d'Assas. The
+street door was already closed for the night, and so he had to ring for
+the cordon. When the door clicked open and he had closed it behind him
+he called out his name before crossing the court to Ste. Marie's stair;
+but as he went on his way the voice of the concierge reached him from
+the little loge.
+
+"M. Ste. Marie n'est pas là,"
+
+Now, the Parisian concierge, as every one knows who has lived under his
+iron sway, is a being set apart from the rest of mankind. He has, in
+general, no human attributes, and certainly no human sympathy. His hand
+is against all the world, and the hand of all the world is against him.
+Still, here and there among this peculiar race are to be found a very
+few beings who are of softer substance--men and women instead of spies
+and harpies. The concierge who had charge of the house wherein Ste.
+Marie dwelt was an old woman, undeniably severe upon occasion, but for
+the most part a kindly and even jovial soul. She must have become a
+concierge through some unfortunate mistake.
+
+She snapped open her little square window and stuck out into the moonlit
+court a dishevelled gray head.
+
+"Il n'est pas là." she said again, beaming upon Richard Hartley, whom
+she liked, and, when he protested that he had a definite and important
+appointment with her lodger, went on to explain that Ste. Marie had gone
+out, doubtless to lunch, before one o'clock and had never returned.
+
+"He may have left word for me up-stairs," Hartley said; "I'll go up and
+wait, if I may." So the woman got him her extra key, and he went up, let
+himself into the flat, and made lights there.
+
+Naturally he found no word, but his own note of that morning lay spread
+out upon a table where Ste. Marie had left it, and so he knew that his
+friend was in possession of the two facts he had learned about Stewart.
+He made himself comfortable with a book and some cigarettes, and settled
+down to wait.
+
+Ste. Marie out at La Lierre, with a bullet-hole in his leg, was deep in
+a drugged sleep just then, but Hartley waited for him, looking up now
+and then from his book with a scowl of impatience, until the little
+clock on the mantel said that it was one o'clock. Then he went home in a
+very bad temper, after writing another note and leaving it on the table,
+to say that he would return early in the morning.
+
+But in the morning he began to be alarmed. He questioned the concierge
+very closely as to Ste. Marie's movements on the day previous, but she
+could tell him little, save to mention the brief visit of a man with an
+accent of Toulouse or Marseilles, and there seemed to be no one else to
+whom he could go. He spent the entire morning in the flat, and returned
+there after a hasty lunch. But at mid-afternoon he took a fiacre at the
+corner of the Gardens and drove to the rue du Faubourg St. Honoré.
+
+Captain Stewart was at home. He was in a dressing-gown, and still looked
+fagged and unwell. He certainly betrayed some surprise at sight of his
+visitor, but he made Hartley welcome at once and insisted upon having
+cigars and things to drink brought out for him. On the whole he
+presented an astonishingly normal exterior, for within him he must have
+been cold with fear, and in his ears a question must have rung and
+shouted and rung again unceasingly--"What does this fellow know? What
+does he know?"
+
+Hartley's very presence there had a perilous look.
+
+The younger man shook his head at the servant who asked him what he
+wished to drink.
+
+"Thanks, you're very good," he said to Captain Stewart, and that
+gentleman eyed him silently. "I can't stay but a moment. I just dropped
+in to ask if you'd any idea what can have become of Ste. Marie."
+
+"Ste. Marie?" said Captain Stewart. "What do you mean--'become of him'?"
+He moistened his lips to speak, but he said the words without a tremor.
+
+"Well, what I meant was," said Hartley, "that you'd seen him last. He
+was here Thursday evening. Did he say anything to you about going
+anywhere in particular the next day--yesterday? He left his rooms about
+noon and hasn't turned up since."
+
+Captain Stewart drew a short breath and sat down, abruptly, in a near-by
+chair, for all at once his knees had begun to tremble under him. He was
+conscious of a great and blissful wave of relief and well-being, and he
+wanted to laugh. He wanted so much to laugh that it became a torture to
+keep his face in repose.
+
+So Ste. Marie had left no word behind him, and the danger was past!
+
+With a great effort he looked up from where he sat to Richard Hartley,
+who stood anxious and frowning before him.
+
+"Forgive me for sitting down," he said, "and sit down yourself, I beg.
+I'm still very shaky from my attack of illness. Ste. Marie--Ste. Marie
+has disappeared? How very extraordinary! It's like poor Arthur. Still--a
+single day! He might be anywhere for a single day, might he not? For all
+that, though, it's very odd. Why, no. No, I don't think he said anything
+about going away. At least I remember nothing about it." The relief and
+triumph within him burst out in a sudden little chuckle of malicious
+fun. "I can think of only one thing," said he, "that might be of use to
+you. Ste. Marie seemed to take a very great fancy to one of the ladies
+here the other evening. And, I must confess, the lady seemed to return
+it. It had all the look of a desperate flirtation--a most desperate
+flirtation. They spent the evening in a corner together. You don't
+suppose," he said, still chuckling gently, "that Ste. Marie is taking a
+little holiday, do you? You don't suppose that the lady could account
+for him?"
+
+"No," said Richard Hartley, "I don't. And if you knew Ste. Marie a
+little better you wouldn't suppose it, either." But after a pause he
+said: "Could you give me the--lady's name, by any chance? Of course, I
+don't want to leave any stone unturned."
+
+And once more the other man emitted his pleased little chuckle that was
+so like a cat's mew.
+
+"I can give you her name," said he. "The name is Mlle.---- Bertrand.
+Elise Bertrand. But I regret to say I haven't the address by me. She
+came with some friends. I will try and get it and send it you. Will that
+be all right?"
+
+"Yes, thanks!" said Richard Hartley. "You're very good. And now I must
+be going on. I'm rather in a hurry."
+
+Captain Stewart protested against this great haste, and pressed the
+younger man to sit down and tell him more about his friend's
+disappearance, but Hartley excused himself, repeating that he was in a
+great hurry, and went off.
+
+When he had gone Captain Stewart lay back in his chair and laughed until
+he was weak and ached from it, the furious, helpless laughter which
+comes after the sudden release from a terrible strain. He was not, as a
+rule, a demonstrative man, but he became aware that he would like to
+dance and sing, and probably he would have done both if it had not been
+for the servant in the next room.
+
+So there was no danger to be feared, and his terrors of the night
+past--he shivered a little to think of them--had been, after all,
+useless terrors! As for the prisoner out at La Lierre, nothing was to be
+feared from him so long as a careful watch was kept. Later on he might
+have to be disposed of, since both bullet and poison had failed--he
+scowled over that, remembering a bad quarter of an hour with O'Hara
+early this morning--but that matter could wait. Some way would present
+itself. He thought of the wholly gratuitous lie he had told Hartley, a
+thing born of a moment's malice, and he laughed again. It struck him
+that it would be very humorous if Hartley should come to suspect his
+friend of turning aside from his great endeavors to enter upon an affair
+with a lady. He dimly remembered that Ste. Marie's name had, from time
+to time, been a good deal involved in romantic histories, and he said to
+himself that his lie had been very well chosen, indeed, and might be
+expected to cause Richard Hartley much anguish of spirit.
+
+After that he lighted a very large cigarette, half as big as a cigar,
+and he lay back in his low, comfortable chair and began to think of the
+outcome of all this plotting and planning. As is very apt to be the case
+when a great danger has been escaped, he was in a mood of extreme
+hopefulness and confidence. Vaguely he felt as if the recent happenings
+had set him ahead a pace toward his goal, though of course they had done
+nothing of the kind. The danger that would exist so long as Ste. Marie,
+who knew everything, was alive, seemed in some miraculous fashion to
+have dwindled to insignificance; in this rebound from fear and despair
+difficulties were swept away and the path was clear. The man's mind
+leaped to his goal, and a little shiver of prospective joy ran over him.
+Once that goal gained he could defy the world. Let eyes look askance,
+let tongues wag, he would be safe then--safe for all the rest of his
+life, and rich, rich, rich!
+
+For he was playing against a feeble old man's life. Day by day he
+watched the low flame sink lower as the flame of an exhausted lamp sinks
+and flickers. It was slow, for the old man had still a little strength
+left, but the will to live--which was the oil in the lamp--was almost
+gone, and the waiting could not be long now. One day, quite suddenly,
+the flame would sink down to almost nothing, as at last it does in the
+spent lamp. It would flicker up and down rapidly for a few moments, and
+all at once there would be no flame there. Old David would be dead, and
+a servant would be sent across the river in haste to the rue du Faubourg
+St. Honoré. Stewart lay back in his chair and tried to imagine that it
+was true, that it had already happened, as happen it must before long,
+and once more the little shiver, which was like a shiver of voluptuous
+delight, ran up and down his limbs, and his breath began to come fast
+and hard.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+But Richard Hartley drove at once back to the rue d'Assas. He was not
+very much disappointed in having learned nothing from Stewart, though he
+was thoroughly angry at that gentleman's hint about Ste. Marie and the
+unknown lady. He had gone to the rue du Faubourg because, as he had
+said, he wished to leave no stone unturned, and, after all, he had
+thought it quite possible that Stewart could give him some information
+which would be of value. Hartley firmly believed the elder man to be a
+rascal, but of course he knew nothing definite save the two facts which
+he had accidentally learned from Helen Benham, and it had occurred to
+him that Captain Stewart might have sent Ste. Marie off upon another
+wild-goose chase such as the expedition to Dinard had been. He would
+have been sure that the elder man had had something to do with Ste.
+Marie's disappearance if the latter had not been seen since Stewart's
+party, but instead of that Ste. Marie had come home, slept, gone out the
+next morning, returned again, received a visitor, and gone out to lunch.
+It was all very puzzling and mysterious.
+
+His mind went back to the brief interview with Stewart and dwelt upon
+it. Little things which had at the time made no impression upon him
+began to recur and to take on significance. He remembered the elder
+man's odd and strained manner at the beginning, his sudden and causeless
+change to ease and to something that was almost like a triumphant
+excitement, and then his absurd story about Ste. Marie's flirtation with
+a lady. Hartley thought of these things; he thought also of the fact
+that Ste. Marie had disappeared immediately after hearing grave
+accusations against Stewart. Could he have lost his head, rushed across
+the city at once to confront the middle-aged villain, and
+then--disappeared from human ken? It would have been very like him to do
+something rashly impulsive upon reading that note.
+
+Hartley broke into a sudden laugh of sheer amusement when he realized to
+what a wild and improbable flight his fancy was soaring. He could not
+quite rid himself of a feeling that Stewart was, in some mysterious
+fashion, responsible for his friend's vanishing, but he was unlike Ste.
+Marie: he did not trust his feelings, either good or bad, unless they
+were backed by excellent evidence, and he had to admit that there was
+not a single scrap of evidence in this instance against Miss Benham's
+uncle.
+
+The girl's name recalled him to another duty. He must tell her about
+Ste. Marie. He was by this time half-way up the Boulevard St. Germain,
+but he gave a new order, and the fiacre turned back to the rue de
+l'Université. The footman at the door said that Mademoiselle was not in
+the drawing-room, as it was only four o'clock, but that he thought she
+was in the house. So Hartley sent up his name and went in to wait.
+
+Miss Benham came down looking a little pale and anxious.
+
+"I've been with grandfather," she explained. "He had some sort of
+sinking-spell last night and we were very much frightened. He's much
+better, but--well, he couldn't have many such spells and live. I'm
+afraid he grows a good deal weaker day by day now. He sees hardly any
+one outside the family, except Baron de Vries." She sat down with a
+little sigh of fatigue and smiled up at her visitor. "I'm glad you've
+come," said she. "You'll cheer me up, and I rather need it. What are you
+looking so solemn about, though? You won't cheer me up if you look like
+that."
+
+"Well, you see," said Hartley, "I came at this impossible hour to bring
+you some bad news. I'm sorry. Perhaps," he modified, "bad news is
+putting it with too much seriousness. Strange news is better. To be
+brief, Ste. Marie has disappeared--vanished into thin air. I thought you
+ought to know."
+
+"Ste. Marie!" cried the girl. "How? What do you mean--vanished? When did
+he vanish?"
+
+She gave a sudden exclamation of relief.
+
+"Oh, he has come upon some clew or other and has rushed off to follow
+it. That's all. How dare you frighten me so?"
+
+"He went without luggage," said the man, shaking his head, "and he left
+no word of any kind behind him. He went out to lunch yesterday about
+noon, and, as I said, simply vanished, leaving no trace whatever behind
+him. I've just been to see your uncle, thinking that he might know
+something, but he doesn't."
+
+The girl looked up quickly.
+
+"My uncle?" she said. "Why my uncle?"
+
+"Well," said Hartley, "you see, Ste. Marie went to a little party at
+your uncle's flat on the night before he disappeared, and I thought your
+uncle might have heard him say something that would throw light on his
+movements the next day."
+
+Hartley remembered the unfortunate incident of the galloping pigs, and
+hurried on:
+
+"He went to the party more for the purpose of having a talk with your
+uncle than for any other reason, I think. I was to have gone myself, but
+gave it up at the eleventh hour for the Cains' dinner at Armenonville.
+Well, the next morning after Captain Stewart's party he went out early.
+I called at his rooms to see him about something important that I
+thought he ought to know. I missed him, and so left a note for him which
+he got on his return and read. I found it open on his table later on. At
+noon he went out again, and that's all. Frankly, I'm worried about him."
+
+Miss Benham watched the man with thoughtful eyes, and when he had
+finished she asked:
+
+"Could you tell me what was in this note that you left for Ste. Marie?"
+
+Hartley was by nature a very open and frank young man, and in
+consequence an unusually bad liar. He hesitated and looked away, and he
+began to turn red.
+
+"Well--no," he said, after a moment--"no, I'm afraid I can't. It was
+something you wouldn't understand--wouldn't know about."
+
+And the girl said, "Oh!" and remained for a little while silent. But at
+the end she looked up and met his eyes, and the man saw that she was
+very grave. She said:
+
+"Richard, there is something that you and I have been avoiding and
+pretending not to see. It has gone too far now, and we've got to face it
+with perfect frankness. I know what was in your note to Ste. Marie. It
+was what you found out the other evening about--my uncle--the matter of
+the will and the other matter. He knew about the will, but he told you
+and Ste. Marie that he didn't. He said to you, also, that I had told him
+about my engagement and Ste. Marie's determination to search for Arthur,
+and that was--a lie. I didn't tell him, and grandfather didn't tell him.
+He listened in the door yonder and heard it himself. I have a good
+reason for knowing that. And then," she said, "he tried very hard to
+persuade you and Ste. Marie to take up your search under his direction,
+and he partly succeeded. He sent Ste. Marie upon a foolish expedition to
+Dinard, and he gave him and gave you other clews just as foolish as that
+one. Richard, do you believe that my uncle has hidden poor Arthur away
+somewhere or--worse than that? Do you? Tell me the truth!"
+
+"There is not," said Hartley, "one particle of real evidence against him
+that I'm aware of. There's plenty of motive, if you like, but motive is
+not evidence."
+
+"I asked you a question," the girl said. "Do you believe my uncle has
+been responsible for Arthur's disappearance?"
+
+"Yes," said Richard Hartley, "I'm afraid I do."
+
+"Then," she said, "he has been responsible for Ste. Marie's
+disappearance also. Ste. Marie became dangerous to him, and so vanished.
+What can we do, Richard? What can we do?"
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+XVIII
+
+A CONVERSATION OVERHEARD
+
+
+In the upper chamber at La Lierre the days dragged very slowly by, and
+the man who lay in bed there counted interminable hours and prayed for
+the coming of night with its merciful oblivion of sleep. His inaction
+was made bitterer by the fact that the days were days of green and gold,
+of breeze-stirred tree-tops without his windows, of vagrant sweet airs
+that stole in upon his solitude, bringing him all the warm fragrance of
+summer and of green things growing.
+
+He suffered little pain. There was, for the first three or four days, a
+dull and feverish ache in his wounded leg, but presently even that
+passed, and the leg hurt him only when he moved it. He thought sometimes
+that he would be grateful for a bit of physical anguish to make the
+hours pass more quickly.
+
+The other inmates of the house held aloof from him. Once a day O'Hara
+came in to see to the wound, but he maintained a well-nigh complete
+silence over his work, and answered questions only with a brief yes or
+no. Sometimes he did not answer them at all. The old Michel came twice
+daily, but this strange being had quite plainly been frightened into
+dumbness, and there was nothing to be got out of him. He shambled
+hastily about the place, his one scared eye upon the man in bed, and as
+soon as possible fled away, closing the door behind him. Sometimes
+Michel brought in the meals, sometimes his wife, a creature so like him
+that the two might well have passed for twin survivors of some unknown
+race; sometimes--thrice altogether in that first week--Coira O'Hara
+brought the tray, and she was as silent as the others.
+
+So Ste. Marie was left alone to get through the interminable days as
+best he might, and ever afterward the week remained in his memory as a
+sort of nightmare. Lying idle in his bed, he evolved many surprising and
+fantastic schemes for escape, for getting word to the outside world of
+his presence here, and one by one he gave them up in disgust as their
+impossibility forced itself upon him. Plans and schemes were useless
+while he lay bedridden, unfamiliar even with the house wherein he dwelt,
+with the garden and park that surrounded it.
+
+As for aid from any of the inmates of the place, that was to be laughed
+at. They were engaged together in a scheme so desperate that failure
+must mean utter ruin to them all. He sometimes wondered if the two
+servants could be bribed. Avarice unmistakable gleamed from their
+little, glittering, ratlike eyes, but he was sure that they would sell
+out for no small sum, and in so far as he could remember there had been
+in his pockets, when he came here, not more than five or six louis.
+Doubtless the old Michel had managed to abstract those in his daily
+offices about the room, for Ste. Marie knew that the clothes hung in a
+closet across from his bed. He had seen them there once when the
+closet-door was open.
+
+Any help that might come to him must come from outside--and what help
+was to be expected there? Over and over again he reminded himself of how
+little Richard Hartley knew. He might suspect Stewart of complicity in
+this new disappearance, but how was he to find out anything definite?
+How was any one to do so?
+
+It was at such times as this, when brain and nerves were strained and
+worn almost to breaking-point, that Ste. Marie had occasion to be
+grateful for the Southern blood that was in him, the strong tinge of
+fatalism which is common alike to Latin and to Oriental. It rescued him
+more than once from something like nervous breakdown, calmed him
+suddenly, lifted his burdens from outwearied shoulders, and left him in
+peace to wait until some action should be possible. Then, in such hours,
+he would fall to thinking of the girl for whose sake, in whose cause, he
+lay bedridden, beset with dangers. As long before, she came to him in a
+sort of waking vision--a being but half earthly, enthroned high above
+him, calm-browed, very pure, with passionless eyes that gazed into far
+distance and were unaware of the base things below. What would she think
+of him, who had sworn to be true knight to her, if she could know how he
+had bungled and failed? He was glad that she did not know, that if he
+had blundered into peril the knowledge of it could not reach her to hurt
+her pride.
+
+And sometimes, also, with a great sadness and pity, he thought of poor
+Coira O'Hara and of the pathetic wreck her life had fallen into. The
+girl was so patently fit for better things! Her splendid beauty was not
+a cheap beauty. She was no coarse-blown, gorgeous flower, imperfect at
+telltale points. It was good blood that had modelled her dark
+perfection, good blood that had shaped her long and slim and tapering
+hands.
+
+"A queen among goddesses!" The words remained with him, and he knew that
+they were true. She might have held up her head among the greatest, this
+adventurer's girl; but what chance had she had? What merest ghost of a
+chance?
+
+He watched her on the rare occasions when she came into the room. He
+watched the poise of her head, her walk, the movements she made, and he
+said to himself that there was no woman of his acquaintance whose grace
+was more perfect--certainly none whose grace was so native.
+
+Once he complained to her of the desperate idleness of his days, and
+asked her to lend him a book of some kind, a review, even a daily
+newspaper, though it be a week old.
+
+"I should read the very advertisements with joy," he said.
+
+She went out of the room and returned presently with an armful of books,
+which she laid upon the bed without comment.
+
+"In my prayers, Mademoiselle," cried Ste. Marie, "you shall be foremost
+forever!" He glanced at the row of titles and looked up in sheer
+astonishment. "May I ask whose books these are?" he said.
+
+"They are mine," said the girl. "I caught up the ones that lay first at
+hand. If you don't care for any of them, I will choose others."
+
+The books were: _Diana of the Crossways, Richard Feverel,_ Henri
+Lavedan's _Le Duel_, Maeterlinck's _Pelleas et Mélisande, Don Quixote de
+la Mancha_, in Spanish, a volume of Virgil's _Eclogues_, and the _Life
+of the Chevalier Bayard_, by the Loyal Servitor. Ste. Marie stared at
+her.
+
+"Do you read Spanish," he demanded, "and Latin, as well as French and
+English?"
+
+"My mother was Spanish," said she. "And as for Latin, I began to read it
+with my father when I was a child. Shall I leave the books here?"
+
+Ste. Marie took up the _Bayard_ and held it between his hands.
+
+"It is worn from much reading, Mademoiselle," he said.
+
+"It is the best of all," said she. "The very best of all. I didn't know
+I had brought you that."
+
+She made a step toward him as if she would take the book away, and over
+it their eyes met and were held. In that moment it may have come to them
+both who she was, who so loved the knight without fear and without
+reproach--the daughter of art Irish adventurer of ill repute--for their
+faces began suddenly to flush with red, and after an instant the girl
+turned away.
+
+"It is of no consequence," said she. "You may keep the book if you care
+to."
+
+And Ste. Marie said, very gently: "Thank you, Mademoiselle. I will keep
+it for a little while."
+
+So she went out of the room and left him alone.
+
+This was at noon on the sixth day, and, after he had swallowed hastily
+the lunch which had been set before him, Ste. Marie fell upon the books
+like a child upon a new box of sweets. Like the child again, it was
+difficult for him to choose among them. He opened one and then another,
+gloating over them all, but in the end he chose the _Bayard_, and for
+hours lost himself among the high deeds of the Preux Chevalier and his
+faithful friends--among whom, by the way, there was a Ste. Marie who
+died nobly for France. It was late afternoon when at last he laid the
+book down with a sigh and settled himself more comfortably among the
+pillows.
+
+The sun was not in the room at that hour, but from where he lay he could
+see it on the tree-tops, gold upon green. Outside his south window the
+leaves of a chestnut which stood there quivered and rustled gently under
+a soft breeze. Delectable odors floated in to Ste. Marie's nostrils, and
+he thought how very pleasant it would be if he were lying on the turf
+under the trees instead of bedridden in this upper chamber, which he had
+come to hate with a bitter hatred.
+
+He began to wonder if it would be possible to drag himself across the
+floor to that south window, and so to lie down for a while with his head
+in the tiny balcony beyond, his eyes turned to the blue sky. Astir with
+the new thought, he sat up in bed and carefully swung his feet out till
+they hung to the floor. The wound in the left leg smarted and burned,
+but not too severely, and with slow pains Ste. Marie stood up. He almost
+cried out when he discovered that it could be done quite easily. He
+essayed to walk, and he was a little weak, but by no means helpless. He
+found that it gave him pain to raise his left leg in the ordinary action
+of walking or to bend that knee, but he could get about well enough by
+dragging the injured member beside him, for when it was straight it
+supported him without protest.
+
+He took his pillows across to the window and disposed them there, for it
+was a French window opening to the floor, and the level of the little
+balcony outside was but a few inches above the level of the room. Then
+the desire seized him to make a tour of his prison walls. He went first
+to the closet where he had seen his clothes hanging, and they were still
+there. He felt in the pockets and withdrew his little English pigskin
+sovereign-purse. It had not been tampered with, and he gave an
+exclamation of relief over that, for he might later on have use for
+money. There were eight louis in it, each in its little separate
+compartment, and in another pocket he found a fifty-franc note and some
+silver. He went to the two east windows and looked out. The trees stood
+thick together on that side of the house, but between two of them he
+could see the park wall fifty yards away. He glanced down, and the side
+of the house was covered thick with the ivy which had given the place
+its name, but there was no water-pipe near, nor any other thing which
+seemed to offer foot or hand hold, unless, perhaps, the ivy might prove
+strong enough to bear a man's weight. Ste. Marie made a mental note to
+look into that when he was a little stronger, and turned back to the
+south window where he had disposed his pillows.
+
+The unaccustomed activity was making his wound smart and prickle, and he
+lay down at once with head and shoulders in the open air, and out of the
+warm and golden sunshine and the emerald shade the breath of summer came
+to him and wrapped him round with sweetness and pillowed him upon its
+fragrant breast.
+
+He became aware after a long time of voices below, and turned upon his
+elbows to look. The ivy had clambered upon and partly covered the iron
+grille of the little balcony, and he could observe without being seen.
+Young Arthur Benham and Coira O'Hara had come out of the door of the
+house, and they stood upon the raised and paved terrace which ran the
+width of the façade, and seemed to hesitate as to the direction they
+should take. Ste. Marie heard the girl say:
+
+"It's cooler here in the shade of the house," and after a moment the two
+came along the shady terrace whose outer margin was set at intervals
+with stained and discolored marble nymphs upon pedestals, and between
+the nymphs with moss-grown stone benches. They halted before a bench
+upon which, earlier in the day, a rug had been spread out to dry in the
+sun and had been forgotten, and after a moment's further hesitation they
+sat down upon it. Their faces were turned toward the house, and every
+word that they spoke mounted in that still air clear and distinct to the
+ears of the man above.
+
+Ste. Marie wriggled back into the room and sat up to consider. The
+thought of deliberately listening to a conversation not meant for him
+sent a hot flush to his cheeks. He told himself that it could not be
+done, and that there was an end to the matter. Whatever might hang upon
+it, it could not be asked of him that he should stoop to dishonor. But
+at that the heavy and grave responsibility, which really did hang upon
+him and upon his actions, came before his mind's eye and loomed there
+mountainous. The fate of this foolish boy who was set round with thieves
+and adventurers--even though his eyes were open and he knew where he
+stood--that came to Ste. Marie and confronted him; and the picture of a
+bitter old man who was dying of grief came to him; and a mother's face;
+and _hers_. There could be no dishonor in the face of all this, only a
+duty very clear and plain. He crept back to his place, his arms folded
+beneath him as he lay, his eyes at the thin screen of ivy which cloaked
+the balcony grille.
+
+Young Arthur Benham appeared to be giving tongue to a rather sharp
+attack of homesickness. It may be that long confinement within the walls
+of La Lierre was beginning to try him somewhat.
+
+"Mind you," he declared, as Ste. Marie's ears came once more within
+range--"mind you, I'm not saying that Paris hasn't got its points. It
+has. Oh yes! And so has London, and so has Ostend, and so has Monte
+Carlo. Verree much so! I like Paris. I like the theatres and the
+vaudeville shows in the Champs-Elysées, and I like Longchamps. I like
+the boys who hang around Henry's Bar. They're good sports all right, all
+right! But, by golly, I want to go home! Put me off at the corner of
+Forty-second Street and Broadway, and I'll ask no more. Set me down at 7
+P.M., right there on the corner outside the Knickerbocker, for that's
+where I would live and die." There came into the lad's somewhat strident
+voice a softness that was almost pathetic. "You don't know Broadway,
+Coira, do you? Nix! of course not. Little girl, it's the one street of
+all this large world. It's the equator that runs north and south instead
+of east and west. It's a long, bright, gay, live wire!--that's what
+Broadway is. And I give you my word of honor, like a little man, that
+it--is--not--slow. No-o, indeed! When I was there last it was being
+called the 'Gay White Way.' It is not called the 'Gay White Way' now. It
+has had forty other new, good names since then, and I don't know what
+they are, but I do know that it is forever gay, and that the electric
+signs are still blazing all along the street, and the street-cars are
+still killing people in the good old fashion, and the news-boys are
+still dodging under the automobiles to sell you a _Woild_ or a _Choinal_
+or, if it's after twelve at night, a _Morning Telegraph_. Coira, my
+girl, standing on that corner after dark you can see the electric signs
+of fifteen theatres, not one of them more than five minutes' walk away;
+and just round the corner there are more. I want to go home! I want to
+take one large, unparalleled leap from here and come down at the corner
+I told you about. D'you know what I'd do? We'll say it's 7 P.M. and
+beginning to get dark. I'd dive into the Knickerbocker--that's the hotel
+that the bright and happy people go to for dinner or supper--and I'd
+engage a table up on the terrace. Then I'd telephone to a little friend
+of mine whose name is Doe--John Doe--and in about ten minutes he'd have
+left the crowd he was standing in line with and he'd come galloping up,
+that glad to see me you'd cry to watch him. We'd go up on the terrace,
+where the potted palms grow, for our dinner, and the tables all around
+us would be full of people that would know Johnnie Doe and me, and
+they'd all make us drink drinks and tell us how glad they were to see us
+aboard again. And after dinner," said young Arthur Benham, with wide and
+smiling eyes--"after dinner we'd go to see one of the roof-garden shows.
+Let me tell you they've got the Marigny or the Ambassadeurs or the
+Jardin de Paris beaten to a pulp--to--a--pulp! And after the show we'd
+slip round to the stage-door--you bet we would!--and capture the two
+most beautiful ladies in the world and take 'em off to supper."
+
+He wrinkled his young brow in great perplexity. "Now I wonder," said he,
+anxiously--"I wonder where we'd go for supper. You see," he apologized,
+"it's two years since I left the Real Street, and, gee! what a lot can
+happen on Broadway in two years! There's probably half a dozen new
+supper-places that I don't know anything about, and one of them's the
+place where the crowd goes. Well, anyhow, we'd go to that place, and
+there'd be a band playing, and the electric fans would go round and
+round, and Johnnie Doe and I and the two most beautiful ladies would put
+it all over the other pikers there."
+
+Young Benham gave a little sigh of pleasure and excitement. "That's what
+I'd like to do to-night," said he, "and that's what I'll do, you can bet
+your sh--boots, when all this silly mess is over and I'm a free man.
+I'll hike back to good old Broadway, and if ever you see any one trying
+to pry me loose from it again you can laugh yourself to death, because
+he'll never, never succeed.
+
+"That's where I'll go," he said, nodding, "when this waiting is
+over--straight back to Liberty Land and the bright lights. The rest of
+the family can stay here till they die, if they want to--and I suppose
+they do--_I'm_ going home as soon as I've got my money. Old Charlie'll
+manage all that for me. He'll get a lawyer to look after it, and I won't
+have to see anybody in the family at all.
+
+"Nine more weeks shut in by stone walls!" said the boy, staring about
+him with a sort of bitterness. "Nine weeks more!"
+
+"Is it so hard as that?" asked the girl.
+
+There was no foolish coquetry in her tone. She spoke as if the words
+involved no personal question at all, but there was a little smile at
+her lips, and Arthur Benham turned toward her quickly and caught at her
+hands.
+
+"No, no!" he cried. "I didn't mean that. You know I didn't mean that.
+You're worth nine years' waiting. You're the best--d'you hear?--the best
+there is. There's nobody anywhere that can touch you. Only--well, this
+place is getting on my nerves. It's got me worn to a frazzle. I feel
+like a criminal doing time."
+
+"You came very near having to do time somewhere else," said the girl.
+"If this M. Ste. Marie hadn't blundered we should have had them all
+round our ears, and you'd have had to run for it."
+
+"Yes," the boy said, nodding gravely. "Yes, that was great luck."
+
+He raised his head and looked up along the windows above him.
+
+"Which is his room?" he asked, and Mlle. O'Hara said:
+
+"The one just overhead, but he's in bed far back from the window. He
+couldn't possibly hear us talking."
+
+She paused for a moment in frowning hesitation, and in the end said:
+
+"Tell me about him, this Ste. Marie! Do you know anything about him?"
+
+"No," said Arthur Benham, "I don't--not personally, that is. Of course
+I've heard of him. Lots of people have spoken of him to me. And the odd
+part of it is that they all had a good word to say. Everybody seemed to
+like him. I got the idea that he was the best ever. I wanted to know
+him. I never thought he'd take on a piece of dirty work like this."
+
+"Nor I," said the girl, in a low voice. "Nor I."
+
+The boy looked up.
+
+"Oh, you've heard of him, too, then?" said he.
+
+And she said, still in her low voice, "I--saw him once."
+
+"Well," declared young Benham, "it's beyond me. I give it up. You never
+can tell about people, can you? I guess they'll all go wrong when
+there's enough in it to make it worth while. That's what old Charlie
+always says. He says most people are straight enough when there's
+nothing in it, but make the pot big enough and they'll all go crooked."
+
+The young man's face turned suddenly hard and old and bitter.
+
+"Gee! I ought to know that well enough, oughtn't I?" he said. "I guess
+nobody knows that better than I do after what happened to me.... Come
+along and take a walk in the garden, Maud! I'm sick of sitting still."
+
+Mlle. Coira O'Hara looked up with a start, as if she had not been
+listening, but she rose when the boy held out his hand to her, and the
+two went down from the terrace and moved off toward the west.
+
+Ste. Marie watched them until they had disappeared among the trees, and
+then turned on his back, staring up into the softly stirring canopy of
+green above him and the little rifts of bright blue sky. He did not
+understand at all. Something mysterious had crept in where all had
+seemed so plain to the eye. Certain words that young Arthur Benham had
+spoken repeated themselves in his mind, and he could not at once make
+them out. Assuredly there was something mysterious here.
+
+In the first place, what did the boy mean by "dirty work"? To be sure,
+spying, in its usual sense, is not held to be one of the noblest of
+occupations, but--in such a cause as this! It was absurd, ridiculous, to
+call it "dirty work." And what did he mean by the words which he had
+used afterward? Ste. Marie did not quite follow the idiom about the "big
+enough pot," but he assumed that it referred to money. Did the young
+fool think he was being paid for his efforts? That was ridiculous, too.
+
+The boy's face came before him as it had looked with that sudden hard
+and bitter expression. What did he mean by saying that no one knew the
+crookedness of humanity under money temptation better than he knew it
+after something that had happened to him? In a sense his words were
+doubtless very true. Captain Stewart--and he must have been "old
+Charlie"; Ste. Marie remembered that the name was Charles--O'Hara, and
+O'Hara's daughter stood excellent examples of that bit of cynicism, but
+obviously the boy had not spoken in that sense--certainly not before
+Mlle. O'Hara! He meant something else, then. But what--what?
+
+Ste. Marie rose with some difficulty to his feet and carried the pillows
+back to the bed whence he had taken them. He sat down upon the edge of
+the bed, staring in great perplexity across the room at the open window,
+but all at once he uttered an exclamation and smote his hands together.
+
+"That boy doesn't know!" he cried. "They're tricking him, these others!"
+
+The lad's face came once more before him, and it was a foolish and
+stubborn face, perhaps, but it was neither vicious nor mean. It was the
+face of an honest, headstrong boy who would be incapable of the cold
+cruelty to which all circumstances seemed to point.
+
+"They're tricking him somehow!" cried Ste. Marie again. "They're lying
+to him and making him think--"
+
+What was it they were making him think, these three conspirators? What
+possible thing could they make him think other than the plain truth?
+Ste. Marie shook a weary head and lay down among his pillows. He wished
+that he had "old Charlie" in a corner of that room with his fingers
+round "old Charlie's" wicked throat. He would soon get at the truth
+then; or O'Hara, either, that grim and saturnine chevalier d'industrie,
+though O'Hara would be a bad handful to manage; or--Ste. Marie's head
+dropped back with a little groan when the face of young Arthur's
+enchantress came between him and the opposite wall of the room and her
+great and tragic eyes looked into his.
+
+It seemed incredible that that queen among goddesses should be what she
+was!
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+XIX
+
+THE INVALID TAKES THE AIR
+
+
+When O'Hara, the next morning, went through the formality of looking in
+upon his patient, and after a taciturn nod was about to go away again,
+Ste. Marie called him back. He said, "Would you mind waiting a moment?"
+and the Irishman halted inside the door. "I made an experiment
+yesterday," said Ste. Marie, "and I find that, after a poor fashion, I
+can walk--that is to say, I can drag myself about a little without any
+great pain if I don't bend the left leg."
+
+O'Hara returned to the bed and made a silent examination of the bullet
+wound, which, it was plain to see, was doing very well indeed. "You'll
+be all right in a few days," said he, "but you'll be lame for a week
+yet--maybe two. As a matter of fact, I've known men to march half a day
+with a hole in the leg worse than yours, though it probably was not
+quite pleasant."
+
+"I'm afraid I couldn't march very far," said Ste. Marie, "but I can
+hobble a bit. The point is, I'm going mad from confinement in this room.
+Do you think I might be allowed to stagger about the garden for an hour,
+or sit there under one of the trees? I don't like to ask favors, but, so
+far as I can see, it could do no harm. I couldn't possibly escape, you
+see. I couldn't climb a fifteen-foot wall even if I had two good legs;
+as it is, with a leg and a half, I couldn't climb anything."
+
+The Irishman looked at him sharply, and was silent for a time, as if
+considering. But at last he said: "Of course there is no reason whatever
+for granting you any favors here. You're on the footing of a spy--a
+captured spy--and you're very lucky not to have got what you deserved
+instead of a trumpery flesh wound." The man's face twisted into a heavy
+scowl. "Unfortunately," said he, "an accident has put me--put us in as
+unpleasant a position toward you as you had put yourself toward us. We
+seem to stand in the position of having tried to poison you, and--well,
+we owe you something for that. Still, I'd meant to keep you locked up in
+this room so long as it was necessary to have you at La Lierre." He
+scowled once more in an intimidating fashion at Ste. Marie, and it was
+evident that he found himself embarrassed. "And," he said, awkwardly, "I
+suppose I owe something to your father's son.... Look here! If you're to
+be allowed in the garden, you must understand that it's at fixed hours
+and not alone. Somebody will always be with you, and old Michel will be
+on hand to shoot you down if you try to run for it or if you try to
+communicate with Arthur Benham. Is that understood?"
+
+"Quite," said Ste. Marie, gayly. "Quite understood and agreed to. And
+many thanks for your courtesy. I sha'n't forget it. We differ rather
+widely on some rather important subjects, you and I, but I must confess
+that you're very generous, and I thank you. The old Michel has my full
+permission to shoot at me if he sees me trying to fly over a
+fifteen-foot wall."
+
+"He'll shoot without asking your permission," said the Irishman, grimly,
+"if you try that on, but I don't think you'll be apt to try it for the
+present--not with a crippled leg." He pulled out his watch and looked at
+it. "Nine o'clock," said he. "If you care to begin to-day you can go out
+at eleven for an hour. I'll see that old Michel is ready at that time."
+
+"Eleven will suit me perfectly," said Ste. Marie. "You're very good.
+Thanks once more!" The Irishman did not seem to hear. He replaced the
+watch in his pocket and turned away in silence. But before he left the
+room he stood a moment beside one of the windows, staring out into the
+morning sunshine, and the other man could see that his face had once
+more settled into the still and melancholic gloom which was
+characteristic of it. Ste. Marie watched, and for the first time the man
+began to interest him as a human being. He had thought of O'Hara before
+merely as a rather shady adventurer of a not very rare type, but he
+looked at the adventurer's face now and he saw that it was the face of a
+man of unspeakable sorrows. When O'Hara looked at one, one saw only a
+pair of singularly keen and hard blue eyes set under a bony brow. When
+those eyes were turned away, the man's attention relaxed, the face
+became a battle-ground furrowed and scarred with wrecked pride and with
+bitterness and with shame and with agony. Most soldiers of fortune have
+faces like that, for the world has used them very ill, and they have
+lost one precious thing after another until all are gone, and they have
+tasted everything that there is in life, and the flavor which remains is
+a very bitter flavor--dry, like ashes.
+
+It came to Ste. Marie, as he lay watching this man, that the story of
+the man's life, if he could be made to tell it, would doubtless be one
+of the most interesting stories in the world, as must be the tale of the
+adventurous career of any one who has slipped down the ladder of
+respectability, rung by rung, into that shadowy no-man's-land where the
+furtive birds of prey foregather and hatch their plots. It was plain
+enough that O'Hara had, as the phrase goes, seen better days. Without
+question he was a villain, but, after all, a generous villain. He had
+been very decent about making amends for that poisoning affair. A
+cheaper rascal would have behaved otherwise. Ste. Marie suddenly
+remembered what a friend of his had once said of this mysterious
+Irishman. The two had been sitting on the terrace of a café, and as
+O'Hara passed by Ste. Marie's friend pointed after him and said: "There
+goes some of the best blood that ever came out of Ireland. See what it
+has fallen to!"
+
+Seemingly it had fallen pretty low. He would have liked very much to
+know about the downward stages, but he knew that he would never hear
+anything of them from the man himself, for O'Hara was clad, as it were,
+in an armor of taciturnity. He was incredibly silent. He wore mail that
+nothing could pierce.
+
+The Irishman turned abruptly away and left the room, and Ste. Marie,
+with all the gay excitement of a little girl preparing for her first
+nursery party, began to get himself ready to go out. The old Michel had
+already been there to help him bathe and shave, so that he had only to
+dress himself and attend to his one conspicuous vanity--the painstaking
+arrangement of his hair, which he wore, according to the fashion of the
+day, parted a little at one side and brushed almost straight back, so
+that it looked rather like a close-fitting and incredibly glossy
+skullcap. Richard Hartley, who was inclined to joke at his friend's
+grave interest in the matter, said that it reminded him of
+patent-leather.
+
+When he was dressed--and he found that putting on his left boot was no
+mean feat--Ste. Marie sat down in a chair by the window and lighted a
+cigarette. He had half an hour to wait, and so he picked up the volume
+of _Bayard_, which Coira O'Hara had not yet taken away from him, and
+began to read in it at random. He became so absorbed that the old
+Michel, come to summon him, took him by surprise. But it was a pleasant
+surprise and very welcome. He followed the old man out of the room with
+a heart that beat fast with eagerness.
+
+The descent of the stairs offered difficulties, for the wounded leg
+protested sharply against being bent more than a very little at the
+knee. But by the aid of Michel's shoulder he made the passage in safety
+and so came to the lower story. At the foot of the stairs some one
+opened a door almost in their faces, but closed it again with great
+haste, and Ste. Marie gave a chuckle of laughter, for, though it was
+almost dark there, he thought he had recognized Captain Stewart.
+
+"So old Charlie's with us to-day, is he?" he said, aloud, and Michel
+queried:
+
+"Comment, Monsieur?" because Ste. Marie had spoken in English.
+
+They came out upon the terrace before the house, and the fresh, sweet
+air bore against their faces, and little flecks of live gold danced and
+shivered about their feet upon the moss-stained tiles. The gardener
+stepped back for an instant into the doorway, and reappeared bearing
+across his arms the short carbine with which Ste. Marie had already made
+acquaintance. The victim looked at this weapon with a laugh, and the old
+Michel's gnomelike countenance distorted itself suddenly and a weird
+cackle came from it.
+
+"It is my old friend?" demanded Ste. Marie, and the gardener cackled
+once more, stroking the barrel of the weapon as if it were a faithful
+dog.
+
+"The same, Monsieur," said he. "But she apologizes for not doing
+better."
+
+"Beg her for me," said the young man, "to cheer up. She may get another
+chance."
+
+Old Michel's face froze into an expression of anxious and rather
+frightened solicitude, but he waved his arm for the prisoner to precede
+him, and Ste. Marie began to limp down across the littered and unkempt
+sweep of turf. Behind him, at the distance of a dozen paces, he heard
+the shambling footfalls of his guard, but he had expected that, and it
+could not rob him of his swelling and exultant joy at treading once more
+upon green grass and looking up into blue sky. He was like a man newly
+released from a dungeon rather than from a sunny and by no means
+uncomfortable upper chamber. He would have liked to dance and sing, to
+run at full speed like a child until he was breathless and red in the
+face. Instead of that he had to drag himself with slow pains and some
+discomfort, but his spirit ran ahead, dancing and singing, and he
+thought that it even halted now and then to roll on the grass.
+
+As he had observed a week before, from the top of the wall, a double row
+of larches led straight down away from the front of the house, making a
+wide and long vista interrupted half-way to its end by a rond point, in
+the centre of which were a pool and a fountain. The double row of trees
+was sadly broken now, and the trees were untrimmed and uncared for. One
+of them had fallen, probably in a wind-storm, and lay dead across the
+way. Ste. Marie turned aside toward the west and found himself presently
+among chestnuts, planted in close rows, whose tops grew in so thick a
+canopy above that but little sunshine came through, and there was no
+turf under foot, only black earth, hard-trodden, mossy here and there.
+
+From beyond, in the direction he had chanced to take, and a little
+toward the west, a soft morning breeze bore to him the scent of roses so
+constant and so sweet, despite its delicacy, that to breathe it was like
+an intoxication. He felt it begin to take hold upon and to sway his
+senses like an exquisite, an insidious wine.
+
+"The flower-gardens, Michel?" he asked, over his shoulder. "They are
+before us?"
+
+"Ahead and to the left, Monsieur," said the old man, and he took up once
+more his slow and difficult progress.
+
+But again, before he had gone many steps, he was halted. There began to
+reach his ears a rich but slender strain of sound, a golden thread of
+melody. At first he thought that it was a 'cello or the lower notes of a
+violin, but presently he became aware that it was a woman singing in a
+half-voice without thought of what she sang--as women croon to a child,
+or over their work, or when they are idle and their thoughts are far
+wandering.
+
+The mistake was not as absurd as it may seem, for it is a fact that the
+voice which is called a contralto, if it is a good and clear and fairly
+resonant voice, sounds at a distance very much indeed like a 'cello or
+the lower register of a violin. And that is especially true when the
+voice is hushed to a half-articulate murmur. Indeed, this is but one of
+the many strange peculiarities of that most beautiful of all human
+organs. The contralto can rarely express the lighter things, and it is
+quite impossible for it to express merriment or gayety, but it can
+thrill the heart as can no other sound emitted by a human throat, and it
+can shake the soul to its very innermost hidden deeps. It is the soft,
+yellow gold of singing--the wine of sound; it is mystery; it is shadowy,
+unknown, beautiful places; it is enchantment. Ste. Marie stood still and
+listened. The sound of low singing came from the right. Without
+realizing that he had moved, he began to make his way in that direction,
+and the old Michel, carbine upon arm, followed behind him. He had no
+doubt of the singer. He knew well who it was, for the girl's speaking
+voice had thrilled him long before this. He came to the eastern margin
+of the grove of chestnuts and found that he was beside the open rond
+point, where the pool lay within its stone circumference, unclean and
+choked with lily-pads, and the fountain--a naked lady holding aloft a
+shell--stood above. The rond point was not in reality round; it was an
+oval with its greater axis at right angles to the long, straight avenue
+of larches. At the two ends of the oval there were stone benches with
+backs, and behind these, tall shrubs grew close and overhung, so that
+even at noonday the spots were shaded.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+XX
+
+THE STONE BENCH AT THE ROND POINT
+
+
+Mlle. Coira O'Hara sat alone upon the stone bench at the hither end of
+the rond point. With a leisurely hand she put fine stitches into a
+mysterious garment of white, with lace on it, and over her not too
+arduous toil she sang, à demi voix, a little German song all about the
+tender passions.
+
+Ste. Marie halted his dragging steps a little way off, but the girl
+heard him and turned to look. After that she rose hurriedly and stood as
+if poised for flight, but Ste. Marie took his hat in his hands and came
+forward.
+
+"If you go away, Mademoiselle," said he, "if you let me drive you from
+your place, I shall limp across to that pool and fall in and drown
+myself, or I shall try to climb the wall yonder and Michel will have to
+shoot me."
+
+He came forward another step.
+
+"If it is impossible," he said, "that you and I should stay here
+together for a few little moments and talk about what a beautiful day it
+is--if that is impossible, why then I must apologize for intruding upon
+you and go on my way, inexorably pursued by the would-be murderer who
+now stands six paces to the rear. Is it impossible, Mademoiselle?" said
+Ste. Marie.
+
+The girl's face was flushed with that deep and splendid understain. She
+looked down upon the white garment in her hand and away across the broad
+rond point, and in the end she looked up very gravely into the face of
+the man who stood leaning upon his stick before her.
+
+"I don't know," she said, in her deep voice, "what my father would wish.
+I did not know that you were coming into the garden this morning, or--"
+
+"Or else," said Ste. Marie, with a little touch of bitterness in his
+tone--"or else you would not have been here. You would have remained in
+the house."
+
+He made a bow.
+
+"To-morrow, Mademoiselle," said he, "and for the remainder of the days
+that I may be at La Lierre, I shall stay in my room. You need have no
+fear of me."
+
+All the man's life he had been spoiled. The girl's bearing hurt him
+absurdly, and a little of the hurt may have betrayed itself in his face
+as he turned away, for she came toward him with a swift movement,
+saying:
+
+"No, no! Wait!--I have hurt you," she said, with a sort of wondering
+distress. "You have let me hurt you.... And yet surely you must see,...
+you must realize on what terms.... Do you forget that you are not among
+your friends... outside?... This is so very different!"
+
+"I had forgotten," said he. "Incredible as it sounds, I had for a moment
+forgotten. Will you grant me your pardon for that? And yet," he
+persisted, after a moment's pause--"yet, Mademoiselle, consider a
+little! It is likely that--circumstances have so fallen that it seems I
+shall be here within your walls for a time, perhaps a long time. I am
+able to walk a little now. Day by day I shall be stronger, better able
+to get about. Is there not some way--are there hot some terms under
+which we could meet without embarrassment? Must we forever glare at each
+other and pass by warily, just because we--well, hold different views
+about--something?"
+
+It was not a premeditated speech at all. It had never until this moment
+occurred to him to suggest any such arrangement with any member of the
+household at La Lierre. At another time he would doubtless have
+considered it undignified, if not downright unwise, to hold intercourse
+of any friendly sort with this band of contemptible adventurers. The
+sudden impulse may have been born of his long week of almost intolerable
+loneliness, or it may have come of the warm exhilaration of this first
+breath of sweet, outdoor air, or perhaps it needed neither of these
+things, for the girl was very beautiful--enchantment breathed from her,
+and, though he knew what she was, in what despicable plot she was
+engaged, he was too much Ste. Marie to be quite indifferent to her.
+Though he looked upon her sorrowfully and with pain and vicarious shame,
+he could not have denied the spell she wielded. After all, he was Ste.
+Marie.
+
+Once more the girl looked up very gravely under her brows, and her eyes
+met the man's eyes. "I don't know," she said. "Truly, I don't know. I
+think I should have to ask my father about it.--I wish," she said, "that
+we might do that. I should like it. I should like to be able to talk to
+some one--about the things I like--and care for. I used to talk with my
+father about things; but not lately. There is no one now." Her eyes
+searched him. "Would it be possible, I wonder," said she. "Could we two
+put everything else aside--forget altogether who we are and why we are
+here. Is that possible?"
+
+"We could only try, Mademoiselle," said Ste. Marie. "If we found it a
+failure we could give it up." He broke into a little laugh. "And
+besides," he said, "I can't help thinking that two people ought to be
+with me all the time I am in the garden here--for safety's sake. I might
+catch the old Michel napping one day, you know, throttle him, take his
+rifle away, and escape. If there were two, I couldn't do it."
+
+For an instant she met his laugh with an answering smile, and the smile
+came upon her sombre beauty like a moment of golden light upon darkness.
+But afterward she was grave again and thoughtful. "Is it not rather
+foolish," she asked, "to warn us--to warn me of possibilities like that?
+You might quite easily do what you have said. You are putting us on our
+guard against you."
+
+"I meant to, Mademoiselle," said Ste. Marie. "I meant to. Consider my
+reasons. Consider what I was pleading for!" And he gave a little laugh
+when the color began again to rise in the girl's cheeks.
+
+She turned away from him, shaking her head, and he thought that he had
+said too much and that she was offended, but after a moment the girl
+looked up, and when she met his eyes she laughed outright.
+
+"I cannot forever be scowling and snarling at you," said she. "It is
+quite too absurd. Will you sit down for a little while? I don't know
+whether or not my father would approve, but we have met here by
+accident, and there can be no harm, surely, in our exchanging a few
+civil words. If you try to bring up forbidden topics I can simply go
+away; and, besides, Michel stands ready to murder you if it should
+become necessary. I think his failure of a week ago is very heavy on his
+conscience."
+
+Ste. Marie sat down in one corner of the long stone bench, and he was
+very glad to do it, for his leg was beginning to cause him some
+discomfort. It felt hot and as if there were a very tight band round it
+above the knee. The relief must have been apparent in his face, for
+Mlle. O'Hara looked at him in silence for a moment, and she gave a
+little, troubled, anxious frown. Men can be quite indifferent to
+suffering in each other if the suffering is not extreme, and women can
+be, too, but men are quite miserable in the presence of a woman who is
+in pain, and women, before a suffering man, while they are not
+miserable, are always full of a desire to do something that will help.
+And that might be a small, additional proof--if any more proof were
+necessary--that they are much the more practical of the two sexes.
+
+The girl's sharp glance seemed to assure her that Ste. Marie was
+comfortable, now that he was sitting down, for the frown went from her
+brows, and she began to arrange the mysterious white garment in her lap
+in preparation to go on with her work.
+
+Ste. Marie watched her for a while in a contented silence. The leaves
+overhead stirred under a puff of air, and a single yellow beam of
+sunlight came down and shivered upon the girl's dark head and played
+about the bundle of white over which her hands were busy. She moved
+aside to avoid it, but it followed her, and when she moved back it
+followed again and danced in her lap as if it were a live thing with a
+malicious sense of humor. It might have been Tinker Bell out of _Peter
+Pan_, only it did not jingle. Mlle. O'Hara uttered an exclamation of
+annoyance, and Ste. Marie laughed at her, but in a moment the leaves
+overhead were still again, and the sunbeam, with a sense of humor, was
+gone to torment some one else.
+
+Still neither of the two spoke, and Ste. Marie continued to watch the
+girl bent above her sewing. He Was thinking of what she had said to him
+when he asked her if she read Spanish--that her mother had been Spanish.
+That would account, then, for her dark eyes. It would account for the
+darkness of her skin, too, but not for its extraordinary clearness and
+delicacy, for Spanish women are apt to have dull skins of an opaque
+texture. This was, he said to himself, an Irish skin with a darker
+stain, and he was quite sure that he had never before seen anything at
+all like it.
+
+Apart from coloring, she was all Irish, of the type which has become
+famous the world over, and which in the opinion of men who have seen
+women in all countries, and have studied them, is the most beautiful
+type that exists in our time.
+
+Ste. Marie was dark himself, and in the ordinary nature of things he
+should have preferred a fair type in women. In theory, for that matter,
+he did prefer it, but it was impossible for him to sit near Coira O'Hara
+and watch her bent head and busy, hovering hands, and remain unstirred
+by her splendid beauty. He found himself wondering why one kind of
+loveliness more than another should exert a potent and mysterious spell
+by virtue of mere proximity, and when the woman who bore it was entirely
+passive. If this girl had been looking at him the matter would have been
+easy to understand, for an eye-glance is often downright hypnotic; but
+she was looking at the work in her hands, and, so far as could be
+judged, she had altogether forgotten his presence; yet the mysterious
+spell, the potent enchantment, breathed from her like a vapor, and he
+could not be insensible to it. It was like sorcery.
+
+The girl looked up so suddenly that Ste. Marie jumped. She said:
+
+"You are not a very talkative person. Are you always as silent as this?"
+
+"No," said he, "I am not. I offer my humblest apologies. It seems as if
+I were not properly grateful for being allowed to sit here with you,
+but, to tell the truth, I was buried in thought."
+
+They had begun to talk in French, but midway of Ste. Marie's speech the
+girl glanced toward the old Michel, who stood a short distance away, and
+so he changed to English.
+
+"In that case," she said, regarding her work with her head on one side
+like a bird--"in that case you might at least tell me what your thoughts
+were. They might be interesting."
+
+Ste. Marie gave a little embarrassed laugh.
+
+"I'm sorry," said he, "but I'm afraid they were too personal. I'm afraid
+if I told you you'd get up and go away and be frigidly polite to me when
+next we passed each other in the garden here. But there's no harm," he
+said, "in telling you one thing that occurred to me. It occurred to me
+that, as far as a young girl can be said to resemble an elderly woman,
+you bear a most remarkable resemblance to a very dear old friend of mine
+who lives near Dublin--Lady Margaret Craith. She's a widow, and almost
+all of her family are dead, I believe--I didn't know any of them--and
+she lives there in a huge old house with a park, quite alone with her
+army of servants. I go to see her whenever I'm in Ireland, because she
+is one of the sweetest souls I have ever known."
+
+He became aware suddenly that Mlle. O'Hara's head was bent very low over
+her sewing and that her face, or as much of it as he could see, was
+crimson.
+
+"Oh, I--I beg your pardon!" cried Ste. Marie. "I've done something
+dreadful. I don't know what it is, but I'm very, very sorry. Please
+forgive me if you can!"
+
+"It is nothing," she said, in a low voice, and after a moment she looked
+up for the swiftest possible glance and down again. "That is my--aunt,"
+she said. "Only--please let us talk about something else! Of course you
+couldn't possibly have known."
+
+"No," said Ste. Marie, gravely. "No, of course. You are very good to
+forgive me."
+
+He was silent a little while, for what the girl had told him surprised
+him very much indeed, and touched him, too. He remembered again the
+remark of his friend when O'Hara had passed them on the boulevard:
+
+"There goes some of the best blood that ever came out of Ireland. See
+what it has fallen to!"
+
+"It is a curious fact," said he, "that you and I are very close
+compatriots in the matter of blood--if 'compatriots' is the word. You
+are Irish and Spanish. My mother was Irish and my people were Béarnais,
+which is about as much Spanish as French; and, indeed, there was a great
+deal of blood from across the mountains in them, for they often married
+Spanish wives."
+
+He pulled the _Bayard_ out of his pocket.
+
+"The Ste. Marie in here married a Spanish lady, didn't he?"
+
+The girl looked up to him once more.
+
+"Yes," she said. "Yes, I remember. He was a brave man, Monsieur. He had
+a great soul. And he died nobly."
+
+"Well, as for that," he said, flushing a little, "the Ste. Maries have
+all died rather well."
+
+He gave a short laugh.
+
+"Though I must admit," said he, "that the last of them came precious
+near falling below the family standard a week ago. I should think that
+probably none of my respected forefathers was killed in climbing over a
+garden-wall. Autres temps, autres moeurs."
+
+He burst out laughing again at what seemed to him rather comic, but
+Mlle. O'Hara did not smile. She looked very gravely into his eyes, and
+there seemed to be something like sorrow in her look. Ste. Marie
+wondered at it, but after a moment it occurred to him that he was very
+near forbidden ground, and that doubtless the girl was trying to give
+him a silent warning of it. He began to turn over the leaves of the book
+in his hand.
+
+"You have marked a great many pages here," said he.
+
+And she said: "It is my best of all books. I read in it very often. I am
+so thankful for it that there are no words to say how thankful I am--how
+glad I am that I have such a world as that to--take refuge in sometimes
+when this world is a little too unbearable. It does for me now what the
+fairy stories did when I was little. And to think that it's true, true!
+To think that once there truly were men like that--sans peur et sans
+reproche! It makes life worth while to think that those men lived even
+if it was long ago."
+
+Ste. Marie bent his head over the little book, for he could not look at
+Mlle. O'Hara just then. It seemed to him well-nigh the most pathetic
+speech that he had ever heard. His heart bled for her. Out of what mean
+shadows had the girl to turn her weary eyes upward to this sunlight of
+ancient heroism!
+
+"And yet, Mademoiselle," said he, gently, "I think there are such men
+alive to-day, if only one will look for them. Remember, they were not
+common even in Bayard's time. Oh yes, I think there are preux chevaliers
+nowadays, only perhaps they don't go about things in quite the same
+fashion. Other times, other manners," he said again.
+
+"Do you know any such men?" she demanded, facing him with shadowy eyes.
+
+And he said: "Yes, I know men who are in all ways as honorable and as
+high-hearted as Bayard was. In his place they would have acted as he
+did, but nowadays one has to practise heroism much less
+conspicuously--in the little things that few people see and that no one
+applauds or writes books about. It is much harder to do brave little
+acts than brave big ones."
+
+"Yes." she agreed, slowly. "Oh yes, of course."
+
+But there was no spirit in her tone, rather a sort of apathy. Once more
+the leaves overhead swayed in the breeze, opened a tiny rift, and the
+little trembling ray of sunshine shot down to her where she sat. She
+stretched out one hand cup-wise, and the sunbeam, after a circling
+gyration, darted into it and lay there like a small golden bird panting,
+as it were, from fright.
+
+"If I were a painter," said Ste. Marie, "I should be in torture and
+anguish of soul until I had painted you sitting there on a stone bench
+and holding a sunbeam in your hand. I don't know what I should call the
+picture, but I think it would be something figurative--symbolic. Can you
+think of a name?"
+
+Coira O'Hara looked up at him with a slight smile, but her eyes were
+gloomy and full of dark shadows. "It might be called any one of a great
+number of things, I should think," said she.
+"Happiness--belief--illusion. See! The sunbeam is gone."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+XXI
+
+A MIST DIMS THE SHINING STAR
+
+
+Ste. Marie remained in his room all the rest of that day, and he did not
+see Mlle. O'Hara again, for Michel brought him his lunch and the old
+Justine his dinner. For the greater part of the time he sat in bed
+reading, but rose now and then and moved about the room. His wound
+seemed to have suffered no great inconvenience from the morning's
+outing. If he stood or walked too long it burned somewhat, and he had
+the sensation of a tight band round the leg; but this passed after he
+had lain down for a little while, or even sat in a chair with the leg
+straight out before him; so he knew that he was not to be crippled very
+much longer, and his thoughts began to turn more and more keenly upon
+the matter of escape.
+
+He realized, of course, that now, since he was once more able to walk,
+he would be guarded with unremitting care every moment of the day, and
+quite possibly every moment of the night as well, though the simple
+bolting of his door on the outside would seem to answer the purpose save
+when he was out-of-doors. Once he went to the two east windows and hung
+out of them, testing as well as he could with his hands the strength and
+tenacity of the ivy which covered that side of the house. He thought it
+seemed strong enough to give hand and foot hold without being torn
+loose, but he was afraid it would make an atrocious amount of noise if
+he should try to climb down it, and, besides, he would need two very
+active legs for that.
+
+At another time a fresh idea struck him, and he put it at once into
+action. There might be just a chance, when out one day with Michel, of
+getting near enough to the wall which ran along the Clamart road to
+throw something over it when the old man was not looking. In one of his
+pockets he had a card-case with a little pencil fitted into a loop at
+the edge, and in the case it was his custom to carry postage-stamps. He
+investigated and found pencil and stamps. Of course he had nothing but
+cards to write upon, and they were useless. He looked about the room and
+went through an empty chest of drawers in vain, but at last, on some
+shelves in the closet where his clothes had hung, he found several large
+sheets of coarse white paper. The shelves were covered with it loosely
+for the sake of cleanliness. He abstracted one of these sheets, and cut
+it into squares of the ordinary note-paper size, and he sat down and
+wrote a brief letter to Richard Hartley, stating where he was, that
+Arthur Benham was there, the O'Haras, and, he thought, Captain Stewart.
+He did not write the names out, but put instead the initial letters of
+each name, knowing that Hartley would understand. He gave careful
+directions as to how the place was to be reached, and he asked Hartley
+to come as soon as possible by night to that wall where he himself had
+made his entrance, to climb up by the cedar-tree, and to drop his answer
+into the thick leaves of the lilac bushes immediately beneath--an answer
+naming a day and hour, preferably by night, when he could return with
+three or four to help him, surprise the household at La Lierre, and
+carry off young Benham.
+
+Ste. Marie wrote this letter four times, and each of the four copies he
+enclosed in an awkwardly fashioned envelope, made with infinite pains so
+that its flaps folded in together, for he had no gum. He addressed and
+stamped the four envelopes, and put them all in his pocket to await the
+first opportunity.
+
+Afterward he lay down for a while, and as, one after another, the books
+he had in the room failed to interest him, his thoughts began to turn
+back to Mlle. Coira O'Hara and his hour with her upon the old stone
+bench in the garden. He realized all at once that he had been putting
+off this reflection as one puts off a reckoning that one a little dreads
+to face, and rather vaguely he realized why.
+
+The spell that the girl wielded--quite without being conscious of it; he
+granted her that grace--was too potent. It was dangerous, and he knew
+it. Even imaginative and very unpractical people can be in some things
+surprisingly matter-of-fact, and Ste. Marie was matter-of-fact about
+this. The girl had made a mysterious and unprecedented appeal to him at
+his very first sight of her, long before, and ever since that time she
+had continued, intermittently at least, to haunt his dreams. Now he was
+in the very house with her. It was quite possible that he might see her
+and speak with her every day, and he knew there was peril in that.
+
+He closed his eyes and she came to him, dark and beautiful, magnetically
+vital, spreading enchantment about her like a fragrance. She sat beside
+him on the moss-stained bench in the garden, holding out her hand
+cup-wise, and a sunbeam lay in the hand like a little, golden,
+fluttering bird. His thoughts ran back to that first morning when he had
+narrowly escaped death by poison. He remembered the girl's agony of fear
+and horror. He felt her hands once more upon his shoulders, and he was
+aware that his breath was coming faster and that his heart beat quickly.
+He got to his feet and went across to one of the windows, and he stood
+there for a long time frowning out into the summer day. If ever in his
+life, he said to himself with some deliberation, he was to need a cool
+and clear head, faculties unclouded and unimpaired by emotion, it was
+now in these next few days. Much more than his own well-being depended
+upon him now. The fates of a whole family, and quite possibly the lives
+of some of them, were in his hands. He must not fail, and he must not,
+in any least way, falter.
+
+For enemies he had a band of desperate adventurers, and the very boy
+himself, the centre and reason for the whole plot, had been, in some
+incomprehensible way, so played upon that he, too, was against him.
+
+The man standing by the window forced himself quite deliberately to look
+the plain facts in the face. He compelled himself to envisage this
+beautiful girl with her tragic eyes for just what his reason knew her to
+be--an adventuress, a decoy, a lure to a callow, impressionable, foolish
+lad, the tool of that arch-villain Stewart and of the lesser villain her
+father. It was like standing by and watching something lovely and
+pitiful vilely befouled. It turned his heart sick within him, but he
+held himself to the task. He brought to aid him the vision of his lady,
+in whose cause he was pursuing this adventure. For strength and
+determination he reached eye and hand to her where she sat enthroned,
+calm-browed, serene.
+
+For the first time since the beginning of all things his lady failed
+him, and Ste. Marie turned cold with fear.
+
+Where was that splendid frenzy that had been wont to sweep him all in an
+instant into upper air--set his feet upon the stars? Where was it? The
+man gave a sudden, voiceless cry of horror. The wings that had such
+countless times upborne him fluttered weakly near the earth and could
+not mount. His lady was there; through infinite space he was aware of
+her, but she was cold and aloof, and her eyes gazed very serenely beyond
+at something he could not see.
+
+He knew well enough that the fault lay somewhere within himself. She was
+as she had ever been, but he lacked the strength to rise to her. Why?
+Why? He searched himself with a desperate earnestness, but he could find
+no answer to his questioning. In himself, as in her, there had come no
+change. She was still to him all that she ever had been--the star of his
+destiny, the pillar of fire by night, of cloud by day, to guide him on
+his path. Where, then, the fine, pure fervor that should, at thought of
+her, whirl him on high and make a god of him?
+
+He stood wrapped in bewilderment and despair, for he could find no
+answer.
+
+In plain words, in commonplace black-and-white, the man's anguish has an
+over-fanciful, a well-nigh absurd look, but to Ste. Marie the thing was
+very real and terrible, as real and as terrible as, to a half-starved
+monk in his lonely cell, the sudden failure of the customary exaltation
+of spirit after a night's long prayer.
+
+He went, after a time, back to the bed, and lay down there with one
+upflung arm across his eyes to shut out the light. He was filled with a
+profound dejection and a sense of hopelessness. Through all the long
+week of his imprisonment he had been cheerful, at times even gay.
+However evil his case might have looked, his elastic spirits had mounted
+above all difficulties and cares, confident in the face of apparent
+defeat. Now at last he lay still, bruised, as it were, and battered and
+weary. The flame of courage burned very low in him. From sheer
+exhaustion he fell after a time into a troubled sleep, but even there
+the enemy followed him and would not let him rest. He seemed to himself
+to be in a place of shadows and fears. He strained his eyes to make out
+above him the bright, clear star of guidance, for so long as that shone
+he was safe; but something had come between--cloud or mist--and his star
+shone dimly in fitful glimpses.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+On the next morning he went out once more with the old Michel into the
+garden. He went with a stronger heart, for the morning had renewed his
+courage, as bright, fresh mornings do. From the anguish of the day
+before he held himself carefully aloof. He kept his mind away from all
+thought of it, and gave his attention to the things about him. It would
+return, doubtless, in the slow, idle hours; he would have to face it
+again and yet again; he would have to contend with it; but for the
+present he put it out of his thoughts, for there were things to do.
+
+It was no more than human of him--and certainly it was very
+characteristic of Ste. Marie--that he should be half glad and half
+disappointed at not finding Coira O'Hara in her place at the rond point.
+It left him free to do what he wished to do--make a careful
+reconnaissance of the whole garden enclosure--but it left him empty of
+something he had, without conscious thought, looked forward to.
+
+His wounded leg was stronger and more flexible than on the day before;
+it burned and prickled less, and could be bent a little at the knee with
+small distress; so he led the old Michel at a good pace down the length
+of the enclosure, past the rose-gardens, a tangle of unkempt sweetness,
+and so to the opposite wall. He found the gates there, very
+formidable-looking, made of vertical iron bars connected by cross-pieces
+and an ornamental scroll. They were fastened together by a heavy chain
+and a padlock. The lock was covered with rust, as were the gates
+themselves, and Ste. Marie observed that the lane outside upon which
+they gave was overgrown with turf and moss, and even with seedling
+shrubs; so he felt sure that this entrance was never used. The lane, he
+noted, swept away to the right toward Issy and not toward the Clamart
+road. He heard, as he stood there, the whir of a tram from far away at
+the left, a tram bound to or from Clamart, and the sound brought to his
+mind what he wished to do. He turned about and began to make his way
+round the rose-gardens, which were partly enclosed by a low brick wall
+some two or three feet high. Beyond them the trees and shrubbery were
+not set out in orderly rows as they were near the house, but grew at
+will without hindrance or care. It was like a bit of the Meudon wood.
+
+He found the going more difficult here for his bad leg, but he pressed
+on, and in a little while saw before him that wall which skirted the
+Clamart road. He felt in his pocket for the four sealed and stamped
+letters, but just then the old Michel spoke behind him:
+
+"Pardon, Monsieur! Ce n'est pas permis."
+
+"What is not permitted?" demanded Ste. Marie, wheeling about.
+
+"To approach that wall, Monsieur," said the old man, with an incredibly
+gnomelike and apologetic grin.
+
+Ste. Marie gave an exclamation of disgust. "Is it believed that I could
+leap over it?" he asked. "A matter of five metres? Merci, non! I am not
+so agile. You flatter me."
+
+The old Michel spread out his two gnarled hands.
+
+"Pas de ma faute. I have orders, Monsieur. It will be my painful duty to
+shoot if Monsieur approaches that wall." He turned his strange head on
+one side and regarded Ste. Marie with his sharp and beadlike eye. The
+smile of apology still distorted his face, and he looked exactly like
+the Punchinello in a street show.
+
+Ste. Marie slowly withdrew from his pocket two louis d'or and held them
+before him in the palm of his hand. He looked down upon them, and Michel
+looked, too, with a gaze so intense that his solitary eye seemed to
+project a very little from his withered face. He was like a hypnotized
+old bird.
+
+"Mon vieux," said Ste. Marie. "I am a man of honor."
+
+"Sûrement! Sûrement, Monsieur!" said the old Michel, politely, but his
+hypnotized gaze did not stir so much as a hair's-breadth. "Ça va sans le
+dire."
+
+"A man of honor," repeated Ste. Marie. "When I give my word I keep it.
+Voilà! I keep it. And," said he, "I have here forty francs. Two louis. A
+large sum. It is yours, my brave Michel, for the mere trouble of turning
+your back just thirty seconds."
+
+"Monsieur," whispered the old man, "it is impossible. He would kill
+me--by torture."
+
+"He will never know," said Ste. Marie, "for I do not mean to try to
+escape. I give you my word of honor that I shall not try to escape.
+Besides, I could not climb over that wall, as you see. Two louis,
+Michel! Forty francs!"
+
+The old man's hands twisted and trembled round the barrel of the
+carbine, and he swallowed once with some difficulty. He seemed to
+hesitate, but in the end he shook his head. It was as if he shook it in
+grief over the grave of his first-born. "It is impossible," he said
+again. "Impossible." He tore the beadlike eye away from those two
+beautiful, glowing golden things, and Ste. Marie saw that there was
+nothing to be done with him just now. He slipped the money back into his
+pocket with a little sigh and turned away toward the rose-gardens.
+
+"Ah, well," said he. "Another time, perhaps. Another time. And there are
+more louis still, mon vieux. Perhaps three or four. Who knows?"
+
+Michel emitted a groan of extreme anguish, and they moved on.
+
+But a few moments later Ste. Marie gave a sudden low exclamation, and
+then a soundless laugh, for he caught sight of a very familiar figure
+seated in apparent dejection upon a fallen tree-trunk and staring across
+the tangled splendor of the roses.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+XXII
+
+A SETTLEMENT REFUSED
+
+
+Captain Stewart had good reason to look depressed on that fresh and
+beautiful morning when Ste. Marie happened upon him beside the
+rose-gardens. Matters had not gone well with him of late. He was ill and
+he was frightened, and he was much nearer than is agreeable to a
+complete nervous breakdown.
+
+It seemed to him that perils beset him upon every side, perils both seen
+and unseen. He felt like a man who is hunted in the dark, hard pressed
+until his strength is gone, and he can flee no farther. He imagined
+himself to be that man shivering in the gloom in a strange place, hiding
+eyes and ears lest he see or hear something from which he cannot escape.
+He imagined the morning light to come, very slow and cold and gray, and
+in it he saw round about him a silent ring of enemies, the men who had
+pursued him and run him down. He saw them standing there in the pale
+dawn, motionless, waiting for the day, and he knew that at last the
+chase was over and he near done for.
+
+Crouching alone in the garden, with the scent of roses in his nostrils,
+he wondered with a great and bitter amazement at that madman--himself of
+only a few months ago--who had sat down deliberately, in his proper
+senses, to play at cards with Fate, the great winner of all games. He
+wondered if, after all, he had been in his proper senses, for the deed
+now loomed before him gigantic and hideous in its criminal folly. His
+mind went drearily back to the beginning of it all, to the tremendous
+debts which had hounded him day and night, to his fear to speak of them
+with his father, who had never had the least mercy upon gamblers. He
+remembered as if it were yesterday the afternoon upon which he learned
+of young Arthur's quarrel with his grandfather, old David's senile
+anger, and the boy's tempestuous exit from the house, vowing never to
+return. He remembered his talk with old David later on about the will,
+in which he learned that he was now to have Arthur's share under certain
+conditions. He remembered how that very evening, three days after his
+disappearance, the lad had come secretly to the rue du Faubourg St.
+Honoré begging his uncle to take him in for a few days, and how, in a
+single instant that was like a lightning flash, the Great Idea had come
+to him.
+
+What gigantic and appalling madness it had all been! And yet for a time
+how easy of execution! For a time. Now.... He gave another quick shiver,
+for his mind came back to what beset him and compassed him round
+about--perils seen and hidden.
+
+The peril seen was ever before his eyes. Against the light of day it
+loomed a gigantic and portentous shadow, and it threatened him--the
+figure of Ste. Marie _who knew_. His reason told him that if due care
+were used this danger need not be too formidable, and, indeed, in his
+heart he rather despised Ste. Marie as an individual; but the man's
+nerve was broken, and in these days fear swept wavelike over reason and
+had its way with him. Fear looked up to this looming, portentous shadow
+and saw there youth and health and strength, courage and hopefulness,
+and, best of all armors, a righteous cause. How was an ill and tired and
+wicked old man to fight against these? It became an obsession, the
+figure of this youth; it darkened the sun at noonday, and at night it
+stood beside Captain Stewart's bed in the darkness and watched him and
+waited, and the very air he breathed came chill and dark from its silent
+presence there.
+
+But there were perils unseen as well as seen. He felt invisible threads
+drawing round him, weaving closer and closer, and he dared not even try
+how strong they were lest they prove to be cables of steel. He was
+almost certain that his niece knew something or at the least suspected.
+As has already been pointed out, the two saw very little of each other,
+but on the occasions of their last few meetings it had seemed to him
+that the girl watched him with a strange stare, and tried always to be
+in her grandfather's chamber when he called to make his inquiries. Once,
+stirred by a moment's bravado, he asked her if M. Ste. Marie had
+returned from his mysterious absence, and the girl said:
+
+"No. He has not come back yet, but I expect him soon now--with news of
+Arthur. We shall all be very glad to see him, grandfather and Richard
+Hartley and I."
+
+It was not a very consequential speech, and, to tell the truth, it was
+what in the girl's own country would be termed pure "bluff," but to
+Captain Stewart it rang harsh and loud with evil significance, and he
+went out of that room cold at heart. What plans were they perfecting
+among them? What invisible nets for his feet?
+
+And there was another thing still. Within the past two or three days he
+had become convinced that his movements were being watched--and that
+would be Richard Hartley at work, he said to himself. Faces vaguely
+familiar began to confront him in the street, in restaurants and cafés.
+Once he thought his rooms had been ransacked during his absence at La
+Lierre, though his servant stoutly maintained that they had never been
+left unoccupied save for a half-hour's marketing. Finally, on the day
+before this morning by the rose-gardens, he was sure that as he came out
+from the city in his car he was followed at a long distance by another
+motor. He saw it behind him after he had left the city gate, the Porte
+de Versailles, and he saw it again after he had left the main route at
+Issy and entered the little rue Barbés which led to La Lierre. Of
+course, he promptly did the only possible thing under the circumstances.
+He dashed on past the long stretch of wall, swung into the main avenue
+beyond, and continued through Clamart to the Meudon wood, as if he were
+going to St. Cloud. In the labyrinth of roads and lanes there he came to
+a halt, and after a half-hour's wait ran slowly back to La Lierre.
+
+There was no further sign of the other car, the pursuer, if so it had
+been, but he passed two or three men on bicycles and others walking, and
+what one of these might not be a spy paid to track him down?
+
+It had frightened him badly, that hour of suspense and flight, and he
+determined to remain at La Lierre for at least a few days, and wrote to
+his servant in the rue du Faubourg to forward his letters there under
+the false name by which he had hired the place.
+
+He was thinking very wearily of all these things as he sat on the fallen
+tree-trunk in the garden and stared unseeing across tangled ranks of
+roses. And after a while his thoughts, as they were wont to do, returned
+to Ste. Marie--that looming shadow which darkened the sunlight, that
+incubus of fear which clung to him night and day. He was so absorbed
+that he did not hear sounds which might otherwise have roused him. He
+heard nothing, saw nothing, save that which his fevered mind projected,
+until a voice spoke his name.
+
+He looked over his shoulder thinking that O'Hara had sought him out. He
+turned a little on the tree-trunk to see more easily, and the image of
+his dread stood there a living and very literal shadow against the
+daylight.
+
+Captain Stewart's overstrained nerves were in no state to bear a sudden
+shock. He gave a voiceless, whispering cry and he began to tremble very
+violently, so that his teeth chattered. All at once he got to his feet
+and began to stumble away backward, but a projecting limb of the fallen
+tree caught him and held him fast. It must be that the man was in a sort
+of frenzy. He must have seen through a red mist just then, for when he
+found that he could not escape his hand went swiftly to his coat-pocket,
+and in his white and contorted face there was murder plain and
+unmistakable.
+
+Ste. Marie was too lame to spring aside or to dash upon the man across
+intervening obstacles and defend himself. He stood still in his place
+and waited. And it was characteristic of him that at that moment he felt
+no fear, only a fine sense of exhilaration. Open danger had no terrors
+for him. It was secret peril that unnerved him, as in the matter of the
+poison a week before.
+
+Captain Stewart's hand fell away empty, and Ste. Marie laughed.
+
+"Left it at the house?" said he. "You seem to have no luck, Stewart.
+First the cat drinks the poison, and then you leave your pistol at home.
+Dear, dear, I'm afraid you're careless."
+
+Captain Stewart stared at the younger man under his brows. His face was
+gray and he was still shivering, but the sudden agony of fear, which had
+been, after all, only a jangle of nerves, was gone away. He looked upon
+Ste. Marie's gay and untroubled face with a dull wonder, and he began to
+feel a grudging admiration for the man who could face death without even
+turning pale. He pulled out his watch and looked at it.
+
+"I did not know," he said, "that this was your hour out-of-doors."
+
+As a matter of fact, he had quite forgotten that the arrangement
+existed. When he had first heard of it he had protested vigorously, but
+had been overborne by O'Hara with the plea that they owed their prisoner
+something for having come near to poisoning him, and Stewart did not
+care to have any further attention called to that matter; it had already
+put a severe strain upon the relations at La Lierre.
+
+"Well," observed Ste. Marie, "I told you you were careless. That proves
+it. Come! Can't we sit down for a little chat? I haven't seen you since
+I was your guest at the other address--the town address. It seems to
+have become a habit of mine--doesn't it?--being your guest." He laughed
+cheerfully, but Captain Stewart continued to regard him without smiling.
+
+"If you imagine," said the elder man, "that this place belongs to me you
+are mistaken. I came here to-day to make a visit."
+
+But Ste. Marie sat down at one end of the tree-trunk and shook his head.
+
+"Oh, come, come!" said he. "Why keep up the pretence? You must know that
+I know all about the whole affair. Why, bless you, I know it all--even
+to the provisions of the will. Did you think I stumbled in here by
+accident? Well, I didn't, though I don't mind admitting to you that I
+remained by accident."
+
+He glanced over his shoulder toward the one-eyed Michel, who stood
+near-by, regarding the two with some alarm.
+
+Captain Stewart looked up sharply at the mention of the will, and he
+wetted his dry lips with his tongue. But after a moment's hesitation he
+sat down upon the tree-trunk, and he seemed to shrink a little together,
+when his limbs and shoulders had relaxed, so that he looked small and
+feeble, like a very tired old man. He remained silent for a few moments,
+but at last he spoke without raising his eyes. He said:
+
+"And now that you--imagine yourself to know so very much, what do you
+expect to do about it?"
+
+Ste. Marie laughed again.
+
+"Ah, that would be telling!" he cried. "You see, in one way I have the
+advantage, though outwardly all the advantage seems to be with your
+side--I know all about your game. I may call it a game? Yes? But you
+don't know mine. You don't know what I--what we may do at any moment.
+That's where we have the better of you."
+
+"It would seem to me," said Captain Stewart, wearily, "that since you
+are a prisoner here and very unlikely to escape, we know with great
+accuracy what you will do--and what you will not."
+
+"Yes," admitted Ste. Marie, "it would seem so. It certainly would seem
+so. But you never can tell, can you?"
+
+And at that the elder man frowned and looked away. Thereafter another
+brief silence fell between the two, but at its end Ste. Marie spoke in a
+new tone, a very serious tone. He said:
+
+"Stewart, listen a moment!"
+
+And the other turned a sharp gaze upon him.
+
+"You mustn't forget," said Ste. Marie, speaking slowly as if to choose
+his words with care--"you mustn't forget that I am not alone in this
+matter. You mustn't forget that there's Richard Hartley--and that there
+are others, too. I'm a prisoner, yes. I'm helpless here for the
+present--perhaps, perhaps--but they are not, _and they know, Stewart.
+They know_."
+
+Captain Stewart's face remained gray and still, but his hands twisted
+and shook upon his knees until he hid them.
+
+"I know well enough what you're waiting for," continued Ste. Marie.
+"You're waiting--you've got to wait--for Arthur Benham to come of age,
+or, better yet, for your father to die." He paused and shook his head.
+"It's no good. You can't hold out as long as that--not by half. We shall
+have won the game long before. Listen to me! Do you know what would
+occur if your father should take a serious turn for the worse
+to-night--or at any time? Do you? Well, I'll tell you. A piece of
+information would be given him that would make another change in that
+will just as quickly as a pen could write the words. That's what would
+happen."
+
+"That is a lie!" said Captain Stewart, in a dry whisper. "A lie!"
+
+And Ste. Marie contented himself with a slight smile by way of answer.
+He was by no means sure that what he had said was true, but he argued
+that since Hartley suspected, or perhaps by this time knew so much, he
+would certainly not allow old David to die without doing what he could
+do in an effort to save young Arthur's fortune from a rascal. In any
+event, true or false, the words had had the desired effect. Captain
+Stewart was plainly frightened by them.
+
+"May I make a suggestion?" asked the younger man.
+
+The other did not answer him, and he made it.
+
+"Give it up!" said he. "You're riding for a tremendous fall, you know.
+We shall smash you completely in the end. It'll mean worse than
+ruin--much worse. Give it up, now, before you're too late. Help me to
+send for Hartley and we'll take the boy back to his home. Some story can
+be managed that will leave you out of the thing altogether, and those
+who know will hold their tongues. It's your last chance, Stewart. I
+advise you to take it."
+
+Captain Stewart turned his gray face slowly and looked at the other man
+with a sort of dull and apathetic wonder.
+
+"Are you mad?" he asked, in a voice which was altogether without feeling
+of any kind. "Are you quite mad?"
+
+"On the contrary," said Ste. Marie, "I am quite sane, and I'm offering
+you a chance to save yourself before it's too late. Don't misunderstand
+me!" he continued. "I am not urging this out of any sympathy for you. I
+urge it because it will bring about what I wish a little more quickly,
+also because it will save your family from the disgrace of your
+smash-up. That's why I'm making my suggestion."
+
+Captain Stewart was silent for a little while, but after that he got
+heavily to his feet. "I think you must be quite mad," said he, as
+before, in a voice altogether devoid of expression. "I cannot talk with
+madmen." He beckoned to the old Michel, who stood near-by, leaning upon
+his carbine, and when the gardener had approached he said, "Take
+this--prisoner back to his room!"
+
+Ste. Marie rose with a little sigh. He said: "I'm sorry, but you'll
+admit I have done my best for you. I've warned you. I sha'n't do it
+again. We shall smash you now, without mercy."
+
+"Take him away!" cried Captain Stewart, in a sudden loud voice, and the
+old Michel touched his charge upon the shoulder. So Ste. Marie went
+without further words. From a little distance he looked back, and the
+other man still stood by the fallen tree-trunk, bent a little, his arms
+hanging lax beside him, and his face, Ste. Marie thought, fancifully,
+was like the face of a man damned.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+XXIII
+
+THE LAST ARROW
+
+
+The one birdlike eye of the old Michel regarded Ste. Marie with a glance
+of mingled cunning and humor. It might have been said to twinkle.
+
+"To the east, Monsieur?" inquired the old Michel.
+
+"Precisely!" said Ste. Marie. "To the east, mon vieux." It was the
+morning of the fourth day after that talk with Captain Stewart beside
+the rose-gardens.
+
+The two bore to the eastward, down among the trees, and presently came
+to the spot where a certain trespasser had once leaped down from the top
+of the high wall and had been shot for his pains. The old Michel halted
+and leaned upon the barrel of his carbine. With an air of complete
+detachment, an air vague and aloof as of one in a revery, he gazed away
+over the tree-tops of the ragged park; but Ste. Marie went in under the
+row of lilac shrubs which stood close against the wall, and a passer-by
+might have thought the man looking for figs on thistles, for lilacs in
+late July. He had gone there with eagerness, with flushed cheeks and
+bright eyes; he emerged after some moments, moving slowly, with downcast
+head.
+
+"There are no lilac blooms now, Monsieur," observed the old Michel, and
+his prisoner said, in a low voice:
+
+"No, mon vieux. No. There are none." He sighed and drew a long breath.
+So the two stood for some time silent, Ste. Marie a little pale, his
+eyes fixed upon the ground, his hands chafing together behind him, the
+gardener with his one bright eye upon his charge. But in the end Ste.
+Marie sighed again and began to move away, followed by the gardener.
+They went across the broad park, past the double row of larches, through
+that space where the chestnut-trees stood in straight, close rows, and
+so came to the west wall which skirted the road to Clamart. Ste. Marie
+felt in his pocket and withdrew the last of the four letters--the last
+there could be, for he had no more stamps. The others he had thrown over
+the wall, one each morning, beginning with the day after he had made the
+first attempt to bribe old Michel. As he had expected, twenty-four hours
+of avaricious reflection had proved too much for that gnomelike being.
+
+One each day he had thrown over the wall, weighted with a pebble tucked
+loosely under the flap of the improvised envelope, in such a manner that
+it would drop but when the letter struck the ground beyond. And each
+following day he had gone with high hopes to the appointed place under
+the cedar-tree to pick figs of thistles, lilac blooms in late July. But
+there had been nothing there.
+
+"Turn your back, Michel!" said Ste. Marie.
+
+And the old man said, from a little distance: "It is turned, Monsieur. I
+see nothing. Monsieur throws little stories at the birds to amuse
+himself. It does not concern me."
+
+Ste. Marie slipped a pebble under the flap of the envelope and threw his
+letter over the wall. It went like a soaring bird, whirling
+horizontally, and it must have fallen far out in the middle of the road
+near the tramway. For the third time that morning the prisoner drew a
+sigh. He said, "You may turn round now, my friend," and the old Michel
+faced him. "We have shot our last arrow," said he. "If this also fails,
+I think--well, I think the bon Dieu will have to help us then.--Michel,"
+he inquired, "do you know how to pray?"
+
+"Sacred thousand swine, no!" cried the ancient gnome, in something
+between astonishment and horror. "No, Monsieur. 'Pas mon métier, ça!" He
+shook his head rapidly from side to side like one of those toys in a
+shop-window whose heads oscillate upon a pivot. But all at once a gleam
+of inspiration sparkled in his lone eye. "There is the old Justine!" he
+suggested. "Toujours sur les genoux, cette imbécile là."
+
+"In that case," said Ste. Marie, "you might ask the lady to say one
+little extra prayer for--the pebble I threw at the birds just now.
+Hein?" He withdrew from his pocket the last two louis d'or, and Michel
+took them in a trembling hand. There remained but the note of fifty
+francs and some silver.
+
+"The prayer shall be said, Monsieur," declared the gardener. "It shall
+be said. She shall pray all night or I will kill her."
+
+"Thank you," said Ste. Marie. "You are kindness itself. A gentle soul."
+
+They turned away to retrace their steps, and Michel rubbed the side of
+his head with a reflective air.
+
+"The old one is a madman," said he. (The "old one" meant Captain
+Stewart.) "A madman. Each day he is madder, and this morning he struck
+me--here on the head, because I was too slow. Eh! a little more of that,
+and--who knows? Just a little more, a small little! Am I a dog, to be
+beaten? Hein? Je ne le crois pas. Hé!" He called Captain Stewart two
+unprintable names, and after a moment's thought he called him an animal,
+which is not so much of an anti-climax as it may seem, because to call
+anybody an animal in French is a serious matter.
+
+The gardener was working himself up into something of a quiet passion,
+and Ste. Marie said:
+
+"Softly, my friend! Softly!" It occurred to him that the man's
+resentment might be of use later on, and he said: "You speak the truth.
+The old one is an animal, and he is also a great rascal."
+
+But Michel betrayed the makings of a philosopher. He said, with profound
+conviction: "Monsieur, all men are great rascals. It is I who say it."
+
+And at that Ste. Marie had to laugh.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+He had not consciously directed his feet, but without direction they led
+him round the corner of the rose-gardens and toward the rond point. He
+knew well whom he would find there. She had not failed him during the
+past three days. Each morning he had found her in her place, and for his
+allotted hour--which more than once stretched itself out to nearly two
+hours, if he had but known--they had sat together on the stone bench,
+or, tiring of that, had walked under the trees beyond.
+
+Long afterward Ste. Marie looked back upon these hours with, among other
+emotions, a great wonder--at himself and at her. It seemed to him then
+one of the strangest relationships--intimacies, for it might well be so
+called--that ever existed between a man and a woman, and he was amazed
+at the ease, the unconsciousness, with which it had come about.
+
+But during this time he did not allow himself to wonder or to examine,
+scarcely even to think. The hours were golden hours, unrelated, he told
+himself, to anything else in his life or in his interests. They were
+like pleasant dreams, very sweet while they endured, but to be put away
+and forgotten upon the waking. Only in that long afterward he knew that
+they had not been put away, that they had been with him always, that the
+morning hour had remained in his thoughts all the rest of the long day,
+and that he had waked upon the morrow with a keen and exquisite sense of
+something sweet to come.
+
+It was a strange fool's paradise that the man dwelt in, and in some
+small, vague measure he must, even at the time, have known it, for it is
+certain that he deliberately held himself away from
+thought--realization; that he deliberately shut his eyes, held his ears
+lest he should hear or see.
+
+That he was not faithless to his duty has been shown. He did his utmost
+there, but he was for the time helpless save for efforts to communicate
+with Richard Hartley, and those efforts could consume no more than ten
+minutes out of the weary day.
+
+So he drifted, wilfully blind to bearings, wilfully deaf to Sound of
+warning or peril, and he found a companionship sweeter and fuller and
+more perfect than he had ever before known in all his life, though that
+is not to say very much, because sympathetic companionships between men
+and women are very rare indeed, and Ste. Marie had never experienced
+anything which could fairly be called by that name. He had had, as has
+been related, many flirtations, and not a few so-called love-affairs,
+but neither of these two sorts of intimacies are of necessity true
+intimacies at all; men often feel varying degrees of love for women
+without the least true understanding or sympathy or real companionship.
+
+He was wondering, as he bore round the corner of the rose-gardens on
+this day, in just what mood he would find her. It seemed to him that in
+their brief acquaintance he had seen her in almost all the moods there
+are, from bitter gloom to the irrepressible gayety of a little child. He
+had told her once that she was like an organ, and she had laughed at him
+for being pretentious and high-flown, though she could upon occasion be
+quite high-flown enough herself for all ordinary purposes.
+
+He reached the cleared margin of the rond point, and a little cold fear
+stirred in him when he did not hear her singing under her breath, as she
+was wont to do when alone, but he went forward and she was there in her
+place upon the stone bench. She had been reading, but the book lay
+forgotten beside her and she sat idle, her head laid back against the
+thick stems of shrubbery which grew behind, her hands in her lap. It was
+a warm, still morning, with the promise of a hot afternoon, and the girl
+was dressed in something very thin and transparent and cool-looking,
+open in a little square at the throat and with sleeves which came only
+to her elbows. The material was pale and dull yellow, with very vaguely
+defined green leaves in it, and against it the girl's dark and clear
+skin glowed rich and warm and living, as pearls glow and seem to throb
+against the dead tints of the fabric upon which they are laid.
+
+She did not move when he came before her, but looked up to him gravely
+without stirring her head.
+
+"I didn't hear you come," said she. "You don't drag your left leg any
+more. You walk almost as well as if you had never been wounded."
+
+"I'm almost all right again," he answered. "I suppose I couldn't run or
+jump, but I certainly can walk very much like a human being. May I sit
+down?"
+
+Mlle. O'Hara put out one hand and drew the book closer to make a place
+for him on the stone bench, and he settled himself comfortably there,
+turned a little so that he was facing toward her.
+
+It was indicative of the state of intimacy into which the two had grown
+that they did not make polite conversation with each other, but indeed
+were silent for some little time after Ste. Marie had seated himself. It
+was he who spoke first. He said:
+
+"You look vaguely classical to-day. I have been trying to guess why, and
+I cannot. Perhaps it's because your--what does one say: frock, dress,
+gown?--because it is cut out square at the throat."
+
+"If you mean by classical, Greek," said she, "it wouldn't be square at
+the neck at all; it would be pointed--V-shaped. And it would be very
+different in other ways, too. You are not an observing person, after
+all."
+
+"For all that," insisted Ste. Marie, "you look classical. You look like
+some lady one reads about in Greek poems--Helen or Iphigenia or Medea or
+somebody."
+
+"Helen had yellow hair, hadn't she?" objected Mlle. O'Hara. "I should
+think I probably look more like Medea--Medea in Colchis before Jason--"
+
+She seemed suddenly to realize that she had hit upon an unfortunate
+example, for she stopped in the middle of her sentence and a wave of
+color swept up over her throat and face.
+
+For a moment Ste. Marie did not understand, then he gave a low
+exclamation, for Medea certainly had been an unhappy name. He remembered
+something that Richard Hartley had said about that lady a long time
+before. He made another mistake, for to lessen the moment's
+embarrassment he gave speech to the first thought which entered his
+mind. He said:
+
+"Some one once remarked that you look like the young Juno--before
+marriage. I expect it's true, too."
+
+She turned upon him swiftly.
+
+"Who said that?" she demanded. "Who has ever talked to you about me?"
+
+"I beg your pardon," he said. "I seem to be singularly stupid this
+morning. A mild lunacy. You must forgive me, if you can. To tell you
+what you ask would be to enter upon forbidden ground, and I mustn't do
+that."
+
+"Still, I should like to know," said the girl, watching him with sombre
+eyes.
+
+"Well, then," said he, "it was a little Jewish photographer in the
+Boulevard de la Madeleine."
+
+And she said, "Oh!" in a rather disappointed tone and looked away.
+
+"We seem to be making conversation chiefly about my personal
+appearance," she said, presently. "There must be other topics if one
+should try hard to find them. Tell me stories. You told me stories
+yesterday; tell me more. You seem to be in a classical mood. You shall
+be Odysseus, and I will be Nausicaa, the interesting laundress. Tell me
+about wanderings and things. Have you any more islands for me?"
+
+"Yes," said Ste. Marie, nodding at her slowly. "Yes, Nausicaa, I have
+more islands for you. The seas are full of islands. What kind do you
+want?"
+
+"A warm one," said the girl. "Even on a hot day like this I choose a
+warm one, because I hate the cold."
+
+She settled herself more comfortably, with a little sigh of content that
+was exactly like a child's happy sigh when stories are going to be told
+before the fire.
+
+"I know an island," said Ste. Marie, "that I think you would like
+because it is warm and beautiful and very far away from troubles of all
+kinds. As well as I could make out, when I went there, nobody on the
+island had ever even heard of trouble. Oh yes, you'd like it. The people
+there are brown, and they're as beautiful as their own island. They wear
+hibiscus flowers stuck in their hair, and they very seldom do any work."
+
+"I want to go there!" cried Mlle. Coira O'Hara. "I want to go there now,
+this afternoon, at once! Where is it?"
+
+"It's in the South Pacific," said he, "not so very far from Samoa and
+Fiji and other groups that you will have heard about, and its name is
+Vavau. It's one of the Tongans. It's a high, volcanic island, not a
+flat, coral one like the southern Tongans. I came to it, one evening,
+sailing north from Nukualofa and Haapai, and it looked to me like a
+single big mountain jutting up out of the sea, black-green against the
+sunset. It was very impressive. But it isn't a single mountain, it's a
+lot of high, broken hills covered with a tangle of vegetation and set
+round a narrow bay, a sort of fjord, three or four miles long, and at
+the inner end of this are the village and the stores of the few white
+traders. I'm afraid," said Ste. Marie, shaking his head--"I'm afraid I
+can't tell you about it, after all. I can't seem to find the words. You
+can't put into language--at least, I can't--those slow, hot, island days
+that are never too hot because the trades blow fresh and strong, or the
+island nights that are more like black velvet with pearls sewed on it
+than anything else. You can't describe the smell of orange groves and
+the look of palm-trees against the sky. You can't tell about the sweet,
+simple, natural hospitality of the natives. They're like little,
+unsuspicious children. In short," said he, "I shall have to give it up,
+after all, just because it's too big for me. I can only say that it's
+beautiful and unspeakably remote from the world, and that I think I
+should like to go back to Vavau and stay a long time, and let the rest
+of the world go hang."
+
+Mlle. O'Hara stared across the park of La Lierre with wide and shadowy
+eyes, and her lips trembled a little.
+
+"Oh, I want to go there!" she cried again. "I want to go there--and
+rest--and forget everything!" She turned upon him with a sudden bitter
+resentment. "Why do you tell me things like that?" she cried. "Oh yes, I
+know. I asked you, but--can't you see? To hide one's self away in a
+place like that!" she said. "To let the sun warm you and the trade-winds
+blow away--all that had ever tortured you! Just to rest and be at
+peace!" She turned her eyes to him once more. "You needn't be afraid
+that you have failed to make me see your island! I see it. I feel it. It
+doesn't need many words. I can shut my eyes and I am there. But it was a
+little cruel. Oh, I know, I asked for it. It's like the garden of the
+Hesperides, isn't it?"
+
+"Very like it," said Ste. Marie, "because there are oranges--groves of
+them. (And they were the golden apples, I take it.) Also, it is very far
+away from the world, and the people live in complete and careless
+ignorance of how the world goes on. Emperors and kings die, wars come
+and go, but they hear only a little faint echo of it all, long
+afterward, and even that doesn't interest them."
+
+"I know," she said. "I understand. Didn't you know I'd understand?"
+
+"Yes," said he, nodding. "I suppose I did. We--feel things rather alike,
+I suppose. We don't have to say them all out."
+
+"I wonder," she said, in a low voice, "if I'm glad or sorry." She stared
+under her brows at the man beside her. "For it is very probable that
+when we have left La Lierre you and I will never meet again. I wonder if
+I'm--"
+
+For some obscure reason she broke off there and turned her eyes away,
+and she remained without speaking for a long time. Her mind, as she sat
+there, seemed to go back to that southern island, and to its peace and
+loveliness, for Ste. Marie, who watched her, saw a little smile come to
+her lips, and he saw her eyes half close and grow soft and tender as if
+what they saw were very sweet to her. He watched many different
+expressions come upon the girl's face and go again, but at last he
+seemed to see the old bitterness return there and struggle with
+something wistful and eager.
+
+"I envy you your wide wanderings," she said, presently. "Oh, I envy you
+more than I can find any words for. Your will is the wind's will. You go
+where your fancy leads you, and you're free--free. We have wandered, you
+know," said she, "my father and I. I can't remember when we ever had a
+home to live in. But that is--that is different--a different kind of
+wandering."
+
+"Yes," said Ste. Marie. "Yes, perhaps." And within himself he said, with
+sorrow and pity, "Different, indeed!"
+
+As if at some sudden thought the girl looked up at him quickly. "Did
+that sound regretful?" she asked. "Did what I say sound--disloyal to my
+father? I didn't mean it to. I don't want you to think that I regret it.
+I don't. It has meant being with my father. Wherever he has gone I have
+gone with him, and if anything ever has been--unpleasant, I was willing,
+oh, I was glad, glad to put up with it for his sake and because I could
+be with him. If I have made his life a little happier by sharing it, I
+am glad of everything. I don't regret."
+
+"And yet," said Ste. Marie, gently, "it must have been hard sometimes."
+He pictured to himself that roving existence lived among such people as
+O'Hara must have known, and it sent a hot wave of anger and distress
+over him from head to foot.
+
+But the girl said: "I had my father. The rest of it didn't matter in the
+face of that." After a little silence she said, "M. Ste. Marie!"
+
+And the man said, "What is it, Mademoiselle?"
+
+"You spoke the other day," she said, hesitating over her words, "about
+my aunt, Lady Margaret Craith. I suppose I ought not to ask you more
+about her, for my father quarrelled with his people very long ago and he
+broke with them altogether. But--surely, it can do no harm--just for a
+moment--just a very little! Could you tell me a little about her, M.
+Ste. Marie--what she is like and--and how she lives--and things like
+that?"
+
+So Ste. Marie told her all that he could of the old Irishwoman who lived
+alone in her great house, and ruled with a slack Irish hand, a sweet
+Irish heart, over tenants and dependants. And when he had come to an end
+the girl drew a little sigh and said:
+
+"Thank you. I am so glad to hear of her. I--wish everything were
+different, so that--I think I should love her very much if I might."
+
+"Mademoiselle," said Ste. Marie, "will you promise me something?"
+
+She looked at him with her sombre eyes, and after a little she said: "I
+am afraid you must tell me first what it is. I cannot promise blindly."
+
+He said: "I want you to promise me that if anything ever should
+happen--any difficulty--trouble--anything to put you in the position of
+needing care or help or sympathy--"
+
+But she broke in upon him with a swift alarm, crying: "What do you mean?
+You're trying to hint at something that I don't know. What difficulty or
+trouble could happen to me? Please tell me just what you mean."
+
+"I'm not hinting at any mystery," said Ste. Marie. "I don't know of
+anything that is going to happen to you, but--will you forgive me for
+saying it?--your father is, I take it, often exposed to--danger of
+various sorts. I'm afraid I can't quite express myself, only, if any
+trouble should come to you, Mademoiselle, will you promise me to go to
+Lady Margaret, your aunt, and tell her who you are and let her care for
+you?"
+
+"There was an absolute break," she said. "Complete."
+
+But the man shook his head, saying:
+
+"Lady Margaret won't think of that. She'll think only of you--that she
+can mother you, perhaps save you grief--and of herself, that in her old
+age she has a daughter. It would make a lonely old woman very happy,
+Mademoiselle."
+
+The girl bent her head away from him, and Ste. Marie saw, for the first
+time since he had known her, tears in her eyes. After a long time she
+said:
+
+"I promise, then. But," she said, "it is very unlikely that it should
+ever come about--for more than one reason. Very unlikely."
+
+"Still, Mademoiselle," said he, "I am glad you have promised. This is an
+uncertain world. One never can tell what will come with the to-morrows."
+
+"I can," the girl said, with a little tired smile that Ste. Marie did
+not understand. "I can tell. I can see all the to-morrows--a long, long
+row of them. I know just what they're going to be like--to the very
+end."
+
+But the man rose to his feet and looked down upon her as she sat before
+him. And he shook his head.
+
+"You are mistaken," he said. "Pardon me, but you are mistaken. No one
+can see to-morrow--or the end of anything. The end may surprise you very
+much."
+
+"I wish it would!" cried Mlle. O'Hara. "Oh, I wish it would!"
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+XXIV
+
+THE JOINT IN THE ARMOR
+
+
+Ste. Marie put down a book as O'Hara came into the room and rose to meet
+his visitor.
+
+"I'm compelled," said the Irishman, "to put you on your honor to-day if
+you are to go out as usual. Michel has been sent on an errand, and I am
+busy with letters. I shall have to put you on your honor not to make any
+effort to escape. Is that agreed to? I shall trust you altogether. You
+could manage to scramble over the wall somehow, I suppose, and get clean
+away, but I think you won't try it if you give your word."
+
+"I give my word gladly," said Ste. Marie. "And thanks very much. You've
+been uncommonly kind to me here. I--regret more than I can say that
+we--that we find ourselves on opposite sides, as it were. I wish we were
+fighting for the same cause."
+
+The Irishman looked at the younger man sharply for an instant, and he
+made as if he would speak, but seemed to think better of it. In the end
+he said:
+
+"Yes, quite so. Quite so. Of course you understand that any
+consideration I have used toward you has been by way of making amends
+for--for an unfortunate occurrence."
+
+Ste. Marie laughed.
+
+"The poison," said he. "Yes, I know. And of course I know who was at the
+bottom of that. By the way, I met Stewart in the garden the other day.
+Did he tell you? He was rather nervous and tried to shoot me, but he had
+left his revolver at the house--at least it wasn't in his pocket when he
+reached for it."
+
+O'Hara's hard face twitched suddenly, as if in anger, and he gave an
+exclamation under his breath, so the younger man inferred that "old
+Charlie" had not spoken of their encounter. And after that the Irishman
+once more turned a sharp, frowning glance upon his prisoner as if he
+were puzzled about something. But, as before, he stopped short of speech
+and at last turned away.
+
+"Just a moment!" said the younger man. He asked: "Is it fair to inquire
+how long I may expect to be confined here? I don't want to presume upon
+your good-nature too far, but if you could tell me I should be glad to
+know."
+
+The Irishman hesitated a moment and then said:--
+
+"I don't know why I shouldn't answer that. It can't help you, so far as
+I can see, to do anything that would hinder us. You'll stay until Arthur
+Benham comes of age, which will be in about two months from now."
+
+"Yes," said the other. "Thanks. I thought so. Until young Arthur comes
+of age and receives his patrimony--or until old David Stewart dies. Of
+course that might happen at any hour."
+
+The Irishman said: "I don't quite see what--Ah, yes, to be sure! Yes, I
+see. Well, I should count upon eight weeks if I were you. In eight weeks
+the boy will be independent of them all, and we shall go to England for
+the wedding."
+
+"The wedding?" cried Ste. Marie. "What wedding?--Ah!"
+
+"Arthur Benham and my daughter are to be married," said O'Hara, "so soon
+as he reaches his majority. I thought you knew that."
+
+In a very vague fashion he realized that he had expected it. And still
+the definite words came to him with a shock which was like a physical
+blow, and he turned his back with a man's natural instinct to hide his
+feeling. Certainly that was the logical conclusion to be drawn from
+known premises. That was to be the O'Haras' reward for their labor. To
+Stewart the great fortune, to the O'Haras a good marriage for the girl
+and an assured future. That was reward enough surely for a few weeks of
+angling and decoying and luring and lying. That was what she had meant,
+on the day before, by saying that she could see all the to-morrows. He
+realized that he must have been expecting something like this, but the
+thought turned him sick, nevertheless. He could not forget the girl as
+he had come to know her during the past week. He could not face with any
+calmness the thought of her as the adventuress who had lured poor Arthur
+Benham on to destruction. It was an impossible thought. He could have
+laughed at it in scornful anger, and yet--What else was she?
+
+He began to realize that his action in turning his back upon the other
+man in the middle of a conversation must look very odd, and he faced
+round again trying to drive from his expression the pain and distress
+which he knew must be there, plain to see. But he need not have troubled
+himself, for the other man was standing before the next window and
+looking out into the morning sunlight, and his hard, bony face had so
+altered that Ste. Marie stared at him with open amazement. He thought
+O'Hara must be ill.
+
+"I want to see her married!" cried the Irishman, suddenly, and it was a
+new voice, a voice Ste. Marie did not know. It shook a little with an
+emotion that sat uncouthly upon this grim, stern man.
+
+"I want to see her married and safe!" he said. "I want her to be rid of
+this damnable, roving, cheap existence. I want her to be rid of me and
+my rotten friends and my rotten life."
+
+He chafed his hands together before him, and his tired eyes fixed
+themselves upon something that he seemed to see out of the window and
+glared at it fiercely.
+
+"I should like," said he, "to die on the day after her wedding, and so
+be out of her way forever. I don't want her to have any shadows cast
+over her from the past. I don't want her to open closet doors and find
+skeletons there. I want her to be free--free to live the sort of life
+she was born to and has a right to."
+
+He turned sharply upon the younger man.
+
+"You've seen her!" he cried. "You've talked to her; you know her! Think
+of that girl dragged about Europe with me ever since she was a little
+child! Think of the people she's had to know, the things she's had to
+see! Do you wonder that I want to have her free of it all, married and
+safe and comfortable and in peace? Do you? I tell you it has driven me
+as nearly mad as a man can be. But I couldn't go mad, because I had to
+take care of her. I couldn't even die, because she'd have been left
+alone without any one to look out for her. She wouldn't leave me. I
+could have settled her somewhere in some quiet place where she'd have
+been quit at least of shady, rotten people, but she wouldn't have it.
+She's stuck to me always, through good times and bad. She's kept my
+heart up when I'd have been ready to cut my throat if I'd been alone.
+She's been the--bravest and faithfulest--Well, I--And look at her! Look
+at her now! Think of what she's had to see and know--the people she's
+had to live with--and look at her! Has any of it stuck to her? Has it
+cheapened her in any littlest way? No, by God! She has come through it
+all like a--like a Sister of Charity through a city slum--like an angel
+through the dark."
+
+The Irishman broke off speaking, for his voice was beyond control, but
+after a moment he went on again, more calmly:
+
+"This boy, this young Benham, is a fool, but he's not a mean fool.
+She'll make a man of him. And, married to him, she'll have the comforts
+that she ought to have and the care and--freedom. She'll have a chance
+to live the life that she 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'Université to this garden, thanking God that you were here at
+the journey's end, and kissing the ground that he dragged himself over
+for sheer joy and gratitude. I should tell them--Oh, I have no words! I
+could tell them so pitifully little of you! I think I should only say,
+'Go to her and see!' I think I should just say that."
+
+The girl turned her head away with a little sob. But 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. Honoré.
+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'Université 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 fiancé and then turned back.
+
+Ste. Marie met her with raised eyebrows, and she shook her head. "I
+don't know," said she. "He is very stubborn. He is frightened and
+bewildered. As he said 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-Elysées. Your eyes, they've haunted me from the very first. There
+was a dream of you," he said, "that I had so often--but I cannot quite
+remember, because my head hurts. What is the matter with my head? I
+was--going somewhere. It was so very important that I should go, but I
+have forgotten where it was and why I had to go there. I remember only
+that you called to me--called me back--and I saw your eyes--and I
+couldn't go. You needed me."
+
+"Ah, sorely, Bayard! Sorely!" cried the girl above him.
+
+"And now," said he, whispering.
+
+"Now?" she said.
+
+"Coira, I love you," said the man on the couch.
+
+And Coira O'Hara gave a single dry sob.
+
+She said: "Oh, my dear love! Now I wish that I might die after hearing
+you say that. My life, Bayard, is full now. It's full of joy and
+gratefulness and everything that is sweet. I wish I might die before
+other things come to spoil it."
+
+Ste. Marie--or that part of him which lay at La Lierre--laughed with a
+fine scorn, albeit very weakly. "Why not live instead?" said he. "And
+what can come to spoil our life for us? _Our life!_" he said again, in a
+whisper. A flash of remembrance seemed to come to him, for he smiled and
+said, "Coira, we'll go to Vavau."
+
+"Anywhere!" said she. "Anywhere!"
+
+"So that we go together."
+
+"Yes," she said, gently, "so that we two go together." She tried with a
+desperate fierceness to make herself like the man before her, to put
+away, by sheer power of will, all memory, the knowledge of everything
+save what was in this little room, but it was the vainest of all vain
+efforts. She saw herself for a thief and a cheat--stealing, for love's
+sake, the mere body of the man she loved while mind and soul were
+absent. In her agony she almost cried out aloud as the words said
+themselves within her. And she denied them. She said: "His mind may be
+absent, but his soul is here. He loves me. It is I, not that other. Can
+I not have my poor little hour of pretence? A little hour out of all a
+lifetime! Shall I have nothing at all?"
+
+But the voice which had accused her said, "If he knew, would he say he
+loves you?" And she hid her face, for she knew that he would not--even
+if it were true.
+
+"Coira!" whispered the man on the couch, and she raised her head. In the
+half darkness he could not have seen how she was suffering. Her face was
+only a warm blur to him, vague and sweet and beautiful, with tender
+eyes. He said: "I think--I'm falling asleep. My head is so very, very
+queer! What is the matter with my head? Coira, do you think I might be
+kissed before I go to sleep?"
+
+She gave a little cry of intolerable anguish. It seemed to her that she
+was being tortured beyond all reason or endurance. She felt suddenly
+very weak, and she was afraid that she was going to faint away. She laid
+her face down upon the couch where Ste. Marie's head lay. Her cheek was
+against his and her hair across his eyes.
+
+The man gave a 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 déjeuner and tell
+him to wait.
+
+"Are you fit to go?" Coira asked.
+
+And he said, "I suppose as fit as I shall be."
+
+He got to his feet, and the things about him swam dangerously, but he
+could walk by using great care. The girl stood white and still, and she
+avoided his eyes.
+
+"It is not good-bye," said he. "I shall see you soon again--and I hope,
+often--often, Coira."
+
+The words had a flat and foolish sound, but he could find no others. It
+was not easy to speak.
+
+"I suppose I must not ask to see your father?" said he.
+
+And she told him that her father had locked himself in his own room and
+would see no one--would not even open his door to take in food.
+
+Ste. Marie went to the stairs leaning upon the shoulder of the stout old
+Justine, but before he had gone Coira checked him for an instant. She
+said:
+
+"Tell Arthur, if he speaks to you about me, that what I said in the note
+I gave him last night I meant quite seriously. I gave him a note to read
+after he reached home. Tell him for me that it was final. Will you do
+that?"
+
+"Yes, of course," said Ste. Marie.
+
+He looked at her with some wonder, because her words had been very
+emphatic.
+
+"Yes," he said, "I will tell him. Is that all?"
+
+"All but good-bye," said she. "Good-bye, Bayard!"
+
+She stood at the head of the stairs while he went down them. And she
+came after him to the landing, 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'Université.
+
+The man who admitted him said that Mademoiselle was alone in the
+drawing-room, and he went there at once. He was dully conscious that
+something was very wrong, but he had suffered too much within the past
+few hours to be analytical, and he did not know what it was that was
+wrong. He should have entered that room with a swift and eager step,
+with shining eyes, with a high-beating heart. He went into it slowly,
+wrapped in a mantle of strange apathy.
+
+Helen Benham came forward to meet him, and took both his hands in hers.
+Ste. Marie was amazed to see that she seemed not to have altered at
+all--in spite of this enormous lapse of time, in spite of all that had
+happened in it. And yet, unaltered, she seemed to him a stranger, a
+charming and gracious stranger with an icily beautiful face. He wondered
+at her and at himself, and he was a little alarmed because he thought
+that he must be ill. That blow upon the head must, after all, have done
+something terrible to him.
+
+"Ah, Ste. Marie!" she said, in her well-remembered voice--and again he
+wondered that the voice should be so high-pitched and so without 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.
+
+"You're well rid of her!" said the old gentleman, when at last he was
+once more able to speak. "You're well rid of her! I congratulate you! I
+am ashamed and humiliated, and a great burden of obligation is shifted
+to me--though I assume it with pleasure--but I congratulate you. You
+might have found out too late what sort of a woman she is."
+
+Ste. Marie began to protest and to explain and to say that Miss Benham
+had been quite right in what she said, but the old gentleman only waved
+an impatient arm to him, and presently, when he saw the valet making
+signs across the bed, and saw that his host was really in a state of
+complete exhaustion after the outburst, he made his adieus and got away.
+
+Young Arthur Benham, who had been sitting almost silent during the
+interview, followed him out of the room and closed the door behind them.
+For the first time Ste. Marie noted that the boy's face was white and
+strained. He pulled a crumpled square of folded paper from his pocket
+and shook it at the other man. "Do you know what this is?" he cried. "Do
+you know what's in this?"
+
+Ste. Marie shook his head, but a sudden recollection came to him.
+
+"Ah," said he, "that must be the note Mlle. O'Hara spoke of! She asked
+me to tell you that she meant it--whatever it may be--quite seriously;
+that it was final. She didn't explain. She just said that--that you were
+to take it as final."
+
+The lad gave a sudden very bitter sob. "She has thrown me over!" he
+said. "She says I'm not to come back to her."
+
+Ste. Marie gave a wordless cry, and he began to tremble.
+
+"You can read it if you want to," the boy said. "Perhaps you can explain
+it. I can't. Do you want to read it?"
+
+The elder man stood staring at him whitely, and the boy repeated his
+words.
+
+He said, "You can read it if you want to," and at last Ste. Marie took
+the paper between stiff hands, and held it to the light.
+
+Coira O'Hara said, briefly, that too much was against their marriage.
+She mentioned his age, the certain hostility of his family, their
+different tastes, a number of other things. But in the end she said she
+had begun to realize that she did not love him as she ought to do if
+they were to marry. And so, the note said, finally, she gave him up to
+his family, she released him altogether, and she begged him not to come
+back to her, or to urge her to change her mind. Also she made the trite
+but very sensible observation that he would be glad of his freedom
+before the year was out.
+
+Ste. Marie's unsteady fingers opened and the crumpled paper slipped
+through them to the floor. Over it the man and the boy looked at each
+other in silence. Young Arthur Benham's face was white, and it was
+strained and contorted with its first grief. But first griefs do not
+last very long. Coira O'Hara had told the truth--before the year was out
+the lad would be glad of his freedom. But the man's face was white also,
+white and still, and his eyes held a strange expression which the boy
+could not understand and at which he wondered. The man was trembling a
+little from head to foot. The boy wondered about that, too, but abruptly
+he cried out: "What's up? Where are you going?" for Ste. Marie had
+turned all at once and was running down the stairs as fast as he could
+run.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+XXX
+
+JASON SAILS BACK TO COLCHIS.--JOURNEY'S END
+
+
+In the hall below, Ste. Marie came violently into contact with and
+nearly overturned Richard Hartley, who was just giving his hat and stick
+to the man who had admitted him. Hartley seized upon him with an
+exclamation of pleasure, and wheeled him round to face the light. He
+said:
+
+"I've been pursuing you all day. You're almost as difficult of access
+here in Paris as you were at La Lierre. How's the head?"
+
+Ste. Marie put up an experimental hand. He had forgotten his injury.
+"Oh, that's all right," said he. "At least, I think so. Anderson fixed
+me up this afternoon. But I haven't time to talk to you. I'm in a hurry.
+To-morrow we'll have a long chin. Oh, how about Stewart?"
+
+He lowered his voice, and Hartley answered him in the same tone.
+
+"The man is in a delirium. Heaven knows how it'll end. He may die and he
+may pull through. I hope he pulls through--except for the sake of the
+family--because then we can make him pay for what he's done. I don't
+want him to go scot free by dying."
+
+"Nor I," said Ste. Marie, fiercely. "Nor I. I want him to pay, too--long
+and slowly and hard; and if he lives I shall see that he does it, family
+or no family. Now I must be off."
+
+Ste. Marie's face was shining and uplifted. The other man looked at it
+with a little envious sigh.
+
+"I see everything is all right," said he, "and I congratulate you. You
+deserve it if ever any one did."
+
+Ste. Marie stared for an instant, uncomprehending. Then he saw.
+
+"Yes," he said, gently, "everything is all right."
+
+It was plain that the Englishman did not know of Miss Benham's decision.
+He was incapable of deceit. Ste. Marie threw an arm over his friend's
+shoulder and went with him a little way toward the drawing-room.
+
+"Go in there," he said. "You'll find some one glad to see you, I think.
+And remember that I said everything is all right."
+
+He came back after he had turned away, and met Hartley's puzzled frown
+with a smile.
+
+"If you've that motor here, may I use it?" he asked. "I want to go
+somewhere in a hurry."
+
+"Of course," the other man said. "Of course. I'll go home in a cab."
+
+So they parted, and Ste. Marie went out to the waiting car.
+
+On the left bank the streets are nearly empty of traffic at night, and
+one can make excellent time over them. Ste. Marie reached the Porte de
+Versailles, at the city's limits, in twenty minutes and dashed through
+Issy five minutes later. In less than half an hour from the time he had
+left the rue de l'Université he was under the walls of La Lierre. He
+looked at his watch, and it was not quite half-past eleven.
+
+He tried the little door in the wall, and it was unlocked, so he passed
+in and closed the door behind him. Inside he found that he was running,
+and he gave a little laugh, but of eagerness and excitement, not of
+mirth. There were dim lights in one or two of the upper windows, but
+none below, and there was no one about. He pulled at the door-bell, and
+after a few impatient moments pulled again and still again. Then he
+noticed that the heavy door was ajar, and, since no one answered his
+ringing, he pushed the door open and went in.
+
+The lower hall was quite dark, but a very faint light came down from
+above through the well of the staircase. He heard dragging feet in the
+upper hall, and then upon one of the upper flights, for the stairs,
+broad below, divided at a half-way landing and continued upward in an
+opposite direction in two narrower flights. A voice, very faint and
+weary, called:
+
+"Who is there? Who is ringing, please?"
+
+And Coira O'Hara, holding a candle in her hand, came upon the
+stair-landing and stood gazing down into the darkness. She wore a sort
+of dressing-gown, a heavy white garment which hung in straight, long
+folds to her feet and fell away from the arm that held the candle on
+high. The yellow beams of light struck down across her head and face,
+and even at the distance the man could see how white she was and
+hollow-eyed and worn--a pale wraith of the splendid beauty that had
+walked in the garden at La Lierre.
+
+"Who is there, please?" she asked again. "I can't see. What is it?"
+
+"It is I, Coira!" said Ste. Marie.
+
+And she gave a sharp cry. The arm which was holding the candle overhead
+shook and fell beside her as if the strength had gone out of it. The
+candle dropped to the floor, spluttered there for an instant and went
+out, but there was still a little light from the hall above.
+
+Ste. Marie sprang up the stairs to where the girl stood, and caught her
+in his arms, for she was on the verge of faintness. Her head fell back
+away from him, and he saw her eyes through half-closed lids, her white
+teeth through parted lips. She was trembling--but, for that matter, so
+was he at the touch of her, the heavy and sweet burden in his arms. She
+tried to speak, and he heard a whisper:
+
+"Why? Why? Why?"
+
+"Because it is my place, Coira!" said he. "Because I cannot live away
+from you. Because we belong together."
+
+The girl struggled weakly and pushed against him. Once more he heard
+whispering words and made out that she tried to say:
+
+"Go back to her! Go back to her! You belong there!"
+
+But at that he laughed aloud.
+
+"I thought so, too," said he, "but she thinks otherwise. She'll have
+none of me, Coira. It's Richard Hartley now. Coira, can you love a
+jilted man? I've been jilted--thrown over--dismissed."
+
+Her head came up in a flash and she stared at him, suddenly rigid and
+tense in his arms.
+
+"Is that true?" she demanded.
+
+"Yes, my love!" said he.
+
+And she began to weep, with long, comfortable sobs, her face hidden in
+the hollow of his shoulder. On one other occasion she had wept before
+him, and he had been horribly embarrassed, but he bore this present
+tempest without, as it were, winking. He gloried in it. He tried to say
+so. He tried to whisper to her, his lips pressed close to the ear that
+was nearest them, but he found that he had no speech. Words would not
+come to his tongue; it trembled and faltered and was still for sheer
+inadequacy.
+
+Rather oddly, in that his thoughts were chaos, swallowed up in the surge
+of feeling, a memory struck through to him of that other exaltation
+which had swept him to the stars. He looked upon it and was amazed
+because now he saw it, in clear light, for the thing it had been. He saw
+it for a fantasy, a self-evoked wraith of the imagination, a dizzy
+flight of the spirit through spirit space. He saw that it had not been
+love at all, and he realized how little a part Helen Benham had ever
+really played in it. A cold and still-eyed figure for him to wrap the
+veil of his imagination round, that was what she had been. There were
+times when the sweep of his upward flight had stirred her a little,
+wakened in her some vague response, but for the most part she had stood
+aside and looked on, wondering.
+
+The mist was rent away from that rainbow-painted cobweb, and at last the
+man saw and understood. He gave an exclamation of wonder, and the girl
+who loved him raised her head once more, and the two looked each into
+the other's eyes for a long time. They fell into hushed and broken
+speech.
+
+"I have loved you so long, so long," she said, "and so hopelessly! I
+never thought--I never believed. To think that in the end you have come
+to me! I cannot believe it!"
+
+"Wait and see!" cried the man. "Wait and see!"
+
+She shivered a little. "If it is not true I should like to die before I
+find out. I should like to die now, Bayard, with your arms holding me up
+and your eyes close, close."
+
+Ste. Marie's arms tightened round her with a sudden fierceness. He hurt
+her, and she smiled up at him. Their two hearts beat one against the
+other, and they beat very fast.
+
+"Don't you understand," he cried, "that life's only just
+beginning--day's just dawning, Coira? We've been lost in the dark. Day's
+coming now. This is only the sunrise."
+
+"I can believe it at last," she said, "because you hold me close and you
+hurt me a little, and I'm glad to be hurt. And I can feel your heart
+beating. Ah, never let me go, Bayard! I should be lost in the dark again
+if you let me go." A sudden thought came to her, and she bent back her
+head to see the better. "Did you speak with Arthur?"
+
+And he said: "Yes. He asked me to read your note, so I read it. That
+poor lad! I came straight to you then--straight and fast."
+
+"You knew why I did it?" she said, and Ste. Marie said:
+
+"Now I know."
+
+"I could not have married him," said she. "I could not. I never thought
+I should see you again, but I loved you and I could not have married
+him. Ah, impossible! And he'll be glad later on. You know that. It will
+save him any more trouble with his family, and besides--he's so very
+young. Already, I think, he was beginning to chafe a little. I thought
+so more than once. Oh, I'm trying to justify myself!" she cried. "I'm
+trying to find reasons; but you know the true reason. You know it."
+
+"I thank God for it," he said.
+
+So they stood clinging together in that dim place, and broken,
+whispering speech passed between them or long silences when speech was
+done. But at last they went down the stairs and out upon the open
+terrace, where the moonlight lay.
+
+"It Was in the open, sweet air," the girl said, "that we came to know
+each other. Let us walk in it now. The house smothers me." She looked up
+when they had passed the west corner of the façade and drew a little
+sigh. "I am worried about my father," said she. "He will not answer me
+when I call to him, and he has eaten nothing all day long. Bayard, I
+think his heart is broken. Ah, but to-morrow we shall mend it again! In
+the morning I shall make him let me in, and I shall tell him--what I
+have to tell."
+
+They turned down under the trees, where the moonlight made silver
+splashes about their feet, and the sweet night air bore soft against
+their faces. Coira went a half-step in advance, her head laid back upon
+the shoulder of the man she loved, and his arm held her up from falling.
+
+So at last we leave them, walking there in the tender moonlight, with
+the breath of roses about them and their eyes turned to the coming day.
+It is still night and there is yet one cloud of sorrow to shadow them
+somewhat, for up-stairs in his locked room a man lies dead across the
+floor, with an empty pistol beside him--heart-broken, as the girl had
+feared. But where a great love is, shadows cannot last very long, not
+even such shadows as this. The morning must dawn--and joy cometh of a
+morning.
+
+So we leave them walking together in the moonlight, their faces turned
+toward the coming day.
+
+THE END
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Jason, by Justus Miles Forman
+
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+
+The Project Gutenberg EBook of Jason, by Justus Miles Forman
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: Jason
+
+Author: Justus Miles Forman
+
+Release Date: August 23, 2004 [EBook #13261]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK JASON ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Kevin Handy, John Hagerson, and the Project Gutenberg
+Online Distributed Proofreaders Team
+
+
+
+
+
+
+</pre>
+
+
+<h1>JASON</h1>
+<h2>A ROMANCE</h2><br />
+<br />
+<h3>BY</h3>
+<h2>JUSTUS MILES FORMAN</h2><br />
+<br />
+<h3>AUTHOR OF</h3>
+<h2>"A STUMBLING BLOCK" "BUCHANAN'S WIFE"</h2>
+<h2>"THE ISLAND OF ENCHANTMENT"</h2>
+<br />
+<h3>WITH ILLUSTRATIONS BY</h3>
+<h2>W. HATHERELL, R.I.</h2>
+<br />
+<h3>HARPER &amp; BROTHERS PUBLISHERS</h3>
+<h3>NEW YORK AND LONDON</h3>
+<h3>MCMIX</h3><br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<h3>Copyright, 1908.</h3>
+
+<hr />
+
+<center><br />
+<b>&Agrave; PARIS</b><br />
+<br />
+M&Egrave;RE MYST&Eacute;RIEUSE ... SOEUR CONSOLATRICE<br />
+ENCHANTERESSE AUX YEUX VOIL&Eacute;S<br />
+J&Eacute; D&Eacute;DIE CE PETIT ROMAN<br />
+EN RECONNAISSANCE<br />
+J.M.F.<br />
+</center><br />
+
+<hr />
+
+</a> <p class="figure"> <a name="jason001"><img
+width="80%" alt="Illustration: MLLE. COIRA O'HARA SAT ALONE UPON THE STONE
+BENCH " src="images/jason001.png" /></a><br /> MLLE. COIRA O'HARA SAT ALONE UPON
+THE STONE BENCH </p>
+
+<hr />
+
+
+
+
+<h2>CONTENTS</h2>
+
+<a href='#I'>I. STE. MARIE HEARS OF A MYSTERY AND MEETS A DARK LADY</a><br />
+<br />
+<a href='#II'>II. THE LADDER TO THE STARS</a><br />
+<br />
+<a href='#III'>III. STE. MARIE MAKES A VOW, BUT A PAIR OF EYES HAUNT HIM</a><br />
+<br />
+<a href='#IV'>IV. OLD DAVID STEWART</a><br />
+<br />
+<a href='#V'>V. JASON SETS FORTH UPON THE GREAT ADVENTURE</a><br />
+<br />
+<a href='#VI'>VI. A BRAVE GENTLEMAN RECEIVES A HURT, BUT VOLUNTEERS IN A GOOD CAUSE</a><br />
+<br />
+<a href='#VII'>VII. CAPTAIN STEWART MAKES A KINDLY OFFER</a><br />
+<br />
+<a href='#VIII'>VIII. JASON MEETS WITH A MISADVENTURE AND DREAMS A DREAM</a><br />
+<br />
+<a href='#IX'>IX. JASON GOES UPON A JOURNEY, AND RICHARD HARTLEY PLEADS FOR HIM</a><br />
+<br />
+<a href='#X'>X. CAPTAIN STEWART ENTERTAINS</a><br />
+<br />
+<a href='#XI'>XI. A GOLDEN LADY ENTERS--THE EYES AGAIN</a><br />
+<br />
+<a href='#XII'>XII. THE NAME OF THE LADY WITH THE EYES--EVIDENCE HEAPS UP SWIFTLY</a><br />
+<br />
+<a href='#XIII'>XIII. THE VOYAGE TO COLCHIS</a><br />
+<br />
+<a href='#XIV'>XIV. THE WALLS OF AEA</a><br />
+<br />
+<a href='#XV'>XV. A CONVERSATION AT LA LIERRE</a><br />
+<br />
+<a href='#XVI'>XVI. THE BLACK CAT</a><br />
+<br />
+<a href='#XVII'>XVII. THOSE WHO WERE LEFT BEHIND</a><br />
+<br />
+<a href='#XVIII'>XVIII. A CONVERSATION OVERHEARD</a><br />
+<br />
+<a href='#XIX'>XIX. THE INVALID TAKES THE AIR</a><br />
+<br />
+<a href='#XX'>XX. THE STONE BENCH AT THE ROND POINT</a><br />
+<br />
+<a href='#XXI'>XXI. A MIST DIMS THE SHINING STAR</a><br />
+<br />
+<a href='#XXII'>XXII. A SETTLEMENT REFUSED</a><br />
+<br />
+<a href='#XXIII'>XXIII. THE LAST ARROW</a><br />
+<br />
+<a href='#XXIV'>XXIV. THE JOINT IN THE ARMOR</a><br />
+<br />
+<a href='#XXV'>XXV. MEDEA GOES OVER TO THE ENEMY</a><br />
+<br />
+<a href='#XXVI'>XXVI. BUT THE FLEECE ELECTS TO REMAIN</a><br />
+<br />
+<a href='#XXVII'>XXVII. THE NIGHT'S WORK</a><br />
+<br />
+<a href='#XXVIII'>XXVIII. MEDEA'S LITTLE HOUR</a><br />
+<br />
+<a href='#XXIX'>XXIX. THE SCALES OF INJUSTICE</a><br />
+<br />
+<a href='#XXX'>XXX. JASON SAILS BACK TO COLCHIS--JOURNEY'S END</a><br />
+
+<hr />
+
+
+
+
+<h2>ILLUSTRATIONS</h2>
+
+<a href='#jason001'>MLLE. COIRA O'HARA SAT ALONE UPON THE
+STONE BENCH</a><br />
+<br />
+<a href='#jason002'>"THE FAMILY IS IN GREAT DISTRESS OF MIND
+OVER THE DISAPPEARANCE OF MY YOUNG
+NEPHEW"</a><br />
+<br />
+<a href='#jason003'>HE SAW CAPTAIN STEWART MOVING AMONG
+THEM</a><br />
+<br />
+<a href='#jason004'>CAPTAIN STEWART LAY HUDDLED AND WRITHING
+UPON THE FLOOR</a><br />
+<br />
+<a href='#jason005'>THERE APPEARED TWO YOUNG PEOPLE MOVING
+SLOWLY IN THE DIRECTION OF THE HOUSE</a><br />
+<br />
+<a href='#jason006'>"TELL ME ABOUT HIM, THIS STE. MARIE! DO
+YOU KNOW ANYTHING ABOUT HIM?"</a><br />
+<br />
+<a href='#jason007'>HIS HAND WENT SWIFTLY TO HIS COAT-POCKET</a><br />
+<br />
+<a href='#jason008'>THE GIRL FUMBLED DESPERATELY WITH THE
+CLUMSY KEY</a><br />
+
+<hr />
+
+
+
+
+<a name="Page_1"></a><h2><a name='I'></a>I</h2>
+
+<h3>STE. MARIE HEARS OF A MYSTERY AND MEETS A DARK LADY</h3>
+
+
+<p>From Ste. Marie's little flat, which overlooked the gardens, they drove
+down the quiet rue du Luxembourg, and at the Place St. Sulpice turned to
+the left. They crossed the Place St. Germain des Pr&eacute;s, where lines
+of home-bound working-people stood waiting for places in the electric
+trams, and groups of students from the Beaux Arts or from Julien's sat
+under the awnings of the Deux Magots, and so, beyond that busy square, they
+came into the long and peaceful stretch of the Boulevard St. Germain. The
+warm, sweet dusk gathered round them as they went, and the evening air was
+fresh and aromatic in their faces. There had been a little gentle shower in
+the late afternoon, and roadway and pavement were still damp with it. It
+had wet the new-grown leaves of the chestnuts and acacias that bordered the
+street. The scent of that living green blended with the scent of laid dust
+and the fragrance of the last late-clinging chestnut blossoms; it caught up
+a fuller, richer burden from the overflowing front of a florist's shop; it
+stole from open windows a savory whiff of cooking, a salt tang of wood
+smoke; and <a name="Page_2"></a>the soft little breeze--the breeze of
+coming summer--mixed all together and tossed them and bore them down the
+long, quiet street; and it was the breath of Paris, and it shall be in your
+nostrils and mine, a keen agony of sweetness, so long as we may live and so
+wide as we may wander--because we have known it and loved it--and in the
+end we shall go back to breathe it when we die.</p>
+
+<p>The strong white horse jogged evenly along over the wooden pavement, its
+head down, the little bell at its neck jingling pleasantly as it went. The
+cocher, a torpid, purplish lump of gross flesh, pyramidal, pearlike, sat
+immobile in his place. The protuberant back gave him an extraordinary
+effect of being buttoned into his fawn-colored coat wrong side before. At
+intervals he jerked the reins like a large strange toy, and his strident
+voice said:</p>
+
+<p>"H&eacute;!" to the stout white horse, which paid no attention whatever.
+Once the beast stumbled and the pearlike lump of flesh insulted it,
+saying:</p>
+
+<p>"H&eacute;! veux tu, cochon!"</p>
+
+<p>Before the War Office a little black slip of a milliner's girl dodged
+under the horse's head, saving herself and the huge box slung to her arm by
+a miracle of agility, and the cocher called her the most frightful names,
+without turning his head and in a perfunctory tone quite free from
+passion.</p>
+
+<p>Young Hartley laughed and turned to look at his companion, but Ste.
+Marie sat still in his place, his hat pulled a little down over his brows
+and his handsome chin buried in the folds of the white silk muffler with
+which for some obscure reason he had swathed his neck.</p>
+
+<p>"This is the first time in many years," said the Englishman, "that I
+have known you to be silent for ten whole <a name="Page_3"></a>minutes. Are
+you ill, or are you making up little epigrams to say at the
+dinner-party?"</p>
+
+<p>Ste. Marie waved a despondent glove.</p>
+
+<p>"I 'ave," said he, "w'at you call ze blue. Papillons noirs--clouds in my
+soul." It was a species of jest with Ste. Marie--and he seemed never to
+tire of it--to pretend that he spoke English very brokenly. As a matter of
+fact, he spoke it quite as well as any Englishman and without the slightest
+trace of accent. He had discovered a long time before this--it may have
+been while the two were at Eton together--that it annoyed Hartley very
+much, particularly when it was done in company and before strangers. In
+consequence he became on such occasions a sort of comic-paper caricature of
+his race, and by dint of much practice, added to a naturally alert mind, he
+became astonishingly ingenious in the torture of that honest but
+unimaginative gentleman whom he considered his best friend. He achieved the
+most surprising expressions by the mere literal translation of French
+idiom, and he could at any time bring Hartley to a crimson agony by calling
+him "my dear "'before other men, whereas at the equivalent "mon cher" the
+Englishman would doubtless never, as the phrase goes, have batted an
+eye.</p>
+
+<p>"Ye-es," he continued, sadly, "I 'ave ze blue. I weep. Weez ze tears
+full ze eyes. Yes." He descended into English. "I think something's going
+to happen to me. There's calamity, or something, in the air. Perhaps I'm
+going to die."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, I know what you are going to do, right enough," said the other man.
+"You're going to meet the most beautiful woman--girl--in the world at
+dinner, and of course you are going to fall in love with her."</p>
+
+<p><a name="Page_4"></a>"Ah, the Miss Benham!" said Ste. Marie, with a
+faint show of interest. "I remember now, you said that she was to be there.
+I had forgotten. Yes, I shall be glad to meet her. One hears so much. But
+why am I of course going to fall in love with her?"</p>
+
+<p>"Well, in the first place," said Hartley, "you always fall in love with
+all pretty women as a matter of habit, and, in the second place,
+everybody--well, I suppose you--no one could help falling in love with her,
+I should think."</p>
+
+<p>"That's high praise to come from you," said the other. And Hartley said,
+with a short, not very mirthful laugh:</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, I don't pretend to be immune. We all--everybody who knows her.
+You'll understand presently."</p>
+
+<p>Ste. Marie turned his head a little and looked curiously at his friend,
+for he considered that he knew the not very expressive intonations of that
+young gentleman's voice rather well, and this was something unusual. He
+wondered what had been happening during his six months' absence from
+Paris.</p>
+
+<p>"I dare say that's what I feel in the air, then," he said, after a
+little pause. "It's not calamity; it's love.</p>
+
+<p>"Or maybe," he said, quaintly, "it's both. L'un n'emp&ecirc;che pas
+I'autre." And he gave an odd little shiver, as if that something in the air
+had suddenly blown chill upon him.</p>
+
+<p>They were passing the corner of the Chamber of Deputies, which faces the
+Pont de la Concorde. Ste. Marie pulled out his watch and looked at it.</p>
+
+<p>"Eight-fifteen," said he. "What time are we asked for--eight-thirty?
+That means nine: It's an English house, and nobody will be on time. It's
+out of fashion to be prompt nowadays."</p>
+
+<p><a name="Page_5"></a>"I should hardly call the Marquis de Saulnes
+English, you know," objected Hartley.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, his wife is," said the other, "and they're altogether English in
+manner. Dinner won't be before nine. Shall we get out, and walk across the
+bridge and up the Champs-Elys&eacute;es? I should like to, I think. I like
+to walk at this time of the evening--between the daylight and the dark."
+Hartley nodded a rather reluctant assent, and Ste. Marie prodded the
+pear-shaped cocher in the back with his stick. So they got down at the
+approach to the bridge, Ste. Marie gave the cocher a piece of two francs,
+and they turned away on foot. The pear-shaped one looked at the coin in his
+fat hand as if it were something unclean and contemptible--something to be
+despised. He glanced at the dial of his taximeter, which had registered one
+franc twenty-five, and pulled the flag up. He spat gloomily out into the
+street, and his purple lips moved in words. He seemed to say something like
+"Sale diable de m&eacute;tier!" which, considering the fact that he had
+just been overpaid, appears unwarrantably pessimistic in tone. Thereafter
+he spat again, picked up his reins and jerked them, saying:</p>
+
+<p>"H&egrave;, Jean Baptiste! Uip, uip!" The unemotional white horse turned
+up the boulevard, trotting evenly at its steady pace, head down, the little
+bell at its neck jingling pleasantly as it went. It occurs to me that the
+white horse was probably unique. I doubt that there was another horse in
+Paris rejoicing in that extraordinary name.</p>
+
+<p>But the two young men walked slowly on across the Pont de la Concorde.
+They went in silence, for Hartley was thinking still of Miss Helen Benham,
+and Ste. Marie was thinking of Heaven knows what. His gloom was
+unaccountable <a name="Page_6"></a>unless he had really meant what he said
+about feeling calamity in the air. It was very unlike him to have nothing
+to say. Midway of the bridge he stopped and turned to look out over the
+river, and the other man halted beside him. The dusk was thickening almost
+perceptibly, but it was yet far from dark. The swift river ran leaden
+beneath them, and the river boats, mouches and hirondelles, darted silently
+under the arches of the bridge, making their last trips for the day. Away
+to the west, where their faces were turned, the sky was still faintly
+washed with color, lemon and dusky orange and pale thin green. A single
+long strip of cirrus cloud was touched with pink, a lifeless old rose, such
+as is popular among decorators for the silk hangings of a woman's boudoir.
+And black against this pallid wash of colors the tour Eiffel stood high and
+slender and rather ghostly. By day it is an ugly thing, a preposterous iron
+finger upthrust by man's vanity against God's serene sky; but the haze of
+evening drapes it in a merciful semi-obscurity and it is beautiful.</p>
+
+<p>Ste. Marie leaned upon the parapet of the bridge, arms folded before him
+and eyes afar. He began to sing, &agrave; demi-voix, a little phrase out of
+<i>Louise</i>--an invocation to Paris--and the Englishman stirred uneasily
+beside him. It seemed to Hartley that to stand on a bridge, in a top-hat
+and evening clothes, and sing operatic airs while people passed back and
+forth behind you, was one of the things that are not done. He tried to
+imagine himself singing in the middle of Westminster Bridge at half-past
+eight of an evening, and he felt quite hot all over at the thought. It was
+not done at all, he said to himself. He looked a little nervously at the
+people who were passing, and it seemed to him that they stared at him and
+at the unconscious <a name="Page_7"></a>Ste. Marie, though in truth they
+did nothing of the sort. He turned back and touched his friend on the arm,
+saying:</p>
+
+<p>"I think we'd best be getting along, you know." But Ste. Marie was very
+far away, and did not hear. So then he fell to watching the man's dark and
+handsome face, and to thinking how little the years at Eton and the year or
+two at Oxford had set any real stamp upon him. He would never be anything
+but Latin, in spite of his Irish mother and his public school. Hartley
+thought what a pity that was. As Englishmen go, he was not illiberal, but,
+no more than he could have altered the color of his eyes, could he have
+believed that anything foreign would not be improved by becoming English.
+That was born in him, as it is born in most Englishmen, and it was a
+perfectly simple and honest belief. He felt a deeper affection for this
+handsome and volatile young man whom all women loved, and who bade fair to
+spend his life at their successive feet--for he certainly had never shown
+the slightest desire to take up any sterner employment--he felt a deeper
+affection for Ste. Marie than for any other man he knew, but he had always
+wished that Ste. Marie were an Englishman, and he had always felt a slight
+sense of shame over his friend's un-English ways.</p>
+
+<p>After a moment he touched him again on the arm, saying:</p>
+
+<p>"Come along! We shall be late, you know. You can finish your little
+concert another time."</p>
+
+<p>"Eh!" cried Ste. Marie. "Quoi, donc?" He turned with a start.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh yes!" said he. "Yes, come along! I was mooning. Allons! Allons, my
+old!" He took Hartley's arm <a name="Page_8"></a>and began to shove him
+along at a rapid walk. "I will moon no more," he said. "Instead, you shall
+tell me about the wonderful Miss Benham whom everybody is talking about.
+Isn't there something odd connected with the family? I vaguely recall
+something unusual--some mystery or misfortune or something. But first a
+moment! One small moment, my old. Regard me that!" They had come to the end
+of the bridge, and the great Place de la Concorde lay before them.</p>
+
+<p>"In all the world," said Ste. Marie--and he spoke the truth--"there is
+not another such square. Regard it, mon brave! Bow yourself before it! It
+is a miracle."</p>
+
+<p>The great bronze lamps were alight, and they cast reflections upon the
+still damp pavement about them. To either side, the trees of the Tuileries
+gardens and of the Cours la Reine and the Champs-Elys&eacute;es lay in a
+solid black mass; in the middle, the obelisk rose slender and straight, its
+pointed top black against the sky; and beneath, the water of the
+N&egrave;reid fountains splashed and gurgled. Far beyond, the gay lights of
+the rue Royale shone in a yellow cluster; and beyond these still, the tall
+columns of the Madeleine ended the long vista. Pedestrians and cabs crept
+across that vast space and seemed curiously little, like black insects, and
+round about it all the eight cities of France sat atop their stone
+pedestals and looked on. Ste. Marie gave a little sigh of pleasure, and the
+two moved forward, bearing to the left, toward the
+Champs-Elys&eacute;es.</p>
+
+<p>"And now," said he, "about these Benhams. What is the thing I cannot
+quite recall? What has happened to them?"</p>
+
+<p>"I suppose," said the other man, "you mean the disappearance of Miss
+Benham's young brother a month ago--before <a name="Page_9"></a>you
+returned to Paris. Yes, that was certainly very odd--that is, it was either
+very odd or very commonplace. And in either case the family is terribly cut
+up about it. The boy's name was Arthur Benham, and he was rather a young
+fool, but not downright vicious, I should think. I never knew him at all
+well, but I know he spent his time chiefly at the Caf&eacute; de Paris and
+at the Olympia and at Longchamps and at Henry's Bar. Well, he just
+disappeared, that is all. He dropped completely out of sight between two
+days, and though the family has had a small army of detectives on his trail
+they've not discovered the smallest clew. It's deuced odd altogether. You
+might think it easy to disappear like that, but it's not."</p>
+
+<p>"No--no," said Ste. Marie, thoughtfully. "No, I should fancy not.</p>
+
+<p>"This boy," he said, after a pause--"I think I had seen him--had him
+pointed out to me--before I went away. I think it was at Henry's Bar, where
+all the young Americans go to drink strange beverages. I am quite sure I
+remember his face. A weak face, but not quite bad."</p>
+
+<p>And after another little pause he asked:</p>
+
+<p>"Was there any reason why he should have gone away--any quarrel or that
+sort of thing?"</p>
+
+<p>"Well," said the other man, "I rather think there was something of the
+sort. The boy's uncle--Captain Stewart--middle-aged, rather prim old
+party--you'll have met him, I dare say--he intimated to me one day that
+there had been some trivial row. You see, the lad isn't of age yet, though
+he is to be in a few months, and so he has had to live on an allowance
+doled out by his grandfather, who's the head of the house. The boy's father
+is dead. There's a quaint old beggar, if you like--the grandfather. He was
+<a name="Page_10"></a>rather a swell in the diplomatic, in his day, it
+seems--rather an important swell. Now he's bedridden. He sits all day in
+bed and plays cards with his granddaughter or with a very superior valet,
+and talks politics with the men who come to see him. Oh yes, he's a quaint
+old beggar. He has a great quantity of white hair and an enormous square
+white beard and the fiercest eyes I ever saw, I should think. Everybody's
+frightened out of their wits of him. Well, he sits up there and rules his
+family in good old patriarchal style, and it seems he came down a bit hard
+on the poor boy one day over some folly or other, and there was a row and
+the boy went out of the house swearing he'd be even."</p>
+
+<p>"Ah, well, then," said Ste. Marie, "the matter seems simple enough. A
+foolish boy's foolish pique. He is staying in hiding somewhere to frighten
+his grandfather. When he thinks the time favorable he will come back and be
+wept over and forgiven."</p>
+
+<p>The other man walked a little way in silence.</p>
+
+<p>"Ye-es," he said, at last. "Yes, possibly. Possibly you are right.
+That's what the grandfather thinks. It's the obvious solution.
+Unfortunately there is more or less against it. The boy went away with--so
+far as can be learned--almost no money, almost none at all. And he has
+already been gone a month. Miss Benham, his sister, is sure that something
+has happened to him, and I'm a bit inclined to think so, too. It's all very
+odd. I should think he might have been kidnapped but that no demand has
+been made for money."</p>
+
+<p>"He was not," suggested Ste. Marie--"not the sort of young man to do
+anything desperate--make away with himself?" Hartley laughed.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, Lord, no!" said he. "Not that sort of young man <a
+name="Page_11"></a>at all. He was a very normal type of rich and spoiled
+and somewhat foolish American boy."</p>
+
+<p>"Rich?" inquired the other, quickly.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh yes; they're beastly rich. Young Arthur is to come into something
+very good at his majority, I believe, from his father's estate, and the old
+grandfather is said to be indecently rich--rolling in it! There's another
+reason why the young idiot wouldn't be likely to stop away of his own
+accord. He wouldn't risk anything like a serious break with the old
+gentleman. It would mean a loss of millions to him, I dare say, for the old
+beggar is quite capable of cutting him off if he takes the notion. Oh, it's
+a bad business all through."</p>
+
+<p>And after they had gone on a bit he said it again, shaking his head:</p>
+
+<p>"It's a bad business! That poor girl, you know. It's hard on her. She
+was fond of the young ass for some reason or other. She's very much broken
+up over it."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes," said Ste. Marie, "it is hard for her--for all the family, of
+course. A bad business, as you say." He spoke absently, for he was looking
+ahead at something which seemed to be a motor accident. They had by this
+time got well up the Champs-Elys&eacute;es and were crossing the Rond
+Point. A motor-car was drawn up alongside the curb just beyond, and a
+little knot of people stood about it and seemed to look at something on the
+ground.</p>
+
+<p>"I think some one has been run down," said Ste. Marie. "Shall we have a
+look?" They quickened their pace and came to where the group of people
+stood in a circle looking upon the ground, and two gendarmes asked many
+questions and wrote voluminously in their little books. It appeared that a
+delivery boy mounted upon a tricycle cart <a name="Page_12"></a>had turned
+into the wrong side of the avenue and had got himself run into and
+overturned by a motor-car going at a moderate rate of speed. For once the
+sentiment of those mysterious birds of prey which flock instantaneously
+from nowhere round an accident, was against the victim and in favor of the
+frightened and gesticulating chauffeur.</p>
+
+<p>Ste. Marie turned an amused face from this voluble being to the other
+occupants of the patently hired car, who stood apart, adding very little to
+the discussion. He saw a tall and bony man with very bright blue eyes and
+what is sometimes called a guardsman's mustache--the drooping, walruslike
+ornament which dates back a good many years now. Beyond this gentleman he
+saw a young woman in a long, gray silk coat and a motoring veil. He was
+aware that the tall man was staring at him rather fixedly and with a
+half-puzzled frown, as though he thought that they had met before and was
+trying to remember when, but Ste. Marie gave the man but a swift glance.
+His eyes were upon the dark face of the young woman beyond, and it seemed
+to him that she called aloud to him in an actual voice that rang in his
+ears. The young woman's very obvious beauty, he thought, had nothing to do
+with the matter. It seemed to him that her eyes called him. Just that.
+Something strange and very potent seemed to take sudden and almost tangible
+hold upon him--a charm, a spell, a magic--something unprecedented, new to
+his experience. He could not take his eyes from hers, and he stood
+staring.</p>
+
+<p>As before, on the Pont de la Concorde, Hartley touched him on the arm,
+and abruptly the chains that had bound him were loosened.</p>
+
+<p><a name="Page_13"></a>"We must be going on, you know," the Englishman
+said, and Ste. Marie said, rather hurriedly:</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, yes, to be sure! Come along!" But at a little distance he turned
+once more to look back. The chauffeur had mounted to his place, the
+delivery boy was upon his feet again, little the worse for his tumble, and
+the knot of bystanders had begun to disperse, but it seemed to Ste. Marie
+that the young woman in the long silk coat stood quite still where she had
+been, and that her face was turned toward him, watching.</p>
+
+<p>"Did you notice that girl?" said Hartley, as they walked on at a brisker
+pace. "Did you see her face? She was rather a tremendous beauty, you know,
+in her gypsyish fashion. Yes, by Jove, she was!"</p>
+
+<p>"Did I see her?" repeated Ste. Marie. "Yes. Oh yes. She had very strange
+eyes. At least, I think it was the eyes. I don't know. I've never seen any
+eyes quite like them. Very odd!"</p>
+
+<p>He said something more in French which Hartley did not hear, and the
+Englishman saw that he was frowning.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, well, I shouldn't have said there was anything strange about them,"
+Hartley said; "but they certainly were beautiful. There's no denying that.
+The man with her looked rather Irish, I thought."</p>
+
+<p>They came to the Etoile, and cut across it toward the Avenue Hoche. Ste.
+Marie glanced back once more, but the motor-car and the delivery boy and
+the gendarmes were gone.</p>
+
+<p>"What did you say?" he asked, idly.</p>
+
+<p>"I said the man looked Irish," repeated his friend. All at once Ste.
+Marie gave a loud exclamation.</p>
+
+<p><a name="Page_14"></a>"Sacred thousand devils! Fool that I am! Dolt! Why
+didn't I think of it before?"</p>
+
+<p>Hartley stared at him, and Ste. Marie stared down the
+Champs-Elys&eacute;es like one in a trance.</p>
+
+<p>"I say," said the Englishman, "we really must be getting on, you know;
+we're late." And as they went along down the Avenue Hoche, he demanded:
+"Why are you a dolt and whatever else it was? What struck you so
+suddenly?"</p>
+
+<p>"I remembered all at once," said Ste. Marie, "where I had seen that man
+before and with whom I last saw him. I'll tell you about it later. Probably
+it's of no importance, though."</p>
+
+<p>"You're talking rather like a mild lunatic," said the other. "Here we
+are at the house!"</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+
+
+
+<a name="Page_15"></a><h2><a name='II'></a>II</h2>
+
+<h3>THE LADDER TO THE STARS</h3>
+
+
+<p>Miss Benham was talking wearily to a strange, fair youth with an
+impediment in his speech, and was wondering why the youth had been asked to
+this house, where in general one was sure of meeting only interesting
+people, when some one spoke her name, and she turned with a little sigh of
+relief. It was Baron de Vries, the Belgian First Secretary of Legation, an
+old friend of her grandfather's, a man made gentle and sweet by infinite
+sorrow. He bowed civilly to the fair youth and bent over the girl's
+hand.</p>
+
+<p>"It is very good," he said, "to see you again in the world. We have need
+of you, nous autres. Madame your mother is well, I hope--and the bear?" He
+called old Mr. Stewart "the bear" in a sort of grave jest, and that fierce
+octogenarian rather liked it.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh yes," the girl said, "we're all fairly well. My mother had one of
+her headaches to-night and so didn't come here, but she's as well as usual,
+and 'the bear'--yes, he's well enough physically, I should think, but he
+has not been quite the same since--during the past month. It has told upon
+him, you know. He grieves over it much more than he will admit."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes," said Baron de Vries, gravely. "Yes, I know." <a
+name="Page_16"></a>He turned about toward the fair young man, but that
+youth had drifted away and joined himself to another group. Miss Benham
+looked after him and gave a little exclamation of relief.</p>
+
+<p>"That person was rather terrible," she said. "I can't think why he is
+here. Marian so seldom has dull people."</p>
+
+<p>"I believe," said the Belgian, "that he is some connection of De
+Saulnes'. That explains his presence." He lowered his voice. "You have
+heard no--news? They have found no trace?"</p>
+
+<p>"No," said she. "Nothing. Nothing at all. I'm rather in despair. It's
+all so hideously mysterious. I am sure, you know, that something has
+happened to him. It's--very, very hard. Sometimes I think I can't bear it.
+But I go on. We all go on."</p>
+
+<p>Baron de Vries nodded his head strongly.</p>
+
+<p>"That, my dear child, is just what you must do," said he. "You must go
+on. That is what needs the real courage, and you have courage. I am not
+afraid for you. And sooner or later you will hear of him--from him. It is
+impossible nowadays to disappear for very long. You will hear from him." He
+smiled at her, his slow, grave smile that was not of mirth but of kindness
+and sympathy and cheer.</p>
+
+<p>"And if I may say so," he said, "you are doing very wisely to come out
+once more among your friends. You can accomplish no good by brooding at
+home. It is better to live one's normal life--even when it is not easy to
+do it. I say so who know."</p>
+
+<p>The girl touched Baron de Vries' arm for an instant with her hand--a
+little gesture that seemed to express thankfulness and trust and
+affection.</p>
+
+<p><a name="Page_17"></a>"If all my friends were like you!" she said to
+him. And after that she drew a quick breath as if to have done with these
+sad matters, and she turned her eyes once more toward the broad room where
+the other guests stood in little groups, all talking at once, very rapidly
+and in loud voices.</p>
+
+<p>"What extraordinarily cosmopolitan affairs these dinner-parties in new
+Paris are!" she said. "They're like diplomatic parties, only we have a
+better time and the men don't wear their orders. How many nationalities
+should you say there are in this room now?"</p>
+
+<p>"Without stopping to consider," said Baron de Vries, "I say ten." They
+counted, and out of fourteen people there were represented nine races.</p>
+
+<p>"I don't see Richard Hartley," Miss Benham said. "I had an idea he was
+to be here. Ah!" she broke off, looking toward the doorway. "Here he comes
+now!" she said. "He's rather late. Who is the Spanish-looking man with him,
+I wonder? He's rather handsome, isn't he?"</p>
+
+<p>Baron de Vries moved a little forward to look, and exclaimed in his
+turn. He said:</p>
+
+<p>"Ah, I did not know he was returned to Paris. That is Ste. Marie." Miss
+Benham's eyes followed the Spanish-looking young man as he made his way
+through the joyous greetings of friends toward his hostess.</p>
+
+<p>"So that is Ste. Marie!" she said, still watching him. "The famous Ste.
+Marie!" She gave a little laugh.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, I don't wonder at the reputation he bears for--gallantry and that
+sort of thing. He looks the part, doesn't he?"</p>
+
+<p>"Ye-es," admitted her friend. "Yes, he is sufficiently beau
+gar&ccedil;on. But--yes--well, that is not all, by any means. You must not
+get the idea that Ste. Marie is nothing but a <a name="Page_18"></a>genial
+and romantic young squire-of-dames. He is much more than that. He has very
+fine qualities. To be sure, he appears to possess no ambition in
+particular, but I should be glad if he were my son. He comes of a very old
+house, and there is no blot upon the history of that house--nothing but
+faithfulness and gallantry and honor. And there is, I think, no blot upon
+Ste. Marie himself. He is fine gold."</p>
+
+<p>The girl turned and stared at Baron de Vries with some astonishment.</p>
+
+<p>"You speak very strongly," said she. "I have never heard you speak so
+strongly of any one, I think."</p>
+
+<p>The Belgian made a little deprecatory gesture with his two hands, and he
+laughed.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, well, I like the boy. And I should hate to have you meet him for
+the first time under a misconception. Listen, my child! When a young man is
+loved equally by both men and women, by both old and young, that young man
+is worthy of friendship and trust. Everybody likes Ste. Marie. In a sense,
+that is his misfortune. The way is made too easy for him. His friends stand
+so thick about him that they shut off his view of the heights. To waken
+ambition in his soul he has need of solitude or misfortune or grief. Or,"
+said the elderly Belgian, laughing gently--"or perhaps the other thing
+might do it best--the more obvious thing?"</p>
+
+<p>The girl's raised eyebrows questioned him, and when he did not answer,
+she said:</p>
+
+<p>"What thing, then?"</p>
+
+<p>"Why, love," said Baron de Vries. "Love, to be sure. Love is said to
+work miracles, and I believe that to be a perfectly true saying. Ah, he is
+coming here!"</p>
+
+<p><a name="Page_19"></a>The Marquise de Saulnes, who was a very pretty
+little Englishwoman with a deceptively doll-like look, approached, dragging
+Ste. Marie in her wake. She said:</p>
+
+<p>"My dearest dear, I give you of my best. Thank me and cherish him! I
+believe he is to lead you to the place where food is, isn't he?" She beamed
+over her shoulder and departed, and Miss Benham found herself confronted by
+the Spanish-looking man. Her first thought was that he was not as handsome
+as he had seemed at a distance, but something much better. For a young man
+she thought his face was rather oddly weather-beaten, as if he might have
+been very much at sea, and it was too dark to be entirely pleasing. But she
+liked his eyes, which were not brown or black, as she had expected, but a
+very unusual dark gray--a sort of slate color. And she liked his mouth,
+too, while disapproving of the fierce little upturned mustache which seemed
+to her a bit operatic. It was her habit--and it is not an unreliable
+habit--to judge people by their eyes and mouths. Ste. Marie's mouth pleased
+her because the lips were neither thin nor thick, they were not drawn into
+an unpleasant line by unpleasant habits, they did not pout as so many Latin
+lips do, and they had at one corner a humorous expression which she found
+curiously agreeable.</p>
+
+<p>"You are to cherish me," Ste. Marie said. "Orders from headquarters. How
+does one cherish people?" The corner of his very expressive mouth twitched,
+and he grinned at her.</p>
+
+<p>Miss Benham did not approve of young men who began an acquaintance in
+this very familiar manner. She thought that there was a certain preliminary
+and more formal stage which ought to be got through with first, but Ste,
+Marie's <a name="Page_20"></a>grin was irresistible. In spite of herself,
+she found that she was laughing.</p>
+
+<p>"I don't quite know," she said. "It sounds rather appalling, doesn't it?
+Marian has such an extraordinary fashion of hurling people at each other's
+heads! She takes my breath away at times."</p>
+
+<p>"Ah, well," said Ste. Marie, "perhaps we can settle upon something when
+I've led you to the place where food is. And, by-the-way, what are we
+waiting for? Are we not all here? There's an even number." He broke off
+with a sudden exclamation of pleasure; and when Miss Benham turned to look,
+she found that Baron de Vries, who had been talking to some friends, had
+once more come up to where she stood.</p>
+
+<p>She watched the greeting between the two men, and its quiet affection
+impressed her very much. She knew Baron de Vries well, and she knew that it
+was not his habit to show or to feel a strong liking for young and idle
+men. This young man must be very worth while to have won the regard of that
+wise old Belgian. Just then Hartley, who had been barricaded behind a
+cordon of friends, came up to her in an abominable temper over his ill
+luck, and a few moments later the dinner procession was formed and they
+went in.</p>
+
+<p>At table Miss Benham found herself between Ste. Marie and the same
+strange, fair youth who had afflicted her in the drawing-room. She looked
+upon him now with a sort of dismayed terror, but it developed that there
+was nothing to fear from the fair youth. He had no attention to waste upon
+social amenities. He fell upon his food with a wolfish passion
+extraordinary to see and also--alas!--to hear. Miss Benham turned from him
+to meet Ste. Marie's delighted eye.</p>
+
+<p><a name="Page_21"></a>"Tell him for me," begged that gentleman, "that
+soup should be seen--not heard."</p>
+
+<p>But Miss Benham gave a little shiver of disgust. "I shall tell him
+nothing whatever," she said. "He's quite too dreadful, really! People
+shouldn't be exposed to that sort of thing. It's not only the noises.
+Plenty of very charming and estimable Germans, for example, make strange
+noises at table. But he behaves like a famished dog over a bone. I refuse
+to have anything to do with him. You must make up the loss to me, M. Ste.
+Marie. You must be as amusing as two people." She smiled across at him in
+her gravely questioning fashion. "I'm wondering," she said, "if I dare ask
+you a very personal question. I hesitate because I don't like people who
+presume too much upon a short acquaintance--and our acquaintance has been
+very, very short, hasn't it? even though we may have heard a great deal
+about each other beforehand. I wonder--"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, I should ask it if I were you!" said Ste. Marie, at once. "I'm an
+extremely good-natured person. And, besides, I quite naturally feel
+flattered at your taking interest enough to ask anything about me."</p>
+
+<p>"Well," said she, "it's this: Why does everybody call you just 'Ste.
+Marie'? Most people are spoken of as Monsieur this or that--if there isn't
+a more august title; but they all call you Ste. Marie without any Monsieur.
+It seems rather odd."</p>
+
+<p>Ste. Marie looked puzzled. "Why," he said, "I don't believe I know,
+just. I'd never thought of that. It's quite true, of course. They never do
+use a Monsieur or anything, do they? How cheeky of them! I wonder why it
+is? I'll ask Hartley."</p>
+
+<p><a name="Page_22"></a>He did ask Hartley later on, and Hartley didn't
+know, either. Miss Benham asked some other people, who were vague about it,
+and in the end she became convinced that it was an odd and quite
+inexplicable form of something like endearment. But nobody seemed to have
+formulated it to himself.</p>
+
+<p>"The name is really 'De Ste. Marie,'" he went on, "and there's a title
+that I don't use, and a string of Christian names that one never employs.
+My people were B&eacute;arnais, and there's a heap of ruins on top of a
+hill in the Pyrenees where they lived. It used to be Ste. Marie de
+Mont-les-Roses, but afterward, after the Revolution, they called it Ste.
+Marie de Mont Perdu. My great-grandfather was killed there, but some old
+servants smuggled his little son away and saved him."</p>
+
+<p>He seemed to Miss Benham to say that in exactly the right manner, not in
+the cheap and scoffing fashion which some young men affect in speaking of
+ancestral fortunes or misfortunes, nor with too much solemnity. And when
+she allowed a little silence to occur at the end, he did not go on with his
+family history, but turned at once to another subject. It pleased her
+curiously.</p>
+
+<p>The fair youth at her other side continued to crouch over his food,
+making fierce and animal-like noises. He never spoke or seemed to wish to
+be spoken to, and Miss Benham found it easy to ignore him altogether. It
+occurred to her once or twice that Ste. Marie's other neighbor might desire
+an occasional word from him, but, after all, she said to herself that was
+his affair and beyond her control. So these two talked together through the
+entire dinner period, and the girl was aware that she was being much more
+deeply affected by the simple, magnetic charm of a <a
+name="Page_23"></a>man than ever before in her life. It made her a little
+angry, because she was unfamiliar with this sort of thing and distrusted
+it. She was rather a perfect type of that phenomenon before which the
+British and Continental world stands in mingled delight and
+exasperation--the American unmarried young woman, the creature of
+extraordinary beauty and still more extraordinary poise, the virgin with
+the bearing and savoir-faire of a woman of the world, the fresh-cheeked
+girl with the calm mind of a savante and the cool judgment, in regard to
+men and things, of an ambassador. The European world says she is cold, and
+that may be true; but it is well enough known that she can love very
+deeply. It says that, like most queens, and for precisely the same set of
+reasons, she later on makes a bad mother; but it is easy to point to queens
+who are the best of mothers. In short, she remains an enigma, and, like all
+other enigmas, forever fascinating.</p>
+
+<p>Miss Benham reflected that she knew almost nothing about Ste. Marie save
+for his reputation as a carpet knight, and Baron de Vries' good opinion,
+which could not be despised. And that made her the more displeased when she
+realized how promptly she was surrendering to his charm. In a moment of
+silence she gave a sudden little laugh which seemed to express a half-angry
+astonishment.</p>
+
+<p>"What was that for?" Ste. Marie demanded.</p>
+
+<p>The girl looked at him for an instant and shook her head.</p>
+
+<p>"I can't tell you," said she. "That's rude, isn't it? I'm sorry. Perhaps
+I will tell you one day, when we know each other better."</p>
+
+<p>But inwardly she was saying: "Why, I suppose this is how they all
+begin--all these regiments of women who make <a name="Page_24"></a>fools of
+themselves about him! I suppose this is exactly what he does to them
+all!"</p>
+
+<p>It made her angry, and she tried quite unfairly to shift the anger, as
+it were, to Ste. Marie--to put him somehow in the wrong. But she was by
+nature very just, and she could not quite do that, particularly as it was
+evident that the man was using no cheap tricks. He did not try to flirt
+with her, and he did not attempt to pay her veiled compliments, though she
+was often aware that when her attention was diverted for a few moments his
+eyes were always upon her, and that is a compliment that few women can find
+it in their hearts to resent.</p>
+
+<p>"You say," said Ste. Marie, "'when we know each other better.' May one
+twist that into a permission to come and see you--I mean, really see
+you--not just leave a card at your door to-morrow by way of observing the
+formalities?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes," she said. "Oh yes, one may twist it into something like that
+without straining it unduly, I think. My mother and I shall be very glad to
+see you. I'm sorry she is not here to-night to say it herself."</p>
+
+<p>Then the hostess began to gather together her flock, and so the two had
+no more speech. But when the women had gone and the men were left about the
+dismantled table, Hartley moved up beside Ste. Marie and shook a sad head
+at him. He said:</p>
+
+<p>"You're a very lucky being. I was quietly hoping, on the way here, that
+I should be the fortunate man, but you always have all the luck. I hope
+you're decently grateful."</p>
+
+<p>"Mon vieux," said Ste. Marie, "my feet are upon the stars. No!" He shook
+his head as if the figure displeased him. "No, my feet are upon the ladder
+to the stars. Grateful? What does a foolish word like grateful mean? Don't
+<a name="Page_25"></a>talk to me. You are not worthy to trample among my
+magnificent thoughts. I am a god upon Olympus."</p>
+
+<p>"You said just now," objected the other man, practically, "that your
+feet were on a ladder. There are no ladders from Olympus to the stars."</p>
+
+<p>"Ho!" said Ste. Marie. "Ho! Aren't there, though? There shall be ladders
+all over Olympus, if I like. What do you know about gods and stars? I shall
+be a god climbing to the heavens, and I shall be an angel of light, and I
+shall be a miserable worm grovelling in the night here below, and I shall
+be a poet, and I shall be anything else I happen to think of--all of them
+at once, if I choose. And you shall be the tongue-tied son of perfidious
+Albion that you are, gaping at my splendors from a fog-bank--a November
+fog-bank in May. Who is the desiccated gentleman bearing down upon us?"</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+
+
+
+<a name="Page_26"></a><h2><a name='III'></a>III</h2>
+
+<h3>STE. MARIE MAKES A VOW, BUT A PAIR OF EYES HAUNT HIM</h3>
+
+
+<p>Hartley looked over his shoulder and gave a little exclamation of
+distaste.</p>
+
+<p>"It's Captain Stewart, Miss Benham's uncle," he said, lowering his
+voice. "I'm off. I shall abandon you to him. He's a good old soul, but he
+bores me." Hartley nodded to the man who was approaching, and then made his
+way to the end of the table, where their host sat discussing aero-club
+matters with a group of the other men.</p>
+
+<p>Captain Stewart dropped into the vacant chair, saying: "May I recall
+myself to you, M. Ste. Marie? We met, I believe, once or twice, a couple of
+years ago. My name's Stewart."</p>
+
+<p>Captain Stewart--the title was vaguely believed to have been borne some
+years before in the American service, but no one appeared to know much
+about it--was not an old man. He could not have been, at this time, much
+more than fifty, but English-speaking acquaintances often called him "old
+Stewart," and others "ce vieux Stewart." Indeed, at a first glance he might
+have passed for anything up to sixty, for his face was a good deal more
+lined and wrinkled than it should have been at his age. Ste. Marie's
+adjective had been rather apt. The man had a desiccated appearance. <a
+name="Page_27"></a>Upon examination, however, one saw that the blood was
+still red in his cheeks and lips, and, although his neck was thin and
+withered like an old man's, his brown eyes still held their fire. The hair
+was almost gone from the top of his large, round head, but it remained at
+the sides--stiff, colorless hair, with a hint of red in it. And there were
+red streaks in his gray mustache, which was trained outward in two loose
+tufts, like shaving-brushes. The mustache and the shallow chin under it
+gave him an odd, catlike appearance. Hartley, who rather disliked the man,
+used to insist that he had heard him mew.</p>
+
+<p>Ste. Marie said something politely non-committal, though he did not at
+all remember the alleged meeting two years before, and he looked at Captain
+Stewart with a real curiosity and interest in his character as Miss
+Benham's uncle. He thought it very civil of the elder man to make these
+friendly advances when it was in no way incumbent upon him to do so.</p>
+
+<p>"I noticed," said Captain Stewart, "that you were placed next my niece,
+Helen Benham, at dinner. This must be the first time you two have met, is
+it not? I remember speaking of you to her some months ago, and I am quite
+sure she said that she had not met you. Ah, yes, of course, you have been
+away from Paris a great deal since she and her mother--her mother is my
+sister: that is to say, my half-sister--have come here to live with my
+father." He gave a little gentle laugh. "I take an elderly uncle's
+privilege," he said, "of being rather proud of Helen. She is called very
+pretty, and she certainly has great poise."</p>
+
+<p>Ste. Marie drew a quick breath, and his eyes began to flash as they had
+done a few moments before when he told Hartley that his feet were upon the
+ladder to the stars.</p>
+
+<p><a name="Page_28"></a>"Miss Benham!" he cried. "Miss Benham is--" He
+hung poised so for a moment, searching, as it were, for words of sufficient
+splendor, but in the end he shook his head and the gleam faded from his
+eyes. He sank back in his chair, sighing. "Miss Benham," said he, "is
+extremely beautiful."</p>
+
+<p>And again her uncle emitted his little gentle laugh, which may have
+deceived Hartley into believing that he had heard the man mew. The sound
+was as much like mewing as it was like anything else.</p>
+
+<p>"I am very glad," Captain Stewart said, "to see her come out once more
+into the world. She needs distraction. We--You may possibly have heard that
+the family is in great distress of mind over the disappearance of my young
+nephew. Helen has suffered particularly, because she is convinced that the
+boy has met with foul play. I myself think it very unlikely--very unlikely
+indeed. The lack of motive, for one thing, and for another--Ah, well, a
+score of reasons! But Helen refuses to be comforted. It seems to me much
+more like a boy's prank--his idea of revenge for what he considered unjust
+treatment at his grandfather's hands. He was always a headstrong youngster,
+and he has been a bit spoiled. Still, of course, the uncertainty is very
+trying for us all--very wearing."</p>
+
+<p>"Of course," said Ste. Marie, gravely. "It is most unfortunate. Ah,
+by-the-way!" He looked up with a sudden interest. "A rather odd thing
+happened," he said, "as Hartley and I were coming here this evening. We
+walked up the Champs-Elys&eacute;es from the Concorde, and on the way
+Hartley had been telling me of your nephew's disappearance. Near the Rond
+Point we came upon a motor-car which was drawn up at the side of the
+street--there <a name="Page_29"></a>had been an accident of no consequence,
+a boy tumbled over but not hurt. Well, one of the two occupants of the
+motor-car was a man whom I used to see about Maxim's and the Caf&eacute; de
+Paris and the Montmartre places, too, some time ago--a rather shady
+character whose name I've forgotten. The odd part of it all was that on the
+last occasion or two on which I saw your nephew he was with this man. I
+think it was in Henry's Bar. Of course, it means nothing at all. Your
+nephew doubtless knew scores of people, and this man is no more likely to
+have information about his present whereabouts than any of the others.
+Still, I should have liked to ask him. I didn't remember who he was till he
+had gone."</p>
+
+<p class="figure"> <a name="jason002"><img
+width="80%" alt="Illustration: THE FAMILY IS IN GREAT DISTRESS OF MIND OVER
+THE DISAPPEARANCE OF MY YOUNG NEPHEW" src="images/jason002.png" /></a><br /> THE
+FAMILY IS IN GREAT DISTRESS OF MIND OVER THE DISAPPEARANCE OF MY YOUNG
+NEPHEW</p>
+
+<p>Captain Stewart shook his head sadly, frowning down upon the cigarette
+from which he had knocked the ash.</p>
+
+<p>"I am afraid poor Arthur did not always choose his friends with the best
+of judgment," said he. "I am not squeamish, and I would not have boys kept
+in a glass case, but--yes, I'm afraid Arthur was not always too careful."
+He replaced the cigarette neatly between his lips. "This man, now--this man
+whom you saw to-night--what sort of looking man will he have been?"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, a tall, lean man," said Ste. Marie. "A tall man with blue eyes and
+a heavy, old-fashioned mustache. I just can't remember the name."</p>
+
+<p>The smoke stood still for an instant over Captain Stewart's cigarette,
+and it seemed to Ste. Marie that a little contortion of anger fled across
+the man's face and was gone again. He stirred slightly in his chair. After
+a moment he said:</p>
+
+<p>"I fancy, from your description--I fancy I know who the man was. If it
+is the man I am thinking of, the name is--Powers. He is, as you have said,
+a rather shady character, <a name="Page_30"></a>and I more than once warned
+my nephew against him. Such people are not good companions for a boy. Yes,
+I warned him."</p>
+
+<p>"Powers," said Ste. Marie, "doesn't sound right to me, you know. I can't
+say the fellow's name myself, but I'm sure--that is, I think--it's not
+Powers."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh yes," said Captain Stewart, with an elderly man's half-querulous
+certainty. "Yes, the name is Powers. I remember it well. And I
+remember--Yes, it was odd, was it not, your meeting him like that, just as
+you were talking of Arthur? You--oh, you didn't speak to him, you say? No,
+no, to be sure! You didn't recognize him at once. Yes, it was odd. Of
+course, the man could have had nothing to do with poor Arthur's
+disappearance. His only interest in the boy at any time would have been for
+what money Arthur might have, and he carried none, or almost none, away
+with him when he vanished. Eh, poor lad! Where can he be to-night, I
+wonder? It's a sad business, M. Ste. Marie--a sad business."</p>
+
+<p>Captain Stewart fell into a sort of brooding silence, frowning down at
+the table before him, and twisting with his thin ringers the little liqueur
+glass and the coffee-cup which were there. Once or twice, Ste. Marie
+thought, the frown deepened and twisted into a sort of scowl, and the man's
+fingers twitched on the cloth of the table; but when at last the group at
+the other end of the board rose and began to move towards the door, Captain
+Stewart rose also and followed them. At the door he seemed to think of
+something, and touched Ste. Marie upon the arm.</p>
+
+<p>"This--ah, Powers," he said, in a low tone--"this man whom you saw
+to-night! You said he was one of two <a name="Page_31"></a>occupants of a
+motor-car. Yes? Did you by any chance recognize the other?"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, the other was a young woman," said Ste. Marie. "No, I never saw her
+before. She was very handsome."</p>
+
+<p>Captain Stewart said something under his breath and turned abruptly
+away. But an instant later he faced about once more, smiling. He said, in a
+man-of-the-world manner, which sat rather oddly upon him:</p>
+
+<p>"Ah, well, we all have our little love-affairs. I dare say this shady
+fellow has his." And for some obscure reason Ste. Marie found the speech
+peculiarly offensive.</p>
+
+<p>In the drawing-room he had opportunity for no more than a word with Miss
+Benham, for Hartley, enraged over his previous ill success, cut in ahead of
+him and manoeuvred that young lady into a corner, where he sat before her,
+turning a square and determined back to the world. Ste. Marie listlessly
+played bridge for a time, but his attention was not upon it, and he was
+glad when the others at the table settled their accounts and departed to
+look in at a dance somewhere. After that he talked for a little with Marian
+de Saulnes, whom he liked and who made no secret of adoring him. She
+complained loudly that he was in a vile temper, which was not true; he was
+only restless and distrait and wanted to be alone; and so, at last, he took
+his leave without waiting for Hartley.</p>
+
+<p>Outside, in the street, he stood for a moment, hesitating, and an
+expectant fiacre drew up before the house, the cocher raising an
+interrogative whip. In the end Ste. Marie shook his head and turned away on
+foot. It was a still, sweet night of soft airs, and a moonless, starlit
+sky, and the man was very fond of walking in the dark. From the Etoile he
+walked down the Champs-Elys&eacute;es, but presently turned <a
+name="Page_32"></a>toward the river. His eyes were upon the mellow stars,
+his feet upon the ladder thereunto. He found himself crossing the Pont des
+Invalides, and halted midway to rest and look. He laid his arms upon the
+bridge's parapet and turned his face outward. Against it bore a little
+gentle breeze that smelled of the purifying water below and of the night
+and of green things growing. Beneath him the river ran black as flowing
+ink, and across its troubled surface the many-colored lights of the many
+bridges glittered very beautifully, swirling arabesques of gold and
+crimson. The noises of the city--beat of hoofs upon wooden pavements, horn
+of train or motor-car, jingle of bell upon cab-horse--came here faintly and
+as if from a great distance. Above the dark trees of the Cours la Reine the
+sky glowed, softly golden, reflecting the million lights of Paris.</p>
+
+<p>Ste. Marie closed his eyes, and against darkness he saw the beautiful
+head of Helen Benham, the clear-cut, exquisite modelling of feature and
+contour, the perfection of form and color. Her eyes met his eyes, and they
+were very serene and calm and confident. She smiled at him, and the new
+contours into which her face fell with the smile were more perfect than
+before. He watched the turn of her head, and the grace of the movement was
+the uttermost effortless grace one dreams that a queen should have. The
+heart of Ste. Marie quickened in him, and he would have gone down upon his
+knees.</p>
+
+<p>He was well aware that with the coming of this girl something
+unprecedented, wholly new to his experience, had befallen him--an awakening
+to a new life. He had been in love a very great many times. He was usually
+in love. And each time his heart had gone through the same sweet and bitter
+anguish, the same sleepless nights had come and <a name="Page_33"></a>gone
+upon him, the eternal and ever new miracle had wakened spring in his soul,
+had passed its summer solstice, had faded through autumnal regrets to
+winter's death; but through it all something within him had waited
+asleep.</p>
+
+<p>He found himself wondering dully what it was--wherein lay the great
+difference?--and he could not answer the question he asked. He knew only
+that whereas before he had loved, he now went down upon prayerful knees to
+worship. In a sudden poignant thrill the knightly fervor of his forefathers
+came upon him, and he saw a sweet and golden lady set far above him upon a
+throne. Her clear eyes gazed afar, serene and untroubled. She sat wrapped
+in a sort of virginal austerity, unaware of the base passions of men. The
+other women whom Ste. Marie had--as he was pleased to term it--loved had
+certainly come at least half-way to meet him, and some of them had come a
+good deal farther than that. He could not, by the wildest flight of
+imagination, conceive this girl doing anything of that sort. She was to be
+won by trial and high endeavor, by prayer and self-purification--not
+captured by a warm eye-glance, a whispered word, a laughing kiss. In fancy
+he looked from the crowding cohorts of these others to that still, sweet
+figure set on high, wrapped in virginal austerity, calm in her serene
+perfection, and his soul abased itself before her. He knelt in an awed and
+worshipful adoration.</p>
+
+<p>So before quest or tournament or battle must those elder Ste.
+Maries--Ste. Maries de Mont-les-Roses---have knelt, each knight at the feet
+of his lady, each knightly soul aglow with the chaste ardor of
+chivalry.</p>
+
+<p>The man's hands tightened upon the parapet of the bridge, he lifted his
+face again to the shining stars where-among, as his fancy had it, she sat
+enthroned. Exultingly <a name="Page_34"></a>he felt under his feet the
+rungs of the ladder, and in the darkness he swore a great oath to have done
+forever with blindness and grovelling, to climb and climb, forever to
+climb, until at last he should stand where she was--cleansed and made
+worthy by long endeavor--at last meet her eyes and touch her hand.</p>
+
+<p>It was a fine and chivalric frenzy, and Ste. Marie was passionately in
+earnest about it, but his guardian angel--indeed, Fate herself--must have
+laughed a little in the dark, knowing what manner of man he was in less
+exalted hours.</p>
+
+<p>It was an odd freak of memory that at last recalled him to earth. Every
+man knows that when a strong and, for the moment, unavailing effort has
+been made to recall something lost to mind, the memory, in some mysterious
+fashion, goes on working long after the attention has been elsewhere
+diverted, and sometimes hours afterward, or even days, produces quite
+suddenly and inappropriately the lost article. Ste. Marie had turned, with
+a little sigh, to take up, once more, his walk across the Pont des
+Invalides, when seemingly from nowhere, and certainly by no conscious
+effort, a name flashed into his mind. He said it aloud:</p>
+
+<p>"O'Hara! O'Hara! That tall, thin chap's name was O'Hara, by Jove! It
+wasn't Powers at all!" He laughed a little as he remembered how very
+positive Captain Stewart had been. And then he frowned, thinking that the
+mistake was an odd one, since Stewart had evidently known a good deal about
+this adventurer. Captain Stewart, though, Ste. Marie reflected, was exactly
+the sort to be very sure he was right about things. He had just the neat
+and precise and semi-scholarly personality of the man who always knows. So
+Ste. Marie dismissed the matter with <a name="Page_35"></a>another brief
+laugh, but a cognate matter was less easy to dismiss. The name brought with
+it a face--a dark and splendid face with tragic eyes that called. He walked
+a long way thinking about them and wondering. The eyes haunted him. It will
+have been reasonably evident that Ste. Marie was a fanciful and imaginative
+soul. He needed but a chance word, the sight of a face in a crowd, the
+glance of an eye, to begin story-building, and he would go on for hours
+about it and work himself up to quite a passion with his imaginings. He
+should have been a writer of fiction.</p>
+
+<p>He began forthwith to construct romances about this lady of the
+motor-car. He wondered why she should have been with the shady Irishman--if
+Irishman he was--O'Hara, and with some anxiety he wondered what the two
+were to each other. Captain Stewart's little cynical jest came to his mind,
+and he was conscious of a sudden desire to kick Miss Benham's middle-aged
+uncle.</p>
+
+<p>The eyes haunted him. What was it they suffered? Out of what misery did
+they call--and for what? He walked all the long way home to his little flat
+overlooking the Luxembourg Gardens, haunted by those eyes. As he climbed
+his stair it suddenly occurred to him that they had quite driven out of his
+mind the image of his beautiful lady who sat among the stars, and the
+realization came to him with a shock.</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+
+
+
+<a name="Page_36"></a><h2><a name='IV'></a>IV</h2>
+
+<h3>OLD DAVID STEWART</h3>
+
+
+<p>It was Miss Benham's custom, upon returning home at night from
+dinner-parties or other entertainments, to look in for a few minutes on her
+grandfather before going to bed. The old gentleman, like most elderly
+people, slept lightly, and often sat up in bed very late into the night,
+reading or playing piquet with his valet. He suffered hideously at times
+from the malady which was killing him by degrees, but when he was free from
+pain the enormous recuperative power, which he had preserved to his
+eighty-sixth year, left him almost as vigorous and clear-minded as if he
+had never been ill at all. Hartley's description of him had not been
+altogether a bad one: "a quaint old beggar... a great quantity of white
+hair and an enormous square white beard and the fiercest eyes I ever
+saw..." He was a rather "quaint old beggar," indeed! He had let his thick,
+white hair grow long, and it hung down over his brows in unparted locks as
+the ancient Greeks wore their hair. He had very shaggy eyebrows, and the
+deep-set eyes under them gleamed from the shadow with a fierceness which
+was rather deceptive but none the less intimidating. He had a great beak of
+a nose, but the mouth below could not be seen. It was hidden by the
+mustache and the enormous square beard. His face was colorless, almost as
+white as <a name="Page_37"></a>hair and beard; there seemed to be no shadow
+or tint anywhere except the cavernous recesses from which the man's eyes
+gleamed and sparkled. Altogether he was certainly "a quaint old
+beggar."</p>
+
+<p>He had, during the day and evening, a good many visitors, for the old
+gentleman's mind was as alert as it ever had been, and important men
+thought him worth consulting. The names which the admirable valet Peters
+announced from time to time were names which meant a great deal in the
+official and diplomatic world of the day. But if old David felt flattered
+over the unusual fashion in which the great of the earth continued to come
+to him, he never betrayed it. Indeed, it is quite probable that this view
+of the situation never once occurred to him. He had been thrown with the
+great of the earth for more than half a century, and he had learned to take
+it as a matter of course.</p>
+
+<p>On her return from the Marquise de Saulnes' dinner-party, Miss Benham
+went at once to her grandfather's wing of the house, which had its own
+street entrance, and knocked lightly at his door. She asked the admirable
+Peters, who opened to her, "Is he awake?" and being assured that he was,
+went into the vast chamber, dropping her cloak on a chair as she
+entered.</p>
+
+<p>David Stewart was sitting up in his monumental bed behind a sort of
+invalid's table which stretched across his knees without touching them. He
+wore over his night-clothes a Chinese mandarin's jacket of old red satin,
+wadded with down, and very gorgeously embroidered with the cloud and bat
+designs, and with large round panels of the imperial five-clawed dragon in
+gold. He had a number of these jackets--they seemed to be his one vanity in
+things external--and they were so made that they could be slipped about him
+<a name="Page_38"></a>without disturbing him in his bed, since they hung
+down only to the waist or thereabouts. They kept the upper part of his
+body, which was not covered by the bedclothes, warm, and they certainly
+made him a very impressive figure.</p>
+
+<p>He said: "Ah, Helen! Come in! Come in! Sit down on the bed there and
+tell me what you have been doing!" He pushed aside the pack of cards which
+was spread out on the invalid's table before him, and with great care
+counted a sum of money in francs and half-francs and nickel twenty-five
+centime pieces. "I've won seven francs fifty from Peters to-night," he
+said, chuckling gently. "That is a very good evening, indeed. Very good!
+Where have you been, and who were there?"</p>
+
+<p>"A dinner-party at the De Saulnes'," said Miss Benham, making herself
+comfortable on the side of the great bed. "It's a very pleasant place.
+Marian is, of course, a dear, and they're quite English and unceremonious.
+You can talk to your neighbor at dinner instead of addressing the house
+from a platform, as it were. French dinner-parties make me nervous."</p>
+
+<p>Old David gave a little growling laugh.</p>
+
+<p>"French dinner-parties at least keep people up to the mark in the art of
+conversation," said he. "But that is a lost art, anyhow, nowadays, so I
+suppose one might as well be quite informal and have done with it. Who were
+there?"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, well"--she considered, "no one, I should think, who would interest
+you. Rather an indifferent set. Pleasant people, but not inspiring. The
+Marquis had some young relative or connection who was quite odious and made
+the most surprising noises over his food. I met a new man whom I think I am
+going to like very much, indeed. He <a name="Page_39"></a>wouldn't interest
+you, because he doesn't mean anything in particular, and of course he
+oughtn't to interest me for the same reason. He's just an idle, pleasant
+young man, but--he has great charm--very great charm. His name is Ste.
+Marie. Baron de Vries seems very fond of him, which surprised me,
+rather."</p>
+
+<p>"Ste. Marie!" exclaimed the old gentleman, in obvious astonishment.
+"Ste. Marie de Mont Perdu?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes," she said. "Yes, that is the name, I believe. You know him, then?
+I wonder he didn't mention it."</p>
+
+<p>"I knew his father," said old David. "And his grandfather, for that
+matter. They're Gascon, I think, or B&eacute;arnais; but this boy's mother
+will have been Irish, unless his father married again.</p>
+
+<p>"So you've been meeting a Ste. Marie, have you?--and finding that he has
+great charm?" The old gentleman broke into one of his growling laughs, and
+reached for a long black cigar, which he lighted, eying his granddaughter
+the while over the flaring match. "Well," he said, when the cigar was
+drawing, "they all have had charm. I should think there has never been a
+Ste. Marie without it. They're a sort of embodiment of romance, that
+family. This boy's great-grandfather lost his life defending a castle
+against a horde of peasants in 1799; his grandfather was killed in the
+French campaign in Mexico in '39--at Vera Cruz it was, I think; and his
+father died in a filibustering expedition ten years ago. I wonder what will
+become of the last Ste. Marie?" Old David's eyes suddenly sharpened.
+"You're not going to fall in love with Ste. Marie and marry him, are you?"
+he demanded.</p>
+
+<p>Miss Benham gave a little angry laugh, but her grandfather saw the color
+rise in her cheeks for all that.</p>
+
+<p><a name="Page_40"></a>"Certainly not," she said, with great decision,
+"What an absurd idea! Because I meet a man at a dinner-party and say I like
+him, must I marry him to-morrow? I meet a great many men at dinners and
+things, and a few of them I like. Heavens!"</p>
+
+<p>"'Methinks the lady doth protest too much,'" muttered old David into his
+huge beard.</p>
+
+<p>"I beg your pardon?" asked Miss Benham, politely.</p>
+
+<p>But he shook his head, still growling inarticulately, and began to draw
+enormous clouds of smoke from the long black cigar. After a time he took
+the cigar once more from his lips and looked thoughtfully at his
+granddaughter, where she sat on the edge of the vast bed, upright and
+beautiful, perfect in the most meticulous detail. Most women when they
+return from a long evening out look more or less the worse for it--deadened
+eyes, pale cheeks, loosened coiffure tell their inevitable tale. Miss
+Benham looked as if she had just come from the hands of a very excellent
+maid. She looked as freshly soign&eacute;e as she might have looked at
+eight that evening instead of at one. Not a wave of her perfectly undulated
+hair was loosened or displaced, not a fold of the lace at her breast had
+departed from its perfect arrangement.</p>
+
+<p>"It is odd," said old David Stewart, "your taking a fancy to young Ste.
+Marie. Of course, it's natural, too, in a way, because you are complete
+opposites, I should think--that is, if this lad is like the rest of his
+race. What I mean is that merely attractive young men don't, as a rule,
+attract you."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, no," she admitted, "they don't usually. Men with brains attract
+me most, I think--men who are making civilization, men who are ruling the
+world, or at least doing <a name="Page_41"></a>important things for it.
+That's your fault, you know. You taught me that."</p>
+
+<p>The old gentleman laughed.</p>
+
+<p>"Possibly," said he. "Possibly. Anyhow, that is the sort of men you
+like, and they like you. You're by no means a fool, Helen; in fact, you're
+a woman with brains. You could wield great influence married to the proper
+sort of man."</p>
+
+<p>"But not to M. Ste. Marie," she suggested, smiling across at him.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, no," he said. "No, not to Ste. Marie. It would be a mistake to
+marry Ste. Marie--if he is what the rest of his house have been. The Ste.
+Maries live a life compounded of romance and imagination and emotion.
+You're not emotional."</p>
+
+<p>"No," said Miss Benham, slowly and thoughtfully. It was as if the idea
+were new to her. "No, I'm not, I suppose. No. Certainly not."</p>
+
+<p>"As a matter of fact," said old David, "you're by nature rather cold.
+I'm not sure it isn't a good thing. Emotional people, I observe, are
+usually in hot water of some sort. When you marry you're very likely to
+choose with a great deal of care and some wisdom. And you're also likely to
+have what is called a career. I repeat that you could wield great influence
+in the proper environment."</p>
+
+<p>The girl frowned across at her grandfather reflectively.</p>
+
+<p>"Do you mean by that," she asked, after a little silence--"do you mean
+that you think I am likely to be moved by sheer ambition and nothing else
+in arranging my life? I've never thought of myself as a very ambitious
+person."</p>
+
+<p>"Let us substitute for ambition common-sense," said old David. "I think
+you have a great deal of common-sense <a name="Page_42"></a>for a
+woman--and so young a woman. How old are you by-the-way? Twenty-two? Yes,
+to be sure. I think you have great common-sense and appreciation of values.
+And I think you're singularly free of the emotionalism that so often plays
+hob with them all. People with common-sense fall in love in the right
+places."</p>
+
+<p>"I don't quite like the sound of it," said Miss Benham. "Perhaps I am
+rather ambitious--I don't know. Yes, perhaps. I should like to play some
+part in the world, I don't deny that. But--am I as cold as you say? I doubt
+it very much. I doubt that."</p>
+
+<p>"You're twenty-two," said her grandfather, "and you have seen a good
+deal of society in several capitals. Have you ever fallen in love?"</p>
+
+<p>Oddly, the face of Ste. Marie came before Miss Benham's eyes as if she
+had summoned it there. But she frowned a little and shook her head,
+saying:</p>
+
+<p>"No, I can't say that I have. But that means nothing. There's plenty of
+time for that. And you know," she said, after a pause--"you know I'm rather
+sure I could fall in love--pretty hard. I'm sure of that. Perhaps I have
+been waiting. Who knows?"</p>
+
+<p>"Aye, who knows?" said David. He seemed all at once to lose interest in
+the subject, as old people often do without apparent reason, for he
+remained silent for a long time, puffing at the long black cigar or rolling
+it absently between his fingers. After awhile he laid it down in a metal
+dish which stood at his elbow, and folded his lean hands before him over
+the invalid's table. He was still so long that at last his granddaughter
+thought he had fallen asleep, and she began to rise from her seat, taking
+care to make no noise; but at that the old man stirred and <a
+name="Page_43"></a>put out his hand once more for the cigar. "Was young
+Richard Hartley at your dinner-party?" he asked, and she said:</p>
+
+<p>"Yes. Oh yes, he was there. He and M. Ste. Marie came together, I
+believe. They are very close friends."</p>
+
+<p>"Another idler," growled old David. "The fellow's a man of parts--and a
+man of family. What's he idling about here for? Why isn't he in Parliament,
+where he belongs?"</p>
+
+<p>"Well," said the girl, "I should think it is because he is too much a
+man of family--as you put it. You see, he'll succeed his cousin, Lord
+Risdale, before very long, and then all his work would have been for
+nothing, because he'll have to take his seat in the Lords. Lord Risdale is
+unmarried, you know, and a hopeless invalid. He may die any day. I think I
+sympathize with poor Mr. Hartley. It would be a pity to build up a career
+for one's self in the lower House, and then suddenly, in the midst of it,
+have to give it all up. The situation is rather paralyzing to endeavor,
+isn't it?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, I dare say," said old David, absently. He looked up sharply.
+"Young Hartley doesn't come here as much as he used to do."</p>
+
+<p>"No," said Miss Benham, "he doesn't." She gave a little laugh. "To avoid
+cross-examination," she said, "I may as well admit that he asked me to
+marry him and I had to refuse. I'm sorry, because I like him very much,
+indeed."</p>
+
+<p>Old David made an inarticulate sound which may have been meant to
+express surprise--or almost anything else. He had not a great range of
+expression.</p>
+
+<p>"I don't want," said he, "to seem to have gone daft on <a
+name="Page_44"></a>the subject of marriage, and I see no reason why you
+should be in any haste about it. Certainly I should hate to lose you, my
+child, but--Hartley as the next Lord Risdale is undoubtedly a good match.
+And you say you like him."</p>
+
+<p>The girl looked up with a sort of defiance, and her face was a little
+flushed.</p>
+
+<p>"I don't love him," she said. "I like him immensely, but I don't love
+him, and, after all--well, you say I'm cold, and I admit I'm more or less
+ambitious, but, after all--well, I just don't quite love him. I want to
+love the man I marry."</p>
+
+<p>Old David Stewart held up his black cigar and gazed thoughtfully at the
+smoke which streamed thin and blue and veil-like from its lighted end.</p>
+
+<p>"Love!" he said, in a reflective tone. "Love!" He repeated the word two
+or three times slowly, and he stirred a little in his bed. "I have
+forgotten what it is," said he. "I expect I must be very old. I have
+forgotten what love--that sort of love--is like. It seems very far away to
+me and rather unimportant. But I remember that I thought it important
+enough once, a century or two ago. Do you know, it strikes me as rather odd
+that I have forgotten what love is like. It strikes me as rather pathetic."
+He gave a sort of uncouth grimace and stuck the black cigar once more into
+his mouth. "Egad!" said he, mumbling indistinctly over the cigar, "how
+foolish love seems when you look back at it across fifty or sixty
+years!"</p>
+
+<p>Miss Benham rose to her feet smiling, and she came and stood near where
+the old man lay propped up against his pillows. She touched his cheek with
+her cool hand, and old David put up one of his own hands and patted it.</p>
+
+<p><a name="Page_45"></a>"I'm going to bed now," said she. "I've sat here
+talking too long. You ought to be asleep, and so ought I."</p>
+
+<p>"Perhaps! Perhaps!" the old man said. "I don't feel sleepy, though. I
+dare say I shall read a little." He held her hand in his and looked up at
+her.</p>
+
+<p>"I've been talking a great deal of nonsense about marriage," said he.
+"Put it out of your head! It's all nonsense. I don't want you to marry for
+a long time. I don't want to lose you." His face twisted a little, quite
+suddenly. "You're precious near all I have left, now," he said.</p>
+
+<p>The girl did not answer at once, for it seemed to her that there was
+nothing to say. She knew that her grandfather was thinking of the lost boy,
+and she knew what a bitter blow the thing had been to him. She often
+thought that it would kill him before his old malady could run its
+course.</p>
+
+<p>But after a moment she said, very gently: "We won't give up hope. We'll
+never give up hope. Think! he might come home to-morrow! Who knows?"</p>
+
+<p>"If he has stayed away of his own accord," cried out old David Stewart,
+in a loud voice, "I'll never forgive him--not if he comes to me to-morrow
+on his knees! Not even if he comes to me on his knees!"</p>
+
+<p>The girl bent over her grandfather, saying: "Hush! hush! You mustn't
+excite yourself." But old David's gray face was working, and his eyes
+gleamed from their cavernous shadows with a savage fire.</p>
+
+<p>"If the boy is staying away out of spite," he repeated, "he need never
+come back to me. I won't forgive him." He beat his unemployed hand upon the
+table before him, and the things which lay there jumped and danced. "And if
+he waits until I'm dead and then comes back," said he, "he'll find he has
+made a mistake--a great mistake. He'll <a name="Page_46"></a>find a
+surprise in store for him, I can tell you that. I won't tell you what I
+have done, but it will be a disagreeable surprise for Master Arthur, you
+may be sure."</p>
+
+<p>The old gentleman fell to frowning and muttering in his choleric
+fashion, but the fierce glitter began to go out of his eyes and his hands
+ceased to tremble and clutch at the things before him. The girl was silent,
+because again there seemed to her to be nothing that she could say. She
+longed very much to plead her brother's cause, but she was sure that would
+only excite her grandfather, and he was growing quieter after his burst of
+anger. She bent down over him and kissed his cheek.</p>
+
+<p>"Try to go to sleep," she said. "And don't torture yourself with
+thinking about all this. I'm as sure that poor Arthur is not staying away
+out of spite as if he were myself. He's foolish and headstrong, but he's
+not spiteful, dear. Try to believe that. And now I'm really going.
+Good-night." She kissed him again and slipped out of the room. And as she
+closed the door she heard her grandfather pull the bell-cord which hung
+beside him and summoned the excellent Peters from the room beyond.</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+
+
+
+<a name="Page_47"></a><h2><a name='V'></a>V</h2>
+
+<h3>JASON SETS FORTH UPON THE GREAT ADVENTURE</h3>
+
+
+<p>Miss Benham stood at one of the long drawing-room windows of the house
+in the rue de l'Universit&eacute;, and looked out between the curtains upon
+the rather grimy little garden, where a few not very prosperous cypresses
+and chestnuts stood guard over the rows of lilac shrubs and the
+box-bordered flower-beds and the usual moss-stained fountain. She was
+thinking of the events of the past month, the month which had elapsed since
+the evening of the De Saulnes' dinner-party. They were not at all startling
+events; in a practical sense there were no events at all, only a quiet
+sequence of affairs which was about as inevitable as the night upon the
+day--the day upon the night again. In a word, this girl, who had considered
+herself very strong and very much the mistress of her feelings, found, for
+the first time in her life, that her strength was as nothing at all against
+the potent charm and magnetism of a man who had almost none of the
+qualities she chiefly admired in men. During the month's time she had
+passed from a phase of angry self-scorn through a period of bewilderment
+not unmixed with fear, and from that she had come into an unknown world, a
+land very strange to her, where old standards and judgments seemed to be
+valueless--a place seemingly ruled altogether by new emotions, sweet and
+thrilling, <a name="Page_48"></a>or full of vague terrors as her mood
+veered here or there.</p>
+
+<p>That sublimated form of guesswork which is called "woman's intuition"
+told her that Ste. Marie would come to her on this afternoon, and that
+something in the nature of a crisis would have to be faced. It can be
+proved even by poor masculine mathematics that guesswork, like other
+gambling ventures, is bound to succeed about half the time, and it
+succeeded on this occasion. Even as Miss Benham stood at the window looking
+out through the curtains, M. Ste. Marie was announced from the doorway.</p>
+
+<p>She turned to meet him with a little frown of determination, for in his
+absence she was often very strong, indeed, and sometimes she made up and
+rehearsed little speeches of great dignity and decision in which she told
+him that he was attempting a quite hopeless thing, and, as a well-wishing
+friend, advised him to go away and attempt it no longer. But as Ste. Marie
+came quickly across the room toward her, the little frown wavered and at
+last fled from her face and another look came there. It was always so. The
+man's bodily presence exerted an absolute spell over her.</p>
+
+<p>"I have been sitting with your grandfather for half an hour," Ste. Marie
+said. And she said:</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, I'm glad! I'm very glad! You always cheer him up. He hasn't been
+too cheerful or too well of late." She unnecessarily twisted a chair about,
+and after a moment sat down in it. And she gave a little laugh. "This
+friendship which has grown up between my grandfather and you," said she--"I
+don't understand it at all. Of course, he knew your father and all that;
+but you two seem such very different types, I shouldn't think you would
+amuse <a name="Page_49"></a>each other at all. There's Mr. Hartley, for
+example. I should expect my grandfather to like him very much better than
+you, but he doesn't--though I fancy he approves of him much more."</p>
+
+<p>She laughed again, but a different laugh; and when he heard it Ste.
+Marie's eyes gleamed a little and his hands moved beside him.</p>
+
+<p>"I expect," said she--"I expect, you know, that he just likes you
+without stopping to think why--as everybody else does. I fancy it's just
+that. What do you think?"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, I?" said the man. "I--how should I know? I know it's a great
+privilege to be allowed to see him--such a man as that. And I know we get
+on wonderfully well. He doesn't condescend, as most old men do who have led
+important lives. We just talk as two men in a club might talk, and I tell
+him stories and make him laugh. Oh yes, we get on wonderfully well."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh," said she, "I've often wondered what you talk about. What did you
+talk about to-day?"</p>
+
+<p>Ste. Marie turned abruptly away from her and went across to one of the
+windows--the window where she had stood earlier, looking out upon the dingy
+garden. She saw him stand there, with his back turned, the head a little
+bent, the hands twisting together behind him, and a sudden fit of nervous
+shivering wrung her. Every woman knows when a certain thing is going to be
+said to her, and usually she is prepared for it, though usually, also, she
+says she is not. Miss Benham knew what was coming now, and she was
+frightened, not of Ste. Marie, but of herself. It meant so very much to
+her--more than to most women at such a time. It meant, if she said yes to
+him, the surrender of almost all the things she had cared for and hoped <a
+name="Page_50"></a>for. It meant the giving up of that career which old
+David Stewart had dwelt upon a month ago.</p>
+
+<p>Ste. Marie turned back into the room. He came a little way toward where
+the girl sat, and halted, and she could see that he was very pale. A sort
+of critical second self noticed that he was pale and was surprised,
+because, although men's faces often turn red, they seldom turn noticeably
+pale except in very great nervous crises--or in works of fiction; while
+women, on the contrary, may turn red and white twenty times a day, and no
+harm done. He raised his hands a little way from his sides in the beginning
+of a gesture, but they dropped again as if there was no strength in
+them.</p>
+
+<p>"I told him," said Ste. Marie, in a flat voice--"I told your grandfather
+that I--loved you more than anything in this world or in the next. I told
+him that my love for you had made another being of me--a new being. I told
+him that I wanted to come to you and to kneel at your feet, and to ask you
+if you could give me just a little, little hope--something to live for, a
+light to climb toward. That is what we talked about, your grandfather and
+I."</p>
+
+<p>"Ste. Marie! Ste. Marie!" said the girl, in a half whisper. "What did my
+grandfather say to you?" she asked, after a silence.</p>
+
+<p>Ste. Marie looked away.</p>
+
+<p>"I cannot tell you," he said. "He--was not quite sympathetic."</p>
+
+<p>The girl gave a little cry.</p>
+
+<p>"Tell me what he said!" she demanded. "I must know what he said."</p>
+
+<p>The man's eyes pleaded with her, but she held him with her gaze, and in
+the end he gave in.</p>
+
+<p><a name="Page_51"></a>"He said I was a damned fool," said Ste.
+Marie.</p>
+
+<p>And the girl, after an instant of staring, broke into a little fit of
+nervous, overwrought laughter, and covered her face with her hands.</p>
+
+<p>He threw himself upon his knees before her, and her laughter died away.
+An Englishman or an American cannot do that. Richard Hartley, for example,
+would have looked like an idiot upon his knees, and he would have felt it.
+But it did not seem extravagant with Ste. Marie. It became him.</p>
+
+<p>"Listen! Listen!" he cried to her, but the girl checked him before he
+could go on.</p>
+
+<p>She dropped her hands from her face, and she bent a little forward over
+the man as he knelt there. She put out her hands and took his head for a
+swift instant between them, looking down into his eyes. At the touch a
+sudden wave of tenderness swept her--almost an engulfing wave; it almost
+overwhelmed her and bore her away from the land she knew. And so when she
+spoke her voice was not quite steady. She said:</p>
+
+<p>"Ah, dear Ste. Marie! I cannot pretend to be cold toward you. You have
+laid a spell upon me, Ste. Marie. You enchant us all, somehow, don't you? I
+suppose I'm not so different from the others as I thought I was. And yet,"
+she said, "he was right, you know. My grandfather was right. No, let me
+talk, now. I must talk for a little. I must try to tell you how it is with
+me--try somehow to find a way. He was right. He meant that you and I were
+utterly unsuited to each other, and so, in calm moments, I know we are. I
+know that well enough. When you're not with me, I feel very sure about it.
+I think of a thousand excellent reasons why you and I ought to be no more
+to each <a name="Page_52"></a>other than friends. Do you know, I think my
+grandfather is a little uncanny. I think he has prophetic powers. They say
+very old people often have. He and I talked about you when I came home from
+that dinner-party at the De Saulnes', a month ago--the dinner-party where
+you and I first met. I told him that I had met a man whom I liked very
+much--a man with great charm; and though I must have said the same sort of
+thing to him before about other men, he was quite oddly disturbed, and
+talked for a long time about it--about the sort of man I ought to marry and
+the sort I ought not to marry. It was unusual for him. He seldom says
+anything of that kind. Yes, he is right. You see, I'm ambitious in a
+particular way. If I marry at all I ought to marry a man who is working
+hard in politics or in something of that kind. I could help him. We could
+do a great deal together."</p>
+
+<p>"I could go into politics!" cried Ste. Marie; but she shook her head,
+smiling down upon him.</p>
+
+<p>"No, not you, my dear. Politics least of all. You could be a soldier, if
+you chose. You could fight as your father and your grandfather and the
+others of your house have done. You could lead a forlorn hope in the field.
+You could suffer and starve and go on fighting. You could die splendidly,
+but--politics, no! That wants a tougher shell than you have. And a
+soldier's wife! Of what use to him is she?"</p>
+
+<p>Ste. Marie's face was very grave. He looked up to her, smiling.</p>
+
+<p>"Do you set ambition before love, my Queen?" he asked, and she did not
+answer him at once.</p>
+
+<p>She looked into his eyes, and she was as grave as he.</p>
+
+<p>"Is love all?" she said, at last. "Is love all? Ought one <a
+name="Page_53"></a>to think of nothing but love when one is settling one's
+life forever? I wonder? I look about me, Ste. Marie," she said, "and in the
+lives of my friends--the people who seem to me to be most worth while, the
+people who are making the world's history for good or ill--and it seems to
+me that in their lives love has the second place--or the third. I wonder if
+one has the right to set it first. There is, of course," she said, "the
+merely domestic type of woman--the woman who has no thought and no interest
+beyond her home. I am not that type of woman. Perhaps I wish I were.
+Certainly they are the happiest. But I was brought up among--well, among
+important people--men of my grandfather's kind. All my training has been
+toward that life. Have I the right, I wonder, to give it all up?"</p>
+
+<p>The man stirred at her feet, and she put out her hands to him
+quickly.</p>
+
+<p>"Do I seem brutal?" she cried. "Oh, I don't want to be! Do I seem very
+ungenerous and wrapped up in my own side of the thing? I don't mean to be
+that, but--I'm not sure. I expect it's that. I'm not sure, and I think I'm
+a little frightened." She gave him a brief, anxious smile that was not
+without its tenderness. "I'm so sure," she said, "when I'm away from you.
+But when you're here--oh, I forget all I've thought of. You lay your spell
+upon me."</p>
+
+<p>Ste. Marie gave a little wordless cry of joy. He caught her two hands in
+his and held them against his lips. Again that great wave of tenderness
+swept her, almost engulfing. But when it had ebbed she sank back once more
+in her chair, and she withdrew her hands from his clasp.</p>
+
+<p>"You make me forget too much," she said. "I think you make me forget
+everything that I ought to remember. <a name="Page_54"></a>Oh, Ste. Marie,
+have I any right to think of love and happiness while this terrible mystery
+is upon us--while we don't know whether poor Arthur is alive or dead?
+You've seen what it has brought my grandfather to! It is killing him. He
+has been much worse in the past fortnight. And my mother is hardly a ghost
+of herself in these days. Ah, it is brutal of me to think of my own
+affairs--to dream of happiness at such a time." She smiled across at him
+very sadly. "You see what you have brought me to!" she said.</p>
+
+<p>Ste. Marie rose to his feet. If Miss Benham, absorbed in that warfare
+which raged within her, had momentarily forgotten the cloud of sorrow under
+which her household lay, so much the more had he, to whom the sorrow was
+less intimate, forgotten it. But he was ever swift to sympathy, Ste.
+Marie--as quick as a woman, and as tender. He could not thrust his love
+upon the girl at such a time as this. He turned a little away from her, and
+so remained for a moment. When he faced about again the flush had gone from
+his cheeks and the fire from his eyes. Only tenderness was left there.</p>
+
+<p>"There has been no news at all this week?" he asked, and the girl shook
+her head.</p>
+
+<p>"None! None! Shall we ever have news of him, I wonder? Must we go on
+always and never know? It seems to me almost incredible that any one could
+disappear so completely. And yet, I dare say, many people have done it
+before and have been as carefully sought for. If only I could believe that
+he is alive! If only I could believe that!"</p>
+
+<p>"I believe it," said Ste. Marie.</p>
+
+<p>"Ah," she said, "you say that to cheer me. You have no reason to
+offer."</p>
+
+<p>"Dead bodies very seldom disappear completely," said <a
+name="Page_55"></a>he. "If your brother died anywhere there would be a
+record of the death. If he were accidentally killed there would be a record
+of that, too; and, of course, you are having all such records constantly
+searched?"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh yes," she said. "Yes, of course--at least, I suppose so. My uncle
+has been directing the search. Of course, he would take an obvious
+precaution like that."</p>
+
+<p>"Naturally," said Ste. Marie. "Your uncle, I should say, is an unusually
+careful man." He paused a moment to smile. "He makes his little mistakes,
+though. I told you about that man O'Hara, and about how sure Captain
+Stewart was that the name was Powers. Do you know"--Ste. Marie had been
+walking up and down the room, but he halted to face her--"do you know, I
+have a very strong feeling that if one could find this man O'Hara, one
+would learn something about what became of your brother? I have no reason
+for thinking that, but I feel it."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh," said the girl, doubtfully, "I hardly think that could be so. What
+motive could the man have for harming my brother?"</p>
+
+<p>"None," said Ste. Marie; "but he might have an excellent motive for
+hiding him away--kidnapping him. Is that the word? Yes, I know, you're
+going to say that no demand has been made for money, and that is where my
+argument--if I can call it an argument--is weak. But the fellow may be
+biding his time. Anyhow, I should like to have five minutes alone with him.
+I'll tell you another thing. It's a trifle, and it may be of no
+consequence, but I add it to my vague and--if you like--foolish feeling,
+and make something out of it. I happened, some days ago, to meet at the
+Caf&eacute; de Paris a man who I knew used to know this O'Hara. He was not,
+I think, a friend of his at all, <a name="Page_56"></a>but an acquaintance.
+I asked him what had become of O'Hara, saying that I hadn't seen him in
+some weeks. Well, this man said O'Hara had gone away somewhere a couple of
+months ago. He didn't seem at all surprised, for it appears the
+Irishman--if he is an Irishman--is decidedly a haphazard sort of person,
+here to-day, gone to-morrow. No, the man wasn't surprised, but he was
+rather angry, because he said O'Hara owed him some money. I said I thought
+he must be mistaken about the fellow's absence, because I'd seen him in the
+street within the month--on the evening of our dinner-party, you
+remember--but this man was very sure that I had made a mistake. He said
+that if O'Hara had been in town he was sure to have known it. Well, the
+point is here. Your brother disappears at a certain time. At the same time
+this Irish adventurer disappears, too, <i>and</i> your brother was known to
+have frequented the Irishman's company. It may be only a coincidence, but I
+can't help feeling that there's something in it."</p>
+
+<p>Miss Benham was sitting up straight in her chair with a little alert
+frown.</p>
+
+<p>"Have you spoken of this to my uncle?" she demanded.</p>
+
+<p>"Well--no," said Ste. Marie. "Not the latter part of it--that is, not my
+having heard of O'Hara's disappearance. In the first place, I learned of
+that only three days ago, and I have not seen Captain Stewart since--I
+rather expected to find him here to-day; and, in the second place, I was
+quite sure that he would only laugh. He has laughed at me two or three
+times for suggesting that this Irishman might know something. Captain
+Stewart is--not easy to convince, you know."</p>
+
+<p>"I know," she said, looking away. "He's always very <a
+name="Page_57"></a>certain that he's right. Well, perhaps he is right. Who
+knows?" She gave a little sob. "Oh!" she cried, "shall we ever have my
+brother back? Shall we ever see him again? It is breaking my heart, Ste.
+Marie, and it is killing my grandfather and, I think, my mother, too! Oh,
+can nothing be done?"</p>
+
+<p>Ste. Marie was walking up and down the floor before her, his hands
+clasped behind his back. When she had finished speaking the girl saw him
+halt beside one of the windows, and after a moment she saw his head go up
+sharply and she heard him give a sudden cry. She thought he had seen
+something from the window which had wrung that exclamation from him, and
+she asked:</p>
+
+<p>"What is it?"</p>
+
+<p>But abruptly the man turned back into the room and came across to where
+she sat. It seemed to her that his face had a new look--a very strange
+exaltation which she had never before seen there. He said:</p>
+
+<p>"Listen! I do not know if anything can be done that has not been done
+already, but if there is anything I shall do it, you may be sure."</p>
+
+<p>"<i>You</i>, Ste. Marie?" she cried, in a sharp voice. "<i>You?</i>"</p>
+
+<p>"And why not I?" he demanded.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, my friend," said she, "you could do nothing! You wouldn't know
+where to turn, how to set to work. Remember that a score of men who are
+skilled in this kind of thing have been searching for two months. What
+could you do that they haven't done?"</p>
+
+<p>"I do not know, my Queen," said Ste. Marie, "but I shall do what I can.
+Who knows? Sometimes the fool who rushes in where angels have feared to
+tread succeeds where they have failed. Oh, let me do this!" he cried out.
+<a name="Page_58"></a>"Let me do it for both our sakes--for yours and for
+mine! It is for your sake most. I swear that! It is to set you at peace
+again, bring back the happiness you have lost. But it is for my sake, too,
+a little. It will be a test of me, a trial. If I can succeed here where so
+many have failed, if I bring back your brother to you--or, at least,
+discover what has become of him--I shall be able to come to you with less
+shame for my--unworthiness."</p>
+
+<p>He looked down upon her with eager, burning eyes, and, after a little,
+the girl rose to face him. She was very white, and she stared at him
+silently.</p>
+
+<p>"When I came to you to-day," he went on, "I knew that I had nothing to
+offer you but my faithful love and my life, which has been a life without
+value. In exchange for that I asked too much. I knew it, and you knew it,
+too. I know well enough what sort of man you ought to marry, and what a
+brilliant career you could make for yourself in the proper place--what
+great influence you could wield. But I asked you to give that all up, and I
+hadn't anything to offer in its place--nothing but love. My Queen, give me
+a chance now to offer you more! If I can bring back your brother or news of
+him, I can come to you without shame and ask you to marry me, because if I
+can succeed in that you will know that I can succeed in other things. You
+will be able to trust me. You'll know that I can climb. It shall be a sort
+of symbol. Let me go!"</p>
+
+<p>The girl broke into a sort of sobbing laughter.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, divine madman!" she cried. "Are you all mad, you Ste. Maries, that
+you must be forever leading forlorn hopes? Oh, how you are, after all, a
+Ste. Marie! Now, at last, I know why one cannot but love you. You're the <a
+name="Page_59"></a>knight of old. You're chivalry come down to us. You're a
+ghost out of the past when men rode in armor with pure hearts seeking the
+Great Adventure. Oh, my friend," she said, "be wise. Give this up in time.
+It is a beautiful thought, and I love you for it, but it is madness--yes,
+yes, a sweet madness, but mad, nevertheless! What possible chance would you
+have of success? And think--think how failure would hurt you--and me! You
+must not do it, Ste. Marie."</p>
+
+<p>"Failure will never hurt me, my Queen," said he, "because there are no
+hurts in the grave, and I shall never give over searching until I succeed
+or until I am dead." His face was uplifted, and there was a sort of
+splendid fervor upon it. It was as if it shone.</p>
+
+<p>The girl stared at him dumbly. She began to realize that the knightly
+spirit of those gallant, long dead gentlemen was indeed descended upon the
+last of their house, that he burnt with the same pure fire which had long
+ago lighted them through quest and adventure, and she was a little afraid
+with an almost superstitious fear. She put out her hands upon the man's
+shoulders, and she moved a little closer to him, holding him.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, madness, madness!" she said, watching his face.</p>
+
+<p>"Let me do it!" said Ste. Marie.</p>
+
+<p>And after a silence that seemed to endure for a long time, she sighed,
+shaking her head, and said she:</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, my friend, there is no strength in me to stop you. I think we are
+both a little mad, and I know that you are very mad, but I cannot say no.
+You seem to have come out of another century to take up this quest. How can
+I prevent you? But listen to one thing. If I accept this sacrifice, if I
+let you give your time and your strength to <a name="Page_60"></a>this
+almost hopeless attempt, it must be understood that it is to be within
+certain limits. I will not accept any indefinite thing. You may give your
+efforts to trying to find trace of my brother for a month if you like, or
+for three months, or six, or even a year, but not for more than that. If he
+is not found in a year's time we shall know that--we shall know that he is
+dead, and that--further search is useless. I cannot say how I--Oh, Ste.
+Marie, Ste. Marie, this is a proof of you, indeed! And I have called you
+idle. I have said hard things of you. It is very bitter to me to think that
+I have said those things."</p>
+
+<p>"They were true, my Queen," said he, smiling. "They were quite, quite
+true. It is for me to prove now that they shall be true no longer." He took
+the girl's hand in his rather ceremoniously, and bent his head and kissed
+it. As he did so he was aware that she stirred, all at once, uneasily, and
+when he had raised his head he looked at her in question.</p>
+
+<p>"I thought some one was coming into the room," she explained, looking
+beyond him. "I thought some one started to come in between the
+porti&egrave;res yonder. It must have been a servant."</p>
+
+<p>"Then it is understood," said Ste. Marie. "To bring you back your
+happiness, and to prove myself in some way worthy of your love, I am to
+devote myself with all my effort and all my strength to finding your
+brother or some trace of him, and until I succeed I will not see your face
+again, my Queen."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, that!" she cried--"that, too?"</p>
+
+<p>"I will not see you," said he, "until I bring you news of him, or until
+my year is passed and I have failed utterly. I know what risk I run. If I
+fail, <a name="Page_61"></a>I lose you. That is understood, too. But if I
+succeed--"</p>
+
+<p>"Then?" she said, breathing quickly. "Then?"</p>
+
+<p>"Then," said he, "I shall come to you, and I shall feel no shame in
+asking you to marry me, because then you will know that there is in me some
+little worthiness, and that in our lives together you need not be buried in
+obscurity--lost to the world."</p>
+
+<p>"I cannot find any words to say," said she. "I am feeling just now very
+humble and very ashamed. It seems that I haven't known you at all. Oh yes,
+I am ashamed."</p>
+
+<p>The girl's face, habitually so cool and composed, was flushed with a
+beautiful flush, and it had softened, and it seemed to quiver between a
+smile and a tear. With a swift movement she leaned close to him, holding by
+his shoulder, and for an instant her cheek was against his. She whispered
+to him:</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, find him quickly, my dear! Find him quickly, and come back to
+me!"</p>
+
+<p>Ste. Marie began to tremble, and she stood away from him. Once he looked
+up, but the flush was gone from Miss Benham's cheeks and she was pale
+again. She stood with her hands tight clasped over her breast. So he bowed
+to her very low, and turned and went out of the room and out of the
+house.</p>
+
+<p>So quickly did he move at this last that a man who had been, for some
+moments, standing just outside the porti&egrave;res of the doorway had
+barely time to step aside into the shadows of the dim hall. As it was, Ste.
+Marie, in a more normal moment, must have seen that the man was there; but
+his eyes were blind, and he saw nothing. He groped for his hat and stick as
+if the place were a place of <a name="Page_62"></a>gloom, and, because the
+footman who should have been at the door was in regions unknown, he let
+himself out, and so went away.</p>
+
+<p>Then the man who stood apart in the shadows crossed the hall to a small
+room which was furnished as a library, but not often used. He closed the
+door behind him, and went to one of the windows which gave upon the street.
+And he stood there for a long time, drawing absurd invisible pictures upon
+the glass with one finger and staring thoughtfully out into the late June
+afternoon.</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+
+
+
+<a name="Page_63"></a><h2><a name='VI'></a>VI</h2>
+
+<h3>A BRAVE GENTLEMAN RECEIVES A HURT, BUT VOLUNTEERS IN A GOOD CAUSE</h3>
+
+
+<p>When Ste. Marie had gone, Miss Benham sat alone in the drawing-room for
+almost an hour. She had been stirred that afternoon more deeply than she
+thought she had ever been stirred before, and she needed time to regain
+that cool poise, that mental equilibrium, which was normal to her and
+necessary for coherent thought.</p>
+
+<p>She was still in a sort of fever of bewilderment and exaltation, still
+all aglow with the man's own high fervor; but the second self which so
+often sat apart from her, and looked on with critical, mocking eyes,
+whispered that to-morrow, the fever past, the fervor cooled, she must see
+the thing in its true light--a glorious lunacy born of a moment of
+enthusiasm. It was finely romantic of him, this mocking second self
+whispered to her--picturesque beyond criticism--but, setting aside the
+practical folly of it, could even the mood last?</p>
+
+<p>The girl rose to her feet with an angry exclamation. She found herself
+intolerable at such times as this.</p>
+
+<p>"If there's a heaven," she cried out, "and by chance I ever go there, I
+suppose I shall walk sneering through the streets and saying to myself: 'Oh
+yes, it's pretty enough, but how absurd and unpractical!'"</p>
+
+<p><a name="Page_64"></a>She passed before one of the small, narrow mirrors
+which were let into the walls of the room in gilt Louis Seize frames with
+candles beside them, and she turned and stared at her very beautiful
+reflection with a resentful wonder.</p>
+
+<p>"Shall I always drag along so far behind him?" she said. "Shall I never
+rise to him, save in the moods of an hour?"</p>
+
+<p>She began suddenly to realize what the man's going away meant--that she
+might not see him again for weeks, months, even a year. For was it at all
+likely that he could succeed in what he had undertaken?</p>
+
+<p>"Why did I let him go?" she cried. "Oh, fool, fool, to let him go!" But
+even as she said it she knew that she could not have held him back.</p>
+
+<p>She began to be afraid, not for him, but of herself. He had taught her
+what it might be to love. For the first time love's premonitory
+thrill--promise of unspeakable, uncomprehended mysteries--had wrung her,
+and the echo of that thrill stirred in her yet; but what might not happen
+in his long absence? She was afraid of that critical and analyzing power of
+mind which she had so long trained to attack all that came to her. What
+might it not work with the new thing that had come? To what pitiful shreds
+might it not be rent while he who only could renew it was away? She looked
+ahead at the weeks and months to come, and she was terribly afraid.</p>
+
+<p>She went out of the room and up to her grandfather's chamber and knocked
+there. The admirable Peters, who opened to her, said that his master had
+not been very well, and was just then asleep, but as they spoke together in
+low tones the old gentleman cried, testily, from within:</p>
+
+<p>"Well? Well? Who's there? Who wants to see me? Who is it?"</p>
+
+<p><a name="Page_65"></a>Miss Benham went into the dim, shaded room, and
+when old David saw who it was he sank back upon his pillows with a pacified
+growl. He certainly looked ill, and he had grown thinner and whiter within
+the past month, and the lines in his waxlike face seemed to be deeper
+scored.</p>
+
+<p>The girl went up beside the bed and stood there a moment, after she had
+bent over and kissed her grandfather's cheek, stroking with her hand the
+absurdly gorgeous mandarin's jacket--an imperial yellow one this time.</p>
+
+<p>"Isn't this new?" she asked. "I seem never to have seen this one before.
+It's quite wonderful."</p>
+
+<p>The old gentleman looked down at it with the pride of a little girl over
+her first party frock. He came as near simpering as a fierce person of
+eighty-six, with a square white beard, can come.</p>
+
+<p>"Rather good--what? What?" said he. "Yes, it's new. De Vries sent it me.
+It is my best one. Imperial yellow. Did you notice the little Show
+medallions with the swastika? Young Ste. Marie was here this afternoon." He
+introduced the name with no pause or change of expression, as if Ste. Marie
+were a part of the decoration of the mandarin's jacket. "I told him he was
+a damned fool."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes," said Miss Benham, "I know. He said you did. I suppose," she said,
+"that in a sort of very informal fashion I am engaged to him. Well, no,
+perhaps not quite that; but he seems to consider himself engaged to me, and
+when he has finished something very important that he has undertaken to do
+he is coming to ask me definitely to marry him. No, I suppose we aren't
+engaged yet; at least, I'm not. But it's almost the same, because I suppose
+I shall accept him whether he fails or succeeds in what he is doing."</p>
+
+<p><a name="Page_66"></a>"If he fails in it, whatever it may be," said old
+David, "he won't give you a chance to accept him; he won't come back. I
+know him well enough for that. He's a romantic fool, but he's a
+thoroughgoing fool. He plays the game." The old man looked up to his
+granddaughter, scowling a little. "You two are absurdly unsuited to each
+other," said he, "and I told Ste. Marie so. I suppose you think you're in
+love with him."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes," said the girl, "I suppose I do."</p>
+
+<p>"Idleness and all? You were rather severe on idleness at one time."</p>
+
+<p>"He isn't idle any more," said she. "He has undertaken--of his own
+accord--to find Arthur. He has some theory about it; and he is not going to
+see me again until he has succeeded--or until a year is past. If he fails,
+I fancy he won't come back."</p>
+
+<p>Old David gave a sudden hoarse exclamation, and his withered hands shook
+and stirred before him. Afterward he fell to half-inarticulate
+muttering.</p>
+
+<p>"The young romantic fool!--Don Quixote--like all the rest of them--those
+Ste. Maries. The fool and the angels. The angels and the fool."</p>
+
+<p>The girl distinguished words from time to time. For the most part, he
+mumbled under his breath. But when he had been silent a long time, he said,
+suddenly:</p>
+
+<p>"It would be ridiculously like him to succeed."</p>
+
+<p>The girl gave a little sigh.</p>
+
+<p>"I wish I dared hope for it," said she. "I wish I dared hope for
+it."</p>
+
+<p>She had left a book that she wanted in the drawing-room, and, when
+presently her grandfather fell asleep in his fitful manner, she went down
+after it. In crossing the <a name="Page_67"></a>hall she came upon Captain
+Stewart, who was dressed for the street and had his hat and stick in his
+hands. He did not live in his father's house, for he had a little flat in
+the rue du Faubourg St. Honor&eacute;, but he was in and out a good deal.
+He paused when he saw his niece, and smiled upon her a benignant smile
+which she rather disliked, because she disliked benignant people. The two
+really saw very little of each other, though Captain Stewart often sat for
+hours together with his sister, up in a little boudoir which she had
+furnished in the execrable taste which to her meant comfort, while that
+timid and colorless lady embroidered strange tea cloths with stranger
+flora, and prattled about the heathen, in whom she had an academic
+interest.</p>
+
+<p>He said: "Ah, my dear! It's you?"</p>
+
+<p>Indisputably it was, and there seemed to be no use of denying it, so
+Miss Benham said nothing, but waited for the man to go on if he had more to
+say.</p>
+
+<p>"I dropped in," he continued, "to see my father, but they told me he was
+asleep, and so I didn't disturb him. I talked a little while with your
+mother instead."</p>
+
+<p>"I have just come from him," said Miss Benham. "He dozed off again as I
+left. Still, if you had anything in particular to tell him, he'd be glad to
+be wakened, I fancy. There's no news?"</p>
+
+<p>"No," said Captain Stewart, sadly--"no, nothing. I do not give up hope,
+but I am, I confess, a little discouraged."</p>
+
+<p>"We are all that, I should think," said Miss Benham, briefly.</p>
+
+<p>She gave him a little nod and turned away into the drawing-room. Her
+uncle's peculiar dry manner irritated <a name="Page_68"></a>her at times
+beyond bearing, and she felt that this was one of the times. She had never
+had any reason for doubting that he Was a good and kindly soul, but she
+disliked him because he bored her. Her mother bored her, too--the poor
+woman bored everybody--but the sense of filial obligation was strong enough
+in the girl to prevent her from acknowledging this even to herself. In
+regard to her uncle she had no sense of obligation whatever, except to be
+as civil to him as possible, and so she kept out of his way. She heard the
+heavy front door close, and gave a little sigh of relief.</p>
+
+<p>"If he had come in here and tried to talk to me," she said, "I should
+have screamed."</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<p>Meanwhile Ste. Marie, a man moving in a dream, uplifted,
+cloud-enwrapped, made his way homeward. He walked all the long
+distance--that is, looking backward upon it, later, he thought he must have
+walked, but the half-hour was a blank to him, an indeterminate, a chaotic
+whirl of things and emotions.</p>
+
+<p>In the little flat in the rue d'Assas he came upon Richard Hartley, who,
+having found the door unlocked and the master of the place absent, had sat
+comfortably down, with a pipe and a stack of <i>Couriers
+Fran&ccedil;ais</i>, to wait. Ste. Marie burst into the doorway of the room
+where his friend sat at ease. Hat, gloves, and stick fell away from him in
+a sort of shower. He extended his arms high in the air. His face was, as it
+were, luminous. The Englishman regarded him morosely. He said:</p>
+
+<p>"You look as if somebody had died and left you money. What the devil you
+looking like that for?"</p>
+
+<p>"H&eacute;!" cried Ste. Marie, in a great voice. "H&eacute;, the <a
+name="Page_69"></a>world is mine! Embrace me, my infant! Sacred name of a
+pig, why do you sit there? Embrace me!"</p>
+
+<p>He began to stride about the room, his head between his hands. Speech
+lofty and ridiculous burst from him in a sort of splutter of fireworks, but
+the Englishman sat still in his chair, and a gray, bleak look came upon
+him, for he began to understand. He was more or less used to these
+outbursts, and he bore them as patiently as he could, but though seven
+times out of the ten they were no more than spasms of pure joy of living,
+and meant, "It's a fine spring day," or "I've just seen two beautiful
+princesses of milliners in the street," an inner voice told him that this
+time it meant another thing. Quite suddenly he realized that he had been
+waiting for this--bracing himself against its onslaught. He had not been
+altogether blind through the past month. Ste. Marie seized him and dragged
+him from his chair.</p>
+
+<p>"Dance, lump of flesh! Dance, sacred English rosbif that you are! Sing,
+gros polisson! Sing!" Abruptly, as usual, the mania departed from him, but
+not the glory; his eyes shone bright and triumphant. "Ah, my old," said he,
+"I am near the stars at last. My feet are on the top rungs of the ladder.
+Tell me that you are glad!"</p>
+
+<p>The Englishman drew a long breath.</p>
+
+<p>"I take it," said he, "that means that you're--that she has accepted
+you, eh?" He held out his hand. He was a brave and honest man. Even in pain
+he was incapable of jealousy. He said: "I ought to want to murder you, but
+I don't. I congratulate you. You're an undeserving beggar, but so were the
+rest of us. It was an open field, and you've won quite honestly. My best
+wishes!"</p>
+
+<p>Then at last Ste. Marie understood, and in a flash the <a
+name="Page_70"></a>glory went out of his face. He cried: "Ah, mon cher ami!
+Pig that I am to forget. Pig! Pig! Animal!"</p>
+
+<p>The other man saw that tears had sprung to his eyes, and was horribly
+embarrassed to the very bottom of his good British soul.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes! Yes!" he said, gruffly. "Quite so, quite so! No consequence!" He
+dragged his hands away from Ste. Marie's grasp, stuck them in his pockets,
+and turned to the window beside which he had been sitting. It looked out
+over the sweet green peace of the Luxembourg Gardens, with their winding
+paths and their clumps of trees and shrubbery, their flaming flower-beds,
+their groups of weather-stained sculpture. A youth in laborer's corduroys
+and an unclean beret strolled along under the high palings; one arm was
+about the ample waist of a woman somewhat the youth's senior, but, as ever,
+love was blind. The youth carolled in a high, clear voice, "Vous &ecirc;tes
+si jolie," a song of abundant sentiment, and the woman put up one hand and
+patted his cheek. So they strolled on and turned up into the rue Vavin.</p>
+
+<p>Ste. Marie, across the room, looked at his friend's square back, and
+knew that in his silent way the man was suffering. A great sadness, the
+recoil from his trembling heights of bliss, came upon him and enveloped
+him. Was it true that one man's joy must inevitably be another's pain? He
+tried to imagine himself in Hartley's place, Hartley in his, and he gave a
+little shiver. He knew that if that bouleversement were actually to take
+place he would be as glad for his friend's sake as poor Hartley was now for
+his, but he knew also that the smile of congratulation would be a grimace
+of almost intolerable pain, and so he knew what Hartley's black hour must
+be like.</p>
+
+<p><a name="Page_71"></a>"You must forgive me," he said. "I had forgotten.
+I don't know why. Well, yes, happiness is a very selfish state of mind, I
+suppose. One thinks of nothing but one's self--and one other. I--during
+this past month I've been in the clouds. You must forgive me."</p>
+
+<p>The Englishman turned back into the room. Ste. Marie saw that his face
+was as completely devoid of expression as it usually was, that his hands,
+when he chose and lighted a cigarette, were quite steady, and he marvelled.
+That would have been impossible for him under such circumstances.</p>
+
+<p>"She has accepted you, I take it?" said Hartley again.</p>
+
+<p>"Not quite that," said he. "Sit down and I'll tell you about it." So he
+told him about his hour with Miss Benham, and about what had been agreed
+upon between them, and about what he had undertaken to do. "Apart from
+wishing to do everything in this world that I can do to make her happy," he
+said--"and she will never be at peace again until she knows the truth about
+her brother--apart from that, I'm purely selfish in the thing. I've got to
+win her respect, as well as--the rest. I want her to respect me, and she
+has never quite done that. I'm an idler. So are you, but you have a
+perfectly good excuse. I have not. I've been an idler because it suited me,
+because nothing turned up, and because I have enough to eat without working
+for my living. I know how she has felt about all that. Well, she shall feel
+it no longer."</p>
+
+<p>"You're taking on a big order," said the other man.</p>
+
+<p>"The bigger the better," said Ste. Marie. "And I shall succeed in it or
+never see her again. I've sworn that."</p>
+
+<p>The odd look of exaltation that Miss Benham had seen in his face, the
+look of knightly fervor, came there again, <a name="Page_72"></a>and
+Hartley saw it, and knew that the man was stirred by no transient whim.
+Oddly enough he thought, as had the girl earlier in the day, of those elder
+Ste. Maries, who had taken sword and lance and gone out into a strange
+world--a place of unknown terrors--afire for the Great Adventure. And this
+was one of their blood.</p>
+
+<p>"I'm afraid you don't realize," he went on, "the difficulties you've got
+to face. Better men than you have failed over this thing, you know."</p>
+
+<p>"A worse might nevertheless succeed," said Ste. Marie. And the other
+said:</p>
+
+<p>"Yes. Oh yes. And there's always luck to be considered, of course. You
+might stumble on some trace." He threw away his cigarette and lighted
+another, and he smoked it down almost to the end before he spoke. At last
+he said: "I want to tell you something. The reason why I want to tell it
+comes a little later. A few weeks before you returned to Paris I asked Miss
+Benham to marry me."</p>
+
+<p>Ste. Marie looked up with a quick sympathy. "Ah," said he. "I have
+sometimes thought--wondered. I have wondered if it went as far as that. Of
+course, I could see that you had known her well, though you seldom go there
+nowadays."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes," said Hartley, "it went as far as that, but no farther. She--well,
+she didn't care for me--not in that way. So I stiffened my back and shut my
+mouth, and got used to the fact that what I'd hoped for was impossible. And
+now comes the reason for telling you what I've told. I want you to let me
+help you in what you're going to do--if you think you can, that is.
+Remember, I--cared for her, too. I'd like to do something for her. It would
+never have occurred to me to do this until you thought of it, but I should
+<a name="Page_73"></a>like very much to lend a hand--do some of the work.
+D'you think you could let me in?"</p>
+
+<p>Ste. Marie stared at him in open astonishment, and, for an instant,
+something like dismay.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, yes! I know what you're thinking," said the Englishman. "You'd
+hoped to do it all yourself. It's <i>your</i> game. I know. Well, it's your
+game even if you let me come in. I'm just a helper. Some one to run
+errands. Some one, perhaps, to take counsel with now and then. Look at it
+on the practical side. Two heads are certainly better than one. Certainly I
+could be of use to you. And besides--well, I want to do something for her.
+I--cared, too, you see. D'you think you could take me in?"</p>
+
+<p>It was the man's love that made his appeal irresistible. No one could
+appeal to Ste. Marie on that score in vain. It was true that he had hoped
+to work alone--to win or lose alone; to stand, in this matter, quite on his
+own feet; but he could not deny the man who had loved her and lost her.
+Ste. Marie thrust out his hand.</p>
+
+<p>"You love her, too!" he said. "That is enough. We work together. I have
+a possibly foolish idea that if we can find a certain man we will learn
+something about Arthur Benham. I'll tell you about it."</p>
+
+<p>But before he could begin the door-bell jangled.</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+
+
+
+<a name="Page_74"></a><h2><a name='VII'></a>VII</h2>
+
+<h3>CAPTAIN STEWART MAKES A KINDLY OFFER</h3>
+
+
+<p>Ste. Marie scowled.</p>
+
+<p>"A caller would come singularly malapropos just now," said he. "I've
+half a mind not to go to the door. I want to talk this thing over with
+you."</p>
+
+<p>"Whoever it is," objected Hartley, "has been told by the concierge that
+you're at home. It may not be a caller, anyhow. It may be a parcel or
+something. You'd best go."</p>
+
+<p>So Ste. Marie went out into the little passage, blaspheming fluently the
+while. The Englishman heard him open the outer door of the flat. He heard
+him exclaim, in great surprise:</p>
+
+<p>"Ah, Captain Stewart! A great pleasure! Come in! Come in!"</p>
+
+<p>And he permitted himself a little blaspheming on his own account, for
+the visitor, as Ste. Marie had said, came most malapropos, and, besides, he
+disliked Miss Benham's uncle. He heard the American say:</p>
+
+<p>"I have been hoping for some weeks to give myself the pleasure of
+calling here, and to-day such an excellent pretext presented itself that I
+came straightaway."</p>
+
+<p>Hartley heard him emit his mewing little laugh, and heard him say, with
+the elephantine archness affected by certain dry and middle-aged
+gentlemen:</p>
+
+<p><a name="Page_75"></a>"I come with congratulations. My niece has told me
+all about it. Lucky young man! Ah--"</p>
+
+<p>He reached the door of the inner room and saw Richard Hartley standing
+by the window, and he began to apologize profusely, saying that he had had
+no idea that Ste. Marie was not alone. But Ste. Marie said:</p>
+
+<p>"It doesn't in the least matter. I have no secrets from Hartley. Indeed,
+I have just been talking with him about this very thing."</p>
+
+<p>But for all that he looked curiously at the elder man, and it struck him
+as very odd that Miss Benham should have gone straight to her uncle and
+told him all this. It did not seem in the least like her, especially as he
+knew the two were on no terms of intimacy. He decided that she must have
+gone up to her grandfather's room to discuss it with that old gentleman--a
+reasonable enough hypothesis--and that Captain Stewart must have come in
+during the discussion. Quite evidently he had wasted no time in setting out
+upon his errand of congratulation.</p>
+
+<p>"Then," said Captain Stewart, "if I am to be good-naturedly forgiven for
+my stupidity, let me go on and say, in my capacity as a member of the
+family, that the news pleased me very much. I was glad to hear it."</p>
+
+<p>He shook Ste. Marie's hand, looking very benignant indeed, and Ste.
+Marie was quite overcome with pleasure and gratitude; it seemed to him such
+a very kindly act in the elder man. He produced things to smoke and drink,
+and Captain Stewart accepted a cigarette and mixed himself a rather stiff
+glass of absinthe--it was between five and six o'clock.</p>
+
+<p>"And now," said he, when he was at ease in the most comfortable of the
+low cane chairs, and the glass of opalescent <a name="Page_76"></a>liquor
+was properly curdled and set at hand--"now, having congratulated you
+and--ah, welcomed you, if I may put it so, as a probable future member of
+the family--I turn to the other feature of the affair."</p>
+
+<p>He had an odd trick of lowering his head and gazing benevolently upon an
+auditor as if over the top of spectacles. It was one of his elderly ways.
+He beamed now upon Ste. Marie in this manner, and, after a moment, turned
+and beamed upon Richard Hartley, who gazed stolidly back at him without
+expression.</p>
+
+<p>"You have determined, I hear," said he, "to join us in our search for
+poor Arthur. Good! Good! I welcome you there, also."</p>
+
+<p>Ste. Marie stirred uneasily in his chair.</p>
+
+<p>"Well," said he, "in a sense, yes. That is, I've determined to devote
+myself to the search, and Hartley is good enough to offer to go in with me;
+but I think, if you don't mind--of course, I know it's very presumptuous
+and doubtless idiotic of us--but, if you don't mind, I think we'll work
+independently. You see--well, I can't quite put it into words, but it's our
+idea to succeed or fail quite by our own efforts. I dare say we shall fail,
+but it won't be for lack of trying."</p>
+
+<p>Captain Stewart looked disappointed.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, I think--" said he. "Pardon me for saying it, but I think you're
+rather foolish to do that." He waved an apologetic hand. "Of course, I
+comprehend your excellent motive. Yes, as you say, you want to succeed
+quite on your own. But look at the practical side! You'll have to go over
+all the weary weeks of useless labor we have gone over. We could save you
+that. We have examined and followed up, and at last given over, a hundred
+clews <a name="Page_77"></a>that on the surface looked quite possible of
+success. You'll be doing that all over again. In short, my dear friend, you
+will merely be following along a couple of months behind us. It seems to me
+a pity. I sha'n't like to see you wasting your time and efforts."</p>
+
+<p>He dropped his eyes to the glass of Pernod which stood beside him, and
+he took it in his hand and turned it slowly and watched the light gleam in
+strange pearl colors upon it. He glanced up again with a little smile which
+the two younger men found oddly pathetic.</p>
+
+<p>"I should like to see you succeed," said Captain Stewart. "I like to see
+youth and courage and high hope succeed." He said: "I am past the age of
+romance, though I am not so very old in years. Romance has passed me by,
+but--I love it still. It still stirs me surprisingly when I see it in other
+people--young people who are simple and earnest, and who--and who are in
+love." He laughed gently, still turning the glass in his hand. "I am afraid
+you will call me a sentimentalist," he said, "and an elderly sentimentalist
+is, as a rule, a ridiculous person. Ridiculous or not, though, I have
+rather set my heart on your success in this undertaking. Who knows? You may
+succeed where we others have failed. Youth has such a way of charging in
+and carrying all before it by assault--such a way of overleaping barriers
+that look unsurmountable to older eyes! Youth! Youth! Eh, my God," said he,
+"to be young again, just for a little while! To feel the blood beat strong
+and eager! Never to be tired! Eh, to be like one of you youngsters! You,
+Ste. Marie, or you, Hartley! There's so little left for people when youth
+is gone!"</p>
+
+<p>He bent his head again, staring down upon the glass before <a
+name="Page_78"></a>him, and for a while there was a silence which neither
+of the younger men cared to break.</p>
+
+<p>"Don't refuse a helping hand," said Captain Stewart, looking up once
+more. "Don't be over-proud. I may be able to set you upon the right path.
+Not that I have anything definite to work upon--I haven't, alas! But each
+day new clews turn up. One day we shall find the real one, and that may be
+one that I have turned over to you to follow out. One never knows."</p>
+
+<p>Ste. Marie looked across at Richard Hartley, but that gentleman was
+blowing smoke-rings and to all outward appearance giving them his entire
+attention. He looked back to Captain Stewart, and Stewart's eyes regarded
+him, smiling a little wistfully, he thought. Ste. Marie scowled out of the
+window at the trees of the Luxembourg Gardens.</p>
+
+<p>"I hardly know," said he. "Of course, I sound a braying ass in
+hesitating even a moment; but, in a way, you understand, I'm so anxious to
+do this or to fail in it quite on my own. You're--so tremendously kind
+about it that I don't know what to say. I must seem very ungrateful, I
+know; but I'm not."</p>
+
+<p>"No," said the elder man, "you don't seem ungrateful at all. I
+understand exactly how you feel about it, and I applaud your feeling--but
+not your judgment. I am afraid that for the sake of a sentiment you're
+taking unnecessary risks of failure."</p>
+
+<p>For the first time Richard Hartley spoke.</p>
+
+<p>"I've an idea, you know," said he, "that it's going to be a matter
+chiefly of luck. One day somebody will stumble on the right trail, and that
+might as well be Ste. Marie or I as your trained detectives. If you don't
+mind my saying <a name="Page_79"></a>so, sir--I don't want to seem
+rude--your trained detectives do not seem to accomplish much in two months,
+do they?"</p>
+
+<p>Captain Stewart looked thoughtfully at the younger man.</p>
+
+<p>"No," he said, at last. "I am sorry to say they don't seem to have
+accomplished much--except to prove that there are a great many places poor
+Arthur has <i>not</i> been to and a great many people who have <i>not</i>
+seen him. After all, that is something--the elimination of ground that need
+not be worked over again." He set down the glass from which he had been
+drinking. "I cannot agree with your theory," he said. "I cannot agree that
+such work as this is best left to an accidental solution. Accidents are too
+rare. We have tried to go at it in as scientific a way as could be
+managed--by covering large areas of territory, by keeping the police
+everywhere on the alert, by watching the boy's old friends and searching
+his favorite haunts. Personally, I am inclined to think that he managed to
+slip away to America very early in the course of events, before we began to
+search for him, and, of course, I am having a careful watch kept there as
+well as here. But no trace has appeared as yet--nothing at all trustworthy.
+Meanwhile, I continue to hope and to work, but I grow a little discouraged.
+In any case, though, we shall hear of him in three months more if he is
+alive."</p>
+
+<p>"Why three months?" asked Ste. Marie. "What do you mean by that?"</p>
+
+<p>"In three months," said Captain Stewart, "Arthur will be of age, and he
+can demand the money left him by his father. If he is alive he will turn up
+for that. I have thought, from the first, that he is merely hiding
+somewhere until this time should be past. He--you must know that he went
+away very angry, after a quarrel with his grandfather? <a
+name="Page_80"></a>My father is not a patient man. He may have been very
+harsh with the boy."</p>
+
+<p>"Ah, yes," said Hartley; "but no boy, however young or angry, would be
+foolish enough to risk an absolute break with the man who is going to leave
+him a large fortune. Young Benham must know that his grandfather would
+never forgive him for staying away all this time if he stayed away of his
+own accord. He must know that he'd be taking tremendous risks of being cut
+off altogether."</p>
+
+<p>"And besides," added Ste. Marie, "it is quite possible that your father,
+sir, may die at any time--any hour. And he's very angry at his grandson. He
+may have cut him off already."</p>
+
+<p>Captain Stewart's eyes sharpened suddenly, but he dropped them to the
+glass in his hand.</p>
+
+<p>"Have you any reason for thinking that?" he asked.</p>
+
+<p>"No," said Ste. Marie. "I beg your pardon. I shouldn't have said it.
+That is a matter which concerns your family alone. I forgot myself. The
+possibility occurred to me suddenly for the first time."</p>
+
+<p>But the elder man looked up at him with a smile.</p>
+
+<p>"Pray don't apologize," said he. "Surely we three can speak frankly
+together! And, frankly, I know nothing of my father's will. But I don't
+think he would cut poor Arthur off, though he is, of course, very angry
+about the boy's leaving in the manner he did. No, I am sure he wouldn't cut
+him off. He was fond of the lad, very fond--as we all were."</p>
+
+<p>Captain Stewart glanced at his watch and rose with a little sigh.</p>
+
+<p>"I must be off," said he. "I have to dine out this evening, and I must
+get home to change. There is a cabstand <a name="Page_81"></a>near you?" He
+looked out of the window. "Ah, yes! Just at the corner of the Gardens."</p>
+
+<p>He turned about to Ste. Marie, and held out his hand with a smile. He
+said:</p>
+
+<p>"You refuse to join forces with us, then? Well, I'm sorry. But, for all
+that, I wish you luck. Go your own way, and I hope you'll succeed. I
+honestly hope that, even though your success may show me up for an
+incompetent bungler."</p>
+
+<p>He gave a little kindly laugh, and Ste. Marie tried to protest.</p>
+
+<p>"Still," said the elder man, "don't throw me over altogether. If I can
+help you in any way, little or big, let me know. If I can give you any
+hints, any advice, anything at all, I want to do it. And if you happen upon
+what seems to be a promising clew come and talk it over with me. Oh, don't
+be afraid! I'll leave it to you to work out. I sha'n't spoil your
+game."</p>
+
+<p>"Ah, now, that's very good of you," said Ste. Marie. "Only you make me
+seem more than ever an ungrateful fool. Thanks, I will come to you with my
+troubles if I may. I have a foolish idea that I want to follow out a little
+first, but doubtless I shall be running to you soon for information."</p>
+
+<p>The elder man's eyes sharpened again with keen interest.</p>
+
+<p>"An idea!" he said, quickly. "You have an idea? What--May I ask what
+sort of an idea?"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, it's nothing," declared Ste. Marie. "You have already laughed at
+it. I just want to find that man O'Hara, that's all. I've a feeling that I
+should learn something from him."</p>
+
+<p><a name="Page_82"></a>"Ah!" said Captain Stewart, slowly. "Yes, the man
+O'Hara. There's nothing in that, I'm afraid. I've made inquiries about
+O'Hara. It seems he left Paris six months ago, saying he was off for
+America. An old friend of his told me that. So you must have been mistaken
+when you thought you saw him in the Champs-Elys&eacute;es; and he couldn't
+very well have had anything to do with poor Arthur. I'm afraid that idea is
+hardly worth following up."</p>
+
+<p>"Perhaps not," said Ste. Marie. "I seem to start badly, don't I? Ah,
+well, I'll have to come to you all the sooner, then."</p>
+
+<p>"You'll be welcome," promised Captain Stewart. "Good-bye to you!
+Good-day, Hartley. Come and see me, both of you. You know where I
+live."</p>
+
+<p>He took his leave then, and Hartley, standing beside the window, watched
+him turn down the street, and at the corner get into one of the fiacres
+there and drive away.</p>
+
+<p>Ste. Marie laughed aloud.</p>
+
+<p>"There's the second time," said he, "that I've had him about O'Hara. If
+he is as careless as that about everything, I don't wonder he hasn't found
+Arthur Benham. O'Hara disappeared from Paris--publicly, that is--at about
+the time young Benham disappeared. As a matter of fact, he remains, or at
+least for a time remained, in the city without letting his friends know,
+because I made no mistake about seeing him in the Champs-Elys&eacute;es.
+All that looks to me suspicious enough to be worth investigation. Of
+course," he admitted, doubtfully--"of course, I'm no detective; but that's
+how it looks to me."</p>
+
+<p>"I don't believe Stewart is any detective, either," said Richard
+Hartley. "He's altogether too cocksure. That sort of man would rather die
+than admit he is wrong about <a name="Page_83"></a>anything. He's a good
+old chap, though, isn't he? I liked him to-day better than ever before. I
+thought he was rather pathetic when he went on about his age."</p>
+
+<p>"He has a good heart," said Ste. Marie. "Very few men under the
+circumstances would come here and be as decent as he was. Most men would
+have thought I was a presumptuous ass, and would have behaved
+accordingly."</p>
+
+<p>Ste. Marie took a turn about the room, and his face began to light up
+with its new excitement and exaltation.</p>
+
+<p>"And to-morrow!" he cried--"to-morrow we begin! To-morrow we set out
+into the world and the Adventure is on foot! God send it success!"</p>
+
+<p>He laughed across at the other man; but it was a laugh of eagerness, not
+of mirth.</p>
+
+<p>"I feel," said he, "like Jason. I feel as if we were to set sail
+to-morrow for Colchis and the Golden Fleece."</p>
+
+<p>"Y-e-s," said the other man, a little dryly--"yes, perhaps. I don't want
+to seem critical, but isn't your figure somewhat ill chosen?"</p>
+
+<p>"'Ill chosen'?" cried Ste. Marie. "What d'you mean? Why ill chosen?"</p>
+
+<p>"I was thinking of Medea," said Richard Hartley.</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+
+
+<a name="Page_84"></a><h2><a name='VIII'></a>VIII</h2>
+
+<h3>JASON MEETS WITH A MISADVENTURE AND DREAMS A DREAM</h3>
+
+
+<p>So on the next day these two rode forth upon their quest, and no quest
+was ever undertaken with a stouter courage or with a grimmer determination
+to succeed. To put it fancifully, they burned their tower behind them, for
+to one of them, at least--to him who led--there was no going back.</p>
+
+<p>But, after all, they set forth under a cloud, and Ste. Marie took a
+heavy heart with him. On the evening before an odd and painful incident had
+befallen--a singularly unfortunate incident.</p>
+
+<p>It chanced that neither of the two men had a dinner engagement that
+evening, and so, after their old habit, they dined together. There was some
+wrangling over where they should go, Hartley insisting upon Armenonville or
+the Madrid, in the Bois, Ste. Marie objecting that these would be full of
+tourists so late in June, and urging the claims of some quiet place in the
+Quarter, where they could talk instead of listening perforce to loud music.
+In the end, for no particular reason, they compromised on the little
+Spanish restaurant in the rue Helder. They went there about eight o'clock,
+without dressing, for it is a very quiet place which the world does not
+visit, and they had a sopa de yerbas, and some langostinos, which are
+shrimps, and a <a name="Page_85"></a>heavenly arroz, with fowl in it, and
+many tender, succulent strips of red pepper. They had a salad made out of a
+little of everything that grows green, with the true Spanish oil, which has
+a tang and a bouquet unappreciated by the Philistine; and then they had a
+strange pastry and some cheese and green almonds. And to make then glad,
+they drank a bottle of old red Valdepenas, and afterward a glass each of a
+special Manzanilla, upon which the restaurant very justly prides
+itself.</p>
+
+<p>It was a simple dinner and a little stodgy for that time of the year,
+but the two men were hungry and sat at table, almost alone in the upper
+room, for a long time, saying how good everything was, and from time to
+time despatching the saturnine waiter, a Madrileno, for more peppers. When
+at last they came out into the narrow street, and thence to the thronged
+Boulevard des Italiens, it was nearly eleven o'clock. They stood for a
+little time in the shelter of a kiosk, looking down the boulevard to where
+the Place de l'Op&eacute;ra opened wide and the lights of the Caf&eacute;
+de la Paix shone garish in the night. And Ste. Marie said:</p>
+
+<p>"There's a street f&ecirc;te in Montmartre. We might drive home that
+way."</p>
+
+<p>"An excellent idea," said the other man. "The fact that Montmartre lies
+in an opposite direction from home makes the plan all the better. And after
+that we might drive home through the Bois. That's much farther in the wrong
+direction. Lead on!"</p>
+
+<p>So they sprang into a waiting fiacre, and were dragged up the steep,
+stone-paved hill to the heights, where La Boh&ecirc;me still reigns, though
+the glory of Moulin Rouge has departed and the trail of the tourist is over
+all. They found Montmartre very much en f&ecirc;te. In the Place Blanche
+were two <a name="Page_86"></a>of the enormous and brilliantly lighted
+merry-go-rounds, which only Paris knows--one furnished with stolid cattle,
+theatrical-looking horses, and Russian sleighs; the other with the
+ever-popular galloping pigs. When these dreadful machines were in rotation,
+mechanical organs, concealed somewhere in their bowels, emitted hideous
+brays and shrieks which mingled with the shrieks of the ladies mounted upon
+the galloping pigs, and together insulted a peaceful sky.</p>
+
+<p>The square was filled with that extremely heterogeneous throng which the
+Parisian street f&ecirc;te gathers together, but it was, for the most part,
+a well-dressed throng, largely recruited from the boulevards, and it was
+quite determined to have a very good time in the cheerful, harmless Latin
+fashion. The two men got down from their fiacre and elbowed a way through
+the good-natured crowd to a place near the more popular of the
+merry-go-rounds. The machine was in rotation. Its garish lights shone and
+glittered, its hidden mechanical organ blared a German waltz tune, the
+huge, pink-varnished pigs galloped gravely up and down as the platform upon
+which they were mounted whirled round and round. A little group of American
+trippers, sight-seeing with a guide, stood near by, and one of the group, a
+pretty girl with red hair, demanded plaintively of the friend upon whose
+arm she hung: "Do you think momma would be shocked if we took a ride?
+Wouldn't I love to!"</p>
+
+<p>Hartley turned, laughing, from this distressed maiden to Ste. Marie. He
+was wondering, with mild amusement, why anybody should wish to do such a
+foolish thing; but Ste. Marie's eyes were fixed upon the galloping pigs,
+and the eyes shone with a wistful excitement. To tell the truth, <a
+name="Page_87"></a>it was impossible for him to look on at any form of
+active amusement without thirsting to join it. A joyous and carefree lady
+in a blue hat, who was mounted astride upon one of the pigs, hurled a paper
+serpentine at him and shrieked with delight when it knocked his hat
+off.</p>
+
+<p>"That's the second time she has hit me with one of those things," he
+said, groping about his feet for the hat. "Here, stop that boy with the
+basket!"</p>
+
+<p>A vendor of the little rolls of paper ribbon was shouting his wares
+through the crowd. Ste. Marie filled his pockets with the things, and when
+the lady with the blue hat came round, on the next turn, lassoed her neatly
+about the neck and held the end of the ribbon till it broke. Then he caught
+a fat gentleman, who was holding himself on by his steed's neck, in the
+ear, and the red-haired American girl laughed aloud.</p>
+
+<p>"When the thing stops," said Ste. Marie, "I'm going to take a ride--just
+one ride. I haven't ridden a pig for many years."</p>
+
+<p>Hartley jeered at him, calling him an infant, but Ste. Marie bought more
+serpentines, and when the platform came to a stop clambered up to it and
+mounted the only unoccupied pig he could find. His friend still scoffed at
+him and called him names, but Ste. Marie tucked his long legs round the
+pig's neck and smiled back, and presently the machine began again to
+revolve.</p>
+
+<p>At the end of the first revolution Hartley gave a shout of delight, for
+he saw that the lady with the blue hat had left her mount and was making
+her way along the platform toward where Ste. Marie sat hurling serpentines
+in the face of the world. By the next time round she had come to where he
+was, mounted astride behind him, and <a name="Page_88"></a>was holding
+herself with one very shapely arm round his neck, while with the other she
+rifled his pockets for ammunition. Ste. Marie grinned, and the public, loud
+in its acclaims, began to pelt the two with serpentines until they were
+hung with many-colored ribbons like a Christmas-tree. Even Richard Hartley
+was so far moved out of the self-consciousness with which his race is
+cursed as to buy a handful of the common missiles, and the lady in the blue
+hat returned his attention with skill and despatch.</p>
+
+<p>But as the machine began to slacken its pace, and the hideous wail and
+blare of the concealed organ died mercifully down, Hartley saw that his
+friend's manner had all at once altered, that he sat leaning forward away
+from the enthusiastic lady with the blue hat, and that the paper
+serpentines had dropped from his hands. Hartley thought that the rapid
+motion must have made him a little giddy, but presently, before the
+merry-go-round had quite stopped, he saw the man leap down and hurry toward
+him through the crowd. Ste. Marie's face was grave and pale. He caught
+Hartley's arm in his hand and turned him round, crying, in a low voice:</p>
+
+<p>"Come out of this as quickly as you can! No, in the other direction. I
+want to get away at once!"</p>
+
+<p>"What's the matter?" Hartley demanded. "Lady in the blue hat too
+friendly? Well, if you're going to play this kind of game you might as well
+play it."</p>
+
+<p>"Helen Benham was down there in the crowd," said Ste. Marie. "On the
+opposite side from you. She was with a party of people who got out of two
+motor-cars to look on. They were in evening things, so they had come from
+dinner somewhere, I suppose. She saw me."</p>
+
+<p>"The devil!" said Hartley, under his breath. Then he <a
+name="Page_89"></a>gave a shout of laughter, demanding: "Well, what of it?
+You weren't committing any crime, were you? There's no harm in riding a
+silly pig in a silly merry-go-round. Everybody does it in these f&ecirc;te
+things." But even as he spoke he knew how extremely unfortunate the meeting
+was, and the laughter went out of his voice.</p>
+
+<p>"I'm afraid," said Ste. Marie, "she won't see the humor of it. Good God,
+what a thing to happen! <i>You</i> know well enough what she'll think of
+me. At five o'clock this afternoon," he said, bitterly, "I left her with a
+great many fine, high-sounding words about the quest I was to give my days
+and nights to--for her sake. I went away from her like a--knight going into
+battle--consecrated. I tell you, there were tears in her eyes when I went.
+And <i>now</i>--now, at midnight--she sees me riding a galloping pig in a
+street f&ecirc;te with a girl from the boulevards sitting on the pig with
+me and holding me round the neck before a thousand people. What will she
+think of me? What but one thing can she possibly think? Oh, I know well
+enough! I saw her face before she turned away. And," he cried, "I can't
+even go to her and explain--if there's anything to explain, and I suppose
+there is not. I can't even go to her. I've sworn not to see her."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, I'll do that," said the other man. "I'll explain it to her, if any
+explanation's necessary. I think you'll find that she will laugh at
+it."</p>
+
+<p>But Ste. Marie shook his head.</p>
+
+<p>"No, she won't," said he.</p>
+
+<p>And Hartley could say no more; for he knew Miss Benham, and he was very
+much afraid that she would not laugh.</p>
+
+<p>They found a fiacre at the side of the square and drove <a
+name="Page_90"></a>home at once. They were almost entirely silent all the
+long way, for Ste. Marie was buried in gloom, and the Englishman, after
+trying once or twice to cheer him up, realized that he was best left to
+himself just then, and so held his tongue. But in the rue d'Assas, as Ste.
+Marie was getting down--Hartley kept the fiacre to go on to his rooms in
+the Avenue de l'Observatoire--he made a last attempt to lighten the man's
+depression. He said:</p>
+
+<p>"Don't you be a silly ass about this! You're making much too much of it,
+you know. I'll go to her to-morrow or next day and explain, and she'll
+laugh---if she hasn't already done so. You know," he said, almost believing
+it himself, "you are paying her a dashed poor compliment in thinking she's
+so dull as to misunderstand a little thing of this kind. Yes, by Jove, you
+are!"</p>
+
+<p>Ste. Marie looked up at him, and his face, in the light of the cab lamp,
+showed a first faint gleam of hope.</p>
+
+<p>"Do you think so?" he demanded. "Do you really think that? Maybe I am.
+But--Oh, Lord, who would understand such an idiocy? Sacred imbecile that I
+am! Why was I ever born? I ask you."</p>
+
+<p>He turned abruptly, and began to ring at the door, casting a brief
+"Good-night" over his shoulder. And after a moment Hartley gave it up and
+drove away.</p>
+
+<p>Above, in the long, shallow front room of his flat, with the three
+windows overlooking the Gardens, Ste. Marie made lights, and after much
+rummaging unearthed a box of cigarettes of a peculiarly delectable flavor
+which had been sent him by a friend in the Khedivial household. He allowed
+himself one or two of them now and then, usually in sorrowful moments, as
+an especial treat; and this seemed to him to be the moment for smoking all
+that were <a name="Page_91"></a>left. Surely his need had never been
+greater. In England he had, of course, learned to smoke a pipe, but
+pipe-smoking always remained with him a species of accomplishment; it never
+brought him the deep and ruminative peace with which it enfolds the
+Anglo-Saxon heart. The "vieux Jacob" of old-fashioned Parisian Bohemia
+inspired in him unconcealed horror, of cigars he was suspicious because, he
+said, most of the unpleasant people he knew smoked cigars, so he soothed
+his soul with cigarettes, and he was usually to be found with one between
+his fingers.</p>
+
+<p>He lighted one of the precious Egyptians, and after a first ecstatic
+inhalation went across to one of the long windows, which was open, and
+stood there with his back to the room, his face to the peaceful, fragrant
+night. A sudden recollection came to him of that other night a month before
+when he had stood on the Pont des Invalides with his eyes upon the stars,
+his feet upon the ladder thereunto. His heart gave a sudden exultant leap
+within him when he thought how far and high he had climbed, but after the
+leap it shivered and stood still when this evening's misadventure came
+before him.</p>
+
+<p>Would she ever understand? He had no fear that Hartley would not do his
+best with her. Hartley was as honest and as faithful as ever a friend was
+in this world. He would do his best. But even then--It was the girl's
+inflexible nature that made the matter so dangerous. He knew that she was
+inflexible, and he took a curious pride in it. He admired it. So must have
+been those calm-eyed, ancient ladies for whom other Ste. Maries went out to
+do battle. It was well-nigh impossible to imagine them lowering their eyes
+to silly revelry. They could not stoop to such as that. It was beneath
+their high dignity. And <a name="Page_92"></a>it was beneath hers also. As
+for himself, he was a thing of patches. Here a patch of exalted chivalry--a
+noble patch--there a patch of bourgeois, childlike love of fun; here a
+patch of melancholic asceticism, there one of something quite the reverse.
+A hopeless patchwork he was. Must she not shrink from him when she knew? He
+could not quite imagine her understanding the wholly trivial and
+meaningless impulse that had prompted him to ride a galloping pig and cast
+paper serpentines at the assembled world.</p>
+
+<p>Apart from her view of the affair, he felt no shame in it. The moment of
+childish gayety had been but a passing mood. It had in no way slackened his
+tense enthusiasm, dulled the keenness of his spirit, lowered his high
+flight. He knew that well enough. But he wondered if she would understand,
+and he could not believe it possible. The mood of exaltation in which they
+had parted that afternoon came to him, and then the sight of her shocked
+face as he had seen it in the laughing crowd in the Place Blanche.</p>
+
+<p>"What must she think of me?" he cried, aloud. "What must she think of
+me?"</p>
+
+<p>So, for an hour or more, he stood in the open window staring into the
+fragrant night, or tramped up and down the long room, his hands behind his
+back, kicking out of his way the chairs and things which impeded him,
+torturing himself with fears and regrets and fancies, until at last, in a
+calmer moment, he realized that he was working himself up into an absurd
+state of nerves over something which was done and could not now be helped.
+The man had an odd streak of fatalism in his nature--that will have come of
+his Southern blood--and it came to him now in his need. For the work upon
+which he was to enter with the <a name="Page_93"></a>morrow he had need of
+clear wits, not scattered ones; a calm judgment, not disordered nerves. So
+he took himself in hand, and it would have been amazing to any one
+unfamiliar with the abrupt changes of the Latin temperament to see how
+suddenly Ste. Marie became quiet and cool and master of himself.</p>
+
+<p>"It is done," he said, with a little shrug, and if his face was for a
+moment bitter it quickly enough became impassive. "It is done, and it
+cannot be undone--unless Hartley can undo it. And now, revenons &agrave;
+nos moutons! Or, at least," said he, looking at his watch--and it was
+between one and two--"at least, to our beds!"</p>
+
+<p>So he went to bed, and, so well had he recovered from his fit of
+excitement, he fell asleep almost at once. But for all that the jangled
+nerves had their revenge. He who commonly slept like the dead, without the
+slightest disturbance, dreamed a strange dream. It seemed to him that he
+stood spent and weary in a twilight place--a waste place at the foot of a
+high hill. At the top of the hill She sat upon a sort of throne, golden in
+a beam of light from heaven--serene, very beautiful, the end and crown of
+his weary labors. His feet were set to the ascent of the height whereon she
+waited, but he was withheld. From the shadows at the hill's foot a voice
+called to him in distress, anguish of spirit--a voice he knew; but he could
+not say whose voice. It besought him out of utter need, and he could not
+turn away from it.</p>
+
+<p>Then from those shadows eyes looked upon him, very great and dark eyes,
+and they besought him, too; he did not know what they asked, but they
+called to him like the low voice, and he could not turn away.</p>
+
+<p>He looked to the far height, and with all his power he <a
+name="Page_94"></a>strove to set his feet toward it--the goal of long labor
+and desire; but the eyes and the piteous voice held him motionless--for
+they needed him.</p>
+
+<p>From this anguish he awoke trembling. And after a long time, when he was
+composed, he fell asleep once more, and once more he dreamed the dream.</p>
+
+<p>So morning found him pallid and unrefreshed. But by daylight he knew
+whose eyes had besought him, and he wondered and was a little afraid.</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+
+
+
+<a name="Page_95"></a><h2><a name='IX'></a>IX</h2>
+
+<h3>JASON GOES UPON A JOURNEY, AND RICHARD HARTLEY PLEADS FOR HIM</h3>
+
+
+<p>It may as well be admitted at the outset that neither Ste. Marie nor
+Richard Hartley proved themselves to be geniuses, hitherto undeveloped, in
+the detective science. They entered upon their self-appointed task with a
+fine fervor, but, as Miss Benham had suggested, with no other
+qualifications in particular. Ste. Marie had a theory that, when engaged in
+work of this nature, you went into questionable parts of the city, ate and
+drank cheek by jowl with questionable people--if possible, got them drunk
+while you remained sober (difficult feat), and sooner or later they said
+things which put you on the right road to your goal, or else confessed to
+you that they themselves had committed the particular crime in which you
+were interested. He argued that this was the way it happened in books, and
+that surely people didn't write books about things of which they were
+ignorant.</p>
+
+<p>Hartley, on the other hand, preferred the newer, or scientific, methods.
+You sat at home with a pipe and a whiskey-and-water--if possible, in a long
+dressing-gown with a cord round its middle. You reviewed all the known
+facts of the case, and you did mathematics about them with Xs and Ys and
+many other symbols, and in the end, by a system of <a
+name="Page_96"></a>elimination, you proved that a certain thing must
+infallibly be true. The chief difficulty for him in this was, he said, that
+he had been at Oxford instead of at Cambridge, and so the mathematics were
+rather beyond him.</p>
+
+<p>In practice, however, they combined the two methods, which was doubtless
+as well as if they hadn't, because for some time they accomplished nothing
+whatever, and so neither one was able to sneer at the other's
+stupidity.</p>
+
+<p>This is not to say that they found nothing in the way of clews. They
+found an embarrassment of them, and for some days went about in a fever of
+excitement over these; but the fever cooled when clew after clew turned out
+to be misleading. Of course, Ste. Marie's first efforts were directed
+toward tracing the movements of the Irishman O'Hara, but the efforts were
+altogether unavailing. The man seemed to have disappeared as noiselessly
+and completely as had young Arthur Benham himself. He was unable even to
+settle with any definiteness the time of the man's departure from Paris.
+Some of O'Hara's old acquaintances maintained that they had seen the last
+of him two months before, but a shifty-eyed person in rather cheaply smart
+clothes came up to Ste. Marie one evening in Maxim's and said he had heard
+that Ste. Marie was making inquiries about M. O'Hara. Ste. Marie said he
+was, and that it was an affair of money; whereupon the cheaply smart
+individual declared that M. O'Hara had left Paris six months before to go
+to the United States of America, and that he had had a picture postal-card
+from him, some weeks since, from New York. The informant accepted an
+expensive cigar and a Dubonnet by way of reward, but presently departed
+into the night, and Ste. Marie was left in some discouragement, his theory
+badly damaged.</p>
+
+<p><a name="Page_97"></a>He spoke of this encounter to Richard Hartley, who
+came on later to join him, and Hartley, after an interval of silence and
+smoke, said: "That was a lie! The man lied!"</p>
+
+<p>"Name of a dog, why?" demanded Ste. Marie; but the Englishman shrugged
+his shoulders.</p>
+
+<p>"I don't know," he said. "But I believe it was a lie. The man came to
+you--sought you out to tell his story, didn't he? And all the others have
+given a different date? Well, there you are! For some reason, this man or
+some one behind him--O'Hara himself, probably--wants you to believe that
+O'Hara is in America. I dare say he's in Paris all the while."</p>
+
+<p>"I hope you're right," said the other. "And I mean to make sure, too. It
+certainly was odd, this strange being hunting me out to tell me that. I
+wonder, by-the-way, how he knew I'd been making inquiries about O'Hara.
+I've questioned only two or three people, and then in the most casual way.
+Yes, it's odd."</p>
+
+<p>It was about a week after this--a fruitless week, full of the alternate
+brightness of hope and the gloom of disappointment--that he met Captain
+Stewart, to whom he had been, more than once, on the point of appealing. He
+happened upon him quite by chance one morning in the rue Royale. Captain
+Stewart was coming out of a shop, a very smart-looking shop, devoted, as
+Ste. Marie, with some surprise and much amusement, observed, to ladies'
+hats, and the price of hats must have depressed him, for he looked in an
+ill humor, and older and more yellow than usual. But his face altered
+suddenly when he saw the younger man, and he stopped and shook Ste. Marie's
+hand with every evidence of pleasure.</p>
+
+<p>"Well met! Well met!" he exclaimed. "If you are not <a
+name="Page_98"></a>in a hurry, come and sit down somewhere and tell me
+about yourself."</p>
+
+<p>They picked their way across the street to the terrace of the Taverne
+Royale, which was almost deserted at that hour, and sat down at one of the
+little tables, well back from the pavement, in a corner.</p>
+
+<p>"Is it fair," queried Captain Stewart--"is it fair, as a rival
+investigator, to ask you what success you have had?"</p>
+
+<p>Ste. Marie laughed rather ruefully, and confessed that he had as yet no
+success at all.</p>
+
+<p>"I've just come," said he, "from pricking one bubble that promised well,
+and Hartley is up in Montmartre destroying another, I fancy. Oh, well, we
+didn't expect it to be child's play."</p>
+
+<p>Captain Stewart raised his little glass of dry vermouth in an
+old-fashioned salute and drank it.</p>
+
+<p>"You," said he--"you were--ah, full of some idea of connecting this man,
+this Irishman O'Hara, with poor Arthur's disappearance. You've found that
+not so promising as you went on, I take it."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, I've been unable to trace O'Hara," said Ste. Marie. "He seems to
+have disappeared as completely as your nephew. I suppose you have no clews
+to spare? I confess I'm out of them at the moment."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, I have plenty," said the elder man. "A hundred. More than I can
+possibly look after." He gave a little chuckling laugh. "I've been waiting
+for you to come to me," he said. "It was a little ungenerous, perhaps, but
+we all love to say, 'I told you so.' Yes, I have a great quantity of clews,
+and of course they all seem to be of the greatest and most exciting
+importance. That's a way clews have."</p>
+
+<p><a name="Page_99"></a>He took an envelope from an inner pocket of his
+coat, and sorted several folded papers which were in it.</p>
+
+<p>"I have here," said he, "memoranda of two--chances, shall I call
+them?--which seem to me very good, though, as I have already said, every
+clew seems good. That is the maddening, the heart-breaking, part of such an
+investigation. I have made these brief notes from letters received, one
+yesterday, one the day before, from an agent of mine who has been searching
+the bains de mer of the north coast. This agent writes that some one very
+much resembling poor Arthur has been seen at Dinard and also at Deauville,
+and he urges me to come there or to send a man there at once to look into
+the matter. You will ask, of course, why this agent himself does not pursue
+the clew he has found. Unfortunately, he has been called to London upon
+some pressing family matter of his own; he is an Englishman."</p>
+
+<p>"Why haven't you gone yourself?" asked Ste. Marie.</p>
+
+<p>But the elder man shrugged his shoulders and smiled a tired, deprecatory
+smile.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, my friend," said he, "if I should attempt personally to investigate
+one-half of these things, I should be compelled to divide myself into
+twenty parts. No, I must stay here. There must be, alas! the spider at the
+centre of the web. I cannot go; but if you think it worth while, I will
+gladly turn over the memoranda of these last clews to you. They may be the
+true clews, they may not. At any rate, some one must look into them. Why
+not you and your partner--or shall I say assistant?"</p>
+
+<p>"Why, thank you!" cried Ste. Marie. "A thousand thanks! Of course, I
+shall be--we shall be glad to try this chance. On the face of it, it sounds
+very reasonable. <a name="Page_100"></a>Your nephew, from what I remember
+of him, is much more apt to be in some place that is amusing, some place of
+gayety, than hiding away where it is merely dull, if he has his choice in
+the matter--that is, if he is free. And yet--" He turned and frowned
+thoughtfully at the elder man. "What I want to know," said he, "is how the
+boy is supporting himself all this time? You say he had no money, or very
+little, when he went away. How is he managing to live if your theory is
+correct--that he is staying away of his own accord? It costs a lot of money
+to live as he likes to live."</p>
+
+<p>Captain Stewart nodded.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, that," said he--"that is a question I have often proposed to
+myself. Frankly, it's beyond me. I can only surmise that poor Arthur, who
+had scattered a small fortune about in foolish loans, managed, before he
+actually disappeared (mind you, we didn't begin to look for him until a
+week had gone by)--managed to collect some of this money, and so went away
+with something in pocket. That, of course, is only a guess."</p>
+
+<p>"It is possible," said Ste. Marie, doubtfully, "but--I don't know. It is
+not very easy to raise money from the sort of people I imagine your nephew
+to have lent it to. They borrow, but they don't repay." He glanced up with
+a half-laughing, half-defiant air. "I can't," said he, "rid myself of a
+belief that the boy is here in Paris, and that he is not free to come or
+go. It's only a feeling, but it is very strong in me. Of course, I shall
+follow out these clews you've been so kind as to give me. I shall go to
+Dinard and Deauville, and Hartley, I imagine, will go with me, but I
+haven't great confidence in them."</p>
+
+<p>Captain Stewart regarded him reflectively for a time, and in the end he
+smiled.</p>
+
+<p><a name="Page_101"></a>"If you will pardon my saying it," he said, "your
+attitude is just a little womanlike. You put away reason for something
+vaguely intuitive. I always distrust intuition myself."</p>
+
+<p>Ste. Marie frowned a little and looked uncomfortable. He did not relish
+being called womanlike--few men do; but he was bound to admit that the
+elder man's criticism was more or less just.</p>
+
+<p>"Moreover," pursued Captain Stewart, "you altogether ignore the point of
+motive--as I may have suggested to you before. There could be no possible
+motive, so far as I am aware, for kidnapping or detaining, or in any way
+harming, my nephew except the desire for money; but, as you know, he had no
+large sum of money with him, and no demand has been made upon us since his
+disappearance. I'm afraid you can't get round that."</p>
+
+<p>"No," said Ste. Marie, "I'm afraid I can't. Indeed, leaving that
+aside--and it can't be left aside--I still have almost nothing with which
+to prop up my theory. I told you it was only a feeling."</p>
+
+<p>He took up the memoranda which Captain Stewart had laid upon the
+marble-topped table between them, and read the notes through.</p>
+
+<p>"Please," said he, "don't think I am ungrateful for this chance. I am
+not. I shall do my best with it, and I hope it may turn out to be
+important." He gave a little wry smile. "I have all sorts of reasons," he
+said, "for wishing to succeed as soon as possible. You may be sure that
+there won't be any delays on my part. And now I must be going on. I am to
+meet Hartley for lunch on the other side of the river, and, if we can
+manage it, I should like to start north this afternoon or evening."</p>
+
+<p><a name="Page_102"></a>"Good!" said Captain Stewart, smiling. "Good!
+That is what I call true promptness. You lose no time at all. Go to Dinard
+and Deauville, by all means, and look into this thing thoroughly. Don't be
+discouraged if you meet with ill success at first. Take Mr. Hartley with
+you, and do your best."</p>
+
+<p>He paid for the two glasses of ap&eacute;ritif, and Ste. Marie could not
+help observing that he left on the table a very small tip. The waiter
+cursed him audibly as the two walked away.</p>
+
+<p>"If you have returned by a week from to-morrow," he said, as they shook
+hands, "I should like to have you keep that evening--Thursday--for me. I am
+having a very informal little party in my rooms. There will be two or three
+of the opera people there, and they will sing for us, and the others will
+be amusing enough. All young--all young. I like young people about me." He
+gave his odd little mewing chuckle. "And the ladies must be beautiful as
+well as young. Come if you are here! I'll drop a line to Mr. Hartley
+also."</p>
+
+<p>He shook Ste. Marie's hand, and went away down the street toward the rue
+du Faubourg St. Honor&eacute; where he lived.</p>
+
+<p>Ste. Marie met Hartley as he expected to do, at lunch, and they talked
+over the possibilities of the Dinard and Deauville expedition. In the end
+they decided that Ste. Marie should go alone, but that he was to telegraph,
+later on, if the clew looked promising. Hartley had two or three
+investigations on foot in Paris, and stayed on to complete these. Also he
+wished, as soon as possible, to see Helen Benham and explain Ste. Marie's
+ride on the galloping pigs. Ten days had elapsed since that evening, but
+Miss <a name="Page_103"></a>Benham had gone into the country the next day
+to make a visit at the De Saulnes' ch&acirc;teau on the Oise.</p>
+
+<p>So Ste. Marie packed a portmanteau with clothes and things, and departed
+by a mid-afternoon train to Dinard, and toward five Richard Hartley walked
+down to the rue de I'Universit&eacute;. He thought it just possible that
+Miss Benham might by now have returned to town, but if not he meant to have
+half an hour's chat with old David Stewart, whom he had not seen for some
+weeks.</p>
+
+<p>At the door he learned that mademoiselle was that very day returned and
+was at home. So he went in to the drawing-room, reserving his visit to old
+David until later. He found the room divided into two camps. At one side
+Mrs. Benham conversed in melancholic monotones with two elderly French
+ladies who were clad in depressing black of a dowdiness surpassed only in
+English provincial towns. It was as if the three mourned together over the
+remains of some dear one who lay dead among them. Hartley bowed low, with
+an uncontrollable shiver, and turned to the tea-table, where Miss Benham
+sat in the seat of authority, flanked by a young American lady whom he had
+met before, and by Baron de Vries, whom he had not seen since the evening
+of the De Saulnes' dinner-party.</p>
+
+<p>Miss Benham greeted him with evident pleasure, and to his great delight
+remembered just how he liked his tea--three pieces of sugar and no milk. It
+always flatters a man when his little tastes of this sort are remembered.
+The four fell at once into conversation together, and the young American
+lady asked Hartley why Ste. Marie was not with him.</p>
+
+<p>"I thought you two always went about together," she <a
+name="Page_104"></a>said--"were never seen apart and all that--a sort of
+modern Damon and Phidias."</p>
+
+<p>Hartley caught Baron de Vries' eye, and looked away again hastily.</p>
+
+<p>"My--ah, Phidias," said he, resisting an irritable desire to correct the
+lady, "got mislaid to-day. It sha'n't happen again, I promise you. He's a
+very busy person just now, though. He hasn't time for social dissipation.
+I'm the butterfly of the pair."</p>
+
+<p>The lady gave a sudden laugh.</p>
+
+<p>"He was busy enough the last time I saw him," she said, crinkling her
+eyelids. She turned to Miss Benham. "Do you remember that evening we were
+going home from the Madrid and motored round by Montmartre to see the
+f&ecirc;te?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes," said Miss Benham, unsmiling, "I remember."</p>
+
+<p>"Your friend Ste. Marie," said the American lady to Hartley, "was
+distinctly the lion of the f&ecirc;te--at the moment we arrived, anyhow. He
+was riding a galloping pig and throwing those paper streamer things--what
+do you call them?--with both hands, and a genial lady in a blue hat was
+riding the same pig and helping him out. It was just like the <i>Vie de
+Boh&egrave;me</i> and the other books. I found it charming."</p>
+
+<p>Baron de Vries emitted an amused chuckle.</p>
+
+<p>"That was very like Ste. Marie," he said. "Ste. Marie is a very
+exceptional young man. He can be an angel one moment, a child playing with
+toys the next, and--well, a rather commonplace social favorite the third.
+It all comes of being romantic--imaginative. Ste. Marie--I know nothing
+about this evening of which you speak, but Ste. Marie is quite capable of
+stopping on his way to a funeral to ride a galloping pig--or on his way to
+his own wedding. <a name="Page_105"></a>And the pleasant part of it is,"
+said Baron de Vries, "that the lad would turn up at either of these two
+ceremonies not a bit the worse, outside or in, for his ride."</p>
+
+<p>"Ah, now, that's an oddly close shot," said Hartley. He paused a moment,
+looking toward Miss Benham, and said: "I beg pardon! Were you going to
+speak?"</p>
+
+<p>"No," said Miss Benham, moving the things about on the tea-table before
+her, and looking down at them. "No, not at all!"</p>
+
+<p>"You came oddly close to the truth," the man went on, turning back to
+Baron de Vries.</p>
+
+<p>He was speaking for Helen Benham's ears, and he knew she would
+understand that, but he did not wish to seem to be watching her.</p>
+
+<p>"I was with Ste. Marie on that evening," he said. "No, I wasn't riding a
+pig, but I was standing down in the crowd throwing serpentines at the
+people who were. And I happen to know that he--that Ste. Marie was on that
+day, that evening, more deeply concerned about something, more absolutely
+wrapped up in it, devoted to it, than I have ever known him to be about
+anything since I first knew him. The galloping pig was an incident that
+made, except for the moment, no impression whatever upon him." Hartley
+nodded his head. "Yes," said he, "Ste. Marie can be an angel one moment and
+a child playing with toys the next. When he sees toys he always plays with
+them, and he plays hard, but when he drops them they go completely out of
+his mind."</p>
+
+<p>The American lady laughed.</p>
+
+<p>"Gracious me!" she cried. "You two are emphatic enough about him, aren't
+you?"</p>
+
+<p>"We know him," said Baron de Vries.</p>
+
+<p><a name="Page_106"></a>Hartley rose to replace his empty cup on the
+tea-table. Miss Benham did not meet his eyes, and as he moved away again
+she spoke to her friend about something they were going to do on the next
+day, so Hartley went across to where Baron de Vries sat at a little
+distance, and took a place beside him on the chaise lounge. The Belgian
+greeted him with raised eyebrows and the little, half-sad, half-humorous
+smile which was characteristic of him in his gentler moments.</p>
+
+<p>"You were defending our friend with a purpose," he said, in a low voice.
+"Good! I am afraid he needs it--here."</p>
+
+<p>The younger man hesitated a moment. Then he said:</p>
+
+<p>"I came on purpose to do that. Ste. Marie knows that she saw him on that
+confounded pig. He was half wild with distress over it, because--well, the
+meeting was singularly unfortunate just then. I can't explain--"</p>
+
+<p>"You needn't explain," said the Belgian, gravely. "I know. Helen told me
+some days ago, though she did not mention this encounter. Yes, defend him
+with all your power, if you will. Stay after we others have gone and--have
+it out with her. The Phidias lady (I must remember that mot, by-the-way) is
+preparing to take her leave now, and I will follow her at once. She shall
+believe that I am enamoured, that I sigh for her. Eh!" said he, shaking his
+head--and the lines in the kindly old face seemed to deepen, but in a sort
+of grave tenderness--"eh, so love has come to the dear lad at last! Ah, of
+course, the hundred other affairs! Yes, yes. But they were light. No
+seriousness in them. The ladies may have loved. He didn't--very much. This
+time, I'm afraid--"</p>
+
+<p>Baron de Vries paused as if he did not mean to finish his sentence, and
+Hartley said:</p>
+
+<p><a name="Page_107"></a>"You say 'afraid'! Why afraid?"</p>
+
+<p>The Belgian looked up at him reflectively.</p>
+
+<p>"Did I say 'afraid'?" he asked. "Well, perhaps it was the word I wanted.
+I wonder if these two are fitted for each other. I am fond of them both. I
+think you know that, but--she's not very flexible, this child. And she
+hasn't much humor. I love her, but I know those things are true. I wonder
+if one ought to marry Ste. Marie without flexibility and without
+humor."</p>
+
+<p>"If they love each other," said Richard Hartley, "I expect the other
+things don't count. Do they?"</p>
+
+<p>Baron de Vries rose to his feet, for he saw that the Phidias lady was
+going.</p>
+
+<p>"Perhaps not," said he; "I hope not. In any case, do your best for him
+with Helen. Make her comprehend if you can. I am afraid she is unhappy over
+the affair."</p>
+
+<p>He made his adieus, and went away with the American lady, to that young
+person's obvious excitement. And after a moment the three ladies across the
+room departed also, Mrs. Benham explaining that she was taking her two
+friends up to her own sitting-room, to show them something vaguely related
+to the heathen. So Hartley was left alone with Helen Benham.</p>
+
+<p>It was not his way to beat about the bush, and he gave battle at once.
+He said, standing, to say it more easily:</p>
+
+<p>"You know why I came here to-day? It was the first chance I've had since
+that--unfortunate evening. I came on Ste. Marie's account."</p>
+
+<p>Miss Benham said a weak "Oh!" And because she was nervous and
+overwrought, and because the thing meant so much to her, she said, cheaply:
+"He owes me no apologies. He has a perfect right to act as he pleases, you
+know."</p>
+
+<p><a name="Page_108"></a>The Englishman frowned across at her. "I didn't
+come to make apologies," said he. "I came to explain. Well, I have
+explained--Baron de Vries and I together. That's just how it happened. And
+that's just how Ste. Marie takes things. The point is that you've got to
+understand it. I've got to make you."</p>
+
+<p>The girl smiled up at him dolefully. "You look," she said, "as if you
+were going to beat me if necessary. You look very warlike."</p>
+
+<p>"I feel warlike," the man said, nodding. He said: "I'm fighting for a
+friend to whom you are doing, in your mind, an injustice. I know him better
+than you do, and I tell you you're doing him a grave injustice. You're
+failing altogether to understand him."</p>
+
+<p>"I wonder," the girl said, looking very thoughtfully down at the table
+before her.</p>
+
+<p>"I know," said he.</p>
+
+<p>Quite suddenly she gave a little overwrought cry, and she put up her
+hands over her face. "Oh, Richard!" she said, "that day when he was here!
+He left me--oh, I cannot tell you at what a height he left me! It was
+something new and beautiful. He swept me to the clouds with him. And I
+might--perhaps I might have lived on there. Who knows? But then that
+hideous evening! Ah, it was too sickening: the fall back to common earth
+again!"</p>
+
+<p>"I know," said the man, gently--"I know. And <i>he</i> knew, too.
+Directly he'd seen you he knew how you would feel about it. I'm not
+pretending that it was of no consequence. It was unfortunate, of course.
+But the point is, it did not mean in him any slackening, any stooping, any
+letting go. It was a moment's incident. We went to the wretched place by
+accident after dinner. Ste. Marie saw <a name="Page_109"></a>those childish
+lunatics at play, and for about two minutes he played with them. The lady
+in the blue hat made it appear a little more extreme, and that's all."</p>
+
+<p>Miss Benham rose to her feet and moved restlessly back and forth. "Oh,
+Richard," she said, "the golden spell is broken--the enchantment he laid
+upon me that day. I'm not like him, you know. Oh, I wish I were! I wish I
+were! I can't change from hour to hour. I can't rise to the clouds again
+after my fall to earth. It has all--become something different. Don't
+misunderstand me!" she cried. "I don't mean that I've ceased to care for
+him. No, far from that! But I was in such an exalted heaven, and now I'm
+not there any more. Perhaps he can lift me to it again. Oh yes, I'm sure he
+can, when I see him once more; but I wanted to go on living there so
+happily while he was away! Do you understand at all?"</p>
+
+<p>"I think I do," the man said, but he looked at her very curiously and a
+little sadly, for it was the first time he had ever seen her swept from her
+superb poise by any emotion, and he hardly recognized her. It was very
+bitter to him to realize that he could never have stirred her to
+this--never, under any conceivable circumstances.</p>
+
+<p>The girl came to him where he stood, and touched his arm with her hand.
+"He is waiting to hear how I feel about it all, isn't he?" she said. "He is
+waiting to know that I understand. Will you tell him a little lie for me,
+Richard? No, you needn't tell a lie. I will tell it. Tell him that I said I
+understood perfectly. Tell him that I was shocked for a moment, but that
+afterward I understood and thought no more about it. Will you tell him I
+said that? It won't be a lie from you, because I did say it. Oh, I will not
+grieve him or hamper him now while he is <a name="Page_110"></a>working in
+my cause! I'll tell him a lie rather than have him grieve."</p>
+
+<p>"Need it be a lie?" said Richard Hartley. "Can't you truly believe what
+you've said?"</p>
+
+<p>She shook her head slowly.</p>
+
+<p>"I'll try," said she, "but--my golden spell is broken and I can't mend
+it alone. I'm sorry."</p>
+
+<p>He turned with a little sigh to leave her, but Miss Benham followed him
+toward the door of the drawing-room.</p>
+
+<p>"You're a good friend, Richard," she said, when she had come
+near--"you're a good friend to him."</p>
+
+<p>"He deserves good friends," said the young man, stoutly. "And besides,"
+said he, "we're brothers in arms nowadays. We've enlisted together to fight
+for the same cause." The girl fell back with a little cry.</p>
+
+<p>"Do you mean," she said, after a moment--"do you mean that <i>you</i>
+are working with him--to find Arthur?"</p>
+
+<p>Hartley nodded.</p>
+
+<p>"But--" said she, stammering. "But, Richard--"</p>
+
+<p>The man checked her.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, I know what I'm doing," said he. "My eyes are open. I know that I'm
+not--well, in the running. I work for no reward except a desire to help you
+and Ste. Marie. That's all. It pleases me to be useful."</p>
+
+<p>He went away with that, not waiting for an answer, and the girl stood
+where he had left her, staring after him.</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+
+
+
+<a name="Page_111"></a><h2><a name='X'></a>X</h2>
+
+<h3>CAPTAIN STEWART ENTERTAINS</h3>
+
+
+<p>Ste. Marie returned, after three days, from Dinard in a depressed and
+somewhat puzzled frame of mind. He had found no trace whatever of Arthur
+Benham, either at Dinard or at Deauville, and, what was more, he was unable
+to discover that any one even remotely resembling that youth had been seen
+at either place. The matter of identification, it seemed to him, should be
+a rather simple one. In the first place, the boy's appearance was not at
+all French, nor, for that matter, English; it was very American. Also, he
+spoke French--so Ste. Marie had been told--very badly, having for the
+language that scornful contempt peculiar to Anglo-Saxons of a certain type.
+His speech, it seemed, was, like his appearance, ultra-American--full of
+strange idioms and oddly pronounced. In short, such a youth would be rather
+sure to be remembered by any hotel management and staff with which he might
+have come in contact.</p>
+
+<p>At first Ste. Marie pursued his investigations quietly and, as it were,
+casually; but after his initial failure he went to the managements of the
+various hotels and lodging-houses, and to the caf&eacute;s and bathing
+establishments, and told them, with all frankness, a part of the
+truth--that he was searching for a young man whose disappearance had caused
+great <a name="Page_112"></a>distress to his family. He was not long in
+discovering that no such young man could have been either in Dinard or
+Deauville.</p>
+
+<p>The thing which puzzled him was that, apart from finding no trace of the
+missing boy, he also found no trace of Captain Stewart's agent--the man who
+had been first on the ground. No one seemed able to recollect that such a
+person had been making inquiries, and Ste. Marie began to suspect that his
+friend was being imposed upon. He determined to warn Stewart that his
+agents were earning their fees too easily.</p>
+
+<p>So he returned to Paris more than a little dejected, and sore over this
+waste of time and effort. He arrived by a noon train, and drove across the
+city in a fiacre to the rue d'Assas. But as he was in the midst of
+unpacking his portmanteau--for he kept no servant; a woman came in once a
+day to "do" the rooms--the door-bell rang. It was Baron de Vries, and Ste.
+Marie admitted him with an exclamation of surprise and pleasure.</p>
+
+<p>"You passed me in the street just now," explained the Belgian, "and as I
+was a few minutes early for a lunch engagement I followed you up." He
+pointed with his stick at the open bag. "Ah, you have been on a journey!
+Detective work?"</p>
+
+<p>Ste. Marie pushed his guest into a chair, gave him cigarettes, and told
+him about the fruitless expedition to Dinard. He spoke, also, of his belief
+that Captain Stewart's agent had never really found a clew at all; and at
+that Baron de Vries nodded his gray head and said, "Ah!" in a tone of some
+significance. Afterward he smoked a little while in silence, but presently
+he said, as if with some hesitation: "May I be permitted to offer a word of
+advice?"</p>
+
+<p><a name="Page_113"></a>"But surely!" cried Ste. Marie, kicking away the
+half-empty portmanteau. "Why not?"</p>
+
+<p>"Do whatever you are going to do in this matter according to your own
+judgment," said the elder man, "or according to Mr. Hartley's and your
+combined judgments. Make your investigations without reference to our
+friend Captain Stewart." He halted there as if that were all he had meant
+to say, but when he saw Ste. Marie's raised eyebrows he frowned and went
+on, slowly, as if picking his words with some care. "I should be sorry," he
+said, "to have Captain Stewart at the head of any investigation of this
+nature in which I was deeply interested--just now, at any rate. I am
+afraid--it is difficult to say; I do not wish to say too much--I am afraid
+he is not quite the man for the position."</p>
+
+<p>Ste. Marie nodded his head with great emphasis. "Ah," he cried, "that's
+just what I have felt, you know, all along! And it's what Hartley felt,
+too, I'm sure. No, Stewart is not the sort for a detective. He's too
+cocksure. He won't admit that he might possibly be wrong now and then. He's
+too--"</p>
+
+<p>"He is too much occupied with other matters," said Baron de Vries.</p>
+
+<p>Ste. Marie sat down on the edge of a chair. "Other matters?" he
+demanded. "That sounds mysterious. What other matters?"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, there is nothing very mysterious about it," said the elder man. He
+frowned down at his cigarette, and brushed some fallen ash neatly from his
+knees. "Captain Stewart," said he, "is badly worried, and has been for the
+past year or so--badly worried over money matters and other things. He has
+lost enormous sums at play, as I happen to know, <a name="Page_114"></a>and
+he has lost still more enormous sums at Auteuil and at Longchamps. Also,
+the ladies are not without their demands."</p>
+
+<p>Ste. Marie gave a shout of laughter. "Comment donc!" he cried. "Ce
+vieillard?"</p>
+
+<p>"Ah, well," deprecated the other man. "Vieillard is putting it rather
+high. He can't be more than fifty, I should think. To be sure, he looks
+older; but then, in his day, he lived a great deal in a short time. Do you
+happen to remember Olga Nilssen?"</p>
+
+<p>"I do," said Ste. Marie. "I remember her very well, indeed. I was a sort
+of go-between in settling up that affair with Morrison. Morrison's people
+asked me to do what I could. Yes, I remember her well, and with some
+pleasure. I felt sorry for her, you know. People didn't quite know the
+truth of that affair. Morrison behaved very badly to her."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes," said Baron de Vries, "and Captain Stewart has behaved very badly
+to her also. She is furious with rage or jealousy--or both. She goes about,
+I am told, threatening to kill him, and it would be rather like her to do
+it one day. Well, I have dragged in all this scandal by way of showing you
+that Stewart has his hands full of his own affairs just now, and so cannot
+give the attention he ought to give to hunting out his nephew. As you
+suggest, his agents may be deceiving him. I don't know. I suppose they
+could do it easily enough. If I were you I should set to work quite
+independently of him."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes," said Ste. Marie, in an absent tone. "Oh yes, I shall do that, you
+may be sure." He gave a sudden smile. "He's a queer type, this Captain
+Stewart. He begins to interest me very much. I had never suspected this
+side of him, though I remember now that I once saw him coming <a
+name="Page_115"></a>out of a milliner's shop. He looks rather an
+ascetic--rather donnish, don't you think? I remember that he talked to me
+one day quite pathetically about feeling his age and about liking young
+people round him. He's an odd character. Fancy him mixed up in an affair
+with Olga Nilssen! Or, rather, fancy her involved in an affair with him!
+What can she have seen in him? She's not mercenary, you know--at least, she
+used not to be."</p>
+
+<p>"Ah! there," said Baron de Vries, "you enter upon a terra incognita. No
+one can say what a woman sees in this man or in that. It's beyond our
+ken."</p>
+
+<p>He rose to take his leave, and Ste. Marie went with him to the door.</p>
+
+<p>"I've been asked to a sort of party at Stewart's rooms this week," Ste.
+Marie said. "I don't know whether I shall go or not. Probably not. I
+suppose I shouldn't find Olga Nilssen there?"</p>
+
+<p>"Well, no," said the Belgian, laughing. "No, I hardly think so.
+Good-bye! Think over what I've told you. Good-bye!"</p>
+
+<p>He went away down the stair, and Ste. Marie returned to his
+unpacking.</p>
+
+<p>Nothing more of consequence occurred in the next few days. Hartley had
+unearthed a somewhat shabby adventurer who swore to having seen the
+Irishman O'Hara in Paris within a month, but it was by no means certain
+that this being did not merely affirm what he believed to be desired of
+him, and in any case the information was of no especial value, since it was
+O'Hara's present whereabouts that was the point at issue. So it came to
+Thursday evening. Ste. Marie received a note from Captain Stewart during
+the day, reminding him that he was to come to the <a
+name="Page_116"></a>rue du Faubourg St. Honor&eacute; that evening, and
+asking him to come early, at ten or thereabouts, so that the two could have
+a comfortable chat before any one else turned up. Ste. Marie had about
+decided not to go at all, but the courtesy of this special invitation from
+Miss Benham's uncle made it rather impossible for him to stay away. He
+tried to persuade Hartley to follow him on later in the evening, but that
+gentleman flatly refused and went away to dine with some English friends at
+Armenonville.</p>
+
+<p>So Ste. Marie, in a vile temper, dined quite alone at Lavenue's, beside
+the Gare Montparnasse, and toward ten o'clock drove across the river to the
+rue du Faubourg. Captain Stewart's flat was up five stories, at the top of
+the building in which it was located, and so, well above the noises of the
+street. Ste. Marie went up in the automatic lift, and at the door above his
+host met him in person, saying that the one servant he kept was busy making
+preparations in the kitchen beyond. They entered a large room, long but
+comparatively shallow, in shape not unlike the sitting-room in the rue
+d'Assas, but very much bigger, and Ste. Marie uttered an exclamation of
+surprise and pleasure, for he had never before seen an interior anything
+like this. The room was decorated and furnished entirely in Chinese and
+Japanese articles of great age and remarkable beauty. Ste. Marie knew
+little of the hieratic art of these two countries, but he fancied that the
+place must be an endless delight to the expert.</p>
+
+<p>The general tone of the room was gold, dulled and softened by great age
+until it had ceased to glitter, and relieved by the dusty Chinese blue and
+by old red faded to rose and by warm ivory tints. The great expanse of the
+walls was covered by a brownish-yellow cloth, coarse like burlap, <a
+name="Page_117"></a>and against it, round the room, hung sixteen large
+panels representing the sixteen Rakan. They were early copies--fifteenth
+century, Captain Stewart said--of those famous originals by the Chinese
+Sung master Ririomin, which have been for six hundred years or more the
+treasures of Japan. They were mounted upon Japanese brocade of blue and
+dull gold, framed in keyaki wood, and out of their brown, time-stained
+shadows the great Rakan scowled or grinned or placidly gazed, grotesquely
+graceful masterpieces of a perished art.</p>
+
+<p>At the far end of the room, under a gilded canopy of intricate
+wood-carving, stood upon his pedestal of many-petalled lotus a great statue
+of Amida Buddha in the yogi attitude of contemplation, and at intervals
+against the other walls other smaller images stood or sat: Buddha, in many
+incarnations; Kwannon, goddess of mercy; Jizo Bosatzu Hotei, pot-bellied,
+god of contentment; Jingo-Kano, god of war. In the centre of the place was
+a Buddhist temple table, and priests' chairs, lacquered and inlaid, stood
+about the room. The floor was covered with Chinese rugs, dull yellow with
+blue flowers, and over a doorway which led into another room was fixed a
+huge rama of Chinese pierced carving, gilded, in which there were trees and
+rocks and little grouped figures of the hundred immortals.</p>
+
+<p>It, was, indeed an extraordinary room. Ste. Marie looked about its
+mellow glow with a half-comprehending wonder, and he looked at the man
+beside him curiously, for here was another side to this many-sided
+character. Captain Stewart smiled.</p>
+
+<p>"You like my museum?" he asked. "Few people care much for it except, of
+course, those who go in for the Oriental arts. Most of my friends think it
+bizarre--too <a name="Page_118"></a>grotesque and unusual. I have tried to
+satisfy them by including those comfortable low divan-couches (they refuse
+altogether to sit in the priests' chairs), but still they are unhappy."</p>
+
+<p>He called his servant, who came to take Ste. Marie's hat and coat and
+returned with smoking things.</p>
+
+<p>"It seems entirely wonderful to me," said the younger man. "I'm not an
+expert at all--I don't know who the gentlemen in those sixteen panels are,
+for example--but it is very beautiful. I have never seen anything like it
+at all." He gave a little laugh. "Will it sound very impertinent in me, I
+wonder, if I express surprise--not surprise at finding this magnificent
+room, but at discovering that this sort of thing is a taste and, very
+evidently, a serious study of yours? You--I remember your saying once with
+some feeling that it was youth and beauty and--well, freshness that you
+liked best to be surrounded by. This," said Ste. Marie, waving an inclusive
+hand, "was young so many centuries ago! It fairly breathes antiquity and
+death."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes," said Captain Stewart, thoughtfully. "Yes, that is quite
+true."</p>
+
+<p>The two had seated themselves upon one of the broad, low benches which
+had been built into the place to satisfy the Philistine.</p>
+
+<p>"I find it hard to explain," he said, "because both things are passions
+of mine. Youth--I could not exist without it. Since I have it no longer in
+my own body, I wish to see it about me. It gives me life. It keeps my heart
+beating. I must have it near. And then this--antiquity and death, beautiful
+things made by hands dead centuries ago in an alien country! I love this,
+too. I didn't speak too <a name="Page_119"></a>strongly; it is a sort of
+passion with me--something quite beyond the collector's mania--quite beyond
+that. Sometimes, do you know, I stay at home in the evening, and I sit here
+quite alone, with the lights half on, and for hours together I smoke and
+watch these things--the quiet, sure, patient smile of that Buddha, for
+example. Think how long he has been smiling like that, and waiting! Waiting
+for what? There is something mysterious beyond all words in that smile of
+his, that fixed, crudely carved wooden smile--no, I'll be hanged if it's
+crude! It is beyond our modern art. The dead men carved better than we do.
+We couldn't manage that with such simple means. We can only reproduce what
+is before us. We can't carve questions--mysteries--everlasting
+riddles."</p>
+
+<p>Through the pale-blue, wreathing smoke of his cigarette Captain Stewart
+gazed down the room to where eternal Buddha stood and smiled eternally. And
+from there the man's eyes moved with slow enjoyment along the opposite wall
+over those who sat or stood there, over the panels of the ancient Rakan,
+over carved lotus, and gilt contorted dragon forever in pursuit of the holy
+pearl. He drew a short breath which seemed to bespeak extreme contentment,
+the keenest height of pleasure, and he stirred a little where he sat and
+settled himself among the cushions. Ste. Marie watched him, and the
+expression of the man's face began to be oddly revolting. It was the face
+of a voluptuary in the presence of his desire. He was uncomfortable, and
+wished to say something to break the silence, but, as often occurs at such
+a time, he could think of nothing to say. So there was a brief silence
+between them. But presently Captain Stewart roused himself with an obvious
+effort.</p>
+
+<p>"Here, this won't do!" said he, in a tone of whimsical <a
+name="Page_120"></a>apology. "This won't do, you know. I'm floating off on
+my hobby (and there's a mixed metaphor that would do credit to your own
+Milesian blood!). I'm boring you to extinction, and I don't want to do
+that, for I'm anxious that you should come here again--and often. I should
+like to have you form the habit. What was it I had in mind to ask you
+about? Ah, yes! The journey to Dinard and Deauville. I am afraid it turned
+out to be fruitless or you would have let me know."</p>
+
+<p>"Entirely fruitless," said Ste. Marie.</p>
+
+<p>He went on to tell the elder man of his investigation, and of his
+certainty that no one resembling Arthur Benham had been at either of the
+two places.</p>
+
+<p>"It's no affair of mine, to be sure," he said, "but I rather suspect
+that your agent was deceiving you--pretending to have accomplished
+something by way of making you think he was busy."</p>
+
+<p>Ste. Marie was so sure the other would immediately disclaim this that he
+waited for the word, and gave a little smothered laugh when Captain Stewart
+said, promptly:</p>
+
+<p>"Oh no! No! That is impossible. I have every confidence in that man. He
+is one of my best. No, you are mistaken there. I am more disappointed than
+you could possibly be over the failure of your efforts, but I am quite sure
+my man thought he had something worth working upon. By-the-way, I have
+received another rather curious communication--from Ostend this time. I
+will show you the letter, and you may try your luck there if you would care
+to." He felt in his pockets and then rose. "I've left the thing in another
+coat," said he; "if you will allow me, I'll fetch it." But before he had
+turned away the door-bell rang and he paused. "Ah, well," he said, "another
+<a name="Page_121"></a>time. Here are some of my guests. They have come
+earlier than I had expected."</p>
+
+<p class="figure"> <a name="jason003"><img
+width="80%" alt="Illustration: HE SAW CAPTAIN STEWART MOVING AMONG THEM"
+src="images/jason003.png" /></a><br /> HE SAW CAPTAIN STEWART MOVING AMONG
+THEM</p>
+
+<p>The new arrivals were three very perfectly dressed ladies, one of them
+an operatic light, who chanced not to be singing that evening and whom Ste.
+Marie had met before. The two others were rather difficult of
+classification, but probably, he thought, ornaments of that mysterious
+border-land between the two worlds which seems to give shelter to so many
+people against whose characters nothing definite is known, but whose
+antecedents and connections are not made topics of conversation. The three
+ladies seemed to be on very friendly terms with Captain Stewart, and
+greeted him with much noisy delight. One of the unclassified two, when her
+host, with a glance toward Ste. Marie, addressed her formally, seemed
+inordinately amused, and laughed for a long time.</p>
+
+<p>Within the next hour ten or a dozen other guests had arrived, and they
+all seemed to know one another very well, and proceeded to make themselves
+quite at home. Ste. Marie regarded them with a reflective and not
+over-enthusiastic eye, and he wondered a good deal why he had been asked
+here to meet them. He was as far from a prig or a snob as any man could
+very well be, and he often went to very Bohemian parties which were given
+by his painter or musician friends, but these people seemed to him quite
+different. The men, with the exception of two eminent opera-singers, who
+quite obviously had been asked because of their voices, were the sort of
+men who abound at such places as Ostend and Monte Carlo, and Baden-Baden in
+the race week. That is not to say that they were ordinary racing touts or
+the cheaper kind of adventurers (there was a count among them, and a
+marquis who had recently been <a name="Page_122"></a>divorced by his
+American wife), but adventurers of a sort they undoubtedly were. There was
+not one of them, so far as Ste. Marie was aware, who was received anywhere
+in good society, and he resented very much being compelled to meet
+them.</p>
+
+<p>Naturally enough, he felt much less concern on the score of the ladies.
+It is an undoubted and well-nigh universal truth that men who would refuse
+outright to meet certain classes of their own sex show no reluctance
+whatever over meeting the women of a corresponding circle--that is, if the
+women are attractive. It is a depressing fact and inclines one to sighs and
+head-shakes, and some moral indignation, until the reverse truth is brought
+to light--namely, that women have identically the same point of view; that,
+while they cast looks of loathing and horror upon certain of their sisters,
+they will meet with pleasure any presentable man whatever his crimes or
+vices.</p>
+
+<p>Ste. Marie was very much puzzled over all this. It seemed to him so
+unnecessary that a man who really had some footing in the newer society of
+Paris should choose to surround himself with people of this type; but as he
+looked on and wondered he became aware of a curious and, in the light of a
+past conversation, significant fact: all of the people in the room were
+young; all of them in their varying fashions and degrees very attractive to
+look upon; all full to overflowing of life and spirits and the
+determination to have a good time. He saw Captain Stewart moving among
+them, playing very gracefully his r&ocirc;le of host, and the man seemed to
+have dropped twenty years from his shoulders. A miracle of rejuvenation
+seemed to have come upon him: his eyes were bright and eager, the color was
+high in his cheeks, and the dry, pedantic tone had gone from his voice. <a
+name="Page_123"></a>Ste. Marie watched him, and at last he thought he
+understood. It was half revolting, half pathetic, he thought, but it
+certainly was interesting to see.</p>
+
+<p>Duval, the great basso of the Op&eacute;ra, accompanied at the piano by
+one of the unclassified ladies, was just finishing Mephistopheles' drinking
+song out of <i>Faust</i> when the door-bell rang.</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+
+
+
+<a name="Page_124"></a><h2><a name='XI'></a>XI</h2>
+
+<h3>A GOLDEN LADY ENTERS--THE EYES AGAIN</h3>
+
+
+<p>The music of voice and piano was very loud just then, so that the
+little, soft, whirring sound of the electric bell reached only one or two
+pairs of ears in the big room. It did not reach the host certainly, and
+neither he nor most of the others observed the servant make his way among
+the groups of seated or standing people and go to the outer door, which
+opened upon a tiny hallway. The song came to an end, and everybody was
+cheering and applauding and crying "Bravo!" or "Bis!" or one of the other
+things that people shout at such times, when, as if in unexpected answer to
+the outburst, a lady appeared between the yellow porti&egrave;res and came
+forward a little way into the room. She was a tall lady of an extraordinary
+and immediately noticeable grace of movement--a lady with rather fair hair;
+but her eyebrows and eyelashes had been stained darker than it was their
+nature to be. She had the classic Greek type of face--and figure, too--all
+but the eyes, which were long and narrow--narrow, perhaps, from a habit of
+going half closed; and when they were a little more than half closed they
+made a straight black line that turned up very slightly at the outer end
+with an Oriental effect which went oddly in that classic face. There is a
+popular piece of sculpture now in the Luxembourg Gallery for which this
+lady "sat" as model to <a name="Page_125"></a>a great artist. Sculptors
+from all over the world go there to dream over its perfect line and
+contour, and little schoolgirls pretend not to see it, and middle-aged
+maiden tourists, with red Baedekers in their hands, regard it furtively and
+pass on, and after a while come back to look again.</p>
+
+<p>The lady was dressed in some very close-clinging material which was not
+cloth of gold, but something very like it, only much duller--something
+which gleamed when she stirred, but did not glitter--and over her splendid
+shoulders was hung an Oriental scarf heavily worked with metallic gold. She
+made an amazing and dramatic picture in that golden room. It was as if she
+had known just what her surroundings would be and had dressed expressly for
+them.</p>
+
+<p>The applause ceased as suddenly as if it had been trained to break off
+at a signal, and the lady came forward a little way, smiling a quiet,
+assured smile. At each step her knee threw out the golden stuff of her gown
+an inch or two, and it flashed suddenly--a dull, subdued flash in the
+overhead light--and died and flashed again. A few of the people in the room
+knew who the lady was, and they looked at one another with raised eyebrows
+and startled faces; but the others stared at her with an eager admiration,
+thinking that they had seldom seen anything so beautiful or so effective.
+Ste. Marie sat forward on the edge of his chair. His eyes sparkled, and he
+gave a little quick sigh of pleasurable excitement. This was drama, and
+very good drama, too, and he suspected that it might at any moment turn
+into a tragedy.</p>
+
+<p>He saw Captain Stewart, who had been among a group of people half-way
+across the room, turn his head to look when the cries and the applause
+ceased so suddenly, and he saw the man's face stiffen by swift degrees, all
+the joyous, <a name="Page_126"></a>buoyant life gone out of it, until it
+was yellow and rigid like a dead man's face; and Ste. Marie, out of his
+knowledge of the relations between these two people, nodded, en
+connaisseur, for he knew that the man was very badly frightened.</p>
+
+<p>So the host of the evening hung back, staring for what must have seemed
+to him a long and terrible time, though in reality it was but an instant;
+then he came forward quickly to greet the new-comer, and if his face was
+still yellow-white there was nothing in his manner but the courtesy
+habitual with him. He took the lady's hand, and she smiled at him, but her
+eyes did not smile--they were hard. Ste. Marie, who was the nearest of the
+others, heard Captain Stewart say:</p>
+
+<p>"This is an unexpected pleasure, my dearest Olga!"</p>
+
+<p>And to that the lady replied, more loudly: "Yes, I returned to Paris
+only to-day. You didn't know, of course. I heard you were entertaining this
+evening, and so I came, knowing that I should be welcome."</p>
+
+<p>"Always!" said Captain Stewart--"always more than welcome!"</p>
+
+<p>He nodded to one or two of the men who stood near, and when they
+approached presented them. Ste. Marie observed that he used the lady's true
+name--she had, at times, found occasion to employ others--and that he
+politely called her "Madame Nilssen" instead of "Mademoiselle." But at that
+moment the lady caught sight of Ste. Marie, and, crying out his name in a
+tone of delighted astonishment, turned away from the other men, brushing
+past them as if they had been furniture, and advanced holding out both her
+hands in greeting.</p>
+
+<p>"Dear Ste. Marie!" she exclaimed. "Fancy finding you <a
+name="Page_127"></a>here! I'm so glad! Oh, I'm so very glad! Take me away
+from these people! Find a corner where we can talk. Ah, there is one with a
+big seat! Allons-y!"</p>
+
+<p>She addressed him for the most part in English, which she spoke
+perfectly--as perfectly as she spoke French and German and, presumably, her
+native tongue, which must have been Swedish.</p>
+
+<p>They went to the broad, low seat, a sort of hard-cushioned bench, which
+stood against one of the walls, and made themselves comfortable there by
+the only possible means, which, owing to the width of the thing, was to sit
+far back with their feet stuck straight out before them. Captain Stewart
+had followed them across the room and showed a strong tendency to remain.
+Ste. Marie observed that his eyes were hard and bright and very alert, and
+that there were two bright spots of color in his yellow cheeks. It occurred
+to Ste. Marie that the man was afraid to leave him alone with Olga Nilssen,
+and he smiled to himself, reflecting that the lady, even if indiscreetly
+inclined, could tell him nothing--save in details--that he did not already
+know. But after a few rather awkward moments Mile. Nilssen waved an
+irritated hand.</p>
+
+<p>"Go away!" she said to her host. "Go away to your other guests! I want
+to talk to Ste. Marie. We have old times to talk over."</p>
+
+<p>And after hesitating awhile uneasily, Captain Stewart turned back into
+the room; but for some time thereafter Ste. Marie was aware that a vigilant
+eye was being kept upon them and that their host was by no means at his
+ease.</p>
+
+<p>When they were left alone together the girl turned to him and patted his
+arm affectionately. She said:</p>
+
+<p><a name="Page_128"></a>"Ah, but it is very good to see you again, mon
+cher ami! It has been so long!" She gave an abrupt frown. "What are you
+doing here?" she demanded.</p>
+
+<p>And she said an unkind thing about her fellow-guests. She called them
+"canaille." She said:</p>
+
+<p>"Why are you wasting your time among these canaille? This is not a place
+for you. Why did you come?"</p>
+
+<p>"I don't know," said Ste. Marie. He was still a little resentful, and he
+said so. He said: "I didn't know it was going to be like this. I came
+because Stewart went rather out of his way to ask me. I'd known him in a
+very different milieu."</p>
+
+<p>"Ah, yes!" she said, reflectively. "Yes, he does go into the world also,
+doesn't he? But this is what he likes, you know." Her lips drew back for an
+instant, and she said: "He is a pig-dog!"</p>
+
+<p>Ste. Marie looked at her gravely. She had used that offensive name with
+a little too much fierceness. Her face had turned for an instant quite
+white, and her eyes had flashed out over the room a look that meant a great
+deal to any one who knew her as well as Ste. Marie did. He sat forward and
+lowered his voice. He said:</p>
+
+<p>"Look here, Olga! I'm going to be very frank for a moment. May I?"</p>
+
+<p>For just an instant the girl drew away from him with suspicion in her
+eyes, and something else, alertly defiant. Then she put out her hands to
+his arm.</p>
+
+<p>"You may be what you like, dear Ste. Marie," she said, "and say what you
+like. I will take it all--and swallow it alive--good as gold. What are you
+going to do to me?"</p>
+
+<p>"I've always been fair with you, haven't I?" he urged. <a
+name="Page_129"></a>"I've had disagreeable things to say or do, but--you
+knew always that I liked you and--where my sympathies were."</p>
+
+<p>"Always! Always, mon cher!" she cried. "I trusted you always in
+everything. And there is no one else I trust. No one! No one!--Ste.
+Marie!"</p>
+
+<p>"What then?" he asked.</p>
+
+<p>"Ste. Marie," she said, "why did you never fall in love with me, as the
+other men did?"</p>
+
+<p>"I wonder!" said he. "I don't know. Upon my word, I really don't
+know."</p>
+
+<p>He was so serious about it that the girl burst into a shriek of
+laughter. And in the end he laughed, too.</p>
+
+<p>"I expect it was because I liked you too well," he said, at last. "But
+come! We're forgetting my lecture. Listen to your grandp&egrave;re Ste.
+Marie! I have heard--certain things--rumors--what you will. Perhaps they
+are foolish lies, and I hope they are. But if not, if the fear I saw in
+Stewart's face when you came here to-night, was--not without cause, let me
+beg you to have a care. You're much too savage, my dear child. Don't be so
+foolish as to--well, turn comedy into the other thing. In the first place,
+it's not worth while, and, in the second place, it recoils always. Revenge
+may be sweet. I don't know. But nowadays, with police courts and all that,
+it entails much more subsequent annoyance than it is worth. Be wise,
+Olga!"</p>
+
+<p>"Some things, Ste. Marie," said the golden lady, "are worth all the
+consequences that may follow them."</p>
+
+<p>She watched Captain Stewart across the room, where he stood chatting
+with a little group of people, and her beautiful face was as hard as marble
+and her eyes were as dark <a name="Page_130"></a>as a stormy night, and her
+mouth, for an instant, was almost like an animal's mouth--cruel and
+relentless.</p>
+
+<p>Ste. Marie saw, and he began to be a bit alarmed in good earnest. In his
+warning he had spoken rather more seriously than he felt the occasion
+demanded, but he began at last to wonder if the occasion was not in reality
+very serious, indeed. He was sure, of course, that Olga Nilssen had come
+here on this evening to annoy Captain Stewart in some fashion. As he put it
+to himself, she probably meant to "make a row," and he would not have been
+in the least surprised if she had made it in the beginning, upon her very
+dramatic entrance. Nothing more calamitous than that had occurred to him.
+But when he saw the woman's face turned a little away and gazing fixedly at
+Captain Stewart, he began to be aware that there was tragedy very near
+him--or all the makings of it.</p>
+
+<p>Mlle. Nilssen turned back to him. Her face was still hard, and her eyes
+dark and narrowed with their oddly Oriental look. She bent her shoulders
+together for an instant and her hands moved slowly in her lap, stretching
+out before her in a gesture very like a cat's when it wakes from sleep and
+yawns and extends its claws, as if to make sure that they are still there
+and ready for use.</p>
+
+<p>"I feel a little like Samson to-night," she said. "I am tired of almost
+everything, and I should like very much to pull the world down on top of me
+and kill everybody in it--except you, Ste. Marie, dear; except you!--and be
+crushed under the ruins!"</p>
+
+<p>"I think," said Ste. Marie, practically--and the speech sounded rather
+like one of Hartley's speeches--"I think it was not quite the world that
+Samson pulled down, but a temple--or a palace--something of that kind."</p>
+
+<p><a name="Page_131"></a>"Well," said the golden lady, "this place is
+rather like a temple--a Chinese temple, with the pig-dog for
+high-priest."</p>
+
+<p>Ste. Marie frowned at her.</p>
+
+<p>"What are you going to do?" he demanded, sharply. "What did you come
+here to do? Mischief of some kind--bien entendu--but what?"</p>
+
+<p>"Do?" she said, looking at him with her narrowed eyes. "I? Why, what
+should I do? Nothing, of course! I merely said I should like to pull the
+place down. Of course, I couldn't do that quite literally, now, could I?
+No. It is merely a mood. I'm not going to do anything."</p>
+
+<p>"You're not being honest with me," he said.</p>
+
+<p>And at that her expression changed, and she patted his arm again with a
+gesture that seemed to beg forgiveness.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, then," she said, "if you must know, maybe I did come here for a
+purpose. I want to have it out with our friend Captain Stewart about
+something. And Ste. Marie, dear," she pleaded, "please, I think you'd
+better go home first. I don't care about these other animals, but I don't
+want you dragged into any row of any sort. Please be a sweet Ste. Marie and
+go home. Yes?"</p>
+
+<p>"Absolutely, no!" said Ste. Marie. "I shall stay, and I shall try my
+utmost to prevent you from doing anything foolish. Understand that! If you
+want to have rows with people, Olga, for Heaven's sake don't pick an
+occasion like this for the purpose. Have your rows in private!"</p>
+
+<p>"I rather think I enjoy an audience," she said, with a reflective air,
+and Ste. Marie laughed aloud because he knew that the na&iuml;ve speech was
+so very true. This lady, with her many good qualities and her bad ones--not
+a <a name="Page_132"></a>few, alas!--had an undeniable passion for red fire
+that had amused him very much on more than one past occasion.</p>
+
+<p>"Please go home!" she said once more.</p>
+
+<p>But when the man only shook his head, she raised her hands a little way
+and dropped them again in her lap, in an odd gesture which seemed to say
+that she had done all she could do, and that if anything disagreeable
+should happen now, and he should be involved in it, it would be entirely
+his fault because she had warned him.</p>
+
+<p>Then quite abruptly a mood of irresponsible gayety seemed to come upon
+her. She refused to have anything more to do with serious topics, and when
+Ste. Marie attempted to introduce them she laughed in his face. As she had
+said in the beginning she wished to do, she harked back to old days (the
+earlier stages of what might be termed the Morrison r&eacute;gime), and it
+seemed to afford her great delight to recall the happenings of that epoch.
+The conversation became a dialogue of reminiscence which would have been
+entirely unintelligible to a third person, and was, indeed, so to Captain
+Stewart, who once came across the room, made a feeble effort to attach
+himself, and presently wandered away again.</p>
+
+<p>They unearthed from the past an exceedingly foolish song all about one
+"Little Willie" and a purple monkey climbing up a yellow stick. It was set
+to a well-known air from <i>Don Giovanni</i>, and when Duval, the basso,
+heard them singing it he came up and insisted upon knowing what it was
+about. He laughed immoderately over the English words when he was told what
+they meant, and made Ste. Marie write them down for him on two
+visiting-cards. So they made a trio out of "Little Willie," the great Duval
+inventing a bass part quite marvellous in its ingenuity, <a
+name="Page_133"></a>and they were compelled to sing it over and over again,
+until Ste. Marie's falsetto imitation of a tenor voice cracked and gave out
+altogether, since he was by nature barytone, if anything at all.</p>
+
+<p>The other guests had crowded round to hear the extraordinary song, and
+when the song was at last finished several of them remained, so that Ste.
+Marie saw he was to be allowed an uninterrupted
+t&ecirc;te-&agrave;-t&ecirc;te with Olga Nilssen no longer. He therefore
+drifted away, after a few moments, and went with Duval and one of the other
+men across the room to look at some small jade objects--snuff-bottles,
+bracelets, buckles, and the like--which were displayed in a cabinet
+cleverly reconstructed out of a Japanese shrine. It was perhaps ten minutes
+later when he looked round the place and discovered that neither Mlle.
+Nilssen nor Captain Stewart was to be seen.</p>
+
+<p>His first thought was of relief, for he said to himself that the two had
+sensibly gone into one of the other rooms to "have it out" in peace and
+quiet. But following that came the recollection of the woman's face when
+she had watched her host across the room. Her words came back to him: "I
+feel a little like Samson to-night.... I should like very much to pull the
+world down on top of me and kill everybody in it!" Ste. Marie thought of
+these things, and he began to be uncomfortable. He found himself watching
+the yellow-hung doorway beyond, with its intricate Chinese carving of trees
+and rocks and little groups of immortals, and he found that unconsciously
+he was listening for something--he did not know what--above the chatter and
+laughter of the people in the room. He endured this for possibly five
+minutes, and all at once found that he could endure it no longer. He began
+to make his <a name="Page_134"></a>way quietly through the groups of people
+toward the curtained doorway.</p>
+
+<p>As he went, one of the women near by complained in a loud tone that the
+servant had disappeared. She wanted, it seemed, a glass of water, having
+already had many glasses of more interesting things. Ste. Marie said he
+would get it for her, and went on his way. He had an excuse now.</p>
+
+<p>He found himself in a square, dimly lighted room much smaller than the
+other. There was a round table in the centre, so he thought it must be
+Stewart's dining-room. At the left a doorway opened into a place where
+there were lights, and at the other side was another door closed. From the
+room at the left there came a sound of voices, and though they were not
+loud, one of them, Mlle. Olga Nilssen's voice, was hard and angry and not
+altogether under control. The man would seem to have been attempting to
+pacify her, and he would seem not to have been very successful.</p>
+
+<p>The first words that Ste. Marie was able to distinguish were from the
+woman. She said, in a low, fierce tone:</p>
+
+<p>"That is a lie, my friend! That is a lie! I know all about the road to
+Clamart, so you needn't lie to me any longer. It's no good."</p>
+
+<p>She paused for just an instant there, and in the pause St. Marie heard
+Stewart give a sort of inarticulate exclamation. It seemed to express anger
+and it seemed also to express fear. But the woman swept on, and her voice
+began to be louder. She said:</p>
+
+<p>"I've given you your chance. You didn't deserve it, but I've given it
+you--and you've told me nothing but lies. Well, you'll lie no more. This
+ends it."</p>
+
+<p>Upon that Ste. Marie heard a sudden stumbling shuffle of feet and a low,
+hoarse cry of utter terror--a cry more <a name="Page_135"></a>animal-like
+than human. He heard the cry break off abruptly in something that was like
+a cough and a whine together, and he heard the sound of a heavy body
+falling with a loose rattle upon the floor.</p>
+
+</a> <p class="figure"> <a name="jason004"><img
+width="80%" alt="Illustration: CAPTAIN STEWART LAY HUDDLED AND WRITHING
+UPON THE FLOOR" src="images/jason004.png" /></a><br /> CAPTAIN STEWART LAY HUDDLED
+AND WRITHING UPON THE FLOOR</p>
+
+<p>With the sound of that falling body he had already reached the doorway
+and torn aside the heavy porti&egrave;re. It was a sleeping-room he looked
+into, a room of medium size with two windows and an ornate bed of the
+Empire style set sidewise against the farther wall. There were electric
+lights upon imitation candles which were grouped in sconces against the
+wall, and these were turned on, so that the room was brightly illuminated.
+Midway between the door and the ornate Empire bed Captain Stewart lay
+huddled and writhing upon the floor, and Olga Nilssen stood upright beside
+him, gazing down upon him quite calmly. In her right hand, which hung at
+her side, she held a little flat black automatic pistol of the type known
+as Brownings--and they look like toys, but they are not.</p>
+
+<p>Ste. Marie sprang at her silently and caught her by the arm, twisting
+the automatic pistol from her grasp, and the woman made no effort whatever
+to resist him. She looked into his face quite frankly and unmoved, and she
+shook her head.</p>
+
+<p>"I haven't harmed him," she said. "I was going to, yes--and then
+myself--but he didn't give me a chance. He fell down in a fit." She nodded
+down toward the man who lay writhing at their feet. "I frightened him," she
+said, "and he fell in a fit. He's an epileptic, you know. Didn't you know
+that? Oh yes."</p>
+
+<p>Abruptly she turned away shivering, and put up her hands over her face.
+And she gave an exclamation of uncontrollable repulsion.</p>
+
+<p><a name="Page_136"></a>"Ugh!" she cried, "it's horrible! Horrible! I
+can't bear to look. I saw him in a fit once before--long ago--and I
+couldn't bear even to speak to him for a month. I thought he had been
+cured. He said--Ah, it's horrible!"</p>
+
+<p>Ste. Marie had dropped upon his knees beside the fallen man, and Mlle.
+Nilssen said, over her shoulder:</p>
+
+<p>"Hold his head up from the floor, if you can bear to. He might hurt
+it."</p>
+
+<p>It was not an easy thing to do, for Ste. Marie had the natural sense of
+repulsion in such matters that most people have, and this man's appearance,
+as Olga Nilssen had said, was horrible. The face was drawn hideously, and
+in the strong, clear light of the electrics it was a deathly yellow. The
+eyes were half closed, and the eyeballs turned up so that only the whites
+of them showed between the lids. There was froth upon the distorted mouth,
+and it clung to the catlike mustache and to the shallow, sunken chin
+beneath. But Ste. Marie exerted all his will power, and took the jerking,
+trembling head in his hands, holding it clear of the floor.</p>
+
+<p>"You'd better call the servant," he said. "There may be something that
+can be done."</p>
+
+<p>But the woman answered, without looking:</p>
+
+<p>"No, there's nothing that can be done, I believe, except to keep him
+from bruising himself. Stimulants--that sort of thing--do more harm than
+good. Could you get him on the bed here?"</p>
+
+<p>"Together we might manage it," said Ste. Marie. "Come and help!"</p>
+
+<p>"I can't!" she cried, nervously. "I can't--touch him. Please, I can't do
+it."</p>
+
+<p>"Come!" said the man, in a sharp tone. "It's no time <a
+name="Page_137"></a>for nerves. I don't like it, either, but it's got to be
+done."</p>
+
+<p>The woman began a half-hysterical sobbing, but after a moment she turned
+and came with slow feet to where Stewart lay.</p>
+
+<p>Ste. Marie slipped his arms under the man's body and began to raise him
+from the floor.</p>
+
+<p>"You needn't help, after all," he said. "He's not heavy."</p>
+
+<p>And, indeed, under his skilfully shaped and padded clothes the man was a
+mere waif of a man--as unbelievably slight as if he were the victim of a
+wasting disease. Ste. Marie held the body in his arms as if it had been a
+child, and carried it across and laid it on the bed; but it was many months
+before he forgot the horror of that awful thing shaking and twitching in
+his hold, the head thumping hideously upon his shoulder, the arms and legs
+beating against him. It was the most difficult task he had ever had to
+perform. He laid Captain Stewart upon the bed and straightened the helpless
+limbs as best he could.</p>
+
+<p>"I suppose," he said, rising again--"I suppose when the man comes out of
+this he'll be frightfully exhausted and drop off to sleep, won't he? We'll
+have to--"</p>
+
+<p>He halted abruptly there, and for a single swift instant he felt the
+black and rushing sensation of one who is going to faint away. The wall
+behind the ornate Empire bed was covered with photographs, some in frames,
+others left, as they had been received, upon the large squares of weird
+cardboard which are termed "art mounts."</p>
+
+<p>"Come here a moment, quickly!" said Ste. Marie, in a sharp voice.</p>
+
+<p>Mlle. Nilssen's sobs had died down to a silent, spasmodic <a
+name="Page_138"></a>catching of the breath, but she was still much
+unnerved, and she approached the bed with obvious unwillingness, dabbing at
+her eyes with a handkerchief. Ste. Marie pointed to an unframed photograph
+which was fastened to the wall by thumb-tacks, and his outstretched hand
+shook as he pointed. Beneath them the other man still writhed and tumbled
+in his epileptic fit.</p>
+
+<p>"Do you know who that woman is?" demanded Ste. Marie, and his tone was
+such that Olga Nilssen turned slowly and stared at him.</p>
+
+<p>"That woman," said she, "is the reason why I wished to pull the world
+down upon Charlie Stewart and me to-night. That's who she is."</p>
+
+<p>Ste. Marie gave a sort of cry.</p>
+
+<p>"Who is she?" he insisted. "What is her name? I--have a particularly
+important reason for wanting to know. I've got to know."</p>
+
+<p>Mlle. Nilssen shook her head, still staring at him.</p>
+
+<p>"I can't tell you that," said she. "I don't know the name. I only know
+that--when he met her, he--I don't know her name, but I know where she
+lives and where he goes every day to see her--a house with a big garden and
+walled park on the road to Clamart. It's on the edge of the wood, not far
+from Fort d'Issy. The Clamart-Vanves-Issy tram runs past the wall of one
+side of the park. That's all I know."</p>
+
+<p>Ste. Marie clasped his head with his hands.</p>
+
+<p>"So near to it!" he groaned, "and yet--Ah!" He bent forward suddenly
+over the bed and spelled out the name of the photographer which was
+pencilled upon the brown cardboard mount. "There's still a chance," he
+said, "There's still one chance."</p>
+
+<p><a name="Page_139"></a>He became aware that the woman was watching him
+curiously, and nodded to her.</p>
+
+<p>"It's something you don't know about," he explained. "I've got to find
+out who this--girl is. Perhaps the photographer can help me. I used to know
+him." All at once his eyes sharpened. "Tell me the simple truth about
+something!" said he. "If ever we have been friends, if you owe me any good
+office, tell me this: Do you know anything about young Arthur Benham's
+disappearance two months ago, or about what has become of him?"</p>
+
+<p>Again the woman shook her head.</p>
+
+<p>"No," said she. "Nothing at all. I hadn't even heard of it. Young Arthur
+Benham! I've met him once or twice. I wonder--I wonder Stewart never spoke
+to me about his disappearance! That's very odd."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes," said Ste. Marie, absently, "it is." He gave a little sigh. "I
+wonder about a good many things," said he.</p>
+
+<p>He glanced down upon the bed before them, and Captain Stewart lay still,
+save for a slight twitching of the hands. Once he moved his head restlessly
+from side to side and said something incoherent in a weak murmur.</p>
+
+<p>"He's out of it," said Olga Nilssen. "He'll sleep now, I think. I
+suppose we must get rid of those people and then leave him to the care of
+his man. A doctor couldn't do anything for him."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes," said Ste. Marie, nodding, "I'll call the servant and tell the
+people that Stewart has been taken ill."</p>
+
+<p>He looked once more toward the photograph on the wall, and under his
+breath he said, with an odd, defiant fierceness: "I won't believe it!" But
+he did not explain what he wouldn't believe. He started out of the room,
+but, half-way, <a name="Page_140"></a>halted and turned back. He looked
+Olga Nilssen full in the eyes, saying:</p>
+
+<p>"It is safe to leave you here with him while I call the servant?
+There'll be no more--?"</p>
+
+<p>But the woman gave a low cry and a violent shiver with it.</p>
+
+<p>"You need have no fear," she said. "I've no desire now to--harm him.
+The--reason is gone. This has cured me. I feel as if I could never bear to
+see him again. Oh, hurry! Please hurry! I want to get away from here!"</p>
+
+<p>Ste. Marie nodded, and went out of the room.</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+
+
+
+<a name="Page_141"></a><h2><a name='XII'></a>XII</h2>
+
+<h3>THE NAME OF THE LADY WITH THE EYES--EVIDENCE HEAPS UP SWIFTLY</h3>
+
+
+<p>Ste. Marie drove home to the rue d'Assas with his head in a whirl, and
+with a sense of great excitement beating somewhere within him--probably in
+the place where his heart ought to be. He had a curiously sure feeling that
+at last his feet were upon the right path. He could not have explained this
+to himself--indeed, there was nothing to explain, and if there had been he
+was in far too great an inner turmoil to manage it. It was a mere
+feeling--the sort of thing which he had once tried to express to Captain
+Stewart and had got laughed at for his pains.</p>
+
+<p>There was, in sober fact, no reason whatever why Captain Stewart's
+possession of a photograph of the beautiful lady whom Ste. Marie had once
+seen in company with O'Hara should be taken as significant of anything
+except an appreciation of beauty on the part of Miss Benham's uncle--not
+even if, as Mlle. Nilssen believed, Captain Stewart was in love with the
+lady. But to Ste. Marie, in his whirl of reawakened excitement, the
+discovery loomed to the skies, and in a series of ingenious but very vague
+leaps of the imagination he saw himself, with the aid of this new evidence
+(which was no evidence at all, if he had been calm enough to realize it),
+victorious in his great <a name="Page_142"></a>quest: leading young Arthur
+Benham back to the arms of an ecstatic family, and kneeling at the feet of
+that youth's sister to claim his reward. All of which seems a rather
+startling flight of the imagination to have had its beginning in the sight
+of one photograph of a young woman. But, then, Ste. Marie was imaginative
+if he was anything.</p>
+
+<p>He fell to thinking of this girl whose eyes, after one sight of them,
+had so long haunted him. He thought of her between those two men, the
+hard-faced Irish adventurer, and the other, Stewart, strange compound of
+intellectual and voluptuary, and his eyes flashed in the dark and he
+gripped his hands together upon his knees. He said again:</p>
+
+<p>"I won't believe it! I won't believe it!" Believe what? one wonders.</p>
+
+<p>He slept hardly at all: only, toward morning, falling into an uneasy
+doze. And in the doze he dreamed once more the dream of the dim, waste
+place and the hill, and the eyes and voice that called him back--because
+they needed him.</p>
+
+<p>As early as he dared, after his morning coffee, he took a fiacre and
+drove across the river to the Boulevard de la Madeleine, where he climbed a
+certain stair, at the foot of which were two glass cases containing
+photographs of, for the most part, well-known ladies of the Parisian stage.
+At the top of the stair he entered the reception-room of a young
+photographer who is famous now the world over, but who, at the beginning of
+his career, when he had nothing but talent and no acquaintance, owed
+certain of his most important commissions to M. Ste. Marie.</p>
+
+<p>The man, whose name was Bernstein, came forward eagerly from the studio
+beyond to greet his visitor, and Ste. Marie complimented him chaffingly
+upon his very sleek and prosperous appearance, and upon the new decorations
+<a name="Page_143"></a>of the little salon, which were, in truth,
+excellently well judged. But after they had talked for a little while of
+such matters, he said:</p>
+
+<p>"I want to know if you keep specimen prints of all the photographs you
+have made within the past few months, and, if so, I should like to see
+them."</p>
+
+<p>The young Jew went to a wooden portfolio-holder which stood in a corner,
+and dragged it out into the light.</p>
+
+<p>"I have them all here," said he--"everything that I have made within the
+past ten or twelve months. If you will let me draw up a chair you can look
+them over comfortably."</p>
+
+<p>He glanced at his former patron with a little polite curiosity as Ste.
+Marie followed his suggestion, and began to turn over the big portfolio's
+contents; but he did not show any surprise nor ask questions. Indeed, he
+guessed, to a certain extent, rather near the truth of the matter. It had
+happened before that young gentlemen--and old ones, too--wanted to look
+over his prints without offering explanations, and they generally picked
+out all the photographs there were of some particular lady and bought them
+if they could be bought.</p>
+
+<p>So he was by no means astonished on this occasion, and he moved about
+the room putting things to rights, and even went for a few moments into the
+studio beyond until he was recalled by a sudden exclamation from his
+visitor--an exclamation which had a sound of mingled delight and
+excitement.</p>
+
+<p>Ste. Marie held in his hands a large photograph, and he turned it toward
+the man who had made it.</p>
+
+<p>"I am going to ask you some questions," said he, "that will sound rather
+indiscreet and irregular, but I beg you <a name="Page_144"></a>to answer
+them if you can, because the matter is of great importance to a number of
+people. Do you remember this lady?"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh yes," said the Jew, readily, "I remember her very well. I never
+forget people who are as beautiful as this lady was." His eyes gleamed with
+retrospective joy. "She was splendid!" he declared. "Sumptuous! No, I
+cannot describe her. I have not the words. And I could not photograph her
+with any justice, either. She was all color: brown skin, with a dull-red
+stain under the cheeks, and a great mass of hair that was not black but
+very nearly black--except in the sun, and then there were red lights in it.
+She was a goddess, that lady, a queen of goddesses-- the young Juno before
+marriage--the--"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes," interrupted Ste. Marie--"yes, I see. Yes, quite evidently she was
+beautiful; but what I wanted in particular to know was her name, if you
+feel that you have a right to give it to me (I remind you again that the
+matter is very important), and any circumstances that you can remember
+about her coming here: who came with her, for instance and things of that
+sort."</p>
+
+<p>The photographer looked a little disappointed at being cut off in the
+middle of his rhapsody, but he began turning over the leaves of an
+order-book which lay upon a table near by.</p>
+
+<p>"Here is the entry," he said, after a few moments. "Yes, I thought so,
+the date was nearly three months ago--April 5th. And the lady's name was
+Mlle. Coira O'Hara."</p>
+
+<p>"What!" cried the other man, sharply. "What did you say?"</p>
+
+<p>"Mlle. Coira O'Hara was the name," repeated the photographer. "I
+remember the occasion perfectly. The <a name="Page_145"></a>lady came here
+with three gentlemen--one tall, thin gentleman with an eyeglass, an
+Englishman, I think, though he spoke very excellent French when he spoke to
+me. Among themselves they spoke, I think, English, though I do not
+understand it, except a few words, such as ''ow moch?' and 'sank you' and
+'rady, pleas', now.'"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes! yes!" cried Ste. Marie, impatiently. And the little Jew could see
+that he was laboring under some very strong excitement, and he wondered
+mildly about it, scenting a love-affair.</p>
+
+<p>"Then," he pursued, "there was a very young man in strange clothes--a
+tourist, I should think, like those Americans and English who come in the
+summer with little red books and sit on the terrace of the Caf&eacute; de
+la Paix." He heard his visitor draw a swift, sharp breath at that, but he
+hurried on before he could be interrupted. "This young man seemed to be
+unable to take his eyes from the lady--and small wonder! He was very much
+&eacute;pris--very much &eacute;pris, indeed. Never have I seen a youth
+more so. Ah, it was something to see, that--a thing to touch the
+heart!"</p>
+
+<p>"What did the young man look like?" demanded Ste. Marie.</p>
+
+<p>The photographer described the youth as best he could from memory, and
+he saw his visitor nod once or twice, and at the end he said:</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, yes; I thought so. Thank you."</p>
+
+<p>The Jew did not know what it was the other thought, but he went on:</p>
+
+<p>"Ah, a thing to touch the heart! Such devotion as that! Alas, that the
+lady should seem so cold to it! Still, a goddess! What would you? A queen
+among goddesses. One would not have them laugh and make little jokes--make
+<a name="Page_146"></a>eyes at love-sick boys. No, indeed!" He shook his
+head rapidly and sighed.</p>
+
+<p>M. Ste. Marie was silent for a little space, but at length he looked up
+as if he had just remembered something.</p>
+
+<p>"And the third man?" he asked.</p>
+
+<p>"Ah, yes, the third gentleman," said Bernstein. "I had forgotten him.
+The third gentleman I knew well. He had often been here. It was he who
+brought these friends to me. He was M. le Capitaine Stewart. Everybody
+knows M. le Capitaine Stewart--everybody in Paris."</p>
+
+<p>Again he observed that his visitor drew a little, swift, sharp breath,
+and that he seemed to be laboring under some excitement.</p>
+
+<p>However, Ste. Marie did not question him further, and so he went on to
+tell the little more he knew of the matter--how the four people had
+remained for an hour or more, trying many poses; how they had returned, all
+but the tall gentleman, three days later to see the proofs and to order
+certain ones to be printed (the young man paying on the spot in advance),
+and how the finished prints had been sent to M. le Capitaine Stewart's
+address.</p>
+
+<p>When he had finished, his visitor sat for a long time silent, his head
+bent a little, frowning upon the floor and chafing his hands together over
+his knees. But at last he rose rather abruptly. He said:</p>
+
+<p>"Thank you very much, indeed. You have done me a great service. If ever
+I can repay it, command me. Thank you!"</p>
+
+<p>The Jew protested, smiling, that he was still too deeply in debt to M.
+Ste. Marie, and so, politely wrangling, they reached the door, and with a
+last expression of gratitude the visitor departed down the stair. A client
+came in just <a name="Page_147"></a>then for a sitting, and so the little
+photographer did not have an opportunity to wonder over the rather odd
+affair as much as he might have done. Indeed, in the press of work, it
+slipped from his mind altogether.</p>
+
+<p>But down in the busy boulevard Ste. Marie stood hesitating on the curb.
+There were so many things to be done, in the light of these new
+developments, that he did not know what to do first.</p>
+
+<p>"Mlle. Coira O'Hara!--<i>Mademoiselle!</i>" The thought gave him a
+sudden sting of inexplicable relief and pleasure. She would be O'Hara's
+daughter, then. And the boy, Arthur Benham (there was no room for doubt in
+the photographer's description) had seemed to be badly in love with her.
+This was a new development, indeed! It wanted thought, reflection,
+consultation with Richard Hartley. He signalled to a fiacre, and when it
+had drawn up before him sprang into it and gave Richard Hartley's address
+in the Avenue de l'Observatoire. But when they had gone a little way he
+changed his mind and gave another address, one in the Boulevard de la Tour
+Maubourg. It was where Mlle. Olga Nilssen lived. She had told him when he
+parted from her the evening before.</p>
+
+<p>On the way he fell to thinking of what he had learned from the little
+photographer Bernstein, to setting the facts, as well as he could, in
+order, endeavoring to make out just how much or how little they signified
+by themselves or added to what he had known before. But he was in far too
+keen a state of excitement to review them at all calmly. As on the previous
+evening, they seemed to him to loom to the skies, and again he saw himself
+successful in his quest--victorious--triumphant. That this leap to
+conclusions was but a little less absurd than the first did not occur to <a
+name="Page_148"></a>him. He was in a fine fever of enthusiasm, and such
+difficulties as his eye perceived lay in a sort of vague mist to be
+dissipated later on, when he should sit quietly down with Hartley and sift
+the wheat from the chaff, laying out a definite scheme of action.</p>
+
+<p>It occurred to him that in his interview with the photographer he had
+forgotten one point, and he determined to go back, later on, and ask about
+it. He had forgotten to inquire as to Captain Stewart's attitude toward the
+beautiful lady. Young Arthur Benham's infatuation had filled his mind at
+the time, and had driven out of it what Olga Nilssen had told him about
+Stewart. He found himself wondering if this point might not be one of great
+importance--the rivalry of the two men for O'Hara's daughter. Assuredly
+that demanded thought and investigation.</p>
+
+<p>He found the prettily furnished apartment in the Avenue de la Tour
+Maubourg a scene of great disorder, presided over by a maid who seemed to
+be packing enormous quantities of garments into large trunks. The maid told
+him that her mistress, after a sleepless night, had departed from Paris by
+an early train, quite alone, leaving the servant to follow on when she had
+telegraphed or written an address. No, Mlle. Nilssen had left no address at
+all--not even for letters or telegrams. In short, the entire proceeding
+was, so the exasperated woman viewed it, everything that is imbecile.</p>
+
+<p>Ste. Marie sat down on a hamper with his stick between his knees, and
+wrote a little note to be sent on when Mlle. Nilssen's whereabouts should
+be known. It was unfortunate, he reflected, that she should have fled away
+just now, but not of great importance to him, because he did not believe
+that he could learn very much more from <a name="Page_149"></a>her than he
+had learned already. Moreover, he sympathized with her desire to get away
+from Paris--as far away as possible from the man whom she had seen in so
+horrible a state on the evening past.</p>
+
+<p>He had kept the fiacre at the door, and he drove at once back to the rue
+d'Assas. As he started to mount the stair the concierge came out of her
+loge to say that Mr. Hartley had called soon after Monsieur had left the
+house that morning, had seemed very much disappointed on not finding
+Monsieur, and before going away again had had himself let into Monsieur's
+apartment with the key of the femme de m&eacute;nage, and had written a
+note which Monsieur would find l&agrave; haut.</p>
+
+<p>Ste. Marie thanked the woman, and went on up to his rooms, wondering why
+Hartley had bothered to leave a note instead of waiting or returning at
+lunch-time, as he usually did. He found the communication on his table and
+read it at once. Hartley said:</p>
+
+<p>I have to go across the river to the Bristol to see some relatives who
+are turning up there to-day, and who will probably keep me until evening,
+and then I shall have to go back there to dine. So I'm leaving a word for
+you about some things I discovered last evening. I met Miss Benham at
+Armenonville, where I dined, and in a t&ecirc;te-&agrave;-t&ecirc;te
+conversation we had after dinner she let fall two facts which seem to me
+very important. They concern Captain S. In the first place, when he told us
+that day, some time ago, that he knew nothing about his father's will or
+any changes that might have been made in it, he lied. It seems that old
+David, shortly after the boy's disappearance, being very angry at what he
+considered, and still considers, a bit of spite on the boy's part, cut
+young Arthur Benham out of his will and transferred that share <a
+name="Page_150"></a>to <i>Captain S.</i> (Miss Benham learned this from the
+old man only yesterday). Also it appears that he did this after talking the
+matter over with Captain S., who affected unwillingness. So, as the will
+reads now, Miss B. and Captain S. stand to share equally the bulk of the
+old man's money, which is several millions--in dollars, of course. Miss
+B.'s mother is to have the interest of half of both shares as long as she
+lives. Now mark this: Prior to this new arrangement, Captain S. was to
+receive only a small legacy, on the ground that he already had a
+respectable fortune left him by his mother, old David's first wife (I've
+heard, by-the-way, that he has squandered a good share of this.)</p>
+
+<p>Miss B. is, of course, much cut up over the injustice to the boy, but
+she can't protest too much, as it only excites old David. She says the old
+man is much weaker.</p>
+
+<p>You see, of course, the significance of all this. If David Stewart dies,
+as he's likely to do, before young Arthur's return, Captain S. gets the
+money.</p>
+
+<p>The second fact I learned was that Miss Benham did not tell her uncle
+about her semi-engagement to you or about your volunteering to search for
+the boy. She thinks her grandfather must have told him. I didn't say so to
+her, but that is hardly possible in view of the fact that Stewart came on
+here to your rooms very soon after you had reached them yourself.</p>
+
+<p>So that makes two lies for our gentle friend--and serious lies, both of
+them. To my mind, they point unmistakably to a certain conclusion.
+<i>Captain S. has been responsible for putting his nephew out of the
+way</i>. He has either hidden him somewhere and is keeping him in
+confinement, or he has killed him.</p>
+
+<p>I wish we could talk it over to-day, but, as you see, I'm helpless.
+Remain in to-night, and I'll come as soon as I can get rid of these
+confounded people of mine.</p>
+
+<p>One word more. Be careful! Miss B. is, up to this <a
+name="Page_151"></a>point, merely puzzled over things. She doesn't suspect
+her uncle of any crookedness, I'm sure. So we shall have to tread softly
+where she is concerned.</p>
+
+<p>I shall see you to-night. R.H.</p>
+
+<p>Ste. Marie read the closely written pages through twice, and he thought
+how like his friend it was to take the time and trouble to put what he had
+learned into this clear, concise form. Another man would have scribbled,
+"Important facts--tell you all about it to-night," or something of that
+kind. Hartley must have spent a quarter of an hour over his writing.</p>
+
+<p>Ste. Marie walked up and down the room with all his strength forcing his
+brain to quiet, reasonable action. Once he said, aloud:</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, you're right, of course. Stewart has been at the bottom of it all
+along." He realized that he had been for some days slowly arriving at that
+conclusion, and that since the night before he had been practically certain
+of it, though he had not yet found time to put his suspicions into logical
+order. Hartley's letter had driven the truth concretely home to him, but he
+would have reached the same truth without it--though that matter of the
+will was of the greatest importance. It gave him a strong weapon to strike
+with.</p>
+
+<p>He halted before one of the front windows, and his eyes gazed unseeing
+across the street into the green shrubbery of the Luxembourg Gardens. The
+lace curtains had been left by the femme de m&eacute;nage hanging straight
+down, and not, as usual, looped back to either side, so he could see
+through them with perfect ease, although he could not be seen from
+outside.</p>
+
+<p><a name="Page_152"></a>He became aware that a man who was walking slowly
+up and down a path inside the high iron palings was in some way familiar to
+him, and his eyes sharpened. The man was inconspicuously dressed, and
+looked like almost any other man whom one might pass in the streets without
+taking any notice of him; but Ste. Marie knew that he had seen him often,
+and he wondered how and where. There was a row of lilac shrubs against the
+iron palings just inside and between the palings and the path, but two of
+the shrubs were dead and leafless, and each time the man passed this spot
+he came into plain view; each time, also, he directed an oblique glance
+toward the house opposite. Presently he turned aside and sat down upon one
+of the public benches, where he was almost, but not quite, hidden by the
+intervening foliage.</p>
+
+<p>Then at last Ste. Marie gave a sudden exclamation and smote his hands
+together.</p>
+
+<p>"The fellow's a spy!" he cried, aloud. "He's watching the house to see
+when I go out." He began to remember how he had seen the man in the street
+and in caf&eacute;s and restaurants, and he remembered that he had once or
+twice thought it odd, but without any second thought of suspicion. So the
+fellow had been set to spy upon him, watch his goings and comings and
+report them to--no need of asking to whom.</p>
+
+<p>Ste. Marie stood behind his curtains and looked across into the pleasant
+expanse of shrubbery and greensward. He was wondering if it would be worth
+while to do anything. Men and women went up and down the path, hurrying or
+slowly, at ease with the world--laborers, students, bonnes with
+market-baskets in their hands and long bread loaves under their arms,
+nurse-maids herding small <a name="Page_153"></a>children, bigger children
+spinning diabolo spools as they walked. A man with a pointed black beard
+and a soft hat passed once and returned to seat himself upon the public
+bench that Ste. Marie was watching. For some minutes he sat there idle,
+holding the soft felt hat upon his knees for coolness. Then he turned and
+looked at the other occupant of the bench, and Ste. Marie thought he saw
+the other man nod, though he could not be sure whether either one spoke or
+not. Presently the new-comer rose, put on the soft hat again, and
+disappeared down the path going toward the gate at the head of the rue du
+Luxembourg.</p>
+
+<p>Five minutes later the door-bell rang.</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+
+
+
+<a name="Page_154"></a><h2><a name='XIII'></a>XIII</h2>
+
+<h3>THE VOYAGE TO COLCHIS</h3>
+
+
+<p>Ste. Marie turned away from the window and crossed to the door. The man
+with the pointed beard removed his soft hat, bowed very politely, and asked
+if he had the honor to address M. Ste. Marie.</p>
+
+<p>"That is my name," said Ste. Marie. "Entrez, Monsieur!" He waved his
+visitor to a chair and stood waiting.</p>
+
+<p>The man with the beard bowed once more. He said:</p>
+
+<p>"I have not the great honor of Monsieur's acquaintance, but
+circumstances, which I will explain later, have put it in my power--have
+made it a sacred duty, if I may be permitted to say the word--to place in
+Monsieur's hands a piece of information."</p>
+
+<p>Ste. Marie smiled slightly and sat down. He said:</p>
+
+<p>"I listen with pleasure--and anticipation. Pray go on!"</p>
+
+<p>"I have information," said the visitor, "of the whereabouts of M. Arthur
+Benham."</p>
+
+<p>Ste. Marie waved his hand.</p>
+
+<p>"I feared as much," said he. "I mean to say, I hoped so. Proceed,
+Monsieur!"</p>
+
+<p>"And learning," continued the other, "that M. Ste. Marie was conducting
+a search for that young gentleman, I hastened at once to place this
+information in his hands."</p>
+
+<p>"At a price," suggested his host. "At a price, to be sure."</p>
+
+<p><a name="Page_155"></a>The man with the beard spread out his hands in a
+beautiful and eloquent gesture which well accompanied his Marseillais
+accent.</p>
+
+<p>"Ah, as to that!" he protested. "My circumstances--I am poor, Monsieur.
+One must gain the livelihood. What would you? A trifle. The merest
+trifle."</p>
+
+<p>"Where is Arthur Benham?" asked Ste. Marie.</p>
+
+<p>"In Marseilles, Monsieur. I saw him a week ago--six days. And, so far as
+I could learn, he had no intention of leaving there immediately--though it
+is, to be sure, hot."</p>
+
+<p>Ste. Marie laughed a laugh of genuine amusement, and the man with the
+pointed beard stared at him with some wonder. Ste. Marie rose and crossed
+the room to a writing-desk which stood against the opposite wall. He
+fumbled in a drawer of this, and returned holding in his hand a
+pink-and-blue note of the Banque de France. He said:</p>
+
+<p>"Monsieur--pardon! I have forgotten to ask the name--you have remarked
+quite truly that one must gain a livelihood. Therefore, I do not presume to
+criticise the way in which you gain yours. Sometimes one cannot choose.
+However, I should like to make a little bargain with you, Monsieur. I know,
+of course, being not altogether imbecile, who sent you here with this story
+and why you were sent--why, also, your friend who sits upon the bench in
+the garden across the street follows me about and spies upon me. I know all
+this, and I laugh at it a little. But, Monsieur, to amuse myself further, I
+have a desire to hear from your own lips the name of the gentleman who is
+your employer. Amusement is almost always expensive, and so I am prepared
+to pay for this. I have here a note of one hundred francs. It is yours in
+return for the name--the <i>right</i> name. Remember, I know it
+already."</p>
+
+<p><a name="Page_156"></a>The man with the pointed beard sprang to his feet
+quivering with righteous indignation. All Southern Frenchmen, like all
+other Latins, are magnificent actors. He shook one clinched hand in the
+air, his face was pale, and his fine eyes glittered. Richard Hartley would
+have put himself promptly in an attitude of defence, but Ste. Marie nodded
+a smiling head in appreciation. He was half a Southern Frenchman
+himself.</p>
+
+<p>"Monsieur!" cried his visitor, in a choked voice, "Monsieur, have a
+care! You insult me! Have a care, Monsieur! I am dangerous! My anger, when
+roused, is terrible!"</p>
+
+<p>"I am cowed," observed Ste. Marie, lighting a cigarette. "I quail."</p>
+
+<p>"Never," declaimed the gentleman from Marseilles, "have I received an
+insult without returning blow for blow! My blood boils!"</p>
+
+<p>"The hundred francs, Monsieur," said Ste. Marie, "will doubtless cool
+it. Besides, we stray from our sheep. Reflect, my friend! I have not
+insulted you. I have asked you a simple question. To be sure, I have said
+that I knew your errand here was not--not altogether sincere, but I
+protest, Monsieur, that no blame attaches to yourself. The blame is your
+employer's. You have performed your mission with the greatest of
+honesty--the most delicate and faithful sense of honor. That is
+understood."</p>
+
+<p>The gentleman with the beard strode across to one of the windows and
+leaned his head upon his hand. His shoulders still heaved with emotion, but
+he no longer trembled. The terrible crisis bade fair to pass. Then,
+abruptly, in the frank and open Latin way, he burst into tears, and wept
+with copious profusion, while Ste. Marie smoked his cigarette and
+waited.</p>
+
+<p><a name="Page_157"></a>When at length the Marseillais turned back into
+the room he was calm once more, but there remained traces of storm and
+flood. He made a gesture of indescribable and pathetic resignation.</p>
+
+<p>"Monsieur," he exclaimed, "you have a heart of gold--of gold, Monsieur!
+You understand. Behold us, two men of honor! Monsieur," he said, "I had no
+choice. I was poor. I saw myself face to face with the mis&egrave;re. What
+would you? I fell. We are all weak flesh. I accepted the commission of the
+pig who sent me here to you."</p>
+
+<p>Ste. Marie smoothed the pink-and-blue bank-note in his hands, and the
+other man's eye clung to it as though he were starving and the bank-note
+was food.</p>
+
+<p>"The name?" prompted Ste. Marie.</p>
+
+<p>The gentleman from Marseilles tossed up his hands.</p>
+
+<p>"Monsieur already knows it. Why should I hesitate? The name is
+Ducrot."</p>
+
+<p>"What!" cried Ste. Marie, sharply. "What is that? Ducrot?"</p>
+
+<p>"But naturally!" said the other man, with some wonder. "Monsieur said he
+knew. Certainly, Ducrot. A little, withered man, bald on the top of the
+head, creases down the cheeks, a mustache like this"--he made a descriptive
+gesture--"a little chin. A man like an elderly cat. M. Ducrot."</p>
+
+<p>Ste. Marie gave a sigh of relief.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, yes," said he. "Ducrot is as good a name as another. The gentleman
+has more than one, it appears. Monsieur, the hundred-franc note is
+yours."</p>
+
+<p>The gentleman from Marseilles took it with a slightly trembling hand,
+and began to bow himself toward the door <a name="Page_158"></a>as if he
+feared that his host would experience a change of heart; but Ste. Marie
+checked him, saying:</p>
+
+<p>"One moment. I was thinking," said he, "that you would perhaps not care
+to present yourself to your--employer, M. Ducrot, immediately--not for a
+few days, at least, in view of the fact that certain actions of mine will
+show him your mission has--well, miscarried. It would, perhaps, be well for
+you not to communicate with M. Ducrot. He might be displeased with
+you."</p>
+
+<p>"Monsieur," said the gentleman with the beard, "you speak with acumen
+and wisdom. I shall neglect to report myself to M. Ducrot, who, I repeat,
+is a pig."</p>
+
+<p>"And," pursued Ste. Marie, "the individual on the bench across the
+street?"</p>
+
+<p>"It is not necessary that I meet that individual, either!" said the
+Marseillais, hastily. "Monsieur, I bid you adieu!" He bowed again, a
+profound, a scraping bow, and disappeared through the door.</p>
+
+<p>Ste. Marie crossed to the window and looked down upon the pavement
+below. He saw his late visitor emerge from the house and slip rapidly down
+the street toward the rue Vavin. He glanced across into the gardens and the
+spy still sat there on his bench, but his head lay back and he slept--the
+sleep of the unjust. One imagined that he must be snoring, for an
+incredibly small urchin in a blue apron stood on the path before him and
+watched with the open mouth of astonishment.</p>
+
+<p>Ste. Marie turned back into the room, and began to tramp up and down as
+was his way in a perplexity or in any time of serious thought. He wished
+very much that Richard Hartley were there to consult with. He considered
+Hartley to have a judicial mind--a mind to establish, <a
+name="Page_159"></a>out of confusion, something like logical order, and he
+was very well aware that he himself had not that sort of mind at all. In
+action he was sufficiently confident of himself, but to construct a course
+of action he was afraid, and he knew that a misstep now, at this critical
+point, might be fatal--turn success into disaster.</p>
+
+<p>He fell to thinking of Captain Stewart (alias M. Ducrot) and he longed
+most passionately to leap into a fiacre at the corner below, to drive at a
+gallop across the city to the rue du Faubourg St. Honor&eacute;, to fall
+upon that smiling hypocrite in his beautiful treasure-house, to seize him
+by the withered throat and say:</p>
+
+<p>"Tell me what you have done with Arthur Benham before I tear your head
+from your miserable body!"</p>
+
+<p>Indeed, he was far from sure that this was not what it would come to, in
+the end, for he reflected that he had not only a tremendous accumulation of
+evidence with which to face Captain Stewart, but also a very terrible
+weapon to hold over his head--the threat of exposure to the old man who lay
+slowly dying in the rue de l'Universit&eacute;! A few words in old David's
+ear, a few proofs of their truth, and the great fortune for which the son
+had sold his soul--if he had any left to sell--must pass forever out of his
+reach, like gold seen in a dream.</p>
+
+<p>This is what it might well come to, he said to himself. Indeed, it
+seemed to him at that moment far the most feasible plan, for to such
+accusations, such demands as that, Captain Stewart could offer no defence.
+To save himself from a more complete ruin he would have to give up the boy
+or tell what he knew of him. But Ste. Marie was unwilling to risk
+everything on this throw without <a name="Page_160"></a>seeing Richard
+Hartley first, and Hartley was not to be had until evening.</p>
+
+<p>He told himself that, after all, there was no immediate hurry, for he
+was quite sure the man would be compelled to keep to his bed for a day or
+two. He did not know much about epilepsy, but he knew that its paroxysms
+were followed by great exhaustion, and he felt sure that Stewart was far
+too weak in body to recuperate quickly from any severe call upon his
+strength. He remembered how light that burden had been in his arms the
+night before, and then an uncontrollable shiver of disgust went over him as
+he remembered the sight of the horribly twisted and contorted face, felt
+again the shaking, thumping head as it beat against his shoulder. He
+wondered how much Stewart knew, how much he would be able to remember of
+the events of the evening before, and he was at a loss there because of his
+unfamiliarity with epileptic seizures. Of one thing, however, he was almost
+certain, and that was that the man could scarcely have been conscious of
+who were beside him when the fit was over. If he had come at all to his
+proper senses before the ensuing slumber of exhaustion, it must have been
+after Mlle. Nilssen and himself had gone away.</p>
+
+<p>Upon that he fell to wondering about the spy and the gentleman from
+Marseilles--he was a little sorry that Hartley could not have seen the
+gentleman from Marseilles--but he reflected that the two were, without
+doubt, acting upon old orders, and that the latter had probably been
+stalking him for some days before he found him at home.</p>
+
+<p>He looked at his watch and it was half-past twelve. There was nothing to
+be done, he considered, but wait--get through the day somehow; and so,
+presently, he went <a name="Page_161"></a>out to lunch. He went up the rue
+Vavin to the Boulevard Montparnasse and down that broad thoroughfare to
+Lavenue's, on the busy Place de Rennes, where the cooking is the best in
+all this quarter, and can, indeed, hold up its head without shame in the
+face of those other more widely famous restaurants across the river,
+frequented by the smart world and by the travelling gourmet.</p>
+
+<p>He went through to the inner room, which is built like a raised loggia
+round two sides of a little garden, and which is always cool and fresh in
+summer. He ordered a rather elaborate lunch, and thought that he sat a very
+long time at it, but when he looked again at his watch only an hour and a
+half had gone by. It was a quarter-past two. Ste. Marie was depressed.
+There remained almost all of the afternoon to be got through, and Heaven
+alone could say how much of the evening, before he could have his
+consultation with Richard Hartley. He tried to think of some way of passing
+the time, but although he was not usually at a loss he found his mind empty
+of ideas. None of his common occupations recommended themselves to him. He
+knew that whatever he tried to do he would interrupt it with pulling out
+his watch every half-hour or so and cursing the time because it lagged so
+slowly. He went out to the terrace for coffee, very low in his mind.</p>
+
+<p>But half an hour later, as he sat behind his little marble-topped table,
+smoking and sipping a liqueur, his eyes fell upon something across the
+square which brought him to his feet with a sudden exclamation. One of the
+big electric trams that ply between the Place St. Germain des Pr&eacute;s
+and Clamart, by way of the Porte de Versailles and Vanves, was dragging its
+unwieldy bulk round the turn from the rue de Rennes into the boulevard. He
+could <a name="Page_162"></a>see the sign-board along the
+imp&eacute;riale--"Clamart-St. Germain des Pr&eacute;s," with "Issy" and
+"Vanves" in brackets between.</p>
+
+<p>Ste. Marie clinked a franc upon the table and made off across the Place
+at a run. Omnibuses from Batignolles and Menilmontant got in his way,
+fiacres tried to run him down, and a motor-car in a hurry pulled up just in
+time to save his life, but Ste. Marie ran on and caught the tram before it
+had completed the negotiation of the long curve and gathered speed for its
+dash down the boulevard. He sprang upon the step, and the conductor
+reluctantly unfastened the chain to admit him. So he climbed up to the top
+and seated himself, panting. The dial high on the fa&ccedil;ade of the Gare
+Montparnasse said ten minutes to three.</p>
+
+<p>He had no definite plan of action. He had started off in this headlong
+fashion upon the spur of a moment's impulse, and because he knew where the
+tram was going. Now, embarked, he began to wonder if he was not a fool. He
+knew every foot of the way to Clamart, for it was a favorite half-day's
+excursion with him to ride there in this fashion, walk thence through the
+beautiful Meudon wood across to the river, and from Bellevue or Bas-Meudon
+take a Suresnes boat back into the city. He knew, or thought he knew, just
+where lay the house, surrounded by garden and half-wild park, of which Olga
+Nilssen had told him; he had often wondered whose place it was as the tram
+rolled along the length of its high wall. But he knew, also, that he could
+do nothing there, single-handed and without excuse or preparation. He could
+not boldly ring the bell, demand speech with Mile. Coira O'Hara, and ask
+her if she knew anything of the whereabouts of young Arthur Benham, whom a
+photographer had suspected of being in love with <a
+name="Page_163"></a>her. He certainly could not do that. And there seemed
+to be nothing else that--Ste. Marie broke off this somewhat despondent
+course of reasoning with a sudden little voiceless cry. For the first time
+it occurred to him to connect the house on the Clamart road and Mlle. Coira
+O'Hara and young Arthur Benham (it will be remembered that the man had not
+yet had time to arrange his suddenly acquired mass of evidence in logical
+order and to make deductions from it), for the first time he began to put
+two and two together. Stewart had hidden away his nephew; this nephew was
+known to have been much enamoured of the girl Coira O'Hara; Coira O'Hara
+was said to be living--with her father, probably--in the house on the
+outskirts of Paris, where she was visited by Captain Stewart. Was not the
+inference plain enough--sufficiently reasonable? It left, without doubt,
+many puzzling things to be explained--perhaps too many; but Ste. Marie sat
+forward in his seat, his eyes gleaming, his face tense with excitement.</p>
+
+<p>"Is young Arthur Benham in the house on the Clamart road?"</p>
+
+<p>He said the words almost aloud, and he became aware that the fat woman
+with a live fowl at her feet and the butcher's boy on his other side were
+looking at him curiously. He realized that he was behaving in an excited
+manner, and so sat back and lowered his eyes. But over and over within him
+the words said themselves--over and over, until they made a sort of mad,
+foolish refrain.</p>
+
+<p>"Is Arthur Benham in the house on the Clamart road? Is Arthur Benham in
+the house on the Clamart road?" He was afraid that he would say it aloud
+once more, and, he tried to keep a firm hold upon himself.</p>
+
+<p><a name="Page_164"></a>The tram swung into the rue de Sevres, and rolled
+smoothly out the long, uninteresting stretch of the rue Lecourbe, far out
+to where the houses, became scattered, where mounds and pyramids of red
+tiles stood alongside the factory where they had been made, where an acre
+of little glass hemispheres in long, straight rows winked and glistened in
+the afternoon sun--the forcing-beds of some market gardener; out to the
+Porte de Versailles at the city wall, where a group of customs officers
+sprawled at ease before their little sentry-box or loafed over to inspect
+an incoming tram.</p>
+
+<p>A bugle sounded and a drum beat from the great fosse under the wall, and
+a company of piou-pious, red-capped, red-trousered, shambled through their
+evolutions in a manner to break the heart of a British or a German
+drill-sergeant. Then out past level fields to little Vanves, with its steep
+streets and its old gray church, and past the splendid grounds of the
+Lyc&eacute;e beyond. The fat woman got down, her live fowl shrieking
+protest to the movement, and the butcher's boy got down, too, so that Ste.
+Marie was left alone upon the imp&eacute;riale save for a snuffy old
+gentleman in a pot-hat who sat in a corner buried behind the day's
+<i>Droits de l'Homme</i>.</p>
+
+<p>Ste. Marie moved forward once more and laid his arms upon the iron rail
+before him. They were coming near. They ran past plum and apple orchards
+and past humble little detached villas, each with a bit of garden in front
+and an acacia or two at the gate-posts. But presently, on the right, the
+way began to be bordered by a high stone wall, very long, behind which
+showed the trees of a park, and among them, far back from the wall beyond a
+little rise of ground, the gables and chimneys of a house could <a
+name="Page_165"></a>be made out. The wall went on for perhaps a quarter of
+a mile in a straight sweep, but half-way the road swung apart from it to
+the left, dipped under a stone railway bridge, and so presently ended at
+the village of Clamart.</p>
+
+<p>As the tram approached the beginning of that long stone wall it began to
+slacken speed, there was a grating noise from underneath, and presently it
+came to an abrupt halt. Ste. Marie looked over the guard-rail and saw that
+the driver had left his place and was kneeling in the dust beside the car
+peering at its underworks. The conductor strolled round to him after a
+moment and stood indifferently by, remarking upon the strange vicissitudes
+to which electrical propulsion is subject. The driver, without looking up,
+called his colleague a number of the most surprising and, it is to be
+hoped, unwarranted names, and suddenly began to burrow under the tram,
+wriggling his way after the manner of a serpent until nothing could be seen
+of him but two unrestful feet. His voice, though muffled, was still
+tolerably distinct. It cursed, in an unceasing staccato and with admirable
+ingenuity, the tram, the conductor, the sacred dog of an impediment which
+had got itself wedged into one of the trucks, and the world in general.</p>
+
+<p>Ste. Marie, sitting aloft, laughed for a moment, and then turned his
+eager eyes upon what lay across the road. The halt had taken place almost
+exactly at the beginning of that long stretch of park wall which ran beside
+the road and the tramway. From where he sat he could see the other wing
+which led inward from the road at something like a right angle, but was
+presently lost to sight because of a sparse and unkempt patch of young
+trees and shrubs, well-nigh choked with undergrowth, which extended for
+some <a name="Page_166"></a>distance from the park wall backward along the
+road-side toward Vanves. Whoever owned that stretch of land had seemingly
+not thought it worth while to cultivate it or to build upon it or even to
+clear it off.</p>
+
+<p>Ste. Marie's first thought, as his eye scanned the two long stretches of
+wall and looked over their tops to the trees of the park and the far-off
+gables and chimneys of the house, was to wonder where the entrance to the
+place could be, and he decided that it must be on the side opposite to the
+Clamart tram-line. He did not know the smaller roads hereabouts, but he
+guessed that there must be one somewhere beyond, between the route de
+Clamart and Fort d'Issy, and he was right. There is a little road between
+the two; it sweeps round in a long curve and ends near the tiny public
+garden in Issy, and it is called the rue Barb&eacute;s.</p>
+
+<p>His second thought was that this unkempt patch of tree and brush offered
+excellent cover for any one who might wish to pass an observant hour
+alongside that high stone wall; for any one who might desire to cast a
+glance over the lie of the land, to see at closer range that house of which
+so little could be seen from the route de Clamart, to look over the wall's
+coping into park and garden.</p>
+
+<p>The thought brought him to his feet with a leaping heart, and before he
+realized that he had moved he found himself in the road beside the halted
+tram. The conductor brushed past him, mounting to his place, and from the
+platform beckoned, crying out:</p>
+
+<p>"En voiture, Monsieur! En voiture!"</p>
+
+<p>Again something within Ste. Marie that was not his conscious direction
+acted for him, and he shook his head. The conductor gave two little blasts
+upon his horn, the tram <a name="Page_167"></a>wheezed and moved forward.
+In a moment it was on its way, swinging along at full speed toward the
+curve in the line that bore to the left and dipped under the railway
+bridge. Ste. Marie stood in the middle of that empty road, staring after it
+until it had disappeared from view.</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+
+
+
+<a name="Page_168"></a><h2><a name='XIV'></a>XIV</h2>
+
+<h3>THE WALLS OF AEA</h3>
+
+
+<p>Ste. Marie had acted upon an impulse of which he was scarcely conscious
+at all, and when he found himself standing alone in the road and watching
+the Clamart tram disappear under the railway bridge he called himself hard
+names and wondered what he was to do next. He looked before and behind him,
+and there was no living soul in sight. He bent his eyes again upon that
+unkempt patch of young trees and undergrowth, and once more the thought
+forced itself to his brain that it would make excellent cover for one who
+wished to observe a little--to reconnoitre.</p>
+
+<p>He knew that it was the part of wisdom to turn his back upon this place,
+to walk on to Clamart or return to Vanves and mount upon a homeward-bound
+tram. He knew that it was the part of folly, of madness even, to expose
+himself to possible discovery by some one within the walled enclosure. What
+though no one there were able to recognize him, still the sight of a man
+prowling about the walls, seeking to spy over them, might excite an alarm
+that would lead to all sorts of undesirable complications. Dimly Ste. Marie
+realized all this, and he tried to turn his back and walk away, but the
+patch of little trees and shrubbery drew him with an irresistible
+fascination. "Just a little <a name="Page_169"></a>look along that unknown
+wall," he said to himself, "just the briefest of all brief reconnaissances,
+the merest glance beyond the masking screen of wood growth, so that in case
+of sudden future need he might have the lie of the place clear in his
+mind;" for without any sound reason for it he was somehow confident that
+this walled house and garden were to play an important part in the rescue
+of Arthur Benham. It was once more a matter of feeling. The rather
+womanlike intuition which had warned him that O'Hara was concerned in young
+Benham's disappearance, and that the two were not far from Paris, was again
+at work in him, and he trusted it as he had done before.</p>
+
+<p>He gave a little nod of determination, as one who, for good or ill,
+casts a die, and he crossed the road. There was a deep ditch, and he had to
+climb down into it and up its farther side, for it was too broad to be
+jumped. So he came into the shelter of the young poplars and elms and oaks.
+The underbrush caught at his clothes, and the dead leaves of past seasons
+crackled underfoot; but after a little space he came to somewhat clearer
+ground, though the saplings still stood thick about him and hid him
+securely.</p>
+
+<p>He made his way inward along the wall, keeping a short distance back
+from it, and he saw that after twenty or thirty yards it turned again at a
+very obtuse angle away from him and once more ran on in a long straight
+line. Just beyond this angle he came upon a little wooden door thickly
+studded with nails. It was made to open inward, and on the outside there
+was no knob or handle of any kind, only a large key-hole of the simple,
+old-fashioned sort. Slipping up near to look, Ste. Marie observed that the
+edges of the key-hole were rusty, but scratched a little through the rust
+with <a name="Page_170"></a>recent marks; so the door, it seemed, was
+sometimes used. He observed another thing. The ground near by was less
+encumbered with trees than at any other point, and the turf was depressed
+with many wheel marks--broad marks, such as are made only by the wheels of
+a motor-car. He followed these tracks for a little distance, and they wound
+in and out among the trees, and beyond the thin fringe of wood swept away
+in a curve toward Issy, doubtless to join the road which he had already
+imagined to lie somewhere beyond the enclosure.</p>
+
+<p>Beyond the more open space about this little door the young trees stood
+thick together again, and Ste. Marie pressed cautiously on. He stopped now
+and then to listen, and once he thought that he heard from within the sound
+of a woman's laugh, but he could not be sure. The slight change of
+direction had confused him a little, and he was uncertain as to where the
+house lay. The wall was twelve or fifteen feet high, and from the level of
+the ground he could, of course, see nothing over it but tree tops. He went
+on for what may have been a hundred yards, but it seemed to him very much
+more than that, and he came to a tall gnarled cedar-tree which stood almost
+against the high wall. It was half dead, but its twisted limbs were thick
+and strong, and by force of the tree's cramped position they had grown in
+strange and grotesque forms. One of them stretched across the very top of
+the stone wall, and with the wind's action it had scraped away the coping
+of tiles and bottle-glass and had made a little depression there to rest
+in.</p>
+
+<p>Ste. Marie looked up along this natural ladder, and temptation smote him
+sorely. It was so easy and so safe! There was enough foliage left upon the
+half-dead tree to screen him well, but whether or no it is probable that he
+<a name="Page_171"></a>would have yielded to the proffered lure. There
+seems to have been more than chance in Ste. Marie's movements upon this
+day; there seems to have been something like the hand of Fate in them--as
+doubtless there is in most things, if one but knew.</p>
+
+<p>He left his hat and stick behind him, under a shrub, and he began to
+make his way up the half-bare branches of the gnarled cedar. They bore him
+well, without crack or rustle, and the way was very easy. No ladder made by
+man could have offered a much simpler ascent. So, mounting slowly and with
+care, his head came level with the top of the wall. He climbed to the next
+branch, a foot higher, and rested there. The drooping foliage from the
+upper part of the cedar-tree, which was still alive, hung down over him and
+cloaked him from view, but through its aromatic screen he could see as
+freely as through the window curtain in the rue d'Assas.</p>
+
+<p>The house lay before him, a little to the left and perhaps a hundred
+yards away. It was a disappointing house to find in that great enclosure,
+for though it was certainly neither small nor trivial, it was as certainly
+far from possessing anything like grandeur. It had been in its day a
+respectable, unpretentious square structure of three stories, entirely
+without architectural beauty, but also entirely without the ornate
+hideousness of the modern villas along the route de Clamart. Now, however,
+the stucco was gone in great patches from its stone walls, giving them an
+unpleasantly diseased look, and long neglect of all decent cares had lent
+the place the air almost of desertion. Anciently the grounds before the
+house had been laid out in the formal fashion with a terrace and
+geometrical lawns and a pool and a fountain and a rather fine, long vista
+<a name="Page_172"></a>between clipped larches, but the same neglect which
+had made shabby the stuccoed house had allowed grass and weeds to grow over
+the gravel paths, underbrush to spring up and to encroach upon the
+geometrical turf-plots, the long double row of clipped larches to flourish
+at will or to die or to fall prostrate and lie where they had fallen.</p>
+
+<p>So all the broad enclosure was a scene of heedless neglect, a riot of
+unrestrained and wanton growth, where should have been decorous and orderly
+beauty. It was a sight to bring tears to a gardener's eyes, but it had a
+certain untamed charm of its own, for all that. The very riot of it, the
+wanton prodigality of untouched natural growth, produced an effect that was
+by no means all disagreeable.</p>
+
+<p>An odd and whimsical thought came into Ste. Marie's mind that thus must
+have looked the garden and park round the castle of the sleeping beauty
+when the prince came to wake her.</p>
+
+<p>But sleeping beauties and unkempt grounds went from him in a flash when
+he became aware of a sound which was like the sound of voices.
+Instinctively he drew farther back into the shelter of his aromatic screen.
+His eyes swept the space below him from right to left, and could see no
+one. So he sat very still, save for the thunderous beat of a heart which
+seemed to him like drum-beats when soldiers are marching, and he
+listened--"all ears," as the phrase goes.</p>
+
+<p>The sound was in truth a sound of voices. He was presently assured of
+that, but for some time he could not make out from which direction it came.
+And so he was the more startled when quite suddenly there appeared from
+behind a row of tall shrubs two young people moving slowly together up the
+untrimmed turf in the direction of the house.</p>
+
+<p class="figure"> <a name="jason005"><img
+width="80%" alt="Illustration: THERE APPEARED TWO YOUNG PEOPLE MOVING
+SLOWLY IN THE DIRECTION OF THE HOUSE" src="images/jason005.png" /></a><br /> THERE
+APPEARED TWO YOUNG PEOPLE MOVING SLOWLY IN THE DIRECTION OF THE
+HOUSE</p>
+
+<p><a name="Page_173"></a>The two young people were Mlle. Coira O'Hara and
+Arthur Benham, and upon the brow of this latter youth there was no sign of
+dungeon pallor, upon his free-moving limbs no ball and chain. There was no
+apparent reason why he should not hasten back to the eager arms in the rue
+de l'Universit&eacute; if he chose to--unless, indeed, his undissembling
+attitude toward Mlle. Coira O'Hara might serve as a reason. The young man
+followed at her heel with much the manner and somewhat the appearance of a
+small dog humbly conscious of unworthiness, but hopeful nevertheless of an
+occasional kind word or pat on the head.</p>
+
+<p>The world wheeled multi-colored and kaleidoscopic before Ste. Marie's
+eyes, and in his ears there was a rushing of great winds, but he set his
+teeth and clung with all the strength he had to the tree which sheltered
+him. His first feeling, after that initial giddiness, was anger, sheer
+anger, a bewildered and astonished fury. He had thought to find this poor
+youth in captivity, pining through prison bars for the home and the loved
+ones and the familiar life from which he had been ruthlessly torn. Yet here
+he was strolling in a suburban garden with a lady--free, free as air, or so
+he seemed. Ste. Marie thought of the grim and sorrowful old man in Paris
+who was sinking untimely into his grave because his grandson did not return
+to him; he thought of that timid soul--more shadow than woman--the boy's
+mother; he thought of Helen Benham's tragic eyes, and he could have beaten
+young Arthur half to death in that moment in the righteous rage that
+stormed within him.</p>
+
+<p>But he turned his eyes from this wretched youth to the girl who walked
+beside, a little in advance, and the rage died in him swiftly.</p>
+
+<p><a name="Page_174"></a>After all, was she not one to make any boy--or
+any man--forget duty, home, friends, everything?</p>
+
+<p>Rather oddly his mind flashed back to the morning and to the words of
+the little photographer, Bernstein. Perhaps the Jew had put it as well as
+any man could:</p>
+
+<p>"She was a goddess, that lady, a queen of goddesses ... the young Juno
+before marriage...."</p>
+
+<p>Ste. Marie nodded his head. Yes, she was just that. The little Jew had
+spoken well. It could not be more fairly put--though without doubt it could
+have been expressed at much greater length and with a great deal more
+eloquence. The photographer's other words came also to his mind, the more
+detailed description, and again he nodded his head, for this, too, was
+true.</p>
+
+<p>"She was all color--brown skin with a dull-red stain under the cheeks,
+and a great mass of hair that was not black but very nearly black--except
+in the sun, and then there were red lights in it."</p>
+
+<p>It occurred to Ste. Marie, whimsically, that the two young people might
+have stepped out of the door of Bernstein's studio straight into this
+garden, judging from their bearing each to the other.</p>
+
+<p>"Ah, a thing to touch the heart! Such devotion as that! Alas, that the
+lady should seem so cold to it! ... Still, a goddess! What would you? A
+queen among goddesses! ... One would not have them laugh and make little
+jokes.... Make eyes at love-sick boys. No, indeed!"</p>
+
+<p>Certainly Mlle. Coira O'Hara was not making eyes at the love-sick boy
+who followed at her heel this afternoon. Perhaps it would be going too far
+to say that she was cold to him, but it was very plain to see that she was
+bored and weary, and that she wished she might be almost anywhere <a
+name="Page_175"></a>else than where she was. She turned her beautiful face
+a little toward the wall where Ste. Marie lay perdu, and he could see that
+her eyes had the same dark fire, the same tragic look of appeal that he had
+seen in them before--once in the Champs-Elys&eacute;es and again in his
+dreams.</p>
+
+<p>Abruptly he became aware that while he gazed, like a man in a trance,
+the two young people walked on their way and were on the point of passing
+beyond reach of eye or ear. He made a sudden involuntary movement as if he
+would call them back, and for the first time his faithful hiding-place,
+strained beyond silent endurance, betrayed him with a loud rustle of shaken
+branches. Ste. Marie shrank back, his heart in his throat. It was too late
+to retreat now down the tree. The damage was already done. He saw the two
+young people halt and turn to look, and after a moment he saw the boy come
+slowly forward, staring. He heard him say:</p>
+
+<p>"What's up in that tree? There's something in the tree." And he heard
+the girl answer: "It's only birds fighting. Don't bother!" But young Arthur
+Benham came on, staring up curiously until he was almost under the high
+wall.</p>
+
+<p>Then Ste. Marie's strange madness, or the hand of Fate, or whatever
+power it was which governed him on that day, thrust him on to the ultimate
+pitch of recklessness. He bent forward from his insecure perch over the
+wall until his head and shoulders were in plain sight, and he called down
+to the lad below in a loud whisper:</p>
+
+<p>"Benham! Benham!"</p>
+
+<p>The boy gave a sharp cry of alarm and began to back away. And after a
+moment Ste. Marie heard the cry echoed from Coira O'Hara. He heard her
+say:</p>
+
+<p><a name="Page_176"></a>"Be careful! Be careful, Arthur! Come away! Oh,
+come away quickly!"</p>
+
+<p>Ste. Marie raised his own voice to a sort of cry. He said:</p>
+
+<p>"Wait! I tell you to wait, Benham! I must have a word with you. I come
+from your family--from Helen!"</p>
+
+<p>To his amazement the lad turned about and began to run toward where the
+girl stood waiting; and so, without a moment's hesitation, Ste. Marie threw
+himself across the top of the wall, hung for an instant by his hands, and
+dropped upon the soft turf. Scarcely waiting to recover his balance, he
+stumbled forward, shouting:</p>
+
+<p>"Wait! I tell you, wait! Are you mad? Wait, I say! Listen to me!"</p>
+
+<p>Vaguely, in the midst of his great excitement, he had heard a whistle
+sound as he dropped inside the wall. He did not know then whence the shrill
+call had come, but afterward he knew that Coira O' Hara had blown it. And
+now, as he ran forward toward the two who stood at a distance staring at
+him, he heard other steps and he slackened his pace to look.</p>
+
+<p>A man came running down among the black-boled trees, a strange, squat,
+gnomelike man whose gait was as uncouth as his dwarfish figure. He held
+something in his two hands as he ran, and when he came near he threw this
+thing with a swift movement up before him, but he did not pause in his odd,
+scrambling run.</p>
+
+<p>Ste. Marie felt a violent blow upon his left leg between hip and knee.
+He thought that somebody had crept up behind him and struck him; but as he
+whirled about he saw that there was no one there, and then he heard a noise
+and knew that the gnomelike running man had shot him. He faced about once
+more toward the two young people. <a name="Page_177"></a>He was very angry
+and he wished to say so, and very much he wished to explain why he had
+trespassed there, and why they had no right to shoot him as if he were some
+wretched thief. But he found that in some quite absurd fashion he was as if
+fixed to the ground. It was as if he had suddenly become of the most
+ponderous and incredible weight, like lead--or that other metal, not gold,
+which is the heaviest of all. Only the metal, seemingly, was not only heavy
+but fiery hot, and his strength was incapable of holding it up any longer.
+His eyes fixed themselves in a bewildered stare upon the figure of Mlle.
+Coira O'Hara; he had time to observe that she had put up her two hands over
+her face, then he fell down forward, his head struck something very hard,
+and he knew no more.</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+
+
+
+<a name="Page_178"></a><h2><a name='XV'></a>XV</h2>
+
+<h3>A CONVERSATION AT LA LIERRE</h3>
+
+
+<p>Captain Stewart walked nervously up and down the small inner
+drawing-room at La Lierre, his restless hands fumbling together behind him,
+and his eyes turning every half-minute with a sharp eagerness to the closed
+door. But at last, as if he were very tired, he threw himself down in a
+chair which stood near one of the windows, and all his tense body seemed to
+relax in utter exhaustion. It was not a very comfortable chair that he had
+sat down in, but there were no comfortable chairs in the room--nor, for
+that matter, in all the house. When he had taken the place, about two
+months before this time, he had taken it furnished, but that does not mean
+very much in France. No French country-houses--or town-houses, either--are
+in the least comfortable, by Anglo-Saxon standards, and that is at least
+one excellent reason why Frenchmen spend just as little time in them as
+they possibly can. Half the caf&eacute;s in Paris would promptly put up
+their shutters if Parisian homes could all at once turn themselves into
+something like English or American ones. As for La Lierre, it was even more
+dreary and bare and tomblike than other country-houses, because it was,
+after all, a sort of ruin, and had not been lived in for fifteen years,
+save by an ancient caretaker and his nearly as ancient wife. And that was,
+perhaps, <a name="Page_179"></a>why it could be taken on a short lease at
+such a very low price.</p>
+
+<p>The room in which Captain Stewart sat was behind the large drawing-room,
+which was always kept closed now, and it looked out by one window to the
+west, and by two windows to the north, over a corner of the kitchen garden
+and a vista of trees beyond. It was a high-ceiled room with walls bare
+except for two large mirrors in the Empire fashion, which stared at each
+other across the way with dull and flaking eyes. Under each of these stood
+a heavy gilt and ebony console with a top of chocolate-colored marble, and
+in the centre of the room there was a table of a like fashion to the
+consoles. Further than this there was nothing save three chairs, upon one
+of which lay Captain Stewart's dust-coat and motoring cap and goggles.</p>
+
+<p>A shaft of golden light from the low sun slanted into the place through
+the western window from which the Venetians had been pulled back, and fell
+across the face of the man who lay still and lax in his chair, eyes closed
+and chin dropped a little so that his mouth hung weakly open. He looked
+very ill, as, indeed, any one might look after such an attack as he had
+suffered on the night previous. That one long moment of deathly fear before
+he had fallen down in a fit had nearly killed him. All through this
+following day it had continued to recur until he thought he should go mad.
+And there was worse still. How much did Olga Nilssen know? And how much had
+she told? She had astonished and frightened him when she had said that she
+knew about the house on the road to Clamart, for he thought he had hidden
+his visits to La Lierre well. He wondered rather drearily how she had
+discovered them, and he wondered how much she knew more than she had <a
+name="Page_180"></a>admitted. He had a half-suspicion of something like the
+truth, that Mlle. Nilssen knew only of Coira O'Hara's presence here, and
+drew a rather natural inference. If that was all, there was no danger from
+her--no more, that is, than had already borne its fruit, for Stewart knew
+well enough that Ste. Marie must have learned of the place from her. In any
+case Olga Nilssen had left Paris--he had discovered that fact during the
+day--and so for the present she might be eliminated as a source of
+peril.</p>
+
+<p>The man in the chair gave a little groan and rolled his head wearily to
+and fro against the uncomfortable chair-back, for now he came to the real
+and immediate danger, and he was so very tired and ill, and his head ached
+so sickeningly that it was almost beyond him to bring himself face to face
+with it.</p>
+
+<p>There was the man who lay helpless upon a bed up-stairs! And there were
+the man's friends, who were not at all helpless or bedridden or in
+captivity!</p>
+
+<p>A wave of almost intolerable pain swept through Stewart's aching head,
+and he gave another groan which was almost like a child's sob. But at just
+that moment the door which led into the central hall opened, and the
+Irishman O'Hara came into the room. Captain Stewart sprang to his feet to
+meet him, and he caught the other man by the arm in his eagerness.</p>
+
+<p>"How is he?" he cried out. "How is he? How badly was he hurt?"</p>
+
+<p>"The patient?" said O'Hara. "Let go my arm! Hang it, man, you're
+pinching me! Oh, he'll do well enough. He'll be fit to hobble about in a
+week or ten days. The bullet went clean through his leg and out again
+without cutting an artery. It was a sort of miracle--and a damned <a
+name="Page_181"></a>lucky miracle for all hands, too! If we'd had a
+splintered bone or a severed artery to deal with I should have had to call
+in a doctor. Then the fellow would have talked, and there'd have been the
+devil to pay. As it is, I shall be able to manage well enough with my own
+small skill. I've dressed worse wounds than that in my time. By Jove, it
+was a miracle, though!" A sudden little gust of rage swept him. He cried
+out: "That confounded fool of a gardener, that one-eyed Michel, ought to be
+beaten to death. Why couldn't he have slipped up behind this fellow and
+knocked him on the head, instead of shooting him from ten paces away? The
+benighted idiot! He came near upsetting the whole boat!"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes," said Captain Stewart, with a sharp, hard breath, "he should have
+shot straighter or not at all."</p>
+
+<p>The Irishman stared at him with his bright blue eyes, and after a moment
+he gave a short laugh.</p>
+
+<p>"Jove, you're a bloodthirsty beggar, Stewart!" said he. "That would have
+been a rum go, if you like! Killing the fellow! All his friends down on us
+like hawks, and the police and all that! You can't go about killing people
+in the outskirts of Paris, you know--at least not people with friends. And
+this chap looks like a gentleman, more or less, so I take it he has
+friends. As a matter of fact, his face is rather familiar. I think I've
+seen him before, somewhere. You looked at him just now through the crack of
+the door; do you know who he is? Coira tells me he called out to Arthur by
+name, but Arthur says he never saw him before and doesn't know him at
+all."</p>
+
+<p>Captain Stewart shivered. It had not been a pleasant moment for him,
+that moment when he had looked through the crack of the door and recognized
+Ste. Marie.</p>
+
+<p><a name="Page_182"></a>"Yes," he said, half under his breath--"yes, I
+know who he is. A friend of the family."</p>
+
+<p>The Irishman's lips puckered to a low whistle. He said:</p>
+
+<p>"Spying, then, as I thought. He has run us to earth."</p>
+
+<p>And the other nodded. O'Hara took a turn across the room and back.</p>
+
+<p>"In that case," he said, presently--"in that case, then, we must keep
+him prisoner here so long as we remain. That's certain." He spun round
+sharply with an exclamation. "Look here!" he cried, in a lower tone, "how
+about this fellow's friends? It isn't likely he's doing his dirty work
+alone. How about his friends, when he doesn't turn up to-night? If they
+know he was coming here to spy on us; if they know where the place is; if
+they know, in short, what he seems to have known, we're done for. We'll
+have to run, get out, disappear. Hang it, man, d'you understand? We're not
+safe here for an hour."</p>
+
+<p>Captain Stewart's hands shook a little as he gripped them together
+behind him, and a dew of perspiration stood out suddenly upon his forehead
+and cheek-bones, but his voice, when he spoke, was well under control.</p>
+
+<p>"It's an odd thing," said he--"another miracle, if you like--but I
+believe we are safe--reasonably safe. I--have reason to think that this
+fellow learned about La Lierre only last evening from some one who left
+Paris to-day to be gone a long time. And I also have reason to believe that
+the fellow has not seen the one friend who is in his confidence, since he
+obtained his information. By chance I met the friend, the other man, in the
+street this afternoon. I asked after this fellow whom we have here, and the
+friend said he hadn't seen him for twenty-four hours--was going to see him
+to-night."</p>
+
+<p><a name="Page_183"></a>"By the Lord!" cried the Irishman, with a great
+laugh of relief. "What luck! What monumental luck! If all that's true,
+we're safe. Why, man, we're as safe as a fox in his hole. The lad's friends
+won't have the ghost of an idea of where he's gone to.... Wait, though!
+Stop a bit! He won't have left written word behind him, eh? He won't have
+done that--for safety?"</p>
+
+<p>"I think not," said Captain Stewart, but he breathed hard, for he knew
+well enough that there lay the gravest danger. "I think not," he said
+again.</p>
+
+<p>He made a rather surprisingly accurate guess at the truth--that Ste.
+Marie had started out upon impulse, without intending more than a general
+reconnaissance, and therefore without leaving any word behind him. Still,
+the shadow of danger uplifted itself before the man and he was afraid. A
+sudden gust of weak anger shook him like a wind.</p>
+
+<p>"In Heaven's name," he cried, shrilly, "why didn't that one-eyed fool
+kill the fellow while he was about it? There's danger for us every moment
+while he is alive here. Why didn't that shambling idiot kill him?"</p>
+
+<p>Captain Stewart's outflung hand jumped and trembled and his face was
+twisted into a sort of grinning snarl. He looked like an angry and wicked
+cat, the other man thought.</p>
+
+<p>"If I weren't an over-civilized fool," he said, viciously, "I'd go
+up-stairs and kill him now with my hands while he can't help himself. We're
+all too scrupulous by half."</p>
+
+<p>The Irishman stared at him and presently broke into amazed laughter.</p>
+
+<p>"Scrupulous!" said he. "Well, yes, I'm too scrupulous to murder a man in
+his bed, if you like. I'm not squeamish, but--Good Lord!"</p>
+
+<p><a name="Page_184"></a>"Do you realize," demanded Captain Stewart, "what
+risks we run while that fellow is alive--knowing what he knows?"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh yes, I realize that," said O'Hara. "But I don't see why <i>you</i>
+should have heart failure over it."</p>
+
+<p>Captain Stewart's pale lips drew back again in their catlike
+fashion.</p>
+
+<p>"Never mind about me," he said. "But I can't help thinking you're
+peculiarly indifferent in the face of danger."</p>
+
+<p>"No, I'm not!" said the Irishman, quickly. "No, I'm not. Don't you run
+away with that idea! I merely said," he went oh--"I merely said that I'd
+stop short of murder. I don't set any foolish value on life--my own or any
+other. I've had to take life more than once, but it was in fair fight or in
+self-defence, and I don't regret it. It was your coldblooded joke about
+going up-stairs and killing this chap in his bed that put me on edge.
+Naturally I know you didn't mean it. Don't you go thinking that I'm
+lukewarm or that I'm indifferent to danger. I know there's danger from this
+lad up-stairs, and I mean to be on guard against it. He stays here under
+strict guard until--what we're after is accomplished--until young Arthur
+comes of age. If there's danger," said he, "why, we know where it lies, and
+we can guard against it. That kind of danger is not very formidable. The
+dangerous dangers are the ones that you don't know about--the hidden
+ones."</p>
+
+<p>He came forward a little, and his lean face was as hard and as impassive
+as ever, and the bright blue eyes shone from it steady and unwinking.
+Stewart looked up to him with a sort of peevish resentment at the man's
+confidence and cool poise. It was an odd reversal of their ordinary
+relations. For the hour the duller villain, the man who was <a
+name="Page_185"></a>wont to take orders and to refrain from overmuch
+thought or question, seemed to have become master. Sheer physical
+exhaustion and the constant maddening pain had had their will of Captain
+Stewart. A sudden shiver wrung him so that his dry fingers rattled against
+the wood of the chair-arms.</p>
+
+<p>"All the same," he cried, "I'm afraid. I've been confident enough until
+now. Now I'm afraid. I wish the fellow had been killed."</p>
+
+<p>"Kill him, then!" laughed the Irishman. "I won't give you up to the
+police."</p>
+
+<p>He crossed the room to the door, but halted short of it and turned about
+again, and he looked back very curiously at the man who sat crouched in his
+chair by the window. It had occurred to him several times that Stewart was
+very unlike himself. The man was quite evidently tired and ill, and that
+might account for some of the nervousness, but this fierce malignity was
+something a little beyond O'Hara's comprehension. It seemed to him that the
+elder man had the air of one frightened beyond the point the circumstances
+warranted.</p>
+
+<p>"Are you going back to town," he asked, "or do you mean to stay the
+night?"</p>
+
+<p>"I shall stay the night," Stewart said. "I'm too tired to bear the
+ride." He glanced up and caught the other's eyes fixed upon him. "Well!" he
+cried, angrily. "What is it? What are you looking at me like that for? What
+do you want?"</p>
+
+<p>"I want nothing," said the Irishman, a little sharply. "And I wasn't
+aware that I'd been looking at you in any unusual way. You're precious
+jumpy to-day, if you want to know.... Look here!" He came back a step,
+frowning. <a name="Page_186"></a>"Look here!" he repeated. "I don't quite
+make you out. Are you keeping back anything? Because if you are, for
+Heaven's sake have it out here and now! We're all in this game together,
+and we can't afford to be anything but frank with one another. We can't
+afford to make reservations. It's altogether too dangerous for everybody.
+You're too much frightened. There's no apparent reason for being so
+frightened as that."</p>
+
+<p>Captain Stewart drew a long breath between closed teeth, and afterward
+he looked up at the younger man coldly.</p>
+
+<p>"We need not discuss my personal feelings, I think," said he. "They have
+no--no bearing on the point at issue. As you say, we are all in this thing
+together, and you need not fear that I shall fail to do my part, as I have
+done it in the past.... That's all, I believe."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, <i>as</i> you like! As you like!" said the Irishman, in the tone of
+one rebuffed. He turned again and left the room, closing the door behind
+him. Outside on the stairs it occurred to him that he had forgotten to ask
+the other man what this fellow's name was--the fellow who lay wounded
+up-stairs. No, he had asked once, but in the interest of the conversation
+the question had been lost. He determined to inquire again that evening at
+dinner.</p>
+
+<p>But Captain Stewart, left thus alone, sank deeper in the uncomfortable
+chair, and his head once more stirred and sought vainly for ease against
+the chair's high back. The pain swept him in regular throbbing waves that
+were like the waves of the sea--waves which surge and crash and tear upon a
+beach. But between the throbs of physical pain there was something else
+that was always present while the waves came and went. Pain and exhaustion,
+if <a name="Page_187"></a>they are sufficiently extreme, can well nigh
+paralyze mind as well as body, and for some time Captain Stewart wondered
+what this thing might be which lurked at the bottom of him still under the
+surges of agony. Then at last he had the strength to look at it, and it was
+fear, cold and still and silent. He was afraid to the very depths of his
+soul.</p>
+
+<p>True, as O'Hara had said, there did not seem to be any very desperate
+peril to face, but Stewart was afraid with the gambler's unreasoning,
+half-superstitious fear, and that is the worst fear of all. He realized
+that he had been afraid of Ste. Marie from the beginning, and that, of
+course, was why he had tried to draw him into partnership with himself in
+his own official and wholly mythical search for Arthur Benham. He could
+have had the other man under his eye then. He could have kept him busy for
+months running down false scents. As it was, Ste. Marie's uncanny instinct
+about the Irishman O'Hara had led him true--that and what he doubtless
+learned from Olga Nilssen.</p>
+
+<p>If Stewart had been in a condition and mood to philosophize, he would
+doubtless have reflected that seven-tenths of the desperate causes, both
+good and bad, which fail in this world, fail because they are wrecked by
+some woman's love or jealousy--or both. But it is unlikely that he was able
+just at this time to make such a reflection, though certainly he wondered
+how much Olga Nilssen had known, and how much Ste. Marie had had to put
+together out of her knowledge and any previous suspicions which he may have
+had.</p>
+
+<p>The man would have been amazed if he could have known what a mountain of
+information and evidence had piled itself up over his head all in twelve
+hours. He would have been amazed and, if possible, even more frightened <a
+name="Page_188"></a>than he was, but he was without question sufficiently
+frightened, for here was Ste. Marie in the very house, he had seen Arthur
+Benham, and quite obviously he knew all there was to know, or at least
+enough to ruin Arthur Benham's uncle beyond all recovery or hope of
+recovery--irretrievably.</p>
+
+<p>Captain Stewart tried to think what it would mean to him--failure in
+this desperate scheme--but he had not the strength or the courage. He
+shrank from the picture as one shrinks from something horrible in a bad
+dream. There could be no question of failure. He had to succeed at any
+cost, however desperate or fantastic. Once more the spasm of childish,
+futile rage swept over him and shook him like a wind.</p>
+
+<p>"Why couldn't the fellow have been killed by that one-eyed fool?" he
+cried, sobbing. "Why couldn't he have been killed? He's the only one who
+knows--the only thing in the way. Why couldn't he have keen killed?"</p>
+
+<p>Quite suddenly Captain Stewart ceased to sob and shiver, and sat still
+in his chair, gripping the arms with white and tense fingers. His eyes
+began to widen, and they became fixed in a long, strange stare. He drew a
+deep breath.</p>
+
+<p>"I wonder!" he said, aloud. "I wonder, now."</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+
+
+
+<a name="Page_189"></a><h2><a name='XVI'></a>XVI</h2>
+
+<h3>THE BLACK CAT</h3>
+
+
+<p>That providential stone or tree-root, or whatever it may have been,
+proved a genuine blessing in disguise to Ste. Marie. It gave him a
+splitting headache for a few hours, but it saved him a good deal of
+discomfort the while his bullet wound was being more or less probed and
+very skilfully cleansed and dressed by O'Hara. For he did not regain
+consciousness until this surgical work was almost at its end, and then he
+wanted to fight the Irishman for tying the bandages too tight.</p>
+
+<p>But when O'Hara had gone away and left him alone he lay still--or as
+still as the smarting, burning pain in his leg and the ache in his head
+would let him--and stared at the wall beyond his bed, and bit by bit the
+events of the past hour came back to him, and he knew where he was. He
+cursed himself very bitterly, as he well might do, for a bungling idiot.
+The whole thing had been in his hands, he said, with perfect truth--Arthur
+Benham's whereabouts proved Stewart's responsibility or, at the very least,
+complicity and the sordid motive therefor. Remained--had Ste. Marie been a
+sane being instead of an impulsive fool--remained but to face Stewart down
+in the presence of witnesses, threaten him with exposure, and so, with
+perfect ease, bring back the lost boy in triumph to his family.</p>
+
+<p><a name="Page_190"></a>It should all have been so simple, so easy, so
+effortless! Yet now it was ruined by a moment's rash folly, and Heaven
+alone knew what would come of it. He remembered that he had left behind him
+no indication whatever of where he meant to spend the afternoon. Hartley
+would come hurrying across town that evening to the rue d'Assas, and would
+find no one there to receive him. He would wait and wait, and at last go
+home. He would come again on the next morning, and then he would begin to
+be alarmed and would start a second search--but with what to reckon by?
+Nobody knew about the house on the road to Clamart but Mlle. Olga Nilssen,
+and she was far away.</p>
+
+<p>He thought of Captain Stewart, and he wondered if that gentleman was by
+any chance here in the house, or if he was still in bed in the rue du
+Faubourg St. Honor&eacute;, recovering from his epileptic fit.</p>
+
+<p>After that he fell once more to cursing himself and his incredible
+stupidity, and he could have wept for sheer bitterness of chagrin.</p>
+
+<p>He was still engaged in this unpleasant occupation when the door of the
+room opened and the Irishman O'Hara entered, having finished his interview
+with Captain Stewart below. He came up beside the bed and looked down not
+unkindly upon the man who lay there, but Ste. Marie scowled back at him,
+for he was in a good deal of pain and a vile humor.</p>
+
+<p>"How's the leg--<i>and</i> the head?" asked the amateur surgeon. To do
+him justice, he was very skilful, indeed, through much experience.</p>
+
+<p>"They hurt," said Ste. Marie, shortly. "My head aches like the devil,
+and my leg burns."</p>
+
+<p><a name="Page_191"></a>O'Hara made a sound which was rather like a gruff
+laugh, and nodded.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, and they'll go on doing it, too," said he. "At least the leg will.
+Your head will be all right again in a day or so. Do you want anything to
+eat? It's near dinner-time. I suppose we can't let you starve--though you
+deserve it."</p>
+
+<p>"Thanks; I want nothing," said Ste. Marie. "Pray don't trouble about
+me."</p>
+
+<p>The other man nodded again indifferently and turned to go out of the
+room, but in the doorway he halted and looked back.</p>
+
+<p>"As we're to have the pleasure of your company for some time to come,"
+said he, "you might suggest a name to call you by. Of course I don't expect
+you to tell your own name--though I can learn that easily enough."</p>
+
+<p>"Easily enough, to be sure," said the man on the bed. "Ask Stewart. He
+knows only too well."</p>
+
+<p>The Irishman scowled. And after a moment he said:</p>
+
+<p>"I don't know any Stewart."</p>
+
+<p>But at that Ste. Marie gave a laugh, and a tinge of red came over the
+Irishman's cheeks.</p>
+
+<p>"And so, to save Captain Stewart the trouble," continued the wounded
+man, "I'll tell you my name with pleasure. I don't know why I shouldn't.
+It's Ste. Marie."</p>
+
+<p>"What?" cried O'Hara, hoarsely. "What? Say that again!"</p>
+
+<p>He came forward a swift step or two into the room, and he stared at the
+man on the bed as if he were staring at a ghost.</p>
+
+<p>"Ste. Marie?" he cried, in a whisper. "It's impossible! <a
+name="Page_192"></a>What are you," he demanded, "to Gilles, Comte de Ste.
+Marie de Mont-Perdu? What are you to him?"</p>
+
+<p>"He was my father," said the younger man; "but he is dead. He has been
+dead for ten years."</p>
+
+<p>He raised his head, with a little grimace of pain, to look curiously
+after the Irishman, who had all at once turned away across the room and
+stood still beside a window with bent head.</p>
+
+<p>"Why?" he questioned. "What about my father? Why did you ask that?"</p>
+
+<p>O'Hara did not answer at once, and he did not stir from his place by the
+window, but after a while he said:</p>
+
+<p>"I knew him.... That's all."</p>
+
+<p>And after another space he came back beside the bed, and once more
+looked down upon the young man who lay there. His face was veiled,
+inscrutable. It betrayed nothing.</p>
+
+<p>"You have a look of your father," said he. "That was what puzzled me a
+little. I was just saying to--I was just thinking that there was something
+familiar about you.... Ah, well, we've all come down in the world since
+then. The Ste. Marie blood, though. Who'd have thought it?"</p>
+
+<p>The man shook his head a little sorrowfully, but Ste. Marie stared up at
+him in frowning incomprehension. The pain had dulled him somewhat. And
+presently O'Hara again moved toward the door. On the way he said:</p>
+
+<p>"I'll bring or send you something to eat--not too much. And later on
+I'll give you a sleeping-powder. With that head of yours you may have
+trouble in getting to sleep. Understand, I'm doing this for your father's
+son, and not because you've any right yourself to consideration."</p>
+
+<p>Ste. Marie raised himself with difficulty on one elbow.</p>
+
+<p><a name="Page_193"></a>"Wait!" said he. "Wait a moment!" and the other
+halted just inside the door. "You seem to have known my father," said Ste.
+Marie, "and to have respected him. For my father's sake, will you listen to
+me for five minutes?"</p>
+
+<p>"No, I won't," said the Irishman, sharply. "So you may as well hold your
+tongue. Nothing you can say to me or to any one in this house will have the
+slightest effect. We know what you came spying here for. We know all about
+it."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes," said Ste. Marie, with a little sigh, and he fell back upon the
+pillows. "Yes, I suppose you do. I was rather a fool to speak. You wouldn't
+all be doing what you're doing if words could affect you. I was a fool to
+speak."</p>
+
+<p>The Irishman stared at him for another moment, and went out of the room,
+closing the door behind him.</p>
+
+<p>So he was left once more alone to his pain and his bitter
+self-reproaches and his wild and futile plans for escape. But O'Hara
+returned in an hour or thereabout with food for him--a cup of broth and a
+slice of bread; and when Ste. Marie had eaten these the Irishman looked
+once more to his wounded leg, and gave him a sleeping-powder dissolved in
+water.</p>
+
+<p>He lay restless and wide-eyed for an hour, and then drifted away through
+intermediate mists into a sleep full of horrible dreams, but it was at
+least relief from bodily suffering, and when he awoke in the morning his
+headache was almost gone.</p>
+
+<p>He awoke to sunshine and fresh, sweet odors and the twittering of birds.
+By good chance O'Hara had been the last to enter the room on the evening
+before, and so no one had come to close the shutters or draw the blinds.
+The windows were open wide, and the morning breeze, very soft <a
+name="Page_194"></a>and aromatic, blew in and out and filled the place with
+sweetness. The room was a corner room, with windows that looked south and
+east, and the early sun slanted in and lay in golden squares across the
+floor.</p>
+
+<p>Ste. Marie opened his eyes with none of the dazed bewilderment that he
+might have expected. The events of the preceding day came back to him
+instantly and without shock. He put up an experimental hand, and found that
+his head was still very sore where he had struck it in falling, but the
+ache was almost gone. He tried to stir his leg, and a protesting pain shot
+through it. It burned dully, even when it was quiet, but the pain was not
+at all severe. He realized that he was to get off rather well, considering
+what might have happened, and he was so grateful for this that he almost
+forgot to be angry with himself over his monumental folly.</p>
+
+<p>A small bird chased by another wheeled in through the southern window
+and back again into free air. Finally, the two settled down upon the
+parapet of the little shallow balcony which was there to have their
+disagreement out, and they talked it over with a great deal of noise and
+many threatening gestures and a complete loss of temper on both sides. Ste.
+Marie, from his bed, cheered them on, but there came a commotion in the ivy
+which draped the wall below, and the two birds fled in ignominious haste,
+and just in the nick of time, for when the cause of the commotion shot into
+view it was a large black cat, of great bodily activity and an ardent
+single-heartedness of aim.</p>
+
+<p>The black cat gazed for a moment resentfully after its vanished prey,
+and then composed its sleek body upon the iron rail, tail and paws tucked
+neatly under. Ste. Marie chirruped, and the cat turned yellow eyes upon him
+in mild <a name="Page_195"></a>astonishment, as one who should say, "Who
+the deuce are you, and what the deuce are you doing here?" He chirruped
+again, and the cat, after an ostentatious yawn and stretch, came to
+him--beating up to windward, as it were, and making the bed in three tacks.
+When O'Hara entered the room some time later he found his patient in a very
+cheerful frame of mind, and the black cat sitting on his chest purring like
+a dynamo and kneading like an industrious baker.</p>
+
+<p>"Ho," said the Irishman, "you seem to have found a friend!"</p>
+
+<p>"Well, I need one friend here," argued Ste. Marie. "I'm in the enemy's
+stronghold. You needn't be alarmed; the cat can't tell me anything, and it
+can't help me to escape. It can only sit on me and purr. That's harmless
+enough."</p>
+
+<p>O'Hara began one of his gruff laughs, but he seemed to remember himself
+in the middle of it and assumed an intimidating scowl instead.</p>
+
+<p>"How's the leg?" he demanded, shortly. "Let me see it." He took off the
+bandages and cleansed and sprayed the wound with some antiseptic liquid
+that he had brought in a bottle. "There's a little fever," said he, "but
+that can't be avoided. You're going on very well--a good deal better than
+you'd any right to expect." He had to inflict not a little pain in his
+examination and redressing of the wound. He knew that, and once or twice he
+glanced up at Ste. Marie's face with a sort of reluctant admiration for the
+man who could bear so much without any sign whatever. In the end he put
+together his things and nodded with professional satisfaction. "You'll do
+well enough now for the rest of the day," he said. "I'll send up old Michel
+to valet you. He's the gardener who shot you yesterday, and he may take <a
+name="Page_196"></a>it into his head to finish the job this morning. If he
+does I sha'n't try to stop him."</p>
+
+<p>"Nor I," said Ste. Marie. "Thanks very much for your trouble. An
+excellent surgeon was lost in you."</p>
+
+<p>O'Hara left the room, and presently the old caretaker, one-eyed,
+gnomelike, shambling like a bear, sidled in and proceeded to set things to
+rights. He looked, Ste. Marie said to himself, like something in an old
+German drawing, or in those imitations of old drawings that one sometimes
+sees nowadays in <i>Fliegende Bl&auml;tter</i>. He tried to make the
+strange creature talk, but Michel went about his task with an air
+half-frightened, half-stolid, and refused to speak more than an occasional
+"oui" or a "bien, Monsieur," in answer to orders. Ste. Marie asked if he
+might have some coffee and bread, and the old Michel nodded and slipped
+from the room as silently as he had entered it.</p>
+
+<p>Thereafter Ste. Marie trifled with the cat and got one hand well
+scratched for his trouble, but in five minutes there came a knocking at the
+door. He laughed a little. "Michel grows ceremonious when it's a question
+of food," he said. "Entrez, mon vieux!"</p>
+
+<p>The door opened, and Ste. Marie caught his breath.</p>
+
+<p>"Michel is busy," said Coira O'Hara, "so I have brought your
+coffee."</p>
+
+<p>She came into the sunlit room holding the steaming bowl of caf&eacute;
+au lait before her in her two hands. Over it her eyes went out to the man
+who lay in his bed, a long and steady and very grave look. "A goddess that
+lady, a queen among goddesses--" Thus the little Jew of the Boulevard de la
+Madeleine. Ste. Marie gazed back at her, and his heart was sick within him
+to think of the contemptible r&ocirc;le Fate had laid upon this girl to
+play: the candle to the <a name="Page_197"></a>moth, the bait to the eager,
+unskilled fish, the lure to charm a foolish boy.</p>
+
+<p>The girl's splendid beauty seemed to fill all that bright room with, as
+it were, a richer, subtler light. There could be no doubt of her potency.
+Older and wiser heads than young Arthur Benham's might well forget the
+world for her. Ste. Marie watched, and the heartsickness within him was
+like a physical pain, keen and bitter. He thought of that first and only
+previous meeting--the single minute in the Champs-Elys&eacute;es, when her
+eyes had held him, had seemed to beseech him out of some deep agony. He
+thought of how they had haunted him afterward both by day and by
+night--calling eyes--and he gave a little groan of sheer bitterness, for he
+realized that all this while she was laying her snares about the feet of an
+inexperienced boy, decoying him to his ruin. There was a name for such
+women, an ugly name. They were called adventuresses.</p>
+
+<p>The girl set the bowl which she carried down upon a table not far from
+the bed. "You will need a tray or something," said she. "I suppose you can
+sit up against your pillows? I'll bring a tray and you can hold it on your
+knees and eat from it." She spoke in a tone of very deliberate indifference
+and detachment. There seemed even to be an edge of scorn in it, but nothing
+could make that deep and golden voice harsh or unlovely. As the girl's
+extraordinary beauty had filled all the room with its light, so the sound
+of her voice seemed to fill it with a sumptuous and hushed resonance like a
+temple bell muffled in velvet. "I must bring something to eat, too," she
+said. "Would you prefer croissants or brioches or plain bread-and-butter?
+You might as well have what you like."</p>
+
+<p>"Thank you!" said Ste. Marie. "It doesn't matter. <a
+name="Page_198"></a>Anything. You are most kind. You are Hebe,
+Mademoiselle, server of feasts." The girl turned her head for a moment and
+looked at him with some surprise.</p>
+
+<p>"If I am not mistaken," she said, "Hebe served to gods." Then she went
+out of the room, and Ste. Marie broke into a sudden delighted laugh behind
+her. She would seem to be a young woman with a tongue in her head. She had
+seized the rash opening without an instant's hesitation.</p>
+
+<p>The black cat, which had been cruising, after the inquisitive fashion of
+its kind, in far corners of the room, strolled back and looked up to the
+table where the bowl of coffee steamed and waited.</p>
+
+<p>"Get out!" cried Ste. Marie. "Va t'en, sale petit animal! Go and eat
+birds! That's <i>my</i> coffee. Va! Sauve toi! H&eacute;, voleur que tu
+es!" He sought for something by way of missile, but there was nothing
+within reach.</p>
+
+<p>The black cat turned its calm and yellow eyes toward him, looked back to
+the aromatic feast, and leaped expertly to the top of the table. Ste. Marie
+shouted and made horrible threats. He waved an impotent pillow, not daring
+to hurl it for fear of smashing the table's entire contents, but the black
+cat did not even glance toward him. It smelled the coffee, sneezed over it
+because it was hot, and finally proceeded to lap very daintily, pausing
+often to take breath or to shake its head, for cats disapprove of hot
+dishes, though they will partake of them at a pinch.</p>
+
+<p>There came a step outside the door, and the thief leaped down with some
+haste, yet not quite in time to escape observation. Mlle. O'Hara came in,
+breathing terrible threats.</p>
+
+<p>"Has that wretched animal touched your coffee?" she cried. "I hope not."
+But Ste. Marie laughed weakly from his bed, and the guilty beast stood in
+mid-floor, <a name="Page_199"></a>brown drops beading its black chin and
+hanging upon its whiskers.</p>
+
+<p>"I did what I could, Mademoiselle," said Ste. Marie, "but there was
+nothing to throw. I am sorry to be the cause of so much trouble."</p>
+
+<p>"It is nothing," said she. "I will bring some more coffee, only it will
+take ten minutes, because I shall have to make some fresh." She made as if
+she would smile a little in answer to him, but her face turned grave once
+more and she went out of the room with averted eyes.</p>
+
+<p>Thereafter Ste. Marie occupied himself with watching idly the movements
+of the black cat, and, as he watched, something icy cold began to grow
+within him, a sensation more terrible than he had ever known before. He
+found himself shivering as if that summer day had all at once turned to
+January, and he found that his face was wet with a chill perspiration.</p>
+
+<p>When the girl at length returned she found him lying still, his face to
+the wall. The black cat was in her path as she crossed the room, so that
+she had to thrust it out of the way with her foot, and she called it names
+for moving with such lethargy.</p>
+
+<p>"Here is the coffee at last," she said. "I made it fresh. And I have
+brought some brioches. Will you sit up and have the tray on your
+knees?"</p>
+
+<p>"Thank you," said Ste. Marie. "I do not wish anything."</p>
+
+<p>"You do not--" she repeated after him. "But I have made the coffee
+especially for you," she protested. "I thought you wanted it. I don't
+understand."</p>
+
+<p>With a sudden movement the man turned toward her a white and drawn
+face.</p>
+
+<p><a name="Page_200"></a>"Mademoiselle," he cried, "it would have been
+more merciful to let your gardener shoot again yesterday. Much more
+merciful, Mademoiselle."</p>
+
+<p>She stared at him under her straight, black brows.</p>
+
+<p>"What do you mean?" she demanded. "More merciful? What do you mean by
+that?"</p>
+
+<p>Ste. Marie stretched out a pointing finger, and the girl followed it.
+She gave, after a tense instant, a single, sharp scream. And upon that:</p>
+
+<p>"No, no! It's not true! It's not possible!"</p>
+
+<p>Moving stiffly, she set down the bowl she carried, and the hot liquid
+splashed up round her wrists. For a moment she hung there, drooping,
+holding herself up by the strength of her hands upon the table. It was as
+if she had been seized with faintness. Then she sprang to where the cat
+crouched beside a chair. She dropped upon her knees and tried to raise it
+in her arms, but the beast bit and scratched at her feebly, and crept away
+to a little distance, where it lay struggling and very unpleasant to
+see.</p>
+
+<p>"Poison!" she said, in a choked, gasping whisper. "Poison!" She looked
+once toward the man upon the bed, and she was white and shivering. "It's
+not true!" she cried again. "I--won't believe it! It's because the cat--was
+not used to coffee. Because it was hot. I won't believe it! I won't believe
+it!" She began to sob, holding her hands over her white face.</p>
+
+<p>Ste. Marie watched her with puzzled eyes. If this was acting, it was
+very good acting. A little glimmer of hope began to burn in him--hope that
+in this last shameful thing, at least, the girl had had no part.</p>
+
+<p>"It's impossible," she insisted, piteously. "I tell you it's impossible.
+I brought the coffee myself from the <a name="Page_201"></a>kitchen. I took
+it from the pot there--the same pot we had all had ours from. It was never
+out of my sight--or, that is--I mean--"</p>
+
+<p>She halted there, and Ste. Marie saw her eyes turn slowly toward the
+door, and he saw a crimson flush come up over her cheeks and die away,
+leaving her white again. He drew a little breath of relief and gladness,
+for he was sure of her now. She had had no part in it.</p>
+
+<p>"It is nothing, Mademoiselle," said he, cheerfully. "Think no more of
+it. It is nothing."</p>
+
+<p>"Nothing?" she cried, in a loud voice. "Do you call poison nothing?" She
+began to shiver again very violently. "You would have drunk it!" she said,
+staring at him in a white agony. "But for a miracle you would have drunk
+it--and died!"</p>
+
+<p>Abruptly she came beside the bed and threw herself upon her knees there.
+In her excitement and horror she seemed to have forgotten what they two
+were to each other. She caught him by the shoulders with her two hands, and
+the girl's violent trembling shook them both.</p>
+
+<p>"Will you believe," she cried, "that I had nothing to do with this? Will
+you believe me? You must believe me!"</p>
+
+<p>There was no acting in that moment. She was wrung with a frank anguish,
+an utter horror, and between her words there were hard and terrible
+sobs.</p>
+
+<p>"I believe you, Mademoiselle," said the man, gently. "I believe you.
+Pray think no more about it."</p>
+
+<p>He smiled up into the girl's beautiful face, though within him he was
+still cold and a-shiver, as even the bravest man might well be at such an
+escape, and after a moment she turned away again. With unsteady hands she
+put the new-made bowl of coffee and the brioches and other things <a
+name="Page_202"></a>together upon the tray and started to carry it across
+the room to the bed, but half-way she turned back again and set the tray
+down. She looked about and found an empty glass, and she poured a little of
+the coffee into it. Ste. Marie, who was watching her, gave a sudden
+cry.</p>
+
+<p>"No, no, Mademoiselle, I beg you! You must not!"</p>
+
+<p>But the girl shook her head at him gravely over the glass.</p>
+
+<p>"There is no danger," she said, "but I must be sure."</p>
+
+<p>She drank what was in the glass, and afterward went across to one of the
+windows and stood there with her back to the room for a little time.</p>
+
+<p>In the end she returned and once more brought the breakfast-tray to the
+bed. Ste. Marie raised himself to a sitting posture and took the thing upon
+his knees, but his hands were shaking.</p>
+
+<p>"If I were not as helpless as a dead man, Mademoiselle," said he, "you
+should not have done that. If I could have stopped you, you should not have
+done it, Mademoiselle."</p>
+
+<p>A wave of color spread up under the brown skin of the girl's face, but
+she did not speak. She stood by for a moment to see if he was supplied with
+everything he needed, and when Ste. Marie expressed his gratitude for her
+pains she only bowed her head. Then presently she turned away and left the
+room.</p>
+
+<p>Outside the door she met some one who was approaching. Ste. Marie heard
+her break into rapid and excited speech, and he heard O'Hara's voice in
+answer. The voice expressed astonishment and indignation and a sort of
+gruff horror, but the man who listened could hear only the tones, not the
+words that were spoken.</p>
+
+<p>The Irishman came quickly into the room. He glanced <a
+name="Page_203"></a>once toward the bed where Ste. Marie sat eating his
+breakfast with apparent unconcern--there may have been a little bravado in
+this--and then bent over the thing which lay moving feebly beside a chair.
+When he rose again his face was hard and tense and his blue eyes glittered
+in a fashion that boded trouble for somebody.</p>
+
+<p>"This looks very bad for us," he said, gruffly. "I should--I should like
+to have you believe that neither my daughter nor I had any part in it. When
+I fight I fight openly, I don't use poison. Not even with spies."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, that's all right," said Ste. Marie, taking an ostentatious sip of
+coffee. "That's understood. I know well enough who tried to poison me. If
+you'll just keep your friend Stewart out of the kitchen I sha'n't worry
+about my food."</p>
+
+<p>The Irishman's cheeks reddened with a quick flush and he dropped his
+eyes. But in an instant he raised them again and looked full into the eyes
+of the man who sat in bed.</p>
+
+<p>"You seem," said he, "to be laboring under a curious misapprehension.
+There is no Stewart here, and I don't know any man of that name."</p>
+
+<p>Ste. Marie laughed.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, don't you?" he said. "That's my mistake then. Well, if you don't
+know him, you ought to. You have interests in common."</p>
+
+<p>O'Hara favored his patient with a long and frowning stare. But at the
+end he turned without a word and went out of the room.</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+
+
+
+<a name="Page_204"></a><h2><a name='XVII'></a>XVII</h2>
+
+<h3>THOSE WHO WERE LEFT BEHIND</h3>
+
+
+<p>That meeting with Richard Hartley of which Captain Stewart, in the small
+drawing-room at La Lierre, spoke to the Irishman O'Hara, took place at
+Stewart's own door in the rue du Faubourg St. Honor&eacute;, and it must
+have been at just about the time when Ste. Marie, concealed among the
+branches of his cedar, looked over the wall and saw Arthur Benham walking
+with Mlle. Coira O'Hara. Hartley had lunched at Durand's with his friends,
+whose name--though it does not at all matter here--was Reeves-Davis, and
+after lunch the four of them, Major and Lady Reeves-Davis, Reeves-Davis'
+sister, Mrs. Carsten, and Hartley, spent an hour at a certain
+picture-dealer's near the Madeleine. After that Lady Reeves-Davis wanted to
+go in search of an antiquary's shop which was somewhere in the rue du
+Faubourg, and she did not know just where. They went in from the rue
+Royale, and amused themselves by looking at the attractive windows on the
+way.</p>
+
+<p>During one of their frequent halts, while the two ladies were
+passionately absorbed in a display of hats, and Reeves-Davis was making
+derisive comments from the rear, Hartley, who was too much bored to pay
+attention, saw a figure which seemed to him familiar emerge from an
+adjacent doorway and start to cross the pavement to a large touring-car,
+with <a name="Page_205"></a>the top up, which stood at the curb. The man
+wore a dust-coat and a cap, and he moved as if he were in a hurry, but as
+he went he cast a quick look about him and his eye fell upon Richard
+Hartley. Hartley nodded, and he thought the elder man gave a violent start;
+but then he looked very white and ill and might have started at anything.
+For an instant Captain Stewart made as if he would go on his way without
+taking notice, but he seemed to change his mind and turned back. He held
+out his hand with a rather wan and nervous smile, saying:</p>
+
+<p>"Ah, Hartley! It is you, then! I wasn't sure." He glanced over the
+other's shoulder and said, "Is that our friend Ste. Marie with you?"</p>
+
+<p>"No," said Richard Hartley, "some English friends of mine. I haven't
+seen Ste. Marie to-day. I'm to meet him this evening. You've seen him since
+I have, as a matter of fact. He came to your party last night, didn't he?
+Sorry I couldn't come. They must have tired you out, I should think. You
+look ill."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes," said the other man, absently. "Yes, I had an attack of--an old
+malady last night. I am rather stale to-day. You say you haven't seen Ste.
+Marie? No, to be sure. If you see him later on you might say that I mean to
+drop in on him to-morrow to make my apologies. He'll understand.
+Good-day."</p>
+
+<p>So he turned away to the motor which was waiting for him, and Hartley
+went back to his friends, wondering a little what it was that Stewart had
+to apologize for.</p>
+
+<p>As for Captain Stewart, he must have gone at once out to La Lierre. What
+he found there has already been set forth.</p>
+
+<p>It was about ten that evening when Hartley, who had <a
+name="Page_206"></a>left his people, after dinner was over, at the Marigny,
+reached the rue d'Assas. The street door was already closed for the night,
+and so he had to ring for the cordon. When the door clicked open and he had
+closed it behind him he called out his name before crossing the court to
+Ste. Marie's stair; but as he went on his way the voice of the concierge
+reached him from the little loge.</p>
+
+<p>"M. Ste. Marie n'est pas l&agrave;,"</p>
+
+<p>Now, the Parisian concierge, as every one knows who has lived under his
+iron sway, is a being set apart from the rest of mankind. He has, in
+general, no human attributes, and certainly no human sympathy. His hand is
+against all the world, and the hand of all the world is against him. Still,
+here and there among this peculiar race are to be found a very few beings
+who are of softer substance--men and women instead of spies and harpies.
+The concierge who had charge of the house wherein Ste. Marie dwelt was an
+old woman, undeniably severe upon occasion, but for the most part a kindly
+and even jovial soul. She must have become a concierge through some
+unfortunate mistake.</p>
+
+<p>She snapped open her little square window and stuck out into the moonlit
+court a dishevelled gray head.</p>
+
+<p>"Il n'est pas l&agrave;." she said again, beaming upon Richard Hartley,
+whom she liked, and, when he protested that he had a definite and important
+appointment with her lodger, went on to explain that Ste. Marie had gone
+out, doubtless to lunch, before one o'clock and had never returned.</p>
+
+<p>"He may have left word for me up-stairs," Hartley said; "I'll go up and
+wait, if I may." So the woman got him her extra key, and he went up, let
+himself into the flat, and made lights there.</p>
+
+<p><a name="Page_207"></a>Naturally he found no word, but his own note of
+that morning lay spread out upon a table where Ste. Marie had left it, and
+so he knew that his friend was in possession of the two facts he had
+learned about Stewart. He made himself comfortable with a book and some
+cigarettes, and settled down to wait.</p>
+
+<p>Ste. Marie out at La Lierre, with a bullet-hole in his leg, was deep in
+a drugged sleep just then, but Hartley waited for him, looking up now and
+then from his book with a scowl of impatience, until the little clock on
+the mantel said that it was one o'clock. Then he went home in a very bad
+temper, after writing another note and leaving it on the table, to say that
+he would return early in the morning.</p>
+
+<p>But in the morning he began to be alarmed. He questioned the concierge
+very closely as to Ste. Marie's movements on the day previous, but she
+could tell him little, save to mention the brief visit of a man with an
+accent of Toulouse or Marseilles, and there seemed to be no one else to
+whom he could go. He spent the entire morning in the flat, and returned
+there after a hasty lunch. But at mid-afternoon he took a fiacre at the
+corner of the Gardens and drove to the rue du Faubourg St.
+Honor&eacute;.</p>
+
+<p>Captain Stewart was at home. He was in a dressing-gown, and still looked
+fagged and unwell. He certainly betrayed some surprise at sight of his
+visitor, but he made Hartley welcome at once and insisted upon having
+cigars and things to drink brought out for him. On the whole he presented
+an astonishingly normal exterior, for within him he must have been cold
+with fear, and in his ears a question must have rung and shouted and rung
+again unceasingly--"What does this fellow know? What does he know?"</p>
+
+<p>Hartley's very presence there had a perilous look.</p>
+
+<p><a name="Page_208"></a>The younger man shook his head at the servant who
+asked him what he wished to drink.</p>
+
+<p>"Thanks, you're very good," he said to Captain Stewart, and that
+gentleman eyed him silently. "I can't stay but a moment. I just dropped in
+to ask if you'd any idea what can have become of Ste. Marie."</p>
+
+<p>"Ste. Marie?" said Captain Stewart. "What do you mean--'become of him'?"
+He moistened his lips to speak, but he said the words without a tremor.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, what I meant was," said Hartley, "that you'd seen him last. He
+was here Thursday evening. Did he say anything to you about going anywhere
+in particular the next day--yesterday? He left his rooms about noon and
+hasn't turned up since."</p>
+
+<p>Captain Stewart drew a short breath and sat down, abruptly, in a near-by
+chair, for all at once his knees had begun to tremble under him. He was
+conscious of a great and blissful wave of relief and well-being, and he
+wanted to laugh. He wanted so much to laugh that it became a torture to
+keep his face in repose.</p>
+
+<p>So Ste. Marie had left no word behind him, and the danger was past!</p>
+
+<p>With a great effort he looked up from where he sat to Richard Hartley,
+who stood anxious and frowning before him.</p>
+
+<p>"Forgive me for sitting down," he said, "and sit down yourself, I beg.
+I'm still very shaky from my attack of illness. Ste. Marie--Ste. Marie has
+disappeared? How very extraordinary! It's like poor Arthur. Still--a single
+day! He might be anywhere for a single day, might he not? For all that,
+though, it's very odd. Why, no. No, I don't think he said anything about
+going away. At least I remember <a name="Page_209"></a>nothing about it."
+The relief and triumph within him burst out in a sudden little chuckle of
+malicious fun. "I can think of only one thing," said he, "that might be of
+use to you. Ste. Marie seemed to take a very great fancy to one of the
+ladies here the other evening. And, I must confess, the lady seemed to
+return it. It had all the look of a desperate flirtation--a most desperate
+flirtation. They spent the evening in a corner together. You don't
+suppose," he said, still chuckling gently, "that Ste. Marie is taking a
+little holiday, do you? You don't suppose that the lady could account for
+him?"</p>
+
+<p>"No," said Richard Hartley, "I don't. And if you knew Ste. Marie a
+little better you wouldn't suppose it, either." But after a pause he said:
+"Could you give me the--lady's name, by any chance? Of course, I don't want
+to leave any stone unturned."</p>
+
+<p>And once more the other man emitted his pleased little chuckle that was
+so like a cat's mew.</p>
+
+<p>"I can give you her name," said he. "The name is Mlle.---- Bertrand.
+Elise Bertrand. But I regret to say I haven't the address by me. She came
+with some friends. I will try and get it and send it you. Will that be all
+right?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, thanks!" said Richard Hartley. "You're very good. And now I must
+be going on. I'm rather in a hurry."</p>
+
+<p>Captain Stewart protested against this great haste, and pressed the
+younger man to sit down and tell him more about his friend's disappearance,
+but Hartley excused himself, repeating that he was in a great hurry, and
+went off.</p>
+
+<p>When he had gone Captain Stewart lay back in his chair and laughed until
+he was weak and ached from it, the <a name="Page_210"></a>furious, helpless
+laughter which comes after the sudden release from a terrible strain. He
+was not, as a rule, a demonstrative man, but he became aware that he would
+like to dance and sing, and probably he would have done both if it had not
+been for the servant in the next room.</p>
+
+<p>So there was no danger to be feared, and his terrors of the night
+past--he shivered a little to think of them--had been, after all, useless
+terrors! As for the prisoner out at La Lierre, nothing was to be feared
+from him so long as a careful watch was kept. Later on he might have to be
+disposed of, since both bullet and poison had failed--he scowled over that,
+remembering a bad quarter of an hour with O'Hara early this morning--but
+that matter could wait. Some way would present itself. He thought of the
+wholly gratuitous lie he had told Hartley, a thing born of a moment's
+malice, and he laughed again. It struck him that it would be very humorous
+if Hartley should come to suspect his friend of turning aside from his
+great endeavors to enter upon an affair with a lady. He dimly remembered
+that Ste. Marie's name had, from time to time, been a good deal involved in
+romantic histories, and he said to himself that his lie had been very well
+chosen, indeed, and might be expected to cause Richard Hartley much anguish
+of spirit.</p>
+
+<p>After that he lighted a very large cigarette, half as big as a cigar,
+and he lay back in his low, comfortable chair and began to think of the
+outcome of all this plotting and planning. As is very apt to be the case
+when a great danger has been escaped, he was in a mood of extreme
+hopefulness and confidence. Vaguely he felt as if the recent happenings had
+set him ahead a pace toward his goal, though of course they had done
+nothing of the kind. The <a name="Page_211"></a>danger that would exist so
+long as Ste. Marie, who knew everything, was alive, seemed in some
+miraculous fashion to have dwindled to insignificance; in this rebound from
+fear and despair difficulties were swept away and the path was clear. The
+man's mind leaped to his goal, and a little shiver of prospective joy ran
+over him. Once that goal gained he could defy the world. Let eyes look
+askance, let tongues wag, he would be safe then--safe for all the rest of
+his life, and rich, rich, rich!</p>
+
+<p>For he was playing against a feeble old man's life. Day by day he
+watched the low flame sink lower as the flame of an exhausted lamp sinks
+and flickers. It was slow, for the old man had still a little strength
+left, but the will to live--which was the oil in the lamp--was almost gone,
+and the waiting could not be long now. One day, quite suddenly, the flame
+would sink down to almost nothing, as at last it does in the spent lamp. It
+would flicker up and down rapidly for a few moments, and all at once there
+would be no flame there. Old David would be dead, and a servant would be
+sent across the river in haste to the rue du Faubourg St. Honor&eacute;.
+Stewart lay back in his chair and tried to imagine that it was true, that
+it had already happened, as happen it must before long, and once more the
+little shiver, which was like a shiver of voluptuous delight, ran up and
+down his limbs, and his breath began to come fast and hard.</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<p>But Richard Hartley drove at once back to the rue d'Assas. He was not
+very much disappointed in having learned nothing from Stewart, though he
+was thoroughly angry at that gentleman's hint about Ste. Marie and the
+unknown lady. He had gone to the rue du Faubourg <a
+name="Page_212"></a>because, as he had said, he wished to leave no stone
+unturned, and, after all, he had thought it quite possible that Stewart
+could give him some information which would be of value. Hartley firmly
+believed the elder man to be a rascal, but of course he knew nothing
+definite save the two facts which he had accidentally learned from Helen
+Benham, and it had occurred to him that Captain Stewart might have sent
+Ste. Marie off upon another wild-goose chase such as the expedition to
+Dinard had been. He would have been sure that the elder man had had
+something to do with Ste. Marie's disappearance if the latter had not been
+seen since Stewart's party, but instead of that Ste. Marie had come home,
+slept, gone out the next morning, returned again, received a visitor, and
+gone out to lunch. It was all very puzzling and mysterious.</p>
+
+<p>His mind went back to the brief interview with Stewart and dwelt upon
+it. Little things which had at the time made no impression upon him began
+to recur and to take on significance. He remembered the elder man's odd and
+strained manner at the beginning, his sudden and causeless change to ease
+and to something that was almost like a triumphant excitement, and then his
+absurd story about Ste. Marie's flirtation with a lady. Hartley thought of
+these things; he thought also of the fact that Ste. Marie had disappeared
+immediately after hearing grave accusations against Stewart. Could he have
+lost his head, rushed across the city at once to confront the middle-aged
+villain, and then--disappeared from human ken? It would have been very like
+him to do something rashly impulsive upon reading that note.</p>
+
+<p>Hartley broke into a sudden laugh of sheer amusement when he realized to
+what a wild and improbable flight his <a name="Page_213"></a>fancy was
+soaring. He could not quite rid himself of a feeling that Stewart was, in
+some mysterious fashion, responsible for his friend's vanishing, but he was
+unlike Ste. Marie: he did not trust his feelings, either good or bad,
+unless they were backed by excellent evidence, and he had to admit that
+there was not a single scrap of evidence in this instance against Miss
+Benham's uncle.</p>
+
+<p>The girl's name recalled him to another duty. He must tell her about
+Ste. Marie. He was by this time half-way up the Boulevard St. Germain, but
+he gave a new order, and the fiacre turned back to the rue de
+l'Universit&eacute;. The footman at the door said that Mademoiselle was not
+in the drawing-room, as it was only four o'clock, but that he thought she
+was in the house. So Hartley sent up his name and went in to wait.</p>
+
+<p>Miss Benham came down looking a little pale and anxious.</p>
+
+<p>"I've been with grandfather," she explained. "He had some sort of
+sinking-spell last night and we were very much frightened. He's much
+better, but--well, he couldn't have many such spells and live. I'm afraid
+he grows a good deal weaker day by day now. He sees hardly any one outside
+the family, except Baron de Vries." She sat down with a little sigh of
+fatigue and smiled up at her visitor. "I'm glad you've come," said she.
+"You'll cheer me up, and I rather need it. What are you looking so solemn
+about, though? You won't cheer me up if you look like that."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, you see," said Hartley, "I came at this impossible hour to bring
+you some bad news. I'm sorry. Perhaps," he modified, "bad news is putting
+it with too much seriousness. Strange news is better. To be brief, Ste.
+Marie has disappeared--vanished into thin air. I thought you ought to
+know."</p>
+
+<p><a name="Page_214"></a>"Ste. Marie!" cried the girl. "How? What do you
+mean--vanished? When did he vanish?"</p>
+
+<p>She gave a sudden exclamation of relief.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, he has come upon some clew or other and has rushed off to follow
+it. That's all. How dare you frighten me so?"</p>
+
+<p>"He went without luggage," said the man, shaking his head, "and he left
+no word of any kind behind him. He went out to lunch yesterday about noon,
+and, as I said, simply vanished, leaving no trace whatever behind him. I've
+just been to see your uncle, thinking that he might know something, but he
+doesn't."</p>
+
+<p>The girl looked up quickly.</p>
+
+<p>"My uncle?" she said. "Why my uncle?"</p>
+
+<p>"Well," said Hartley, "you see, Ste. Marie went to a little party at
+your uncle's flat on the night before he disappeared, and I thought your
+uncle might have heard him say something that would throw light on his
+movements the next day."</p>
+
+<p>Hartley remembered the unfortunate incident of the galloping pigs, and
+hurried on:</p>
+
+<p>"He went to the party more for the purpose of having a talk with your
+uncle than for any other reason, I think. I was to have gone myself, but
+gave it up at the eleventh hour for the Cains' dinner at Armenonville.
+Well, the next morning after Captain Stewart's party he went out early. I
+called at his rooms to see him about something important that I thought he
+ought to know. I missed him, and so left a note for him which he got on his
+return and read. I found it open on his table later on. At noon he went out
+again, and that's all. Frankly, I'm worried about him."</p>
+
+<p>Miss Benham watched the man with thoughtful eyes, and when he had
+finished she asked:</p>
+
+<p><a name="Page_215"></a>"Could you tell me what was in this note that you
+left for Ste. Marie?"</p>
+
+<p>Hartley was by nature a very open and frank young man, and in
+consequence an unusually bad liar. He hesitated and looked away, and he
+began to turn red.</p>
+
+<p>"Well--no," he said, after a moment--"no, I'm afraid I can't. It was
+something you wouldn't understand--wouldn't know about."</p>
+
+<p>And the girl said, "Oh!" and remained for a little while silent. But at
+the end she looked up and met his eyes, and the man saw that she was very
+grave. She said:</p>
+
+<p>"Richard, there is something that you and I have been avoiding and
+pretending not to see. It has gone too far now, and we've got to face it
+with perfect frankness. I know what was in your note to Ste. Marie. It was
+what you found out the other evening about--my uncle--the matter of the
+will and the other matter. He knew about the will, but he told you and Ste.
+Marie that he didn't. He said to you, also, that I had told him about my
+engagement and Ste. Marie's determination to search for Arthur, and that
+was--a lie. I didn't tell him, and grandfather didn't tell him. He listened
+in the door yonder and heard it himself. I have a good reason for knowing
+that. And then," she said, "he tried very hard to persuade you and Ste.
+Marie to take up your search under his direction, and he partly succeeded.
+He sent Ste. Marie upon a foolish expedition to Dinard, and he gave him and
+gave you other clews just as foolish as that one. Richard, do you believe
+that my uncle has hidden poor Arthur away somewhere or--worse than that? Do
+you? Tell me the truth!"</p>
+
+<p>"There is not," said Hartley, "one particle of real evidence <a
+name="Page_216"></a>against him that I'm aware of. There's plenty of
+motive, if you like, but motive is not evidence."</p>
+
+<p>"I asked you a question," the girl said. "Do you believe my uncle has
+been responsible for Arthur's disappearance?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes," said Richard Hartley, "I'm afraid I do."</p>
+
+<p>"Then," she said, "he has been responsible for Ste. Marie's
+disappearance also. Ste. Marie became dangerous to him, and so vanished.
+What can we do, Richard? What can we do?"</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+
+
+
+<a name="Page_217"></a><h2><a name='XVIII'></a>XVIII</h2>
+
+<h3>A CONVERSATION OVERHEARD</h3>
+
+
+<p>In the upper chamber at La Lierre the days dragged very slowly by, and
+the man who lay in bed there counted interminable hours and prayed for the
+coming of night with its merciful oblivion of sleep. His inaction was made
+bitterer by the fact that the days were days of green and gold, of
+breeze-stirred tree-tops without his windows, of vagrant sweet airs that
+stole in upon his solitude, bringing him all the warm fragrance of summer
+and of green things growing.</p>
+
+<p>He suffered little pain. There was, for the first three or four days, a
+dull and feverish ache in his wounded leg, but presently even that passed,
+and the leg hurt him only when he moved it. He thought sometimes that he
+would be grateful for a bit of physical anguish to make the hours pass more
+quickly.</p>
+
+<p>The other inmates of the house held aloof from him. Once a day O'Hara
+came in to see to the wound, but he maintained a well-nigh complete silence
+over his work, and answered questions only with a brief yes or no.
+Sometimes he did not answer them at all. The old Michel came twice daily,
+but this strange being had quite plainly been frightened into dumbness, and
+there was nothing to be got out of him. He shambled hastily about the
+place, his one scared <a name="Page_218"></a>eye upon the man in bed, and
+as soon as possible fled away, closing the door behind him. Sometimes
+Michel brought in the meals, sometimes his wife, a creature so like him
+that the two might well have passed for twin survivors of some unknown
+race; sometimes--thrice altogether in that first week--Coira O'Hara brought
+the tray, and she was as silent as the others.</p>
+
+<p>So Ste. Marie was left alone to get through the interminable days as
+best he might, and ever afterward the week remained in his memory as a sort
+of nightmare. Lying idle in his bed, he evolved many surprising and
+fantastic schemes for escape, for getting word to the outside world of his
+presence here, and one by one he gave them up in disgust as their
+impossibility forced itself upon him. Plans and schemes were useless while
+he lay bedridden, unfamiliar even with the house wherein he dwelt, with the
+garden and park that surrounded it.</p>
+
+<p>As for aid from any of the inmates of the place, that was to be laughed
+at. They were engaged together in a scheme so desperate that failure must
+mean utter ruin to them all. He sometimes wondered if the two servants
+could be bribed. Avarice unmistakable gleamed from their little,
+glittering, ratlike eyes, but he was sure that they would sell out for no
+small sum, and in so far as he could remember there had been in his
+pockets, when he came here, not more than five or six louis. Doubtless the
+old Michel had managed to abstract those in his daily offices about the
+room, for Ste. Marie knew that the clothes hung in a closet across from his
+bed. He had seen them there once when the closet-door was open.</p>
+
+<p>Any help that might come to him must come from outside--and what help
+was to be expected there? Over and <a name="Page_219"></a>over again he
+reminded himself of how little Richard Hartley knew. He might suspect
+Stewart of complicity in this new disappearance, but how was he to find out
+anything definite? How was any one to do so?</p>
+
+<p>It was at such times as this, when brain and nerves were strained and
+worn almost to breaking-point, that Ste. Marie had occasion to be grateful
+for the Southern blood that was in him, the strong tinge of fatalism which
+is common alike to Latin and to Oriental. It rescued him more than once
+from something like nervous breakdown, calmed him suddenly, lifted his
+burdens from outwearied shoulders, and left him in peace to wait until some
+action should be possible. Then, in such hours, he would fall to thinking
+of the girl for whose sake, in whose cause, he lay bedridden, beset with
+dangers. As long before, she came to him in a sort of waking vision--a
+being but half earthly, enthroned high above him, calm-browed, very pure,
+with passionless eyes that gazed into far distance and were unaware of the
+base things below. What would she think of him, who had sworn to be true
+knight to her, if she could know how he had bungled and failed? He was glad
+that she did not know, that if he had blundered into peril the knowledge of
+it could not reach her to hurt her pride.</p>
+
+<p>And sometimes, also, with a great sadness and pity, he thought of poor
+Coira O'Hara and of the pathetic wreck her life had fallen into. The girl
+was so patently fit for better things! Her splendid beauty was not a cheap
+beauty. She was no coarse-blown, gorgeous flower, imperfect at telltale
+points. It was good blood that had modelled her dark perfection, good blood
+that had shaped her long and slim and tapering hands.</p>
+
+<p>"A queen among goddesses!" The words remained with <a
+name="Page_220"></a>him, and he knew that they were true. She might have
+held up her head among the greatest, this adventurer's girl; but what
+chance had she had? What merest ghost of a chance?</p>
+
+<p>He watched her on the rare occasions when she came into the room. He
+watched the poise of her head, her walk, the movements she made, and he
+said to himself that there was no woman of his acquaintance whose grace was
+more perfect--certainly none whose grace was so native.</p>
+
+<p>Once he complained to her of the desperate idleness of his days, and
+asked her to lend him a book of some kind, a review, even a daily
+newspaper, though it be a week old.</p>
+
+<p>"I should read the very advertisements with joy," he said.</p>
+
+<p>She went out of the room and returned presently with an armful of books,
+which she laid upon the bed without comment.</p>
+
+<p>"In my prayers, Mademoiselle," cried Ste. Marie, "you shall be foremost
+forever!" He glanced at the row of titles and looked up in sheer
+astonishment. "May I ask whose books these are?" he said.</p>
+
+<p>"They are mine," said the girl. "I caught up the ones that lay first at
+hand. If you don't care for any of them, I will choose others."</p>
+
+<p>The books were: <i>Diana of the Crossways, Richard Feverel,</i> Henri
+Lavedan's <i>Le Duel</i>, Maeterlinck's <i>Pelleas et M&eacute;lisande, Don
+Quixote de la Mancha</i>, in Spanish, a volume of Virgil's <i>Eclogues</i>,
+and the <i>Life of the Chevalier Bayard</i>, by the Loyal Servitor. Ste.
+Marie stared at her.</p>
+
+<p>"Do you read Spanish," he demanded, "and Latin, as well as French and
+English?"</p>
+
+<p>"My mother was Spanish," said she. "And as for Latin, <a
+name="Page_221"></a>I began to read it with my father when I was a child.
+Shall I leave the books here?"</p>
+
+<p>Ste. Marie took up the <i>Bayard</i> and held it between his hands.</p>
+
+<p>"It is worn from much reading, Mademoiselle," he said.</p>
+
+<p>"It is the best of all," said she. "The very best of all. I didn't know
+I had brought you that."</p>
+
+<p>She made a step toward him as if she would take the book away, and over
+it their eyes met and were held. In that moment it may have come to them
+both who she was, who so loved the knight without fear and without
+reproach--the daughter of art Irish adventurer of ill repute--for their
+faces began suddenly to flush with red, and after an instant the girl
+turned away.</p>
+
+<p>"It is of no consequence," said she. "You may keep the book if you care
+to."</p>
+
+<p>And Ste. Marie said, very gently: "Thank you, Mademoiselle. I will keep
+it for a little while."</p>
+
+<p>So she went out of the room and left him alone.</p>
+
+<p>This was at noon on the sixth day, and, after he had swallowed hastily
+the lunch which had been set before him, Ste. Marie fell upon the books
+like a child upon a new box of sweets. Like the child again, it was
+difficult for him to choose among them. He opened one and then another,
+gloating over them all, but in the end he chose the <i>Bayard</i>, and for
+hours lost himself among the high deeds of the Preux Chevalier and his
+faithful friends--among whom, by the way, there was a Ste. Marie who died
+nobly for France. It was late afternoon when at last he laid the book down
+with a sigh and settled himself more comfortably among the pillows.</p>
+
+<p>The sun was not in the room at that hour, but from where <a
+name="Page_222"></a>he lay he could see it on the tree-tops, gold upon
+green. Outside his south window the leaves of a chestnut which stood there
+quivered and rustled gently under a soft breeze. Delectable odors floated
+in to Ste. Marie's nostrils, and he thought how very pleasant it would be
+if he were lying on the turf under the trees instead of bedridden in this
+upper chamber, which he had come to hate with a bitter hatred.</p>
+
+<p>He began to wonder if it would be possible to drag himself across the
+floor to that south window, and so to lie down for a while with his head in
+the tiny balcony beyond, his eyes turned to the blue sky. Astir with the
+new thought, he sat up in bed and carefully swung his feet out till they
+hung to the floor. The wound in the left leg smarted and burned, but not
+too severely, and with slow pains Ste. Marie stood up. He almost cried out
+when he discovered that it could be done quite easily. He essayed to walk,
+and he was a little weak, but by no means helpless. He found that it gave
+him pain to raise his left leg in the ordinary action of walking or to bend
+that knee, but he could get about well enough by dragging the injured
+member beside him, for when it was straight it supported him without
+protest.</p>
+
+<p>He took his pillows across to the window and disposed them there, for it
+was a French window opening to the floor, and the level of the little
+balcony outside was but a few inches above the level of the room. Then the
+desire seized him to make a tour of his prison walls. He went first to the
+closet where he had seen his clothes hanging, and they were still there. He
+felt in the pockets and withdrew his little English pigskin
+sovereign-purse. It had not been tampered with, and he gave an exclamation
+of relief over that, for he might later on have use for money. There were
+eight louis in it, each in its little separate compartment, <a
+name="Page_223"></a>and in another pocket he found a fifty-franc note and
+some silver. He went to the two east windows and looked out. The trees
+stood thick together on that side of the house, but between two of them he
+could see the park wall fifty yards away. He glanced down, and the side of
+the house was covered thick with the ivy which had given the place its
+name, but there was no water-pipe near, nor any other thing which seemed to
+offer foot or hand hold, unless, perhaps, the ivy might prove strong enough
+to bear a man's weight. Ste. Marie made a mental note to look into that
+when he was a little stronger, and turned back to the south window where he
+had disposed his pillows.</p>
+
+<p>The unaccustomed activity was making his wound smart and prickle, and he
+lay down at once with head and shoulders in the open air, and out of the
+warm and golden sunshine and the emerald shade the breath of summer came to
+him and wrapped him round with sweetness and pillowed him upon its fragrant
+breast.</p>
+
+<p>He became aware after a long time of voices below, and turned upon his
+elbows to look. The ivy had clambered upon and partly covered the iron
+grille of the little balcony, and he could observe without being seen.
+Young Arthur Benham and Coira O'Hara had come out of the door of the house,
+and they stood upon the raised and paved terrace which ran the width of the
+fa&ccedil;ade, and seemed to hesitate as to the direction they should take.
+Ste. Marie heard the girl say:</p>
+
+<p>"It's cooler here in the shade of the house," and after a moment the two
+came along the shady terrace whose outer margin was set at intervals with
+stained and discolored marble nymphs upon pedestals, and between the <a
+name="Page_224"></a>nymphs with moss-grown stone benches. They halted
+before a bench upon which, earlier in the day, a rug had been spread out to
+dry in the sun and had been forgotten, and after a moment's further
+hesitation they sat down upon it. Their faces were turned toward the house,
+and every word that they spoke mounted in that still air clear and distinct
+to the ears of the man above.</p>
+
+<p>Ste. Marie wriggled back into the room and sat up to consider. The
+thought of deliberately listening to a conversation not meant for him sent
+a hot flush to his cheeks. He told himself that it could not be done, and
+that there was an end to the matter. Whatever might hang upon it, it could
+not be asked of him that he should stoop to dishonor. But at that the heavy
+and grave responsibility, which really did hang upon him and upon his
+actions, came before his mind's eye and loomed there mountainous. The fate
+of this foolish boy who was set round with thieves and adventurers--even
+though his eyes were open and he knew where he stood--that came to Ste.
+Marie and confronted him; and the picture of a bitter old man who was dying
+of grief came to him; and a mother's face; and <i>hers</i>. There could be
+no dishonor in the face of all this, only a duty very clear and plain. He
+crept back to his place, his arms folded beneath him as he lay, his eyes at
+the thin screen of ivy which cloaked the balcony grille.</p>
+
+<p>Young Arthur Benham appeared to be giving tongue to a rather sharp
+attack of homesickness. It may be that long confinement within the walls of
+La Lierre was beginning to try him somewhat.</p>
+
+<p>"Mind you," he declared, as Ste. Marie's ears came once more within
+range--"mind you, I'm not saying that Paris hasn't got its points. It has.
+Oh yes! And so has London, <a name="Page_225"></a>and so has Ostend, and so
+has Monte Carlo. Verree much so! I like Paris. I like the theatres and the
+vaudeville shows in the Champs-Elys&eacute;es, and I like Longchamps. I
+like the boys who hang around Henry's Bar. They're good sports all right,
+all right! But, by golly, I want to go home! Put me off at the corner of
+Forty-second Street and Broadway, and I'll ask no more. Set me down at 7
+P.M., right there on the corner outside the Knickerbocker, for that's where
+I would live and die." There came into the lad's somewhat strident voice a
+softness that was almost pathetic. "You don't know Broadway, Coira, do you?
+Nix! of course not. Little girl, it's the one street of all this large
+world. It's the equator that runs north and south instead of east and west.
+It's a long, bright, gay, live wire!--that's what Broadway is. And I give
+you my word of honor, like a little man, that it--is--not--slow. No-o,
+indeed! When I was there last it was being called the 'Gay White Way.' It
+is not called the 'Gay White Way' now. It has had forty other new, good
+names since then, and I don't know what they are, but I do know that it is
+forever gay, and that the electric signs are still blazing all along the
+street, and the street-cars are still killing people in the good old
+fashion, and the news-boys are still dodging under the automobiles to sell
+you a <i>Woild</i> or a <i>Choinal</i> or, if it's after twelve at night, a
+<i>Morning Telegraph</i>. Coira, my girl, standing on that corner after
+dark you can see the electric signs of fifteen theatres, not one of them
+more than five minutes' walk away; and just round the corner there are
+more. I want to go home! I want to take one large, unparalleled leap from
+here and come down at the corner I told you about. D'you know what I'd do?
+We'll say it's 7 P.M. and beginning to get dark. I'd dive into the
+Knickerbocker--that's the hotel <a name="Page_226"></a>that the bright and
+happy people go to for dinner or supper--and I'd engage a table up on the
+terrace. Then I'd telephone to a little friend of mine whose name is
+Doe--John Doe--and in about ten minutes he'd have left the crowd he was
+standing in line with and he'd come galloping up, that glad to see me you'd
+cry to watch him. We'd go up on the terrace, where the potted palms grow,
+for our dinner, and the tables all around us would be full of people that
+would know Johnnie Doe and me, and they'd all make us drink drinks and tell
+us how glad they were to see us aboard again. And after dinner," said young
+Arthur Benham, with wide and smiling eyes--"after dinner we'd go to see one
+of the roof-garden shows. Let me tell you they've got the Marigny or the
+Ambassadeurs or the Jardin de Paris beaten to a pulp--to--a--pulp! And
+after the show we'd slip round to the stage-door--you bet we would!--and
+capture the two most beautiful ladies in the world and take 'em off to
+supper."</p>
+
+<p>He wrinkled his young brow in great perplexity. "Now I wonder," said he,
+anxiously--"I wonder where we'd go for supper. You see," he apologized,
+"it's two years since I left the Real Street, and, gee! what a lot can
+happen on Broadway in two years! There's probably half a dozen new
+supper-places that I don't know anything about, and one of them's the place
+where the crowd goes. Well, anyhow, we'd go to that place, and there'd be a
+band playing, and the electric fans would go round and round, and Johnnie
+Doe and I and the two most beautiful ladies would put it all over the other
+pikers there."</p>
+
+<p>Young Benham gave a little sigh of pleasure and excitement. "That's what
+I'd like to do to-night," said he, "and that's what I'll do, you can bet
+your sh--boots, when <a name="Page_227"></a>all this silly mess is over and
+I'm a free man. I'll hike back to good old Broadway, and if ever you see
+any one trying to pry me loose from it again you can laugh yourself to
+death, because he'll never, never succeed.</p>
+
+<p>"That's where I'll go," he said, nodding, "when this waiting is
+over--straight back to Liberty Land and the bright lights. The rest of the
+family can stay here till they die, if they want to--and I suppose they
+do--<i>I'm</i> going home as soon as I've got my money. Old Charlie'll
+manage all that for me. He'll get a lawyer to look after it, and I won't
+have to see anybody in the family at all.</p>
+
+<p>"Nine more weeks shut in by stone walls!" said the boy, staring about
+him with a sort of bitterness. "Nine weeks more!"</p>
+
+<p>"Is it so hard as that?" asked the girl.</p>
+
+<p>There was no foolish coquetry in her tone. She spoke as if the words
+involved no personal question at all, but there was a little smile at her
+lips, and Arthur Benham turned toward her quickly and caught at her
+hands.</p>
+
+<p>"No, no!" he cried. "I didn't mean that. You know I didn't mean that.
+You're worth nine years' waiting. You're the best--d'you hear?--the best
+there is. There's nobody anywhere that can touch you. Only--well, this
+place is getting on my nerves. It's got me worn to a frazzle. I feel like a
+criminal doing time."</p>
+
+<p>"You came very near having to do time somewhere else," said the girl.
+"If this M. Ste. Marie hadn't blundered we should have had them all round
+our ears, and you'd have had to run for it."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes," the boy said, nodding gravely. "Yes, that was great luck."</p>
+
+<p><a name="Page_228"></a>He raised his head and looked up along the
+windows above him.</p>
+
+<p>"Which is his room?" he asked, and Mlle. O'Hara said:</p>
+
+<p>"The one just overhead, but he's in bed far back from the window. He
+couldn't possibly hear us talking."</p>
+
+<p>She paused for a moment in frowning hesitation, and in the end said:</p>
+
+<p>"Tell me about him, this Ste. Marie! Do you know anything about
+him?"</p>
+
+<p>"No," said Arthur Benham, "I don't--not personally, that is. Of course
+I've heard of him. Lots of people have spoken of him to me. And the odd
+part of it is that they all had a good word to say. Everybody seemed to
+like him. I got the idea that he was the best ever. I wanted to know him. I
+never thought he'd take on a piece of dirty work like this."</p>
+
+<p>"Nor I," said the girl, in a low voice. "Nor I."</p>
+
+<p>The boy looked up.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, you've heard of him, too, then?" said he.</p>
+
+<p>And she said, still in her low voice, "I--saw him once."</p>
+
+<p>"Well," declared young Benham, "it's beyond me. I give it up. You never
+can tell about people, can you? I guess they'll all go wrong when there's
+enough in it to make it worth while. That's what old Charlie always says.
+He says most people are straight enough when there's nothing in it, but
+make the pot big enough and they'll all go crooked."</p>
+
+<p>The young man's face turned suddenly hard and old and bitter.</p>
+
+<p>"Gee! I ought to know that well enough, oughtn't I?" he said. "I guess
+nobody knows that better than I do after what happened to me.... Come along
+and take a walk in the garden, Maud! I'm sick of sitting still."</p>
+
+<p class="figure"> <a name="jason006"><img
+width="80%" alt="Illustration: TELL ME ABOUT HIM, THIS STE. MARIE! DO YOU
+KNOW ANYTHING ABOUT HIM?" src="images/jason006.png" /></a><br /> TELL ME ABOUT
+HIM, THIS STE. MARIE! DO YOU KNOW ANYTHING ABOUT HIM?</p>
+
+<p><a name="Page_229"></a>Mlle. Coira O'Hara looked up with a start, as if
+she had not been listening, but she rose when the boy held out his hand to
+her, and the two went down from the terrace and moved off toward the
+west.</p>
+
+<p>Ste. Marie watched them until they had disappeared among the trees, and
+then turned on his back, staring up into the softly stirring canopy of
+green above him and the little rifts of bright blue sky. He did not
+understand at all. Something mysterious had crept in where all had seemed
+so plain to the eye. Certain words that young Arthur Benham had spoken
+repeated themselves in his mind, and he could not at once make them out.
+Assuredly there was something mysterious here.</p>
+
+<p>In the first place, what did the boy mean by "dirty work"? To be sure,
+spying, in its usual sense, is not held to be one of the noblest of
+occupations, but--in such a cause as this! It was absurd, ridiculous, to
+call it "dirty work." And what did he mean by the words which he had used
+afterward? Ste. Marie did not quite follow the idiom about the "big enough
+pot," but he assumed that it referred to money. Did the young fool think he
+was being paid for his efforts? That was ridiculous, too.</p>
+
+<p>The boy's face came before him as it had looked with that sudden hard
+and bitter expression. What did he mean by saying that no one knew the
+crookedness of humanity under money temptation better than he knew it after
+something that had happened to him? In a sense his words were doubtless
+very true. Captain Stewart--and he must have been "old Charlie"; Ste. Marie
+remembered that the name was Charles--O'Hara, and O'Hara's daughter stood
+excellent examples of that bit of cynicism, but obviously the boy had not
+spoken in that sense--certainly <a name="Page_230"></a>not before Mlle.
+O'Hara! He meant something else, then. But what--what?</p>
+
+<p>Ste. Marie rose with some difficulty to his feet and carried the pillows
+back to the bed whence he had taken them. He sat down upon the edge of the
+bed, staring in great perplexity across the room at the open window, but
+all at once he uttered an exclamation and smote his hands together.</p>
+
+<p>"That boy doesn't know!" he cried. "They're tricking him, these
+others!"</p>
+
+<p>The lad's face came once more before him, and it was a foolish and
+stubborn face, perhaps, but it was neither vicious nor mean. It was the
+face of an honest, headstrong boy who would be incapable of the cold
+cruelty to which all circumstances seemed to point.</p>
+
+<p>"They're tricking him somehow!" cried Ste. Marie again. "They're lying
+to him and making him think--"</p>
+
+<p>What was it they were making him think, these three conspirators? What
+possible thing could they make him think other than the plain truth? Ste.
+Marie shook a weary head and lay down among his pillows. He wished that he
+had "old Charlie" in a corner of that room with his fingers round "old
+Charlie's" wicked throat. He would soon get at the truth then; or O'Hara,
+either, that grim and saturnine chevalier d'industrie, though O'Hara would
+be a bad handful to manage; or--Ste. Marie's head dropped back with a
+little groan when the face of young Arthur's enchantress came between him
+and the opposite wall of the room and her great and tragic eyes looked into
+his.</p>
+
+<p>It seemed incredible that that queen among goddesses should be what she
+was!</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+
+
+
+<a name="Page_231"></a><h2><a name='XIX'></a>XIX</h2>
+
+<h3>THE INVALID TAKES THE AIR</h3>
+
+
+<p>When O'Hara, the next morning, went through the formality of looking in
+upon his patient, and after a taciturn nod was about to go away again, Ste.
+Marie called him back. He said, "Would you mind waiting a moment?" and the
+Irishman halted inside the door. "I made an experiment yesterday," said
+Ste. Marie, "and I find that, after a poor fashion, I can walk--that is to
+say, I can drag myself about a little without any great pain if I don't
+bend the left leg."</p>
+
+<p>O'Hara returned to the bed and made a silent examination of the bullet
+wound, which, it was plain to see, was doing very well indeed. "You'll be
+all right in a few days," said he, "but you'll be lame for a week
+yet--maybe two. As a matter of fact, I've known men to march half a day
+with a hole in the leg worse than yours, though it probably was not quite
+pleasant."</p>
+
+<p>"I'm afraid I couldn't march very far," said Ste. Marie, "but I can
+hobble a bit. The point is, I'm going mad from confinement in this room. Do
+you think I might be allowed to stagger about the garden for an hour, or
+sit there under one of the trees? I don't like to ask favors, but, so far
+as I can see, it could do no harm. I couldn't possibly escape, you see. I
+couldn't climb a fifteen-foot wall even <a name="Page_232"></a>if I had two
+good legs; as it is, with a leg and a half, I couldn't climb anything."</p>
+
+<p>The Irishman looked at him sharply, and was silent for a time, as if
+considering. But at last he said: "Of course there is no reason whatever
+for granting you any favors here. You're on the footing of a spy--a
+captured spy--and you're very lucky not to have got what you deserved
+instead of a trumpery flesh wound." The man's face twisted into a heavy
+scowl. "Unfortunately," said he, "an accident has put me--put us in as
+unpleasant a position toward you as you had put yourself toward us. We seem
+to stand in the position of having tried to poison you, and--well, we owe
+you something for that. Still, I'd meant to keep you locked up in this room
+so long as it was necessary to have you at La Lierre." He scowled once more
+in an intimidating fashion at Ste. Marie, and it was evident that he found
+himself embarrassed. "And," he said, awkwardly, "I suppose I owe something
+to your father's son.... Look here! If you're to be allowed in the garden,
+you must understand that it's at fixed hours and not alone. Somebody will
+always be with you, and old Michel will be on hand to shoot you down if you
+try to run for it or if you try to communicate with Arthur Benham. Is that
+understood?"</p>
+
+<p>"Quite," said Ste. Marie, gayly. "Quite understood and agreed to. And
+many thanks for your courtesy. I sha'n't forget it. We differ rather widely
+on some rather important subjects, you and I, but I must confess that
+you're very generous, and I thank you. The old Michel has my full
+permission to shoot at me if he sees me trying to fly over a fifteen-foot
+wall."</p>
+
+<p>"He'll shoot without asking your permission," said the Irishman, grimly,
+"if you try that on, but I don't think <a name="Page_233"></a>you'll be apt
+to try it for the present--not with a crippled leg." He pulled out his
+watch and looked at it. "Nine o'clock," said he. "If you care to begin
+to-day you can go out at eleven for an hour. I'll see that old Michel is
+ready at that time."</p>
+
+<p>"Eleven will suit me perfectly," said Ste. Marie. "You're very good.
+Thanks once more!" The Irishman did not seem to hear. He replaced the watch
+in his pocket and turned away in silence. But before he left the room he
+stood a moment beside one of the windows, staring out into the morning
+sunshine, and the other man could see that his face had once more settled
+into the still and melancholic gloom which was characteristic of it. Ste.
+Marie watched, and for the first time the man began to interest him as a
+human being. He had thought of O'Hara before merely as a rather shady
+adventurer of a not very rare type, but he looked at the adventurer's face
+now and he saw that it was the face of a man of unspeakable sorrows. When
+O'Hara looked at one, one saw only a pair of singularly keen and hard blue
+eyes set under a bony brow. When those eyes were turned away, the man's
+attention relaxed, the face became a battle-ground furrowed and scarred
+with wrecked pride and with bitterness and with shame and with agony. Most
+soldiers of fortune have faces like that, for the world has used them very
+ill, and they have lost one precious thing after another until all are
+gone, and they have tasted everything that there is in life, and the flavor
+which remains is a very bitter flavor--dry, like ashes.</p>
+
+<p>It came to Ste. Marie, as he lay watching this man, that the story of
+the man's life, if he could be made to tell it, would doubtless be one of
+the most interesting stories in the world, as must be the tale of the
+adventurous career of any <a name="Page_234"></a>one who has slipped down
+the ladder of respectability, rung by rung, into that shadowy no-man's-land
+where the furtive birds of prey foregather and hatch their plots. It was
+plain enough that O'Hara had, as the phrase goes, seen better days. Without
+question he was a villain, but, after all, a generous villain. He had been
+very decent about making amends for that poisoning affair. A cheaper rascal
+would have behaved otherwise. Ste. Marie suddenly remembered what a friend
+of his had once said of this mysterious Irishman. The two had been sitting
+on the terrace of a caf&eacute;, and as O'Hara passed by Ste. Marie's
+friend pointed after him and said: "There goes some of the best blood that
+ever came out of Ireland. See what it has fallen to!"</p>
+
+<p>Seemingly it had fallen pretty low. He would have liked very much to
+know about the downward stages, but he knew that he would never hear
+anything of them from the man himself, for O'Hara was clad, as it were, in
+an armor of taciturnity. He was incredibly silent. He wore mail that
+nothing could pierce.</p>
+
+<p>The Irishman turned abruptly away and left the room, and Ste. Marie,
+with all the gay excitement of a little girl preparing for her first
+nursery party, began to get himself ready to go out. The old Michel had
+already been there to help him bathe and shave, so that he had only to
+dress himself and attend to his one conspicuous vanity--the painstaking
+arrangement of his hair, which he wore, according to the fashion of the
+day, parted a little at one side and brushed almost straight back, so that
+it looked rather like a close-fitting and incredibly glossy skullcap.
+Richard Hartley, who was inclined to joke at his friend's grave interest in
+the matter, said that it reminded him of patent-leather.</p>
+
+<p>When he was dressed--and he found that putting on <a
+name="Page_235"></a>his left boot was no mean feat--Ste. Marie sat down in
+a chair by the window and lighted a cigarette. He had half an hour to wait,
+and so he picked up the volume of <i>Bayard</i>, which Coira O'Hara had not
+yet taken away from him, and began to read in it at random. He became so
+absorbed that the old Michel, come to summon him, took him by surprise. But
+it was a pleasant surprise and very welcome. He followed the old man out of
+the room with a heart that beat fast with eagerness.</p>
+
+<p>The descent of the stairs offered difficulties, for the wounded leg
+protested sharply against being bent more than a very little at the knee.
+But by the aid of Michel's shoulder he made the passage in safety and so
+came to the lower story. At the foot of the stairs some one opened a door
+almost in their faces, but closed it again with great haste, and Ste. Marie
+gave a chuckle of laughter, for, though it was almost dark there, he
+thought he had recognized Captain Stewart.</p>
+
+<p>"So old Charlie's with us to-day, is he?" he said, aloud, and Michel
+queried:</p>
+
+<p>"Comment, Monsieur?" because Ste. Marie had spoken in English.</p>
+
+<p>They came out upon the terrace before the house, and the fresh, sweet
+air bore against their faces, and little flecks of live gold danced and
+shivered about their feet upon the moss-stained tiles. The gardener stepped
+back for an instant into the doorway, and reappeared bearing across his
+arms the short carbine with which Ste. Marie had already made acquaintance.
+The victim looked at this weapon with a laugh, and the old Michel's
+gnomelike countenance distorted itself suddenly and a weird cackle came
+from it.</p>
+
+<p><a name="Page_236"></a>"It is my old friend?" demanded Ste. Marie, and
+the gardener cackled once more, stroking the barrel of the weapon as if it
+were a faithful dog.</p>
+
+<p>"The same, Monsieur," said he. "But she apologizes for not doing
+better."</p>
+
+<p>"Beg her for me," said the young man, "to cheer up. She may get another
+chance."</p>
+
+<p>Old Michel's face froze into an expression of anxious and rather
+frightened solicitude, but he waved his arm for the prisoner to precede
+him, and Ste. Marie began to limp down across the littered and unkempt
+sweep of turf. Behind him, at the distance of a dozen paces, he heard the
+shambling footfalls of his guard, but he had expected that, and it could
+not rob him of his swelling and exultant joy at treading once more upon
+green grass and looking up into blue sky. He was like a man newly released
+from a dungeon rather than from a sunny and by no means uncomfortable upper
+chamber. He would have liked to dance and sing, to run at full speed like a
+child until he was breathless and red in the face. Instead of that he had
+to drag himself with slow pains and some discomfort, but his spirit ran
+ahead, dancing and singing, and he thought that it even halted now and then
+to roll on the grass.</p>
+
+<p>As he had observed a week before, from the top of the wall, a double row
+of larches led straight down away from the front of the house, making a
+wide and long vista interrupted half-way to its end by a rond point, in the
+centre of which were a pool and a fountain. The double row of trees was
+sadly broken now, and the trees were untrimmed and uncared for. One of them
+had fallen, probably in a wind-storm, and lay dead across the way. Ste.
+Marie turned aside toward the west and found himself presently <a
+name="Page_237"></a>among chestnuts, planted in close rows, whose tops grew
+in so thick a canopy above that but little sunshine came through, and there
+was no turf under foot, only black earth, hard-trodden, mossy here and
+there.</p>
+
+<p>From beyond, in the direction he had chanced to take, and a little
+toward the west, a soft morning breeze bore to him the scent of roses so
+constant and so sweet, despite its delicacy, that to breathe it was like an
+intoxication. He felt it begin to take hold upon and to sway his senses
+like an exquisite, an insidious wine.</p>
+
+<p>"The flower-gardens, Michel?" he asked, over his shoulder. "They are
+before us?"</p>
+
+<p>"Ahead and to the left, Monsieur," said the old man, and he took up once
+more his slow and difficult progress.</p>
+
+<p>But again, before he had gone many steps, he was halted. There began to
+reach his ears a rich but slender strain of sound, a golden thread of
+melody. At first he thought that it was a 'cello or the lower notes of a
+violin, but presently he became aware that it was a woman singing in a
+half-voice without thought of what she sang--as women croon to a child, or
+over their work, or when they are idle and their thoughts are far
+wandering.</p>
+
+<p>The mistake was not as absurd as it may seem, for it is a fact that the
+voice which is called a contralto, if it is a good and clear and fairly
+resonant voice, sounds at a distance very much indeed like a 'cello or the
+lower register of a violin. And that is especially true when the voice is
+hushed to a half-articulate murmur. Indeed, this is but one of the many
+strange peculiarities of that most beautiful of all human organs. The
+contralto can rarely express the lighter things, and it is quite impossible
+for it to express merriment or gayety, but it can thrill the heart as can
+no <a name="Page_238"></a>other sound emitted by a human throat, and it can
+shake the soul to its very innermost hidden deeps. It is the soft, yellow
+gold of singing--the wine of sound; it is mystery; it is shadowy, unknown,
+beautiful places; it is enchantment. Ste. Marie stood still and listened.
+The sound of low singing came from the right. Without realizing that he had
+moved, he began to make his way in that direction, and the old Michel,
+carbine upon arm, followed behind him. He had no doubt of the singer. He
+knew well who it was, for the girl's speaking voice had thrilled him long
+before this. He came to the eastern margin of the grove of chestnuts and
+found that he was beside the open rond point, where the pool lay within its
+stone circumference, unclean and choked with lily-pads, and the fountain--a
+naked lady holding aloft a shell--stood above. The rond point was not in
+reality round; it was an oval with its greater axis at right angles to the
+long, straight avenue of larches. At the two ends of the oval there were
+stone benches with backs, and behind these, tall shrubs grew close and
+overhung, so that even at noonday the spots were shaded.</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+
+
+
+<a name="Page_239"></a><h2><a name='XX'></a>XX</h2>
+
+<h3>THE STONE BENCH AT THE ROND POINT</h3>
+
+
+<p>Mlle. Coira O'Hara sat alone upon the stone bench at the hither end of
+the rond point. With a leisurely hand she put fine stitches into a
+mysterious garment of white, with lace on it, and over her not too arduous
+toil she sang, &agrave; demi voix, a little German song all about the
+tender passions.</p>
+
+<p>Ste. Marie halted his dragging steps a little way off, but the girl
+heard him and turned to look. After that she rose hurriedly and stood as if
+poised for flight, but Ste. Marie took his hat in his hands and came
+forward.</p>
+
+<p>"If you go away, Mademoiselle," said he, "if you let me drive you from
+your place, I shall limp across to that pool and fall in and drown myself,
+or I shall try to climb the wall yonder and Michel will have to shoot
+me."</p>
+
+<p>He came forward another step.</p>
+
+<p>"If it is impossible," he said, "that you and I should stay here
+together for a few little moments and talk about what a beautiful day it
+is--if that is impossible, why then I must apologize for intruding upon you
+and go on my way, inexorably pursued by the would-be murderer who now
+stands six paces to the rear. Is it impossible, Mademoiselle?" said Ste.
+Marie.</p>
+
+<p>The girl's face was flushed with that deep and splendid <a
+name="Page_240"></a>understain. She looked down upon the white garment in
+her hand and away across the broad rond point, and in the end she looked up
+very gravely into the face of the man who stood leaning upon his stick
+before her.</p>
+
+<p>"I don't know," she said, in her deep voice, "what my father would wish.
+I did not know that you were coming into the garden this morning, or--"</p>
+
+<p>"Or else," said Ste. Marie, with a little touch of bitterness in his
+tone--"or else you would not have been here. You would have remained in the
+house."</p>
+
+<p>He made a bow.</p>
+
+<p>"To-morrow, Mademoiselle," said he, "and for the remainder of the days
+that I may be at La Lierre, I shall stay in my room. You need have no fear
+of me."</p>
+
+<p>All the man's life he had been spoiled. The girl's bearing hurt him
+absurdly, and a little of the hurt may have betrayed itself in his face as
+he turned away, for she came toward him with a swift movement, saying:</p>
+
+<p>"No, no! Wait!--I have hurt you," she said, with a sort of wondering
+distress. "You have let me hurt you.... And yet surely you must see,... you
+must realize on what terms.... Do you forget that you are not among your
+friends... outside?... This is so very different!"</p>
+
+<p>"I had forgotten," said he. "Incredible as it sounds, I had for a moment
+forgotten. Will you grant me your pardon for that? And yet," he persisted,
+after a moment's pause--"yet, Mademoiselle, consider a little! It is likely
+that--circumstances have so fallen that it seems I shall be here within
+your walls for a time, perhaps a long time. I am able to walk a little now.
+Day by day I shall be stronger, better able to get about. Is there not some
+way--are there hot some terms under which we could meet without
+embarrassment? <a name="Page_241"></a>Must we forever glare at each other
+and pass by warily, just because we--well, hold different views
+about--something?"</p>
+
+<p>It was not a premeditated speech at all. It had never until this moment
+occurred to him to suggest any such arrangement with any member of the
+household at La Lierre. At another time he would doubtless have considered
+it undignified, if not downright unwise, to hold intercourse of any
+friendly sort with this band of contemptible adventurers. The sudden
+impulse may have been born of his long week of almost intolerable
+loneliness, or it may have come of the warm exhilaration of this first
+breath of sweet, outdoor air, or perhaps it needed neither of these things,
+for the girl was very beautiful--enchantment breathed from her, and, though
+he knew what she was, in what despicable plot she was engaged, he was too
+much Ste. Marie to be quite indifferent to her. Though he looked upon her
+sorrowfully and with pain and vicarious shame, he could not have denied the
+spell she wielded. After all, he was Ste. Marie.</p>
+
+<p>Once more the girl looked up very gravely under her brows, and her eyes
+met the man's eyes. "I don't know," she said. "Truly, I don't know. I think
+I should have to ask my father about it.--I wish," she said, "that we might
+do that. I should like it. I should like to be able to talk to some
+one--about the things I like--and care for. I used to talk with my father
+about things; but not lately. There is no one now." Her eyes searched him.
+"Would it be possible, I wonder," said she. "Could we two put everything
+else aside--forget altogether who we are and why we are here. Is that
+possible?"</p>
+
+<p>"We could only try, Mademoiselle," said Ste. Marie. <a
+name="Page_242"></a>"If we found it a failure we could give it up." He
+broke into a little laugh. "And besides," he said, "I can't help thinking
+that two people ought to be with me all the time I am in the garden
+here--for safety's sake. I might catch the old Michel napping one day, you
+know, throttle him, take his rifle away, and escape. If there were two, I
+couldn't do it."</p>
+
+<p>For an instant she met his laugh with an answering smile, and the smile
+came upon her sombre beauty like a moment of golden light upon darkness.
+But afterward she was grave again and thoughtful. "Is it not rather
+foolish," she asked, "to warn us--to warn me of possibilities like that?
+You might quite easily do what you have said. You are putting us on our
+guard against you."</p>
+
+<p>"I meant to, Mademoiselle," said Ste. Marie. "I meant to. Consider my
+reasons. Consider what I was pleading for!" And he gave a little laugh when
+the color began again to rise in the girl's cheeks.</p>
+
+<p>She turned away from him, shaking her head, and he thought that he had
+said too much and that she was offended, but after a moment the girl looked
+up, and when she met his eyes she laughed outright.</p>
+
+<p>"I cannot forever be scowling and snarling at you," said she. "It is
+quite too absurd. Will you sit down for a little while? I don't know
+whether or not my father would approve, but we have met here by accident,
+and there can be no harm, surely, in our exchanging a few civil words. If
+you try to bring up forbidden topics I can simply go away; and, besides,
+Michel stands ready to murder you if it should become necessary. I think
+his failure of a week ago is very heavy on his conscience."</p>
+
+<p>Ste. Marie sat down in one corner of the long stone bench, <a
+name="Page_243"></a>and he was very glad to do it, for his leg was
+beginning to cause him some discomfort. It felt hot and as if there were a
+very tight band round it above the knee. The relief must have been apparent
+in his face, for Mlle. O'Hara looked at him in silence for a moment, and
+she gave a little, troubled, anxious frown. Men can be quite indifferent to
+suffering in each other if the suffering is not extreme, and women can be,
+too, but men are quite miserable in the presence of a woman who is in pain,
+and women, before a suffering man, while they are not miserable, are always
+full of a desire to do something that will help. And that might be a small,
+additional proof--if any more proof were necessary--that they are much the
+more practical of the two sexes.</p>
+
+<p>The girl's sharp glance seemed to assure her that Ste. Marie was
+comfortable, now that he was sitting down, for the frown went from her
+brows, and she began to arrange the mysterious white garment in her lap in
+preparation to go on with her work.</p>
+
+<p>Ste. Marie watched her for a while in a contented silence. The leaves
+overhead stirred under a puff of air, and a single yellow beam of sunlight
+came down and shivered upon the girl's dark head and played about the
+bundle of white over which her hands were busy. She moved aside to avoid
+it, but it followed her, and when she moved back it followed again and
+danced in her lap as if it were a live thing with a malicious sense of
+humor. It might have been Tinker Bell out of <i>Peter Pan</i>, only it did
+not jingle. Mlle. O'Hara uttered an exclamation of annoyance, and Ste.
+Marie laughed at her, but in a moment the leaves overhead were still again,
+and the sunbeam, with a sense of humor, was gone to torment some one
+else.</p>
+
+<p>Still neither of the two spoke, and Ste. Marie continued <a
+name="Page_244"></a>to watch the girl bent above her sewing. He Was
+thinking of what she had said to him when he asked her if she read
+Spanish--that her mother had been Spanish. That would account, then, for
+her dark eyes. It would account for the darkness of her skin, too, but not
+for its extraordinary clearness and delicacy, for Spanish women are apt to
+have dull skins of an opaque texture. This was, he said to himself, an
+Irish skin with a darker stain, and he was quite sure that he had never
+before seen anything at all like it.</p>
+
+<p>Apart from coloring, she was all Irish, of the type which has become
+famous the world over, and which in the opinion of men who have seen women
+in all countries, and have studied them, is the most beautiful type that
+exists in our time.</p>
+
+<p>Ste. Marie was dark himself, and in the ordinary nature of things he
+should have preferred a fair type in women. In theory, for that matter, he
+did prefer it, but it was impossible for him to sit near Coira O'Hara and
+watch her bent head and busy, hovering hands, and remain unstirred by her
+splendid beauty. He found himself wondering why one kind of loveliness more
+than another should exert a potent and mysterious spell by virtue of mere
+proximity, and when the woman who bore it was entirely passive. If this
+girl had been looking at him the matter would have been easy to understand,
+for an eye-glance is often downright hypnotic; but she was looking at the
+work in her hands, and, so far as could be judged, she had altogether
+forgotten his presence; yet the mysterious spell, the potent enchantment,
+breathed from her like a vapor, and he could not be insensible to it. It
+was like sorcery.</p>
+
+<p>The girl looked up so suddenly that Ste. Marie jumped. She said:</p>
+
+<p><a name="Page_245"></a>"You are not a very talkative person. Are you
+always as silent as this?"</p>
+
+<p>"No," said he, "I am not. I offer my humblest apologies. It seems as if
+I were not properly grateful for being allowed to sit here with you, but,
+to tell the truth, I was buried in thought."</p>
+
+<p>They had begun to talk in French, but midway of Ste. Marie's speech the
+girl glanced toward the old Michel, who stood a short distance away, and so
+he changed to English.</p>
+
+<p>"In that case," she said, regarding her work with her head on one side
+like a bird--"in that case you might at least tell me what your thoughts
+were. They might be interesting."</p>
+
+<p>Ste. Marie gave a little embarrassed laugh.</p>
+
+<p>"I'm sorry," said he, "but I'm afraid they were too personal. I'm afraid
+if I told you you'd get up and go away and be frigidly polite to me when
+next we passed each other in the garden here. But there's no harm," he
+said, "in telling you one thing that occurred to me. It occurred to me
+that, as far as a young girl can be said to resemble an elderly woman, you
+bear a most remarkable resemblance to a very dear old friend of mine who
+lives near Dublin--Lady Margaret Craith. She's a widow, and almost all of
+her family are dead, I believe--I didn't know any of them--and she lives
+there in a huge old house with a park, quite alone with her army of
+servants. I go to see her whenever I'm in Ireland, because she is one of
+the sweetest souls I have ever known."</p>
+
+<p>He became aware suddenly that Mlle. O'Hara's head was bent very low over
+her sewing and that her face, or as much of it as he could see, was
+crimson.</p>
+
+<p><a name="Page_246"></a>"Oh, I--I beg your pardon!" cried Ste. Marie.
+"I've done something dreadful. I don't know what it is, but I'm very, very
+sorry. Please forgive me if you can!"</p>
+
+<p>"It is nothing," she said, in a low voice, and after a moment she looked
+up for the swiftest possible glance and down again. "That is my--aunt," she
+said. "Only--please let us talk about something else! Of course you
+couldn't possibly have known."</p>
+
+<p>"No," said Ste. Marie, gravely. "No, of course. You are very good to
+forgive me."</p>
+
+<p>He was silent a little while, for what the girl had told him surprised
+him very much indeed, and touched him, too. He remembered again the remark
+of his friend when O'Hara had passed them on the boulevard:</p>
+
+<p>"There goes some of the best blood that ever came out of Ireland. See
+what it has fallen to!"</p>
+
+<p>"It is a curious fact," said he, "that you and I are very close
+compatriots in the matter of blood--if 'compatriots' is the word. You are
+Irish and Spanish. My mother was Irish and my people were B&eacute;arnais,
+which is about as much Spanish as French; and, indeed, there was a great
+deal of blood from across the mountains in them, for they often married
+Spanish wives."</p>
+
+<p>He pulled the <i>Bayard</i> out of his pocket.</p>
+
+<p>"The Ste. Marie in here married a Spanish lady, didn't he?"</p>
+
+<p>The girl looked up to him once more.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes," she said. "Yes, I remember. He was a brave man, Monsieur. He had
+a great soul. And he died nobly."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, as for that," he said, flushing a little, "the Ste. Maries have
+all died rather well."</p>
+
+<p><a name="Page_247"></a>He gave a short laugh.</p>
+
+<p>"Though I must admit," said he, "that the last of them came precious
+near falling below the family standard a week ago. I should think that
+probably none of my respected forefathers was killed in climbing over a
+garden-wall. Autres temps, autres moeurs."</p>
+
+<p>He burst out laughing again at what seemed to him rather comic, but
+Mlle. O'Hara did not smile. She looked very gravely into his eyes, and
+there seemed to be something like sorrow in her look. Ste. Marie wondered
+at it, but after a moment it occurred to him that he was very near
+forbidden ground, and that doubtless the girl was trying to give him a
+silent warning of it. He began to turn over the leaves of the book in his
+hand.</p>
+
+<p>"You have marked a great many pages here," said he.</p>
+
+<p>And she said: "It is my best of all books. I read in it very often. I am
+so thankful for it that there are no words to say how thankful I am--how
+glad I am that I have such a world as that to--take refuge in sometimes
+when this world is a little too unbearable. It does for me now what the
+fairy stories did when I was little. And to think that it's true, true! To
+think that once there truly were men like that--sans peur et sans reproche!
+It makes life worth while to think that those men lived even if it was long
+ago."</p>
+
+<p>Ste. Marie bent his head over the little book, for he could not look at
+Mlle. O'Hara just then. It seemed to him well-nigh the most pathetic speech
+that he had ever heard. His heart bled for her. Out of what mean shadows
+had the girl to turn her weary eyes upward to this sunlight of ancient
+heroism!</p>
+
+<p>"And yet, Mademoiselle," said he, gently, "I think there are such men
+alive to-day, if only one will look for them. <a
+name="Page_248"></a>Remember, they were not common even in Bayard's time.
+Oh yes, I think there are preux chevaliers nowadays, only perhaps they
+don't go about things in quite the same fashion. Other times, other
+manners," he said again.</p>
+
+<p>"Do you know any such men?" she demanded, facing him with shadowy
+eyes.</p>
+
+<p>And he said: "Yes, I know men who are in all ways as honorable and as
+high-hearted as Bayard was. In his place they would have acted as he did,
+but nowadays one has to practise heroism much less conspicuously--in the
+little things that few people see and that no one applauds or writes books
+about. It is much harder to do brave little acts than brave big ones."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes." she agreed, slowly. "Oh yes, of course."</p>
+
+<p>But there was no spirit in her tone, rather a sort of apathy. Once more
+the leaves overhead swayed in the breeze, opened a tiny rift, and the
+little trembling ray of sunshine shot down to her where she sat. She
+stretched out one hand cup-wise, and the sunbeam, after a circling
+gyration, darted into it and lay there like a small golden bird panting, as
+it were, from fright.</p>
+
+<p>"If I were a painter," said Ste. Marie, "I should be in torture and
+anguish of soul until I had painted you sitting there on a stone bench and
+holding a sunbeam in your hand. I don't know what I should call the
+picture, but I think it would be something figurative--symbolic. Can you
+think of a name?"</p>
+
+<p>Coira O'Hara looked up at him with a slight smile, but her eyes were
+gloomy and full of dark shadows. "It might be called any one of a great
+number of things, I should think," said she. "Happiness--belief--illusion.
+See! The sunbeam is gone."</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+
+
+
+<a name="Page_249"></a><h2><a name='XXI'></a>XXI</h2>
+
+<h3>A MIST DIMS THE SHINING STAR</h3>
+
+
+<p>Ste. Marie remained in his room all the rest of that day, and he did not
+see Mlle. O'Hara again, for Michel brought him his lunch and the old
+Justine his dinner. For the greater part of the time he sat in bed reading,
+but rose now and then and moved about the room. His wound seemed to have
+suffered no great inconvenience from the morning's outing. If he stood or
+walked too long it burned somewhat, and he had the sensation of a tight
+band round the leg; but this passed after he had lain down for a little
+while, or even sat in a chair with the leg straight out before him; so he
+knew that he was not to be crippled very much longer, and his thoughts
+began to turn more and more keenly upon the matter of escape.</p>
+
+<p>He realized, of course, that now, since he was once more able to walk,
+he would be guarded with unremitting care every moment of the day, and
+quite possibly every moment of the night as well, though the simple bolting
+of his door on the outside would seem to answer the purpose save when he
+was out-of-doors. Once he went to the two east windows and hung out of
+them, testing as well as he could with his hands the strength and tenacity
+of the ivy which covered that side of the house. He thought it seemed
+strong enough to give hand and foot hold without being torn <a
+name="Page_250"></a>loose, but he was afraid it would make an atrocious
+amount of noise if he should try to climb down it, and, besides, he would
+need two very active legs for that.</p>
+
+<p>At another time a fresh idea struck him, and he put it at once into
+action. There might be just a chance, when out one day with Michel, of
+getting near enough to the wall which ran along the Clamart road to throw
+something over it when the old man was not looking. In one of his pockets
+he had a card-case with a little pencil fitted into a loop at the edge, and
+in the case it was his custom to carry postage-stamps. He investigated and
+found pencil and stamps. Of course he had nothing but cards to write upon,
+and they were useless. He looked about the room and went through an empty
+chest of drawers in vain, but at last, on some shelves in the closet where
+his clothes had hung, he found several large sheets of coarse white paper.
+The shelves were covered with it loosely for the sake of cleanliness. He
+abstracted one of these sheets, and cut it into squares of the ordinary
+note-paper size, and he sat down and wrote a brief letter to Richard
+Hartley, stating where he was, that Arthur Benham was there, the O'Haras,
+and, he thought, Captain Stewart. He did not write the names out, but put
+instead the initial letters of each name, knowing that Hartley would
+understand. He gave careful directions as to how the place was to be
+reached, and he asked Hartley to come as soon as possible by night to that
+wall where he himself had made his entrance, to climb up by the cedar-tree,
+and to drop his answer into the thick leaves of the lilac bushes
+immediately beneath--an answer naming a day and hour, preferably by night,
+when he could return with three or four to help him, surprise the household
+at La Lierre, and carry off young Benham.</p>
+
+<p><a name="Page_251"></a>Ste. Marie wrote this letter four times, and each
+of the four copies he enclosed in an awkwardly fashioned envelope, made
+with infinite pains so that its flaps folded in together, for he had no
+gum. He addressed and stamped the four envelopes, and put them all in his
+pocket to await the first opportunity.</p>
+
+<p>Afterward he lay down for a while, and as, one after another, the books
+he had in the room failed to interest him, his thoughts began to turn back
+to Mlle. Coira O'Hara and his hour with her upon the old stone bench in the
+garden. He realized all at once that he had been putting off this
+reflection as one puts off a reckoning that one a little dreads to face,
+and rather vaguely he realized why.</p>
+
+<p>The spell that the girl wielded--quite without being conscious of it; he
+granted her that grace--was too potent. It was dangerous, and he knew it.
+Even imaginative and very unpractical people can be in some things
+surprisingly matter-of-fact, and Ste. Marie was matter-of-fact about this.
+The girl had made a mysterious and unprecedented appeal to him at his very
+first sight of her, long before, and ever since that time she had
+continued, intermittently at least, to haunt his dreams. Now he was in the
+very house with her. It was quite possible that he might see her and speak
+with her every day, and he knew there was peril in that.</p>
+
+<p>He closed his eyes and she came to him, dark and beautiful, magnetically
+vital, spreading enchantment about her like a fragrance. She sat beside him
+on the moss-stained bench in the garden, holding out her hand cup-wise, and
+a sunbeam lay in the hand like a little, golden, fluttering bird. His
+thoughts ran back to that first morning when he had narrowly escaped death
+by poison. He remembered <a name="Page_252"></a>the girl's agony of fear
+and horror. He felt her hands once more upon his shoulders, and he was
+aware that his breath was coming faster and that his heart beat quickly. He
+got to his feet and went across to one of the windows, and he stood there
+for a long time frowning out into the summer day. If ever in his life, he
+said to himself with some deliberation, he was to need a cool and clear
+head, faculties unclouded and unimpaired by emotion, it was now in these
+next few days. Much more than his own well-being depended upon him now. The
+fates of a whole family, and quite possibly the lives of some of them, were
+in his hands. He must not fail, and he must not, in any least way,
+falter.</p>
+
+<p>For enemies he had a band of desperate adventurers, and the very boy
+himself, the centre and reason for the whole plot, had been, in some
+incomprehensible way, so played upon that he, too, was against him.</p>
+
+<p>The man standing by the window forced himself quite deliberately to look
+the plain facts in the face. He compelled himself to envisage this
+beautiful girl with her tragic eyes for just what his reason knew her to
+be--an adventuress, a decoy, a lure to a callow, impressionable, foolish
+lad, the tool of that arch-villain Stewart and of the lesser villain her
+father. It was like standing by and watching something lovely and pitiful
+vilely befouled. It turned his heart sick within him, but he held himself
+to the task. He brought to aid him the vision of his lady, in whose cause
+he was pursuing this adventure. For strength and determination he reached
+eye and hand to her where she sat enthroned, calm-browed, serene.</p>
+
+<p>For the first time since the beginning of all things his lady failed
+him, and Ste. Marie turned cold with fear.</p>
+
+<p>Where was that splendid frenzy that had been wont to <a
+name="Page_253"></a>sweep him all in an instant into upper air--set his
+feet upon the stars? Where was it? The man gave a sudden, voiceless cry of
+horror. The wings that had such countless times upborne him fluttered
+weakly near the earth and could not mount. His lady was there; through
+infinite space he was aware of her, but she was cold and aloof, and her
+eyes gazed very serenely beyond at something he could not see.</p>
+
+<p>He knew well enough that the fault lay somewhere within himself. She was
+as she had ever been, but he lacked the strength to rise to her. Why? Why?
+He searched himself with a desperate earnestness, but he could find no
+answer to his questioning. In himself, as in her, there had come no change.
+She was still to him all that she ever had been--the star of his destiny,
+the pillar of fire by night, of cloud by day, to guide him on his path.
+Where, then, the fine, pure fervor that should, at thought of her, whirl
+him on high and make a god of him?</p>
+
+<p>He stood wrapped in bewilderment and despair, for he could find no
+answer.</p>
+
+<p>In plain words, in commonplace black-and-white, the man's anguish has an
+over-fanciful, a well-nigh absurd look, but to Ste. Marie the thing was
+very real and terrible, as real and as terrible as, to a half-starved monk
+in his lonely cell, the sudden failure of the customary exaltation of
+spirit after a night's long prayer.</p>
+
+<p>He went, after a time, back to the bed, and lay down there with one
+upflung arm across his eyes to shut out the light. He was filled with a
+profound dejection and a sense of hopelessness. Through all the long week
+of his imprisonment he had been cheerful, at times even gay. However evil
+his case might have looked, his elastic spirits had <a
+name="Page_254"></a>mounted above all difficulties and cares, confident in
+the face of apparent defeat. Now at last he lay still, bruised, as it were,
+and battered and weary. The flame of courage burned very low in him. From
+sheer exhaustion he fell after a time into a troubled sleep, but even there
+the enemy followed him and would not let him rest. He seemed to himself to
+be in a place of shadows and fears. He strained his eyes to make out above
+him the bright, clear star of guidance, for so long as that shone he was
+safe; but something had come between--cloud or mist--and his star shone
+dimly in fitful glimpses.</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<p>On the next morning he went out once more with the old Michel into the
+garden. He went with a stronger heart, for the morning had renewed his
+courage, as bright, fresh mornings do. From the anguish of the day before
+he held himself carefully aloof. He kept his mind away from all thought of
+it, and gave his attention to the things about him. It would return,
+doubtless, in the slow, idle hours; he would have to face it again and yet
+again; he would have to contend with it; but for the present he put it out
+of his thoughts, for there were things to do.</p>
+
+<p>It was no more than human of him--and certainly it was very
+characteristic of Ste. Marie--that he should be half glad and half
+disappointed at not finding Coira O'Hara in her place at the rond point. It
+left him free to do what he wished to do--make a careful reconnaissance of
+the whole garden enclosure--but it left him empty of something he had,
+without conscious thought, looked forward to.</p>
+
+<p>His wounded leg was stronger and more flexible than on the day before;
+it burned and prickled less, and could be bent a little at the knee with
+small distress; so he led the <a name="Page_255"></a>old Michel at a good
+pace down the length of the enclosure, past the rose-gardens, a tangle of
+unkempt sweetness, and so to the opposite wall. He found the gates there,
+very formidable-looking, made of vertical iron bars connected by
+cross-pieces and an ornamental scroll. They were fastened together by a
+heavy chain and a padlock. The lock was covered with rust, as were the
+gates themselves, and Ste. Marie observed that the lane outside upon which
+they gave was overgrown with turf and moss, and even with seedling shrubs;
+so he felt sure that this entrance was never used. The lane, he noted,
+swept away to the right toward Issy and not toward the Clamart road. He
+heard, as he stood there, the whir of a tram from far away at the left, a
+tram bound to or from Clamart, and the sound brought to his mind what he
+wished to do. He turned about and began to make his way round the
+rose-gardens, which were partly enclosed by a low brick wall some two or
+three feet high. Beyond them the trees and shrubbery were not set out in
+orderly rows as they were near the house, but grew at will without
+hindrance or care. It was like a bit of the Meudon wood.</p>
+
+<p>He found the going more difficult here for his bad leg, but he pressed
+on, and in a little while saw before him that wall which skirted the
+Clamart road. He felt in his pocket for the four sealed and stamped
+letters, but just then the old Michel spoke behind him:</p>
+
+<p>"Pardon, Monsieur! Ce n'est pas permis."</p>
+
+<p>"What is not permitted?" demanded Ste. Marie, wheeling about.</p>
+
+<p>"To approach that wall, Monsieur," said the old man, with an incredibly
+gnomelike and apologetic grin.</p>
+
+<p>Ste. Marie gave an exclamation of disgust. "Is it believed <a
+name="Page_256"></a>that I could leap over it?" he asked. "A matter of five
+metres? Merci, non! I am not so agile. You flatter me."</p>
+
+<p>The old Michel spread out his two gnarled hands.</p>
+
+<p>"Pas de ma faute. I have orders, Monsieur. It will be my painful duty to
+shoot if Monsieur approaches that wall." He turned his strange head on one
+side and regarded Ste. Marie with his sharp and beadlike eye. The smile of
+apology still distorted his face, and he looked exactly like the
+Punchinello in a street show.</p>
+
+<p>Ste. Marie slowly withdrew from his pocket two louis d'or and held them
+before him in the palm of his hand. He looked down upon them, and Michel
+looked, too, with a gaze so intense that his solitary eye seemed to project
+a very little from his withered face. He was like a hypnotized old
+bird.</p>
+
+<p>"Mon vieux," said Ste. Marie. "I am a man of honor."</p>
+
+<p>"Sûrement! Sûrement, Monsieur!" said the old Michel, politely, but his
+hypnotized gaze did not stir so much as a hair's-breadth. "&Ccedil;a va
+sans le dire."</p>
+
+<p>"A man of honor," repeated Ste. Marie. "When I give my word I keep it.
+Voil&agrave;! I keep it. And," said he, "I have here forty francs. Two
+louis. A large sum. It is yours, my brave Michel, for the mere trouble of
+turning your back just thirty seconds."</p>
+
+<p>"Monsieur," whispered the old man, "it is impossible. He would kill
+me--by torture."</p>
+
+<p>"He will never know," said Ste. Marie, "for I do not mean to try to
+escape. I give you my word of honor that I shall not try to escape.
+Besides, I could not climb over that wall, as you see. Two louis, Michel!
+Forty francs!"</p>
+
+<p>The old man's hands twisted and trembled round the <a
+name="Page_257"></a>barrel of the carbine, and he swallowed once with some
+difficulty. He seemed to hesitate, but in the end he shook his head. It was
+as if he shook it in grief over the grave of his first-born. "It is
+impossible," he said again. "Impossible." He tore the beadlike eye away
+from those two beautiful, glowing golden things, and Ste. Marie saw that
+there was nothing to be done with him just now. He slipped the money back
+into his pocket with a little sigh and turned away toward the
+rose-gardens.</p>
+
+<p>"Ah, well," said he. "Another time, perhaps. Another time. And there are
+more louis still, mon vieux. Perhaps three or four. Who knows?"</p>
+
+<p>Michel emitted a groan of extreme anguish, and they moved on.</p>
+
+<p>But a few moments later Ste. Marie gave a sudden low exclamation, and
+then a soundless laugh, for he caught sight of a very familiar figure
+seated in apparent dejection upon a fallen tree-trunk and staring across
+the tangled splendor of the roses.</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+
+
+
+<a name="Page_258"></a><h2><a name='XXII'></a>XXII</h2>
+
+<h3>A SETTLEMENT REFUSED</h3>
+
+
+<p>Captain Stewart had good reason to look depressed on that fresh and
+beautiful morning when Ste. Marie happened upon him beside the
+rose-gardens. Matters had not gone well with him of late. He was ill and he
+was frightened, and he was much nearer than is agreeable to a complete
+nervous breakdown.</p>
+
+<p>It seemed to him that perils beset him upon every side, perils both seen
+and unseen. He felt like a man who is hunted in the dark, hard pressed
+until his strength is gone, and he can flee no farther. He imagined himself
+to be that man shivering in the gloom in a strange place, hiding eyes and
+ears lest he see or hear something from which he cannot escape. He imagined
+the morning light to come, very slow and cold and gray, and in it he saw
+round about him a silent ring of enemies, the men who had pursued him and
+run him down. He saw them standing there in the pale dawn, motionless,
+waiting for the day, and he knew that at last the chase was over and he
+near done for.</p>
+
+<p>Crouching alone in the garden, with the scent of roses in his nostrils,
+he wondered with a great and bitter amazement at that madman--himself of
+only a few months ago--who had sat down deliberately, in his proper senses,
+to play at cards with Fate, the great winner of all games. He <a
+name="Page_259"></a>wondered if, after all, he had been in his proper
+senses, for the deed now loomed before him gigantic and hideous in its
+criminal folly. His mind went drearily back to the beginning of it all, to
+the tremendous debts which had hounded him day and night, to his fear to
+speak of them with his father, who had never had the least mercy upon
+gamblers. He remembered as if it were yesterday the afternoon upon which he
+learned of young Arthur's quarrel with his grandfather, old David's senile
+anger, and the boy's tempestuous exit from the house, vowing never to
+return. He remembered his talk with old David later on about the will, in
+which he learned that he was now to have Arthur's share under certain
+conditions. He remembered how that very evening, three days after his
+disappearance, the lad had come secretly to the rue du Faubourg St.
+Honor&eacute; begging his uncle to take him in for a few days, and how, in
+a single instant that was like a lightning flash, the Great Idea had come
+to him.</p>
+
+<p>What gigantic and appalling madness it had all been! And yet for a time
+how easy of execution! For a time. Now.... He gave another quick shiver,
+for his mind came back to what beset him and compassed him round
+about--perils seen and hidden.</p>
+
+<p>The peril seen was ever before his eyes. Against the light of day it
+loomed a gigantic and portentous shadow, and it threatened him--the figure
+of Ste. Marie <i>who knew</i>. His reason told him that if due care were
+used this danger need not be too formidable, and, indeed, in his heart he
+rather despised Ste. Marie as an individual; but the man's nerve was
+broken, and in these days fear swept wavelike over reason and had its way
+with him. Fear looked up to this looming, portentous shadow and saw there
+<a name="Page_260"></a>youth and health and strength, courage and
+hopefulness, and, best of all armors, a righteous cause. How was an ill and
+tired and wicked old man to fight against these? It became an obsession,
+the figure of this youth; it darkened the sun at noonday, and at night it
+stood beside Captain Stewart's bed in the darkness and watched him and
+waited, and the very air he breathed came chill and dark from its silent
+presence there.</p>
+
+<p>But there were perils unseen as well as seen. He felt invisible threads
+drawing round him, weaving closer and closer, and he dared not even try how
+strong they were lest they prove to be cables of steel. He was almost
+certain that his niece knew something or at the least suspected. As has
+already been pointed out, the two saw very little of each other, but on the
+occasions of their last few meetings it had seemed to him that the girl
+watched him with a strange stare, and tried always to be in her
+grandfather's chamber when he called to make his inquiries. Once, stirred
+by a moment's bravado, he asked her if M. Ste. Marie had returned from his
+mysterious absence, and the girl said:</p>
+
+<p>"No. He has not come back yet, but I expect him soon now--with news of
+Arthur. We shall all be very glad to see him, grandfather and Richard
+Hartley and I."</p>
+
+<p>It was not a very consequential speech, and, to tell the truth, it was
+what in the girl's own country would be termed pure "bluff," but to Captain
+Stewart it rang harsh and loud with evil significance, and he went out of
+that room cold at heart. What plans were they perfecting among them? What
+invisible nets for his feet?</p>
+
+<p>And there was another thing still. Within the past two or three days he
+had become convinced that his movements <a name="Page_261"></a>were being
+watched--and that would be Richard Hartley at work, he said to himself.
+Faces vaguely familiar began to confront him in the street, in restaurants
+and caf&eacute;s. Once he thought his rooms had been ransacked during his
+absence at La Lierre, though his servant stoutly maintained that they had
+never been left unoccupied save for a half-hour's marketing. Finally, on
+the day before this morning by the rose-gardens, he was sure that as he
+came out from the city in his car he was followed at a long distance by
+another motor. He saw it behind him after he had left the city gate, the
+Porte de Versailles, and he saw it again after he had left the main route
+at Issy and entered the little rue Barb&eacute;s which led to La Lierre. Of
+course, he promptly did the only possible thing under the circumstances. He
+dashed on past the long stretch of wall, swung into the main avenue beyond,
+and continued through Clamart to the Meudon wood, as if he were going to
+St. Cloud. In the labyrinth of roads and lanes there he came to a halt, and
+after a half-hour's wait ran slowly back to La Lierre.</p>
+
+<p>There was no further sign of the other car, the pursuer, if so it had
+been, but he passed two or three men on bicycles and others walking, and
+what one of these might not be a spy paid to track him down?</p>
+
+<p>It had frightened him badly, that hour of suspense and flight, and he
+determined to remain at La Lierre for at least a few days, and wrote to his
+servant in the rue du Faubourg to forward his letters there under the false
+name by which he had hired the place.</p>
+
+<p>He was thinking very wearily of all these things as he sat on the fallen
+tree-trunk in the garden and stared unseeing across tangled ranks of roses.
+And after a while his thoughts, as they were wont to do, returned to Ste.
+Marie--that <a name="Page_262"></a>looming shadow which darkened the
+sunlight, that incubus of fear which clung to him night and day. He was so
+absorbed that he did not hear sounds which might otherwise have roused him.
+He heard nothing, saw nothing, save that which his fevered mind projected,
+until a voice spoke his name.</p>
+
+<p>He looked over his shoulder thinking that O'Hara had sought him out. He
+turned a little on the tree-trunk to see more easily, and the image of his
+dread stood there a living and very literal shadow against the
+daylight.</p>
+
+<p>Captain Stewart's overstrained nerves were in no state to bear a sudden
+shock. He gave a voiceless, whispering cry and he began to tremble very
+violently, so that his teeth chattered. All at once he got to his feet and
+began to stumble away backward, but a projecting limb of the fallen tree
+caught him and held him fast. It must be that the man was in a sort of
+frenzy. He must have seen through a red mist just then, for when he found
+that he could not escape his hand went swiftly to his coat-pocket, and in
+his white and contorted face there was murder plain and unmistakable.</p>
+
+<p>Ste. Marie was too lame to spring aside or to dash upon the man across
+intervening obstacles and defend himself. He stood still in his place and
+waited. And it was characteristic of him that at that moment he felt no
+fear, only a fine sense of exhilaration. Open danger had no terrors for
+him. It was secret peril that unnerved him, as in the matter of the poison
+a week before.</p>
+
+<p>Captain Stewart's hand fell away empty, and Ste. Marie laughed.</p>
+
+<p>"Left it at the house?" said he. "You seem to have no luck, Stewart.
+First the cat drinks the poison, and then <a name="Page_263"></a>you leave
+your pistol at home. Dear, dear, I'm afraid you're careless."</p>
+
+<p class="figure"> <a name="jason007"><img
+width="80%" alt="Illustration: HIS HAND WENT SWIFTLY TO HIS COAT-POCKET"
+src="images/jason007.png" /></a><br /> HIS HAND WENT SWIFTLY TO HIS
+COAT-POCKET</p>
+
+<p>Captain Stewart stared at the younger man under his brows. His face was
+gray and he was still shivering, but the sudden agony of fear, which had
+been, after all, only a jangle of nerves, was gone away. He looked upon
+Ste. Marie's gay and untroubled face with a dull wonder, and he began to
+feel a grudging admiration for the man who could face death without even
+turning pale. He pulled out his watch and looked at it.</p>
+
+<p>"I did not know," he said, "that this was your hour out-of-doors."</p>
+
+<p>As a matter of fact, he had quite forgotten that the arrangement
+existed. When he had first heard of it he had protested vigorously, but had
+been overborne by O'Hara with the plea that they owed their prisoner
+something for having come near to poisoning him, and Stewart did not care
+to have any further attention called to that matter; it had already put a
+severe strain upon the relations at La Lierre.</p>
+
+<p>"Well," observed Ste. Marie, "I told you you were careless. That proves
+it. Come! Can't we sit down for a little chat? I haven't seen you since I
+was your guest at the other address--the town address. It seems to have
+become a habit of mine--doesn't it?--being your guest." He laughed
+cheerfully, but Captain Stewart continued to regard him without
+smiling.</p>
+
+<p>"If you imagine," said the elder man, "that this place belongs to me you
+are mistaken. I came here to-day to make a visit."</p>
+
+<p>But Ste. Marie sat down at one end of the tree-trunk and shook his
+head.</p>
+
+<p><a name="Page_264"></a>"Oh, come, come!" said he. "Why keep up the
+pretence? You must know that I know all about the whole affair. Why, bless
+you, I know it all--even to the provisions of the will. Did you think I
+stumbled in here by accident? Well, I didn't, though I don't mind admitting
+to you that I remained by accident."</p>
+
+<p>He glanced over his shoulder toward the one-eyed Michel, who stood
+near-by, regarding the two with some alarm.</p>
+
+<p>Captain Stewart looked up sharply at the mention of the will, and he
+wetted his dry lips with his tongue. But after a moment's hesitation he sat
+down upon the tree-trunk, and he seemed to shrink a little together, when
+his limbs and shoulders had relaxed, so that he looked small and feeble,
+like a very tired old man. He remained silent for a few moments, but at
+last he spoke without raising his eyes. He said:</p>
+
+<p>"And now that you--imagine yourself to know so very much, what do you
+expect to do about it?"</p>
+
+<p>Ste. Marie laughed again.</p>
+
+<p>"Ah, that would be telling!" he cried. "You see, in one way I have the
+advantage, though outwardly all the advantage seems to be with your side--I
+know all about your game. I may call it a game? Yes? But you don't know
+mine. You don't know what I--what we may do at any moment. That's where we
+have the better of you."</p>
+
+<p>"It would seem to me," said Captain Stewart, wearily, "that since you
+are a prisoner here and very unlikely to escape, we know with great
+accuracy what you will do--and what you will not."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes," admitted Ste. Marie, "it would seem so. It certainly would seem
+so. But you never can tell, can you?"</p>
+
+<p><a name="Page_265"></a>And at that the elder man frowned and looked
+away. Thereafter another brief silence fell between the two, but at its end
+Ste. Marie spoke in a new tone, a very serious tone. He said:</p>
+
+<p>"Stewart, listen a moment!"</p>
+
+<p>And the other turned a sharp gaze upon him.</p>
+
+<p>"You mustn't forget," said Ste. Marie, speaking slowly as if to choose
+his words with care--"you mustn't forget that I am not alone in this
+matter. You mustn't forget that there's Richard Hartley--and that there are
+others, too. I'm a prisoner, yes. I'm helpless here for the
+present--perhaps, perhaps--but they are not, <i>and they know, Stewart.
+They know</i>."</p>
+
+<p>Captain Stewart's face remained gray and still, but his hands twisted
+and shook upon his knees until he hid them.</p>
+
+<p>"I know well enough what you're waiting for," continued Ste. Marie.
+"You're waiting--you've got to wait--for Arthur Benham to come of age, or,
+better yet, for your father to die." He paused and shook his head. "It's no
+good. You can't hold out as long as that--not by half. We shall have won
+the game long before. Listen to me! Do you know what would occur if your
+father should take a serious turn for the worse to-night--or at any time?
+Do you? Well, I'll tell you. A piece of information would be given him that
+would make another change in that will just as quickly as a pen could write
+the words. That's what would happen."</p>
+
+<p>"That is a lie!" said Captain Stewart, in a dry whisper. "A lie!"</p>
+
+<p>And Ste. Marie contented himself with a slight smile by way of answer.
+He was by no means sure that what he had said was true, but he argued that
+since Hartley suspected, <a name="Page_266"></a>or perhaps by this time
+knew so much, he would certainly not allow old David to die without doing
+what he could do in an effort to save young Arthur's fortune from a rascal.
+In any event, true or false, the words had had the desired effect. Captain
+Stewart was plainly frightened by them.</p>
+
+<p>"May I make a suggestion?" asked the younger man.</p>
+
+<p>The other did not answer him, and he made it.</p>
+
+<p>"Give it up!" said he. "You're riding for a tremendous fall, you know.
+We shall smash you completely in the end. It'll mean worse than ruin--much
+worse. Give it up, now, before you're too late. Help me to send for Hartley
+and we'll take the boy back to his home. Some story can be managed that
+will leave you out of the thing altogether, and those who know will hold
+their tongues. It's your last chance, Stewart. I advise you to take
+it."</p>
+
+<p>Captain Stewart turned his gray face slowly and looked at the other man
+with a sort of dull and apathetic wonder.</p>
+
+<p>"Are you mad?" he asked, in a voice which was altogether without feeling
+of any kind. "Are you quite mad?"</p>
+
+<p>"On the contrary," said Ste. Marie, "I am quite sane, and I'm offering
+you a chance to save yourself before it's too late. Don't misunderstand
+me!" he continued. "I am not urging this out of any sympathy for you. I
+urge it because it will bring about what I wish a little more quickly, also
+because it will save your family from the disgrace of your smash-up. That's
+why I'm making my suggestion."</p>
+
+<p>Captain Stewart was silent for a little while, but after that he got
+heavily to his feet. "I think you must be quite mad," said he, as before,
+in a voice altogether devoid of expression. "I cannot talk with madmen." He
+beckoned to the old Michel, who stood near-by, leaning upon his <a
+name="Page_267"></a>carbine, and when the gardener had approached he said,
+"Take this--prisoner back to his room!"</p>
+
+<p>Ste. Marie rose with a little sigh. He said: "I'm sorry, but you'll
+admit I have done my best for you. I've warned you. I sha'n't do it again.
+We shall smash you now, without mercy."</p>
+
+<p>"Take him away!" cried Captain Stewart, in a sudden loud voice, and the
+old Michel touched his charge upon the shoulder. So Ste. Marie went without
+further words. From a little distance he looked back, and the other man
+still stood by the fallen tree-trunk, bent a little, his arms hanging lax
+beside him, and his face, Ste. Marie thought, fancifully, was like the face
+of a man damned.</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+
+
+
+<a name="Page_268"></a><h2><a name='XXIII'></a>XXIII</h2>
+
+<h3>THE LAST ARROW</h3>
+
+
+<p>The one birdlike eye of the old Michel regarded Ste. Marie with a glance
+of mingled cunning and humor. It might have been said to twinkle.</p>
+
+<p>"To the east, Monsieur?" inquired the old Michel.</p>
+
+<p>"Precisely!" said Ste. Marie. "To the east, mon vieux." It was the
+morning of the fourth day after that talk with Captain Stewart beside the
+rose-gardens.</p>
+
+<p>The two bore to the eastward, down among the trees, and presently came
+to the spot where a certain trespasser had once leaped down from the top of
+the high wall and had been shot for his pains. The old Michel halted and
+leaned upon the barrel of his carbine. With an air of complete detachment,
+an air vague and aloof as of one in a revery, he gazed away over the
+tree-tops of the ragged park; but Ste. Marie went in under the row of lilac
+shrubs which stood close against the wall, and a passer-by might have
+thought the man looking for figs on thistles, for lilacs in late July. He
+had gone there with eagerness, with flushed cheeks and bright eyes; he
+emerged after some moments, moving slowly, with downcast head.</p>
+
+<p>"There are no lilac blooms now, Monsieur," observed the old Michel, and
+his prisoner said, in a low voice:</p>
+
+<p>"No, mon vieux. No. There are none." He sighed <a
+name="Page_269"></a>and drew a long breath. So the two stood for some time
+silent, Ste. Marie a little pale, his eyes fixed upon the ground, his hands
+chafing together behind him, the gardener with his one bright eye upon his
+charge. But in the end Ste. Marie sighed again and began to move away,
+followed by the gardener. They went across the broad park, past the double
+row of larches, through that space where the chestnut-trees stood in
+straight, close rows, and so came to the west wall which skirted the road
+to Clamart. Ste. Marie felt in his pocket and withdrew the last of the four
+letters--the last there could be, for he had no more stamps. The others he
+had thrown over the wall, one each morning, beginning with the day after he
+had made the first attempt to bribe old Michel. As he had expected,
+twenty-four hours of avaricious reflection had proved too much for that
+gnomelike being.</p>
+
+<p>One each day he had thrown over the wall, weighted with a pebble tucked
+loosely under the flap of the improvised envelope, in such a manner that it
+would drop but when the letter struck the ground beyond. And each following
+day he had gone with high hopes to the appointed place under the cedar-tree
+to pick figs of thistles, lilac blooms in late July. But there had been
+nothing there.</p>
+
+<p>"Turn your back, Michel!" said Ste. Marie.</p>
+
+<p>And the old man said, from a little distance: "It is turned, Monsieur. I
+see nothing. Monsieur throws little stories at the birds to amuse himself.
+It does not concern me."</p>
+
+<p>Ste. Marie slipped a pebble under the flap of the envelope and threw his
+letter over the wall. It went like a soaring bird, whirling horizontally,
+and it must have fallen far out in the middle of the road near the tramway.
+For the third time that morning the prisoner drew a sigh. He <a
+name="Page_270"></a>said, "You may turn round now, my friend," and the old
+Michel faced him. "We have shot our last arrow," said he. "If this also
+fails, I think--well, I think the bon Dieu will have to help us
+then.--Michel," he inquired, "do you know how to pray?"</p>
+
+<p>"Sacred thousand swine, no!" cried the ancient gnome, in something
+between astonishment and horror. "No, Monsieur. 'Pas mon m&eacute;tier,
+&ccedil;a!" He shook his head rapidly from side to side like one of those
+toys in a shop-window whose heads oscillate upon a pivot. But all at once a
+gleam of inspiration sparkled in his lone eye. "There is the old Justine!"
+he suggested. "Toujours sur les genoux, cette imb&eacute;cile
+l&agrave;."</p>
+
+<p>"In that case," said Ste. Marie, "you might ask the lady to say one
+little extra prayer for--the pebble I threw at the birds just now. Hein?"
+He withdrew from his pocket the last two louis d'or, and Michel took them
+in a trembling hand. There remained but the note of fifty francs and some
+silver.</p>
+
+<p>"The prayer shall be said, Monsieur," declared the gardener. "It shall
+be said. She shall pray all night or I will kill her."</p>
+
+<p>"Thank you," said Ste. Marie. "You are kindness itself. A gentle
+soul."</p>
+
+<p>They turned away to retrace their steps, and Michel rubbed the side of
+his head with a reflective air.</p>
+
+<p>"The old one is a madman," said he. (The "old one" meant Captain
+Stewart.) "A madman. Each day he is madder, and this morning he struck
+me--here on the head, because I was too slow. Eh! a little more of that,
+and--who knows? Just a little more, a small little! Am I a dog, to be
+beaten? Hein? Je ne le crois pas. H&eacute;!" <a name="Page_271"></a>He
+called Captain Stewart two unprintable names, and after a moment's thought
+he called him an animal, which is not so much of an anti-climax as it may
+seem, because to call anybody an animal in French is a serious matter.</p>
+
+<p>The gardener was working himself up into something of a quiet passion,
+and Ste. Marie said:</p>
+
+<p>"Softly, my friend! Softly!" It occurred to him that the man's
+resentment might be of use later on, and he said: "You speak the truth. The
+old one is an animal, and he is also a great rascal."</p>
+
+<p>But Michel betrayed the makings of a philosopher. He said, with profound
+conviction: "Monsieur, all men are great rascals. It is I who say it."</p>
+
+<p>And at that Ste. Marie had to laugh.</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<p>He had not consciously directed his feet, but without direction they led
+him round the corner of the rose-gardens and toward the rond point. He knew
+well whom he would find there. She had not failed him during the past three
+days. Each morning he had found her in her place, and for his allotted
+hour--which more than once stretched itself out to nearly two hours, if he
+had but known--they had sat together on the stone bench, or, tiring of
+that, had walked under the trees beyond.</p>
+
+<p>Long afterward Ste. Marie looked back upon these hours with, among other
+emotions, a great wonder--at himself and at her. It seemed to him then one
+of the strangest relationships--intimacies, for it might well be so
+called--that ever existed between a man and a woman, and he was amazed at
+the ease, the unconsciousness, with which it had come about.</p>
+
+<p>But during this time he did not allow himself to wonder <a
+name="Page_272"></a>or to examine, scarcely even to think. The hours were
+golden hours, unrelated, he told himself, to anything else in his life or
+in his interests. They were like pleasant dreams, very sweet while they
+endured, but to be put away and forgotten upon the waking. Only in that
+long afterward he knew that they had not been put away, that they had been
+with him always, that the morning hour had remained in his thoughts all the
+rest of the long day, and that he had waked upon the morrow with a keen and
+exquisite sense of something sweet to come.</p>
+
+<p>It was a strange fool's paradise that the man dwelt in, and in some
+small, vague measure he must, even at the time, have known it, for it is
+certain that he deliberately held himself away from thought--realization;
+that he deliberately shut his eyes, held his ears lest he should hear or
+see.</p>
+
+<p>That he was not faithless to his duty has been shown. He did his utmost
+there, but he was for the time helpless save for efforts to communicate
+with Richard Hartley, and those efforts could consume no more than ten
+minutes out of the weary day.</p>
+
+<p>So he drifted, wilfully blind to bearings, wilfully deaf to Sound of
+warning or peril, and he found a companionship sweeter and fuller and more
+perfect than he had ever before known in all his life, though that is not
+to say very much, because sympathetic companionships between men and women
+are very rare indeed, and Ste. Marie had never experienced anything which
+could fairly be called by that name. He had had, as has been related, many
+flirtations, and not a few so-called love-affairs, but neither of these two
+sorts of intimacies are of necessity true intimacies at all; men often feel
+varying degrees of love for women without <a name="Page_273"></a>the least
+true understanding or sympathy or real companionship.</p>
+
+<p>He was wondering, as he bore round the corner of the rose-gardens on
+this day, in just what mood he would find her. It seemed to him that in
+their brief acquaintance he had seen her in almost all the moods there are,
+from bitter gloom to the irrepressible gayety of a little child. He had
+told her once that she was like an organ, and she had laughed at him for
+being pretentious and high-flown, though she could upon occasion be quite
+high-flown enough herself for all ordinary purposes.</p>
+
+<p>He reached the cleared margin of the rond point, and a little cold fear
+stirred in him when he did not hear her singing under her breath, as she
+was wont to do when alone, but he went forward and she was there in her
+place upon the stone bench. She had been reading, but the book lay
+forgotten beside her and she sat idle, her head laid back against the thick
+stems of shrubbery which grew behind, her hands in her lap. It was a warm,
+still morning, with the promise of a hot afternoon, and the girl was
+dressed in something very thin and transparent and cool-looking, open in a
+little square at the throat and with sleeves which came only to her elbows.
+The material was pale and dull yellow, with very vaguely defined green
+leaves in it, and against it the girl's dark and clear skin glowed rich and
+warm and living, as pearls glow and seem to throb against the dead tints of
+the fabric upon which they are laid.</p>
+
+<p>She did not move when he came before her, but looked up to him gravely
+without stirring her head.</p>
+
+<p>"I didn't hear you come," said she. "You don't drag your left leg any
+more. You walk almost as well as if you had never been wounded."</p>
+
+<p><a name="Page_274"></a>"I'm almost all right again," he answered. "I
+suppose I couldn't run or jump, but I certainly can walk very much like a
+human being. May I sit down?"</p>
+
+<p>Mlle. O'Hara put out one hand and drew the book closer to make a place
+for him on the stone bench, and he settled himself comfortably there,
+turned a little so that he was facing toward her.</p>
+
+<p>It was indicative of the state of intimacy into which the two had grown
+that they did not make polite conversation with each other, but indeed were
+silent for some little time after Ste. Marie had seated himself. It was he
+who spoke first. He said:</p>
+
+<p>"You look vaguely classical to-day. I have been trying to guess why, and
+I cannot. Perhaps it's because your--what does one say: frock, dress,
+gown?--because it is cut out square at the throat."</p>
+
+<p>"If you mean by classical, Greek," said she, "it wouldn't be square at
+the neck at all; it would be pointed--V-shaped. And it would be very
+different in other ways, too. You are not an observing person, after
+all."</p>
+
+<p>"For all that," insisted Ste. Marie, "you look classical. You look like
+some lady one reads about in Greek poems--Helen or Iphigenia or Medea or
+somebody."</p>
+
+<p>"Helen had yellow hair, hadn't she?" objected Mlle. O'Hara. "I should
+think I probably look more like Medea--Medea in Colchis before Jason--"</p>
+
+<p>She seemed suddenly to realize that she had hit upon an unfortunate
+example, for she stopped in the middle of her sentence and a wave of color
+swept up over her throat and face.</p>
+
+<p>For a moment Ste. Marie did not understand, then he gave a low
+exclamation, for Medea certainly had been an <a name="Page_275"></a>unhappy
+name. He remembered something that Richard Hartley had said about that lady
+a long time before. He made another mistake, for to lessen the moment's
+embarrassment he gave speech to the first thought which entered his mind.
+He said:</p>
+
+<p>"Some one once remarked that you look like the young Juno--before
+marriage. I expect it's true, too."</p>
+
+<p>She turned upon him swiftly.</p>
+
+<p>"Who said that?" she demanded. "Who has ever talked to you about
+me?"</p>
+
+<p>"I beg your pardon," he said. "I seem to be singularly stupid this
+morning. A mild lunacy. You must forgive me, if you can. To tell you what
+you ask would be to enter upon forbidden ground, and I mustn't do
+that."</p>
+
+<p>"Still, I should like to know," said the girl, watching him with sombre
+eyes.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, then," said he, "it was a little Jewish photographer in the
+Boulevard de la Madeleine."</p>
+
+<p>And she said, "Oh!" in a rather disappointed tone and looked away.</p>
+
+<p>"We seem to be making conversation chiefly about my personal
+appearance," she said, presently. "There must be other topics if one should
+try hard to find them. Tell me stories. You told me stories yesterday; tell
+me more. You seem to be in a classical mood. You shall be Odysseus, and I
+will be Nausicaa, the interesting laundress. Tell me about wanderings and
+things. Have you any more islands for me?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes," said Ste. Marie, nodding at her slowly. "Yes, Nausicaa, I have
+more islands for you. The seas are full of islands. What kind do you
+want?"</p>
+
+<p><a name="Page_276"></a>"A warm one," said the girl. "Even on a hot day
+like this I choose a warm one, because I hate the cold."</p>
+
+<p>She settled herself more comfortably, with a little sigh of content that
+was exactly like a child's happy sigh when stories are going to be told
+before the fire.</p>
+
+<p>"I know an island," said Ste. Marie, "that I think you would like
+because it is warm and beautiful and very far away from troubles of all
+kinds. As well as I could make out, when I went there, nobody on the island
+had ever even heard of trouble. Oh yes, you'd like it. The people there are
+brown, and they're as beautiful as their own island. They wear hibiscus
+flowers stuck in their hair, and they very seldom do any work."</p>
+
+<p>"I want to go there!" cried Mlle. Coira O'Hara. "I want to go there now,
+this afternoon, at once! Where is it?"</p>
+
+<p>"It's in the South Pacific," said he, "not so very far from Samoa and
+Fiji and other groups that you will have heard about, and its name is
+Vavau. It's one of the Tongans. It's a high, volcanic island, not a flat,
+coral one like the southern Tongans. I came to it, one evening, sailing
+north from Nukualofa and Haapai, and it looked to me like a single big
+mountain jutting up out of the sea, black-green against the sunset. It was
+very impressive. But it isn't a single mountain, it's a lot of high, broken
+hills covered with a tangle of vegetation and set round a narrow bay, a
+sort of fjord, three or four miles long, and at the inner end of this are
+the village and the stores of the few white traders. I'm afraid," said Ste.
+Marie, shaking his head--"I'm afraid I can't tell you about it, after all.
+I can't seem to find the words. You can't put into language--at least, I
+can't--those slow, hot, island days that are never too hot because <a
+name="Page_277"></a>the trades blow fresh and strong, or the island nights
+that are more like black velvet with pearls sewed on it than anything else.
+You can't describe the smell of orange groves and the look of palm-trees
+against the sky. You can't tell about the sweet, simple, natural
+hospitality of the natives. They're like little, unsuspicious children. In
+short," said he, "I shall have to give it up, after all, just because it's
+too big for me. I can only say that it's beautiful and unspeakably remote
+from the world, and that I think I should like to go back to Vavau and stay
+a long time, and let the rest of the world go hang."</p>
+
+<p>Mlle. O'Hara stared across the park of La Lierre with wide and shadowy
+eyes, and her lips trembled a little.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, I want to go there!" she cried again. "I want to go there--and
+rest--and forget everything!" She turned upon him with a sudden bitter
+resentment. "Why do you tell me things like that?" she cried. "Oh yes, I
+know. I asked you, but--can't you see? To hide one's self away in a place
+like that!" she said. "To let the sun warm you and the trade-winds blow
+away--all that had ever tortured you! Just to rest and be at peace!" She
+turned her eyes to him once more. "You needn't be afraid that you have
+failed to make me see your island! I see it. I feel it. It doesn't need
+many words. I can shut my eyes and I am there. But it was a little cruel.
+Oh, I know, I asked for it. It's like the garden of the Hesperides, isn't
+it?"</p>
+
+<p>"Very like it," said Ste. Marie, "because there are oranges--groves of
+them. (And they were the golden apples, I take it.) Also, it is very far
+away from the world, and the people live in complete and careless ignorance
+of how the world goes on. Emperors and kings die, wars come and <a
+name="Page_278"></a>go, but they hear only a little faint echo of it all,
+long afterward, and even that doesn't interest them."</p>
+
+<p>"I know," she said. "I understand. Didn't you know I'd understand?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes," said he, nodding. "I suppose I did. We--feel things rather alike,
+I suppose. We don't have to say them all out."</p>
+
+<p>"I wonder," she said, in a low voice, "if I'm glad or sorry." She stared
+under her brows at the man beside her. "For it is very probable that when
+we have left La Lierre you and I will never meet again. I wonder if
+I'm--"</p>
+
+<p>For some obscure reason she broke off there and turned her eyes away,
+and she remained without speaking for a long time. Her mind, as she sat
+there, seemed to go back to that southern island, and to its peace and
+loveliness, for Ste. Marie, who watched her, saw a little smile come to her
+lips, and he saw her eyes half close and grow soft and tender as if what
+they saw were very sweet to her. He watched many different expressions come
+upon the girl's face and go again, but at last he seemed to see the old
+bitterness return there and struggle with something wistful and eager.</p>
+
+<p>"I envy you your wide wanderings," she said, presently. "Oh, I envy you
+more than I can find any words for. Your will is the wind's will. You go
+where your fancy leads you, and you're free--free. We have wandered, you
+know," said she, "my father and I. I can't remember when we ever had a home
+to live in. But that is--that is different--a different kind of
+wandering."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes," said Ste. Marie. "Yes, perhaps." And within himself he said, with
+sorrow and pity, "Different, indeed!"</p>
+
+<p>As if at some sudden thought the girl looked up at him <a
+name="Page_279"></a>quickly. "Did that sound regretful?" she asked. "Did
+what I say sound--disloyal to my father? I didn't mean it to. I don't want
+you to think that I regret it. I don't. It has meant being with my father.
+Wherever he has gone I have gone with him, and if anything ever has
+been--unpleasant, I was willing, oh, I was glad, glad to put up with it for
+his sake and because I could be with him. If I have made his life a little
+happier by sharing it, I am glad of everything. I don't regret."</p>
+
+<p>"And yet," said Ste. Marie, gently, "it must have been hard sometimes."
+He pictured to himself that roving existence lived among such people as
+O'Hara must have known, and it sent a hot wave of anger and distress over
+him from head to foot.</p>
+
+<p>But the girl said: "I had my father. The rest of it didn't matter in the
+face of that." After a little silence she said, "M. Ste. Marie!"</p>
+
+<p>And the man said, "What is it, Mademoiselle?"</p>
+
+<p>"You spoke the other day," she said, hesitating over her words, "about
+my aunt, Lady Margaret Craith. I suppose I ought not to ask you more about
+her, for my father quarrelled with his people very long ago and he broke
+with them altogether. But--surely, it can do no harm--just for a
+moment--just a very little! Could you tell me a little about her, M. Ste.
+Marie--what she is like and--and how she lives--and things like that?"</p>
+
+<p>So Ste. Marie told her all that he could of the old Irishwoman who lived
+alone in her great house, and ruled with a slack Irish hand, a sweet Irish
+heart, over tenants and dependants. And when he had come to an end the girl
+drew a little sigh and said:</p>
+
+<p>"Thank you. I am so glad to hear of her. I--wish <a
+name="Page_280"></a>everything were different, so that--I think I should
+love her very much if I might."</p>
+
+<p>"Mademoiselle," said Ste. Marie, "will you promise me something?"</p>
+
+<p>She looked at him with her sombre eyes, and after a little she said: "I
+am afraid you must tell me first what it is. I cannot promise blindly."</p>
+
+<p>He said: "I want you to promise me that if anything ever should
+happen--any difficulty--trouble--anything to put you in the position of
+needing care or help or sympathy--"</p>
+
+<p>But she broke in upon him with a swift alarm, crying: "What do you mean?
+You're trying to hint at something that I don't know. What difficulty or
+trouble could happen to me? Please tell me just what you mean."</p>
+
+<p>"I'm not hinting at any mystery," said Ste. Marie. "I don't know of
+anything that is going to happen to you, but--will you forgive me for
+saying it?--your father is, I take it, often exposed to--danger of various
+sorts. I'm afraid I can't quite express myself, only, if any trouble should
+come to you, Mademoiselle, will you promise me to go to Lady Margaret, your
+aunt, and tell her who you are and let her care for you?"</p>
+
+<p>"There was an absolute break," she said. "Complete."</p>
+
+<p>But the man shook his head, saying:</p>
+
+<p>"Lady Margaret won't think of that. She'll think only of you--that she
+can mother you, perhaps save you grief--and of herself, that in her old age
+she has a daughter. It would make a lonely old woman very happy,
+Mademoiselle."</p>
+
+<p>The girl bent her head away from him, and Ste. Marie saw, for the first
+time since he had known her, tears in her eyes. After a long time she
+said:</p>
+
+<p>"I promise, then. But," she said, "it is very unlikely <a
+name="Page_281"></a>that it should ever come about--for more than one
+reason. Very unlikely."</p>
+
+<p>"Still, Mademoiselle," said he, "I am glad you have promised. This is an
+uncertain world. One never can tell what will come with the
+to-morrows."</p>
+
+<p>"I can," the girl said, with a little tired smile that Ste. Marie did
+not understand. "I can tell. I can see all the to-morrows--a long, long row
+of them. I know just what they're going to be like--to the very end."</p>
+
+<p>But the man rose to his feet and looked down upon her as she sat before
+him. And he shook his head.</p>
+
+<p>"You are mistaken," he said. "Pardon me, but you are mistaken. No one
+can see to-morrow--or the end of anything. The end may surprise you very
+much."</p>
+
+<p>"I wish it would!" cried Mlle. O'Hara. "Oh, I wish it would!"</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+
+
+
+<a name="Page_282"></a><h2><a name='XXIV'></a>XXIV</h2>
+
+<h3>THE JOINT IN THE ARMOR</h3>
+
+
+<p>Ste. Marie put down a book as O'Hara came into the room and rose to meet
+his visitor.</p>
+
+<p>"I'm compelled," said the Irishman, "to put you on your honor to-day if
+you are to go out as usual. Michel has been sent on an errand, and I am
+busy with letters. I shall have to put you on your honor not to make any
+effort to escape. Is that agreed to? I shall trust you altogether. You
+could manage to scramble over the wall somehow, I suppose, and get clean
+away, but I think you won't try it if you give your word."</p>
+
+<p>"I give my word gladly," said Ste. Marie. "And thanks very much. You've
+been uncommonly kind to me here. I--regret more than I can say that
+we--that we find ourselves on opposite sides, as it were. I wish we were
+fighting for the same cause."</p>
+
+<p>The Irishman looked at the younger man sharply for an instant, and he
+made as if he would speak, but seemed to think better of it. In the end he
+said:</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, quite so. Quite so. Of course you understand that any
+consideration I have used toward you has been by way of making amends
+for--for an unfortunate occurrence."</p>
+
+<p>Ste. Marie laughed.</p>
+
+<p><a name="Page_283"></a>"The poison," said he. "Yes, I know. And of
+course I know who was at the bottom of that. By the way, I met Stewart in
+the garden the other day. Did he tell you? He was rather nervous and tried
+to shoot me, but he had left his revolver at the house--at least it wasn't
+in his pocket when he reached for it."</p>
+
+<p>O'Hara's hard face twitched suddenly, as if in anger, and he gave an
+exclamation under his breath, so the younger man inferred that "old
+Charlie" had not spoken of their encounter. And after that the Irishman
+once more turned a sharp, frowning glance upon his prisoner as if he were
+puzzled about something. But, as before, he stopped short of speech and at
+last turned away.</p>
+
+<p>"Just a moment!" said the younger man. He asked: "Is it fair to inquire
+how long I may expect to be confined here? I don't want to presume upon
+your good-nature too far, but if you could tell me I should be glad to
+know."</p>
+
+<p>The Irishman hesitated a moment and then said:--</p>
+
+<p>"I don't know why I shouldn't answer that. It can't help you, so far as
+I can see, to do anything that would hinder us. You'll stay until Arthur
+Benham comes of age, which will be in about two months from now."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes," said the other. "Thanks. I thought so. Until young Arthur comes
+of age and receives his patrimony--or until old David Stewart dies. Of
+course that might happen at any hour."</p>
+
+<p>The Irishman said: "I don't quite see what--Ah, yes, to be sure! Yes, I
+see. Well, I should count upon eight weeks if I were you. In eight weeks
+the boy will be independent of them all, and we shall go to England for the
+wedding."</p>
+
+<p><a name="Page_284"></a>"The wedding?" cried Ste. Marie. "What
+wedding?--Ah!"</p>
+
+<p>"Arthur Benham and my daughter are to be married," said O'Hara, "so soon
+as he reaches his majority. I thought you knew that."</p>
+
+<p>In a very vague fashion he realized that he had expected it. And still
+the definite words came to him with a shock which was like a physical blow,
+and he turned his back with a man's natural instinct to hide his feeling.
+Certainly that was the logical conclusion to be drawn from known premises.
+That was to be the O'Haras' reward for their labor. To Stewart the great
+fortune, to the O'Haras a good marriage for the girl and an assured future.
+That was reward enough surely for a few weeks of angling and decoying and
+luring and lying. That was what she had meant, on the day before, by saying
+that she could see all the to-morrows. He realized that he must have been
+expecting something like this, but the thought turned him sick,
+nevertheless. He could not forget the girl as he had come to know her
+during the past week. He could not face with any calmness the thought of
+her as the adventuress who had lured poor Arthur Benham on to destruction.
+It was an impossible thought. He could have laughed at it in scornful
+anger, and yet--What else was she?</p>
+
+<p>He began to realize that his action in turning his back upon the other
+man in the middle of a conversation must look very odd, and he faced round
+again trying to drive from his expression the pain and distress which he
+knew must be there, plain to see. But he need not have troubled himself,
+for the other man was standing before the next window and looking out into
+the morning sunlight, and his <a name="Page_285"></a>hard, bony face had so
+altered that Ste. Marie stared at him with open amazement. He thought
+O'Hara must be ill.</p>
+
+<p>"I want to see her married!" cried the Irishman, suddenly, and it was a
+new voice, a voice Ste. Marie did not know. It shook a little with an
+emotion that sat uncouthly upon this grim, stern man.</p>
+
+<p>"I want to see her married and safe!" he said. "I want her to be rid of
+this damnable, roving, cheap existence. I want her to be rid of me and my
+rotten friends and my rotten life."</p>
+
+<p>He chafed his hands together before him, and his tired eyes fixed
+themselves upon something that he seemed to see out of the window and
+glared at it fiercely.</p>
+
+<p>"I should like," said he, "to die on the day after her wedding, and so
+be out of her way forever. I don't want her to have any shadows cast over
+her from the past. I don't want her to open closet doors and find skeletons
+there. I want her to be free--free to live the sort of life she was born to
+and has a right to."</p>
+
+<p>He turned sharply upon the younger man.</p>
+
+<p>"You've seen her!" he cried. "You've talked to her; you know her! Think
+of that girl dragged about Europe with me ever since she was a little
+child! Think of the people she's had to know, the things she's had to see!
+Do you wonder that I want to have her free of it all, married and safe and
+comfortable and in peace? Do you? I tell you it has driven me as nearly mad
+as a man can be. But I couldn't go mad, because I had to take care of her.
+I couldn't even die, because she'd have been left alone without any one to
+look out for her. She wouldn't leave me. I could have settled her somewhere
+in some quiet place where <a name="Page_286"></a>she'd have been quit at
+least of shady, rotten people, but she wouldn't have it. She's stuck to me
+always, through good times and bad. She's kept my heart up when I'd have
+been ready to cut my throat if I'd been alone. She's been the--bravest and
+faithfulest--Well, I--And look at her! Look at her now! Think of what she's
+had to see and know--the people she's had to live with--and look at her!
+Has any of it stuck to her? Has it cheapened her in any littlest way? No,
+by God! She has come through it all like a--like a Sister of Charity
+through a city slum--like an angel through the dark."</p>
+
+<p>The Irishman broke off speaking, for his voice was beyond control, but
+after a moment he went on again, more calmly:</p>
+
+<p>"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."</p>
+
+<p>He said this last sentence over several times, standing before the
+window and staring out at the sun upon the tree-tops.</p>
+
+<p>"I'm not afraid for her.... I'm not afraid for her."</p>
+
+<p>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 <a name="Page_287"></a>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:</p>
+
+<p>"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."</p>
+
+<p>He seemed a little embarrassed and ill at ease, and Ste. Marie said:</p>
+
+<p>"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--"</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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--<i>the girl was to be married to young Arthur Benham</i>. 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 <a name="Page_288"></a>words to be reflected upon later
+in their own time.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>"She is going to be married. She is going to be married."</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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:</p>
+
+<p>"The last arrow! God send it reached home!" and so went in under the
+lilac shrubs.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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 <a
+name="Page_289"></a>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+
+
+
+<a name="Page_290"></a><h2><a name='XXV'></a>XXV</h2>
+
+<h3>MEDEA GOES OVER TO THE ENEMY</h3>
+
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>"I was just on my way to--our bench beyond the fountain," said she.</p>
+
+<p>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:</p>
+
+<p>"What is it? Something has happened. Please tell me what it is."</p>
+
+<p>Something like the pale foreshadow of fear came over her beautiful face
+and shrouded her golden voice as if it had been a veil.</p>
+
+<p>"Your father," said Ste. Marie, heavily, "has just been telling me--that
+you are to marry young Arthur Benham. He has been telling me."</p>
+
+<p>She drew a quick breath, looking at him, but after a moment she
+said:</p>
+
+<p>"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, <i>did</i> you think?" she cried, as if
+with a sort of anger at his dulness.</p>
+
+<p><a name="Page_291"></a>The man rubbed one hand wearily across his
+eyes.</p>
+
+<p>"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."</p>
+
+<p>Abruptly his eyes sharpened upon her, and he moved a step forward.</p>
+
+<p>"Tell me the truth!" he said. "Do you love this boy?"</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>"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."</p>
+
+<p>Quite suddenly and without warning the fire of her anger burned up
+again. She flamed defiance in the man's face.</p>
+
+<p>"How dare you question me?" she cried. "What right have you to ask me
+questions about such a thing? You--what you are!"</p>
+
+<p>Ste. Marie bent his head.</p>
+
+<p>"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."</p>
+
+<p>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 <a name="Page_292"></a>end with a high head. It was a little less
+base, done proudly. He could not have borne it otherwise.</p>
+
+<p>"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."</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>She spread out her arms before him, a splendid and tragic figure.</p>
+
+<p>"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. <a name="Page_293"></a>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."</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>"Mademoiselle!" cried Ste. Marie. "Mademoiselle, are you telling me the
+truth?"</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>"You--knew Arthur Benham last winter?" he said. "Long before his--before
+he left his home? Before that?"</p>
+
+<p>"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--"</p>
+
+<p>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!"</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>"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!"</p>
+
+<p>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, <a name="Page_294"></a>and it touched the man's
+head. As if the touch were a stroke of magic, he sprang upright before
+her.</p>
+
+<p>"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?"</p>
+
+<p>"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. "<i>You</i> 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."</p>
+
+<p>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 <a name="Page_295"></a>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?</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>"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."</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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, <a name="Page_296"></a>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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!"</p>
+
+<p>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?"</p>
+
+<p><a name="Page_297"></a>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!"</p>
+
+<p>The man turned his eyes away, and she gave a sobbing cry.</p>
+
+<p>"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?"</p>
+
+<p>"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.</p>
+
+<p>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 <a name="Page_298"></a>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>"So now at last," said she, "I have back my Bayard. And I think the
+rest--doesn't matter very much."</p>
+
+<p>"Bayard?" said he, wondering. "I don't understand," he said.</p>
+
+<p>"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."</p>
+
+<p>"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."</p>
+
+<p>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 <a name="Page_299"></a>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?"</p>
+
+<p>"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 <i>you</i>, Coira!" said he,
+stammering. "But <i>you</i>! 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.</p>
+
+<p>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--"</p>
+
+<p><a name="Page_300"></a>Ste. Marie looked away.</p>
+
+<p>"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!"</p>
+
+<p>"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?"</p>
+
+<p>A wave of color flooded the man's face and his eyes shone. He cried:</p>
+
+<p>"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'Universit&eacute; 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."</p>
+
+<p>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:</p>
+
+<p>"For love of whom, Ste. Marie, did you undertake this quest--this search
+for Arthur Benham? It was not in idleness <a name="Page_301"></a>or by way
+of a whim. It was for love. For love of whom?"</p>
+
+<p>For some strange and inexplicable reason the words struck him like a
+blow and he stared whitely.</p>
+
+<p>"I came," he said, at last, and his voice was oddly flat, "for his
+sister's sake. For love of her."</p>
+
+<p>Coira O'Hara dropped her eyes. But presently she looked up again with a
+smile. She said, "God make you happy, my friend."</p>
+
+<p>And she turned and moved away from him up among the trees. At a little
+distance she turned, saying:</p>
+
+<p>"Wait where you are. I will fetch Arthur or send him to you. He must be
+told at once."</p>
+
+<p>Then she went on and was lost to sight.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>He was making for that spot which was overhung by the half-dead
+cedar-tree.</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+
+
+
+<a name="Page_302"></a><h2><a name='XXVI'></a>XXVI</h2>
+
+<h3>BUT THE FLEECE ELECTS TO REMAIN</h3>
+
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>"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?"</p>
+
+<p>"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 <a name="Page_303"></a>door that you passed.
+Have you any money in your pockets? I may want to bribe the gardener."</p>
+
+<p>Hartley searched in his pockets, and while he did so the man beneath
+asked:</p>
+
+<p>"Is old David Stewart alive?"</p>
+
+<p>"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."</p>
+
+<p>"He's here, I think," said Ste. Marie. "I saw him a few days ago."</p>
+
+<p>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. Honor&eacute;.
+Afterward he glanced up and said:</p>
+
+<p>"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."</p>
+
+<p>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
+<a name="Page_304"></a>natural and easy. He might have spared himself the
+pains.</p>
+
+<p>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:</p>
+
+<p>"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!"</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>"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.</p>
+
+<p>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."</p>
+
+<p>The boy gave a short, contemptuous laugh.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, I don't want to hear it," said he.</p>
+
+<p>He was looking toward the girl. He said:</p>
+
+<p>"This fellow may be able to hypnotize you, all right, but not Willie.
+Little Willie's wise to guys like him."</p>
+
+<p>And swinging about to Ste. Marie, he cried:</p>
+
+<p><a name="Page_305"></a>"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."</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>"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?"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, slush!" said the boy. "Anybody'll be dishonest if it's worth his
+while."</p>
+
+<p>"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."</p>
+
+<p>The boy looked nervously from Ste. Marie to Mlle. <a
+name="Page_306"></a>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.</p>
+
+<p>"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."</p>
+
+<p>"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."</p>
+
+<p>"Ah, they're all--they're all against me!" the lad cried. "They've
+always stood together against me. Helen, too!"</p>
+
+<p>"You wouldn't think they were against you if you could just see them
+once now," said Ste. Marie.</p>
+
+<p>And Arthur Benham gave a sort of shamefaced sob, saying:</p>
+
+<p>"Ah, cut it out! Cut it out! Go on, then, and talk, if you want to,
+<i>I</i> don't care. I don't have to listen. Talk, if you're pining for
+it."</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>"If you will look back as calmly and carefully as you can," he said,
+"you will find that you didn't begin to suspect <a name="Page_307"></a>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."</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>"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."</p>
+
+<p>And from where she stood, a little aside, Coira O'Hara said: "I beg you,
+too, Arthur. Go back to them."</p>
+
+<p>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:</p>
+
+<p>"What will he do?" For everything was in Arthur Benham's weak hands
+now.</p>
+
+<p>For a little time, which seemed hours to all who were there, the lad sat
+still, hiding his face, but suddenly he <a name="Page_308"></a>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."</p>
+
+<p>"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."</p>
+
+<p>"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!"</p>
+
+<p>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. <a name="Page_309"></a>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.</p>
+
+<p>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."</p>
+
+<p>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. <i>You</i> 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."</p>
+
+<p>Ste. Marie started to speak, but the girl checked him. <a
+name="Page_310"></a>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."</p>
+
+<p>"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."</p>
+
+<p>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."</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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'Universit&eacute; 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 <a
+name="Page_311"></a>doubt of the Benhams' and even of old David Stewart's
+view of the affair. They would oppose the marriage with all their
+strength.</p>
+
+<p>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?</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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 fianc&eacute; and then turned back.</p>
+
+<p><a name="Page_312"></a>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."</p>
+
+<p>"He won't go to your father and make a scene?" said Ste. Marie, and the
+girl shook her head.</p>
+
+<p>"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."</p>
+
+<p>"I am sure he did not know," said the man. "Stewart lied to him."</p>
+
+<p>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."</p>
+
+<p>"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?"</p>
+
+<p>"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."</p>
+
+<p><a name="Page_313"></a>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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:</p>
+
+<p>"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."</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p><a name="Page_314"></a>So the two remained there for a little while
+longer in silence, but at last Coira O'Hara said:</p>
+
+<p>"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."</p>
+
+<p>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:</p>
+
+<p>"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?"</p>
+
+<p>"What else?" said the girl.</p>
+
+<p>And there was no answer to that. Their separate ways were determined for
+them--marked plain to see.</p>
+
+<p>"But afterward!" he cried. "Afterward--after we have got the boy back to
+his home! What then?"</p>
+
+<p>"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."</p>
+
+<p><a name="Page_315"></a>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>"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?"</p>
+
+<p>The gnome made a choked, croaking sound in his throat.</p>
+
+<p>"It is yours," said Ste. Marie, "for a small service--for doing nothing
+at all."</p>
+
+<p>The beadlike eye rose to his and sharpened intelligently.</p>
+
+<p>"I desire only," said he, "that you should sleep well to-night, very
+well--without waking."</p>
+
+<p>"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."</p>
+
+<p>"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."</p>
+
+<p><a name="Page_316"></a>"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."</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>"Monsieur! Monsieur!" he groaned.</p>
+
+<p>"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?"</p>
+
+<p>The withered face of the old man expanded slowly into a senile grin.</p>
+
+<p>"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!"</p>
+
+<p>Into his trembling claw he took the notes; he made an odd bow and
+shambled away about his business.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+
+
+
+<a name="Page_317"></a><h2><a name='XXVII'></a>XXVII</h2>
+
+<h3>THE NIGHT'S WORK</h3>
+
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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. <a
+name="Page_318"></a>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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:</p>
+
+<p>"He will go with you. Wait by the door in the wall."</p>
+
+<p>The man nearly cried out with joy.</p>
+
+<p>He struck another match and looked at his watch. <a
+name="Page_319"></a>It was a quarter to ten. Four hours left out of the
+fourteen.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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
+<a name="Page_320"></a>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p><a name="Page_321"></a>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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:</p>
+
+<p>"The boy has promised to come with us. We sha'n't have to fight for
+it."</p>
+
+<p>Richard Hartley said, "Thank God!" He spoke to <a
+name="Page_322"></a>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?"</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>"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?"</p>
+
+<p>Ste. Marie did not answer, but he was breathing very fast and he could
+not keep his hands still.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>"I'm going a little way toward the house," said Ste. Marie, at last. "We
+can't see the terrace from here."</p>
+
+<p>But before he had started they heard the sound of hurrying feet, and
+Richard Hartley began to curse under his breath. He said:</p>
+
+<p><a name="Page_323"></a>"Does the young idiot want to rouse the whole
+place? Why can't he come quietly?"</p>
+
+<p class="figure"> <a name="jason008"><img
+width="80%" alt="Illustration: THE GIRL FUMBLED DESPERATELY WITH THE CLUMSY
+KEY" src="images/jason008.png" /></a><br /> THE GIRL FUMBLED DESPERATELY WITH THE
+CLUMSY KEY</p>
+
+<p>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:</p>
+
+<p>"Go to the door in the wall! The door in the wall! Oh, be quick!"</p>
+
+<p>He fell into step beside her, and as they ran he said,</p>
+
+<p>"You're going with him? You're coming with us?"</p>
+
+<p>The girl answered him, "No, no!" and she sprang to the little, low door
+and began to fit the iron key into the lock.</p>
+
+<p>The three men stood about her, and young Arthur Benham drew his breath
+in great, shivering gasps that were like sobs.</p>
+
+<p>"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!"</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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 <a name="Page_324"></a>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.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, hurry, hurry!" said the girl. "Can't you be quick? They're
+coming."</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>"I'm getting it, I think," said Richard Hartley, between his teeth. "I'm
+getting it. Turn, you beast! Turn!"</p>
+
+<p>There was a sound of hurrying feet, and Ste. Marie spun about. He
+cried:</p>
+
+<p>"Don't wait for me! Jump into the car and go! Don't wait anywhere! Come
+back after you've left Benham at home!"</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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, <a name="Page_325"></a>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+
+
+
+<a name="Page_326"></a><h2><a name='XXVIII'></a>XXVIII</h2>
+
+<h3>MEDEA'S LITTLE HOUR</h3>
+
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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, <a name="Page_327"></a>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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 <a
+name="Page_328"></a>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>"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."</p>
+
+<p>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 <a
+name="Page_329"></a>broke into a fit of weak cursing, and the girl laughed
+over him tenderly and let him be.</p>
+
+<p>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:</p>
+
+<p>"Coira! Coira!"</p>
+
+<p>And she said, "I am here."</p>
+
+<p>But the man was in a strange border-land of half-consciousness and his
+ears were deaf. He said, gazing up at her:</p>
+
+<p>"Is it--another dream?"</p>
+
+<p>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:</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, beautiful--and sweet--and true!"</p>
+
+<p>The girl gave a little sob and hid her face.</p>
+
+<p>"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!"</p>
+
+<p>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!"</p>
+
+<p>"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 <a name="Page_330"></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?"</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>"<i>Real!</i>" he cried, whispering. "Real? ... Not a dream?"</p>
+
+<p>"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!"</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>"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 <i>her</i> and never know. And I shall
+never even see him again. Why can't I have my little sweet hour?"</p>
+
+<p>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!"</p>
+
+<p>"Do you dream of me, Bayard?" she asked.</p>
+
+<p>And he said: "From the very first. From that evening <a
+name="Page_331"></a>in the Champs-Elys&eacute;es. 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."</p>
+
+<p>"Ah, sorely, Bayard! Sorely!" cried the girl above him.</p>
+
+<p>"And now," said he, whispering.</p>
+
+<p>"Now?" she said.</p>
+
+<p>"Coira, I love you," said the man on the couch.</p>
+
+<p>And Coira O'Hara gave a single dry sob.</p>
+
+<p>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."</p>
+
+<p>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? <i>Our life!</i>" 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."</p>
+
+<p>"Anywhere!" said she. "Anywhere!"</p>
+
+<p>"So that we go together."</p>
+
+<p>"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, <a
+name="Page_332"></a>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?"</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>"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?"</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>The man gave a contented sigh and fell asleep.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>In the hall outside she stood a moment considering, and <a
+name="Page_333"></a>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>"What is the matter with you?" she asked. "Why are you about at this
+hour?"</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>"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."</p>
+
+<p>The old man stared at her with open mouth for a breathless <a
+name="Page_334"></a>moment, and then shambled hastily away, looking over
+his shoulder at intervals until he was out of sight.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>He cried at once: "Where's Ste. Marie? Where is he? He hasn't tried to
+walk into the city?"</p>
+
+<p>"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?"</p>
+
+<p>"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.</p>
+
+<p>"You want to make sure," said she. "Of course! Yes, come in. He's
+sleeping very soundly." She led the man <a name="Page_335"></a>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.</p>
+
+<p>"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!"</p>
+
+<p>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."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes," said Hartley, "I understand. Arthur Benham told me how Stewart
+lied to you all. Was it he who struck Ste. Marie?"</p>
+
+<p>She nodded. "And then tried to shoot him; but he didn't succeed in that.
+I wonder where he is--Captain Stewart?"</p>
+
+<p>"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?"</p>
+
+<p>The girl shook her head, for she did not know of Stewart's epileptic
+seizures. She thought it quite possible <a name="Page_336"></a>that he had
+suffered a stroke of apoplexy as Hartley suggested, for she remembered the
+half-mad state he had been in.</p>
+
+<p>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?"</p>
+
+<p>"I think he will be all right," she said, "save for the pain. He was
+only stunned."</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+
+
+
+<a name="Page_337"></a><h2><a name='XXIX'></a>XXIX</h2>
+
+<h3>THE SCALES OF INJUSTICE</h3>
+
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>"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."</p>
+
+<p>Ste. Marie looked up at her. "Do I seem glad, Coira?" said he.</p>
+
+<p>And she said: "You will be glad to-morrow--and always, I hope and pray.
+Always! Always!"</p>
+
+<p><a name="Page_338"></a>The man held one hand over his aching eyes.</p>
+
+<p>"I have," he said, "queer half-memories. I wish I could remember
+distinctly."</p>
+
+<p>He looked up at her again.</p>
+
+<p>"I dropped down by the gate in the wall. When I awoke I was in a room in
+the house. How did that happen?"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh," she said, turning her face away, "we got you up to the house
+almost at once."</p>
+
+<p>But Ste. Marie frowned thoughtfully.</p>
+
+<p>"'We'? Who do you mean by 'we'?"</p>
+
+<p>"Well, then, I," the girl said. "It was not difficult."</p>
+
+<p>"Coira," cried the man, "do you mean that you carried me bodily all that
+long distance? <i>You</i>?"</p>
+
+<p>"Carried or dragged," she said. "As much one as the other. It was not
+very difficult. I'm strong for a woman."</p>
+
+<p>"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."</p>
+
+<p>He covered his eyes again as if the memory were intolerable. But after
+awhile he said:</p>
+
+<p>"You saved my life, you know."</p>
+
+<p>And the girl answered him:</p>
+
+<p>"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."</p>
+
+<p>She saw that he did not at all remember that hour in the little
+room--her hour of bitterness--and she was glad. <a name="Page_339"></a>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.</p>
+
+<p>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 d&eacute;jeuner and
+tell him to wait.</p>
+
+<p>"Are you fit to go?" Coira asked.</p>
+
+<p>And he said, "I suppose as fit as I shall be."</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>"It is not good-bye," said he. "I shall see you soon again--and I hope,
+often--often, Coira."</p>
+
+<p>The words had a flat and foolish sound, but he could find no others. It
+was not easy to speak.</p>
+
+<p>"I suppose I must not ask to see your father?" said he.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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:</p>
+
+<p>"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?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, of course," said Ste. Marie.</p>
+
+<p>He looked at her with some wonder, because her words had been very
+emphatic.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes," he said, "I will tell him. Is that all?"</p>
+
+<p>"All but good-bye," said she. "Good-bye, Bayard!"</p>
+
+<p><a name="Page_340"></a>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p><a name="Page_341"></a>"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."</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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'Universit&eacute;.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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
+name="Page_342"></a>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.</p>
+
+<p>"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!"</p>
+
+<p>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:</p>
+
+<p>"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."</p>
+
+<p>"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."</p>
+
+<p><a name="Page_343"></a>"Still," she said, "such a man!"</p>
+
+<p>Ste. Marie looked at her, frowning, and the girl turned her eyes away.
+She may have had the grace to be a little ashamed.</p>
+
+<p>"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."</p>
+
+<p>There was reason if not justice in that, and Ste. Marie was forced to
+admit it. He said:</p>
+
+<p>"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."</p>
+
+<p>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:</p>
+
+<p>"Ah, but--but have you, dear Ste. Marie? Have you?"</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>"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?"</p>
+
+<p>The man fairly blinked at her, owl-like. He was beyond speech.</p>
+
+<p><a name="Page_344"></a>"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."</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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 <a name="Page_345"></a>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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:</p>
+
+<p>"Yes. Yes, I--see. I see what you mean. Yes, <a
+name="Page_346"></a>Hartley did all you say. I hadn't meant to rob Hartley
+of the credit he deserves. I suppose you're right."</p>
+
+<p>He was possessed of a sudden longing to get away out of that room, and
+he rose to his feet.</p>
+
+<p>"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?"</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>"Thanks! I won't stay," said he. "Not just now. I--think I'd better
+go."</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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:</p>
+
+<p>"Ah, here's Jason at last, back from Colchis! Welcome <a
+name="Page_347"></a>home to--whatever the name of the place was! Welcome
+home!"</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>"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?"</p>
+
+<p>"You mean--?" asked the younger man.</p>
+
+<p>And old David said: "I mean Helen, of course. What else?"</p>
+
+<p>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:</p>
+
+<p>"Oh--yes! I suppose--I suppose I ought to tell you that Miss
+Benham--well, she has changed her mind. That is to say--"</p>
+
+<p>"What!" shouted old David Stewart, in his great voice. "What is
+that?"</p>
+
+<p>"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."</p>
+
+<p><a name="Page_348"></a>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?"</p>
+
+<p>"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."</p>
+
+<p>"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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>"You're well rid of her!" said the old gentleman, when at last he was
+once more able to speak. "You're well rid of her! I congratulate you! I am
+ashamed and humiliated, and a great burden of obligation is shifted to
+me--though I assume it with pleasure--but I congratulate you. You might
+have found out too late what sort of a woman she is."</p>
+
+<p>Ste. Marie began to protest and to explain and to say that Miss Benham
+had been quite right in what she said, but the old gentleman only waved an
+impatient arm to him, and presently, when he saw the valet making signs
+across the bed, and saw that his host was really in a state of complete <a
+name="Page_349"></a>exhaustion after the outburst, he made his adieus and
+got away.</p>
+
+<p>Young Arthur Benham, who had been sitting almost silent during the
+interview, followed him out of the room and closed the door behind them.
+For the first time Ste. Marie noted that the boy's face was white and
+strained. He pulled a crumpled square of folded paper from his pocket and
+shook it at the other man. "Do you know what this is?" he cried. "Do you
+know what's in this?"</p>
+
+<p>Ste. Marie shook his head, but a sudden recollection came to him.</p>
+
+<p>"Ah," said he, "that must be the note Mlle. O'Hara spoke of! She asked
+me to tell you that she meant it--whatever it may be--quite seriously; that
+it was final. She didn't explain. She just said that--that you were to take
+it as final."</p>
+
+<p>The lad gave a sudden very bitter sob. "She has thrown me over!" he
+said. "She says I'm not to come back to her."</p>
+
+<p>Ste. Marie gave a wordless cry, and he began to tremble.</p>
+
+<p>"You can read it if you want to," the boy said. "Perhaps you can explain
+it. I can't. Do you want to read it?"</p>
+
+<p>The elder man stood staring at him whitely, and the boy repeated his
+words.</p>
+
+<p>He said, "You can read it if you want to," and at last Ste. Marie took
+the paper between stiff hands, and held it to the light.</p>
+
+<p>Coira O'Hara said, briefly, that too much was against their marriage.
+She mentioned his age, the certain hostility of his family, their different
+tastes, a number of other things. But in the end she said she had begun to
+realize that she did not love him as she ought to do if they <a
+name="Page_350"></a>were to marry. And so, the note said, finally, she gave
+him up to his family, she released him altogether, and she begged him not
+to come back to her, or to urge her to change her mind. Also she made the
+trite but very sensible observation that he would be glad of his freedom
+before the year was out.</p>
+
+<p>Ste. Marie's unsteady fingers opened and the crumpled paper slipped
+through them to the floor. Over it the man and the boy looked at each other
+in silence. Young Arthur Benham's face was white, and it was strained and
+contorted with its first grief. But first griefs do not last very long.
+Coira O'Hara had told the truth--before the year was out the lad would be
+glad of his freedom. But the man's face was white also, white and still,
+and his eyes held a strange expression which the boy could not understand
+and at which he wondered. The man was trembling a little from head to foot.
+The boy wondered about that, too, but abruptly he cried out: "What's up?
+Where are you going?" for Ste. Marie had turned all at once and was running
+down the stairs as fast as he could run.</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+
+
+
+<a name="Page_351"></a><h2><a name='XXX'></a>XXX</h2>
+
+<h3>JASON SAILS BACK TO COLCHIS.--JOURNEY'S END</h3>
+
+
+<p>In the hall below, Ste. Marie came violently into contact with and
+nearly overturned Richard Hartley, who was just giving his hat and stick to
+the man who had admitted him. Hartley seized upon him with an exclamation
+of pleasure, and wheeled him round to face the light. He said:</p>
+
+<p>"I've been pursuing you all day. You're almost as difficult of access
+here in Paris as you were at La Lierre. How's the head?"</p>
+
+<p>Ste. Marie put up an experimental hand. He had forgotten his injury.
+"Oh, that's all right," said he. "At least, I think so. Anderson fixed me
+up this afternoon. But I haven't time to talk to you. I'm in a hurry.
+To-morrow we'll have a long chin. Oh, how about Stewart?"</p>
+
+<p>He lowered his voice, and Hartley answered him in the same tone.</p>
+
+<p>"The man is in a delirium. Heaven knows how it'll end. He may die and he
+may pull through. I hope he pulls through--except for the sake of the
+family--because then we can make him pay for what he's done. I don't want
+him to go scot free by dying."</p>
+
+<p>"Nor I," said Ste. Marie, fiercely. "Nor I. I want him to pay, too--long
+and slowly and hard; and if he lives <a name="Page_352"></a>I shall see
+that he does it, family or no family. Now I must be off."</p>
+
+<p>Ste. Marie's face was shining and uplifted. The other man looked at it
+with a little envious sigh.</p>
+
+<p>"I see everything is all right," said he, "and I congratulate you. You
+deserve it if ever any one did."</p>
+
+<p>Ste. Marie stared for an instant, uncomprehending. Then he saw.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes," he said, gently, "everything is all right."</p>
+
+<p>It was plain that the Englishman did not know of Miss Benham's decision.
+He was incapable of deceit. Ste. Marie threw an arm over his friend's
+shoulder and went with him a little way toward the drawing-room.</p>
+
+<p>"Go in there," he said. "You'll find some one glad to see you, I think.
+And remember that I said everything is all right."</p>
+
+<p>He came back after he had turned away, and met Hartley's puzzled frown
+with a smile.</p>
+
+<p>"If you've that motor here, may I use it?" he asked. "I want to go
+somewhere in a hurry."</p>
+
+<p>"Of course," the other man said. "Of course. I'll go home in a cab."</p>
+
+<p>So they parted, and Ste. Marie went out to the waiting car.</p>
+
+<p>On the left bank the streets are nearly empty of traffic at night, and
+one can make excellent time over them. Ste. Marie reached the Porte de
+Versailles, at the city's limits, in twenty minutes and dashed through Issy
+five minutes later. In less than half an hour from the time he had left the
+rue de l'Universit&eacute; he was under the walls of La Lierre. He looked
+at his watch, and it was not quite half-past eleven.</p>
+
+<p><a name="Page_353"></a>He tried the little door in the wall, and it was
+unlocked, so he passed in and closed the door behind him. Inside he found
+that he was running, and he gave a little laugh, but of eagerness and
+excitement, not of mirth. There were dim lights in one or two of the upper
+windows, but none below, and there was no one about. He pulled at the
+door-bell, and after a few impatient moments pulled again and still again.
+Then he noticed that the heavy door was ajar, and, since no one answered
+his ringing, he pushed the door open and went in.</p>
+
+<p>The lower hall was quite dark, but a very faint light came down from
+above through the well of the staircase. He heard dragging feet in the
+upper hall, and then upon one of the upper flights, for the stairs, broad
+below, divided at a half-way landing and continued upward in an opposite
+direction in two narrower flights. A voice, very faint and weary,
+called:</p>
+
+<p>"Who is there? Who is ringing, please?"</p>
+
+<p>And Coira O'Hara, holding a candle in her hand, came upon the
+stair-landing and stood gazing down into the darkness. She wore a sort of
+dressing-gown, a heavy white garment which hung in straight, long folds to
+her feet and fell away from the arm that held the candle on high. The
+yellow beams of light struck down across her head and face, and even at the
+distance the man could see how white she was and hollow-eyed and worn--a
+pale wraith of the splendid beauty that had walked in the garden at La
+Lierre.</p>
+
+<p>"Who is there, please?" she asked again. "I can't see. What is it?"</p>
+
+<p>"It is I, Coira!" said Ste. Marie.</p>
+
+<p>And she gave a sharp cry. The arm which was holding <a
+name="Page_354"></a>the candle overhead shook and fell beside her as if the
+strength had gone out of it. The candle dropped to the floor, spluttered
+there for an instant and went out, but there was still a little light from
+the hall above.</p>
+
+<p>Ste. Marie sprang up the stairs to where the girl stood, and caught her
+in his arms, for she was on the verge of faintness. Her head fell back away
+from him, and he saw her eyes through half-closed lids, her white teeth
+through parted lips. She was trembling--but, for that matter, so was he at
+the touch of her, the heavy and sweet burden in his arms. She tried to
+speak, and he heard a whisper:</p>
+
+<p>"Why? Why? Why?"</p>
+
+<p>"Because it is my place, Coira!" said he. "Because I cannot live away
+from you. Because we belong together."</p>
+
+<p>The girl struggled weakly and pushed against him. Once more he heard
+whispering words and made out that she tried to say:</p>
+
+<p>"Go back to her! Go back to her! You belong there!"</p>
+
+<p>But at that he laughed aloud.</p>
+
+<p>"I thought so, too," said he, "but she thinks otherwise. She'll have
+none of me, Coira. It's Richard Hartley now. Coira, can you love a jilted
+man? I've been jilted--thrown over--dismissed."</p>
+
+<p>Her head came up in a flash and she stared at him, suddenly rigid and
+tense in his arms.</p>
+
+<p>"Is that true?" she demanded.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, my love!" said he.</p>
+
+<p>And she began to weep, with long, comfortable sobs, her face hidden in
+the hollow of his shoulder. On one other occasion she had wept before him,
+and he had been horribly embarrassed, but he bore this present tempest
+without, as it were, winking. He gloried in it. He tried to say so. <a
+name="Page_355"></a>He tried to whisper to her, his lips pressed close to
+the ear that was nearest them, but he found that he had no speech. Words
+would not come to his tongue; it trembled and faltered and was still for
+sheer inadequacy.</p>
+
+<p>Rather oddly, in that his thoughts were chaos, swallowed up in the surge
+of feeling, a memory struck through to him of that other exaltation which
+had swept him to the stars. He looked upon it and was amazed because now he
+saw it, in clear light, for the thing it had been. He saw it for a fantasy,
+a self-evoked wraith of the imagination, a dizzy flight of the spirit
+through spirit space. He saw that it had not been love at all, and he
+realized how little a part Helen Benham had ever really played in it. A
+cold and still-eyed figure for him to wrap the veil of his imagination
+round, that was what she had been. There were times when the sweep of his
+upward flight had stirred her a little, wakened in her some vague response,
+but for the most part she had stood aside and looked on, wondering.</p>
+
+<p>The mist was rent away from that rainbow-painted cobweb, and at last the
+man saw and understood. He gave an exclamation of wonder, and the girl who
+loved him raised her head once more, and the two looked each into the
+other's eyes for a long time. They fell into hushed and broken speech.</p>
+
+<p>"I have loved you so long, so long," she said, "and so hopelessly! I
+never thought--I never believed. To think that in the end you have come to
+me! I cannot believe it!"</p>
+
+<p>"Wait and see!" cried the man. "Wait and see!"</p>
+
+<p>She shivered a little. "If it is not true I should like to die before I
+find out. I should like to die now, Bayard, with your arms holding me up
+and your eyes close, close."</p>
+
+<p>Ste. Marie's arms tightened round her with a sudden <a
+name="Page_356"></a>fierceness. He hurt her, and she smiled up at him.
+Their two hearts beat one against the other, and they beat very fast.</p>
+
+<p>"Don't you understand," he cried, "that life's only just
+beginning--day's just dawning, Coira? We've been lost in the dark. Day's
+coming now. This is only the sunrise."</p>
+
+<p>"I can believe it at last," she said, "because you hold me close and you
+hurt me a little, and I'm glad to be hurt. And I can feel your heart
+beating. Ah, never let me go, Bayard! I should be lost in the dark again if
+you let me go." A sudden thought came to her, and she bent back her head to
+see the better. "Did you speak with Arthur?"</p>
+
+<p>And he said: "Yes. He asked me to read your note, so I read it. That
+poor lad! I came straight to you then--straight and fast."</p>
+
+<p>"You knew why I did it?" she said, and Ste. Marie said:</p>
+
+<p>"Now I know."</p>
+
+<p>"I could not have married him," said she. "I could not. I never thought
+I should see you again, but I loved you and I could not have married him.
+Ah, impossible! And he'll be glad later on. You know that. It will save him
+any more trouble with his family, and besides--he's so very young. Already,
+I think, he was beginning to chafe a little. I thought so more than once.
+Oh, I'm trying to justify myself!" she cried. "I'm trying to find reasons;
+but you know the true reason. You know it."</p>
+
+<p>"I thank God for it," he said.</p>
+
+<p>So they stood clinging together in that dim place, and broken,
+whispering speech passed between them or long silences when speech was
+done. But at last they went down the stairs and out upon the open terrace,
+where the moonlight lay.</p>
+
+<p><a name="Page_357"></a>"It Was in the open, sweet air," the girl said,
+"that we came to know each other. Let us walk in it now. The house smothers
+me." She looked up when they had passed the west corner of the
+fa&ccedil;ade and drew a little sigh. "I am worried about my father," said
+she. "He will not answer me when I call to him, and he has eaten nothing
+all day long. Bayard, I think his heart is broken. Ah, but to-morrow we
+shall mend it again! In the morning I shall make him let me in, and I shall
+tell him--what I have to tell."</p>
+
+<p>They turned down under the trees, where the moonlight made silver
+splashes about their feet, and the sweet night air bore soft against their
+faces. Coira went a half-step in advance, her head laid back upon the
+shoulder of the man she loved, and his arm held her up from falling.</p>
+
+<p>So at last we leave them, walking there in the tender moonlight, with
+the breath of roses about them and their eyes turned to the coming day. It
+is still night and there is yet one cloud of sorrow to shadow them
+somewhat, for up-stairs in his locked room a man lies dead across the
+floor, with an empty pistol beside him--heart-broken, as the girl had
+feared. But where a great love is, shadows cannot last very long, not even
+such shadows as this. The morning must dawn--and joy cometh of a
+morning.</p>
+
+<p>So we leave them walking together in the moonlight, their faces turned
+toward the coming day.</p>
+
+<p>THE END</p>
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+<pre>
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Jason, by Justus Miles Forman
+
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+</pre>
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+</body>
+</html>
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@@ -0,0 +1,11438 @@
+The Project Gutenberg EBook of Jason, by Justus Miles Forman
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: Jason
+
+Author: Justus Miles Forman
+
+Release Date: August 23, 2004 [EBook #13261]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK JASON ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Kevin Handy, John Hagerson, and the Project Gutenberg
+Online Distributed Proofreaders Team
+
+
+
+
+
+JASON
+
+A ROMANCE
+
+BY
+JUSTUS MILES FORMAN
+
+AUTHOR OF
+"A STUMBLING BLOCK" "BUCHANAN'S WIFE"
+"THE ISLAND OF ENCHANTMENT"
+
+WITH ILLUSTRATIONS BY
+W. HATHERELL, R.I.
+
+HARPER & BROTHERS PUBLISHERS
+NEW YORK AND LONDON
+MCMIX
+
+
+COPYRIGHT, 1908.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+A PARIS
+
+MERE MYSTERIEUSE ... SOEUR CONSOLATRICE
+ENCHANTERESSE AUX YEUX VOILES
+JE DEDIE CE PETIT ROMAN
+EN RECONNAISSANCE
+J.M.F.
+
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS
+
+     I. STE. MARIE HEARS OF A MYSTERY AND MEETS A DARK LADY
+
+    II. THE LADDER TO THE STARS
+
+   III. STE. MARIE MAKES A VOW, BUT A PAIR OF EYES HAUNT HIM
+
+    IV. OLD DAVID STEWART
+
+     V. JASON SETS FORTH UPON THE GREAT ADVENTURE
+
+    VI. A BRAVE GENTLEMAN RECEIVES A HURT, BUT VOLUNTEERS IN A GOOD CAUSE
+
+   VII. CAPTAIN STEWART MAKES A KINDLY OFFER
+
+  VIII. JASON MEETS WITH A MISADVENTURE AND DREAMS A DREAM
+
+    IX. JASON GOES UPON A JOURNEY, AND RICHARD HARTLEY PLEADS FOR HIM
+
+     X. CAPTAIN STEWART ENTERTAINS
+
+    XI. A GOLDEN LADY ENTERS--THE EYES AGAIN
+
+   XII. THE NAME OF THE LADY WITH THE EYES--EVIDENCE HEAPS UP SWIFTLY
+
+  XIII. THE VOYAGE TO COLCHIS
+
+   XIV. THE WALLS OF AEA
+
+    XV. A CONVERSATION AT LA LIERRE
+
+   XVI. THE BLACK CAT
+
+  XVII. THOSE WHO WERE LEFT BEHIND
+
+ XVIII. A CONVERSATION OVERHEARD
+
+   XIX. THE INVALID TAKES THE AIR
+
+    XX. THE STONE BENCH AT THE ROND POINT
+
+   XXI. A MIST DIMS THE SHINING STAR
+
+  XXII. A SETTLEMENT REFUSED
+
+ XXIII. THE LAST ARROW
+
+  XXIV. THE JOINT IN THE ARMOR
+
+   XXV. MEDEA GOES OVER TO THE ENEMY
+
+  XXVI. BUT THE FLEECE ELECTS TO REMAIN
+
+ XXVII. THE NIGHT'S WORK
+
+XXVIII. MEDEA'S LITTLE HOUR
+
+  XXIX. THE SCALES OF INJUSTICE
+
+   XXX. JASON SAILS BACK TO COLCHIS--JOURNEY'S END
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+I
+
+STE. MARIE HEARS OF A MYSTERY AND MEETS A DARK LADY
+
+
+From Ste. Marie's little flat, which overlooked the gardens, they drove
+down the quiet rue du Luxembourg, and at the Place St. Sulpice turned to
+the left. They crossed the Place St. Germain des Pres, where lines of
+home-bound working-people stood waiting for places in the electric
+trams, and groups of students from the Beaux Arts or from Julien's sat
+under the awnings of the Deux Magots, and so, beyond that busy square,
+they came into the long and peaceful stretch of the Boulevard St.
+Germain. The warm, sweet dusk gathered round them as they went, and the
+evening air was fresh and aromatic in their faces. There had been a
+little gentle shower in the late afternoon, and roadway and pavement
+were still damp with it. It had wet the new-grown leaves of the
+chestnuts and acacias that bordered the street. The scent of that living
+green blended with the scent of laid dust and the fragrance of the last
+late-clinging chestnut blossoms; it caught up a fuller, richer burden
+from the overflowing front of a florist's shop; it stole from open
+windows a savory whiff of cooking, a salt tang of wood smoke; and the
+soft little breeze--the breeze of coming summer--mixed all together and
+tossed them and bore them down the long, quiet street; and it was the
+breath of Paris, and it shall be in your nostrils and mine, a keen agony
+of sweetness, so long as we may live and so wide as we may
+wander--because we have known it and loved it--and in the end we shall
+go back to breathe it when we die.
+
+The strong white horse jogged evenly along over the wooden pavement, its
+head down, the little bell at its neck jingling pleasantly as it went.
+The cocher, a torpid, purplish lump of gross flesh, pyramidal, pearlike,
+sat immobile in his place. The protuberant back gave him an
+extraordinary effect of being buttoned into his fawn-colored coat wrong
+side before. At intervals he jerked the reins like a large strange toy,
+and his strident voice said:
+
+"He!" to the stout white horse, which paid no attention whatever. Once
+the beast stumbled and the pearlike lump of flesh insulted it, saying:
+
+"He! veux tu, cochon!"
+
+Before the War Office a little black slip of a milliner's girl dodged
+under the horse's head, saving herself and the huge box slung to her arm
+by a miracle of agility, and the cocher called her the most frightful
+names, without turning his head and in a perfunctory tone quite free
+from passion.
+
+Young Hartley laughed and turned to look at his companion, but Ste.
+Marie sat still in his place, his hat pulled a little down over his
+brows and his handsome chin buried in the folds of the white silk
+muffler with which for some obscure reason he had swathed his neck.
+
+"This is the first time in many years," said the Englishman, "that I
+have known you to be silent for ten whole minutes. Are you ill, or are
+you making up little epigrams to say at the dinner-party?"
+
+Ste. Marie waved a despondent glove.
+
+"I 'ave," said he, "w'at you call ze blue. Papillons noirs--clouds in my
+soul." It was a species of jest with Ste. Marie--and he seemed never to
+tire of it--to pretend that he spoke English very brokenly. As a matter
+of fact, he spoke it quite as well as any Englishman and without the
+slightest trace of accent. He had discovered a long time before this--it
+may have been while the two were at Eton together--that it annoyed
+Hartley very much, particularly when it was done in company and before
+strangers. In consequence he became on such occasions a sort of
+comic-paper caricature of his race, and by dint of much practice, added
+to a naturally alert mind, he became astonishingly ingenious in the
+torture of that honest but unimaginative gentleman whom he considered
+his best friend. He achieved the most surprising expressions by the mere
+literal translation of French idiom, and he could at any time bring
+Hartley to a crimson agony by calling him "my dear "'before other men,
+whereas at the equivalent "mon cher" the Englishman would doubtless
+never, as the phrase goes, have batted an eye.
+
+"Ye-es," he continued, sadly, "I 'ave ze blue. I weep. Weez ze tears
+full ze eyes. Yes." He descended into English. "I think something's
+going to happen to me. There's calamity, or something, in the air.
+Perhaps I'm going to die."
+
+"Oh, I know what you are going to do, right enough," said the other man.
+"You're going to meet the most beautiful woman--girl--in the world at
+dinner, and of course you are going to fall in love with her."
+
+"Ah, the Miss Benham!" said Ste. Marie, with a faint show of interest.
+"I remember now, you said that she was to be there. I had forgotten.
+Yes, I shall be glad to meet her. One hears so much. But why am I of
+course going to fall in love with her?"
+
+"Well, in the first place," said Hartley, "you always fall in love with
+all pretty women as a matter of habit, and, in the second place,
+everybody--well, I suppose you--no one could help falling in love with
+her, I should think."
+
+"That's high praise to come from you," said the other. And Hartley said,
+with a short, not very mirthful laugh:
+
+"Oh, I don't pretend to be immune. We all--everybody who knows her.
+You'll understand presently."
+
+Ste. Marie turned his head a little and looked curiously at his friend,
+for he considered that he knew the not very expressive intonations of
+that young gentleman's voice rather well, and this was something
+unusual. He wondered what had been happening during his six months'
+absence from Paris.
+
+"I dare say that's what I feel in the air, then," he said, after a
+little pause. "It's not calamity; it's love.
+
+"Or maybe," he said, quaintly, "it's both. L'un n'empeche pas I'autre."
+And he gave an odd little shiver, as if that something in the air had
+suddenly blown chill upon him.
+
+They were passing the corner of the Chamber of Deputies, which faces the
+Pont de la Concorde. Ste. Marie pulled out his watch and looked at it.
+
+"Eight-fifteen," said he. "What time are we asked for--eight-thirty?
+That means nine: It's an English house, and nobody will be on time. It's
+out of fashion to be prompt nowadays."
+
+"I should hardly call the Marquis de Saulnes English, you know,"
+objected Hartley.
+
+"Well, his wife is," said the other, "and they're altogether English in
+manner. Dinner won't be before nine. Shall we get out, and walk across
+the bridge and up the Champs-Elysees? I should like to, I think. I like
+to walk at this time of the evening--between the daylight and the dark."
+Hartley nodded a rather reluctant assent, and Ste. Marie prodded the
+pear-shaped cocher in the back with his stick. So they got down at the
+approach to the bridge, Ste. Marie gave the cocher a piece of two
+francs, and they turned away on foot. The pear-shaped one looked at the
+coin in his fat hand as if it were something unclean and
+contemptible--something to be despised. He glanced at the dial of his
+taximeter, which had registered one franc twenty-five, and pulled the
+flag up. He spat gloomily out into the street, and his purple lips moved
+in words. He seemed to say something like "Sale diable de metier!"
+which, considering the fact that he had just been overpaid, appears
+unwarrantably pessimistic in tone. Thereafter he spat again, picked up
+his reins and jerked them, saying:
+
+"He, Jean Baptiste! Uip, uip!" The unemotional white horse turned up the
+boulevard, trotting evenly at its steady pace, head down, the little
+bell at its neck jingling pleasantly as it went. It occurs to me that
+the white horse was probably unique. I doubt that there was another
+horse in Paris rejoicing in that extraordinary name.
+
+But the two young men walked slowly on across the Pont de la Concorde.
+They went in silence, for Hartley was thinking still of Miss Helen
+Benham, and Ste. Marie was thinking of Heaven knows what. His gloom was
+unaccountable unless he had really meant what he said about feeling
+calamity in the air. It was very unlike him to have nothing to say.
+Midway of the bridge he stopped and turned to look out over the river,
+and the other man halted beside him. The dusk was thickening almost
+perceptibly, but it was yet far from dark. The swift river ran leaden
+beneath them, and the river boats, mouches and hirondelles, darted
+silently under the arches of the bridge, making their last trips for the
+day. Away to the west, where their faces were turned, the sky was still
+faintly washed with color, lemon and dusky orange and pale thin green. A
+single long strip of cirrus cloud was touched with pink, a lifeless old
+rose, such as is popular among decorators for the silk hangings of a
+woman's boudoir. And black against this pallid wash of colors the tour
+Eiffel stood high and slender and rather ghostly. By day it is an ugly
+thing, a preposterous iron finger upthrust by man's vanity against God's
+serene sky; but the haze of evening drapes it in a merciful
+semi-obscurity and it is beautiful.
+
+Ste. Marie leaned upon the parapet of the bridge, arms folded before him
+and eyes afar. He began to sing, a demi-voix, a little phrase out of
+_Louise_--an invocation to Paris--and the Englishman stirred uneasily
+beside him. It seemed to Hartley that to stand on a bridge, in a top-hat
+and evening clothes, and sing operatic airs while people passed back and
+forth behind you, was one of the things that are not done. He tried to
+imagine himself singing in the middle of Westminster Bridge at half-past
+eight of an evening, and he felt quite hot all over at the thought. It
+was not done at all, he said to himself. He looked a little nervously at
+the people who were passing, and it seemed to him that they stared at
+him and at the unconscious Ste. Marie, though in truth they did nothing
+of the sort. He turned back and touched his friend on the arm, saying:
+
+"I think we'd best be getting along, you know." But Ste. Marie was very
+far away, and did not hear. So then he fell to watching the man's dark
+and handsome face, and to thinking how little the years at Eton and the
+year or two at Oxford had set any real stamp upon him. He would never be
+anything but Latin, in spite of his Irish mother and his public school.
+Hartley thought what a pity that was. As Englishmen go, he was not
+illiberal, but, no more than he could have altered the color of his
+eyes, could he have believed that anything foreign would not be improved
+by becoming English. That was born in him, as it is born in most
+Englishmen, and it was a perfectly simple and honest belief. He felt a
+deeper affection for this handsome and volatile young man whom all women
+loved, and who bade fair to spend his life at their successive feet--for
+he certainly had never shown the slightest desire to take up any sterner
+employment--he felt a deeper affection for Ste. Marie than for any other
+man he knew, but he had always wished that Ste. Marie were an
+Englishman, and he had always felt a slight sense of shame over his
+friend's un-English ways.
+
+After a moment he touched him again on the arm, saying:
+
+"Come along! We shall be late, you know. You can finish your little
+concert another time."
+
+"Eh!" cried Ste. Marie. "Quoi, donc?" He turned with a start.
+
+"Oh yes!" said he. "Yes, come along! I was mooning. Allons! Allons, my
+old!" He took Hartley's arm and began to shove him along at a rapid
+walk. "I will moon no more," he said. "Instead, you shall tell me about
+the wonderful Miss Benham whom everybody is talking about. Isn't there
+something odd connected with the family? I vaguely recall something
+unusual--some mystery or misfortune or something. But first a moment!
+One small moment, my old. Regard me that!" They had come to the end of
+the bridge, and the great Place de la Concorde lay before them.
+
+"In all the world," said Ste. Marie--and he spoke the truth--"there is
+not another such square. Regard it, mon brave! Bow yourself before it!
+It is a miracle."
+
+The great bronze lamps were alight, and they cast reflections upon the
+still damp pavement about them. To either side, the trees of the
+Tuileries gardens and of the Cours la Reine and the Champs-Elysees lay
+in a solid black mass; in the middle, the obelisk rose slender and
+straight, its pointed top black against the sky; and beneath, the water
+of the Nereid fountains splashed and gurgled. Far beyond, the gay lights
+of the rue Royale shone in a yellow cluster; and beyond these still, the
+tall columns of the Madeleine ended the long vista. Pedestrians and cabs
+crept across that vast space and seemed curiously little, like black
+insects, and round about it all the eight cities of France sat atop
+their stone pedestals and looked on. Ste. Marie gave a little sigh of
+pleasure, and the two moved forward, bearing to the left, toward the
+Champs-Elysees.
+
+"And now," said he, "about these Benhams. What is the thing I cannot
+quite recall? What has happened to them?"
+
+"I suppose," said the other man, "you mean the disappearance of Miss
+Benham's young brother a month ago--before you returned to Paris. Yes,
+that was certainly very odd--that is, it was either very odd or very
+commonplace. And in either case the family is terribly cut up about it.
+The boy's name was Arthur Benham, and he was rather a young fool, but
+not downright vicious, I should think. I never knew him at all well, but
+I know he spent his time chiefly at the Cafe de Paris and at the Olympia
+and at Longchamps and at Henry's Bar. Well, he just disappeared, that is
+all. He dropped completely out of sight between two days, and though the
+family has had a small army of detectives on his trail they've not
+discovered the smallest clew. It's deuced odd altogether. You might
+think it easy to disappear like that, but it's not."
+
+"No--no," said Ste. Marie, thoughtfully. "No, I should fancy not.
+
+"This boy," he said, after a pause--"I think I had seen him--had him
+pointed out to me--before I went away. I think it was at Henry's Bar,
+where all the young Americans go to drink strange beverages. I am quite
+sure I remember his face. A weak face, but not quite bad."
+
+And after another little pause he asked:
+
+"Was there any reason why he should have gone away--any quarrel or that
+sort of thing?"
+
+"Well," said the other man, "I rather think there was something of the
+sort. The boy's uncle--Captain Stewart--middle-aged, rather prim old
+party--you'll have met him, I dare say--he intimated to me one day that
+there had been some trivial row. You see, the lad isn't of age yet,
+though he is to be in a few months, and so he has had to live on an
+allowance doled out by his grandfather, who's the head of the house. The
+boy's father is dead. There's a quaint old beggar, if you like--the
+grandfather. He was rather a swell in the diplomatic, in his day, it
+seems--rather an important swell. Now he's bedridden. He sits all day in
+bed and plays cards with his granddaughter or with a very superior
+valet, and talks politics with the men who come to see him. Oh yes, he's
+a quaint old beggar. He has a great quantity of white hair and an
+enormous square white beard and the fiercest eyes I ever saw, I should
+think. Everybody's frightened out of their wits of him. Well, he sits up
+there and rules his family in good old patriarchal style, and it seems
+he came down a bit hard on the poor boy one day over some folly or
+other, and there was a row and the boy went out of the house swearing
+he'd be even."
+
+"Ah, well, then," said Ste. Marie, "the matter seems simple enough. A
+foolish boy's foolish pique. He is staying in hiding somewhere to
+frighten his grandfather. When he thinks the time favorable he will come
+back and be wept over and forgiven."
+
+The other man walked a little way in silence.
+
+"Ye-es," he said, at last. "Yes, possibly. Possibly you are right.
+That's what the grandfather thinks. It's the obvious solution.
+Unfortunately there is more or less against it. The boy went away
+with--so far as can be learned--almost no money, almost none at all. And
+he has already been gone a month. Miss Benham, his sister, is sure that
+something has happened to him, and I'm a bit inclined to think so, too.
+It's all very odd. I should think he might have been kidnapped but that
+no demand has been made for money."
+
+"He was not," suggested Ste. Marie--"not the sort of young man to do
+anything desperate--make away with himself?" Hartley laughed.
+
+"Oh, Lord, no!" said he. "Not that sort of young man at all. He was a
+very normal type of rich and spoiled and somewhat foolish American boy."
+
+"Rich?" inquired the other, quickly.
+
+"Oh yes; they're beastly rich. Young Arthur is to come into something
+very good at his majority, I believe, from his father's estate, and the
+old grandfather is said to be indecently rich--rolling in it! There's
+another reason why the young idiot wouldn't be likely to stop away of
+his own accord. He wouldn't risk anything like a serious break with the
+old gentleman. It would mean a loss of millions to him, I dare say, for
+the old beggar is quite capable of cutting him off if he takes the
+notion. Oh, it's a bad business all through."
+
+And after they had gone on a bit he said it again, shaking his head:
+
+"It's a bad business! That poor girl, you know. It's hard on her. She
+was fond of the young ass for some reason or other. She's very much
+broken up over it."
+
+"Yes," said Ste. Marie, "it is hard for her--for all the family, of
+course. A bad business, as you say." He spoke absently, for he was
+looking ahead at something which seemed to be a motor accident. They had
+by this time got well up the Champs-Elysees and were crossing the Rond
+Point. A motor-car was drawn up alongside the curb just beyond, and a
+little knot of people stood about it and seemed to look at something on
+the ground.
+
+"I think some one has been run down," said Ste. Marie. "Shall we have a
+look?" They quickened their pace and came to where the group of people
+stood in a circle looking upon the ground, and two gendarmes asked many
+questions and wrote voluminously in their little books. It appeared that
+a delivery boy mounted upon a tricycle cart had turned into the wrong
+side of the avenue and had got himself run into and overturned by a
+motor-car going at a moderate rate of speed. For once the sentiment of
+those mysterious birds of prey which flock instantaneously from nowhere
+round an accident, was against the victim and in favor of the frightened
+and gesticulating chauffeur.
+
+Ste. Marie turned an amused face from this voluble being to the other
+occupants of the patently hired car, who stood apart, adding very little
+to the discussion. He saw a tall and bony man with very bright blue eyes
+and what is sometimes called a guardsman's mustache--the drooping,
+walruslike ornament which dates back a good many years now. Beyond this
+gentleman he saw a young woman in a long, gray silk coat and a motoring
+veil. He was aware that the tall man was staring at him rather fixedly
+and with a half-puzzled frown, as though he thought that they had met
+before and was trying to remember when, but Ste. Marie gave the man but
+a swift glance. His eyes were upon the dark face of the young woman
+beyond, and it seemed to him that she called aloud to him in an actual
+voice that rang in his ears. The young woman's very obvious beauty, he
+thought, had nothing to do with the matter. It seemed to him that her
+eyes called him. Just that. Something strange and very potent seemed to
+take sudden and almost tangible hold upon him--a charm, a spell, a
+magic--something unprecedented, new to his experience. He could not take
+his eyes from hers, and he stood staring.
+
+As before, on the Pont de la Concorde, Hartley touched him on the arm,
+and abruptly the chains that had bound him were loosened.
+
+"We must be going on, you know," the Englishman said, and Ste. Marie
+said, rather hurriedly:
+
+"Yes, yes, to be sure! Come along!" But at a little distance he turned
+once more to look back. The chauffeur had mounted to his place, the
+delivery boy was upon his feet again, little the worse for his tumble,
+and the knot of bystanders had begun to disperse, but it seemed to Ste.
+Marie that the young woman in the long silk coat stood quite still where
+she had been, and that her face was turned toward him, watching.
+
+"Did you notice that girl?" said Hartley, as they walked on at a brisker
+pace. "Did you see her face? She was rather a tremendous beauty, you
+know, in her gypsyish fashion. Yes, by Jove, she was!"
+
+"Did I see her?" repeated Ste. Marie. "Yes. Oh yes. She had very strange
+eyes. At least, I think it was the eyes. I don't know. I've never seen
+any eyes quite like them. Very odd!"
+
+He said something more in French which Hartley did not hear, and the
+Englishman saw that he was frowning.
+
+"Oh, well, I shouldn't have said there was anything strange about them,"
+Hartley said; "but they certainly were beautiful. There's no denying
+that. The man with her looked rather Irish, I thought."
+
+They came to the Etoile, and cut across it toward the Avenue Hoche. Ste.
+Marie glanced back once more, but the motor-car and the delivery boy and
+the gendarmes were gone.
+
+"What did you say?" he asked, idly.
+
+"I said the man looked Irish," repeated his friend. All at once Ste.
+Marie gave a loud exclamation.
+
+"Sacred thousand devils! Fool that I am! Dolt! Why didn't I think of it
+before?"
+
+Hartley stared at him, and Ste. Marie stared down the Champs-Elysees
+like one in a trance.
+
+"I say," said the Englishman, "we really must be getting on, you know;
+we're late." And as they went along down the Avenue Hoche, he demanded:
+"Why are you a dolt and whatever else it was? What struck you so
+suddenly?"
+
+"I remembered all at once," said Ste. Marie, "where I had seen that man
+before and with whom I last saw him. I'll tell you about it later.
+Probably it's of no importance, though."
+
+"You're talking rather like a mild lunatic," said the other. "Here we
+are at the house!"
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+II
+
+THE LADDER TO THE STARS
+
+
+Miss Benham was talking wearily to a strange, fair youth with an
+impediment in his speech, and was wondering why the youth had been asked
+to this house, where in general one was sure of meeting only interesting
+people, when some one spoke her name, and she turned with a little sigh
+of relief. It was Baron de Vries, the Belgian First Secretary of
+Legation, an old friend of her grandfather's, a man made gentle and
+sweet by infinite sorrow. He bowed civilly to the fair youth and bent
+over the girl's hand.
+
+"It is very good," he said, "to see you again in the world. We have need
+of you, nous autres. Madame your mother is well, I hope--and the bear?"
+He called old Mr. Stewart "the bear" in a sort of grave jest, and that
+fierce octogenarian rather liked it.
+
+"Oh yes," the girl said, "we're all fairly well. My mother had one of
+her headaches to-night and so didn't come here, but she's as well as
+usual, and 'the bear'--yes, he's well enough physically, I should think,
+but he has not been quite the same since--during the past month. It has
+told upon him, you know. He grieves over it much more than he will
+admit."
+
+"Yes," said Baron de Vries, gravely. "Yes, I know." He turned about
+toward the fair young man, but that youth had drifted away and joined
+himself to another group. Miss Benham looked after him and gave a little
+exclamation of relief.
+
+"That person was rather terrible," she said. "I can't think why he is
+here. Marian so seldom has dull people."
+
+"I believe," said the Belgian, "that he is some connection of De
+Saulnes'. That explains his presence." He lowered his voice. "You have
+heard no--news? They have found no trace?"
+
+"No," said she. "Nothing. Nothing at all. I'm rather in despair. It's
+all so hideously mysterious. I am sure, you know, that something has
+happened to him. It's--very, very hard. Sometimes I think I can't bear
+it. But I go on. We all go on."
+
+Baron de Vries nodded his head strongly.
+
+"That, my dear child, is just what you must do," said he. "You must go
+on. That is what needs the real courage, and you have courage. I am not
+afraid for you. And sooner or later you will hear of him--from him. It
+is impossible nowadays to disappear for very long. You will hear from
+him." He smiled at her, his slow, grave smile that was not of mirth but
+of kindness and sympathy and cheer.
+
+"And if I may say so," he said, "you are doing very wisely to come out
+once more among your friends. You can accomplish no good by brooding at
+home. It is better to live one's normal life--even when it is not easy
+to do it. I say so who know."
+
+The girl touched Baron de Vries' arm for an instant with her hand--a
+little gesture that seemed to express thankfulness and trust and
+affection.
+
+"If all my friends were like you!" she said to him. And after that she
+drew a quick breath as if to have done with these sad matters, and she
+turned her eyes once more toward the broad room where the other guests
+stood in little groups, all talking at once, very rapidly and in loud
+voices.
+
+"What extraordinarily cosmopolitan affairs these dinner-parties in new
+Paris are!" she said. "They're like diplomatic parties, only we have a
+better time and the men don't wear their orders. How many nationalities
+should you say there are in this room now?"
+
+"Without stopping to consider," said Baron de Vries, "I say ten." They
+counted, and out of fourteen people there were represented nine races.
+
+"I don't see Richard Hartley," Miss Benham said. "I had an idea he was
+to be here. Ah!" she broke off, looking toward the doorway. "Here he
+comes now!" she said. "He's rather late. Who is the Spanish-looking man
+with him, I wonder? He's rather handsome, isn't he?"
+
+Baron de Vries moved a little forward to look, and exclaimed in his
+turn. He said:
+
+"Ah, I did not know he was returned to Paris. That is Ste. Marie." Miss
+Benham's eyes followed the Spanish-looking young man as he made his way
+through the joyous greetings of friends toward his hostess.
+
+"So that is Ste. Marie!" she said, still watching him. "The famous Ste.
+Marie!" She gave a little laugh.
+
+"Well, I don't wonder at the reputation he bears for--gallantry and that
+sort of thing. He looks the part, doesn't he?"
+
+"Ye-es," admitted her friend. "Yes, he is sufficiently beau garcon.
+But--yes--well, that is not all, by any means. You must not get the idea
+that Ste. Marie is nothing but a genial and romantic young
+squire-of-dames. He is much more than that. He has very fine qualities.
+To be sure, he appears to possess no ambition in particular, but I
+should be glad if he were my son. He comes of a very old house, and
+there is no blot upon the history of that house--nothing but
+faithfulness and gallantry and honor. And there is, I think, no blot
+upon Ste. Marie himself. He is fine gold."
+
+The girl turned and stared at Baron de Vries with some astonishment.
+
+"You speak very strongly," said she. "I have never heard you speak so
+strongly of any one, I think."
+
+The Belgian made a little deprecatory gesture with his two hands, and he
+laughed.
+
+"Oh, well, I like the boy. And I should hate to have you meet him for
+the first time under a misconception. Listen, my child! When a young man
+is loved equally by both men and women, by both old and young, that
+young man is worthy of friendship and trust. Everybody likes Ste. Marie.
+In a sense, that is his misfortune. The way is made too easy for him.
+His friends stand so thick about him that they shut off his view of the
+heights. To waken ambition in his soul he has need of solitude or
+misfortune or grief. Or," said the elderly Belgian, laughing gently--"or
+perhaps the other thing might do it best--the more obvious thing?"
+
+The girl's raised eyebrows questioned him, and when he did not answer,
+she said:
+
+"What thing, then?"
+
+"Why, love," said Baron de Vries. "Love, to be sure. Love is said to
+work miracles, and I believe that to be a perfectly true saying. Ah, he
+is coming here!"
+
+The Marquise de Saulnes, who was a very pretty little Englishwoman with
+a deceptively doll-like look, approached, dragging Ste. Marie in her
+wake. She said:
+
+"My dearest dear, I give you of my best. Thank me and cherish him! I
+believe he is to lead you to the place where food is, isn't he?" She
+beamed over her shoulder and departed, and Miss Benham found herself
+confronted by the Spanish-looking man. Her first thought was that he was
+not as handsome as he had seemed at a distance, but something much
+better. For a young man she thought his face was rather oddly
+weather-beaten, as if he might have been very much at sea, and it was
+too dark to be entirely pleasing. But she liked his eyes, which were not
+brown or black, as she had expected, but a very unusual dark gray--a
+sort of slate color. And she liked his mouth, too, while disapproving of
+the fierce little upturned mustache which seemed to her a bit operatic.
+It was her habit--and it is not an unreliable habit--to judge people by
+their eyes and mouths. Ste. Marie's mouth pleased her because the lips
+were neither thin nor thick, they were not drawn into an unpleasant line
+by unpleasant habits, they did not pout as so many Latin lips do, and
+they had at one corner a humorous expression which she found curiously
+agreeable.
+
+"You are to cherish me," Ste. Marie said. "Orders from headquarters. How
+does one cherish people?" The corner of his very expressive mouth
+twitched, and he grinned at her.
+
+Miss Benham did not approve of young men who began an acquaintance in
+this very familiar manner. She thought that there was a certain
+preliminary and more formal stage which ought to be got through with
+first, but Ste, Marie's grin was irresistible. In spite of herself, she
+found that she was laughing.
+
+"I don't quite know," she said. "It sounds rather appalling, doesn't it?
+Marian has such an extraordinary fashion of hurling people at each
+other's heads! She takes my breath away at times."
+
+"Ah, well," said Ste. Marie, "perhaps we can settle upon something when
+I've led you to the place where food is. And, by-the-way, what are we
+waiting for? Are we not all here? There's an even number." He broke off
+with a sudden exclamation of pleasure; and when Miss Benham turned to
+look, she found that Baron de Vries, who had been talking to some
+friends, had once more come up to where she stood.
+
+She watched the greeting between the two men, and its quiet affection
+impressed her very much. She knew Baron de Vries well, and she knew that
+it was not his habit to show or to feel a strong liking for young and
+idle men. This young man must be very worth while to have won the regard
+of that wise old Belgian. Just then Hartley, who had been barricaded
+behind a cordon of friends, came up to her in an abominable temper over
+his ill luck, and a few moments later the dinner procession was formed
+and they went in.
+
+At table Miss Benham found herself between Ste. Marie and the same
+strange, fair youth who had afflicted her in the drawing-room. She
+looked upon him now with a sort of dismayed terror, but it developed
+that there was nothing to fear from the fair youth. He had no attention
+to waste upon social amenities. He fell upon his food with a wolfish
+passion extraordinary to see and also--alas!--to hear. Miss Benham
+turned from him to meet Ste. Marie's delighted eye.
+
+"Tell him for me," begged that gentleman, "that soup should be seen--not
+heard."
+
+But Miss Benham gave a little shiver of disgust. "I shall tell him
+nothing whatever," she said. "He's quite too dreadful, really! People
+shouldn't be exposed to that sort of thing. It's not only the noises.
+Plenty of very charming and estimable Germans, for example, make strange
+noises at table. But he behaves like a famished dog over a bone. I
+refuse to have anything to do with him. You must make up the loss to me,
+M. Ste. Marie. You must be as amusing as two people." She smiled across
+at him in her gravely questioning fashion. "I'm wondering," she said,
+"if I dare ask you a very personal question. I hesitate because I don't
+like people who presume too much upon a short acquaintance--and our
+acquaintance has been very, very short, hasn't it? even though we may
+have heard a great deal about each other beforehand. I wonder--"
+
+"Oh, I should ask it if I were you!" said Ste. Marie, at once. "I'm an
+extremely good-natured person. And, besides, I quite naturally feel
+flattered at your taking interest enough to ask anything about me."
+
+"Well," said she, "it's this: Why does everybody call you just 'Ste.
+Marie'? Most people are spoken of as Monsieur this or that--if there
+isn't a more august title; but they all call you Ste. Marie without any
+Monsieur. It seems rather odd."
+
+Ste. Marie looked puzzled. "Why," he said, "I don't believe I know,
+just. I'd never thought of that. It's quite true, of course. They never
+do use a Monsieur or anything, do they? How cheeky of them! I wonder why
+it is? I'll ask Hartley."
+
+He did ask Hartley later on, and Hartley didn't know, either. Miss
+Benham asked some other people, who were vague about it, and in the end
+she became convinced that it was an odd and quite inexplicable form of
+something like endearment. But nobody seemed to have formulated it to
+himself.
+
+"The name is really 'De Ste. Marie,'" he went on, "and there's a title
+that I don't use, and a string of Christian names that one never
+employs. My people were Bearnais, and there's a heap of ruins on top of
+a hill in the Pyrenees where they lived. It used to be Ste. Marie de
+Mont-les-Roses, but afterward, after the Revolution, they called it Ste.
+Marie de Mont Perdu. My great-grandfather was killed there, but some old
+servants smuggled his little son away and saved him."
+
+He seemed to Miss Benham to say that in exactly the right manner, not in
+the cheap and scoffing fashion which some young men affect in speaking
+of ancestral fortunes or misfortunes, nor with too much solemnity. And
+when she allowed a little silence to occur at the end, he did not go on
+with his family history, but turned at once to another subject. It
+pleased her curiously.
+
+The fair youth at her other side continued to crouch over his food,
+making fierce and animal-like noises. He never spoke or seemed to wish
+to be spoken to, and Miss Benham found it easy to ignore him altogether.
+It occurred to her once or twice that Ste. Marie's other neighbor might
+desire an occasional word from him, but, after all, she said to herself
+that was his affair and beyond her control. So these two talked together
+through the entire dinner period, and the girl was aware that she was
+being much more deeply affected by the simple, magnetic charm of a man
+than ever before in her life. It made her a little angry, because she
+was unfamiliar with this sort of thing and distrusted it. She was rather
+a perfect type of that phenomenon before which the British and
+Continental world stands in mingled delight and exasperation--the
+American unmarried young woman, the creature of extraordinary beauty and
+still more extraordinary poise, the virgin with the bearing and
+savoir-faire of a woman of the world, the fresh-cheeked girl with the
+calm mind of a savante and the cool judgment, in regard to men and
+things, of an ambassador. The European world says she is cold, and that
+may be true; but it is well enough known that she can love very deeply.
+It says that, like most queens, and for precisely the same set of
+reasons, she later on makes a bad mother; but it is easy to point to
+queens who are the best of mothers. In short, she remains an enigma,
+and, like all other enigmas, forever fascinating.
+
+Miss Benham reflected that she knew almost nothing about Ste. Marie save
+for his reputation as a carpet knight, and Baron de Vries' good opinion,
+which could not be despised. And that made her the more displeased when
+she realized how promptly she was surrendering to his charm. In a moment
+of silence she gave a sudden little laugh which seemed to express a
+half-angry astonishment.
+
+"What was that for?" Ste. Marie demanded.
+
+The girl looked at him for an instant and shook her head.
+
+"I can't tell you," said she. "That's rude, isn't it? I'm sorry. Perhaps
+I will tell you one day, when we know each other better."
+
+But inwardly she was saying: "Why, I suppose this is how they all
+begin--all these regiments of women who make fools of themselves about
+him! I suppose this is exactly what he does to them all!"
+
+It made her angry, and she tried quite unfairly to shift the anger, as
+it were, to Ste. Marie--to put him somehow in the wrong. But she was by
+nature very just, and she could not quite do that, particularly as it
+was evident that the man was using no cheap tricks. He did not try to
+flirt with her, and he did not attempt to pay her veiled compliments,
+though she was often aware that when her attention was diverted for a
+few moments his eyes were always upon her, and that is a compliment that
+few women can find it in their hearts to resent.
+
+"You say," said Ste. Marie, "'when we know each other better.' May one
+twist that into a permission to come and see you--I mean, really see
+you--not just leave a card at your door to-morrow by way of observing
+the formalities?"
+
+"Yes," she said. "Oh yes, one may twist it into something like that
+without straining it unduly, I think. My mother and I shall be very glad
+to see you. I'm sorry she is not here to-night to say it herself."
+
+Then the hostess began to gather together her flock, and so the two had
+no more speech. But when the women had gone and the men were left about
+the dismantled table, Hartley moved up beside Ste. Marie and shook a sad
+head at him. He said:
+
+"You're a very lucky being. I was quietly hoping, on the way here, that
+I should be the fortunate man, but you always have all the luck. I hope
+you're decently grateful."
+
+"Mon vieux," said Ste. Marie, "my feet are upon the stars. No!" He shook
+his head as if the figure displeased him. "No, my feet are upon the
+ladder to the stars. Grateful? What does a foolish word like grateful
+mean? Don't talk to me. You are not worthy to trample among my
+magnificent thoughts. I am a god upon Olympus."
+
+"You said just now," objected the other man, practically, "that your
+feet were on a ladder. There are no ladders from Olympus to the stars."
+
+"Ho!" said Ste. Marie. "Ho! Aren't there, though? There shall be ladders
+all over Olympus, if I like. What do you know about gods and stars? I
+shall be a god climbing to the heavens, and I shall be an angel of
+light, and I shall be a miserable worm grovelling in the night here
+below, and I shall be a poet, and I shall be anything else I happen to
+think of--all of them at once, if I choose. And you shall be the
+tongue-tied son of perfidious Albion that you are, gaping at my
+splendors from a fog-bank--a November fog-bank in May. Who is the
+desiccated gentleman bearing down upon us?"
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+III
+
+STE. MARIE MAKES A VOW, BUT A PAIR OF EYES HAUNT HIM
+
+
+Hartley looked over his shoulder and gave a little exclamation of
+distaste.
+
+"It's Captain Stewart, Miss Benham's uncle," he said, lowering his
+voice. "I'm off. I shall abandon you to him. He's a good old soul, but
+he bores me." Hartley nodded to the man who was approaching, and then
+made his way to the end of the table, where their host sat discussing
+aero-club matters with a group of the other men.
+
+Captain Stewart dropped into the vacant chair, saying: "May I recall
+myself to you, M. Ste. Marie? We met, I believe, once or twice, a couple
+of years ago. My name's Stewart."
+
+Captain Stewart--the title was vaguely believed to have been borne some
+years before in the American service, but no one appeared to know much
+about it--was not an old man. He could not have been, at this time, much
+more than fifty, but English-speaking acquaintances often called him
+"old Stewart," and others "ce vieux Stewart." Indeed, at a first glance
+he might have passed for anything up to sixty, for his face was a good
+deal more lined and wrinkled than it should have been at his age. Ste.
+Marie's adjective had been rather apt. The man had a desiccated
+appearance. Upon examination, however, one saw that the blood was still
+red in his cheeks and lips, and, although his neck was thin and withered
+like an old man's, his brown eyes still held their fire. The hair was
+almost gone from the top of his large, round head, but it remained at
+the sides--stiff, colorless hair, with a hint of red in it. And there
+were red streaks in his gray mustache, which was trained outward in two
+loose tufts, like shaving-brushes. The mustache and the shallow chin
+under it gave him an odd, catlike appearance. Hartley, who rather
+disliked the man, used to insist that he had heard him mew.
+
+Ste. Marie said something politely non-committal, though he did not at
+all remember the alleged meeting two years before, and he looked at
+Captain Stewart with a real curiosity and interest in his character as
+Miss Benham's uncle. He thought it very civil of the elder man to make
+these friendly advances when it was in no way incumbent upon him to do
+so.
+
+"I noticed," said Captain Stewart, "that you were placed next my niece,
+Helen Benham, at dinner. This must be the first time you two have met,
+is it not? I remember speaking of you to her some months ago, and I am
+quite sure she said that she had not met you. Ah, yes, of course, you
+have been away from Paris a great deal since she and her mother--her
+mother is my sister: that is to say, my half-sister--have come here to
+live with my father." He gave a little gentle laugh. "I take an elderly
+uncle's privilege," he said, "of being rather proud of Helen. She is
+called very pretty, and she certainly has great poise."
+
+Ste. Marie drew a quick breath, and his eyes began to flash as they had
+done a few moments before when he told Hartley that his feet were upon
+the ladder to the stars.
+
+"Miss Benham!" he cried. "Miss Benham is--" He hung poised so for a
+moment, searching, as it were, for words of sufficient splendor, but in
+the end he shook his head and the gleam faded from his eyes. He sank
+back in his chair, sighing. "Miss Benham," said he, "is extremely
+beautiful."
+
+And again her uncle emitted his little gentle laugh, which may have
+deceived Hartley into believing that he had heard the man mew. The sound
+was as much like mewing as it was like anything else.
+
+"I am very glad," Captain Stewart said, "to see her come out once more
+into the world. She needs distraction. We--You may possibly have heard
+that the family is in great distress of mind over the disappearance of
+my young nephew. Helen has suffered particularly, because she is
+convinced that the boy has met with foul play. I myself think it very
+unlikely--very unlikely indeed. The lack of motive, for one thing, and
+for another--Ah, well, a score of reasons! But Helen refuses to be
+comforted. It seems to me much more like a boy's prank--his idea of
+revenge for what he considered unjust treatment at his grandfather's
+hands. He was always a headstrong youngster, and he has been a bit
+spoiled. Still, of course, the uncertainty is very trying for us
+all--very wearing."
+
+"Of course," said Ste. Marie, gravely. "It is most unfortunate. Ah,
+by-the-way!" He looked up with a sudden interest. "A rather odd thing
+happened," he said, "as Hartley and I were coming here this evening. We
+walked up the Champs-Elysees from the Concorde, and on the way Hartley
+had been telling me of your nephew's disappearance. Near the Rond Point
+we came upon a motor-car which was drawn up at the side of the
+street--there had been an accident of no consequence, a boy tumbled over
+but not hurt. Well, one of the two occupants of the motor-car was a man
+whom I used to see about Maxim's and the Cafe de Paris and the
+Montmartre places, too, some time ago--a rather shady character whose
+name I've forgotten. The odd part of it all was that on the last
+occasion or two on which I saw your nephew he was with this man. I think
+it was in Henry's Bar. Of course, it means nothing at all. Your nephew
+doubtless knew scores of people, and this man is no more likely to have
+information about his present whereabouts than any of the others. Still,
+I should have liked to ask him. I didn't remember who he was till he had
+gone."
+
+Captain Stewart shook his head sadly, frowning down upon the cigarette
+from which he had knocked the ash.
+
+"I am afraid poor Arthur did not always choose his friends with the best
+of judgment," said he. "I am not squeamish, and I would not have boys
+kept in a glass case, but--yes, I'm afraid Arthur was not always too
+careful." He replaced the cigarette neatly between his lips. "This man,
+now--this man whom you saw to-night--what sort of looking man will he
+have been?"
+
+"Oh, a tall, lean man," said Ste. Marie. "A tall man with blue eyes and
+a heavy, old-fashioned mustache. I just can't remember the name."
+
+The smoke stood still for an instant over Captain Stewart's cigarette,
+and it seemed to Ste. Marie that a little contortion of anger fled
+across the man's face and was gone again. He stirred slightly in his
+chair. After a moment he said:
+
+"I fancy, from your description--I fancy I know who the man was. If it
+is the man I am thinking of, the name is--Powers. He is, as you have
+said, a rather shady character, and I more than once warned my nephew
+against him. Such people are not good companions for a boy. Yes, I
+warned him."
+
+"Powers," said Ste. Marie, "doesn't sound right to me, you know. I can't
+say the fellow's name myself, but I'm sure--that is, I think--it's not
+Powers."
+
+"Oh yes," said Captain Stewart, with an elderly man's half-querulous
+certainty. "Yes, the name is Powers. I remember it well. And I
+remember--Yes, it was odd, was it not, your meeting him like that, just
+as you were talking of Arthur? You--oh, you didn't speak to him, you
+say? No, no, to be sure! You didn't recognize him at once. Yes, it was
+odd. Of course, the man could have had nothing to do with poor Arthur's
+disappearance. His only interest in the boy at any time would have been
+for what money Arthur might have, and he carried none, or almost none,
+away with him when he vanished. Eh, poor lad! Where can he be to-night,
+I wonder? It's a sad business, M. Ste. Marie--a sad business."
+
+Captain Stewart fell into a sort of brooding silence, frowning down at
+the table before him, and twisting with his thin ringers the little
+liqueur glass and the coffee-cup which were there. Once or twice, Ste.
+Marie thought, the frown deepened and twisted into a sort of scowl, and
+the man's fingers twitched on the cloth of the table; but when at last
+the group at the other end of the board rose and began to move towards
+the door, Captain Stewart rose also and followed them. At the door he
+seemed to think of something, and touched Ste. Marie upon the arm.
+
+"This--ah, Powers," he said, in a low tone--"this man whom you saw
+to-night! You said he was one of two occupants of a motor-car. Yes? Did
+you by any chance recognize the other?"
+
+"Oh, the other was a young woman," said Ste. Marie. "No, I never saw her
+before. She was very handsome."
+
+Captain Stewart said something under his breath and turned abruptly
+away. But an instant later he faced about once more, smiling. He said,
+in a man-of-the-world manner, which sat rather oddly upon him:
+
+"Ah, well, we all have our little love-affairs. I dare say this shady
+fellow has his." And for some obscure reason Ste. Marie found the speech
+peculiarly offensive.
+
+In the drawing-room he had opportunity for no more than a word with Miss
+Benham, for Hartley, enraged over his previous ill success, cut in ahead
+of him and manoeuvred that young lady into a corner, where he sat before
+her, turning a square and determined back to the world. Ste. Marie
+listlessly played bridge for a time, but his attention was not upon it,
+and he was glad when the others at the table settled their accounts and
+departed to look in at a dance somewhere. After that he talked for a
+little with Marian de Saulnes, whom he liked and who made no secret of
+adoring him. She complained loudly that he was in a vile temper, which
+was not true; he was only restless and distrait and wanted to be alone;
+and so, at last, he took his leave without waiting for Hartley.
+
+Outside, in the street, he stood for a moment, hesitating, and an
+expectant fiacre drew up before the house, the cocher raising an
+interrogative whip. In the end Ste. Marie shook his head and turned away
+on foot. It was a still, sweet night of soft airs, and a moonless,
+starlit sky, and the man was very fond of walking in the dark. From the
+Etoile he walked down the Champs-Elysees, but presently turned toward
+the river. His eyes were upon the mellow stars, his feet upon the ladder
+thereunto. He found himself crossing the Pont des Invalides, and halted
+midway to rest and look. He laid his arms upon the bridge's parapet and
+turned his face outward. Against it bore a little gentle breeze that
+smelled of the purifying water below and of the night and of green
+things growing. Beneath him the river ran black as flowing ink, and
+across its troubled surface the many-colored lights of the many bridges
+glittered very beautifully, swirling arabesques of gold and crimson. The
+noises of the city--beat of hoofs upon wooden pavements, horn of train
+or motor-car, jingle of bell upon cab-horse--came here faintly and as if
+from a great distance. Above the dark trees of the Cours la Reine the
+sky glowed, softly golden, reflecting the million lights of Paris.
+
+Ste. Marie closed his eyes, and against darkness he saw the beautiful
+head of Helen Benham, the clear-cut, exquisite modelling of feature and
+contour, the perfection of form and color. Her eyes met his eyes, and
+they were very serene and calm and confident. She smiled at him, and the
+new contours into which her face fell with the smile were more perfect
+than before. He watched the turn of her head, and the grace of the
+movement was the uttermost effortless grace one dreams that a queen
+should have. The heart of Ste. Marie quickened in him, and he would have
+gone down upon his knees.
+
+He was well aware that with the coming of this girl something
+unprecedented, wholly new to his experience, had befallen him--an
+awakening to a new life. He had been in love a very great many times. He
+was usually in love. And each time his heart had gone through the same
+sweet and bitter anguish, the same sleepless nights had come and gone
+upon him, the eternal and ever new miracle had wakened spring in his
+soul, had passed its summer solstice, had faded through autumnal regrets
+to winter's death; but through it all something within him had waited
+asleep.
+
+He found himself wondering dully what it was--wherein lay the great
+difference?--and he could not answer the question he asked. He knew only
+that whereas before he had loved, he now went down upon prayerful knees
+to worship. In a sudden poignant thrill the knightly fervor of his
+forefathers came upon him, and he saw a sweet and golden lady set far
+above him upon a throne. Her clear eyes gazed afar, serene and
+untroubled. She sat wrapped in a sort of virginal austerity, unaware of
+the base passions of men. The other women whom Ste. Marie had--as he was
+pleased to term it--loved had certainly come at least half-way to meet
+him, and some of them had come a good deal farther than that. He could
+not, by the wildest flight of imagination, conceive this girl doing
+anything of that sort. She was to be won by trial and high endeavor, by
+prayer and self-purification--not captured by a warm eye-glance, a
+whispered word, a laughing kiss. In fancy he looked from the crowding
+cohorts of these others to that still, sweet figure set on high, wrapped
+in virginal austerity, calm in her serene perfection, and his soul
+abased itself before her. He knelt in an awed and worshipful adoration.
+
+So before quest or tournament or battle must those elder Ste.
+Maries--Ste. Maries de Mont-les-Roses---have knelt, each knight at the
+feet of his lady, each knightly soul aglow with the chaste ardor of
+chivalry.
+
+The man's hands tightened upon the parapet of the bridge, he lifted his
+face again to the shining stars where-among, as his fancy had it, she
+sat enthroned. Exultingly he felt under his feet the rungs of the
+ladder, and in the darkness he swore a great oath to have done forever
+with blindness and grovelling, to climb and climb, forever to climb,
+until at last he should stand where she was--cleansed and made worthy by
+long endeavor--at last meet her eyes and touch her hand.
+
+It was a fine and chivalric frenzy, and Ste. Marie was passionately in
+earnest about it, but his guardian angel--indeed, Fate herself--must
+have laughed a little in the dark, knowing what manner of man he was in
+less exalted hours.
+
+It was an odd freak of memory that at last recalled him to earth. Every
+man knows that when a strong and, for the moment, unavailing effort has
+been made to recall something lost to mind, the memory, in some
+mysterious fashion, goes on working long after the attention has been
+elsewhere diverted, and sometimes hours afterward, or even days,
+produces quite suddenly and inappropriately the lost article. Ste. Marie
+had turned, with a little sigh, to take up, once more, his walk across
+the Pont des Invalides, when seemingly from nowhere, and certainly by no
+conscious effort, a name flashed into his mind. He said it aloud:
+
+"O'Hara! O'Hara! That tall, thin chap's name was O'Hara, by Jove! It
+wasn't Powers at all!" He laughed a little as he remembered how very
+positive Captain Stewart had been. And then he frowned, thinking that
+the mistake was an odd one, since Stewart had evidently known a good
+deal about this adventurer. Captain Stewart, though, Ste. Marie
+reflected, was exactly the sort to be very sure he was right about
+things. He had just the neat and precise and semi-scholarly personality
+of the man who always knows. So Ste. Marie dismissed the matter with
+another brief laugh, but a cognate matter was less easy to dismiss. The
+name brought with it a face--a dark and splendid face with tragic eyes
+that called. He walked a long way thinking about them and wondering. The
+eyes haunted him. It will have been reasonably evident that Ste. Marie
+was a fanciful and imaginative soul. He needed but a chance word, the
+sight of a face in a crowd, the glance of an eye, to begin
+story-building, and he would go on for hours about it and work himself
+up to quite a passion with his imaginings. He should have been a writer
+of fiction.
+
+He began forthwith to construct romances about this lady of the
+motor-car. He wondered why she should have been with the shady
+Irishman--if Irishman he was--O'Hara, and with some anxiety he wondered
+what the two were to each other. Captain Stewart's little cynical jest
+came to his mind, and he was conscious of a sudden desire to kick Miss
+Benham's middle-aged uncle.
+
+The eyes haunted him. What was it they suffered? Out of what misery did
+they call--and for what? He walked all the long way home to his little
+flat overlooking the Luxembourg Gardens, haunted by those eyes. As he
+climbed his stair it suddenly occurred to him that they had quite driven
+out of his mind the image of his beautiful lady who sat among the stars,
+and the realization came to him with a shock.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+IV
+
+OLD DAVID STEWART
+
+
+It was Miss Benham's custom, upon returning home at night from
+dinner-parties or other entertainments, to look in for a few minutes on
+her grandfather before going to bed. The old gentleman, like most
+elderly people, slept lightly, and often sat up in bed very late into
+the night, reading or playing piquet with his valet. He suffered
+hideously at times from the malady which was killing him by degrees, but
+when he was free from pain the enormous recuperative power, which he had
+preserved to his eighty-sixth year, left him almost as vigorous and
+clear-minded as if he had never been ill at all. Hartley's description
+of him had not been altogether a bad one: "a quaint old beggar... a
+great quantity of white hair and an enormous square white beard and the
+fiercest eyes I ever saw..." He was a rather "quaint old beggar,"
+indeed! He had let his thick, white hair grow long, and it hung down
+over his brows in unparted locks as the ancient Greeks wore their hair.
+He had very shaggy eyebrows, and the deep-set eyes under them gleamed
+from the shadow with a fierceness which was rather deceptive but none
+the less intimidating. He had a great beak of a nose, but the mouth
+below could not be seen. It was hidden by the mustache and the enormous
+square beard. His face was colorless, almost as white as hair and beard;
+there seemed to be no shadow or tint anywhere except the cavernous
+recesses from which the man's eyes gleamed and sparkled. Altogether he
+was certainly "a quaint old beggar."
+
+He had, during the day and evening, a good many visitors, for the old
+gentleman's mind was as alert as it ever had been, and important men
+thought him worth consulting. The names which the admirable valet Peters
+announced from time to time were names which meant a great deal in the
+official and diplomatic world of the day. But if old David felt
+flattered over the unusual fashion in which the great of the earth
+continued to come to him, he never betrayed it. Indeed, it is quite
+probable that this view of the situation never once occurred to him. He
+had been thrown with the great of the earth for more than half a
+century, and he had learned to take it as a matter of course.
+
+On her return from the Marquise de Saulnes' dinner-party, Miss Benham
+went at once to her grandfather's wing of the house, which had its own
+street entrance, and knocked lightly at his door. She asked the
+admirable Peters, who opened to her, "Is he awake?" and being assured
+that he was, went into the vast chamber, dropping her cloak on a chair
+as she entered.
+
+David Stewart was sitting up in his monumental bed behind a sort of
+invalid's table which stretched across his knees without touching them.
+He wore over his night-clothes a Chinese mandarin's jacket of old red
+satin, wadded with down, and very gorgeously embroidered with the cloud
+and bat designs, and with large round panels of the imperial five-clawed
+dragon in gold. He had a number of these jackets--they seemed to be his
+one vanity in things external--and they were so made that they could be
+slipped about him without disturbing him in his bed, since they hung
+down only to the waist or thereabouts. They kept the upper part of his
+body, which was not covered by the bedclothes, warm, and they certainly
+made him a very impressive figure.
+
+He said: "Ah, Helen! Come in! Come in! Sit down on the bed there and
+tell me what you have been doing!" He pushed aside the pack of cards
+which was spread out on the invalid's table before him, and with great
+care counted a sum of money in francs and half-francs and nickel
+twenty-five centime pieces. "I've won seven francs fifty from Peters
+to-night," he said, chuckling gently. "That is a very good evening,
+indeed. Very good! Where have you been, and who were there?"
+
+"A dinner-party at the De Saulnes'," said Miss Benham, making herself
+comfortable on the side of the great bed. "It's a very pleasant place.
+Marian is, of course, a dear, and they're quite English and
+unceremonious. You can talk to your neighbor at dinner instead of
+addressing the house from a platform, as it were. French dinner-parties
+make me nervous."
+
+Old David gave a little growling laugh.
+
+"French dinner-parties at least keep people up to the mark in the art of
+conversation," said he. "But that is a lost art, anyhow, nowadays, so I
+suppose one might as well be quite informal and have done with it. Who
+were there?"
+
+"Oh, well"--she considered, "no one, I should think, who would interest
+you. Rather an indifferent set. Pleasant people, but not inspiring. The
+Marquis had some young relative or connection who was quite odious and
+made the most surprising noises over his food. I met a new man whom I
+think I am going to like very much, indeed. He wouldn't interest you,
+because he doesn't mean anything in particular, and of course he
+oughtn't to interest me for the same reason. He's just an idle, pleasant
+young man, but--he has great charm--very great charm. His name is Ste.
+Marie. Baron de Vries seems very fond of him, which surprised me,
+rather."
+
+"Ste. Marie!" exclaimed the old gentleman, in obvious astonishment.
+"Ste. Marie de Mont Perdu?"
+
+"Yes," she said. "Yes, that is the name, I believe. You know him, then?
+I wonder he didn't mention it."
+
+"I knew his father," said old David. "And his grandfather, for that
+matter. They're Gascon, I think, or Bearnais; but this boy's mother will
+have been Irish, unless his father married again.
+
+"So you've been meeting a Ste. Marie, have you?--and finding that he has
+great charm?" The old gentleman broke into one of his growling laughs,
+and reached for a long black cigar, which he lighted, eying his
+granddaughter the while over the flaring match. "Well," he said, when
+the cigar was drawing, "they all have had charm. I should think there
+has never been a Ste. Marie without it. They're a sort of embodiment of
+romance, that family. This boy's great-grandfather lost his life
+defending a castle against a horde of peasants in 1799; his grandfather
+was killed in the French campaign in Mexico in '39--at Vera Cruz it was,
+I think; and his father died in a filibustering expedition ten years
+ago. I wonder what will become of the last Ste. Marie?" Old David's eyes
+suddenly sharpened. "You're not going to fall in love with Ste. Marie
+and marry him, are you?" he demanded.
+
+Miss Benham gave a little angry laugh, but her grandfather saw the color
+rise in her cheeks for all that.
+
+"Certainly not," she said, with great decision, "What an absurd idea!
+Because I meet a man at a dinner-party and say I like him, must I marry
+him to-morrow? I meet a great many men at dinners and things, and a few
+of them I like. Heavens!"
+
+"'Methinks the lady doth protest too much,'" muttered old David into his
+huge beard.
+
+"I beg your pardon?" asked Miss Benham, politely.
+
+But he shook his head, still growling inarticulately, and began to draw
+enormous clouds of smoke from the long black cigar. After a time he took
+the cigar once more from his lips and looked thoughtfully at his
+granddaughter, where she sat on the edge of the vast bed, upright and
+beautiful, perfect in the most meticulous detail. Most women when they
+return from a long evening out look more or less the worse for
+it--deadened eyes, pale cheeks, loosened coiffure tell their inevitable
+tale. Miss Benham looked as if she had just come from the hands of a
+very excellent maid. She looked as freshly soignee as she might have
+looked at eight that evening instead of at one. Not a wave of her
+perfectly undulated hair was loosened or displaced, not a fold of the
+lace at her breast had departed from its perfect arrangement.
+
+"It is odd," said old David Stewart, "your taking a fancy to young Ste.
+Marie. Of course, it's natural, too, in a way, because you are complete
+opposites, I should think--that is, if this lad is like the rest of his
+race. What I mean is that merely attractive young men don't, as a rule,
+attract you."
+
+"Well, no," she admitted, "they don't usually. Men with brains attract
+me most, I think--men who are making civilization, men who are ruling
+the world, or at least doing important things for it. That's your fault,
+you know. You taught me that."
+
+The old gentleman laughed.
+
+"Possibly," said he. "Possibly. Anyhow, that is the sort of men you
+like, and they like you. You're by no means a fool, Helen; in fact,
+you're a woman with brains. You could wield great influence married to
+the proper sort of man."
+
+"But not to M. Ste. Marie," she suggested, smiling across at him.
+
+"Well, no," he said. "No, not to Ste. Marie. It would be a mistake to
+marry Ste. Marie--if he is what the rest of his house have been. The
+Ste. Maries live a life compounded of romance and imagination and
+emotion. You're not emotional."
+
+"No," said Miss Benham, slowly and thoughtfully. It was as if the idea
+were new to her. "No, I'm not, I suppose. No. Certainly not."
+
+"As a matter of fact," said old David, "you're by nature rather cold.
+I'm not sure it isn't a good thing. Emotional people, I observe, are
+usually in hot water of some sort. When you marry you're very likely to
+choose with a great deal of care and some wisdom. And you're also likely
+to have what is called a career. I repeat that you could wield great
+influence in the proper environment."
+
+The girl frowned across at her grandfather reflectively.
+
+"Do you mean by that," she asked, after a little silence--"do you mean
+that you think I am likely to be moved by sheer ambition and nothing
+else in arranging my life? I've never thought of myself as a very
+ambitious person."
+
+"Let us substitute for ambition common-sense," said old David. "I think
+you have a great deal of common-sense for a woman--and so young a woman.
+How old are you by-the-way? Twenty-two? Yes, to be sure. I think you
+have great common-sense and appreciation of values. And I think you're
+singularly free of the emotionalism that so often plays hob with them
+all. People with common-sense fall in love in the right places."
+
+"I don't quite like the sound of it," said Miss Benham. "Perhaps I am
+rather ambitious--I don't know. Yes, perhaps. I should like to play some
+part in the world, I don't deny that. But--am I as cold as you say? I
+doubt it very much. I doubt that."
+
+"You're twenty-two," said her grandfather, "and you have seen a good
+deal of society in several capitals. Have you ever fallen in love?"
+
+Oddly, the face of Ste. Marie came before Miss Benham's eyes as if she
+had summoned it there. But she frowned a little and shook her head,
+saying:
+
+"No, I can't say that I have. But that means nothing. There's plenty of
+time for that. And you know," she said, after a pause--"you know I'm
+rather sure I could fall in love--pretty hard. I'm sure of that. Perhaps
+I have been waiting. Who knows?"
+
+"Aye, who knows?" said David. He seemed all at once to lose interest in
+the subject, as old people often do without apparent reason, for he
+remained silent for a long time, puffing at the long black cigar or
+rolling it absently between his fingers. After awhile he laid it down in
+a metal dish which stood at his elbow, and folded his lean hands before
+him over the invalid's table. He was still so long that at last his
+granddaughter thought he had fallen asleep, and she began to rise from
+her seat, taking care to make no noise; but at that the old man stirred
+and put out his hand once more for the cigar. "Was young Richard Hartley
+at your dinner-party?" he asked, and she said:
+
+"Yes. Oh yes, he was there. He and M. Ste. Marie came together, I
+believe. They are very close friends."
+
+"Another idler," growled old David. "The fellow's a man of parts--and a
+man of family. What's he idling about here for? Why isn't he in
+Parliament, where he belongs?"
+
+"Well," said the girl, "I should think it is because he is too much a
+man of family--as you put it. You see, he'll succeed his cousin, Lord
+Risdale, before very long, and then all his work would have been for
+nothing, because he'll have to take his seat in the Lords. Lord Risdale
+is unmarried, you know, and a hopeless invalid. He may die any day. I
+think I sympathize with poor Mr. Hartley. It would be a pity to build up
+a career for one's self in the lower House, and then suddenly, in the
+midst of it, have to give it all up. The situation is rather paralyzing
+to endeavor, isn't it?"
+
+"Yes, I dare say," said old David, absently. He looked up sharply.
+"Young Hartley doesn't come here as much as he used to do."
+
+"No," said Miss Benham, "he doesn't." She gave a little laugh. "To avoid
+cross-examination," she said, "I may as well admit that he asked me to
+marry him and I had to refuse. I'm sorry, because I like him very much,
+indeed."
+
+Old David made an inarticulate sound which may have been meant to
+express surprise--or almost anything else. He had not a great range of
+expression.
+
+"I don't want," said he, "to seem to have gone daft on the subject of
+marriage, and I see no reason why you should be in any haste about it.
+Certainly I should hate to lose you, my child, but--Hartley as the next
+Lord Risdale is undoubtedly a good match. And you say you like him."
+
+The girl looked up with a sort of defiance, and her face was a little
+flushed.
+
+"I don't love him," she said. "I like him immensely, but I don't love
+him, and, after all--well, you say I'm cold, and I admit I'm more or
+less ambitious, but, after all--well, I just don't quite love him. I
+want to love the man I marry."
+
+Old David Stewart held up his black cigar and gazed thoughtfully at the
+smoke which streamed thin and blue and veil-like from its lighted end.
+
+"Love!" he said, in a reflective tone. "Love!" He repeated the word two
+or three times slowly, and he stirred a little in his bed. "I have
+forgotten what it is," said he. "I expect I must be very old. I have
+forgotten what love--that sort of love--is like. It seems very far away
+to me and rather unimportant. But I remember that I thought it important
+enough once, a century or two ago. Do you know, it strikes me as rather
+odd that I have forgotten what love is like. It strikes me as rather
+pathetic." He gave a sort of uncouth grimace and stuck the black cigar
+once more into his mouth. "Egad!" said he, mumbling indistinctly over
+the cigar, "how foolish love seems when you look back at it across fifty
+or sixty years!"
+
+Miss Benham rose to her feet smiling, and she came and stood near where
+the old man lay propped up against his pillows. She touched his cheek
+with her cool hand, and old David put up one of his own hands and patted
+it.
+
+"I'm going to bed now," said she. "I've sat here talking too long. You
+ought to be asleep, and so ought I."
+
+"Perhaps! Perhaps!" the old man said. "I don't feel sleepy, though. I
+dare say I shall read a little." He held her hand in his and looked up
+at her.
+
+"I've been talking a great deal of nonsense about marriage," said he.
+"Put it out of your head! It's all nonsense. I don't want you to marry
+for a long time. I don't want to lose you." His face twisted a little,
+quite suddenly. "You're precious near all I have left, now," he said.
+
+The girl did not answer at once, for it seemed to her that there was
+nothing to say. She knew that her grandfather was thinking of the lost
+boy, and she knew what a bitter blow the thing had been to him. She
+often thought that it would kill him before his old malady could run its
+course.
+
+But after a moment she said, very gently: "We won't give up hope. We'll
+never give up hope. Think! he might come home to-morrow! Who knows?"
+
+"If he has stayed away of his own accord," cried out old David Stewart,
+in a loud voice, "I'll never forgive him--not if he comes to me
+to-morrow on his knees! Not even if he comes to me on his knees!"
+
+The girl bent over her grandfather, saying: "Hush! hush! You mustn't
+excite yourself." But old David's gray face was working, and his eyes
+gleamed from their cavernous shadows with a savage fire.
+
+"If the boy is staying away out of spite," he repeated, "he need never
+come back to me. I won't forgive him." He beat his unemployed hand upon
+the table before him, and the things which lay there jumped and danced.
+"And if he waits until I'm dead and then comes back," said he, "he'll
+find he has made a mistake--a great mistake. He'll find a surprise in
+store for him, I can tell you that. I won't tell you what I have done,
+but it will be a disagreeable surprise for Master Arthur, you may be
+sure."
+
+The old gentleman fell to frowning and muttering in his choleric
+fashion, but the fierce glitter began to go out of his eyes and his
+hands ceased to tremble and clutch at the things before him. The girl
+was silent, because again there seemed to her to be nothing that she
+could say. She longed very much to plead her brother's cause, but she
+was sure that would only excite her grandfather, and he was growing
+quieter after his burst of anger. She bent down over him and kissed his
+cheek.
+
+"Try to go to sleep," she said. "And don't torture yourself with
+thinking about all this. I'm as sure that poor Arthur is not staying
+away out of spite as if he were myself. He's foolish and headstrong, but
+he's not spiteful, dear. Try to believe that. And now I'm really going.
+Good-night." She kissed him again and slipped out of the room. And as
+she closed the door she heard her grandfather pull the bell-cord which
+hung beside him and summoned the excellent Peters from the room beyond.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+V
+
+JASON SETS FORTH UPON THE GREAT ADVENTURE
+
+
+Miss Benham stood at one of the long drawing-room windows of the house
+in the rue de l'Universite, and looked out between the curtains upon the
+rather grimy little garden, where a few not very prosperous cypresses
+and chestnuts stood guard over the rows of lilac shrubs and the
+box-bordered flower-beds and the usual moss-stained fountain. She was
+thinking of the events of the past month, the month which had elapsed
+since the evening of the De Saulnes' dinner-party. They were not at all
+startling events; in a practical sense there were no events at all, only
+a quiet sequence of affairs which was about as inevitable as the night
+upon the day--the day upon the night again. In a word, this girl, who
+had considered herself very strong and very much the mistress of her
+feelings, found, for the first time in her life, that her strength was
+as nothing at all against the potent charm and magnetism of a man who
+had almost none of the qualities she chiefly admired in men. During the
+month's time she had passed from a phase of angry self-scorn through a
+period of bewilderment not unmixed with fear, and from that she had come
+into an unknown world, a land very strange to her, where old standards
+and judgments seemed to be valueless--a place seemingly ruled altogether
+by new emotions, sweet and thrilling, or full of vague terrors as her
+mood veered here or there.
+
+That sublimated form of guesswork which is called "woman's intuition"
+told her that Ste. Marie would come to her on this afternoon, and that
+something in the nature of a crisis would have to be faced. It can be
+proved even by poor masculine mathematics that guesswork, like other
+gambling ventures, is bound to succeed about half the time, and it
+succeeded on this occasion. Even as Miss Benham stood at the window
+looking out through the curtains, M. Ste. Marie was announced from the
+doorway.
+
+She turned to meet him with a little frown of determination, for in his
+absence she was often very strong, indeed, and sometimes she made up and
+rehearsed little speeches of great dignity and decision in which she
+told him that he was attempting a quite hopeless thing, and, as a
+well-wishing friend, advised him to go away and attempt it no longer.
+But as Ste. Marie came quickly across the room toward her, the little
+frown wavered and at last fled from her face and another look came
+there. It was always so. The man's bodily presence exerted an absolute
+spell over her.
+
+"I have been sitting with your grandfather for half an hour," Ste. Marie
+said. And she said:
+
+"Oh, I'm glad! I'm very glad! You always cheer him up. He hasn't been
+too cheerful or too well of late." She unnecessarily twisted a chair
+about, and after a moment sat down in it. And she gave a little laugh.
+"This friendship which has grown up between my grandfather and you,"
+said she--"I don't understand it at all. Of course, he knew your father
+and all that; but you two seem such very different types, I shouldn't
+think you would amuse each other at all. There's Mr. Hartley, for
+example. I should expect my grandfather to like him very much better
+than you, but he doesn't--though I fancy he approves of him much more."
+
+She laughed again, but a different laugh; and when he heard it Ste.
+Marie's eyes gleamed a little and his hands moved beside him.
+
+"I expect," said she--"I expect, you know, that he just likes you
+without stopping to think why--as everybody else does. I fancy it's just
+that. What do you think?"
+
+"Oh, I?" said the man. "I--how should I know? I know it's a great
+privilege to be allowed to see him--such a man as that. And I know we
+get on wonderfully well. He doesn't condescend, as most old men do who
+have led important lives. We just talk as two men in a club might talk,
+and I tell him stories and make him laugh. Oh yes, we get on wonderfully
+well."
+
+"Oh," said she, "I've often wondered what you talk about. What did you
+talk about to-day?"
+
+Ste. Marie turned abruptly away from her and went across to one of the
+windows--the window where she had stood earlier, looking out upon the
+dingy garden. She saw him stand there, with his back turned, the head a
+little bent, the hands twisting together behind him, and a sudden fit of
+nervous shivering wrung her. Every woman knows when a certain thing is
+going to be said to her, and usually she is prepared for it, though
+usually, also, she says she is not. Miss Benham knew what was coming
+now, and she was frightened, not of Ste. Marie, but of herself. It meant
+so very much to her--more than to most women at such a time. It meant,
+if she said yes to him, the surrender of almost all the things she had
+cared for and hoped for. It meant the giving up of that career which old
+David Stewart had dwelt upon a month ago.
+
+Ste. Marie turned back into the room. He came a little way toward where
+the girl sat, and halted, and she could see that he was very pale. A
+sort of critical second self noticed that he was pale and was surprised,
+because, although men's faces often turn red, they seldom turn
+noticeably pale except in very great nervous crises--or in works of
+fiction; while women, on the contrary, may turn red and white twenty
+times a day, and no harm done. He raised his hands a little way from his
+sides in the beginning of a gesture, but they dropped again as if there
+was no strength in them.
+
+"I told him," said Ste. Marie, in a flat voice--"I told your grandfather
+that I--loved you more than anything in this world or in the next. I
+told him that my love for you had made another being of me--a new being.
+I told him that I wanted to come to you and to kneel at your feet, and
+to ask you if you could give me just a little, little hope--something to
+live for, a light to climb toward. That is what we talked about, your
+grandfather and I."
+
+"Ste. Marie! Ste. Marie!" said the girl, in a half whisper. "What did my
+grandfather say to you?" she asked, after a silence.
+
+Ste. Marie looked away.
+
+"I cannot tell you," he said. "He--was not quite sympathetic."
+
+The girl gave a little cry.
+
+"Tell me what he said!" she demanded. "I must know what he said."
+
+The man's eyes pleaded with her, but she held him with her gaze, and in
+the end he gave in.
+
+"He said I was a damned fool," said Ste. Marie.
+
+And the girl, after an instant of staring, broke into a little fit of
+nervous, overwrought laughter, and covered her face with her hands.
+
+He threw himself upon his knees before her, and her laughter died away.
+An Englishman or an American cannot do that. Richard Hartley, for
+example, would have looked like an idiot upon his knees, and he would
+have felt it. But it did not seem extravagant with Ste. Marie. It became
+him.
+
+"Listen! Listen!" he cried to her, but the girl checked him before he
+could go on.
+
+She dropped her hands from her face, and she bent a little forward over
+the man as he knelt there. She put out her hands and took his head for a
+swift instant between them, looking down into his eyes. At the touch a
+sudden wave of tenderness swept her--almost an engulfing wave; it almost
+overwhelmed her and bore her away from the land she knew. And so when
+she spoke her voice was not quite steady. She said:
+
+"Ah, dear Ste. Marie! I cannot pretend to be cold toward you. You have
+laid a spell upon me, Ste. Marie. You enchant us all, somehow, don't
+you? I suppose I'm not so different from the others as I thought I was.
+And yet," she said, "he was right, you know. My grandfather was right.
+No, let me talk, now. I must talk for a little. I must try to tell you
+how it is with me--try somehow to find a way. He was right. He meant
+that you and I were utterly unsuited to each other, and so, in calm
+moments, I know we are. I know that well enough. When you're not with
+me, I feel very sure about it. I think of a thousand excellent reasons
+why you and I ought to be no more to each other than friends. Do you
+know, I think my grandfather is a little uncanny. I think he has
+prophetic powers. They say very old people often have. He and I talked
+about you when I came home from that dinner-party at the De Saulnes', a
+month ago--the dinner-party where you and I first met. I told him that I
+had met a man whom I liked very much--a man with great charm; and though
+I must have said the same sort of thing to him before about other men,
+he was quite oddly disturbed, and talked for a long time about it--about
+the sort of man I ought to marry and the sort I ought not to marry. It
+was unusual for him. He seldom says anything of that kind. Yes, he is
+right. You see, I'm ambitious in a particular way. If I marry at all I
+ought to marry a man who is working hard in politics or in something of
+that kind. I could help him. We could do a great deal together."
+
+"I could go into politics!" cried Ste. Marie; but she shook her head,
+smiling down upon him.
+
+"No, not you, my dear. Politics least of all. You could be a soldier, if
+you chose. You could fight as your father and your grandfather and the
+others of your house have done. You could lead a forlorn hope in the
+field. You could suffer and starve and go on fighting. You could die
+splendidly, but--politics, no! That wants a tougher shell than you have.
+And a soldier's wife! Of what use to him is she?"
+
+Ste. Marie's face was very grave. He looked up to her, smiling.
+
+"Do you set ambition before love, my Queen?" he asked, and she did not
+answer him at once.
+
+She looked into his eyes, and she was as grave as he.
+
+"Is love all?" she said, at last. "Is love all? Ought one to think of
+nothing but love when one is settling one's life forever? I wonder? I
+look about me, Ste. Marie," she said, "and in the lives of my
+friends--the people who seem to me to be most worth while, the people
+who are making the world's history for good or ill--and it seems to me
+that in their lives love has the second place--or the third. I wonder if
+one has the right to set it first. There is, of course," she said, "the
+merely domestic type of woman--the woman who has no thought and no
+interest beyond her home. I am not that type of woman. Perhaps I wish I
+were. Certainly they are the happiest. But I was brought up among--well,
+among important people--men of my grandfather's kind. All my training
+has been toward that life. Have I the right, I wonder, to give it all
+up?"
+
+The man stirred at her feet, and she put out her hands to him quickly.
+
+"Do I seem brutal?" she cried. "Oh, I don't want to be! Do I seem very
+ungenerous and wrapped up in my own side of the thing? I don't mean to
+be that, but--I'm not sure. I expect it's that. I'm not sure, and I
+think I'm a little frightened." She gave him a brief, anxious smile that
+was not without its tenderness. "I'm so sure," she said, "when I'm away
+from you. But when you're here--oh, I forget all I've thought of. You
+lay your spell upon me."
+
+Ste. Marie gave a little wordless cry of joy. He caught her two hands in
+his and held them against his lips. Again that great wave of tenderness
+swept her, almost engulfing. But when it had ebbed she sank back once
+more in her chair, and she withdrew her hands from his clasp.
+
+"You make me forget too much," she said. "I think you make me forget
+everything that I ought to remember. Oh, Ste. Marie, have I any right to
+think of love and happiness while this terrible mystery is upon
+us--while we don't know whether poor Arthur is alive or dead? You've
+seen what it has brought my grandfather to! It is killing him. He has
+been much worse in the past fortnight. And my mother is hardly a ghost
+of herself in these days. Ah, it is brutal of me to think of my own
+affairs--to dream of happiness at such a time." She smiled across at him
+very sadly. "You see what you have brought me to!" she said.
+
+Ste. Marie rose to his feet. If Miss Benham, absorbed in that warfare
+which raged within her, had momentarily forgotten the cloud of sorrow
+under which her household lay, so much the more had he, to whom the
+sorrow was less intimate, forgotten it. But he was ever swift to
+sympathy, Ste. Marie--as quick as a woman, and as tender. He could not
+thrust his love upon the girl at such a time as this. He turned a little
+away from her, and so remained for a moment. When he faced about again
+the flush had gone from his cheeks and the fire from his eyes. Only
+tenderness was left there.
+
+"There has been no news at all this week?" he asked, and the girl shook
+her head.
+
+"None! None! Shall we ever have news of him, I wonder? Must we go on
+always and never know? It seems to me almost incredible that any one
+could disappear so completely. And yet, I dare say, many people have
+done it before and have been as carefully sought for. If only I could
+believe that he is alive! If only I could believe that!"
+
+"I believe it," said Ste. Marie.
+
+"Ah," she said, "you say that to cheer me. You have no reason to offer."
+
+"Dead bodies very seldom disappear completely," said he. "If your
+brother died anywhere there would be a record of the death. If he were
+accidentally killed there would be a record of that, too; and, of
+course, you are having all such records constantly searched?"
+
+"Oh yes," she said. "Yes, of course--at least, I suppose so. My uncle
+has been directing the search. Of course, he would take an obvious
+precaution like that."
+
+"Naturally," said Ste. Marie. "Your uncle, I should say, is an unusually
+careful man." He paused a moment to smile. "He makes his little
+mistakes, though. I told you about that man O'Hara, and about how sure
+Captain Stewart was that the name was Powers. Do you know"--Ste. Marie
+had been walking up and down the room, but he halted to face her--"do
+you know, I have a very strong feeling that if one could find this man
+O'Hara, one would learn something about what became of your brother? I
+have no reason for thinking that, but I feel it."
+
+"Oh," said the girl, doubtfully, "I hardly think that could be so. What
+motive could the man have for harming my brother?"
+
+"None," said Ste. Marie; "but he might have an excellent motive for
+hiding him away--kidnapping him. Is that the word? Yes, I know, you're
+going to say that no demand has been made for money, and that is where
+my argument--if I can call it an argument--is weak. But the fellow may
+be biding his time. Anyhow, I should like to have five minutes alone
+with him. I'll tell you another thing. It's a trifle, and it may be of
+no consequence, but I add it to my vague and--if you like--foolish
+feeling, and make something out of it. I happened, some days ago, to
+meet at the Cafe de Paris a man who I knew used to know this O'Hara. He
+was not, I think, a friend of his at all, but an acquaintance. I asked
+him what had become of O'Hara, saying that I hadn't seen him in some
+weeks. Well, this man said O'Hara had gone away somewhere a couple of
+months ago. He didn't seem at all surprised, for it appears the
+Irishman--if he is an Irishman--is decidedly a haphazard sort of person,
+here to-day, gone to-morrow. No, the man wasn't surprised, but he was
+rather angry, because he said O'Hara owed him some money. I said I
+thought he must be mistaken about the fellow's absence, because I'd seen
+him in the street within the month--on the evening of our dinner-party,
+you remember--but this man was very sure that I had made a mistake. He
+said that if O'Hara had been in town he was sure to have known it. Well,
+the point is here. Your brother disappears at a certain time. At the
+same time this Irish adventurer disappears, too, _and_ your brother was
+known to have frequented the Irishman's company. It may be only a
+coincidence, but I can't help feeling that there's something in it."
+
+Miss Benham was sitting up straight in her chair with a little alert
+frown.
+
+"Have you spoken of this to my uncle?" she demanded.
+
+"Well--no," said Ste. Marie. "Not the latter part of it--that is, not my
+having heard of O'Hara's disappearance. In the first place, I learned of
+that only three days ago, and I have not seen Captain Stewart since--I
+rather expected to find him here to-day; and, in the second place, I was
+quite sure that he would only laugh. He has laughed at me two or three
+times for suggesting that this Irishman might know something. Captain
+Stewart is--not easy to convince, you know."
+
+"I know," she said, looking away. "He's always very certain that he's
+right. Well, perhaps he is right. Who knows?" She gave a little sob.
+"Oh!" she cried, "shall we ever have my brother back? Shall we ever see
+him again? It is breaking my heart, Ste. Marie, and it is killing my
+grandfather and, I think, my mother, too! Oh, can nothing be done?"
+
+Ste. Marie was walking up and down the floor before her, his hands
+clasped behind his back. When she had finished speaking the girl saw him
+halt beside one of the windows, and after a moment she saw his head go
+up sharply and she heard him give a sudden cry. She thought he had seen
+something from the window which had wrung that exclamation from him, and
+she asked:
+
+"What is it?"
+
+But abruptly the man turned back into the room and came across to where
+she sat. It seemed to her that his face had a new look--a very strange
+exaltation which she had never before seen there. He said:
+
+"Listen! I do not know if anything can be done that has not been done
+already, but if there is anything I shall do it, you may be sure."
+
+"_You_, Ste. Marie?" she cried, in a sharp voice. "_You?_"
+
+"And why not I?" he demanded.
+
+"Oh, my friend," said she, "you could do nothing! You wouldn't know
+where to turn, how to set to work. Remember that a score of men who are
+skilled in this kind of thing have been searching for two months. What
+could you do that they haven't done?"
+
+"I do not know, my Queen," said Ste. Marie, "but I shall do what I can.
+Who knows? Sometimes the fool who rushes in where angels have feared to
+tread succeeds where they have failed. Oh, let me do this!" he cried
+out. "Let me do it for both our sakes--for yours and for mine! It is for
+your sake most. I swear that! It is to set you at peace again, bring
+back the happiness you have lost. But it is for my sake, too, a little.
+It will be a test of me, a trial. If I can succeed here where so many
+have failed, if I bring back your brother to you--or, at least, discover
+what has become of him--I shall be able to come to you with less shame
+for my--unworthiness."
+
+He looked down upon her with eager, burning eyes, and, after a little,
+the girl rose to face him. She was very white, and she stared at him
+silently.
+
+"When I came to you to-day," he went on, "I knew that I had nothing to
+offer you but my faithful love and my life, which has been a life
+without value. In exchange for that I asked too much. I knew it, and you
+knew it, too. I know well enough what sort of man you ought to marry,
+and what a brilliant career you could make for yourself in the proper
+place--what great influence you could wield. But I asked you to give
+that all up, and I hadn't anything to offer in its place--nothing but
+love. My Queen, give me a chance now to offer you more! If I can bring
+back your brother or news of him, I can come to you without shame and
+ask you to marry me, because if I can succeed in that you will know that
+I can succeed in other things. You will be able to trust me. You'll know
+that I can climb. It shall be a sort of symbol. Let me go!"
+
+The girl broke into a sort of sobbing laughter.
+
+"Oh, divine madman!" she cried. "Are you all mad, you Ste. Maries, that
+you must be forever leading forlorn hopes? Oh, how you are, after all, a
+Ste. Marie! Now, at last, I know why one cannot but love you. You're the
+knight of old. You're chivalry come down to us. You're a ghost out of
+the past when men rode in armor with pure hearts seeking the Great
+Adventure. Oh, my friend," she said, "be wise. Give this up in time. It
+is a beautiful thought, and I love you for it, but it is madness--yes,
+yes, a sweet madness, but mad, nevertheless! What possible chance would
+you have of success? And think--think how failure would hurt you--and
+me! You must not do it, Ste. Marie."
+
+"Failure will never hurt me, my Queen," said he, "because there are no
+hurts in the grave, and I shall never give over searching until I
+succeed or until I am dead." His face was uplifted, and there was a sort
+of splendid fervor upon it. It was as if it shone.
+
+The girl stared at him dumbly. She began to realize that the knightly
+spirit of those gallant, long dead gentlemen was indeed descended upon
+the last of their house, that he burnt with the same pure fire which had
+long ago lighted them through quest and adventure, and she was a little
+afraid with an almost superstitious fear. She put out her hands upon the
+man's shoulders, and she moved a little closer to him, holding him.
+
+"Oh, madness, madness!" she said, watching his face.
+
+"Let me do it!" said Ste. Marie.
+
+And after a silence that seemed to endure for a long time, she sighed,
+shaking her head, and said she:
+
+"Oh, my friend, there is no strength in me to stop you. I think we are
+both a little mad, and I know that you are very mad, but I cannot say
+no. You seem to have come out of another century to take up this quest.
+How can I prevent you? But listen to one thing. If I accept this
+sacrifice, if I let you give your time and your strength to this almost
+hopeless attempt, it must be understood that it is to be within certain
+limits. I will not accept any indefinite thing. You may give your
+efforts to trying to find trace of my brother for a month if you like,
+or for three months, or six, or even a year, but not for more than that.
+If he is not found in a year's time we shall know that--we shall know
+that he is dead, and that--further search is useless. I cannot say how
+I--Oh, Ste. Marie, Ste. Marie, this is a proof of you, indeed! And I
+have called you idle. I have said hard things of you. It is very bitter
+to me to think that I have said those things."
+
+"They were true, my Queen," said he, smiling. "They were quite, quite
+true. It is for me to prove now that they shall be true no longer." He
+took the girl's hand in his rather ceremoniously, and bent his head and
+kissed it. As he did so he was aware that she stirred, all at once,
+uneasily, and when he had raised his head he looked at her in question.
+
+"I thought some one was coming into the room," she explained, looking
+beyond him. "I thought some one started to come in between the portieres
+yonder. It must have been a servant."
+
+"Then it is understood," said Ste. Marie. "To bring you back your
+happiness, and to prove myself in some way worthy of your love, I am to
+devote myself with all my effort and all my strength to finding your
+brother or some trace of him, and until I succeed I will not see your
+face again, my Queen."
+
+"Oh, that!" she cried--"that, too?"
+
+"I will not see you," said he, "until I bring you news of him, or until
+my year is passed and I have failed utterly. I know what risk I run. If
+I fail, I lose you. That is understood, too. But if I succeed--"
+
+"Then?" she said, breathing quickly. "Then?"
+
+"Then," said he, "I shall come to you, and I shall feel no shame in
+asking you to marry me, because then you will know that there is in me
+some little worthiness, and that in our lives together you need not be
+buried in obscurity--lost to the world."
+
+"I cannot find any words to say," said she. "I am feeling just now very
+humble and very ashamed. It seems that I haven't known you at all. Oh
+yes, I am ashamed."
+
+The girl's face, habitually so cool and composed, was flushed with a
+beautiful flush, and it had softened, and it seemed to quiver between a
+smile and a tear. With a swift movement she leaned close to him, holding
+by his shoulder, and for an instant her cheek was against his. She
+whispered to him:
+
+"Oh, find him quickly, my dear! Find him quickly, and come back to me!"
+
+Ste. Marie began to tremble, and she stood away from him. Once he looked
+up, but the flush was gone from Miss Benham's cheeks and she was pale
+again. She stood with her hands tight clasped over her breast. So he
+bowed to her very low, and turned and went out of the room and out of
+the house.
+
+So quickly did he move at this last that a man who had been, for some
+moments, standing just outside the portieres of the doorway had barely
+time to step aside into the shadows of the dim hall. As it was, Ste.
+Marie, in a more normal moment, must have seen that the man was there;
+but his eyes were blind, and he saw nothing. He groped for his hat and
+stick as if the place were a place of gloom, and, because the footman
+who should have been at the door was in regions unknown, he let himself
+out, and so went away.
+
+Then the man who stood apart in the shadows crossed the hall to a small
+room which was furnished as a library, but not often used. He closed the
+door behind him, and went to one of the windows which gave upon the
+street. And he stood there for a long time, drawing absurd invisible
+pictures upon the glass with one finger and staring thoughtfully out
+into the late June afternoon.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+VI
+
+A BRAVE GENTLEMAN RECEIVES A HURT, BUT VOLUNTEERS IN A GOOD CAUSE
+
+
+When Ste. Marie had gone, Miss Benham sat alone in the drawing-room for
+almost an hour. She had been stirred that afternoon more deeply than she
+thought she had ever been stirred before, and she needed time to regain
+that cool poise, that mental equilibrium, which was normal to her and
+necessary for coherent thought.
+
+She was still in a sort of fever of bewilderment and exaltation, still
+all aglow with the man's own high fervor; but the second self which so
+often sat apart from her, and looked on with critical, mocking eyes,
+whispered that to-morrow, the fever past, the fervor cooled, she must
+see the thing in its true light--a glorious lunacy born of a moment of
+enthusiasm. It was finely romantic of him, this mocking second self
+whispered to her--picturesque beyond criticism--but, setting aside the
+practical folly of it, could even the mood last?
+
+The girl rose to her feet with an angry exclamation. She found herself
+intolerable at such times as this.
+
+"If there's a heaven," she cried out, "and by chance I ever go there, I
+suppose I shall walk sneering through the streets and saying to myself:
+'Oh yes, it's pretty enough, but how absurd and unpractical!'"
+
+She passed before one of the small, narrow mirrors which were let into
+the walls of the room in gilt Louis Seize frames with candles beside
+them, and she turned and stared at her very beautiful reflection with a
+resentful wonder.
+
+"Shall I always drag along so far behind him?" she said. "Shall I never
+rise to him, save in the moods of an hour?"
+
+She began suddenly to realize what the man's going away meant--that she
+might not see him again for weeks, months, even a year. For was it at
+all likely that he could succeed in what he had undertaken?
+
+"Why did I let him go?" she cried. "Oh, fool, fool, to let him go!" But
+even as she said it she knew that she could not have held him back.
+
+She began to be afraid, not for him, but of herself. He had taught her
+what it might be to love. For the first time love's premonitory
+thrill--promise of unspeakable, uncomprehended mysteries--had wrung her,
+and the echo of that thrill stirred in her yet; but what might not
+happen in his long absence? She was afraid of that critical and
+analyzing power of mind which she had so long trained to attack all that
+came to her. What might it not work with the new thing that had come? To
+what pitiful shreds might it not be rent while he who only could renew
+it was away? She looked ahead at the weeks and months to come, and she
+was terribly afraid.
+
+She went out of the room and up to her grandfather's chamber and knocked
+there. The admirable Peters, who opened to her, said that his master had
+not been very well, and was just then asleep, but as they spoke together
+in low tones the old gentleman cried, testily, from within:
+
+"Well? Well? Who's there? Who wants to see me? Who is it?"
+
+Miss Benham went into the dim, shaded room, and when old David saw who
+it was he sank back upon his pillows with a pacified growl. He certainly
+looked ill, and he had grown thinner and whiter within the past month,
+and the lines in his waxlike face seemed to be deeper scored.
+
+The girl went up beside the bed and stood there a moment, after she had
+bent over and kissed her grandfather's cheek, stroking with her hand the
+absurdly gorgeous mandarin's jacket--an imperial yellow one this time.
+
+"Isn't this new?" she asked. "I seem never to have seen this one before.
+It's quite wonderful."
+
+The old gentleman looked down at it with the pride of a little girl over
+her first party frock. He came as near simpering as a fierce person of
+eighty-six, with a square white beard, can come.
+
+"Rather good--what? What?" said he. "Yes, it's new. De Vries sent it me.
+It is my best one. Imperial yellow. Did you notice the little Show
+medallions with the swastika? Young Ste. Marie was here this afternoon."
+He introduced the name with no pause or change of expression, as if Ste.
+Marie were a part of the decoration of the mandarin's jacket. "I told
+him he was a damned fool."
+
+"Yes," said Miss Benham, "I know. He said you did. I suppose," she said,
+"that in a sort of very informal fashion I am engaged to him. Well, no,
+perhaps not quite that; but he seems to consider himself engaged to me,
+and when he has finished something very important that he has undertaken
+to do he is coming to ask me definitely to marry him. No, I suppose we
+aren't engaged yet; at least, I'm not. But it's almost the same, because
+I suppose I shall accept him whether he fails or succeeds in what he is
+doing."
+
+"If he fails in it, whatever it may be," said old David, "he won't give
+you a chance to accept him; he won't come back. I know him well enough
+for that. He's a romantic fool, but he's a thoroughgoing fool. He plays
+the game." The old man looked up to his granddaughter, scowling a
+little. "You two are absurdly unsuited to each other," said he, "and I
+told Ste. Marie so. I suppose you think you're in love with him."
+
+"Yes," said the girl, "I suppose I do."
+
+"Idleness and all? You were rather severe on idleness at one time."
+
+"He isn't idle any more," said she. "He has undertaken--of his own
+accord--to find Arthur. He has some theory about it; and he is not going
+to see me again until he has succeeded--or until a year is past. If he
+fails, I fancy he won't come back."
+
+Old David gave a sudden hoarse exclamation, and his withered hands shook
+and stirred before him. Afterward he fell to half-inarticulate
+muttering.
+
+"The young romantic fool!--Don Quixote--like all the rest of them--those
+Ste. Maries. The fool and the angels. The angels and the fool."
+
+The girl distinguished words from time to time. For the most part, he
+mumbled under his breath. But when he had been silent a long time, he
+said, suddenly:
+
+"It would be ridiculously like him to succeed."
+
+The girl gave a little sigh.
+
+"I wish I dared hope for it," said she. "I wish I dared hope for it."
+
+She had left a book that she wanted in the drawing-room, and, when
+presently her grandfather fell asleep in his fitful manner, she went
+down after it. In crossing the hall she came upon Captain Stewart, who
+was dressed for the street and had his hat and stick in his hands. He
+did not live in his father's house, for he had a little flat in the rue
+du Faubourg St. Honore, but he was in and out a good deal. He paused
+when he saw his niece, and smiled upon her a benignant smile which she
+rather disliked, because she disliked benignant people. The two really
+saw very little of each other, though Captain Stewart often sat for
+hours together with his sister, up in a little boudoir which she had
+furnished in the execrable taste which to her meant comfort, while that
+timid and colorless lady embroidered strange tea cloths with stranger
+flora, and prattled about the heathen, in whom she had an academic
+interest.
+
+He said: "Ah, my dear! It's you?"
+
+Indisputably it was, and there seemed to be no use of denying it, so
+Miss Benham said nothing, but waited for the man to go on if he had more
+to say.
+
+"I dropped in," he continued, "to see my father, but they told me he was
+asleep, and so I didn't disturb him. I talked a little while with your
+mother instead."
+
+"I have just come from him," said Miss Benham. "He dozed off again as I
+left. Still, if you had anything in particular to tell him, he'd be glad
+to be wakened, I fancy. There's no news?"
+
+"No," said Captain Stewart, sadly--"no, nothing. I do not give up hope,
+but I am, I confess, a little discouraged."
+
+"We are all that, I should think," said Miss Benham, briefly.
+
+She gave him a little nod and turned away into the drawing-room. Her
+uncle's peculiar dry manner irritated her at times beyond bearing, and
+she felt that this was one of the times. She had never had any reason
+for doubting that he Was a good and kindly soul, but she disliked him
+because he bored her. Her mother bored her, too--the poor woman bored
+everybody--but the sense of filial obligation was strong enough in the
+girl to prevent her from acknowledging this even to herself. In regard
+to her uncle she had no sense of obligation whatever, except to be as
+civil to him as possible, and so she kept out of his way. She heard the
+heavy front door close, and gave a little sigh of relief.
+
+"If he had come in here and tried to talk to me," she said, "I should
+have screamed."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Meanwhile Ste. Marie, a man moving in a dream, uplifted,
+cloud-enwrapped, made his way homeward. He walked all the long
+distance--that is, looking backward upon it, later, he thought he must
+have walked, but the half-hour was a blank to him, an indeterminate, a
+chaotic whirl of things and emotions.
+
+In the little flat in the rue d'Assas he came upon Richard Hartley, who,
+having found the door unlocked and the master of the place absent, had
+sat comfortably down, with a pipe and a stack of _Couriers Francais_, to
+wait. Ste. Marie burst into the doorway of the room where his friend sat
+at ease. Hat, gloves, and stick fell away from him in a sort of shower.
+He extended his arms high in the air. His face was, as it were,
+luminous. The Englishman regarded him morosely. He said:
+
+"You look as if somebody had died and left you money. What the devil you
+looking like that for?"
+
+"He!" cried Ste. Marie, in a great voice. "He, the world is mine!
+Embrace me, my infant! Sacred name of a pig, why do you sit there?
+Embrace me!"
+
+He began to stride about the room, his head between his hands. Speech
+lofty and ridiculous burst from him in a sort of splutter of fireworks,
+but the Englishman sat still in his chair, and a gray, bleak look came
+upon him, for he began to understand. He was more or less used to these
+outbursts, and he bore them as patiently as he could, but though seven
+times out of the ten they were no more than spasms of pure joy of
+living, and meant, "It's a fine spring day," or "I've just seen two
+beautiful princesses of milliners in the street," an inner voice told
+him that this time it meant another thing. Quite suddenly he realized
+that he had been waiting for this--bracing himself against its
+onslaught. He had not been altogether blind through the past month. Ste.
+Marie seized him and dragged him from his chair.
+
+"Dance, lump of flesh! Dance, sacred English rosbif that you are! Sing,
+gros polisson! Sing!" Abruptly, as usual, the mania departed from him,
+but not the glory; his eyes shone bright and triumphant. "Ah, my old,"
+said he, "I am near the stars at last. My feet are on the top rungs of
+the ladder. Tell me that you are glad!"
+
+The Englishman drew a long breath.
+
+"I take it," said he, "that means that you're--that she has accepted
+you, eh?" He held out his hand. He was a brave and honest man. Even in
+pain he was incapable of jealousy. He said: "I ought to want to murder
+you, but I don't. I congratulate you. You're an undeserving beggar, but
+so were the rest of us. It was an open field, and you've won quite
+honestly. My best wishes!"
+
+Then at last Ste. Marie understood, and in a flash the glory went out of
+his face. He cried: "Ah, mon cher ami! Pig that I am to forget. Pig!
+Pig! Animal!"
+
+The other man saw that tears had sprung to his eyes, and was horribly
+embarrassed to the very bottom of his good British soul.
+
+"Yes! Yes!" he said, gruffly. "Quite so, quite so! No consequence!" He
+dragged his hands away from Ste. Marie's grasp, stuck them in his
+pockets, and turned to the window beside which he had been sitting. It
+looked out over the sweet green peace of the Luxembourg Gardens, with
+their winding paths and their clumps of trees and shrubbery, their
+flaming flower-beds, their groups of weather-stained sculpture. A youth
+in laborer's corduroys and an unclean beret strolled along under the
+high palings; one arm was about the ample waist of a woman somewhat the
+youth's senior, but, as ever, love was blind. The youth carolled in a
+high, clear voice, "Vous etes si jolie," a song of abundant sentiment,
+and the woman put up one hand and patted his cheek. So they strolled on
+and turned up into the rue Vavin.
+
+Ste. Marie, across the room, looked at his friend's square back, and
+knew that in his silent way the man was suffering. A great sadness, the
+recoil from his trembling heights of bliss, came upon him and enveloped
+him. Was it true that one man's joy must inevitably be another's pain?
+He tried to imagine himself in Hartley's place, Hartley in his, and he
+gave a little shiver. He knew that if that bouleversement were actually
+to take place he would be as glad for his friend's sake as poor Hartley
+was now for his, but he knew also that the smile of congratulation would
+be a grimace of almost intolerable pain, and so he knew what Hartley's
+black hour must be like.
+
+"You must forgive me," he said. "I had forgotten. I don't know why.
+Well, yes, happiness is a very selfish state of mind, I suppose. One
+thinks of nothing but one's self--and one other. I--during this past
+month I've been in the clouds. You must forgive me."
+
+The Englishman turned back into the room. Ste. Marie saw that his face
+was as completely devoid of expression as it usually was, that his
+hands, when he chose and lighted a cigarette, were quite steady, and he
+marvelled. That would have been impossible for him under such
+circumstances.
+
+"She has accepted you, I take it?" said Hartley again.
+
+"Not quite that," said he. "Sit down and I'll tell you about it." So he
+told him about his hour with Miss Benham, and about what had been agreed
+upon between them, and about what he had undertaken to do. "Apart from
+wishing to do everything in this world that I can do to make her happy,"
+he said--"and she will never be at peace again until she knows the truth
+about her brother--apart from that, I'm purely selfish in the thing.
+I've got to win her respect, as well as--the rest. I want her to respect
+me, and she has never quite done that. I'm an idler. So are you, but you
+have a perfectly good excuse. I have not. I've been an idler because it
+suited me, because nothing turned up, and because I have enough to eat
+without working for my living. I know how she has felt about all that.
+Well, she shall feel it no longer."
+
+"You're taking on a big order," said the other man.
+
+"The bigger the better," said Ste. Marie. "And I shall succeed in it or
+never see her again. I've sworn that."
+
+The odd look of exaltation that Miss Benham had seen in his face, the
+look of knightly fervor, came there again, and Hartley saw it, and knew
+that the man was stirred by no transient whim. Oddly enough he thought,
+as had the girl earlier in the day, of those elder Ste. Maries, who had
+taken sword and lance and gone out into a strange world--a place of
+unknown terrors--afire for the Great Adventure. And this was one of
+their blood.
+
+"I'm afraid you don't realize," he went on, "the difficulties you've got
+to face. Better men than you have failed over this thing, you know."
+
+"A worse might nevertheless succeed," said Ste. Marie. And the other
+said:
+
+"Yes. Oh yes. And there's always luck to be considered, of course. You
+might stumble on some trace." He threw away his cigarette and lighted
+another, and he smoked it down almost to the end before he spoke. At
+last he said: "I want to tell you something. The reason why I want to
+tell it comes a little later. A few weeks before you returned to Paris I
+asked Miss Benham to marry me."
+
+Ste. Marie looked up with a quick sympathy. "Ah," said he. "I have
+sometimes thought--wondered. I have wondered if it went as far as that.
+Of course, I could see that you had known her well, though you seldom go
+there nowadays."
+
+"Yes," said Hartley, "it went as far as that, but no farther. She--well,
+she didn't care for me--not in that way. So I stiffened my back and shut
+my mouth, and got used to the fact that what I'd hoped for was
+impossible. And now comes the reason for telling you what I've told. I
+want you to let me help you in what you're going to do--if you think you
+can, that is. Remember, I--cared for her, too. I'd like to do something
+for her. It would never have occurred to me to do this until you thought
+of it, but I should like very much to lend a hand--do some of the work.
+D'you think you could let me in?"
+
+Ste. Marie stared at him in open astonishment, and, for an instant,
+something like dismay.
+
+"Yes, yes! I know what you're thinking," said the Englishman. "You'd
+hoped to do it all yourself. It's _your_ game. I know. Well, it's your
+game even if you let me come in. I'm just a helper. Some one to run
+errands. Some one, perhaps, to take counsel with now and then. Look at
+it on the practical side. Two heads are certainly better than one.
+Certainly I could be of use to you. And besides--well, I want to do
+something for her. I--cared, too, you see. D'you think you could take me
+in?"
+
+It was the man's love that made his appeal irresistible. No one could
+appeal to Ste. Marie on that score in vain. It was true that he had
+hoped to work alone--to win or lose alone; to stand, in this matter,
+quite on his own feet; but he could not deny the man who had loved her
+and lost her. Ste. Marie thrust out his hand.
+
+"You love her, too!" he said. "That is enough. We work together. I have
+a possibly foolish idea that if we can find a certain man we will learn
+something about Arthur Benham. I'll tell you about it."
+
+But before he could begin the door-bell jangled.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+VII
+
+CAPTAIN STEWART MAKES A KINDLY OFFER
+
+
+Ste. Marie scowled.
+
+"A caller would come singularly malapropos just now," said he. "I've
+half a mind not to go to the door. I want to talk this thing over with
+you."
+
+"Whoever it is," objected Hartley, "has been told by the concierge that
+you're at home. It may not be a caller, anyhow. It may be a parcel or
+something. You'd best go."
+
+So Ste. Marie went out into the little passage, blaspheming fluently the
+while. The Englishman heard him open the outer door of the flat. He
+heard him exclaim, in great surprise:
+
+"Ah, Captain Stewart! A great pleasure! Come in! Come in!"
+
+And he permitted himself a little blaspheming on his own account, for
+the visitor, as Ste. Marie had said, came most malapropos, and, besides,
+he disliked Miss Benham's uncle. He heard the American say:
+
+"I have been hoping for some weeks to give myself the pleasure of
+calling here, and to-day such an excellent pretext presented itself that
+I came straightaway."
+
+Hartley heard him emit his mewing little laugh, and heard him say, with
+the elephantine archness affected by certain dry and middle-aged
+gentlemen:
+
+"I come with congratulations. My niece has told me all about it. Lucky
+young man! Ah--"
+
+He reached the door of the inner room and saw Richard Hartley standing
+by the window, and he began to apologize profusely, saying that he had
+had no idea that Ste. Marie was not alone. But Ste. Marie said:
+
+"It doesn't in the least matter. I have no secrets from Hartley. Indeed,
+I have just been talking with him about this very thing."
+
+But for all that he looked curiously at the elder man, and it struck him
+as very odd that Miss Benham should have gone straight to her uncle and
+told him all this. It did not seem in the least like her, especially as
+he knew the two were on no terms of intimacy. He decided that she must
+have gone up to her grandfather's room to discuss it with that old
+gentleman--a reasonable enough hypothesis--and that Captain Stewart must
+have come in during the discussion. Quite evidently he had wasted no
+time in setting out upon his errand of congratulation.
+
+"Then," said Captain Stewart, "if I am to be good-naturedly forgiven for
+my stupidity, let me go on and say, in my capacity as a member of the
+family, that the news pleased me very much. I was glad to hear it."
+
+He shook Ste. Marie's hand, looking very benignant indeed, and Ste.
+Marie was quite overcome with pleasure and gratitude; it seemed to him
+such a very kindly act in the elder man. He produced things to smoke and
+drink, and Captain Stewart accepted a cigarette and mixed himself a
+rather stiff glass of absinthe--it was between five and six o'clock.
+
+"And now," said he, when he was at ease in the most comfortable of the
+low cane chairs, and the glass of opalescent liquor was properly curdled
+and set at hand--"now, having congratulated you and--ah, welcomed you,
+if I may put it so, as a probable future member of the family--I turn to
+the other feature of the affair."
+
+He had an odd trick of lowering his head and gazing benevolently upon an
+auditor as if over the top of spectacles. It was one of his elderly
+ways. He beamed now upon Ste. Marie in this manner, and, after a moment,
+turned and beamed upon Richard Hartley, who gazed stolidly back at him
+without expression.
+
+"You have determined, I hear," said he, "to join us in our search for
+poor Arthur. Good! Good! I welcome you there, also."
+
+Ste. Marie stirred uneasily in his chair.
+
+"Well," said he, "in a sense, yes. That is, I've determined to devote
+myself to the search, and Hartley is good enough to offer to go in with
+me; but I think, if you don't mind--of course, I know it's very
+presumptuous and doubtless idiotic of us--but, if you don't mind, I
+think we'll work independently. You see--well, I can't quite put it into
+words, but it's our idea to succeed or fail quite by our own efforts. I
+dare say we shall fail, but it won't be for lack of trying."
+
+Captain Stewart looked disappointed.
+
+"Oh, I think--" said he. "Pardon me for saying it, but I think you're
+rather foolish to do that." He waved an apologetic hand. "Of course, I
+comprehend your excellent motive. Yes, as you say, you want to succeed
+quite on your own. But look at the practical side! You'll have to go
+over all the weary weeks of useless labor we have gone over. We could
+save you that. We have examined and followed up, and at last given over,
+a hundred clews that on the surface looked quite possible of success.
+You'll be doing that all over again. In short, my dear friend, you will
+merely be following along a couple of months behind us. It seems to me a
+pity. I sha'n't like to see you wasting your time and efforts."
+
+He dropped his eyes to the glass of Pernod which stood beside him, and
+he took it in his hand and turned it slowly and watched the light gleam
+in strange pearl colors upon it. He glanced up again with a little smile
+which the two younger men found oddly pathetic.
+
+"I should like to see you succeed," said Captain Stewart. "I like to see
+youth and courage and high hope succeed." He said: "I am past the age of
+romance, though I am not so very old in years. Romance has passed me by,
+but--I love it still. It still stirs me surprisingly when I see it in
+other people--young people who are simple and earnest, and who--and who
+are in love." He laughed gently, still turning the glass in his hand. "I
+am afraid you will call me a sentimentalist," he said, "and an elderly
+sentimentalist is, as a rule, a ridiculous person. Ridiculous or not,
+though, I have rather set my heart on your success in this undertaking.
+Who knows? You may succeed where we others have failed. Youth has such a
+way of charging in and carrying all before it by assault--such a way of
+overleaping barriers that look unsurmountable to older eyes! Youth!
+Youth! Eh, my God," said he, "to be young again, just for a little
+while! To feel the blood beat strong and eager! Never to be tired! Eh,
+to be like one of you youngsters! You, Ste. Marie, or you, Hartley!
+There's so little left for people when youth is gone!"
+
+He bent his head again, staring down upon the glass before him, and for
+a while there was a silence which neither of the younger men cared to
+break.
+
+"Don't refuse a helping hand," said Captain Stewart, looking up once
+more. "Don't be over-proud. I may be able to set you upon the right
+path. Not that I have anything definite to work upon--I haven't, alas!
+But each day new clews turn up. One day we shall find the real one, and
+that may be one that I have turned over to you to follow out. One never
+knows."
+
+Ste. Marie looked across at Richard Hartley, but that gentleman was
+blowing smoke-rings and to all outward appearance giving them his entire
+attention. He looked back to Captain Stewart, and Stewart's eyes
+regarded him, smiling a little wistfully, he thought. Ste. Marie scowled
+out of the window at the trees of the Luxembourg Gardens.
+
+"I hardly know," said he. "Of course, I sound a braying ass in
+hesitating even a moment; but, in a way, you understand, I'm so anxious
+to do this or to fail in it quite on my own. You're--so tremendously
+kind about it that I don't know what to say. I must seem very
+ungrateful, I know; but I'm not."
+
+"No," said the elder man, "you don't seem ungrateful at all. I
+understand exactly how you feel about it, and I applaud your
+feeling--but not your judgment. I am afraid that for the sake of a
+sentiment you're taking unnecessary risks of failure."
+
+For the first time Richard Hartley spoke.
+
+"I've an idea, you know," said he, "that it's going to be a matter
+chiefly of luck. One day somebody will stumble on the right trail, and
+that might as well be Ste. Marie or I as your trained detectives. If you
+don't mind my saying so, sir--I don't want to seem rude--your trained
+detectives do not seem to accomplish much in two months, do they?"
+
+Captain Stewart looked thoughtfully at the younger man.
+
+"No," he said, at last. "I am sorry to say they don't seem to have
+accomplished much--except to prove that there are a great many places
+poor Arthur has _not_ been to and a great many people who have _not_
+seen him. After all, that is something--the elimination of ground that
+need not be worked over again." He set down the glass from which he had
+been drinking. "I cannot agree with your theory," he said. "I cannot
+agree that such work as this is best left to an accidental solution.
+Accidents are too rare. We have tried to go at it in as scientific a way
+as could be managed--by covering large areas of territory, by keeping
+the police everywhere on the alert, by watching the boy's old friends
+and searching his favorite haunts. Personally, I am inclined to think
+that he managed to slip away to America very early in the course of
+events, before we began to search for him, and, of course, I am having a
+careful watch kept there as well as here. But no trace has appeared as
+yet--nothing at all trustworthy. Meanwhile, I continue to hope and to
+work, but I grow a little discouraged. In any case, though, we shall
+hear of him in three months more if he is alive."
+
+"Why three months?" asked Ste. Marie. "What do you mean by that?"
+
+"In three months," said Captain Stewart, "Arthur will be of age, and he
+can demand the money left him by his father. If he is alive he will turn
+up for that. I have thought, from the first, that he is merely hiding
+somewhere until this time should be past. He--you must know that he went
+away very angry, after a quarrel with his grandfather? My father is not
+a patient man. He may have been very harsh with the boy."
+
+"Ah, yes," said Hartley; "but no boy, however young or angry, would be
+foolish enough to risk an absolute break with the man who is going to
+leave him a large fortune. Young Benham must know that his grandfather
+would never forgive him for staying away all this time if he stayed away
+of his own accord. He must know that he'd be taking tremendous risks of
+being cut off altogether."
+
+"And besides," added Ste. Marie, "it is quite possible that your father,
+sir, may die at any time--any hour. And he's very angry at his grandson.
+He may have cut him off already."
+
+Captain Stewart's eyes sharpened suddenly, but he dropped them to the
+glass in his hand.
+
+"Have you any reason for thinking that?" he asked.
+
+"No," said Ste. Marie. "I beg your pardon. I shouldn't have said it.
+That is a matter which concerns your family alone. I forgot myself. The
+possibility occurred to me suddenly for the first time."
+
+But the elder man looked up at him with a smile.
+
+"Pray don't apologize," said he. "Surely we three can speak frankly
+together! And, frankly, I know nothing of my father's will. But I don't
+think he would cut poor Arthur off, though he is, of course, very angry
+about the boy's leaving in the manner he did. No, I am sure he wouldn't
+cut him off. He was fond of the lad, very fond--as we all were."
+
+Captain Stewart glanced at his watch and rose with a little sigh.
+
+"I must be off," said he. "I have to dine out this evening, and I must
+get home to change. There is a cabstand near you?" He looked out of the
+window. "Ah, yes! Just at the corner of the Gardens."
+
+He turned about to Ste. Marie, and held out his hand with a smile. He
+said:
+
+"You refuse to join forces with us, then? Well, I'm sorry. But, for all
+that, I wish you luck. Go your own way, and I hope you'll succeed. I
+honestly hope that, even though your success may show me up for an
+incompetent bungler."
+
+He gave a little kindly laugh, and Ste. Marie tried to protest.
+
+"Still," said the elder man, "don't throw me over altogether. If I can
+help you in any way, little or big, let me know. If I can give you any
+hints, any advice, anything at all, I want to do it. And if you happen
+upon what seems to be a promising clew come and talk it over with me.
+Oh, don't be afraid! I'll leave it to you to work out. I sha'n't spoil
+your game."
+
+"Ah, now, that's very good of you," said Ste. Marie. "Only you make me
+seem more than ever an ungrateful fool. Thanks, I will come to you with
+my troubles if I may. I have a foolish idea that I want to follow out a
+little first, but doubtless I shall be running to you soon for
+information."
+
+The elder man's eyes sharpened again with keen interest.
+
+"An idea!" he said, quickly. "You have an idea? What--May I ask what
+sort of an idea?"
+
+"Oh, it's nothing," declared Ste. Marie. "You have already laughed at
+it. I just want to find that man O'Hara, that's all. I've a feeling that
+I should learn something from him."
+
+"Ah!" said Captain Stewart, slowly. "Yes, the man O'Hara. There's
+nothing in that, I'm afraid. I've made inquiries about O'Hara. It seems
+he left Paris six months ago, saying he was off for America. An old
+friend of his told me that. So you must have been mistaken when you
+thought you saw him in the Champs-Elysees; and he couldn't very well
+have had anything to do with poor Arthur. I'm afraid that idea is hardly
+worth following up."
+
+"Perhaps not," said Ste. Marie. "I seem to start badly, don't I? Ah,
+well, I'll have to come to you all the sooner, then."
+
+"You'll be welcome," promised Captain Stewart. "Good-bye to you!
+Good-day, Hartley. Come and see me, both of you. You know where I live."
+
+He took his leave then, and Hartley, standing beside the window, watched
+him turn down the street, and at the corner get into one of the fiacres
+there and drive away.
+
+Ste. Marie laughed aloud.
+
+"There's the second time," said he, "that I've had him about O'Hara. If
+he is as careless as that about everything, I don't wonder he hasn't
+found Arthur Benham. O'Hara disappeared from Paris--publicly, that
+is--at about the time young Benham disappeared. As a matter of fact, he
+remains, or at least for a time remained, in the city without letting
+his friends know, because I made no mistake about seeing him in the
+Champs-Elysees. All that looks to me suspicious enough to be worth
+investigation. Of course," he admitted, doubtfully--"of course, I'm no
+detective; but that's how it looks to me."
+
+"I don't believe Stewart is any detective, either," said Richard
+Hartley. "He's altogether too cocksure. That sort of man would rather
+die than admit he is wrong about anything. He's a good old chap, though,
+isn't he? I liked him to-day better than ever before. I thought he was
+rather pathetic when he went on about his age."
+
+"He has a good heart," said Ste. Marie. "Very few men under the
+circumstances would come here and be as decent as he was. Most men would
+have thought I was a presumptuous ass, and would have behaved
+accordingly."
+
+Ste. Marie took a turn about the room, and his face began to light up
+with its new excitement and exaltation.
+
+"And to-morrow!" he cried--"to-morrow we begin! To-morrow we set out
+into the world and the Adventure is on foot! God send it success!"
+
+He laughed across at the other man; but it was a laugh of eagerness, not
+of mirth.
+
+"I feel," said he, "like Jason. I feel as if we were to set sail
+to-morrow for Colchis and the Golden Fleece."
+
+"Y-e-s," said the other man, a little dryly--"yes, perhaps. I don't want
+to seem critical, but isn't your figure somewhat ill chosen?"
+
+"'Ill chosen'?" cried Ste. Marie. "What d'you mean? Why ill chosen?"
+
+"I was thinking of Medea," said Richard Hartley.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+VIII
+
+JASON MEETS WITH A MISADVENTURE AND DREAMS A DREAM
+
+
+So on the next day these two rode forth upon their quest, and no quest
+was ever undertaken with a stouter courage or with a grimmer
+determination to succeed. To put it fancifully, they burned their tower
+behind them, for to one of them, at least--to him who led--there was no
+going back.
+
+But, after all, they set forth under a cloud, and Ste. Marie took a
+heavy heart with him. On the evening before an odd and painful incident
+had befallen--a singularly unfortunate incident.
+
+It chanced that neither of the two men had a dinner engagement that
+evening, and so, after their old habit, they dined together. There was
+some wrangling over where they should go, Hartley insisting upon
+Armenonville or the Madrid, in the Bois, Ste. Marie objecting that these
+would be full of tourists so late in June, and urging the claims of some
+quiet place in the Quarter, where they could talk instead of listening
+perforce to loud music. In the end, for no particular reason, they
+compromised on the little Spanish restaurant in the rue Helder. They
+went there about eight o'clock, without dressing, for it is a very quiet
+place which the world does not visit, and they had a sopa de yerbas, and
+some langostinos, which are shrimps, and a heavenly arroz, with fowl in
+it, and many tender, succulent strips of red pepper. They had a salad
+made out of a little of everything that grows green, with the true
+Spanish oil, which has a tang and a bouquet unappreciated by the
+Philistine; and then they had a strange pastry and some cheese and green
+almonds. And to make then glad, they drank a bottle of old red
+Valdepenas, and afterward a glass each of a special Manzanilla, upon
+which the restaurant very justly prides itself.
+
+It was a simple dinner and a little stodgy for that time of the year,
+but the two men were hungry and sat at table, almost alone in the upper
+room, for a long time, saying how good everything was, and from time to
+time despatching the saturnine waiter, a Madrileno, for more peppers.
+When at last they came out into the narrow street, and thence to the
+thronged Boulevard des Italiens, it was nearly eleven o'clock. They
+stood for a little time in the shelter of a kiosk, looking down the
+boulevard to where the Place de l'Opera opened wide and the lights of
+the Cafe de la Paix shone garish in the night. And Ste. Marie said:
+
+"There's a street fete in Montmartre. We might drive home that way."
+
+"An excellent idea," said the other man. "The fact that Montmartre lies
+in an opposite direction from home makes the plan all the better. And
+after that we might drive home through the Bois. That's much farther in
+the wrong direction. Lead on!"
+
+So they sprang into a waiting fiacre, and were dragged up the steep,
+stone-paved hill to the heights, where La Boheme still reigns, though
+the glory of Moulin Rouge has departed and the trail of the tourist is
+over all. They found Montmartre very much en fete. In the Place Blanche
+were two of the enormous and brilliantly lighted merry-go-rounds, which
+only Paris knows--one furnished with stolid cattle, theatrical-looking
+horses, and Russian sleighs; the other with the ever-popular galloping
+pigs. When these dreadful machines were in rotation, mechanical organs,
+concealed somewhere in their bowels, emitted hideous brays and shrieks
+which mingled with the shrieks of the ladies mounted upon the galloping
+pigs, and together insulted a peaceful sky.
+
+The square was filled with that extremely heterogeneous throng which the
+Parisian street fete gathers together, but it was, for the most part, a
+well-dressed throng, largely recruited from the boulevards, and it was
+quite determined to have a very good time in the cheerful, harmless
+Latin fashion. The two men got down from their fiacre and elbowed a way
+through the good-natured crowd to a place near the more popular of the
+merry-go-rounds. The machine was in rotation. Its garish lights shone
+and glittered, its hidden mechanical organ blared a German waltz tune,
+the huge, pink-varnished pigs galloped gravely up and down as the
+platform upon which they were mounted whirled round and round. A little
+group of American trippers, sight-seeing with a guide, stood near by,
+and one of the group, a pretty girl with red hair, demanded plaintively
+of the friend upon whose arm she hung: "Do you think momma would be
+shocked if we took a ride? Wouldn't I love to!"
+
+Hartley turned, laughing, from this distressed maiden to Ste. Marie. He
+was wondering, with mild amusement, why anybody should wish to do such a
+foolish thing; but Ste. Marie's eyes were fixed upon the galloping pigs,
+and the eyes shone with a wistful excitement. To tell the truth, it was
+impossible for him to look on at any form of active amusement without
+thirsting to join it. A joyous and carefree lady in a blue hat, who was
+mounted astride upon one of the pigs, hurled a paper serpentine at him
+and shrieked with delight when it knocked his hat off.
+
+"That's the second time she has hit me with one of those things," he
+said, groping about his feet for the hat. "Here, stop that boy with the
+basket!"
+
+A vendor of the little rolls of paper ribbon was shouting his wares
+through the crowd. Ste. Marie filled his pockets with the things, and
+when the lady with the blue hat came round, on the next turn, lassoed
+her neatly about the neck and held the end of the ribbon till it broke.
+Then he caught a fat gentleman, who was holding himself on by his
+steed's neck, in the ear, and the red-haired American girl laughed
+aloud.
+
+"When the thing stops," said Ste. Marie, "I'm going to take a ride--just
+one ride. I haven't ridden a pig for many years."
+
+Hartley jeered at him, calling him an infant, but Ste. Marie bought more
+serpentines, and when the platform came to a stop clambered up to it and
+mounted the only unoccupied pig he could find. His friend still scoffed
+at him and called him names, but Ste. Marie tucked his long legs round
+the pig's neck and smiled back, and presently the machine began again to
+revolve.
+
+At the end of the first revolution Hartley gave a shout of delight, for
+he saw that the lady with the blue hat had left her mount and was making
+her way along the platform toward where Ste. Marie sat hurling
+serpentines in the face of the world. By the next time round she had
+come to where he was, mounted astride behind him, and was holding
+herself with one very shapely arm round his neck, while with the other
+she rifled his pockets for ammunition. Ste. Marie grinned, and the
+public, loud in its acclaims, began to pelt the two with serpentines
+until they were hung with many-colored ribbons like a Christmas-tree.
+Even Richard Hartley was so far moved out of the self-consciousness with
+which his race is cursed as to buy a handful of the common missiles, and
+the lady in the blue hat returned his attention with skill and despatch.
+
+But as the machine began to slacken its pace, and the hideous wail and
+blare of the concealed organ died mercifully down, Hartley saw that his
+friend's manner had all at once altered, that he sat leaning forward
+away from the enthusiastic lady with the blue hat, and that the paper
+serpentines had dropped from his hands. Hartley thought that the rapid
+motion must have made him a little giddy, but presently, before the
+merry-go-round had quite stopped, he saw the man leap down and hurry
+toward him through the crowd. Ste. Marie's face was grave and pale. He
+caught Hartley's arm in his hand and turned him round, crying, in a low
+voice:
+
+"Come out of this as quickly as you can! No, in the other direction. I
+want to get away at once!"
+
+"What's the matter?" Hartley demanded. "Lady in the blue hat too
+friendly? Well, if you're going to play this kind of game you might as
+well play it."
+
+"Helen Benham was down there in the crowd," said Ste. Marie. "On the
+opposite side from you. She was with a party of people who got out of
+two motor-cars to look on. They were in evening things, so they had come
+from dinner somewhere, I suppose. She saw me."
+
+"The devil!" said Hartley, under his breath. Then he gave a shout of
+laughter, demanding: "Well, what of it? You weren't committing any
+crime, were you? There's no harm in riding a silly pig in a silly
+merry-go-round. Everybody does it in these fete things." But even as he
+spoke he knew how extremely unfortunate the meeting was, and the
+laughter went out of his voice.
+
+"I'm afraid," said Ste. Marie, "she won't see the humor of it. Good God,
+what a thing to happen! _You_ know well enough what she'll think of me.
+At five o'clock this afternoon," he said, bitterly, "I left her with a
+great many fine, high-sounding words about the quest I was to give my
+days and nights to--for her sake. I went away from her like a--knight
+going into battle--consecrated. I tell you, there were tears in her eyes
+when I went. And _now_--now, at midnight--she sees me riding a galloping
+pig in a street fete with a girl from the boulevards sitting on the pig
+with me and holding me round the neck before a thousand people. What
+will she think of me? What but one thing can she possibly think? Oh, I
+know well enough! I saw her face before she turned away. And," he cried,
+"I can't even go to her and explain--if there's anything to explain, and
+I suppose there is not. I can't even go to her. I've sworn not to see
+her."
+
+"Oh, I'll do that," said the other man. "I'll explain it to her, if any
+explanation's necessary. I think you'll find that she will laugh at it."
+
+But Ste. Marie shook his head.
+
+"No, she won't," said he.
+
+And Hartley could say no more; for he knew Miss Benham, and he was very
+much afraid that she would not laugh.
+
+They found a fiacre at the side of the square and drove home at once.
+They were almost entirely silent all the long way, for Ste. Marie was
+buried in gloom, and the Englishman, after trying once or twice to cheer
+him up, realized that he was best left to himself just then, and so held
+his tongue. But in the rue d'Assas, as Ste. Marie was getting
+down--Hartley kept the fiacre to go on to his rooms in the Avenue de
+l'Observatoire--he made a last attempt to lighten the man's depression.
+He said:
+
+"Don't you be a silly ass about this! You're making much too much of it,
+you know. I'll go to her to-morrow or next day and explain, and she'll
+laugh---if she hasn't already done so. You know," he said, almost
+believing it himself, "you are paying her a dashed poor compliment in
+thinking she's so dull as to misunderstand a little thing of this kind.
+Yes, by Jove, you are!"
+
+Ste. Marie looked up at him, and his face, in the light of the cab lamp,
+showed a first faint gleam of hope.
+
+"Do you think so?" he demanded. "Do you really think that? Maybe I am.
+But--Oh, Lord, who would understand such an idiocy? Sacred imbecile that
+I am! Why was I ever born? I ask you."
+
+He turned abruptly, and began to ring at the door, casting a brief
+"Good-night" over his shoulder. And after a moment Hartley gave it up
+and drove away.
+
+Above, in the long, shallow front room of his flat, with the three
+windows overlooking the Gardens, Ste. Marie made lights, and after much
+rummaging unearthed a box of cigarettes of a peculiarly delectable
+flavor which had been sent him by a friend in the Khedivial household.
+He allowed himself one or two of them now and then, usually in sorrowful
+moments, as an especial treat; and this seemed to him to be the moment
+for smoking all that were left. Surely his need had never been greater.
+In England he had, of course, learned to smoke a pipe, but pipe-smoking
+always remained with him a species of accomplishment; it never brought
+him the deep and ruminative peace with which it enfolds the Anglo-Saxon
+heart. The "vieux Jacob" of old-fashioned Parisian Bohemia inspired in
+him unconcealed horror, of cigars he was suspicious because, he said,
+most of the unpleasant people he knew smoked cigars, so he soothed his
+soul with cigarettes, and he was usually to be found with one between
+his fingers.
+
+He lighted one of the precious Egyptians, and after a first ecstatic
+inhalation went across to one of the long windows, which was open, and
+stood there with his back to the room, his face to the peaceful,
+fragrant night. A sudden recollection came to him of that other night a
+month before when he had stood on the Pont des Invalides with his eyes
+upon the stars, his feet upon the ladder thereunto. His heart gave a
+sudden exultant leap within him when he thought how far and high he had
+climbed, but after the leap it shivered and stood still when this
+evening's misadventure came before him.
+
+Would she ever understand? He had no fear that Hartley would not do his
+best with her. Hartley was as honest and as faithful as ever a friend
+was in this world. He would do his best. But even then--It was the
+girl's inflexible nature that made the matter so dangerous. He knew that
+she was inflexible, and he took a curious pride in it. He admired it. So
+must have been those calm-eyed, ancient ladies for whom other Ste.
+Maries went out to do battle. It was well-nigh impossible to imagine
+them lowering their eyes to silly revelry. They could not stoop to such
+as that. It was beneath their high dignity. And it was beneath hers
+also. As for himself, he was a thing of patches. Here a patch of exalted
+chivalry--a noble patch--there a patch of bourgeois, childlike love of
+fun; here a patch of melancholic asceticism, there one of something
+quite the reverse. A hopeless patchwork he was. Must she not shrink from
+him when she knew? He could not quite imagine her understanding the
+wholly trivial and meaningless impulse that had prompted him to ride a
+galloping pig and cast paper serpentines at the assembled world.
+
+Apart from her view of the affair, he felt no shame in it. The moment of
+childish gayety had been but a passing mood. It had in no way slackened
+his tense enthusiasm, dulled the keenness of his spirit, lowered his
+high flight. He knew that well enough. But he wondered if she would
+understand, and he could not believe it possible. The mood of exaltation
+in which they had parted that afternoon came to him, and then the sight
+of her shocked face as he had seen it in the laughing crowd in the Place
+Blanche.
+
+"What must she think of me?" he cried, aloud. "What must she think of
+me?"
+
+So, for an hour or more, he stood in the open window staring into the
+fragrant night, or tramped up and down the long room, his hands behind
+his back, kicking out of his way the chairs and things which impeded
+him, torturing himself with fears and regrets and fancies, until at
+last, in a calmer moment, he realized that he was working himself up
+into an absurd state of nerves over something which was done and could
+not now be helped. The man had an odd streak of fatalism in his
+nature--that will have come of his Southern blood--and it came to him
+now in his need. For the work upon which he was to enter with the morrow
+he had need of clear wits, not scattered ones; a calm judgment, not
+disordered nerves. So he took himself in hand, and it would have been
+amazing to any one unfamiliar with the abrupt changes of the Latin
+temperament to see how suddenly Ste. Marie became quiet and cool and
+master of himself.
+
+"It is done," he said, with a little shrug, and if his face was for a
+moment bitter it quickly enough became impassive. "It is done, and it
+cannot be undone--unless Hartley can undo it. And now, revenons a nos
+moutons! Or, at least," said he, looking at his watch--and it was
+between one and two--"at least, to our beds!"
+
+So he went to bed, and, so well had he recovered from his fit of
+excitement, he fell asleep almost at once. But for all that the jangled
+nerves had their revenge. He who commonly slept like the dead, without
+the slightest disturbance, dreamed a strange dream. It seemed to him
+that he stood spent and weary in a twilight place--a waste place at the
+foot of a high hill. At the top of the hill She sat upon a sort of
+throne, golden in a beam of light from heaven--serene, very beautiful,
+the end and crown of his weary labors. His feet were set to the ascent
+of the height whereon she waited, but he was withheld. From the shadows
+at the hill's foot a voice called to him in distress, anguish of
+spirit--a voice he knew; but he could not say whose voice. It besought
+him out of utter need, and he could not turn away from it.
+
+Then from those shadows eyes looked upon him, very great and dark eyes,
+and they besought him, too; he did not know what they asked, but they
+called to him like the low voice, and he could not turn away.
+
+He looked to the far height, and with all his power he strove to set his
+feet toward it--the goal of long labor and desire; but the eyes and the
+piteous voice held him motionless--for they needed him.
+
+From this anguish he awoke trembling. And after a long time, when he was
+composed, he fell asleep once more, and once more he dreamed the dream.
+
+So morning found him pallid and unrefreshed. But by daylight he knew
+whose eyes had besought him, and he wondered and was a little afraid.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+IX
+
+JASON GOES UPON A JOURNEY, AND RICHARD HARTLEY PLEADS FOR HIM
+
+
+It may as well be admitted at the outset that neither Ste. Marie nor
+Richard Hartley proved themselves to be geniuses, hitherto undeveloped,
+in the detective science. They entered upon their self-appointed task
+with a fine fervor, but, as Miss Benham had suggested, with no other
+qualifications in particular. Ste. Marie had a theory that, when engaged
+in work of this nature, you went into questionable parts of the city,
+ate and drank cheek by jowl with questionable people--if possible, got
+them drunk while you remained sober (difficult feat), and sooner or
+later they said things which put you on the right road to your goal, or
+else confessed to you that they themselves had committed the particular
+crime in which you were interested. He argued that this was the way it
+happened in books, and that surely people didn't write books about
+things of which they were ignorant.
+
+Hartley, on the other hand, preferred the newer, or scientific, methods.
+You sat at home with a pipe and a whiskey-and-water--if possible, in a
+long dressing-gown with a cord round its middle. You reviewed all the
+known facts of the case, and you did mathematics about them with Xs and
+Ys and many other symbols, and in the end, by a system of elimination,
+you proved that a certain thing must infallibly be true. The chief
+difficulty for him in this was, he said, that he had been at Oxford
+instead of at Cambridge, and so the mathematics were rather beyond him.
+
+In practice, however, they combined the two methods, which was doubtless
+as well as if they hadn't, because for some time they accomplished
+nothing whatever, and so neither one was able to sneer at the other's
+stupidity.
+
+This is not to say that they found nothing in the way of clews. They
+found an embarrassment of them, and for some days went about in a fever
+of excitement over these; but the fever cooled when clew after clew
+turned out to be misleading. Of course, Ste. Marie's first efforts were
+directed toward tracing the movements of the Irishman O'Hara, but the
+efforts were altogether unavailing. The man seemed to have disappeared
+as noiselessly and completely as had young Arthur Benham himself. He was
+unable even to settle with any definiteness the time of the man's
+departure from Paris. Some of O'Hara's old acquaintances maintained that
+they had seen the last of him two months before, but a shifty-eyed
+person in rather cheaply smart clothes came up to Ste. Marie one evening
+in Maxim's and said he had heard that Ste. Marie was making inquiries
+about M. O'Hara. Ste. Marie said he was, and that it was an affair of
+money; whereupon the cheaply smart individual declared that M. O'Hara
+had left Paris six months before to go to the United States of America,
+and that he had had a picture postal-card from him, some weeks since,
+from New York. The informant accepted an expensive cigar and a Dubonnet
+by way of reward, but presently departed into the night, and Ste. Marie
+was left in some discouragement, his theory badly damaged.
+
+He spoke of this encounter to Richard Hartley, who came on later to join
+him, and Hartley, after an interval of silence and smoke, said: "That
+was a lie! The man lied!"
+
+"Name of a dog, why?" demanded Ste. Marie; but the Englishman shrugged
+his shoulders.
+
+"I don't know," he said. "But I believe it was a lie. The man came to
+you--sought you out to tell his story, didn't he? And all the others
+have given a different date? Well, there you are! For some reason, this
+man or some one behind him--O'Hara himself, probably--wants you to
+believe that O'Hara is in America. I dare say he's in Paris all the
+while."
+
+"I hope you're right," said the other. "And I mean to make sure, too. It
+certainly was odd, this strange being hunting me out to tell me that. I
+wonder, by-the-way, how he knew I'd been making inquiries about O'Hara.
+I've questioned only two or three people, and then in the most casual
+way. Yes, it's odd."
+
+It was about a week after this--a fruitless week, full of the alternate
+brightness of hope and the gloom of disappointment--that he met Captain
+Stewart, to whom he had been, more than once, on the point of appealing.
+He happened upon him quite by chance one morning in the rue Royale.
+Captain Stewart was coming out of a shop, a very smart-looking shop,
+devoted, as Ste. Marie, with some surprise and much amusement, observed,
+to ladies' hats, and the price of hats must have depressed him, for he
+looked in an ill humor, and older and more yellow than usual. But his
+face altered suddenly when he saw the younger man, and he stopped and
+shook Ste. Marie's hand with every evidence of pleasure.
+
+"Well met! Well met!" he exclaimed. "If you are not in a hurry, come and
+sit down somewhere and tell me about yourself."
+
+They picked their way across the street to the terrace of the Taverne
+Royale, which was almost deserted at that hour, and sat down at one of
+the little tables, well back from the pavement, in a corner.
+
+"Is it fair," queried Captain Stewart--"is it fair, as a rival
+investigator, to ask you what success you have had?"
+
+Ste. Marie laughed rather ruefully, and confessed that he had as yet no
+success at all.
+
+"I've just come," said he, "from pricking one bubble that promised well,
+and Hartley is up in Montmartre destroying another, I fancy. Oh, well,
+we didn't expect it to be child's play."
+
+Captain Stewart raised his little glass of dry vermouth in an
+old-fashioned salute and drank it.
+
+"You," said he--"you were--ah, full of some idea of connecting this man,
+this Irishman O'Hara, with poor Arthur's disappearance. You've found
+that not so promising as you went on, I take it."
+
+"Well, I've been unable to trace O'Hara," said Ste. Marie. "He seems to
+have disappeared as completely as your nephew. I suppose you have no
+clews to spare? I confess I'm out of them at the moment."
+
+"Oh, I have plenty," said the elder man. "A hundred. More than I can
+possibly look after." He gave a little chuckling laugh. "I've been
+waiting for you to come to me," he said. "It was a little ungenerous,
+perhaps, but we all love to say, 'I told you so.' Yes, I have a great
+quantity of clews, and of course they all seem to be of the greatest and
+most exciting importance. That's a way clews have."
+
+He took an envelope from an inner pocket of his coat, and sorted several
+folded papers which were in it.
+
+"I have here," said he, "memoranda of two--chances, shall I call
+them?--which seem to me very good, though, as I have already said, every
+clew seems good. That is the maddening, the heart-breaking, part of such
+an investigation. I have made these brief notes from letters received,
+one yesterday, one the day before, from an agent of mine who has been
+searching the bains de mer of the north coast. This agent writes that
+some one very much resembling poor Arthur has been seen at Dinard and
+also at Deauville, and he urges me to come there or to send a man there
+at once to look into the matter. You will ask, of course, why this agent
+himself does not pursue the clew he has found. Unfortunately, he has
+been called to London upon some pressing family matter of his own; he is
+an Englishman."
+
+"Why haven't you gone yourself?" asked Ste. Marie.
+
+But the elder man shrugged his shoulders and smiled a tired, deprecatory
+smile.
+
+"Oh, my friend," said he, "if I should attempt personally to investigate
+one-half of these things, I should be compelled to divide myself into
+twenty parts. No, I must stay here. There must be, alas! the spider at
+the centre of the web. I cannot go; but if you think it worth while, I
+will gladly turn over the memoranda of these last clews to you. They may
+be the true clews, they may not. At any rate, some one must look into
+them. Why not you and your partner--or shall I say assistant?"
+
+"Why, thank you!" cried Ste. Marie. "A thousand thanks! Of course, I
+shall be--we shall be glad to try this chance. On the face of it, it
+sounds very reasonable. Your nephew, from what I remember of him, is
+much more apt to be in some place that is amusing, some place of gayety,
+than hiding away where it is merely dull, if he has his choice in the
+matter--that is, if he is free. And yet--" He turned and frowned
+thoughtfully at the elder man. "What I want to know," said he, "is how
+the boy is supporting himself all this time? You say he had no money, or
+very little, when he went away. How is he managing to live if your
+theory is correct--that he is staying away of his own accord? It costs a
+lot of money to live as he likes to live."
+
+Captain Stewart nodded.
+
+"Oh, that," said he--"that is a question I have often proposed to
+myself. Frankly, it's beyond me. I can only surmise that poor Arthur,
+who had scattered a small fortune about in foolish loans, managed,
+before he actually disappeared (mind you, we didn't begin to look for
+him until a week had gone by)--managed to collect some of this money,
+and so went away with something in pocket. That, of course, is only a
+guess."
+
+"It is possible," said Ste. Marie, doubtfully, "but--I don't know. It is
+not very easy to raise money from the sort of people I imagine your
+nephew to have lent it to. They borrow, but they don't repay." He
+glanced up with a half-laughing, half-defiant air. "I can't," said he,
+"rid myself of a belief that the boy is here in Paris, and that he is
+not free to come or go. It's only a feeling, but it is very strong in
+me. Of course, I shall follow out these clews you've been so kind as to
+give me. I shall go to Dinard and Deauville, and Hartley, I imagine,
+will go with me, but I haven't great confidence in them."
+
+Captain Stewart regarded him reflectively for a time, and in the end he
+smiled.
+
+"If you will pardon my saying it," he said, "your attitude is just a
+little womanlike. You put away reason for something vaguely intuitive. I
+always distrust intuition myself."
+
+Ste. Marie frowned a little and looked uncomfortable. He did not relish
+being called womanlike--few men do; but he was bound to admit that the
+elder man's criticism was more or less just.
+
+"Moreover," pursued Captain Stewart, "you altogether ignore the point of
+motive--as I may have suggested to you before. There could be no
+possible motive, so far as I am aware, for kidnapping or detaining, or
+in any way harming, my nephew except the desire for money; but, as you
+know, he had no large sum of money with him, and no demand has been made
+upon us since his disappearance. I'm afraid you can't get round that."
+
+"No," said Ste. Marie, "I'm afraid I can't. Indeed, leaving that
+aside--and it can't be left aside--I still have almost nothing with
+which to prop up my theory. I told you it was only a feeling."
+
+He took up the memoranda which Captain Stewart had laid upon the
+marble-topped table between them, and read the notes through.
+
+"Please," said he, "don't think I am ungrateful for this chance. I am
+not. I shall do my best with it, and I hope it may turn out to be
+important." He gave a little wry smile. "I have all sorts of reasons,"
+he said, "for wishing to succeed as soon as possible. You may be sure
+that there won't be any delays on my part. And now I must be going on. I
+am to meet Hartley for lunch on the other side of the river, and, if we
+can manage it, I should like to start north this afternoon or evening."
+
+"Good!" said Captain Stewart, smiling. "Good! That is what I call true
+promptness. You lose no time at all. Go to Dinard and Deauville, by all
+means, and look into this thing thoroughly. Don't be discouraged if you
+meet with ill success at first. Take Mr. Hartley with you, and do your
+best."
+
+He paid for the two glasses of aperitif, and Ste. Marie could not help
+observing that he left on the table a very small tip. The waiter cursed
+him audibly as the two walked away.
+
+"If you have returned by a week from to-morrow," he said, as they shook
+hands, "I should like to have you keep that evening--Thursday--for me. I
+am having a very informal little party in my rooms. There will be two or
+three of the opera people there, and they will sing for us, and the
+others will be amusing enough. All young--all young. I like young people
+about me." He gave his odd little mewing chuckle. "And the ladies must
+be beautiful as well as young. Come if you are here! I'll drop a line to
+Mr. Hartley also."
+
+He shook Ste. Marie's hand, and went away down the street toward the rue
+du Faubourg St. Honore where he lived.
+
+Ste. Marie met Hartley as he expected to do, at lunch, and they talked
+over the possibilities of the Dinard and Deauville expedition. In the
+end they decided that Ste. Marie should go alone, but that he was to
+telegraph, later on, if the clew looked promising. Hartley had two or
+three investigations on foot in Paris, and stayed on to complete these.
+Also he wished, as soon as possible, to see Helen Benham and explain
+Ste. Marie's ride on the galloping pigs. Ten days had elapsed since that
+evening, but Miss Benham had gone into the country the next day to make
+a visit at the De Saulnes' chateau on the Oise.
+
+So Ste. Marie packed a portmanteau with clothes and things, and departed
+by a mid-afternoon train to Dinard, and toward five Richard Hartley
+walked down to the rue de I'Universite. He thought it just possible that
+Miss Benham might by now have returned to town, but if not he meant to
+have half an hour's chat with old David Stewart, whom he had not seen
+for some weeks.
+
+At the door he learned that mademoiselle was that very day returned and
+was at home. So he went in to the drawing-room, reserving his visit to
+old David until later. He found the room divided into two camps. At one
+side Mrs. Benham conversed in melancholic monotones with two elderly
+French ladies who were clad in depressing black of a dowdiness surpassed
+only in English provincial towns. It was as if the three mourned
+together over the remains of some dear one who lay dead among them.
+Hartley bowed low, with an uncontrollable shiver, and turned to the
+tea-table, where Miss Benham sat in the seat of authority, flanked by a
+young American lady whom he had met before, and by Baron de Vries, whom
+he had not seen since the evening of the De Saulnes' dinner-party.
+
+Miss Benham greeted him with evident pleasure, and to his great delight
+remembered just how he liked his tea--three pieces of sugar and no milk.
+It always flatters a man when his little tastes of this sort are
+remembered. The four fell at once into conversation together, and the
+young American lady asked Hartley why Ste. Marie was not with him.
+
+"I thought you two always went about together," she said--"were never
+seen apart and all that--a sort of modern Damon and Phidias."
+
+Hartley caught Baron de Vries' eye, and looked away again hastily.
+
+"My--ah, Phidias," said he, resisting an irritable desire to correct the
+lady, "got mislaid to-day. It sha'n't happen again, I promise you. He's
+a very busy person just now, though. He hasn't time for social
+dissipation. I'm the butterfly of the pair."
+
+The lady gave a sudden laugh.
+
+"He was busy enough the last time I saw him," she said, crinkling her
+eyelids. She turned to Miss Benham. "Do you remember that evening we
+were going home from the Madrid and motored round by Montmartre to see
+the fete?"
+
+"Yes," said Miss Benham, unsmiling, "I remember."
+
+"Your friend Ste. Marie," said the American lady to Hartley, "was
+distinctly the lion of the fete--at the moment we arrived, anyhow. He
+was riding a galloping pig and throwing those paper streamer
+things--what do you call them?--with both hands, and a genial lady in a
+blue hat was riding the same pig and helping him out. It was just like
+the _Vie de Boheme_ and the other books. I found it charming."
+
+Baron de Vries emitted an amused chuckle.
+
+"That was very like Ste. Marie," he said. "Ste. Marie is a very
+exceptional young man. He can be an angel one moment, a child playing
+with toys the next, and--well, a rather commonplace social favorite the
+third. It all comes of being romantic--imaginative. Ste. Marie--I know
+nothing about this evening of which you speak, but Ste. Marie is quite
+capable of stopping on his way to a funeral to ride a galloping pig--or
+on his way to his own wedding. And the pleasant part of it is," said
+Baron de Vries, "that the lad would turn up at either of these two
+ceremonies not a bit the worse, outside or in, for his ride."
+
+"Ah, now, that's an oddly close shot," said Hartley. He paused a moment,
+looking toward Miss Benham, and said: "I beg pardon! Were you going to
+speak?"
+
+"No," said Miss Benham, moving the things about on the tea-table before
+her, and looking down at them. "No, not at all!"
+
+"You came oddly close to the truth," the man went on, turning back to
+Baron de Vries.
+
+He was speaking for Helen Benham's ears, and he knew she would
+understand that, but he did not wish to seem to be watching her.
+
+"I was with Ste. Marie on that evening," he said. "No, I wasn't riding a
+pig, but I was standing down in the crowd throwing serpentines at the
+people who were. And I happen to know that he--that Ste. Marie was on
+that day, that evening, more deeply concerned about something, more
+absolutely wrapped up in it, devoted to it, than I have ever known him
+to be about anything since I first knew him. The galloping pig was an
+incident that made, except for the moment, no impression whatever upon
+him." Hartley nodded his head. "Yes," said he, "Ste. Marie can be an
+angel one moment and a child playing with toys the next. When he sees
+toys he always plays with them, and he plays hard, but when he drops
+them they go completely out of his mind."
+
+The American lady laughed.
+
+"Gracious me!" she cried. "You two are emphatic enough about him, aren't
+you?"
+
+"We know him," said Baron de Vries.
+
+Hartley rose to replace his empty cup on the tea-table. Miss Benham did
+not meet his eyes, and as he moved away again she spoke to her friend
+about something they were going to do on the next day, so Hartley went
+across to where Baron de Vries sat at a little distance, and took a
+place beside him on the chaise lounge. The Belgian greeted him with
+raised eyebrows and the little, half-sad, half-humorous smile which was
+characteristic of him in his gentler moments.
+
+"You were defending our friend with a purpose," he said, in a low voice.
+"Good! I am afraid he needs it--here."
+
+The younger man hesitated a moment. Then he said:
+
+"I came on purpose to do that. Ste. Marie knows that she saw him on that
+confounded pig. He was half wild with distress over it, because--well,
+the meeting was singularly unfortunate just then. I can't explain--"
+
+"You needn't explain," said the Belgian, gravely. "I know. Helen told me
+some days ago, though she did not mention this encounter. Yes, defend
+him with all your power, if you will. Stay after we others have gone
+and--have it out with her. The Phidias lady (I must remember that mot,
+by-the-way) is preparing to take her leave now, and I will follow her at
+once. She shall believe that I am enamoured, that I sigh for her. Eh!"
+said he, shaking his head--and the lines in the kindly old face seemed
+to deepen, but in a sort of grave tenderness--"eh, so love has come to
+the dear lad at last! Ah, of course, the hundred other affairs! Yes,
+yes. But they were light. No seriousness in them. The ladies may have
+loved. He didn't--very much. This time, I'm afraid--"
+
+Baron de Vries paused as if he did not mean to finish his sentence, and
+Hartley said:
+
+"You say 'afraid'! Why afraid?"
+
+The Belgian looked up at him reflectively.
+
+"Did I say 'afraid'?" he asked. "Well, perhaps it was the word I wanted.
+I wonder if these two are fitted for each other. I am fond of them both.
+I think you know that, but--she's not very flexible, this child. And she
+hasn't much humor. I love her, but I know those things are true. I
+wonder if one ought to marry Ste. Marie without flexibility and without
+humor."
+
+"If they love each other," said Richard Hartley, "I expect the other
+things don't count. Do they?"
+
+Baron de Vries rose to his feet, for he saw that the Phidias lady was
+going.
+
+"Perhaps not," said he; "I hope not. In any case, do your best for him
+with Helen. Make her comprehend if you can. I am afraid she is unhappy
+over the affair."
+
+He made his adieus, and went away with the American lady, to that young
+person's obvious excitement. And after a moment the three ladies across
+the room departed also, Mrs. Benham explaining that she was taking her
+two friends up to her own sitting-room, to show them something vaguely
+related to the heathen. So Hartley was left alone with Helen Benham.
+
+It was not his way to beat about the bush, and he gave battle at once.
+He said, standing, to say it more easily:
+
+"You know why I came here to-day? It was the first chance I've had since
+that--unfortunate evening. I came on Ste. Marie's account."
+
+Miss Benham said a weak "Oh!" And because she was nervous and
+overwrought, and because the thing meant so much to her, she said,
+cheaply: "He owes me no apologies. He has a perfect right to act as he
+pleases, you know."
+
+The Englishman frowned across at her. "I didn't come to make apologies,"
+said he. "I came to explain. Well, I have explained--Baron de Vries and
+I together. That's just how it happened. And that's just how Ste. Marie
+takes things. The point is that you've got to understand it. I've got to
+make you."
+
+The girl smiled up at him dolefully. "You look," she said, "as if you
+were going to beat me if necessary. You look very warlike."
+
+"I feel warlike," the man said, nodding. He said: "I'm fighting for a
+friend to whom you are doing, in your mind, an injustice. I know him
+better than you do, and I tell you you're doing him a grave injustice.
+You're failing altogether to understand him."
+
+"I wonder," the girl said, looking very thoughtfully down at the table
+before her.
+
+"I know," said he.
+
+Quite suddenly she gave a little overwrought cry, and she put up her
+hands over her face. "Oh, Richard!" she said, "that day when he was
+here! He left me--oh, I cannot tell you at what a height he left me! It
+was something new and beautiful. He swept me to the clouds with him. And
+I might--perhaps I might have lived on there. Who knows? But then that
+hideous evening! Ah, it was too sickening: the fall back to common earth
+again!"
+
+"I know," said the man, gently--"I know. And _he_ knew, too. Directly
+he'd seen you he knew how you would feel about it. I'm not pretending
+that it was of no consequence. It was unfortunate, of course. But the
+point is, it did not mean in him any slackening, any stooping, any
+letting go. It was a moment's incident. We went to the wretched place by
+accident after dinner. Ste. Marie saw those childish lunatics at play,
+and for about two minutes he played with them. The lady in the blue hat
+made it appear a little more extreme, and that's all."
+
+Miss Benham rose to her feet and moved restlessly back and forth. "Oh,
+Richard," she said, "the golden spell is broken--the enchantment he laid
+upon me that day. I'm not like him, you know. Oh, I wish I were! I wish
+I were! I can't change from hour to hour. I can't rise to the clouds
+again after my fall to earth. It has all--become something different.
+Don't misunderstand me!" she cried. "I don't mean that I've ceased to
+care for him. No, far from that! But I was in such an exalted heaven,
+and now I'm not there any more. Perhaps he can lift me to it again. Oh
+yes, I'm sure he can, when I see him once more; but I wanted to go on
+living there so happily while he was away! Do you understand at all?"
+
+"I think I do," the man said, but he looked at her very curiously and a
+little sadly, for it was the first time he had ever seen her swept from
+her superb poise by any emotion, and he hardly recognized her. It was
+very bitter to him to realize that he could never have stirred her to
+this--never, under any conceivable circumstances.
+
+The girl came to him where he stood, and touched his arm with her hand.
+"He is waiting to hear how I feel about it all, isn't he?" she said. "He
+is waiting to know that I understand. Will you tell him a little lie for
+me, Richard? No, you needn't tell a lie. I will tell it. Tell him that I
+said I understood perfectly. Tell him that I was shocked for a moment,
+but that afterward I understood and thought no more about it. Will you
+tell him I said that? It won't be a lie from you, because I did say it.
+Oh, I will not grieve him or hamper him now while he is working in my
+cause! I'll tell him a lie rather than have him grieve."
+
+"Need it be a lie?" said Richard Hartley. "Can't you truly believe what
+you've said?"
+
+She shook her head slowly.
+
+"I'll try," said she, "but--my golden spell is broken and I can't mend
+it alone. I'm sorry."
+
+He turned with a little sigh to leave her, but Miss Benham followed him
+toward the door of the drawing-room.
+
+"You're a good friend, Richard," she said, when she had come
+near--"you're a good friend to him."
+
+"He deserves good friends," said the young man, stoutly. "And besides,"
+said he, "we're brothers in arms nowadays. We've enlisted together to
+fight for the same cause." The girl fell back with a little cry.
+
+"Do you mean," she said, after a moment--"do you mean that _you_ are
+working with him--to find Arthur?"
+
+Hartley nodded.
+
+"But--" said she, stammering. "But, Richard--"
+
+The man checked her.
+
+"Oh, I know what I'm doing," said he. "My eyes are open. I know that I'm
+not--well, in the running. I work for no reward except a desire to help
+you and Ste. Marie. That's all. It pleases me to be useful."
+
+He went away with that, not waiting for an answer, and the girl stood
+where he had left her, staring after him.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+X
+
+CAPTAIN STEWART ENTERTAINS
+
+
+Ste. Marie returned, after three days, from Dinard in a depressed and
+somewhat puzzled frame of mind. He had found no trace whatever of Arthur
+Benham, either at Dinard or at Deauville, and, what was more, he was
+unable to discover that any one even remotely resembling that youth had
+been seen at either place. The matter of identification, it seemed to
+him, should be a rather simple one. In the first place, the boy's
+appearance was not at all French, nor, for that matter, English; it was
+very American. Also, he spoke French--so Ste. Marie had been told--very
+badly, having for the language that scornful contempt peculiar to
+Anglo-Saxons of a certain type. His speech, it seemed, was, like his
+appearance, ultra-American--full of strange idioms and oddly pronounced.
+In short, such a youth would be rather sure to be remembered by any
+hotel management and staff with which he might have come in contact.
+
+At first Ste. Marie pursued his investigations quietly and, as it were,
+casually; but after his initial failure he went to the managements of
+the various hotels and lodging-houses, and to the cafes and bathing
+establishments, and told them, with all frankness, a part of the
+truth--that he was searching for a young man whose disappearance had
+caused great distress to his family. He was not long in discovering that
+no such young man could have been either in Dinard or Deauville.
+
+The thing which puzzled him was that, apart from finding no trace of the
+missing boy, he also found no trace of Captain Stewart's agent--the man
+who had been first on the ground. No one seemed able to recollect that
+such a person had been making inquiries, and Ste. Marie began to suspect
+that his friend was being imposed upon. He determined to warn Stewart
+that his agents were earning their fees too easily.
+
+So he returned to Paris more than a little dejected, and sore over this
+waste of time and effort. He arrived by a noon train, and drove across
+the city in a fiacre to the rue d'Assas. But as he was in the midst of
+unpacking his portmanteau--for he kept no servant; a woman came in once
+a day to "do" the rooms--the door-bell rang. It was Baron de Vries, and
+Ste. Marie admitted him with an exclamation of surprise and pleasure.
+
+"You passed me in the street just now," explained the Belgian, "and as I
+was a few minutes early for a lunch engagement I followed you up." He
+pointed with his stick at the open bag. "Ah, you have been on a journey!
+Detective work?"
+
+Ste. Marie pushed his guest into a chair, gave him cigarettes, and told
+him about the fruitless expedition to Dinard. He spoke, also, of his
+belief that Captain Stewart's agent had never really found a clew at
+all; and at that Baron de Vries nodded his gray head and said, "Ah!" in
+a tone of some significance. Afterward he smoked a little while in
+silence, but presently he said, as if with some hesitation: "May I be
+permitted to offer a word of advice?"
+
+"But surely!" cried Ste. Marie, kicking away the half-empty portmanteau.
+"Why not?"
+
+"Do whatever you are going to do in this matter according to your own
+judgment," said the elder man, "or according to Mr. Hartley's and your
+combined judgments. Make your investigations without reference to our
+friend Captain Stewart." He halted there as if that were all he had
+meant to say, but when he saw Ste. Marie's raised eyebrows he frowned
+and went on, slowly, as if picking his words with some care. "I should
+be sorry," he said, "to have Captain Stewart at the head of any
+investigation of this nature in which I was deeply interested--just now,
+at any rate. I am afraid--it is difficult to say; I do not wish to say
+too much--I am afraid he is not quite the man for the position."
+
+Ste. Marie nodded his head with great emphasis. "Ah," he cried, "that's
+just what I have felt, you know, all along! And it's what Hartley felt,
+too, I'm sure. No, Stewart is not the sort for a detective. He's too
+cocksure. He won't admit that he might possibly be wrong now and then.
+He's too--"
+
+"He is too much occupied with other matters," said Baron de Vries.
+
+Ste. Marie sat down on the edge of a chair. "Other matters?" he
+demanded. "That sounds mysterious. What other matters?"
+
+"Oh, there is nothing very mysterious about it," said the elder man. He
+frowned down at his cigarette, and brushed some fallen ash neatly from
+his knees. "Captain Stewart," said he, "is badly worried, and has been
+for the past year or so--badly worried over money matters and other
+things. He has lost enormous sums at play, as I happen to know, and he
+has lost still more enormous sums at Auteuil and at Longchamps. Also,
+the ladies are not without their demands."
+
+Ste. Marie gave a shout of laughter. "Comment donc!" he cried. "Ce
+vieillard?"
+
+"Ah, well," deprecated the other man. "Vieillard is putting it rather
+high. He can't be more than fifty, I should think. To be sure, he looks
+older; but then, in his day, he lived a great deal in a short time. Do
+you happen to remember Olga Nilssen?"
+
+"I do," said Ste. Marie. "I remember her very well, indeed. I was a sort
+of go-between in settling up that affair with Morrison. Morrison's
+people asked me to do what I could. Yes, I remember her well, and with
+some pleasure. I felt sorry for her, you know. People didn't quite know
+the truth of that affair. Morrison behaved very badly to her."
+
+"Yes," said Baron de Vries, "and Captain Stewart has behaved very badly
+to her also. She is furious with rage or jealousy--or both. She goes
+about, I am told, threatening to kill him, and it would be rather like
+her to do it one day. Well, I have dragged in all this scandal by way of
+showing you that Stewart has his hands full of his own affairs just now,
+and so cannot give the attention he ought to give to hunting out his
+nephew. As you suggest, his agents may be deceiving him. I don't know. I
+suppose they could do it easily enough. If I were you I should set to
+work quite independently of him."
+
+"Yes," said Ste. Marie, in an absent tone. "Oh yes, I shall do that, you
+may be sure." He gave a sudden smile. "He's a queer type, this Captain
+Stewart. He begins to interest me very much. I had never suspected this
+side of him, though I remember now that I once saw him coming out of a
+milliner's shop. He looks rather an ascetic--rather donnish, don't you
+think? I remember that he talked to me one day quite pathetically about
+feeling his age and about liking young people round him. He's an odd
+character. Fancy him mixed up in an affair with Olga Nilssen! Or,
+rather, fancy her involved in an affair with him! What can she have seen
+in him? She's not mercenary, you know--at least, she used not to be."
+
+"Ah! there," said Baron de Vries, "you enter upon a terra incognita. No
+one can say what a woman sees in this man or in that. It's beyond our
+ken."
+
+He rose to take his leave, and Ste. Marie went with him to the door.
+
+"I've been asked to a sort of party at Stewart's rooms this week," Ste.
+Marie said. "I don't know whether I shall go or not. Probably not. I
+suppose I shouldn't find Olga Nilssen there?"
+
+"Well, no," said the Belgian, laughing. "No, I hardly think so.
+Good-bye! Think over what I've told you. Good-bye!"
+
+He went away down the stair, and Ste. Marie returned to his unpacking.
+
+Nothing more of consequence occurred in the next few days. Hartley had
+unearthed a somewhat shabby adventurer who swore to having seen the
+Irishman O'Hara in Paris within a month, but it was by no means certain
+that this being did not merely affirm what he believed to be desired of
+him, and in any case the information was of no especial value, since it
+was O'Hara's present whereabouts that was the point at issue. So it came
+to Thursday evening. Ste. Marie received a note from Captain Stewart
+during the day, reminding him that he was to come to the rue du Faubourg
+St. Honore that evening, and asking him to come early, at ten or
+thereabouts, so that the two could have a comfortable chat before any
+one else turned up. Ste. Marie had about decided not to go at all, but
+the courtesy of this special invitation from Miss Benham's uncle made it
+rather impossible for him to stay away. He tried to persuade Hartley to
+follow him on later in the evening, but that gentleman flatly refused
+and went away to dine with some English friends at Armenonville.
+
+So Ste. Marie, in a vile temper, dined quite alone at Lavenue's, beside
+the Gare Montparnasse, and toward ten o'clock drove across the river to
+the rue du Faubourg. Captain Stewart's flat was up five stories, at the
+top of the building in which it was located, and so, well above the
+noises of the street. Ste. Marie went up in the automatic lift, and at
+the door above his host met him in person, saying that the one servant
+he kept was busy making preparations in the kitchen beyond. They entered
+a large room, long but comparatively shallow, in shape not unlike the
+sitting-room in the rue d'Assas, but very much bigger, and Ste. Marie
+uttered an exclamation of surprise and pleasure, for he had never before
+seen an interior anything like this. The room was decorated and
+furnished entirely in Chinese and Japanese articles of great age and
+remarkable beauty. Ste. Marie knew little of the hieratic art of these
+two countries, but he fancied that the place must be an endless delight
+to the expert.
+
+The general tone of the room was gold, dulled and softened by great age
+until it had ceased to glitter, and relieved by the dusty Chinese blue
+and by old red faded to rose and by warm ivory tints. The great expanse
+of the walls was covered by a brownish-yellow cloth, coarse like burlap,
+and against it, round the room, hung sixteen large panels representing
+the sixteen Rakan. They were early copies--fifteenth century, Captain
+Stewart said--of those famous originals by the Chinese Sung master
+Ririomin, which have been for six hundred years or more the treasures of
+Japan. They were mounted upon Japanese brocade of blue and dull gold,
+framed in keyaki wood, and out of their brown, time-stained shadows the
+great Rakan scowled or grinned or placidly gazed, grotesquely graceful
+masterpieces of a perished art.
+
+At the far end of the room, under a gilded canopy of intricate
+wood-carving, stood upon his pedestal of many-petalled lotus a great
+statue of Amida Buddha in the yogi attitude of contemplation, and at
+intervals against the other walls other smaller images stood or sat:
+Buddha, in many incarnations; Kwannon, goddess of mercy; Jizo Bosatzu
+Hotei, pot-bellied, god of contentment; Jingo-Kano, god of war. In the
+centre of the place was a Buddhist temple table, and priests' chairs,
+lacquered and inlaid, stood about the room. The floor was covered with
+Chinese rugs, dull yellow with blue flowers, and over a doorway which
+led into another room was fixed a huge rama of Chinese pierced carving,
+gilded, in which there were trees and rocks and little grouped figures
+of the hundred immortals.
+
+It, was, indeed an extraordinary room. Ste. Marie looked about its
+mellow glow with a half-comprehending wonder, and he looked at the man
+beside him curiously, for here was another side to this many-sided
+character. Captain Stewart smiled.
+
+"You like my museum?" he asked. "Few people care much for it except, of
+course, those who go in for the Oriental arts. Most of my friends think
+it bizarre--too grotesque and unusual. I have tried to satisfy them by
+including those comfortable low divan-couches (they refuse altogether to
+sit in the priests' chairs), but still they are unhappy."
+
+He called his servant, who came to take Ste. Marie's hat and coat and
+returned with smoking things.
+
+"It seems entirely wonderful to me," said the younger man. "I'm not an
+expert at all--I don't know who the gentlemen in those sixteen panels
+are, for example--but it is very beautiful. I have never seen anything
+like it at all." He gave a little laugh. "Will it sound very impertinent
+in me, I wonder, if I express surprise--not surprise at finding this
+magnificent room, but at discovering that this sort of thing is a taste
+and, very evidently, a serious study of yours? You--I remember your
+saying once with some feeling that it was youth and beauty and--well,
+freshness that you liked best to be surrounded by. This," said Ste.
+Marie, waving an inclusive hand, "was young so many centuries ago! It
+fairly breathes antiquity and death."
+
+"Yes," said Captain Stewart, thoughtfully. "Yes, that is quite true."
+
+The two had seated themselves upon one of the broad, low benches which
+had been built into the place to satisfy the Philistine.
+
+"I find it hard to explain," he said, "because both things are passions
+of mine. Youth--I could not exist without it. Since I have it no longer
+in my own body, I wish to see it about me. It gives me life. It keeps my
+heart beating. I must have it near. And then this--antiquity and death,
+beautiful things made by hands dead centuries ago in an alien country! I
+love this, too. I didn't speak too strongly; it is a sort of passion
+with me--something quite beyond the collector's mania--quite beyond
+that. Sometimes, do you know, I stay at home in the evening, and I sit
+here quite alone, with the lights half on, and for hours together I
+smoke and watch these things--the quiet, sure, patient smile of that
+Buddha, for example. Think how long he has been smiling like that, and
+waiting! Waiting for what? There is something mysterious beyond all
+words in that smile of his, that fixed, crudely carved wooden smile--no,
+I'll be hanged if it's crude! It is beyond our modern art. The dead men
+carved better than we do. We couldn't manage that with such simple
+means. We can only reproduce what is before us. We can't carve
+questions--mysteries--everlasting riddles."
+
+Through the pale-blue, wreathing smoke of his cigarette Captain Stewart
+gazed down the room to where eternal Buddha stood and smiled eternally.
+And from there the man's eyes moved with slow enjoyment along the
+opposite wall over those who sat or stood there, over the panels of the
+ancient Rakan, over carved lotus, and gilt contorted dragon forever in
+pursuit of the holy pearl. He drew a short breath which seemed to
+bespeak extreme contentment, the keenest height of pleasure, and he
+stirred a little where he sat and settled himself among the cushions.
+Ste. Marie watched him, and the expression of the man's face began to be
+oddly revolting. It was the face of a voluptuary in the presence of his
+desire. He was uncomfortable, and wished to say something to break the
+silence, but, as often occurs at such a time, he could think of nothing
+to say. So there was a brief silence between them. But presently Captain
+Stewart roused himself with an obvious effort.
+
+"Here, this won't do!" said he, in a tone of whimsical apology. "This
+won't do, you know. I'm floating off on my hobby (and there's a mixed
+metaphor that would do credit to your own Milesian blood!). I'm boring
+you to extinction, and I don't want to do that, for I'm anxious that you
+should come here again--and often. I should like to have you form the
+habit. What was it I had in mind to ask you about? Ah, yes! The journey
+to Dinard and Deauville. I am afraid it turned out to be fruitless or
+you would have let me know."
+
+"Entirely fruitless," said Ste. Marie.
+
+He went on to tell the elder man of his investigation, and of his
+certainty that no one resembling Arthur Benham had been at either of the
+two places.
+
+"It's no affair of mine, to be sure," he said, "but I rather suspect
+that your agent was deceiving you--pretending to have accomplished
+something by way of making you think he was busy."
+
+Ste. Marie was so sure the other would immediately disclaim this that he
+waited for the word, and gave a little smothered laugh when Captain
+Stewart said, promptly:
+
+"Oh no! No! That is impossible. I have every confidence in that man. He
+is one of my best. No, you are mistaken there. I am more disappointed
+than you could possibly be over the failure of your efforts, but I am
+quite sure my man thought he had something worth working upon.
+By-the-way, I have received another rather curious communication--from
+Ostend this time. I will show you the letter, and you may try your luck
+there if you would care to." He felt in his pockets and then rose. "I've
+left the thing in another coat," said he; "if you will allow me, I'll
+fetch it." But before he had turned away the door-bell rang and he
+paused. "Ah, well," he said, "another time. Here are some of my guests.
+They have come earlier than I had expected."
+
+The new arrivals were three very perfectly dressed ladies, one of them
+an operatic light, who chanced not to be singing that evening and whom
+Ste. Marie had met before. The two others were rather difficult of
+classification, but probably, he thought, ornaments of that mysterious
+border-land between the two worlds which seems to give shelter to so
+many people against whose characters nothing definite is known, but
+whose antecedents and connections are not made topics of conversation.
+The three ladies seemed to be on very friendly terms with Captain
+Stewart, and greeted him with much noisy delight. One of the
+unclassified two, when her host, with a glance toward Ste. Marie,
+addressed her formally, seemed inordinately amused, and laughed for a
+long time.
+
+Within the next hour ten or a dozen other guests had arrived, and they
+all seemed to know one another very well, and proceeded to make
+themselves quite at home. Ste. Marie regarded them with a reflective and
+not over-enthusiastic eye, and he wondered a good deal why he had been
+asked here to meet them. He was as far from a prig or a snob as any man
+could very well be, and he often went to very Bohemian parties which
+were given by his painter or musician friends, but these people seemed
+to him quite different. The men, with the exception of two eminent
+opera-singers, who quite obviously had been asked because of their
+voices, were the sort of men who abound at such places as Ostend and
+Monte Carlo, and Baden-Baden in the race week. That is not to say that
+they were ordinary racing touts or the cheaper kind of adventurers
+(there was a count among them, and a marquis who had recently been
+divorced by his American wife), but adventurers of a sort they
+undoubtedly were. There was not one of them, so far as Ste. Marie was
+aware, who was received anywhere in good society, and he resented very
+much being compelled to meet them.
+
+Naturally enough, he felt much less concern on the score of the ladies.
+It is an undoubted and well-nigh universal truth that men who would
+refuse outright to meet certain classes of their own sex show no
+reluctance whatever over meeting the women of a corresponding
+circle--that is, if the women are attractive. It is a depressing fact
+and inclines one to sighs and head-shakes, and some moral indignation,
+until the reverse truth is brought to light--namely, that women have
+identically the same point of view; that, while they cast looks of
+loathing and horror upon certain of their sisters, they will meet with
+pleasure any presentable man whatever his crimes or vices.
+
+Ste. Marie was very much puzzled over all this. It seemed to him so
+unnecessary that a man who really had some footing in the newer society
+of Paris should choose to surround himself with people of this type; but
+as he looked on and wondered he became aware of a curious and, in the
+light of a past conversation, significant fact: all of the people in the
+room were young; all of them in their varying fashions and degrees very
+attractive to look upon; all full to overflowing of life and spirits and
+the determination to have a good time. He saw Captain Stewart moving
+among them, playing very gracefully his role of host, and the man seemed
+to have dropped twenty years from his shoulders. A miracle of
+rejuvenation seemed to have come upon him: his eyes were bright and
+eager, the color was high in his cheeks, and the dry, pedantic tone had
+gone from his voice. Ste. Marie watched him, and at last he thought he
+understood. It was half revolting, half pathetic, he thought, but it
+certainly was interesting to see.
+
+Duval, the great basso of the Opera, accompanied at the piano by one of
+the unclassified ladies, was just finishing Mephistopheles' drinking
+song out of _Faust_ when the door-bell rang.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+XI
+
+A GOLDEN LADY ENTERS--THE EYES AGAIN
+
+
+The music of voice and piano was very loud just then, so that the
+little, soft, whirring sound of the electric bell reached only one or
+two pairs of ears in the big room. It did not reach the host certainly,
+and neither he nor most of the others observed the servant make his way
+among the groups of seated or standing people and go to the outer door,
+which opened upon a tiny hallway. The song came to an end, and everybody
+was cheering and applauding and crying "Bravo!" or "Bis!" or one of the
+other things that people shout at such times, when, as if in unexpected
+answer to the outburst, a lady appeared between the yellow portieres and
+came forward a little way into the room. She was a tall lady of an
+extraordinary and immediately noticeable grace of movement--a lady with
+rather fair hair; but her eyebrows and eyelashes had been stained darker
+than it was their nature to be. She had the classic Greek type of
+face--and figure, too--all but the eyes, which were long and
+narrow--narrow, perhaps, from a habit of going half closed; and when
+they were a little more than half closed they made a straight black line
+that turned up very slightly at the outer end with an Oriental effect
+which went oddly in that classic face. There is a popular piece of
+sculpture now in the Luxembourg Gallery for which this lady "sat" as
+model to a great artist. Sculptors from all over the world go there to
+dream over its perfect line and contour, and little schoolgirls pretend
+not to see it, and middle-aged maiden tourists, with red Baedekers in
+their hands, regard it furtively and pass on, and after a while come
+back to look again.
+
+The lady was dressed in some very close-clinging material which was not
+cloth of gold, but something very like it, only much duller--something
+which gleamed when she stirred, but did not glitter--and over her
+splendid shoulders was hung an Oriental scarf heavily worked with
+metallic gold. She made an amazing and dramatic picture in that golden
+room. It was as if she had known just what her surroundings would be and
+had dressed expressly for them.
+
+The applause ceased as suddenly as if it had been trained to break off
+at a signal, and the lady came forward a little way, smiling a quiet,
+assured smile. At each step her knee threw out the golden stuff of her
+gown an inch or two, and it flashed suddenly--a dull, subdued flash in
+the overhead light--and died and flashed again. A few of the people in
+the room knew who the lady was, and they looked at one another with
+raised eyebrows and startled faces; but the others stared at her with an
+eager admiration, thinking that they had seldom seen anything so
+beautiful or so effective. Ste. Marie sat forward on the edge of his
+chair. His eyes sparkled, and he gave a little quick sigh of pleasurable
+excitement. This was drama, and very good drama, too, and he suspected
+that it might at any moment turn into a tragedy.
+
+He saw Captain Stewart, who had been among a group of people half-way
+across the room, turn his head to look when the cries and the applause
+ceased so suddenly, and he saw the man's face stiffen by swift degrees,
+all the joyous, buoyant life gone out of it, until it was yellow and
+rigid like a dead man's face; and Ste. Marie, out of his knowledge of
+the relations between these two people, nodded, en connaisseur, for he
+knew that the man was very badly frightened.
+
+So the host of the evening hung back, staring for what must have seemed
+to him a long and terrible time, though in reality it was but an
+instant; then he came forward quickly to greet the new-comer, and if his
+face was still yellow-white there was nothing in his manner but the
+courtesy habitual with him. He took the lady's hand, and she smiled at
+him, but her eyes did not smile--they were hard. Ste. Marie, who was the
+nearest of the others, heard Captain Stewart say:
+
+"This is an unexpected pleasure, my dearest Olga!"
+
+And to that the lady replied, more loudly: "Yes, I returned to Paris
+only to-day. You didn't know, of course. I heard you were entertaining
+this evening, and so I came, knowing that I should be welcome."
+
+"Always!" said Captain Stewart--"always more than welcome!"
+
+He nodded to one or two of the men who stood near, and when they
+approached presented them. Ste. Marie observed that he used the lady's
+true name--she had, at times, found occasion to employ others--and that
+he politely called her "Madame Nilssen" instead of "Mademoiselle." But
+at that moment the lady caught sight of Ste. Marie, and, crying out his
+name in a tone of delighted astonishment, turned away from the other
+men, brushing past them as if they had been furniture, and advanced
+holding out both her hands in greeting.
+
+"Dear Ste. Marie!" she exclaimed. "Fancy finding you here! I'm so glad!
+Oh, I'm so very glad! Take me away from these people! Find a corner
+where we can talk. Ah, there is one with a big seat! Allons-y!"
+
+She addressed him for the most part in English, which she spoke
+perfectly--as perfectly as she spoke French and German and, presumably,
+her native tongue, which must have been Swedish.
+
+They went to the broad, low seat, a sort of hard-cushioned bench, which
+stood against one of the walls, and made themselves comfortable there by
+the only possible means, which, owing to the width of the thing, was to
+sit far back with their feet stuck straight out before them. Captain
+Stewart had followed them across the room and showed a strong tendency
+to remain. Ste. Marie observed that his eyes were hard and bright and
+very alert, and that there were two bright spots of color in his yellow
+cheeks. It occurred to Ste. Marie that the man was afraid to leave him
+alone with Olga Nilssen, and he smiled to himself, reflecting that the
+lady, even if indiscreetly inclined, could tell him nothing--save in
+details--that he did not already know. But after a few rather awkward
+moments Mile. Nilssen waved an irritated hand.
+
+"Go away!" she said to her host. "Go away to your other guests! I want
+to talk to Ste. Marie. We have old times to talk over."
+
+And after hesitating awhile uneasily, Captain Stewart turned back into
+the room; but for some time thereafter Ste. Marie was aware that a
+vigilant eye was being kept upon them and that their host was by no
+means at his ease.
+
+When they were left alone together the girl turned to him and patted his
+arm affectionately. She said:
+
+"Ah, but it is very good to see you again, mon cher ami! It has been so
+long!" She gave an abrupt frown. "What are you doing here?" she
+demanded.
+
+And she said an unkind thing about her fellow-guests. She called them
+"canaille." She said:
+
+"Why are you wasting your time among these canaille? This is not a place
+for you. Why did you come?"
+
+"I don't know," said Ste. Marie. He was still a little resentful, and he
+said so. He said: "I didn't know it was going to be like this. I came
+because Stewart went rather out of his way to ask me. I'd known him in a
+very different milieu."
+
+"Ah, yes!" she said, reflectively. "Yes, he does go into the world also,
+doesn't he? But this is what he likes, you know." Her lips drew back for
+an instant, and she said: "He is a pig-dog!"
+
+Ste. Marie looked at her gravely. She had used that offensive name with
+a little too much fierceness. Her face had turned for an instant quite
+white, and her eyes had flashed out over the room a look that meant a
+great deal to any one who knew her as well as Ste. Marie did. He sat
+forward and lowered his voice. He said:
+
+"Look here, Olga! I'm going to be very frank for a moment. May I?"
+
+For just an instant the girl drew away from him with suspicion in her
+eyes, and something else, alertly defiant. Then she put out her hands to
+his arm.
+
+"You may be what you like, dear Ste. Marie," she said, "and say what you
+like. I will take it all--and swallow it alive--good as gold. What are
+you going to do to me?"
+
+"I've always been fair with you, haven't I?" he urged. "I've had
+disagreeable things to say or do, but--you knew always that I liked you
+and--where my sympathies were."
+
+"Always! Always, mon cher!" she cried. "I trusted you always in
+everything. And there is no one else I trust. No one! No one!--Ste.
+Marie!"
+
+"What then?" he asked.
+
+"Ste. Marie," she said, "why did you never fall in love with me, as the
+other men did?"
+
+"I wonder!" said he. "I don't know. Upon my word, I really don't know."
+
+He was so serious about it that the girl burst into a shriek of
+laughter. And in the end he laughed, too.
+
+"I expect it was because I liked you too well," he said, at last. "But
+come! We're forgetting my lecture. Listen to your grandpere Ste. Marie!
+I have heard--certain things--rumors--what you will. Perhaps they are
+foolish lies, and I hope they are. But if not, if the fear I saw in
+Stewart's face when you came here to-night, was--not without cause, let
+me beg you to have a care. You're much too savage, my dear child. Don't
+be so foolish as to--well, turn comedy into the other thing. In the
+first place, it's not worth while, and, in the second place, it recoils
+always. Revenge may be sweet. I don't know. But nowadays, with police
+courts and all that, it entails much more subsequent annoyance than it
+is worth. Be wise, Olga!"
+
+"Some things, Ste. Marie," said the golden lady, "are worth all the
+consequences that may follow them."
+
+She watched Captain Stewart across the room, where he stood chatting
+with a little group of people, and her beautiful face was as hard as
+marble and her eyes were as dark as a stormy night, and her mouth, for
+an instant, was almost like an animal's mouth--cruel and relentless.
+
+Ste. Marie saw, and he began to be a bit alarmed in good earnest. In his
+warning he had spoken rather more seriously than he felt the occasion
+demanded, but he began at last to wonder if the occasion was not in
+reality very serious, indeed. He was sure, of course, that Olga Nilssen
+had come here on this evening to annoy Captain Stewart in some fashion.
+As he put it to himself, she probably meant to "make a row," and he
+would not have been in the least surprised if she had made it in the
+beginning, upon her very dramatic entrance. Nothing more calamitous than
+that had occurred to him. But when he saw the woman's face turned a
+little away and gazing fixedly at Captain Stewart, he began to be aware
+that there was tragedy very near him--or all the makings of it.
+
+Mlle. Nilssen turned back to him. Her face was still hard, and her eyes
+dark and narrowed with their oddly Oriental look. She bent her shoulders
+together for an instant and her hands moved slowly in her lap,
+stretching out before her in a gesture very like a cat's when it wakes
+from sleep and yawns and extends its claws, as if to make sure that they
+are still there and ready for use.
+
+"I feel a little like Samson to-night," she said. "I am tired of almost
+everything, and I should like very much to pull the world down on top of
+me and kill everybody in it--except you, Ste. Marie, dear; except
+you!--and be crushed under the ruins!"
+
+"I think," said Ste. Marie, practically--and the speech sounded rather
+like one of Hartley's speeches--"I think it was not quite the world that
+Samson pulled down, but a temple--or a palace--something of that kind."
+
+"Well," said the golden lady, "this place is rather like a temple--a
+Chinese temple, with the pig-dog for high-priest."
+
+Ste. Marie frowned at her.
+
+"What are you going to do?" he demanded, sharply. "What did you come
+here to do? Mischief of some kind--bien entendu--but what?"
+
+"Do?" she said, looking at him with her narrowed eyes. "I? Why, what
+should I do? Nothing, of course! I merely said I should like to pull the
+place down. Of course, I couldn't do that quite literally, now, could I?
+No. It is merely a mood. I'm not going to do anything."
+
+"You're not being honest with me," he said.
+
+And at that her expression changed, and she patted his arm again with a
+gesture that seemed to beg forgiveness.
+
+"Well, then," she said, "if you must know, maybe I did come here for a
+purpose. I want to have it out with our friend Captain Stewart about
+something. And Ste. Marie, dear," she pleaded, "please, I think you'd
+better go home first. I don't care about these other animals, but I
+don't want you dragged into any row of any sort. Please be a sweet Ste.
+Marie and go home. Yes?"
+
+"Absolutely, no!" said Ste. Marie. "I shall stay, and I shall try my
+utmost to prevent you from doing anything foolish. Understand that! If
+you want to have rows with people, Olga, for Heaven's sake don't pick an
+occasion like this for the purpose. Have your rows in private!"
+
+"I rather think I enjoy an audience," she said, with a reflective air,
+and Ste. Marie laughed aloud because he knew that the naive speech was
+so very true. This lady, with her many good qualities and her bad
+ones--not a few, alas!--had an undeniable passion for red fire that had
+amused him very much on more than one past occasion.
+
+"Please go home!" she said once more.
+
+But when the man only shook his head, she raised her hands a little way
+and dropped them again in her lap, in an odd gesture which seemed to say
+that she had done all she could do, and that if anything disagreeable
+should happen now, and he should be involved in it, it would be entirely
+his fault because she had warned him.
+
+Then quite abruptly a mood of irresponsible gayety seemed to come upon
+her. She refused to have anything more to do with serious topics, and
+when Ste. Marie attempted to introduce them she laughed in his face. As
+she had said in the beginning she wished to do, she harked back to old
+days (the earlier stages of what might be termed the Morrison regime),
+and it seemed to afford her great delight to recall the happenings of
+that epoch. The conversation became a dialogue of reminiscence which
+would have been entirely unintelligible to a third person, and was,
+indeed, so to Captain Stewart, who once came across the room, made a
+feeble effort to attach himself, and presently wandered away again.
+
+They unearthed from the past an exceedingly foolish song all about one
+"Little Willie" and a purple monkey climbing up a yellow stick. It was
+set to a well-known air from _Don Giovanni_, and when Duval, the basso,
+heard them singing it he came up and insisted upon knowing what it was
+about. He laughed immoderately over the English words when he was told
+what they meant, and made Ste. Marie write them down for him on two
+visiting-cards. So they made a trio out of "Little Willie," the great
+Duval inventing a bass part quite marvellous in its ingenuity, and they
+were compelled to sing it over and over again, until Ste. Marie's
+falsetto imitation of a tenor voice cracked and gave out altogether,
+since he was by nature barytone, if anything at all.
+
+The other guests had crowded round to hear the extraordinary song, and
+when the song was at last finished several of them remained, so that
+Ste. Marie saw he was to be allowed an uninterrupted tete-a-tete with
+Olga Nilssen no longer. He therefore drifted away, after a few moments,
+and went with Duval and one of the other men across the room to look at
+some small jade objects--snuff-bottles, bracelets, buckles, and the
+like--which were displayed in a cabinet cleverly reconstructed out of a
+Japanese shrine. It was perhaps ten minutes later when he looked round
+the place and discovered that neither Mlle. Nilssen nor Captain Stewart
+was to be seen.
+
+His first thought was of relief, for he said to himself that the two had
+sensibly gone into one of the other rooms to "have it out" in peace and
+quiet. But following that came the recollection of the woman's face when
+she had watched her host across the room. Her words came back to him: "I
+feel a little like Samson to-night.... I should like very much to pull
+the world down on top of me and kill everybody in it!" Ste. Marie
+thought of these things, and he began to be uncomfortable. He found
+himself watching the yellow-hung doorway beyond, with its intricate
+Chinese carving of trees and rocks and little groups of immortals, and
+he found that unconsciously he was listening for something--he did not
+know what--above the chatter and laughter of the people in the room. He
+endured this for possibly five minutes, and all at once found that he
+could endure it no longer. He began to make his way quietly through the
+groups of people toward the curtained doorway.
+
+As he went, one of the women near by complained in a loud tone that the
+servant had disappeared. She wanted, it seemed, a glass of water, having
+already had many glasses of more interesting things. Ste. Marie said he
+would get it for her, and went on his way. He had an excuse now.
+
+He found himself in a square, dimly lighted room much smaller than the
+other. There was a round table in the centre, so he thought it must be
+Stewart's dining-room. At the left a doorway opened into a place where
+there were lights, and at the other side was another door closed. From
+the room at the left there came a sound of voices, and though they were
+not loud, one of them, Mlle. Olga Nilssen's voice, was hard and angry
+and not altogether under control. The man would seem to have been
+attempting to pacify her, and he would seem not to have been very
+successful.
+
+The first words that Ste. Marie was able to distinguish were from the
+woman. She said, in a low, fierce tone:
+
+"That is a lie, my friend! That is a lie! I know all about the road to
+Clamart, so you needn't lie to me any longer. It's no good."
+
+She paused for just an instant there, and in the pause St. Marie heard
+Stewart give a sort of inarticulate exclamation. It seemed to express
+anger and it seemed also to express fear. But the woman swept on, and
+her voice began to be louder. She said:
+
+"I've given you your chance. You didn't deserve it, but I've given it
+you--and you've told me nothing but lies. Well, you'll lie no more. This
+ends it."
+
+Upon that Ste. Marie heard a sudden stumbling shuffle of feet and a low,
+hoarse cry of utter terror--a cry more animal-like than human. He heard
+the cry break off abruptly in something that was like a cough and a
+whine together, and he heard the sound of a heavy body falling with a
+loose rattle upon the floor.
+
+With the sound of that falling body he had already reached the doorway
+and torn aside the heavy portiere. It was a sleeping-room he looked
+into, a room of medium size with two windows and an ornate bed of the
+Empire style set sidewise against the farther wall. There were electric
+lights upon imitation candles which were grouped in sconces against the
+wall, and these were turned on, so that the room was brightly
+illuminated. Midway between the door and the ornate Empire bed Captain
+Stewart lay huddled and writhing upon the floor, and Olga Nilssen stood
+upright beside him, gazing down upon him quite calmly. In her right
+hand, which hung at her side, she held a little flat black automatic
+pistol of the type known as Brownings--and they look like toys, but they
+are not.
+
+Ste. Marie sprang at her silently and caught her by the arm, twisting
+the automatic pistol from her grasp, and the woman made no effort
+whatever to resist him. She looked into his face quite frankly and
+unmoved, and she shook her head.
+
+"I haven't harmed him," she said. "I was going to, yes--and then
+myself--but he didn't give me a chance. He fell down in a fit." She
+nodded down toward the man who lay writhing at their feet. "I frightened
+him," she said, "and he fell in a fit. He's an epileptic, you know.
+Didn't you know that? Oh yes."
+
+Abruptly she turned away shivering, and put up her hands over her face.
+And she gave an exclamation of uncontrollable repulsion.
+
+"Ugh!" she cried, "it's horrible! Horrible! I can't bear to look. I saw
+him in a fit once before--long ago--and I couldn't bear even to speak to
+him for a month. I thought he had been cured. He said--Ah, it's
+horrible!"
+
+Ste. Marie had dropped upon his knees beside the fallen man, and Mlle.
+Nilssen said, over her shoulder:
+
+"Hold his head up from the floor, if you can bear to. He might hurt it."
+
+It was not an easy thing to do, for Ste. Marie had the natural sense of
+repulsion in such matters that most people have, and this man's
+appearance, as Olga Nilssen had said, was horrible. The face was drawn
+hideously, and in the strong, clear light of the electrics it was a
+deathly yellow. The eyes were half closed, and the eyeballs turned up so
+that only the whites of them showed between the lids. There was froth
+upon the distorted mouth, and it clung to the catlike mustache and to
+the shallow, sunken chin beneath. But Ste. Marie exerted all his will
+power, and took the jerking, trembling head in his hands, holding it
+clear of the floor.
+
+"You'd better call the servant," he said. "There may be something that
+can be done."
+
+But the woman answered, without looking:
+
+"No, there's nothing that can be done, I believe, except to keep him
+from bruising himself. Stimulants--that sort of thing--do more harm than
+good. Could you get him on the bed here?"
+
+"Together we might manage it," said Ste. Marie. "Come and help!"
+
+"I can't!" she cried, nervously. "I can't--touch him. Please, I can't do
+it."
+
+"Come!" said the man, in a sharp tone. "It's no time for nerves. I don't
+like it, either, but it's got to be done."
+
+The woman began a half-hysterical sobbing, but after a moment she turned
+and came with slow feet to where Stewart lay.
+
+Ste. Marie slipped his arms under the man's body and began to raise him
+from the floor.
+
+"You needn't help, after all," he said. "He's not heavy."
+
+And, indeed, under his skilfully shaped and padded clothes the man was a
+mere waif of a man--as unbelievably slight as if he were the victim of a
+wasting disease. Ste. Marie held the body in his arms as if it had been
+a child, and carried it across and laid it on the bed; but it was many
+months before he forgot the horror of that awful thing shaking and
+twitching in his hold, the head thumping hideously upon his shoulder,
+the arms and legs beating against him. It was the most difficult task he
+had ever had to perform. He laid Captain Stewart upon the bed and
+straightened the helpless limbs as best he could.
+
+"I suppose," he said, rising again--"I suppose when the man comes out of
+this he'll be frightfully exhausted and drop off to sleep, won't he?
+We'll have to--"
+
+He halted abruptly there, and for a single swift instant he felt the
+black and rushing sensation of one who is going to faint away. The wall
+behind the ornate Empire bed was covered with photographs, some in
+frames, others left, as they had been received, upon the large squares
+of weird cardboard which are termed "art mounts."
+
+"Come here a moment, quickly!" said Ste. Marie, in a sharp voice.
+
+Mlle. Nilssen's sobs had died down to a silent, spasmodic catching of
+the breath, but she was still much unnerved, and she approached the bed
+with obvious unwillingness, dabbing at her eyes with a handkerchief.
+Ste. Marie pointed to an unframed photograph which was fastened to the
+wall by thumb-tacks, and his outstretched hand shook as he pointed.
+Beneath them the other man still writhed and tumbled in his epileptic
+fit.
+
+"Do you know who that woman is?" demanded Ste. Marie, and his tone was
+such that Olga Nilssen turned slowly and stared at him.
+
+"That woman," said she, "is the reason why I wished to pull the world
+down upon Charlie Stewart and me to-night. That's who she is."
+
+Ste. Marie gave a sort of cry.
+
+"Who is she?" he insisted. "What is her name? I--have a particularly
+important reason for wanting to know. I've got to know."
+
+Mlle. Nilssen shook her head, still staring at him.
+
+"I can't tell you that," said she. "I don't know the name. I only know
+that--when he met her, he--I don't know her name, but I know where she
+lives and where he goes every day to see her--a house with a big garden
+and walled park on the road to Clamart. It's on the edge of the wood,
+not far from Fort d'Issy. The Clamart-Vanves-Issy tram runs past the
+wall of one side of the park. That's all I know."
+
+Ste. Marie clasped his head with his hands.
+
+"So near to it!" he groaned, "and yet--Ah!" He bent forward suddenly
+over the bed and spelled out the name of the photographer which was
+pencilled upon the brown cardboard mount. "There's still a chance," he
+said, "There's still one chance."
+
+He became aware that the woman was watching him curiously, and nodded to
+her.
+
+"It's something you don't know about," he explained. "I've got to find
+out who this--girl is. Perhaps the photographer can help me. I used to
+know him." All at once his eyes sharpened. "Tell me the simple truth
+about something!" said he. "If ever we have been friends, if you owe me
+any good office, tell me this: Do you know anything about young Arthur
+Benham's disappearance two months ago, or about what has become of him?"
+
+Again the woman shook her head.
+
+"No," said she. "Nothing at all. I hadn't even heard of it. Young Arthur
+Benham! I've met him once or twice. I wonder--I wonder Stewart never
+spoke to me about his disappearance! That's very odd."
+
+"Yes," said Ste. Marie, absently, "it is." He gave a little sigh. "I
+wonder about a good many things," said he.
+
+He glanced down upon the bed before them, and Captain Stewart lay still,
+save for a slight twitching of the hands. Once he moved his head
+restlessly from side to side and said something incoherent in a weak
+murmur.
+
+"He's out of it," said Olga Nilssen. "He'll sleep now, I think. I
+suppose we must get rid of those people and then leave him to the care
+of his man. A doctor couldn't do anything for him."
+
+"Yes," said Ste. Marie, nodding, "I'll call the servant and tell the
+people that Stewart has been taken ill."
+
+He looked once more toward the photograph on the wall, and under his
+breath he said, with an odd, defiant fierceness: "I won't believe it!"
+But he did not explain what he wouldn't believe. He started out of the
+room, but, half-way, halted and turned back. He looked Olga Nilssen full
+in the eyes, saying:
+
+"It is safe to leave you here with him while I call the servant?
+There'll be no more--?"
+
+But the woman gave a low cry and a violent shiver with it.
+
+"You need have no fear," she said. "I've no desire now to--harm him.
+The--reason is gone. This has cured me. I feel as if I could never bear
+to see him again. Oh, hurry! Please hurry! I want to get away from
+here!"
+
+Ste. Marie nodded, and went out of the room.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+XII
+
+THE NAME OF THE LADY WITH THE EYES--EVIDENCE HEAPS UP SWIFTLY
+
+
+Ste. Marie drove home to the rue d'Assas with his head in a whirl, and
+with a sense of great excitement beating somewhere within him--probably
+in the place where his heart ought to be. He had a curiously sure
+feeling that at last his feet were upon the right path. He could not
+have explained this to himself--indeed, there was nothing to explain,
+and if there had been he was in far too great an inner turmoil to manage
+it. It was a mere feeling--the sort of thing which he had once tried to
+express to Captain Stewart and had got laughed at for his pains.
+
+There was, in sober fact, no reason whatever why Captain Stewart's
+possession of a photograph of the beautiful lady whom Ste. Marie had
+once seen in company with O'Hara should be taken as significant of
+anything except an appreciation of beauty on the part of Miss Benham's
+uncle--not even if, as Mlle. Nilssen believed, Captain Stewart was in
+love with the lady. But to Ste. Marie, in his whirl of reawakened
+excitement, the discovery loomed to the skies, and in a series of
+ingenious but very vague leaps of the imagination he saw himself, with
+the aid of this new evidence (which was no evidence at all, if he had
+been calm enough to realize it), victorious in his great quest: leading
+young Arthur Benham back to the arms of an ecstatic family, and kneeling
+at the feet of that youth's sister to claim his reward. All of which
+seems a rather startling flight of the imagination to have had its
+beginning in the sight of one photograph of a young woman. But, then,
+Ste. Marie was imaginative if he was anything.
+
+He fell to thinking of this girl whose eyes, after one sight of them,
+had so long haunted him. He thought of her between those two men, the
+hard-faced Irish adventurer, and the other, Stewart, strange compound of
+intellectual and voluptuary, and his eyes flashed in the dark and he
+gripped his hands together upon his knees. He said again:
+
+"I won't believe it! I won't believe it!" Believe what? one wonders.
+
+He slept hardly at all: only, toward morning, falling into an uneasy
+doze. And in the doze he dreamed once more the dream of the dim, waste
+place and the hill, and the eyes and voice that called him back--because
+they needed him.
+
+As early as he dared, after his morning coffee, he took a fiacre and
+drove across the river to the Boulevard de la Madeleine, where he
+climbed a certain stair, at the foot of which were two glass cases
+containing photographs of, for the most part, well-known ladies of the
+Parisian stage. At the top of the stair he entered the reception-room of
+a young photographer who is famous now the world over, but who, at the
+beginning of his career, when he had nothing but talent and no
+acquaintance, owed certain of his most important commissions to M. Ste.
+Marie.
+
+The man, whose name was Bernstein, came forward eagerly from the studio
+beyond to greet his visitor, and Ste. Marie complimented him chaffingly
+upon his very sleek and prosperous appearance, and upon the new
+decorations of the little salon, which were, in truth, excellently well
+judged. But after they had talked for a little while of such matters, he
+said:
+
+"I want to know if you keep specimen prints of all the photographs you
+have made within the past few months, and, if so, I should like to see
+them."
+
+The young Jew went to a wooden portfolio-holder which stood in a corner,
+and dragged it out into the light.
+
+"I have them all here," said he--"everything that I have made within the
+past ten or twelve months. If you will let me draw up a chair you can
+look them over comfortably."
+
+He glanced at his former patron with a little polite curiosity as Ste.
+Marie followed his suggestion, and began to turn over the big
+portfolio's contents; but he did not show any surprise nor ask
+questions. Indeed, he guessed, to a certain extent, rather near the
+truth of the matter. It had happened before that young gentlemen--and
+old ones, too--wanted to look over his prints without offering
+explanations, and they generally picked out all the photographs there
+were of some particular lady and bought them if they could be bought.
+
+So he was by no means astonished on this occasion, and he moved about
+the room putting things to rights, and even went for a few moments into
+the studio beyond until he was recalled by a sudden exclamation from his
+visitor--an exclamation which had a sound of mingled delight and
+excitement.
+
+Ste. Marie held in his hands a large photograph, and he turned it toward
+the man who had made it.
+
+"I am going to ask you some questions," said he, "that will sound rather
+indiscreet and irregular, but I beg you to answer them if you can,
+because the matter is of great importance to a number of people. Do you
+remember this lady?"
+
+"Oh yes," said the Jew, readily, "I remember her very well. I never
+forget people who are as beautiful as this lady was." His eyes gleamed
+with retrospective joy. "She was splendid!" he declared. "Sumptuous! No,
+I cannot describe her. I have not the words. And I could not photograph
+her with any justice, either. She was all color: brown skin, with a
+dull-red stain under the cheeks, and a great mass of hair that was not
+black but very nearly black--except in the sun, and then there were red
+lights in it. She was a goddess, that lady, a queen of goddesses-- the
+young Juno before marriage--the--"
+
+"Yes," interrupted Ste. Marie--"yes, I see. Yes, quite evidently she was
+beautiful; but what I wanted in particular to know was her name, if you
+feel that you have a right to give it to me (I remind you again that the
+matter is very important), and any circumstances that you can remember
+about her coming here: who came with her, for instance and things of
+that sort."
+
+The photographer looked a little disappointed at being cut off in the
+middle of his rhapsody, but he began turning over the leaves of an
+order-book which lay upon a table near by.
+
+"Here is the entry," he said, after a few moments. "Yes, I thought so,
+the date was nearly three months ago--April 5th. And the lady's name was
+Mlle. Coira O'Hara."
+
+"What!" cried the other man, sharply. "What did you say?"
+
+"Mlle. Coira O'Hara was the name," repeated the photographer. "I
+remember the occasion perfectly. The lady came here with three
+gentlemen--one tall, thin gentleman with an eyeglass, an Englishman, I
+think, though he spoke very excellent French when he spoke to me. Among
+themselves they spoke, I think, English, though I do not understand it,
+except a few words, such as ''ow moch?' and 'sank you' and 'rady,
+pleas', now.'"
+
+"Yes! yes!" cried Ste. Marie, impatiently. And the little Jew could see
+that he was laboring under some very strong excitement, and he wondered
+mildly about it, scenting a love-affair.
+
+"Then," he pursued, "there was a very young man in strange clothes--a
+tourist, I should think, like those Americans and English who come in
+the summer with little red books and sit on the terrace of the Cafe de
+la Paix." He heard his visitor draw a swift, sharp breath at that, but
+he hurried on before he could be interrupted. "This young man seemed to
+be unable to take his eyes from the lady--and small wonder! He was very
+much epris--very much epris, indeed. Never have I seen a youth more so.
+Ah, it was something to see, that--a thing to touch the heart!"
+
+"What did the young man look like?" demanded Ste. Marie.
+
+The photographer described the youth as best he could from memory, and
+he saw his visitor nod once or twice, and at the end he said:
+
+"Yes, yes; I thought so. Thank you."
+
+The Jew did not know what it was the other thought, but he went on:
+
+"Ah, a thing to touch the heart! Such devotion as that! Alas, that the
+lady should seem so cold to it! Still, a goddess! What would you? A
+queen among goddesses. One would not have them laugh and make little
+jokes--make eyes at love-sick boys. No, indeed!" He shook his head
+rapidly and sighed.
+
+M. Ste. Marie was silent for a little space, but at length he looked up
+as if he had just remembered something.
+
+"And the third man?" he asked.
+
+"Ah, yes, the third gentleman," said Bernstein. "I had forgotten him.
+The third gentleman I knew well. He had often been here. It was he who
+brought these friends to me. He was M. le Capitaine Stewart. Everybody
+knows M. le Capitaine Stewart--everybody in Paris."
+
+Again he observed that his visitor drew a little, swift, sharp breath,
+and that he seemed to be laboring under some excitement.
+
+However, Ste. Marie did not question him further, and so he went on to
+tell the little more he knew of the matter--how the four people had
+remained for an hour or more, trying many poses; how they had returned,
+all but the tall gentleman, three days later to see the proofs and to
+order certain ones to be printed (the young man paying on the spot in
+advance), and how the finished prints had been sent to M. le Capitaine
+Stewart's address.
+
+When he had finished, his visitor sat for a long time silent, his head
+bent a little, frowning upon the floor and chafing his hands together
+over his knees. But at last he rose rather abruptly. He said:
+
+"Thank you very much, indeed. You have done me a great service. If ever
+I can repay it, command me. Thank you!"
+
+The Jew protested, smiling, that he was still too deeply in debt to M.
+Ste. Marie, and so, politely wrangling, they reached the door, and with
+a last expression of gratitude the visitor departed down the stair. A
+client came in just then for a sitting, and so the little photographer
+did not have an opportunity to wonder over the rather odd affair as much
+as he might have done. Indeed, in the press of work, it slipped from his
+mind altogether.
+
+But down in the busy boulevard Ste. Marie stood hesitating on the curb.
+There were so many things to be done, in the light of these new
+developments, that he did not know what to do first.
+
+"Mlle. Coira O'Hara!--_Mademoiselle!_" The thought gave him a sudden
+sting of inexplicable relief and pleasure. She would be O'Hara's
+daughter, then. And the boy, Arthur Benham (there was no room for doubt
+in the photographer's description) had seemed to be badly in love with
+her. This was a new development, indeed! It wanted thought, reflection,
+consultation with Richard Hartley. He signalled to a fiacre, and when it
+had drawn up before him sprang into it and gave Richard Hartley's
+address in the Avenue de l'Observatoire. But when they had gone a little
+way he changed his mind and gave another address, one in the Boulevard
+de la Tour Maubourg. It was where Mlle. Olga Nilssen lived. She had told
+him when he parted from her the evening before.
+
+On the way he fell to thinking of what he had learned from the little
+photographer Bernstein, to setting the facts, as well as he could, in
+order, endeavoring to make out just how much or how little they
+signified by themselves or added to what he had known before. But he was
+in far too keen a state of excitement to review them at all calmly. As
+on the previous evening, they seemed to him to loom to the skies, and
+again he saw himself successful in his quest--victorious--triumphant.
+That this leap to conclusions was but a little less absurd than the
+first did not occur to him. He was in a fine fever of enthusiasm, and
+such difficulties as his eye perceived lay in a sort of vague mist to be
+dissipated later on, when he should sit quietly down with Hartley and
+sift the wheat from the chaff, laying out a definite scheme of action.
+
+It occurred to him that in his interview with the photographer he had
+forgotten one point, and he determined to go back, later on, and ask
+about it. He had forgotten to inquire as to Captain Stewart's attitude
+toward the beautiful lady. Young Arthur Benham's infatuation had filled
+his mind at the time, and had driven out of it what Olga Nilssen had
+told him about Stewart. He found himself wondering if this point might
+not be one of great importance--the rivalry of the two men for O'Hara's
+daughter. Assuredly that demanded thought and investigation.
+
+He found the prettily furnished apartment in the Avenue de la Tour
+Maubourg a scene of great disorder, presided over by a maid who seemed
+to be packing enormous quantities of garments into large trunks. The
+maid told him that her mistress, after a sleepless night, had departed
+from Paris by an early train, quite alone, leaving the servant to follow
+on when she had telegraphed or written an address. No, Mlle. Nilssen had
+left no address at all--not even for letters or telegrams. In short, the
+entire proceeding was, so the exasperated woman viewed it, everything
+that is imbecile.
+
+Ste. Marie sat down on a hamper with his stick between his knees, and
+wrote a little note to be sent on when Mlle. Nilssen's whereabouts
+should be known. It was unfortunate, he reflected, that she should have
+fled away just now, but not of great importance to him, because he did
+not believe that he could learn very much more from her than he had
+learned already. Moreover, he sympathized with her desire to get away
+from Paris--as far away as possible from the man whom she had seen in so
+horrible a state on the evening past.
+
+He had kept the fiacre at the door, and he drove at once back to the rue
+d'Assas. As he started to mount the stair the concierge came out of her
+loge to say that Mr. Hartley had called soon after Monsieur had left the
+house that morning, had seemed very much disappointed on not finding
+Monsieur, and before going away again had had himself let into
+Monsieur's apartment with the key of the femme de menage, and had
+written a note which Monsieur would find la haut.
+
+Ste. Marie thanked the woman, and went on up to his rooms, wondering why
+Hartley had bothered to leave a note instead of waiting or returning at
+lunch-time, as he usually did. He found the communication on his table
+and read it at once. Hartley said:
+
+I have to go across the river to the Bristol to see some relatives who
+are turning up there to-day, and who will probably keep me until
+evening, and then I shall have to go back there to dine. So I'm leaving
+a word for you about some things I discovered last evening. I met Miss
+Benham at Armenonville, where I dined, and in a tete-a-tete conversation
+we had after dinner she let fall two facts which seem to me very
+important. They concern Captain S. In the first place, when he told us
+that day, some time ago, that he knew nothing about his father's will or
+any changes that might have been made in it, he lied. It seems that old
+David, shortly after the boy's disappearance, being very angry at what
+he considered, and still considers, a bit of spite on the boy's part,
+cut young Arthur Benham out of his will and transferred that share to
+_Captain S._ (Miss Benham learned this from the old man only yesterday).
+Also it appears that he did this after talking the matter over with
+Captain S., who affected unwillingness. So, as the will reads now, Miss
+B. and Captain S. stand to share equally the bulk of the old man's
+money, which is several millions--in dollars, of course. Miss B.'s
+mother is to have the interest of half of both shares as long as she
+lives. Now mark this: Prior to this new arrangement, Captain S. was to
+receive only a small legacy, on the ground that he already had a
+respectable fortune left him by his mother, old David's first wife (I've
+heard, by-the-way, that he has squandered a good share of this.)
+
+Miss B. is, of course, much cut up over the injustice to the boy, but
+she can't protest too much, as it only excites old David. She says the
+old man is much weaker.
+
+You see, of course, the significance of all this. If David Stewart dies,
+as he's likely to do, before young Arthur's return, Captain S. gets the
+money.
+
+The second fact I learned was that Miss Benham did not tell her uncle
+about her semi-engagement to you or about your volunteering to search
+for the boy. She thinks her grandfather must have told him. I didn't say
+so to her, but that is hardly possible in view of the fact that Stewart
+came on here to your rooms very soon after you had reached them
+yourself.
+
+So that makes two lies for our gentle friend--and serious lies, both of
+them. To my mind, they point unmistakably to a certain conclusion.
+_Captain S. has been responsible for putting his nephew out of the way_.
+He has either hidden him somewhere and is keeping him in confinement, or
+he has killed him.
+
+I wish we could talk it over to-day, but, as you see, I'm helpless.
+Remain in to-night, and I'll come as soon as I can get rid of these
+confounded people of mine.
+
+One word more. Be careful! Miss B. is, up to this point, merely puzzled
+over things. She doesn't suspect her uncle of any crookedness, I'm sure.
+So we shall have to tread softly where she is concerned.
+
+I shall see you to-night. R.H.
+
+Ste. Marie read the closely written pages through twice, and he thought
+how like his friend it was to take the time and trouble to put what he
+had learned into this clear, concise form. Another man would have
+scribbled, "Important facts--tell you all about it to-night," or
+something of that kind. Hartley must have spent a quarter of an hour
+over his writing.
+
+Ste. Marie walked up and down the room with all his strength forcing his
+brain to quiet, reasonable action. Once he said, aloud:
+
+"Yes, you're right, of course. Stewart has been at the bottom of it all
+along." He realized that he had been for some days slowly arriving at
+that conclusion, and that since the night before he had been practically
+certain of it, though he had not yet found time to put his suspicions
+into logical order. Hartley's letter had driven the truth concretely
+home to him, but he would have reached the same truth without it--though
+that matter of the will was of the greatest importance. It gave him a
+strong weapon to strike with.
+
+He halted before one of the front windows, and his eyes gazed unseeing
+across the street into the green shrubbery of the Luxembourg Gardens.
+The lace curtains had been left by the femme de menage hanging straight
+down, and not, as usual, looped back to either side, so he could see
+through them with perfect ease, although he could not be seen from
+outside.
+
+He became aware that a man who was walking slowly up and down a path
+inside the high iron palings was in some way familiar to him, and his
+eyes sharpened. The man was inconspicuously dressed, and looked like
+almost any other man whom one might pass in the streets without taking
+any notice of him; but Ste. Marie knew that he had seen him often, and
+he wondered how and where. There was a row of lilac shrubs against the
+iron palings just inside and between the palings and the path, but two
+of the shrubs were dead and leafless, and each time the man passed this
+spot he came into plain view; each time, also, he directed an oblique
+glance toward the house opposite. Presently he turned aside and sat down
+upon one of the public benches, where he was almost, but not quite,
+hidden by the intervening foliage.
+
+Then at last Ste. Marie gave a sudden exclamation and smote his hands
+together.
+
+"The fellow's a spy!" he cried, aloud. "He's watching the house to see
+when I go out." He began to remember how he had seen the man in the
+street and in cafes and restaurants, and he remembered that he had once
+or twice thought it odd, but without any second thought of suspicion. So
+the fellow had been set to spy upon him, watch his goings and comings
+and report them to--no need of asking to whom.
+
+Ste. Marie stood behind his curtains and looked across into the pleasant
+expanse of shrubbery and greensward. He was wondering if it would be
+worth while to do anything. Men and women went up and down the path,
+hurrying or slowly, at ease with the world--laborers, students, bonnes
+with market-baskets in their hands and long bread loaves under their
+arms, nurse-maids herding small children, bigger children spinning
+diabolo spools as they walked. A man with a pointed black beard and a
+soft hat passed once and returned to seat himself upon the public bench
+that Ste. Marie was watching. For some minutes he sat there idle,
+holding the soft felt hat upon his knees for coolness. Then he turned
+and looked at the other occupant of the bench, and Ste. Marie thought he
+saw the other man nod, though he could not be sure whether either one
+spoke or not. Presently the new-comer rose, put on the soft hat again,
+and disappeared down the path going toward the gate at the head of the
+rue du Luxembourg.
+
+Five minutes later the door-bell rang.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+XIII
+
+THE VOYAGE TO COLCHIS
+
+
+Ste. Marie turned away from the window and crossed to the door. The man
+with the pointed beard removed his soft hat, bowed very politely, and
+asked if he had the honor to address M. Ste. Marie.
+
+"That is my name," said Ste. Marie. "Entrez, Monsieur!" He waved his
+visitor to a chair and stood waiting.
+
+The man with the beard bowed once more. He said:
+
+"I have not the great honor of Monsieur's acquaintance, but
+circumstances, which I will explain later, have put it in my power--have
+made it a sacred duty, if I may be permitted to say the word--to place
+in Monsieur's hands a piece of information."
+
+Ste. Marie smiled slightly and sat down. He said:
+
+"I listen with pleasure--and anticipation. Pray go on!"
+
+"I have information," said the visitor, "of the whereabouts of M. Arthur
+Benham."
+
+Ste. Marie waved his hand.
+
+"I feared as much," said he. "I mean to say, I hoped so. Proceed,
+Monsieur!"
+
+"And learning," continued the other, "that M. Ste. Marie was conducting
+a search for that young gentleman, I hastened at once to place this
+information in his hands."
+
+"At a price," suggested his host. "At a price, to be sure."
+
+The man with the beard spread out his hands in a beautiful and eloquent
+gesture which well accompanied his Marseillais accent.
+
+"Ah, as to that!" he protested. "My circumstances--I am poor, Monsieur.
+One must gain the livelihood. What would you? A trifle. The merest
+trifle."
+
+"Where is Arthur Benham?" asked Ste. Marie.
+
+"In Marseilles, Monsieur. I saw him a week ago--six days. And, so far as
+I could learn, he had no intention of leaving there immediately--though
+it is, to be sure, hot."
+
+Ste. Marie laughed a laugh of genuine amusement, and the man with the
+pointed beard stared at him with some wonder. Ste. Marie rose and
+crossed the room to a writing-desk which stood against the opposite
+wall. He fumbled in a drawer of this, and returned holding in his hand a
+pink-and-blue note of the Banque de France. He said:
+
+"Monsieur--pardon! I have forgotten to ask the name--you have remarked
+quite truly that one must gain a livelihood. Therefore, I do not presume
+to criticise the way in which you gain yours. Sometimes one cannot
+choose. However, I should like to make a little bargain with you,
+Monsieur. I know, of course, being not altogether imbecile, who sent you
+here with this story and why you were sent--why, also, your friend who
+sits upon the bench in the garden across the street follows me about and
+spies upon me. I know all this, and I laugh at it a little. But,
+Monsieur, to amuse myself further, I have a desire to hear from your own
+lips the name of the gentleman who is your employer. Amusement is almost
+always expensive, and so I am prepared to pay for this. I have here a
+note of one hundred francs. It is yours in return for the name--the
+_right_ name. Remember, I know it already."
+
+The man with the pointed beard sprang to his feet quivering with
+righteous indignation. All Southern Frenchmen, like all other Latins,
+are magnificent actors. He shook one clinched hand in the air, his face
+was pale, and his fine eyes glittered. Richard Hartley would have put
+himself promptly in an attitude of defence, but Ste. Marie nodded a
+smiling head in appreciation. He was half a Southern Frenchman himself.
+
+"Monsieur!" cried his visitor, in a choked voice, "Monsieur, have a
+care! You insult me! Have a care, Monsieur! I am dangerous! My anger,
+when roused, is terrible!"
+
+"I am cowed," observed Ste. Marie, lighting a cigarette. "I quail."
+
+"Never," declaimed the gentleman from Marseilles, "have I received an
+insult without returning blow for blow! My blood boils!"
+
+"The hundred francs, Monsieur," said Ste. Marie, "will doubtless cool
+it. Besides, we stray from our sheep. Reflect, my friend! I have not
+insulted you. I have asked you a simple question. To be sure, I have
+said that I knew your errand here was not--not altogether sincere, but I
+protest, Monsieur, that no blame attaches to yourself. The blame is your
+employer's. You have performed your mission with the greatest of
+honesty--the most delicate and faithful sense of honor. That is
+understood."
+
+The gentleman with the beard strode across to one of the windows and
+leaned his head upon his hand. His shoulders still heaved with emotion,
+but he no longer trembled. The terrible crisis bade fair to pass. Then,
+abruptly, in the frank and open Latin way, he burst into tears, and wept
+with copious profusion, while Ste. Marie smoked his cigarette and
+waited.
+
+When at length the Marseillais turned back into the room he was calm
+once more, but there remained traces of storm and flood. He made a
+gesture of indescribable and pathetic resignation.
+
+"Monsieur," he exclaimed, "you have a heart of gold--of gold, Monsieur!
+You understand. Behold us, two men of honor! Monsieur," he said, "I had
+no choice. I was poor. I saw myself face to face with the misere. What
+would you? I fell. We are all weak flesh. I accepted the commission of
+the pig who sent me here to you."
+
+Ste. Marie smoothed the pink-and-blue bank-note in his hands, and the
+other man's eye clung to it as though he were starving and the bank-note
+was food.
+
+"The name?" prompted Ste. Marie.
+
+The gentleman from Marseilles tossed up his hands.
+
+"Monsieur already knows it. Why should I hesitate? The name is Ducrot."
+
+"What!" cried Ste. Marie, sharply. "What is that? Ducrot?"
+
+"But naturally!" said the other man, with some wonder. "Monsieur said he
+knew. Certainly, Ducrot. A little, withered man, bald on the top of the
+head, creases down the cheeks, a mustache like this"--he made a
+descriptive gesture--"a little chin. A man like an elderly cat. M.
+Ducrot."
+
+Ste. Marie gave a sigh of relief.
+
+"Yes, yes," said he. "Ducrot is as good a name as another. The gentleman
+has more than one, it appears. Monsieur, the hundred-franc note is
+yours."
+
+The gentleman from Marseilles took it with a slightly trembling hand,
+and began to bow himself toward the door as if he feared that his host
+would experience a change of heart; but Ste. Marie checked him, saying:
+
+"One moment. I was thinking," said he, "that you would perhaps not care
+to present yourself to your--employer, M. Ducrot, immediately--not for a
+few days, at least, in view of the fact that certain actions of mine
+will show him your mission has--well, miscarried. It would, perhaps, be
+well for you not to communicate with M. Ducrot. He might be displeased
+with you."
+
+"Monsieur," said the gentleman with the beard, "you speak with acumen
+and wisdom. I shall neglect to report myself to M. Ducrot, who, I
+repeat, is a pig."
+
+"And," pursued Ste. Marie, "the individual on the bench across the
+street?"
+
+"It is not necessary that I meet that individual, either!" said the
+Marseillais, hastily. "Monsieur, I bid you adieu!" He bowed again, a
+profound, a scraping bow, and disappeared through the door.
+
+Ste. Marie crossed to the window and looked down upon the pavement
+below. He saw his late visitor emerge from the house and slip rapidly
+down the street toward the rue Vavin. He glanced across into the gardens
+and the spy still sat there on his bench, but his head lay back and he
+slept--the sleep of the unjust. One imagined that he must be snoring,
+for an incredibly small urchin in a blue apron stood on the path before
+him and watched with the open mouth of astonishment.
+
+Ste. Marie turned back into the room, and began to tramp up and down as
+was his way in a perplexity or in any time of serious thought. He wished
+very much that Richard Hartley were there to consult with. He considered
+Hartley to have a judicial mind--a mind to establish, out of confusion,
+something like logical order, and he was very well aware that he himself
+had not that sort of mind at all. In action he was sufficiently
+confident of himself, but to construct a course of action he was afraid,
+and he knew that a misstep now, at this critical point, might be
+fatal--turn success into disaster.
+
+He fell to thinking of Captain Stewart (alias M. Ducrot) and he longed
+most passionately to leap into a fiacre at the corner below, to drive at
+a gallop across the city to the rue du Faubourg St. Honore, to fall upon
+that smiling hypocrite in his beautiful treasure-house, to seize him by
+the withered throat and say:
+
+"Tell me what you have done with Arthur Benham before I tear your head
+from your miserable body!"
+
+Indeed, he was far from sure that this was not what it would come to, in
+the end, for he reflected that he had not only a tremendous accumulation
+of evidence with which to face Captain Stewart, but also a very terrible
+weapon to hold over his head--the threat of exposure to the old man who
+lay slowly dying in the rue de l'Universite! A few words in old David's
+ear, a few proofs of their truth, and the great fortune for which the
+son had sold his soul--if he had any left to sell--must pass forever out
+of his reach, like gold seen in a dream.
+
+This is what it might well come to, he said to himself. Indeed, it
+seemed to him at that moment far the most feasible plan, for to such
+accusations, such demands as that, Captain Stewart could offer no
+defence. To save himself from a more complete ruin he would have to give
+up the boy or tell what he knew of him. But Ste. Marie was unwilling to
+risk everything on this throw without seeing Richard Hartley first, and
+Hartley was not to be had until evening.
+
+He told himself that, after all, there was no immediate hurry, for he
+was quite sure the man would be compelled to keep to his bed for a day
+or two. He did not know much about epilepsy, but he knew that its
+paroxysms were followed by great exhaustion, and he felt sure that
+Stewart was far too weak in body to recuperate quickly from any severe
+call upon his strength. He remembered how light that burden had been in
+his arms the night before, and then an uncontrollable shiver of disgust
+went over him as he remembered the sight of the horribly twisted and
+contorted face, felt again the shaking, thumping head as it beat against
+his shoulder. He wondered how much Stewart knew, how much he would be
+able to remember of the events of the evening before, and he was at a
+loss there because of his unfamiliarity with epileptic seizures. Of one
+thing, however, he was almost certain, and that was that the man could
+scarcely have been conscious of who were beside him when the fit was
+over. If he had come at all to his proper senses before the ensuing
+slumber of exhaustion, it must have been after Mlle. Nilssen and himself
+had gone away.
+
+Upon that he fell to wondering about the spy and the gentleman from
+Marseilles--he was a little sorry that Hartley could not have seen the
+gentleman from Marseilles--but he reflected that the two were, without
+doubt, acting upon old orders, and that the latter had probably been
+stalking him for some days before he found him at home.
+
+He looked at his watch and it was half-past twelve. There was nothing to
+be done, he considered, but wait--get through the day somehow; and so,
+presently, he went out to lunch. He went up the rue Vavin to the
+Boulevard Montparnasse and down that broad thoroughfare to Lavenue's, on
+the busy Place de Rennes, where the cooking is the best in all this
+quarter, and can, indeed, hold up its head without shame in the face of
+those other more widely famous restaurants across the river, frequented
+by the smart world and by the travelling gourmet.
+
+He went through to the inner room, which is built like a raised loggia
+round two sides of a little garden, and which is always cool and fresh
+in summer. He ordered a rather elaborate lunch, and thought that he sat
+a very long time at it, but when he looked again at his watch only an
+hour and a half had gone by. It was a quarter-past two. Ste. Marie was
+depressed. There remained almost all of the afternoon to be got through,
+and Heaven alone could say how much of the evening, before he could have
+his consultation with Richard Hartley. He tried to think of some way of
+passing the time, but although he was not usually at a loss he found his
+mind empty of ideas. None of his common occupations recommended
+themselves to him. He knew that whatever he tried to do he would
+interrupt it with pulling out his watch every half-hour or so and
+cursing the time because it lagged so slowly. He went out to the terrace
+for coffee, very low in his mind.
+
+But half an hour later, as he sat behind his little marble-topped table,
+smoking and sipping a liqueur, his eyes fell upon something across the
+square which brought him to his feet with a sudden exclamation. One of
+the big electric trams that ply between the Place St. Germain des Pres
+and Clamart, by way of the Porte de Versailles and Vanves, was dragging
+its unwieldy bulk round the turn from the rue de Rennes into the
+boulevard. He could see the sign-board along the imperiale--"Clamart-St.
+Germain des Pres," with "Issy" and "Vanves" in brackets between.
+
+Ste. Marie clinked a franc upon the table and made off across the Place
+at a run. Omnibuses from Batignolles and Menilmontant got in his way,
+fiacres tried to run him down, and a motor-car in a hurry pulled up just
+in time to save his life, but Ste. Marie ran on and caught the tram
+before it had completed the negotiation of the long curve and gathered
+speed for its dash down the boulevard. He sprang upon the step, and the
+conductor reluctantly unfastened the chain to admit him. So he climbed
+up to the top and seated himself, panting. The dial high on the facade
+of the Gare Montparnasse said ten minutes to three.
+
+He had no definite plan of action. He had started off in this headlong
+fashion upon the spur of a moment's impulse, and because he knew where
+the tram was going. Now, embarked, he began to wonder if he was not a
+fool. He knew every foot of the way to Clamart, for it was a favorite
+half-day's excursion with him to ride there in this fashion, walk thence
+through the beautiful Meudon wood across to the river, and from Bellevue
+or Bas-Meudon take a Suresnes boat back into the city. He knew, or
+thought he knew, just where lay the house, surrounded by garden and
+half-wild park, of which Olga Nilssen had told him; he had often
+wondered whose place it was as the tram rolled along the length of its
+high wall. But he knew, also, that he could do nothing there,
+single-handed and without excuse or preparation. He could not boldly
+ring the bell, demand speech with Mile. Coira O'Hara, and ask her if she
+knew anything of the whereabouts of young Arthur Benham, whom a
+photographer had suspected of being in love with her. He certainly could
+not do that. And there seemed to be nothing else that--Ste. Marie broke
+off this somewhat despondent course of reasoning with a sudden little
+voiceless cry. For the first time it occurred to him to connect the
+house on the Clamart road and Mlle. Coira O'Hara and young Arthur Benham
+(it will be remembered that the man had not yet had time to arrange his
+suddenly acquired mass of evidence in logical order and to make
+deductions from it), for the first time he began to put two and two
+together. Stewart had hidden away his nephew; this nephew was known to
+have been much enamoured of the girl Coira O'Hara; Coira O'Hara was said
+to be living--with her father, probably--in the house on the outskirts
+of Paris, where she was visited by Captain Stewart. Was not the
+inference plain enough--sufficiently reasonable? It left, without doubt,
+many puzzling things to be explained--perhaps too many; but Ste. Marie
+sat forward in his seat, his eyes gleaming, his face tense with
+excitement.
+
+"Is young Arthur Benham in the house on the Clamart road?"
+
+He said the words almost aloud, and he became aware that the fat woman
+with a live fowl at her feet and the butcher's boy on his other side
+were looking at him curiously. He realized that he was behaving in an
+excited manner, and so sat back and lowered his eyes. But over and over
+within him the words said themselves--over and over, until they made a
+sort of mad, foolish refrain.
+
+"Is Arthur Benham in the house on the Clamart road? Is Arthur Benham in
+the house on the Clamart road?" He was afraid that he would say it aloud
+once more, and, he tried to keep a firm hold upon himself.
+
+The tram swung into the rue de Sevres, and rolled smoothly out the long,
+uninteresting stretch of the rue Lecourbe, far out to where the houses,
+became scattered, where mounds and pyramids of red tiles stood alongside
+the factory where they had been made, where an acre of little glass
+hemispheres in long, straight rows winked and glistened in the afternoon
+sun--the forcing-beds of some market gardener; out to the Porte de
+Versailles at the city wall, where a group of customs officers sprawled
+at ease before their little sentry-box or loafed over to inspect an
+incoming tram.
+
+A bugle sounded and a drum beat from the great fosse under the wall, and
+a company of piou-pious, red-capped, red-trousered, shambled through
+their evolutions in a manner to break the heart of a British or a German
+drill-sergeant. Then out past level fields to little Vanves, with its
+steep streets and its old gray church, and past the splendid grounds of
+the Lycee beyond. The fat woman got down, her live fowl shrieking
+protest to the movement, and the butcher's boy got down, too, so that
+Ste. Marie was left alone upon the imperiale save for a snuffy old
+gentleman in a pot-hat who sat in a corner buried behind the day's
+_Droits de l'Homme_.
+
+Ste. Marie moved forward once more and laid his arms upon the iron rail
+before him. They were coming near. They ran past plum and apple orchards
+and past humble little detached villas, each with a bit of garden in
+front and an acacia or two at the gate-posts. But presently, on the
+right, the way began to be bordered by a high stone wall, very long,
+behind which showed the trees of a park, and among them, far back from
+the wall beyond a little rise of ground, the gables and chimneys of a
+house could be made out. The wall went on for perhaps a quarter of a
+mile in a straight sweep, but half-way the road swung apart from it to
+the left, dipped under a stone railway bridge, and so presently ended at
+the village of Clamart.
+
+As the tram approached the beginning of that long stone wall it began to
+slacken speed, there was a grating noise from underneath, and presently
+it came to an abrupt halt. Ste. Marie looked over the guard-rail and saw
+that the driver had left his place and was kneeling in the dust beside
+the car peering at its underworks. The conductor strolled round to him
+after a moment and stood indifferently by, remarking upon the strange
+vicissitudes to which electrical propulsion is subject. The driver,
+without looking up, called his colleague a number of the most surprising
+and, it is to be hoped, unwarranted names, and suddenly began to burrow
+under the tram, wriggling his way after the manner of a serpent until
+nothing could be seen of him but two unrestful feet. His voice, though
+muffled, was still tolerably distinct. It cursed, in an unceasing
+staccato and with admirable ingenuity, the tram, the conductor, the
+sacred dog of an impediment which had got itself wedged into one of the
+trucks, and the world in general.
+
+Ste. Marie, sitting aloft, laughed for a moment, and then turned his
+eager eyes upon what lay across the road. The halt had taken place
+almost exactly at the beginning of that long stretch of park wall which
+ran beside the road and the tramway. From where he sat he could see the
+other wing which led inward from the road at something like a right
+angle, but was presently lost to sight because of a sparse and unkempt
+patch of young trees and shrubs, well-nigh choked with undergrowth,
+which extended for some distance from the park wall backward along the
+road-side toward Vanves. Whoever owned that stretch of land had
+seemingly not thought it worth while to cultivate it or to build upon it
+or even to clear it off.
+
+Ste. Marie's first thought, as his eye scanned the two long stretches of
+wall and looked over their tops to the trees of the park and the far-off
+gables and chimneys of the house, was to wonder where the entrance to
+the place could be, and he decided that it must be on the side opposite
+to the Clamart tram-line. He did not know the smaller roads hereabouts,
+but he guessed that there must be one somewhere beyond, between the
+route de Clamart and Fort d'Issy, and he was right. There is a little
+road between the two; it sweeps round in a long curve and ends near the
+tiny public garden in Issy, and it is called the rue Barbes.
+
+His second thought was that this unkempt patch of tree and brush offered
+excellent cover for any one who might wish to pass an observant hour
+alongside that high stone wall; for any one who might desire to cast a
+glance over the lie of the land, to see at closer range that house of
+which so little could be seen from the route de Clamart, to look over
+the wall's coping into park and garden.
+
+The thought brought him to his feet with a leaping heart, and before he
+realized that he had moved he found himself in the road beside the
+halted tram. The conductor brushed past him, mounting to his place, and
+from the platform beckoned, crying out:
+
+"En voiture, Monsieur! En voiture!"
+
+Again something within Ste. Marie that was not his conscious direction
+acted for him, and he shook his head. The conductor gave two little
+blasts upon his horn, the tram wheezed and moved forward. In a moment it
+was on its way, swinging along at full speed toward the curve in the
+line that bore to the left and dipped under the railway bridge. Ste.
+Marie stood in the middle of that empty road, staring after it until it
+had disappeared from view.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+XIV
+
+THE WALLS OF AEA
+
+
+Ste. Marie had acted upon an impulse of which he was scarcely conscious
+at all, and when he found himself standing alone in the road and
+watching the Clamart tram disappear under the railway bridge he called
+himself hard names and wondered what he was to do next. He looked before
+and behind him, and there was no living soul in sight. He bent his eyes
+again upon that unkempt patch of young trees and undergrowth, and once
+more the thought forced itself to his brain that it would make excellent
+cover for one who wished to observe a little--to reconnoitre.
+
+He knew that it was the part of wisdom to turn his back upon this place,
+to walk on to Clamart or return to Vanves and mount upon a
+homeward-bound tram. He knew that it was the part of folly, of madness
+even, to expose himself to possible discovery by some one within the
+walled enclosure. What though no one there were able to recognize him,
+still the sight of a man prowling about the walls, seeking to spy over
+them, might excite an alarm that would lead to all sorts of undesirable
+complications. Dimly Ste. Marie realized all this, and he tried to turn
+his back and walk away, but the patch of little trees and shrubbery drew
+him with an irresistible fascination. "Just a little look along that
+unknown wall," he said to himself, "just the briefest of all brief
+reconnaissances, the merest glance beyond the masking screen of wood
+growth, so that in case of sudden future need he might have the lie of
+the place clear in his mind;" for without any sound reason for it he was
+somehow confident that this walled house and garden were to play an
+important part in the rescue of Arthur Benham. It was once more a matter
+of feeling. The rather womanlike intuition which had warned him that
+O'Hara was concerned in young Benham's disappearance, and that the two
+were not far from Paris, was again at work in him, and he trusted it as
+he had done before.
+
+He gave a little nod of determination, as one who, for good or ill,
+casts a die, and he crossed the road. There was a deep ditch, and he had
+to climb down into it and up its farther side, for it was too broad to
+be jumped. So he came into the shelter of the young poplars and elms and
+oaks. The underbrush caught at his clothes, and the dead leaves of past
+seasons crackled underfoot; but after a little space he came to somewhat
+clearer ground, though the saplings still stood thick about him and hid
+him securely.
+
+He made his way inward along the wall, keeping a short distance back
+from it, and he saw that after twenty or thirty yards it turned again at
+a very obtuse angle away from him and once more ran on in a long
+straight line. Just beyond this angle he came upon a little wooden door
+thickly studded with nails. It was made to open inward, and on the
+outside there was no knob or handle of any kind, only a large key-hole
+of the simple, old-fashioned sort. Slipping up near to look, Ste. Marie
+observed that the edges of the key-hole were rusty, but scratched a
+little through the rust with recent marks; so the door, it seemed, was
+sometimes used. He observed another thing. The ground near by was less
+encumbered with trees than at any other point, and the turf was
+depressed with many wheel marks--broad marks, such as are made only by
+the wheels of a motor-car. He followed these tracks for a little
+distance, and they wound in and out among the trees, and beyond the thin
+fringe of wood swept away in a curve toward Issy, doubtless to join the
+road which he had already imagined to lie somewhere beyond the
+enclosure.
+
+Beyond the more open space about this little door the young trees stood
+thick together again, and Ste. Marie pressed cautiously on. He stopped
+now and then to listen, and once he thought that he heard from within
+the sound of a woman's laugh, but he could not be sure. The slight
+change of direction had confused him a little, and he was uncertain as
+to where the house lay. The wall was twelve or fifteen feet high, and
+from the level of the ground he could, of course, see nothing over it
+but tree tops. He went on for what may have been a hundred yards, but it
+seemed to him very much more than that, and he came to a tall gnarled
+cedar-tree which stood almost against the high wall. It was half dead,
+but its twisted limbs were thick and strong, and by force of the tree's
+cramped position they had grown in strange and grotesque forms. One of
+them stretched across the very top of the stone wall, and with the
+wind's action it had scraped away the coping of tiles and bottle-glass
+and had made a little depression there to rest in.
+
+Ste. Marie looked up along this natural ladder, and temptation smote him
+sorely. It was so easy and so safe! There was enough foliage left upon
+the half-dead tree to screen him well, but whether or no it is probable
+that he would have yielded to the proffered lure. There seems to have
+been more than chance in Ste. Marie's movements upon this day; there
+seems to have been something like the hand of Fate in them--as doubtless
+there is in most things, if one but knew.
+
+He left his hat and stick behind him, under a shrub, and he began to
+make his way up the half-bare branches of the gnarled cedar. They bore
+him well, without crack or rustle, and the way was very easy. No ladder
+made by man could have offered a much simpler ascent. So, mounting
+slowly and with care, his head came level with the top of the wall. He
+climbed to the next branch, a foot higher, and rested there. The
+drooping foliage from the upper part of the cedar-tree, which was still
+alive, hung down over him and cloaked him from view, but through its
+aromatic screen he could see as freely as through the window curtain in
+the rue d'Assas.
+
+The house lay before him, a little to the left and perhaps a hundred
+yards away. It was a disappointing house to find in that great
+enclosure, for though it was certainly neither small nor trivial, it was
+as certainly far from possessing anything like grandeur. It had been in
+its day a respectable, unpretentious square structure of three stories,
+entirely without architectural beauty, but also entirely without the
+ornate hideousness of the modern villas along the route de Clamart. Now,
+however, the stucco was gone in great patches from its stone walls,
+giving them an unpleasantly diseased look, and long neglect of all
+decent cares had lent the place the air almost of desertion. Anciently
+the grounds before the house had been laid out in the formal fashion
+with a terrace and geometrical lawns and a pool and a fountain and a
+rather fine, long vista between clipped larches, but the same neglect
+which had made shabby the stuccoed house had allowed grass and weeds to
+grow over the gravel paths, underbrush to spring up and to encroach upon
+the geometrical turf-plots, the long double row of clipped larches to
+flourish at will or to die or to fall prostrate and lie where they had
+fallen.
+
+So all the broad enclosure was a scene of heedless neglect, a riot of
+unrestrained and wanton growth, where should have been decorous and
+orderly beauty. It was a sight to bring tears to a gardener's eyes, but
+it had a certain untamed charm of its own, for all that. The very riot
+of it, the wanton prodigality of untouched natural growth, produced an
+effect that was by no means all disagreeable.
+
+An odd and whimsical thought came into Ste. Marie's mind that thus must
+have looked the garden and park round the castle of the sleeping beauty
+when the prince came to wake her.
+
+But sleeping beauties and unkempt grounds went from him in a flash when
+he became aware of a sound which was like the sound of voices.
+Instinctively he drew farther back into the shelter of his aromatic
+screen. His eyes swept the space below him from right to left, and could
+see no one. So he sat very still, save for the thunderous beat of a
+heart which seemed to him like drum-beats when soldiers are marching,
+and he listened--"all ears," as the phrase goes.
+
+The sound was in truth a sound of voices. He was presently assured of
+that, but for some time he could not make out from which direction it
+came. And so he was the more startled when quite suddenly there appeared
+from behind a row of tall shrubs two young people moving slowly together
+up the untrimmed turf in the direction of the house.
+
+The two young people were Mlle. Coira O'Hara and Arthur Benham, and upon
+the brow of this latter youth there was no sign of dungeon pallor, upon
+his free-moving limbs no ball and chain. There was no apparent reason
+why he should not hasten back to the eager arms in the rue de
+l'Universite if he chose to--unless, indeed, his undissembling attitude
+toward Mlle. Coira O'Hara might serve as a reason. The young man
+followed at her heel with much the manner and somewhat the appearance of
+a small dog humbly conscious of unworthiness, but hopeful nevertheless
+of an occasional kind word or pat on the head.
+
+The world wheeled multi-colored and kaleidoscopic before Ste. Marie's
+eyes, and in his ears there was a rushing of great winds, but he set his
+teeth and clung with all the strength he had to the tree which sheltered
+him. His first feeling, after that initial giddiness, was anger, sheer
+anger, a bewildered and astonished fury. He had thought to find this
+poor youth in captivity, pining through prison bars for the home and the
+loved ones and the familiar life from which he had been ruthlessly torn.
+Yet here he was strolling in a suburban garden with a lady--free, free
+as air, or so he seemed. Ste. Marie thought of the grim and sorrowful
+old man in Paris who was sinking untimely into his grave because his
+grandson did not return to him; he thought of that timid soul--more
+shadow than woman--the boy's mother; he thought of Helen Benham's tragic
+eyes, and he could have beaten young Arthur half to death in that moment
+in the righteous rage that stormed within him.
+
+But he turned his eyes from this wretched youth to the girl who walked
+beside, a little in advance, and the rage died in him swiftly.
+
+After all, was she not one to make any boy--or any man--forget duty,
+home, friends, everything?
+
+Rather oddly his mind flashed back to the morning and to the words of
+the little photographer, Bernstein. Perhaps the Jew had put it as well
+as any man could:
+
+"She was a goddess, that lady, a queen of goddesses ... the young Juno
+before marriage...."
+
+Ste. Marie nodded his head. Yes, she was just that. The little Jew had
+spoken well. It could not be more fairly put--though without doubt it
+could have been expressed at much greater length and with a great deal
+more eloquence. The photographer's other words came also to his mind,
+the more detailed description, and again he nodded his head, for this,
+too, was true.
+
+"She was all color--brown skin with a dull-red stain under the cheeks,
+and a great mass of hair that was not black but very nearly
+black--except in the sun, and then there were red lights in it."
+
+It occurred to Ste. Marie, whimsically, that the two young people might
+have stepped out of the door of Bernstein's studio straight into this
+garden, judging from their bearing each to the other.
+
+"Ah, a thing to touch the heart! Such devotion as that! Alas, that the
+lady should seem so cold to it! ... Still, a goddess! What would you? A
+queen among goddesses! ... One would not have them laugh and make little
+jokes.... Make eyes at love-sick boys. No, indeed!"
+
+Certainly Mlle. Coira O'Hara was not making eyes at the love-sick boy
+who followed at her heel this afternoon. Perhaps it would be going too
+far to say that she was cold to him, but it was very plain to see that
+she was bored and weary, and that she wished she might be almost
+anywhere else than where she was. She turned her beautiful face a little
+toward the wall where Ste. Marie lay perdu, and he could see that her
+eyes had the same dark fire, the same tragic look of appeal that he had
+seen in them before--once in the Champs-Elysees and again in his dreams.
+
+Abruptly he became aware that while he gazed, like a man in a trance,
+the two young people walked on their way and were on the point of
+passing beyond reach of eye or ear. He made a sudden involuntary
+movement as if he would call them back, and for the first time his
+faithful hiding-place, strained beyond silent endurance, betrayed him
+with a loud rustle of shaken branches. Ste. Marie shrank back, his heart
+in his throat. It was too late to retreat now down the tree. The damage
+was already done. He saw the two young people halt and turn to look, and
+after a moment he saw the boy come slowly forward, staring. He heard him
+say:
+
+"What's up in that tree? There's something in the tree." And he heard
+the girl answer: "It's only birds fighting. Don't bother!" But young
+Arthur Benham came on, staring up curiously until he was almost under
+the high wall.
+
+Then Ste. Marie's strange madness, or the hand of Fate, or whatever
+power it was which governed him on that day, thrust him on to the
+ultimate pitch of recklessness. He bent forward from his insecure perch
+over the wall until his head and shoulders were in plain sight, and he
+called down to the lad below in a loud whisper:
+
+"Benham! Benham!"
+
+The boy gave a sharp cry of alarm and began to back away. And after a
+moment Ste. Marie heard the cry echoed from Coira O'Hara. He heard her
+say:
+
+"Be careful! Be careful, Arthur! Come away! Oh, come away quickly!"
+
+Ste. Marie raised his own voice to a sort of cry. He said:
+
+"Wait! I tell you to wait, Benham! I must have a word with you. I come
+from your family--from Helen!"
+
+To his amazement the lad turned about and began to run toward where the
+girl stood waiting; and so, without a moment's hesitation, Ste. Marie
+threw himself across the top of the wall, hung for an instant by his
+hands, and dropped upon the soft turf. Scarcely waiting to recover his
+balance, he stumbled forward, shouting:
+
+"Wait! I tell you, wait! Are you mad? Wait, I say! Listen to me!"
+
+Vaguely, in the midst of his great excitement, he had heard a whistle
+sound as he dropped inside the wall. He did not know then whence the
+shrill call had come, but afterward he knew that Coira O' Hara had blown
+it. And now, as he ran forward toward the two who stood at a distance
+staring at him, he heard other steps and he slackened his pace to look.
+
+A man came running down among the black-boled trees, a strange, squat,
+gnomelike man whose gait was as uncouth as his dwarfish figure. He held
+something in his two hands as he ran, and when he came near he threw
+this thing with a swift movement up before him, but he did not pause in
+his odd, scrambling run.
+
+Ste. Marie felt a violent blow upon his left leg between hip and knee.
+He thought that somebody had crept up behind him and struck him; but as
+he whirled about he saw that there was no one there, and then he heard a
+noise and knew that the gnomelike running man had shot him. He faced
+about once more toward the two young people. He was very angry and he
+wished to say so, and very much he wished to explain why he had
+trespassed there, and why they had no right to shoot him as if he were
+some wretched thief. But he found that in some quite absurd fashion he
+was as if fixed to the ground. It was as if he had suddenly become of
+the most ponderous and incredible weight, like lead--or that other
+metal, not gold, which is the heaviest of all. Only the metal,
+seemingly, was not only heavy but fiery hot, and his strength was
+incapable of holding it up any longer. His eyes fixed themselves in a
+bewildered stare upon the figure of Mlle. Coira O'Hara; he had time to
+observe that she had put up her two hands over her face, then he fell
+down forward, his head struck something very hard, and he knew no more.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+XV
+
+A CONVERSATION AT LA LIERRE
+
+
+Captain Stewart walked nervously up and down the small inner
+drawing-room at La Lierre, his restless hands fumbling together behind
+him, and his eyes turning every half-minute with a sharp eagerness to
+the closed door. But at last, as if he were very tired, he threw himself
+down in a chair which stood near one of the windows, and all his tense
+body seemed to relax in utter exhaustion. It was not a very comfortable
+chair that he had sat down in, but there were no comfortable chairs in
+the room--nor, for that matter, in all the house. When he had taken the
+place, about two months before this time, he had taken it furnished, but
+that does not mean very much in France. No French country-houses--or
+town-houses, either--are in the least comfortable, by Anglo-Saxon
+standards, and that is at least one excellent reason why Frenchmen spend
+just as little time in them as they possibly can. Half the cafes in
+Paris would promptly put up their shutters if Parisian homes could all
+at once turn themselves into something like English or American ones. As
+for La Lierre, it was even more dreary and bare and tomblike than other
+country-houses, because it was, after all, a sort of ruin, and had not
+been lived in for fifteen years, save by an ancient caretaker and his
+nearly as ancient wife. And that was, perhaps, why it could be taken on
+a short lease at such a very low price.
+
+The room in which Captain Stewart sat was behind the large drawing-room,
+which was always kept closed now, and it looked out by one window to the
+west, and by two windows to the north, over a corner of the kitchen
+garden and a vista of trees beyond. It was a high-ceiled room with walls
+bare except for two large mirrors in the Empire fashion, which stared at
+each other across the way with dull and flaking eyes. Under each of
+these stood a heavy gilt and ebony console with a top of
+chocolate-colored marble, and in the centre of the room there was a
+table of a like fashion to the consoles. Further than this there was
+nothing save three chairs, upon one of which lay Captain Stewart's
+dust-coat and motoring cap and goggles.
+
+A shaft of golden light from the low sun slanted into the place through
+the western window from which the Venetians had been pulled back, and
+fell across the face of the man who lay still and lax in his chair, eyes
+closed and chin dropped a little so that his mouth hung weakly open. He
+looked very ill, as, indeed, any one might look after such an attack as
+he had suffered on the night previous. That one long moment of deathly
+fear before he had fallen down in a fit had nearly killed him. All
+through this following day it had continued to recur until he thought he
+should go mad. And there was worse still. How much did Olga Nilssen
+know? And how much had she told? She had astonished and frightened him
+when she had said that she knew about the house on the road to Clamart,
+for he thought he had hidden his visits to La Lierre well. He wondered
+rather drearily how she had discovered them, and he wondered how much
+she knew more than she had admitted. He had a half-suspicion of
+something like the truth, that Mlle. Nilssen knew only of Coira O'Hara's
+presence here, and drew a rather natural inference. If that was all,
+there was no danger from her--no more, that is, than had already borne
+its fruit, for Stewart knew well enough that Ste. Marie must have
+learned of the place from her. In any case Olga Nilssen had left
+Paris--he had discovered that fact during the day--and so for the
+present she might be eliminated as a source of peril.
+
+The man in the chair gave a little groan and rolled his head wearily to
+and fro against the uncomfortable chair-back, for now he came to the
+real and immediate danger, and he was so very tired and ill, and his
+head ached so sickeningly that it was almost beyond him to bring himself
+face to face with it.
+
+There was the man who lay helpless upon a bed up-stairs! And there were
+the man's friends, who were not at all helpless or bedridden or in
+captivity!
+
+A wave of almost intolerable pain swept through Stewart's aching head,
+and he gave another groan which was almost like a child's sob. But at
+just that moment the door which led into the central hall opened, and
+the Irishman O'Hara came into the room. Captain Stewart sprang to his
+feet to meet him, and he caught the other man by the arm in his
+eagerness.
+
+"How is he?" he cried out. "How is he? How badly was he hurt?"
+
+"The patient?" said O'Hara. "Let go my arm! Hang it, man, you're
+pinching me! Oh, he'll do well enough. He'll be fit to hobble about in a
+week or ten days. The bullet went clean through his leg and out again
+without cutting an artery. It was a sort of miracle--and a damned lucky
+miracle for all hands, too! If we'd had a splintered bone or a severed
+artery to deal with I should have had to call in a doctor. Then the
+fellow would have talked, and there'd have been the devil to pay. As it
+is, I shall be able to manage well enough with my own small skill. I've
+dressed worse wounds than that in my time. By Jove, it was a miracle,
+though!" A sudden little gust of rage swept him. He cried out: "That
+confounded fool of a gardener, that one-eyed Michel, ought to be beaten
+to death. Why couldn't he have slipped up behind this fellow and knocked
+him on the head, instead of shooting him from ten paces away? The
+benighted idiot! He came near upsetting the whole boat!"
+
+"Yes," said Captain Stewart, with a sharp, hard breath, "he should have
+shot straighter or not at all."
+
+The Irishman stared at him with his bright blue eyes, and after a moment
+he gave a short laugh.
+
+"Jove, you're a bloodthirsty beggar, Stewart!" said he. "That would have
+been a rum go, if you like! Killing the fellow! All his friends down on
+us like hawks, and the police and all that! You can't go about killing
+people in the outskirts of Paris, you know--at least not people with
+friends. And this chap looks like a gentleman, more or less, so I take
+it he has friends. As a matter of fact, his face is rather familiar. I
+think I've seen him before, somewhere. You looked at him just now
+through the crack of the door; do you know who he is? Coira tells me he
+called out to Arthur by name, but Arthur says he never saw him before
+and doesn't know him at all."
+
+Captain Stewart shivered. It had not been a pleasant moment for him,
+that moment when he had looked through the crack of the door and
+recognized Ste. Marie.
+
+"Yes," he said, half under his breath--"yes, I know who he is. A friend
+of the family."
+
+The Irishman's lips puckered to a low whistle. He said:
+
+"Spying, then, as I thought. He has run us to earth."
+
+And the other nodded. O'Hara took a turn across the room and back.
+
+"In that case," he said, presently--"in that case, then, we must keep
+him prisoner here so long as we remain. That's certain." He spun round
+sharply with an exclamation. "Look here!" he cried, in a lower tone,
+"how about this fellow's friends? It isn't likely he's doing his dirty
+work alone. How about his friends, when he doesn't turn up to-night? If
+they know he was coming here to spy on us; if they know where the place
+is; if they know, in short, what he seems to have known, we're done for.
+We'll have to run, get out, disappear. Hang it, man, d'you understand?
+We're not safe here for an hour."
+
+Captain Stewart's hands shook a little as he gripped them together
+behind him, and a dew of perspiration stood out suddenly upon his
+forehead and cheek-bones, but his voice, when he spoke, was well under
+control.
+
+"It's an odd thing," said he--"another miracle, if you like--but I
+believe we are safe--reasonably safe. I--have reason to think that this
+fellow learned about La Lierre only last evening from some one who left
+Paris to-day to be gone a long time. And I also have reason to believe
+that the fellow has not seen the one friend who is in his confidence,
+since he obtained his information. By chance I met the friend, the other
+man, in the street this afternoon. I asked after this fellow whom we
+have here, and the friend said he hadn't seen him for twenty-four
+hours--was going to see him to-night."
+
+"By the Lord!" cried the Irishman, with a great laugh of relief. "What
+luck! What monumental luck! If all that's true, we're safe. Why, man,
+we're as safe as a fox in his hole. The lad's friends won't have the
+ghost of an idea of where he's gone to.... Wait, though! Stop a bit! He
+won't have left written word behind him, eh? He won't have done
+that--for safety?"
+
+"I think not," said Captain Stewart, but he breathed hard, for he knew
+well enough that there lay the gravest danger. "I think not," he said
+again.
+
+He made a rather surprisingly accurate guess at the truth--that Ste.
+Marie had started out upon impulse, without intending more than a
+general reconnaissance, and therefore without leaving any word behind
+him. Still, the shadow of danger uplifted itself before the man and he
+was afraid. A sudden gust of weak anger shook him like a wind.
+
+"In Heaven's name," he cried, shrilly, "why didn't that one-eyed fool
+kill the fellow while he was about it? There's danger for us every
+moment while he is alive here. Why didn't that shambling idiot kill
+him?"
+
+Captain Stewart's outflung hand jumped and trembled and his face was
+twisted into a sort of grinning snarl. He looked like an angry and
+wicked cat, the other man thought.
+
+"If I weren't an over-civilized fool," he said, viciously, "I'd go
+up-stairs and kill him now with my hands while he can't help himself.
+We're all too scrupulous by half."
+
+The Irishman stared at him and presently broke into amazed laughter.
+
+"Scrupulous!" said he. "Well, yes, I'm too scrupulous to murder a man in
+his bed, if you like. I'm not squeamish, but--Good Lord!"
+
+"Do you realize," demanded Captain Stewart, "what risks we run while
+that fellow is alive--knowing what he knows?"
+
+"Oh yes, I realize that," said O'Hara. "But I don't see why _you_ should
+have heart failure over it."
+
+Captain Stewart's pale lips drew back again in their catlike fashion.
+
+"Never mind about me," he said. "But I can't help thinking you're
+peculiarly indifferent in the face of danger."
+
+"No, I'm not!" said the Irishman, quickly. "No, I'm not. Don't you run
+away with that idea! I merely said," he went oh--"I merely said that I'd
+stop short of murder. I don't set any foolish value on life--my own or
+any other. I've had to take life more than once, but it was in fair
+fight or in self-defence, and I don't regret it. It was your coldblooded
+joke about going up-stairs and killing this chap in his bed that put me
+on edge. Naturally I know you didn't mean it. Don't you go thinking that
+I'm lukewarm or that I'm indifferent to danger. I know there's danger
+from this lad up-stairs, and I mean to be on guard against it. He stays
+here under strict guard until--what we're after is accomplished--until
+young Arthur comes of age. If there's danger," said he, "why, we know
+where it lies, and we can guard against it. That kind of danger is not
+very formidable. The dangerous dangers are the ones that you don't know
+about--the hidden ones."
+
+He came forward a little, and his lean face was as hard and as impassive
+as ever, and the bright blue eyes shone from it steady and unwinking.
+Stewart looked up to him with a sort of peevish resentment at the man's
+confidence and cool poise. It was an odd reversal of their ordinary
+relations. For the hour the duller villain, the man who was wont to take
+orders and to refrain from overmuch thought or question, seemed to have
+become master. Sheer physical exhaustion and the constant maddening pain
+had had their will of Captain Stewart. A sudden shiver wrung him so that
+his dry fingers rattled against the wood of the chair-arms.
+
+"All the same," he cried, "I'm afraid. I've been confident enough until
+now. Now I'm afraid. I wish the fellow had been killed."
+
+"Kill him, then!" laughed the Irishman. "I won't give you up to the
+police."
+
+He crossed the room to the door, but halted short of it and turned about
+again, and he looked back very curiously at the man who sat crouched in
+his chair by the window. It had occurred to him several times that
+Stewart was very unlike himself. The man was quite evidently tired and
+ill, and that might account for some of the nervousness, but this fierce
+malignity was something a little beyond O'Hara's comprehension. It
+seemed to him that the elder man had the air of one frightened beyond
+the point the circumstances warranted.
+
+"Are you going back to town," he asked, "or do you mean to stay the
+night?"
+
+"I shall stay the night," Stewart said. "I'm too tired to bear the
+ride." He glanced up and caught the other's eyes fixed upon him. "Well!"
+he cried, angrily. "What is it? What are you looking at me like that
+for? What do you want?"
+
+"I want nothing," said the Irishman, a little sharply. "And I wasn't
+aware that I'd been looking at you in any unusual way. You're precious
+jumpy to-day, if you want to know.... Look here!" He came back a step,
+frowning. "Look here!" he repeated. "I don't quite make you out. Are you
+keeping back anything? Because if you are, for Heaven's sake have it out
+here and now! We're all in this game together, and we can't afford to be
+anything but frank with one another. We can't afford to make
+reservations. It's altogether too dangerous for everybody. You're too
+much frightened. There's no apparent reason for being so frightened as
+that."
+
+Captain Stewart drew a long breath between closed teeth, and afterward
+he looked up at the younger man coldly.
+
+"We need not discuss my personal feelings, I think," said he. "They have
+no--no bearing on the point at issue. As you say, we are all in this
+thing together, and you need not fear that I shall fail to do my part,
+as I have done it in the past.... That's all, I believe."
+
+"Oh, _as_ you like! As you like!" said the Irishman, in the tone of one
+rebuffed. He turned again and left the room, closing the door behind
+him. Outside on the stairs it occurred to him that he had forgotten to
+ask the other man what this fellow's name was--the fellow who lay
+wounded up-stairs. No, he had asked once, but in the interest of the
+conversation the question had been lost. He determined to inquire again
+that evening at dinner.
+
+But Captain Stewart, left thus alone, sank deeper in the uncomfortable
+chair, and his head once more stirred and sought vainly for ease against
+the chair's high back. The pain swept him in regular throbbing waves
+that were like the waves of the sea--waves which surge and crash and
+tear upon a beach. But between the throbs of physical pain there was
+something else that was always present while the waves came and went.
+Pain and exhaustion, if they are sufficiently extreme, can well nigh
+paralyze mind as well as body, and for some time Captain Stewart
+wondered what this thing might be which lurked at the bottom of him
+still under the surges of agony. Then at last he had the strength to
+look at it, and it was fear, cold and still and silent. He was afraid to
+the very depths of his soul.
+
+True, as O'Hara had said, there did not seem to be any very desperate
+peril to face, but Stewart was afraid with the gambler's unreasoning,
+half-superstitious fear, and that is the worst fear of all. He realized
+that he had been afraid of Ste. Marie from the beginning, and that, of
+course, was why he had tried to draw him into partnership with himself
+in his own official and wholly mythical search for Arthur Benham. He
+could have had the other man under his eye then. He could have kept him
+busy for months running down false scents. As it was, Ste. Marie's
+uncanny instinct about the Irishman O'Hara had led him true--that and
+what he doubtless learned from Olga Nilssen.
+
+If Stewart had been in a condition and mood to philosophize, he would
+doubtless have reflected that seven-tenths of the desperate causes, both
+good and bad, which fail in this world, fail because they are wrecked by
+some woman's love or jealousy--or both. But it is unlikely that he was
+able just at this time to make such a reflection, though certainly he
+wondered how much Olga Nilssen had known, and how much Ste. Marie had
+had to put together out of her knowledge and any previous suspicions
+which he may have had.
+
+The man would have been amazed if he could have known what a mountain of
+information and evidence had piled itself up over his head all in twelve
+hours. He would have been amazed and, if possible, even more frightened
+than he was, but he was without question sufficiently frightened, for
+here was Ste. Marie in the very house, he had seen Arthur Benham, and
+quite obviously he knew all there was to know, or at least enough to
+ruin Arthur Benham's uncle beyond all recovery or hope of
+recovery--irretrievably.
+
+Captain Stewart tried to think what it would mean to him--failure in
+this desperate scheme--but he had not the strength or the courage. He
+shrank from the picture as one shrinks from something horrible in a bad
+dream. There could be no question of failure. He had to succeed at any
+cost, however desperate or fantastic. Once more the spasm of childish,
+futile rage swept over him and shook him like a wind.
+
+"Why couldn't the fellow have been killed by that one-eyed fool?" he
+cried, sobbing. "Why couldn't he have been killed? He's the only one who
+knows--the only thing in the way. Why couldn't he have keen killed?"
+
+Quite suddenly Captain Stewart ceased to sob and shiver, and sat still
+in his chair, gripping the arms with white and tense fingers. His eyes
+began to widen, and they became fixed in a long, strange stare. He drew
+a deep breath.
+
+"I wonder!" he said, aloud. "I wonder, now."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+XVI
+
+THE BLACK CAT
+
+
+That providential stone or tree-root, or whatever it may have been,
+proved a genuine blessing in disguise to Ste. Marie. It gave him a
+splitting headache for a few hours, but it saved him a good deal of
+discomfort the while his bullet wound was being more or less probed and
+very skilfully cleansed and dressed by O'Hara. For he did not regain
+consciousness until this surgical work was almost at its end, and then
+he wanted to fight the Irishman for tying the bandages too tight.
+
+But when O'Hara had gone away and left him alone he lay still--or as
+still as the smarting, burning pain in his leg and the ache in his head
+would let him--and stared at the wall beyond his bed, and bit by bit the
+events of the past hour came back to him, and he knew where he was. He
+cursed himself very bitterly, as he well might do, for a bungling idiot.
+The whole thing had been in his hands, he said, with perfect
+truth--Arthur Benham's whereabouts proved Stewart's responsibility or,
+at the very least, complicity and the sordid motive therefor.
+Remained--had Ste. Marie been a sane being instead of an impulsive
+fool--remained but to face Stewart down in the presence of witnesses,
+threaten him with exposure, and so, with perfect ease, bring back the
+lost boy in triumph to his family.
+
+It should all have been so simple, so easy, so effortless! Yet now it
+was ruined by a moment's rash folly, and Heaven alone knew what would
+come of it. He remembered that he had left behind him no indication
+whatever of where he meant to spend the afternoon. Hartley would come
+hurrying across town that evening to the rue d'Assas, and would find no
+one there to receive him. He would wait and wait, and at last go home.
+He would come again on the next morning, and then he would begin to be
+alarmed and would start a second search--but with what to reckon by?
+Nobody knew about the house on the road to Clamart but Mlle. Olga
+Nilssen, and she was far away.
+
+He thought of Captain Stewart, and he wondered if that gentleman was by
+any chance here in the house, or if he was still in bed in the rue du
+Faubourg St. Honore, recovering from his epileptic fit.
+
+After that he fell once more to cursing himself and his incredible
+stupidity, and he could have wept for sheer bitterness of chagrin.
+
+He was still engaged in this unpleasant occupation when the door of the
+room opened and the Irishman O'Hara entered, having finished his
+interview with Captain Stewart below. He came up beside the bed and
+looked down not unkindly upon the man who lay there, but Ste. Marie
+scowled back at him, for he was in a good deal of pain and a vile humor.
+
+"How's the leg--_and_ the head?" asked the amateur surgeon. To do him
+justice, he was very skilful, indeed, through much experience.
+
+"They hurt," said Ste. Marie, shortly. "My head aches like the devil,
+and my leg burns."
+
+O'Hara made a sound which was rather like a gruff laugh, and nodded.
+
+"Yes, and they'll go on doing it, too," said he. "At least the leg will.
+Your head will be all right again in a day or so. Do you want anything
+to eat? It's near dinner-time. I suppose we can't let you starve--though
+you deserve it."
+
+"Thanks; I want nothing," said Ste. Marie. "Pray don't trouble about
+me."
+
+The other man nodded again indifferently and turned to go out of the
+room, but in the doorway he halted and looked back.
+
+"As we're to have the pleasure of your company for some time to come,"
+said he, "you might suggest a name to call you by. Of course I don't
+expect you to tell your own name--though I can learn that easily
+enough."
+
+"Easily enough, to be sure," said the man on the bed. "Ask Stewart. He
+knows only too well."
+
+The Irishman scowled. And after a moment he said:
+
+"I don't know any Stewart."
+
+But at that Ste. Marie gave a laugh, and a tinge of red came over the
+Irishman's cheeks.
+
+"And so, to save Captain Stewart the trouble," continued the wounded
+man, "I'll tell you my name with pleasure. I don't know why I shouldn't.
+It's Ste. Marie."
+
+"What?" cried O'Hara, hoarsely. "What? Say that again!"
+
+He came forward a swift step or two into the room, and he stared at the
+man on the bed as if he were staring at a ghost.
+
+"Ste. Marie?" he cried, in a whisper. "It's impossible! What are you,"
+he demanded, "to Gilles, Comte de Ste. Marie de Mont-Perdu? What are you
+to him?"
+
+"He was my father," said the younger man; "but he is dead. He has been
+dead for ten years."
+
+He raised his head, with a little grimace of pain, to look curiously
+after the Irishman, who had all at once turned away across the room and
+stood still beside a window with bent head.
+
+"Why?" he questioned. "What about my father? Why did you ask that?"
+
+O'Hara did not answer at once, and he did not stir from his place by the
+window, but after a while he said:
+
+"I knew him.... That's all."
+
+And after another space he came back beside the bed, and once more
+looked down upon the young man who lay there. His face was veiled,
+inscrutable. It betrayed nothing.
+
+"You have a look of your father," said he. "That was what puzzled me a
+little. I was just saying to--I was just thinking that there was
+something familiar about you.... Ah, well, we've all come down in the
+world since then. The Ste. Marie blood, though. Who'd have thought it?"
+
+The man shook his head a little sorrowfully, but Ste. Marie stared up at
+him in frowning incomprehension. The pain had dulled him somewhat. And
+presently O'Hara again moved toward the door. On the way he said:
+
+"I'll bring or send you something to eat--not too much. And later on
+I'll give you a sleeping-powder. With that head of yours you may have
+trouble in getting to sleep. Understand, I'm doing this for your
+father's son, and not because you've any right yourself to
+consideration."
+
+Ste. Marie raised himself with difficulty on one elbow.
+
+"Wait!" said he. "Wait a moment!" and the other halted just inside the
+door. "You seem to have known my father," said Ste. Marie, "and to have
+respected him. For my father's sake, will you listen to me for five
+minutes?"
+
+"No, I won't," said the Irishman, sharply. "So you may as well hold your
+tongue. Nothing you can say to me or to any one in this house will have
+the slightest effect. We know what you came spying here for. We know all
+about it."
+
+"Yes," said Ste. Marie, with a little sigh, and he fell back upon the
+pillows. "Yes, I suppose you do. I was rather a fool to speak. You
+wouldn't all be doing what you're doing if words could affect you. I was
+a fool to speak."
+
+The Irishman stared at him for another moment, and went out of the room,
+closing the door behind him.
+
+So he was left once more alone to his pain and his bitter
+self-reproaches and his wild and futile plans for escape. But O'Hara
+returned in an hour or thereabout with food for him--a cup of broth and
+a slice of bread; and when Ste. Marie had eaten these the Irishman
+looked once more to his wounded leg, and gave him a sleeping-powder
+dissolved in water.
+
+He lay restless and wide-eyed for an hour, and then drifted away through
+intermediate mists into a sleep full of horrible dreams, but it was at
+least relief from bodily suffering, and when he awoke in the morning his
+headache was almost gone.
+
+He awoke to sunshine and fresh, sweet odors and the twittering of birds.
+By good chance O'Hara had been the last to enter the room on the evening
+before, and so no one had come to close the shutters or draw the blinds.
+The windows were open wide, and the morning breeze, very soft and
+aromatic, blew in and out and filled the place with sweetness. The room
+was a corner room, with windows that looked south and east, and the
+early sun slanted in and lay in golden squares across the floor.
+
+Ste. Marie opened his eyes with none of the dazed bewilderment that he
+might have expected. The events of the preceding day came back to him
+instantly and without shock. He put up an experimental hand, and found
+that his head was still very sore where he had struck it in falling, but
+the ache was almost gone. He tried to stir his leg, and a protesting
+pain shot through it. It burned dully, even when it was quiet, but the
+pain was not at all severe. He realized that he was to get off rather
+well, considering what might have happened, and he was so grateful for
+this that he almost forgot to be angry with himself over his monumental
+folly.
+
+A small bird chased by another wheeled in through the southern window
+and back again into free air. Finally, the two settled down upon the
+parapet of the little shallow balcony which was there to have their
+disagreement out, and they talked it over with a great deal of noise and
+many threatening gestures and a complete loss of temper on both sides.
+Ste. Marie, from his bed, cheered them on, but there came a commotion in
+the ivy which draped the wall below, and the two birds fled in
+ignominious haste, and just in the nick of time, for when the cause of
+the commotion shot into view it was a large black cat, of great bodily
+activity and an ardent single-heartedness of aim.
+
+The black cat gazed for a moment resentfully after its vanished prey,
+and then composed its sleek body upon the iron rail, tail and paws
+tucked neatly under. Ste. Marie chirruped, and the cat turned yellow
+eyes upon him in mild astonishment, as one who should say, "Who the
+deuce are you, and what the deuce are you doing here?" He chirruped
+again, and the cat, after an ostentatious yawn and stretch, came to
+him--beating up to windward, as it were, and making the bed in three
+tacks. When O'Hara entered the room some time later he found his patient
+in a very cheerful frame of mind, and the black cat sitting on his chest
+purring like a dynamo and kneading like an industrious baker.
+
+"Ho," said the Irishman, "you seem to have found a friend!"
+
+"Well, I need one friend here," argued Ste. Marie. "I'm in the enemy's
+stronghold. You needn't be alarmed; the cat can't tell me anything, and
+it can't help me to escape. It can only sit on me and purr. That's
+harmless enough."
+
+O'Hara began one of his gruff laughs, but he seemed to remember himself
+in the middle of it and assumed an intimidating scowl instead.
+
+"How's the leg?" he demanded, shortly. "Let me see it." He took off the
+bandages and cleansed and sprayed the wound with some antiseptic liquid
+that he had brought in a bottle. "There's a little fever," said he, "but
+that can't be avoided. You're going on very well--a good deal better
+than you'd any right to expect." He had to inflict not a little pain in
+his examination and redressing of the wound. He knew that, and once or
+twice he glanced up at Ste. Marie's face with a sort of reluctant
+admiration for the man who could bear so much without any sign whatever.
+In the end he put together his things and nodded with professional
+satisfaction. "You'll do well enough now for the rest of the day," he
+said. "I'll send up old Michel to valet you. He's the gardener who shot
+you yesterday, and he may take it into his head to finish the job this
+morning. If he does I sha'n't try to stop him."
+
+"Nor I," said Ste. Marie. "Thanks very much for your trouble. An
+excellent surgeon was lost in you."
+
+O'Hara left the room, and presently the old caretaker, one-eyed,
+gnomelike, shambling like a bear, sidled in and proceeded to set things
+to rights. He looked, Ste. Marie said to himself, like something in an
+old German drawing, or in those imitations of old drawings that one
+sometimes sees nowadays in _Fliegende Blaetter_. He tried to make the
+strange creature talk, but Michel went about his task with an air
+half-frightened, half-stolid, and refused to speak more than an
+occasional "oui" or a "bien, Monsieur," in answer to orders. Ste. Marie
+asked if he might have some coffee and bread, and the old Michel nodded
+and slipped from the room as silently as he had entered it.
+
+Thereafter Ste. Marie trifled with the cat and got one hand well
+scratched for his trouble, but in five minutes there came a knocking at
+the door. He laughed a little. "Michel grows ceremonious when it's a
+question of food," he said. "Entrez, mon vieux!"
+
+The door opened, and Ste. Marie caught his breath.
+
+"Michel is busy," said Coira O'Hara, "so I have brought your coffee."
+
+She came into the sunlit room holding the steaming bowl of cafe au lait
+before her in her two hands. Over it her eyes went out to the man who
+lay in his bed, a long and steady and very grave look. "A goddess that
+lady, a queen among goddesses--" Thus the little Jew of the Boulevard de
+la Madeleine. Ste. Marie gazed back at her, and his heart was sick
+within him to think of the contemptible role Fate had laid upon this
+girl to play: the candle to the moth, the bait to the eager, unskilled
+fish, the lure to charm a foolish boy.
+
+The girl's splendid beauty seemed to fill all that bright room with, as
+it were, a richer, subtler light. There could be no doubt of her
+potency. Older and wiser heads than young Arthur Benham's might well
+forget the world for her. Ste. Marie watched, and the heartsickness
+within him was like a physical pain, keen and bitter. He thought of that
+first and only previous meeting--the single minute in the
+Champs-Elysees, when her eyes had held him, had seemed to beseech him
+out of some deep agony. He thought of how they had haunted him afterward
+both by day and by night--calling eyes--and he gave a little groan of
+sheer bitterness, for he realized that all this while she was laying her
+snares about the feet of an inexperienced boy, decoying him to his ruin.
+There was a name for such women, an ugly name. They were called
+adventuresses.
+
+The girl set the bowl which she carried down upon a table not far from
+the bed. "You will need a tray or something," said she. "I suppose you
+can sit up against your pillows? I'll bring a tray and you can hold it
+on your knees and eat from it." She spoke in a tone of very deliberate
+indifference and detachment. There seemed even to be an edge of scorn in
+it, but nothing could make that deep and golden voice harsh or unlovely.
+As the girl's extraordinary beauty had filled all the room with its
+light, so the sound of her voice seemed to fill it with a sumptuous and
+hushed resonance like a temple bell muffled in velvet. "I must bring
+something to eat, too," she said. "Would you prefer croissants or
+brioches or plain bread-and-butter? You might as well have what you
+like."
+
+"Thank you!" said Ste. Marie. "It doesn't matter. Anything. You are most
+kind. You are Hebe, Mademoiselle, server of feasts." The girl turned her
+head for a moment and looked at him with some surprise.
+
+"If I am not mistaken," she said, "Hebe served to gods." Then she went
+out of the room, and Ste. Marie broke into a sudden delighted laugh
+behind her. She would seem to be a young woman with a tongue in her
+head. She had seized the rash opening without an instant's hesitation.
+
+The black cat, which had been cruising, after the inquisitive fashion of
+its kind, in far corners of the room, strolled back and looked up to the
+table where the bowl of coffee steamed and waited.
+
+"Get out!" cried Ste. Marie. "Va t'en, sale petit animal! Go and eat
+birds! That's _my_ coffee. Va! Sauve toi! He, voleur que tu es!" He
+sought for something by way of missile, but there was nothing within
+reach.
+
+The black cat turned its calm and yellow eyes toward him, looked back to
+the aromatic feast, and leaped expertly to the top of the table. Ste.
+Marie shouted and made horrible threats. He waved an impotent pillow,
+not daring to hurl it for fear of smashing the table's entire contents,
+but the black cat did not even glance toward him. It smelled the coffee,
+sneezed over it because it was hot, and finally proceeded to lap very
+daintily, pausing often to take breath or to shake its head, for cats
+disapprove of hot dishes, though they will partake of them at a pinch.
+
+There came a step outside the door, and the thief leaped down with some
+haste, yet not quite in time to escape observation. Mlle. O'Hara came
+in, breathing terrible threats.
+
+"Has that wretched animal touched your coffee?" she cried. "I hope not."
+But Ste. Marie laughed weakly from his bed, and the guilty beast stood
+in mid-floor, brown drops beading its black chin and hanging upon its
+whiskers.
+
+"I did what I could, Mademoiselle," said Ste. Marie, "but there was
+nothing to throw. I am sorry to be the cause of so much trouble."
+
+"It is nothing," said she. "I will bring some more coffee, only it will
+take ten minutes, because I shall have to make some fresh." She made as
+if she would smile a little in answer to him, but her face turned grave
+once more and she went out of the room with averted eyes.
+
+Thereafter Ste. Marie occupied himself with watching idly the movements
+of the black cat, and, as he watched, something icy cold began to grow
+within him, a sensation more terrible than he had ever known before. He
+found himself shivering as if that summer day had all at once turned to
+January, and he found that his face was wet with a chill perspiration.
+
+When the girl at length returned she found him lying still, his face to
+the wall. The black cat was in her path as she crossed the room, so that
+she had to thrust it out of the way with her foot, and she called it
+names for moving with such lethargy.
+
+"Here is the coffee at last," she said. "I made it fresh. And I have
+brought some brioches. Will you sit up and have the tray on your knees?"
+
+"Thank you," said Ste. Marie. "I do not wish anything."
+
+"You do not--" she repeated after him. "But I have made the coffee
+especially for you," she protested. "I thought you wanted it. I don't
+understand."
+
+With a sudden movement the man turned toward her a white and drawn face.
+
+"Mademoiselle," he cried, "it would have been more merciful to let your
+gardener shoot again yesterday. Much more merciful, Mademoiselle."
+
+She stared at him under her straight, black brows.
+
+"What do you mean?" she demanded. "More merciful? What do you mean by
+that?"
+
+Ste. Marie stretched out a pointing finger, and the girl followed it.
+She gave, after a tense instant, a single, sharp scream. And upon that:
+
+"No, no! It's not true! It's not possible!"
+
+Moving stiffly, she set down the bowl she carried, and the hot liquid
+splashed up round her wrists. For a moment she hung there, drooping,
+holding herself up by the strength of her hands upon the table. It was
+as if she had been seized with faintness. Then she sprang to where the
+cat crouched beside a chair. She dropped upon her knees and tried to
+raise it in her arms, but the beast bit and scratched at her feebly, and
+crept away to a little distance, where it lay struggling and very
+unpleasant to see.
+
+"Poison!" she said, in a choked, gasping whisper. "Poison!" She looked
+once toward the man upon the bed, and she was white and shivering. "It's
+not true!" she cried again. "I--won't believe it! It's because the
+cat--was not used to coffee. Because it was hot. I won't believe it! I
+won't believe it!" She began to sob, holding her hands over her white
+face.
+
+Ste. Marie watched her with puzzled eyes. If this was acting, it was
+very good acting. A little glimmer of hope began to burn in him--hope
+that in this last shameful thing, at least, the girl had had no part.
+
+"It's impossible," she insisted, piteously. "I tell you it's impossible.
+I brought the coffee myself from the kitchen. I took it from the pot
+there--the same pot we had all had ours from. It was never out of my
+sight--or, that is--I mean--"
+
+She halted there, and Ste. Marie saw her eyes turn slowly toward the
+door, and he saw a crimson flush come up over her cheeks and die away,
+leaving her white again. He drew a little breath of relief and gladness,
+for he was sure of her now. She had had no part in it.
+
+"It is nothing, Mademoiselle," said he, cheerfully. "Think no more of
+it. It is nothing."
+
+"Nothing?" she cried, in a loud voice. "Do you call poison nothing?" She
+began to shiver again very violently. "You would have drunk it!" she
+said, staring at him in a white agony. "But for a miracle you would have
+drunk it--and died!"
+
+Abruptly she came beside the bed and threw herself upon her knees there.
+In her excitement and horror she seemed to have forgotten what they two
+were to each other. She caught him by the shoulders with her two hands,
+and the girl's violent trembling shook them both.
+
+"Will you believe," she cried, "that I had nothing to do with this? Will
+you believe me? You must believe me!"
+
+There was no acting in that moment. She was wrung with a frank anguish,
+an utter horror, and between her words there were hard and terrible
+sobs.
+
+"I believe you, Mademoiselle," said the man, gently. "I believe you.
+Pray think no more about it."
+
+He smiled up into the girl's beautiful face, though within him he was
+still cold and a-shiver, as even the bravest man might well be at such
+an escape, and after a moment she turned away again. With unsteady hands
+she put the new-made bowl of coffee and the brioches and other things
+together upon the tray and started to carry it across the room to the
+bed, but half-way she turned back again and set the tray down. She
+looked about and found an empty glass, and she poured a little of the
+coffee into it. Ste. Marie, who was watching her, gave a sudden cry.
+
+"No, no, Mademoiselle, I beg you! You must not!"
+
+But the girl shook her head at him gravely over the glass.
+
+"There is no danger," she said, "but I must be sure."
+
+She drank what was in the glass, and afterward went across to one of the
+windows and stood there with her back to the room for a little time.
+
+In the end she returned and once more brought the breakfast-tray to the
+bed. Ste. Marie raised himself to a sitting posture and took the thing
+upon his knees, but his hands were shaking.
+
+"If I were not as helpless as a dead man, Mademoiselle," said he, "you
+should not have done that. If I could have stopped you, you should not
+have done it, Mademoiselle."
+
+A wave of color spread up under the brown skin of the girl's face, but
+she did not speak. She stood by for a moment to see if he was supplied
+with everything he needed, and when Ste. Marie expressed his gratitude
+for her pains she only bowed her head. Then presently she turned away
+and left the room.
+
+Outside the door she met some one who was approaching. Ste. Marie heard
+her break into rapid and excited speech, and he heard O'Hara's voice in
+answer. The voice expressed astonishment and indignation and a sort of
+gruff horror, but the man who listened could hear only the tones, not
+the words that were spoken.
+
+The Irishman came quickly into the room. He glanced once toward the bed
+where Ste. Marie sat eating his breakfast with apparent unconcern--there
+may have been a little bravado in this--and then bent over the thing
+which lay moving feebly beside a chair. When he rose again his face was
+hard and tense and his blue eyes glittered in a fashion that boded
+trouble for somebody.
+
+"This looks very bad for us," he said, gruffly. "I should--I should like
+to have you believe that neither my daughter nor I had any part in it.
+When I fight I fight openly, I don't use poison. Not even with spies."
+
+"Oh, that's all right," said Ste. Marie, taking an ostentatious sip of
+coffee. "That's understood. I know well enough who tried to poison me.
+If you'll just keep your friend Stewart out of the kitchen I sha'n't
+worry about my food."
+
+The Irishman's cheeks reddened with a quick flush and he dropped his
+eyes. But in an instant he raised them again and looked full into the
+eyes of the man who sat in bed.
+
+"You seem," said he, "to be laboring under a curious misapprehension.
+There is no Stewart here, and I don't know any man of that name."
+
+Ste. Marie laughed.
+
+"Oh, don't you?" he said. "That's my mistake then. Well, if you don't
+know him, you ought to. You have interests in common."
+
+O'Hara favored his patient with a long and frowning stare. But at the
+end he turned without a word and went out of the room.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+XVII
+
+THOSE WHO WERE LEFT BEHIND
+
+
+That meeting with Richard Hartley of which Captain Stewart, in the small
+drawing-room at La Lierre, spoke to the Irishman O'Hara, took place at
+Stewart's own door in the rue du Faubourg St. Honore, and it must have
+been at just about the time when Ste. Marie, concealed among the
+branches of his cedar, looked over the wall and saw Arthur Benham
+walking with Mlle. Coira O'Hara. Hartley had lunched at Durand's with
+his friends, whose name--though it does not at all matter here--was
+Reeves-Davis, and after lunch the four of them, Major and Lady
+Reeves-Davis, Reeves-Davis' sister, Mrs. Carsten, and Hartley, spent an
+hour at a certain picture-dealer's near the Madeleine. After that Lady
+Reeves-Davis wanted to go in search of an antiquary's shop which was
+somewhere in the rue du Faubourg, and she did not know just where. They
+went in from the rue Royale, and amused themselves by looking at the
+attractive windows on the way.
+
+During one of their frequent halts, while the two ladies were
+passionately absorbed in a display of hats, and Reeves-Davis was making
+derisive comments from the rear, Hartley, who was too much bored to pay
+attention, saw a figure which seemed to him familiar emerge from an
+adjacent doorway and start to cross the pavement to a large touring-car,
+with the top up, which stood at the curb. The man wore a dust-coat and a
+cap, and he moved as if he were in a hurry, but as he went he cast a
+quick look about him and his eye fell upon Richard Hartley. Hartley
+nodded, and he thought the elder man gave a violent start; but then he
+looked very white and ill and might have started at anything. For an
+instant Captain Stewart made as if he would go on his way without taking
+notice, but he seemed to change his mind and turned back. He held out
+his hand with a rather wan and nervous smile, saying:
+
+"Ah, Hartley! It is you, then! I wasn't sure." He glanced over the
+other's shoulder and said, "Is that our friend Ste. Marie with you?"
+
+"No," said Richard Hartley, "some English friends of mine. I haven't
+seen Ste. Marie to-day. I'm to meet him this evening. You've seen him
+since I have, as a matter of fact. He came to your party last night,
+didn't he? Sorry I couldn't come. They must have tired you out, I should
+think. You look ill."
+
+"Yes," said the other man, absently. "Yes, I had an attack of--an old
+malady last night. I am rather stale to-day. You say you haven't seen
+Ste. Marie? No, to be sure. If you see him later on you might say that I
+mean to drop in on him to-morrow to make my apologies. He'll understand.
+Good-day."
+
+So he turned away to the motor which was waiting for him, and Hartley
+went back to his friends, wondering a little what it was that Stewart
+had to apologize for.
+
+As for Captain Stewart, he must have gone at once out to La Lierre. What
+he found there has already been set forth.
+
+It was about ten that evening when Hartley, who had left his people,
+after dinner was over, at the Marigny, reached the rue d'Assas. The
+street door was already closed for the night, and so he had to ring for
+the cordon. When the door clicked open and he had closed it behind him
+he called out his name before crossing the court to Ste. Marie's stair;
+but as he went on his way the voice of the concierge reached him from
+the little loge.
+
+"M. Ste. Marie n'est pas la,"
+
+Now, the Parisian concierge, as every one knows who has lived under his
+iron sway, is a being set apart from the rest of mankind. He has, in
+general, no human attributes, and certainly no human sympathy. His hand
+is against all the world, and the hand of all the world is against him.
+Still, here and there among this peculiar race are to be found a very
+few beings who are of softer substance--men and women instead of spies
+and harpies. The concierge who had charge of the house wherein Ste.
+Marie dwelt was an old woman, undeniably severe upon occasion, but for
+the most part a kindly and even jovial soul. She must have become a
+concierge through some unfortunate mistake.
+
+She snapped open her little square window and stuck out into the moonlit
+court a dishevelled gray head.
+
+"Il n'est pas la." she said again, beaming upon Richard Hartley, whom
+she liked, and, when he protested that he had a definite and important
+appointment with her lodger, went on to explain that Ste. Marie had gone
+out, doubtless to lunch, before one o'clock and had never returned.
+
+"He may have left word for me up-stairs," Hartley said; "I'll go up and
+wait, if I may." So the woman got him her extra key, and he went up, let
+himself into the flat, and made lights there.
+
+Naturally he found no word, but his own note of that morning lay spread
+out upon a table where Ste. Marie had left it, and so he knew that his
+friend was in possession of the two facts he had learned about Stewart.
+He made himself comfortable with a book and some cigarettes, and settled
+down to wait.
+
+Ste. Marie out at La Lierre, with a bullet-hole in his leg, was deep in
+a drugged sleep just then, but Hartley waited for him, looking up now
+and then from his book with a scowl of impatience, until the little
+clock on the mantel said that it was one o'clock. Then he went home in a
+very bad temper, after writing another note and leaving it on the table,
+to say that he would return early in the morning.
+
+But in the morning he began to be alarmed. He questioned the concierge
+very closely as to Ste. Marie's movements on the day previous, but she
+could tell him little, save to mention the brief visit of a man with an
+accent of Toulouse or Marseilles, and there seemed to be no one else to
+whom he could go. He spent the entire morning in the flat, and returned
+there after a hasty lunch. But at mid-afternoon he took a fiacre at the
+corner of the Gardens and drove to the rue du Faubourg St. Honore.
+
+Captain Stewart was at home. He was in a dressing-gown, and still looked
+fagged and unwell. He certainly betrayed some surprise at sight of his
+visitor, but he made Hartley welcome at once and insisted upon having
+cigars and things to drink brought out for him. On the whole he
+presented an astonishingly normal exterior, for within him he must have
+been cold with fear, and in his ears a question must have rung and
+shouted and rung again unceasingly--"What does this fellow know? What
+does he know?"
+
+Hartley's very presence there had a perilous look.
+
+The younger man shook his head at the servant who asked him what he
+wished to drink.
+
+"Thanks, you're very good," he said to Captain Stewart, and that
+gentleman eyed him silently. "I can't stay but a moment. I just dropped
+in to ask if you'd any idea what can have become of Ste. Marie."
+
+"Ste. Marie?" said Captain Stewart. "What do you mean--'become of him'?"
+He moistened his lips to speak, but he said the words without a tremor.
+
+"Well, what I meant was," said Hartley, "that you'd seen him last. He
+was here Thursday evening. Did he say anything to you about going
+anywhere in particular the next day--yesterday? He left his rooms about
+noon and hasn't turned up since."
+
+Captain Stewart drew a short breath and sat down, abruptly, in a near-by
+chair, for all at once his knees had begun to tremble under him. He was
+conscious of a great and blissful wave of relief and well-being, and he
+wanted to laugh. He wanted so much to laugh that it became a torture to
+keep his face in repose.
+
+So Ste. Marie had left no word behind him, and the danger was past!
+
+With a great effort he looked up from where he sat to Richard Hartley,
+who stood anxious and frowning before him.
+
+"Forgive me for sitting down," he said, "and sit down yourself, I beg.
+I'm still very shaky from my attack of illness. Ste. Marie--Ste. Marie
+has disappeared? How very extraordinary! It's like poor Arthur. Still--a
+single day! He might be anywhere for a single day, might he not? For all
+that, though, it's very odd. Why, no. No, I don't think he said anything
+about going away. At least I remember nothing about it." The relief and
+triumph within him burst out in a sudden little chuckle of malicious
+fun. "I can think of only one thing," said he, "that might be of use to
+you. Ste. Marie seemed to take a very great fancy to one of the ladies
+here the other evening. And, I must confess, the lady seemed to return
+it. It had all the look of a desperate flirtation--a most desperate
+flirtation. They spent the evening in a corner together. You don't
+suppose," he said, still chuckling gently, "that Ste. Marie is taking a
+little holiday, do you? You don't suppose that the lady could account
+for him?"
+
+"No," said Richard Hartley, "I don't. And if you knew Ste. Marie a
+little better you wouldn't suppose it, either." But after a pause he
+said: "Could you give me the--lady's name, by any chance? Of course, I
+don't want to leave any stone unturned."
+
+And once more the other man emitted his pleased little chuckle that was
+so like a cat's mew.
+
+"I can give you her name," said he. "The name is Mlle.---- Bertrand.
+Elise Bertrand. But I regret to say I haven't the address by me. She
+came with some friends. I will try and get it and send it you. Will that
+be all right?"
+
+"Yes, thanks!" said Richard Hartley. "You're very good. And now I must
+be going on. I'm rather in a hurry."
+
+Captain Stewart protested against this great haste, and pressed the
+younger man to sit down and tell him more about his friend's
+disappearance, but Hartley excused himself, repeating that he was in a
+great hurry, and went off.
+
+When he had gone Captain Stewart lay back in his chair and laughed until
+he was weak and ached from it, the furious, helpless laughter which
+comes after the sudden release from a terrible strain. He was not, as a
+rule, a demonstrative man, but he became aware that he would like to
+dance and sing, and probably he would have done both if it had not been
+for the servant in the next room.
+
+So there was no danger to be feared, and his terrors of the night
+past--he shivered a little to think of them--had been, after all,
+useless terrors! As for the prisoner out at La Lierre, nothing was to be
+feared from him so long as a careful watch was kept. Later on he might
+have to be disposed of, since both bullet and poison had failed--he
+scowled over that, remembering a bad quarter of an hour with O'Hara
+early this morning--but that matter could wait. Some way would present
+itself. He thought of the wholly gratuitous lie he had told Hartley, a
+thing born of a moment's malice, and he laughed again. It struck him
+that it would be very humorous if Hartley should come to suspect his
+friend of turning aside from his great endeavors to enter upon an affair
+with a lady. He dimly remembered that Ste. Marie's name had, from time
+to time, been a good deal involved in romantic histories, and he said to
+himself that his lie had been very well chosen, indeed, and might be
+expected to cause Richard Hartley much anguish of spirit.
+
+After that he lighted a very large cigarette, half as big as a cigar,
+and he lay back in his low, comfortable chair and began to think of the
+outcome of all this plotting and planning. As is very apt to be the case
+when a great danger has been escaped, he was in a mood of extreme
+hopefulness and confidence. Vaguely he felt as if the recent happenings
+had set him ahead a pace toward his goal, though of course they had done
+nothing of the kind. The danger that would exist so long as Ste. Marie,
+who knew everything, was alive, seemed in some miraculous fashion to
+have dwindled to insignificance; in this rebound from fear and despair
+difficulties were swept away and the path was clear. The man's mind
+leaped to his goal, and a little shiver of prospective joy ran over him.
+Once that goal gained he could defy the world. Let eyes look askance,
+let tongues wag, he would be safe then--safe for all the rest of his
+life, and rich, rich, rich!
+
+For he was playing against a feeble old man's life. Day by day he
+watched the low flame sink lower as the flame of an exhausted lamp sinks
+and flickers. It was slow, for the old man had still a little strength
+left, but the will to live--which was the oil in the lamp--was almost
+gone, and the waiting could not be long now. One day, quite suddenly,
+the flame would sink down to almost nothing, as at last it does in the
+spent lamp. It would flicker up and down rapidly for a few moments, and
+all at once there would be no flame there. Old David would be dead, and
+a servant would be sent across the river in haste to the rue du Faubourg
+St. Honore. Stewart lay back in his chair and tried to imagine that it
+was true, that it had already happened, as happen it must before long,
+and once more the little shiver, which was like a shiver of voluptuous
+delight, ran up and down his limbs, and his breath began to come fast
+and hard.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+But Richard Hartley drove at once back to the rue d'Assas. He was not
+very much disappointed in having learned nothing from Stewart, though he
+was thoroughly angry at that gentleman's hint about Ste. Marie and the
+unknown lady. He had gone to the rue du Faubourg because, as he had
+said, he wished to leave no stone unturned, and, after all, he had
+thought it quite possible that Stewart could give him some information
+which would be of value. Hartley firmly believed the elder man to be a
+rascal, but of course he knew nothing definite save the two facts which
+he had accidentally learned from Helen Benham, and it had occurred to
+him that Captain Stewart might have sent Ste. Marie off upon another
+wild-goose chase such as the expedition to Dinard had been. He would
+have been sure that the elder man had had something to do with Ste.
+Marie's disappearance if the latter had not been seen since Stewart's
+party, but instead of that Ste. Marie had come home, slept, gone out the
+next morning, returned again, received a visitor, and gone out to lunch.
+It was all very puzzling and mysterious.
+
+His mind went back to the brief interview with Stewart and dwelt upon
+it. Little things which had at the time made no impression upon him
+began to recur and to take on significance. He remembered the elder
+man's odd and strained manner at the beginning, his sudden and causeless
+change to ease and to something that was almost like a triumphant
+excitement, and then his absurd story about Ste. Marie's flirtation with
+a lady. Hartley thought of these things; he thought also of the fact
+that Ste. Marie had disappeared immediately after hearing grave
+accusations against Stewart. Could he have lost his head, rushed across
+the city at once to confront the middle-aged villain, and
+then--disappeared from human ken? It would have been very like him to do
+something rashly impulsive upon reading that note.
+
+Hartley broke into a sudden laugh of sheer amusement when he realized to
+what a wild and improbable flight his fancy was soaring. He could not
+quite rid himself of a feeling that Stewart was, in some mysterious
+fashion, responsible for his friend's vanishing, but he was unlike Ste.
+Marie: he did not trust his feelings, either good or bad, unless they
+were backed by excellent evidence, and he had to admit that there was
+not a single scrap of evidence in this instance against Miss Benham's
+uncle.
+
+The girl's name recalled him to another duty. He must tell her about
+Ste. Marie. He was by this time half-way up the Boulevard St. Germain,
+but he gave a new order, and the fiacre turned back to the rue de
+l'Universite. The footman at the door said that Mademoiselle was not in
+the drawing-room, as it was only four o'clock, but that he thought she
+was in the house. So Hartley sent up his name and went in to wait.
+
+Miss Benham came down looking a little pale and anxious.
+
+"I've been with grandfather," she explained. "He had some sort of
+sinking-spell last night and we were very much frightened. He's much
+better, but--well, he couldn't have many such spells and live. I'm
+afraid he grows a good deal weaker day by day now. He sees hardly any
+one outside the family, except Baron de Vries." She sat down with a
+little sigh of fatigue and smiled up at her visitor. "I'm glad you've
+come," said she. "You'll cheer me up, and I rather need it. What are you
+looking so solemn about, though? You won't cheer me up if you look like
+that."
+
+"Well, you see," said Hartley, "I came at this impossible hour to bring
+you some bad news. I'm sorry. Perhaps," he modified, "bad news is
+putting it with too much seriousness. Strange news is better. To be
+brief, Ste. Marie has disappeared--vanished into thin air. I thought you
+ought to know."
+
+"Ste. Marie!" cried the girl. "How? What do you mean--vanished? When did
+he vanish?"
+
+She gave a sudden exclamation of relief.
+
+"Oh, he has come upon some clew or other and has rushed off to follow
+it. That's all. How dare you frighten me so?"
+
+"He went without luggage," said the man, shaking his head, "and he left
+no word of any kind behind him. He went out to lunch yesterday about
+noon, and, as I said, simply vanished, leaving no trace whatever behind
+him. I've just been to see your uncle, thinking that he might know
+something, but he doesn't."
+
+The girl looked up quickly.
+
+"My uncle?" she said. "Why my uncle?"
+
+"Well," said Hartley, "you see, Ste. Marie went to a little party at
+your uncle's flat on the night before he disappeared, and I thought your
+uncle might have heard him say something that would throw light on his
+movements the next day."
+
+Hartley remembered the unfortunate incident of the galloping pigs, and
+hurried on:
+
+"He went to the party more for the purpose of having a talk with your
+uncle than for any other reason, I think. I was to have gone myself, but
+gave it up at the eleventh hour for the Cains' dinner at Armenonville.
+Well, the next morning after Captain Stewart's party he went out early.
+I called at his rooms to see him about something important that I
+thought he ought to know. I missed him, and so left a note for him which
+he got on his return and read. I found it open on his table later on. At
+noon he went out again, and that's all. Frankly, I'm worried about him."
+
+Miss Benham watched the man with thoughtful eyes, and when he had
+finished she asked:
+
+"Could you tell me what was in this note that you left for Ste. Marie?"
+
+Hartley was by nature a very open and frank young man, and in
+consequence an unusually bad liar. He hesitated and looked away, and he
+began to turn red.
+
+"Well--no," he said, after a moment--"no, I'm afraid I can't. It was
+something you wouldn't understand--wouldn't know about."
+
+And the girl said, "Oh!" and remained for a little while silent. But at
+the end she looked up and met his eyes, and the man saw that she was
+very grave. She said:
+
+"Richard, there is something that you and I have been avoiding and
+pretending not to see. It has gone too far now, and we've got to face it
+with perfect frankness. I know what was in your note to Ste. Marie. It
+was what you found out the other evening about--my uncle--the matter of
+the will and the other matter. He knew about the will, but he told you
+and Ste. Marie that he didn't. He said to you, also, that I had told him
+about my engagement and Ste. Marie's determination to search for Arthur,
+and that was--a lie. I didn't tell him, and grandfather didn't tell him.
+He listened in the door yonder and heard it himself. I have a good
+reason for knowing that. And then," she said, "he tried very hard to
+persuade you and Ste. Marie to take up your search under his direction,
+and he partly succeeded. He sent Ste. Marie upon a foolish expedition to
+Dinard, and he gave him and gave you other clews just as foolish as that
+one. Richard, do you believe that my uncle has hidden poor Arthur away
+somewhere or--worse than that? Do you? Tell me the truth!"
+
+"There is not," said Hartley, "one particle of real evidence against him
+that I'm aware of. There's plenty of motive, if you like, but motive is
+not evidence."
+
+"I asked you a question," the girl said. "Do you believe my uncle has
+been responsible for Arthur's disappearance?"
+
+"Yes," said Richard Hartley, "I'm afraid I do."
+
+"Then," she said, "he has been responsible for Ste. Marie's
+disappearance also. Ste. Marie became dangerous to him, and so vanished.
+What can we do, Richard? What can we do?"
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+XVIII
+
+A CONVERSATION OVERHEARD
+
+
+In the upper chamber at La Lierre the days dragged very slowly by, and
+the man who lay in bed there counted interminable hours and prayed for
+the coming of night with its merciful oblivion of sleep. His inaction
+was made bitterer by the fact that the days were days of green and gold,
+of breeze-stirred tree-tops without his windows, of vagrant sweet airs
+that stole in upon his solitude, bringing him all the warm fragrance of
+summer and of green things growing.
+
+He suffered little pain. There was, for the first three or four days, a
+dull and feverish ache in his wounded leg, but presently even that
+passed, and the leg hurt him only when he moved it. He thought sometimes
+that he would be grateful for a bit of physical anguish to make the
+hours pass more quickly.
+
+The other inmates of the house held aloof from him. Once a day O'Hara
+came in to see to the wound, but he maintained a well-nigh complete
+silence over his work, and answered questions only with a brief yes or
+no. Sometimes he did not answer them at all. The old Michel came twice
+daily, but this strange being had quite plainly been frightened into
+dumbness, and there was nothing to be got out of him. He shambled
+hastily about the place, his one scared eye upon the man in bed, and as
+soon as possible fled away, closing the door behind him. Sometimes
+Michel brought in the meals, sometimes his wife, a creature so like him
+that the two might well have passed for twin survivors of some unknown
+race; sometimes--thrice altogether in that first week--Coira O'Hara
+brought the tray, and she was as silent as the others.
+
+So Ste. Marie was left alone to get through the interminable days as
+best he might, and ever afterward the week remained in his memory as a
+sort of nightmare. Lying idle in his bed, he evolved many surprising and
+fantastic schemes for escape, for getting word to the outside world of
+his presence here, and one by one he gave them up in disgust as their
+impossibility forced itself upon him. Plans and schemes were useless
+while he lay bedridden, unfamiliar even with the house wherein he dwelt,
+with the garden and park that surrounded it.
+
+As for aid from any of the inmates of the place, that was to be laughed
+at. They were engaged together in a scheme so desperate that failure
+must mean utter ruin to them all. He sometimes wondered if the two
+servants could be bribed. Avarice unmistakable gleamed from their
+little, glittering, ratlike eyes, but he was sure that they would sell
+out for no small sum, and in so far as he could remember there had been
+in his pockets, when he came here, not more than five or six louis.
+Doubtless the old Michel had managed to abstract those in his daily
+offices about the room, for Ste. Marie knew that the clothes hung in a
+closet across from his bed. He had seen them there once when the
+closet-door was open.
+
+Any help that might come to him must come from outside--and what help
+was to be expected there? Over and over again he reminded himself of how
+little Richard Hartley knew. He might suspect Stewart of complicity in
+this new disappearance, but how was he to find out anything definite?
+How was any one to do so?
+
+It was at such times as this, when brain and nerves were strained and
+worn almost to breaking-point, that Ste. Marie had occasion to be
+grateful for the Southern blood that was in him, the strong tinge of
+fatalism which is common alike to Latin and to Oriental. It rescued him
+more than once from something like nervous breakdown, calmed him
+suddenly, lifted his burdens from outwearied shoulders, and left him in
+peace to wait until some action should be possible. Then, in such hours,
+he would fall to thinking of the girl for whose sake, in whose cause, he
+lay bedridden, beset with dangers. As long before, she came to him in a
+sort of waking vision--a being but half earthly, enthroned high above
+him, calm-browed, very pure, with passionless eyes that gazed into far
+distance and were unaware of the base things below. What would she think
+of him, who had sworn to be true knight to her, if she could know how he
+had bungled and failed? He was glad that she did not know, that if he
+had blundered into peril the knowledge of it could not reach her to hurt
+her pride.
+
+And sometimes, also, with a great sadness and pity, he thought of poor
+Coira O'Hara and of the pathetic wreck her life had fallen into. The
+girl was so patently fit for better things! Her splendid beauty was not
+a cheap beauty. She was no coarse-blown, gorgeous flower, imperfect at
+telltale points. It was good blood that had modelled her dark
+perfection, good blood that had shaped her long and slim and tapering
+hands.
+
+"A queen among goddesses!" The words remained with him, and he knew that
+they were true. She might have held up her head among the greatest, this
+adventurer's girl; but what chance had she had? What merest ghost of a
+chance?
+
+He watched her on the rare occasions when she came into the room. He
+watched the poise of her head, her walk, the movements she made, and he
+said to himself that there was no woman of his acquaintance whose grace
+was more perfect--certainly none whose grace was so native.
+
+Once he complained to her of the desperate idleness of his days, and
+asked her to lend him a book of some kind, a review, even a daily
+newspaper, though it be a week old.
+
+"I should read the very advertisements with joy," he said.
+
+She went out of the room and returned presently with an armful of books,
+which she laid upon the bed without comment.
+
+"In my prayers, Mademoiselle," cried Ste. Marie, "you shall be foremost
+forever!" He glanced at the row of titles and looked up in sheer
+astonishment. "May I ask whose books these are?" he said.
+
+"They are mine," said the girl. "I caught up the ones that lay first at
+hand. If you don't care for any of them, I will choose others."
+
+The books were: _Diana of the Crossways, Richard Feverel,_ Henri
+Lavedan's _Le Duel_, Maeterlinck's _Pelleas et Melisande, Don Quixote de
+la Mancha_, in Spanish, a volume of Virgil's _Eclogues_, and the _Life
+of the Chevalier Bayard_, by the Loyal Servitor. Ste. Marie stared at
+her.
+
+"Do you read Spanish," he demanded, "and Latin, as well as French and
+English?"
+
+"My mother was Spanish," said she. "And as for Latin, I began to read it
+with my father when I was a child. Shall I leave the books here?"
+
+Ste. Marie took up the _Bayard_ and held it between his hands.
+
+"It is worn from much reading, Mademoiselle," he said.
+
+"It is the best of all," said she. "The very best of all. I didn't know
+I had brought you that."
+
+She made a step toward him as if she would take the book away, and over
+it their eyes met and were held. In that moment it may have come to them
+both who she was, who so loved the knight without fear and without
+reproach--the daughter of art Irish adventurer of ill repute--for their
+faces began suddenly to flush with red, and after an instant the girl
+turned away.
+
+"It is of no consequence," said she. "You may keep the book if you care
+to."
+
+And Ste. Marie said, very gently: "Thank you, Mademoiselle. I will keep
+it for a little while."
+
+So she went out of the room and left him alone.
+
+This was at noon on the sixth day, and, after he had swallowed hastily
+the lunch which had been set before him, Ste. Marie fell upon the books
+like a child upon a new box of sweets. Like the child again, it was
+difficult for him to choose among them. He opened one and then another,
+gloating over them all, but in the end he chose the _Bayard_, and for
+hours lost himself among the high deeds of the Preux Chevalier and his
+faithful friends--among whom, by the way, there was a Ste. Marie who
+died nobly for France. It was late afternoon when at last he laid the
+book down with a sigh and settled himself more comfortably among the
+pillows.
+
+The sun was not in the room at that hour, but from where he lay he could
+see it on the tree-tops, gold upon green. Outside his south window the
+leaves of a chestnut which stood there quivered and rustled gently under
+a soft breeze. Delectable odors floated in to Ste. Marie's nostrils, and
+he thought how very pleasant it would be if he were lying on the turf
+under the trees instead of bedridden in this upper chamber, which he had
+come to hate with a bitter hatred.
+
+He began to wonder if it would be possible to drag himself across the
+floor to that south window, and so to lie down for a while with his head
+in the tiny balcony beyond, his eyes turned to the blue sky. Astir with
+the new thought, he sat up in bed and carefully swung his feet out till
+they hung to the floor. The wound in the left leg smarted and burned,
+but not too severely, and with slow pains Ste. Marie stood up. He almost
+cried out when he discovered that it could be done quite easily. He
+essayed to walk, and he was a little weak, but by no means helpless. He
+found that it gave him pain to raise his left leg in the ordinary action
+of walking or to bend that knee, but he could get about well enough by
+dragging the injured member beside him, for when it was straight it
+supported him without protest.
+
+He took his pillows across to the window and disposed them there, for it
+was a French window opening to the floor, and the level of the little
+balcony outside was but a few inches above the level of the room. Then
+the desire seized him to make a tour of his prison walls. He went first
+to the closet where he had seen his clothes hanging, and they were still
+there. He felt in the pockets and withdrew his little English pigskin
+sovereign-purse. It had not been tampered with, and he gave an
+exclamation of relief over that, for he might later on have use for
+money. There were eight louis in it, each in its little separate
+compartment, and in another pocket he found a fifty-franc note and some
+silver. He went to the two east windows and looked out. The trees stood
+thick together on that side of the house, but between two of them he
+could see the park wall fifty yards away. He glanced down, and the side
+of the house was covered thick with the ivy which had given the place
+its name, but there was no water-pipe near, nor any other thing which
+seemed to offer foot or hand hold, unless, perhaps, the ivy might prove
+strong enough to bear a man's weight. Ste. Marie made a mental note to
+look into that when he was a little stronger, and turned back to the
+south window where he had disposed his pillows.
+
+The unaccustomed activity was making his wound smart and prickle, and he
+lay down at once with head and shoulders in the open air, and out of the
+warm and golden sunshine and the emerald shade the breath of summer came
+to him and wrapped him round with sweetness and pillowed him upon its
+fragrant breast.
+
+He became aware after a long time of voices below, and turned upon his
+elbows to look. The ivy had clambered upon and partly covered the iron
+grille of the little balcony, and he could observe without being seen.
+Young Arthur Benham and Coira O'Hara had come out of the door of the
+house, and they stood upon the raised and paved terrace which ran the
+width of the facade, and seemed to hesitate as to the direction they
+should take. Ste. Marie heard the girl say:
+
+"It's cooler here in the shade of the house," and after a moment the two
+came along the shady terrace whose outer margin was set at intervals
+with stained and discolored marble nymphs upon pedestals, and between
+the nymphs with moss-grown stone benches. They halted before a bench
+upon which, earlier in the day, a rug had been spread out to dry in the
+sun and had been forgotten, and after a moment's further hesitation they
+sat down upon it. Their faces were turned toward the house, and every
+word that they spoke mounted in that still air clear and distinct to the
+ears of the man above.
+
+Ste. Marie wriggled back into the room and sat up to consider. The
+thought of deliberately listening to a conversation not meant for him
+sent a hot flush to his cheeks. He told himself that it could not be
+done, and that there was an end to the matter. Whatever might hang upon
+it, it could not be asked of him that he should stoop to dishonor. But
+at that the heavy and grave responsibility, which really did hang upon
+him and upon his actions, came before his mind's eye and loomed there
+mountainous. The fate of this foolish boy who was set round with thieves
+and adventurers--even though his eyes were open and he knew where he
+stood--that came to Ste. Marie and confronted him; and the picture of a
+bitter old man who was dying of grief came to him; and a mother's face;
+and _hers_. There could be no dishonor in the face of all this, only a
+duty very clear and plain. He crept back to his place, his arms folded
+beneath him as he lay, his eyes at the thin screen of ivy which cloaked
+the balcony grille.
+
+Young Arthur Benham appeared to be giving tongue to a rather sharp
+attack of homesickness. It may be that long confinement within the walls
+of La Lierre was beginning to try him somewhat.
+
+"Mind you," he declared, as Ste. Marie's ears came once more within
+range--"mind you, I'm not saying that Paris hasn't got its points. It
+has. Oh yes! And so has London, and so has Ostend, and so has Monte
+Carlo. Verree much so! I like Paris. I like the theatres and the
+vaudeville shows in the Champs-Elysees, and I like Longchamps. I like
+the boys who hang around Henry's Bar. They're good sports all right, all
+right! But, by golly, I want to go home! Put me off at the corner of
+Forty-second Street and Broadway, and I'll ask no more. Set me down at 7
+P.M., right there on the corner outside the Knickerbocker, for that's
+where I would live and die." There came into the lad's somewhat strident
+voice a softness that was almost pathetic. "You don't know Broadway,
+Coira, do you? Nix! of course not. Little girl, it's the one street of
+all this large world. It's the equator that runs north and south instead
+of east and west. It's a long, bright, gay, live wire!--that's what
+Broadway is. And I give you my word of honor, like a little man, that
+it--is--not--slow. No-o, indeed! When I was there last it was being
+called the 'Gay White Way.' It is not called the 'Gay White Way' now. It
+has had forty other new, good names since then, and I don't know what
+they are, but I do know that it is forever gay, and that the electric
+signs are still blazing all along the street, and the street-cars are
+still killing people in the good old fashion, and the news-boys are
+still dodging under the automobiles to sell you a _Woild_ or a _Choinal_
+or, if it's after twelve at night, a _Morning Telegraph_. Coira, my
+girl, standing on that corner after dark you can see the electric signs
+of fifteen theatres, not one of them more than five minutes' walk away;
+and just round the corner there are more. I want to go home! I want to
+take one large, unparalleled leap from here and come down at the corner
+I told you about. D'you know what I'd do? We'll say it's 7 P.M. and
+beginning to get dark. I'd dive into the Knickerbocker--that's the hotel
+that the bright and happy people go to for dinner or supper--and I'd
+engage a table up on the terrace. Then I'd telephone to a little friend
+of mine whose name is Doe--John Doe--and in about ten minutes he'd have
+left the crowd he was standing in line with and he'd come galloping up,
+that glad to see me you'd cry to watch him. We'd go up on the terrace,
+where the potted palms grow, for our dinner, and the tables all around
+us would be full of people that would know Johnnie Doe and me, and
+they'd all make us drink drinks and tell us how glad they were to see us
+aboard again. And after dinner," said young Arthur Benham, with wide and
+smiling eyes--"after dinner we'd go to see one of the roof-garden shows.
+Let me tell you they've got the Marigny or the Ambassadeurs or the
+Jardin de Paris beaten to a pulp--to--a--pulp! And after the show we'd
+slip round to the stage-door--you bet we would!--and capture the two
+most beautiful ladies in the world and take 'em off to supper."
+
+He wrinkled his young brow in great perplexity. "Now I wonder," said he,
+anxiously--"I wonder where we'd go for supper. You see," he apologized,
+"it's two years since I left the Real Street, and, gee! what a lot can
+happen on Broadway in two years! There's probably half a dozen new
+supper-places that I don't know anything about, and one of them's the
+place where the crowd goes. Well, anyhow, we'd go to that place, and
+there'd be a band playing, and the electric fans would go round and
+round, and Johnnie Doe and I and the two most beautiful ladies would put
+it all over the other pikers there."
+
+Young Benham gave a little sigh of pleasure and excitement. "That's what
+I'd like to do to-night," said he, "and that's what I'll do, you can bet
+your sh--boots, when all this silly mess is over and I'm a free man.
+I'll hike back to good old Broadway, and if ever you see any one trying
+to pry me loose from it again you can laugh yourself to death, because
+he'll never, never succeed.
+
+"That's where I'll go," he said, nodding, "when this waiting is
+over--straight back to Liberty Land and the bright lights. The rest of
+the family can stay here till they die, if they want to--and I suppose
+they do--_I'm_ going home as soon as I've got my money. Old Charlie'll
+manage all that for me. He'll get a lawyer to look after it, and I won't
+have to see anybody in the family at all.
+
+"Nine more weeks shut in by stone walls!" said the boy, staring about
+him with a sort of bitterness. "Nine weeks more!"
+
+"Is it so hard as that?" asked the girl.
+
+There was no foolish coquetry in her tone. She spoke as if the words
+involved no personal question at all, but there was a little smile at
+her lips, and Arthur Benham turned toward her quickly and caught at her
+hands.
+
+"No, no!" he cried. "I didn't mean that. You know I didn't mean that.
+You're worth nine years' waiting. You're the best--d'you hear?--the best
+there is. There's nobody anywhere that can touch you. Only--well, this
+place is getting on my nerves. It's got me worn to a frazzle. I feel
+like a criminal doing time."
+
+"You came very near having to do time somewhere else," said the girl.
+"If this M. Ste. Marie hadn't blundered we should have had them all
+round our ears, and you'd have had to run for it."
+
+"Yes," the boy said, nodding gravely. "Yes, that was great luck."
+
+He raised his head and looked up along the windows above him.
+
+"Which is his room?" he asked, and Mlle. O'Hara said:
+
+"The one just overhead, but he's in bed far back from the window. He
+couldn't possibly hear us talking."
+
+She paused for a moment in frowning hesitation, and in the end said:
+
+"Tell me about him, this Ste. Marie! Do you know anything about him?"
+
+"No," said Arthur Benham, "I don't--not personally, that is. Of course
+I've heard of him. Lots of people have spoken of him to me. And the odd
+part of it is that they all had a good word to say. Everybody seemed to
+like him. I got the idea that he was the best ever. I wanted to know
+him. I never thought he'd take on a piece of dirty work like this."
+
+"Nor I," said the girl, in a low voice. "Nor I."
+
+The boy looked up.
+
+"Oh, you've heard of him, too, then?" said he.
+
+And she said, still in her low voice, "I--saw him once."
+
+"Well," declared young Benham, "it's beyond me. I give it up. You never
+can tell about people, can you? I guess they'll all go wrong when
+there's enough in it to make it worth while. That's what old Charlie
+always says. He says most people are straight enough when there's
+nothing in it, but make the pot big enough and they'll all go crooked."
+
+The young man's face turned suddenly hard and old and bitter.
+
+"Gee! I ought to know that well enough, oughtn't I?" he said. "I guess
+nobody knows that better than I do after what happened to me.... Come
+along and take a walk in the garden, Maud! I'm sick of sitting still."
+
+Mlle. Coira O'Hara looked up with a start, as if she had not been
+listening, but she rose when the boy held out his hand to her, and the
+two went down from the terrace and moved off toward the west.
+
+Ste. Marie watched them until they had disappeared among the trees, and
+then turned on his back, staring up into the softly stirring canopy of
+green above him and the little rifts of bright blue sky. He did not
+understand at all. Something mysterious had crept in where all had
+seemed so plain to the eye. Certain words that young Arthur Benham had
+spoken repeated themselves in his mind, and he could not at once make
+them out. Assuredly there was something mysterious here.
+
+In the first place, what did the boy mean by "dirty work"? To be sure,
+spying, in its usual sense, is not held to be one of the noblest of
+occupations, but--in such a cause as this! It was absurd, ridiculous, to
+call it "dirty work." And what did he mean by the words which he had
+used afterward? Ste. Marie did not quite follow the idiom about the "big
+enough pot," but he assumed that it referred to money. Did the young
+fool think he was being paid for his efforts? That was ridiculous, too.
+
+The boy's face came before him as it had looked with that sudden hard
+and bitter expression. What did he mean by saying that no one knew the
+crookedness of humanity under money temptation better than he knew it
+after something that had happened to him? In a sense his words were
+doubtless very true. Captain Stewart--and he must have been "old
+Charlie"; Ste. Marie remembered that the name was Charles--O'Hara, and
+O'Hara's daughter stood excellent examples of that bit of cynicism, but
+obviously the boy had not spoken in that sense--certainly not before
+Mlle. O'Hara! He meant something else, then. But what--what?
+
+Ste. Marie rose with some difficulty to his feet and carried the pillows
+back to the bed whence he had taken them. He sat down upon the edge of
+the bed, staring in great perplexity across the room at the open window,
+but all at once he uttered an exclamation and smote his hands together.
+
+"That boy doesn't know!" he cried. "They're tricking him, these others!"
+
+The lad's face came once more before him, and it was a foolish and
+stubborn face, perhaps, but it was neither vicious nor mean. It was the
+face of an honest, headstrong boy who would be incapable of the cold
+cruelty to which all circumstances seemed to point.
+
+"They're tricking him somehow!" cried Ste. Marie again. "They're lying
+to him and making him think--"
+
+What was it they were making him think, these three conspirators? What
+possible thing could they make him think other than the plain truth?
+Ste. Marie shook a weary head and lay down among his pillows. He wished
+that he had "old Charlie" in a corner of that room with his fingers
+round "old Charlie's" wicked throat. He would soon get at the truth
+then; or O'Hara, either, that grim and saturnine chevalier d'industrie,
+though O'Hara would be a bad handful to manage; or--Ste. Marie's head
+dropped back with a little groan when the face of young Arthur's
+enchantress came between him and the opposite wall of the room and her
+great and tragic eyes looked into his.
+
+It seemed incredible that that queen among goddesses should be what she
+was!
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+XIX
+
+THE INVALID TAKES THE AIR
+
+
+When O'Hara, the next morning, went through the formality of looking in
+upon his patient, and after a taciturn nod was about to go away again,
+Ste. Marie called him back. He said, "Would you mind waiting a moment?"
+and the Irishman halted inside the door. "I made an experiment
+yesterday," said Ste. Marie, "and I find that, after a poor fashion, I
+can walk--that is to say, I can drag myself about a little without any
+great pain if I don't bend the left leg."
+
+O'Hara returned to the bed and made a silent examination of the bullet
+wound, which, it was plain to see, was doing very well indeed. "You'll
+be all right in a few days," said he, "but you'll be lame for a week
+yet--maybe two. As a matter of fact, I've known men to march half a day
+with a hole in the leg worse than yours, though it probably was not
+quite pleasant."
+
+"I'm afraid I couldn't march very far," said Ste. Marie, "but I can
+hobble a bit. The point is, I'm going mad from confinement in this room.
+Do you think I might be allowed to stagger about the garden for an hour,
+or sit there under one of the trees? I don't like to ask favors, but, so
+far as I can see, it could do no harm. I couldn't possibly escape, you
+see. I couldn't climb a fifteen-foot wall even if I had two good legs;
+as it is, with a leg and a half, I couldn't climb anything."
+
+The Irishman looked at him sharply, and was silent for a time, as if
+considering. But at last he said: "Of course there is no reason whatever
+for granting you any favors here. You're on the footing of a spy--a
+captured spy--and you're very lucky not to have got what you deserved
+instead of a trumpery flesh wound." The man's face twisted into a heavy
+scowl. "Unfortunately," said he, "an accident has put me--put us in as
+unpleasant a position toward you as you had put yourself toward us. We
+seem to stand in the position of having tried to poison you, and--well,
+we owe you something for that. Still, I'd meant to keep you locked up in
+this room so long as it was necessary to have you at La Lierre." He
+scowled once more in an intimidating fashion at Ste. Marie, and it was
+evident that he found himself embarrassed. "And," he said, awkwardly, "I
+suppose I owe something to your father's son.... Look here! If you're to
+be allowed in the garden, you must understand that it's at fixed hours
+and not alone. Somebody will always be with you, and old Michel will be
+on hand to shoot you down if you try to run for it or if you try to
+communicate with Arthur Benham. Is that understood?"
+
+"Quite," said Ste. Marie, gayly. "Quite understood and agreed to. And
+many thanks for your courtesy. I sha'n't forget it. We differ rather
+widely on some rather important subjects, you and I, but I must confess
+that you're very generous, and I thank you. The old Michel has my full
+permission to shoot at me if he sees me trying to fly over a
+fifteen-foot wall."
+
+"He'll shoot without asking your permission," said the Irishman, grimly,
+"if you try that on, but I don't think you'll be apt to try it for the
+present--not with a crippled leg." He pulled out his watch and looked at
+it. "Nine o'clock," said he. "If you care to begin to-day you can go out
+at eleven for an hour. I'll see that old Michel is ready at that time."
+
+"Eleven will suit me perfectly," said Ste. Marie. "You're very good.
+Thanks once more!" The Irishman did not seem to hear. He replaced the
+watch in his pocket and turned away in silence. But before he left the
+room he stood a moment beside one of the windows, staring out into the
+morning sunshine, and the other man could see that his face had once
+more settled into the still and melancholic gloom which was
+characteristic of it. Ste. Marie watched, and for the first time the man
+began to interest him as a human being. He had thought of O'Hara before
+merely as a rather shady adventurer of a not very rare type, but he
+looked at the adventurer's face now and he saw that it was the face of a
+man of unspeakable sorrows. When O'Hara looked at one, one saw only a
+pair of singularly keen and hard blue eyes set under a bony brow. When
+those eyes were turned away, the man's attention relaxed, the face
+became a battle-ground furrowed and scarred with wrecked pride and with
+bitterness and with shame and with agony. Most soldiers of fortune have
+faces like that, for the world has used them very ill, and they have
+lost one precious thing after another until all are gone, and they have
+tasted everything that there is in life, and the flavor which remains is
+a very bitter flavor--dry, like ashes.
+
+It came to Ste. Marie, as he lay watching this man, that the story of
+the man's life, if he could be made to tell it, would doubtless be one
+of the most interesting stories in the world, as must be the tale of the
+adventurous career of any one who has slipped down the ladder of
+respectability, rung by rung, into that shadowy no-man's-land where the
+furtive birds of prey foregather and hatch their plots. It was plain
+enough that O'Hara had, as the phrase goes, seen better days. Without
+question he was a villain, but, after all, a generous villain. He had
+been very decent about making amends for that poisoning affair. A
+cheaper rascal would have behaved otherwise. Ste. Marie suddenly
+remembered what a friend of his had once said of this mysterious
+Irishman. The two had been sitting on the terrace of a cafe, and as
+O'Hara passed by Ste. Marie's friend pointed after him and said: "There
+goes some of the best blood that ever came out of Ireland. See what it
+has fallen to!"
+
+Seemingly it had fallen pretty low. He would have liked very much to
+know about the downward stages, but he knew that he would never hear
+anything of them from the man himself, for O'Hara was clad, as it were,
+in an armor of taciturnity. He was incredibly silent. He wore mail that
+nothing could pierce.
+
+The Irishman turned abruptly away and left the room, and Ste. Marie,
+with all the gay excitement of a little girl preparing for her first
+nursery party, began to get himself ready to go out. The old Michel had
+already been there to help him bathe and shave, so that he had only to
+dress himself and attend to his one conspicuous vanity--the painstaking
+arrangement of his hair, which he wore, according to the fashion of the
+day, parted a little at one side and brushed almost straight back, so
+that it looked rather like a close-fitting and incredibly glossy
+skullcap. Richard Hartley, who was inclined to joke at his friend's
+grave interest in the matter, said that it reminded him of
+patent-leather.
+
+When he was dressed--and he found that putting on his left boot was no
+mean feat--Ste. Marie sat down in a chair by the window and lighted a
+cigarette. He had half an hour to wait, and so he picked up the volume
+of _Bayard_, which Coira O'Hara had not yet taken away from him, and
+began to read in it at random. He became so absorbed that the old
+Michel, come to summon him, took him by surprise. But it was a pleasant
+surprise and very welcome. He followed the old man out of the room with
+a heart that beat fast with eagerness.
+
+The descent of the stairs offered difficulties, for the wounded leg
+protested sharply against being bent more than a very little at the
+knee. But by the aid of Michel's shoulder he made the passage in safety
+and so came to the lower story. At the foot of the stairs some one
+opened a door almost in their faces, but closed it again with great
+haste, and Ste. Marie gave a chuckle of laughter, for, though it was
+almost dark there, he thought he had recognized Captain Stewart.
+
+"So old Charlie's with us to-day, is he?" he said, aloud, and Michel
+queried:
+
+"Comment, Monsieur?" because Ste. Marie had spoken in English.
+
+They came out upon the terrace before the house, and the fresh, sweet
+air bore against their faces, and little flecks of live gold danced and
+shivered about their feet upon the moss-stained tiles. The gardener
+stepped back for an instant into the doorway, and reappeared bearing
+across his arms the short carbine with which Ste. Marie had already made
+acquaintance. The victim looked at this weapon with a laugh, and the old
+Michel's gnomelike countenance distorted itself suddenly and a weird
+cackle came from it.
+
+"It is my old friend?" demanded Ste. Marie, and the gardener cackled
+once more, stroking the barrel of the weapon as if it were a faithful
+dog.
+
+"The same, Monsieur," said he. "But she apologizes for not doing
+better."
+
+"Beg her for me," said the young man, "to cheer up. She may get another
+chance."
+
+Old Michel's face froze into an expression of anxious and rather
+frightened solicitude, but he waved his arm for the prisoner to precede
+him, and Ste. Marie began to limp down across the littered and unkempt
+sweep of turf. Behind him, at the distance of a dozen paces, he heard
+the shambling footfalls of his guard, but he had expected that, and it
+could not rob him of his swelling and exultant joy at treading once more
+upon green grass and looking up into blue sky. He was like a man newly
+released from a dungeon rather than from a sunny and by no means
+uncomfortable upper chamber. He would have liked to dance and sing, to
+run at full speed like a child until he was breathless and red in the
+face. Instead of that he had to drag himself with slow pains and some
+discomfort, but his spirit ran ahead, dancing and singing, and he
+thought that it even halted now and then to roll on the grass.
+
+As he had observed a week before, from the top of the wall, a double row
+of larches led straight down away from the front of the house, making a
+wide and long vista interrupted half-way to its end by a rond point, in
+the centre of which were a pool and a fountain. The double row of trees
+was sadly broken now, and the trees were untrimmed and uncared for. One
+of them had fallen, probably in a wind-storm, and lay dead across the
+way. Ste. Marie turned aside toward the west and found himself presently
+among chestnuts, planted in close rows, whose tops grew in so thick a
+canopy above that but little sunshine came through, and there was no
+turf under foot, only black earth, hard-trodden, mossy here and there.
+
+From beyond, in the direction he had chanced to take, and a little
+toward the west, a soft morning breeze bore to him the scent of roses so
+constant and so sweet, despite its delicacy, that to breathe it was like
+an intoxication. He felt it begin to take hold upon and to sway his
+senses like an exquisite, an insidious wine.
+
+"The flower-gardens, Michel?" he asked, over his shoulder. "They are
+before us?"
+
+"Ahead and to the left, Monsieur," said the old man, and he took up once
+more his slow and difficult progress.
+
+But again, before he had gone many steps, he was halted. There began to
+reach his ears a rich but slender strain of sound, a golden thread of
+melody. At first he thought that it was a 'cello or the lower notes of a
+violin, but presently he became aware that it was a woman singing in a
+half-voice without thought of what she sang--as women croon to a child,
+or over their work, or when they are idle and their thoughts are far
+wandering.
+
+The mistake was not as absurd as it may seem, for it is a fact that the
+voice which is called a contralto, if it is a good and clear and fairly
+resonant voice, sounds at a distance very much indeed like a 'cello or
+the lower register of a violin. And that is especially true when the
+voice is hushed to a half-articulate murmur. Indeed, this is but one of
+the many strange peculiarities of that most beautiful of all human
+organs. The contralto can rarely express the lighter things, and it is
+quite impossible for it to express merriment or gayety, but it can
+thrill the heart as can no other sound emitted by a human throat, and it
+can shake the soul to its very innermost hidden deeps. It is the soft,
+yellow gold of singing--the wine of sound; it is mystery; it is shadowy,
+unknown, beautiful places; it is enchantment. Ste. Marie stood still and
+listened. The sound of low singing came from the right. Without
+realizing that he had moved, he began to make his way in that direction,
+and the old Michel, carbine upon arm, followed behind him. He had no
+doubt of the singer. He knew well who it was, for the girl's speaking
+voice had thrilled him long before this. He came to the eastern margin
+of the grove of chestnuts and found that he was beside the open rond
+point, where the pool lay within its stone circumference, unclean and
+choked with lily-pads, and the fountain--a naked lady holding aloft a
+shell--stood above. The rond point was not in reality round; it was an
+oval with its greater axis at right angles to the long, straight avenue
+of larches. At the two ends of the oval there were stone benches with
+backs, and behind these, tall shrubs grew close and overhung, so that
+even at noonday the spots were shaded.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+XX
+
+THE STONE BENCH AT THE ROND POINT
+
+
+Mlle. Coira O'Hara sat alone upon the stone bench at the hither end of
+the rond point. With a leisurely hand she put fine stitches into a
+mysterious garment of white, with lace on it, and over her not too
+arduous toil she sang, a demi voix, a little German song all about the
+tender passions.
+
+Ste. Marie halted his dragging steps a little way off, but the girl
+heard him and turned to look. After that she rose hurriedly and stood as
+if poised for flight, but Ste. Marie took his hat in his hands and came
+forward.
+
+"If you go away, Mademoiselle," said he, "if you let me drive you from
+your place, I shall limp across to that pool and fall in and drown
+myself, or I shall try to climb the wall yonder and Michel will have to
+shoot me."
+
+He came forward another step.
+
+"If it is impossible," he said, "that you and I should stay here
+together for a few little moments and talk about what a beautiful day it
+is--if that is impossible, why then I must apologize for intruding upon
+you and go on my way, inexorably pursued by the would-be murderer who
+now stands six paces to the rear. Is it impossible, Mademoiselle?" said
+Ste. Marie.
+
+The girl's face was flushed with that deep and splendid understain. She
+looked down upon the white garment in her hand and away across the broad
+rond point, and in the end she looked up very gravely into the face of
+the man who stood leaning upon his stick before her.
+
+"I don't know," she said, in her deep voice, "what my father would wish.
+I did not know that you were coming into the garden this morning, or--"
+
+"Or else," said Ste. Marie, with a little touch of bitterness in his
+tone--"or else you would not have been here. You would have remained in
+the house."
+
+He made a bow.
+
+"To-morrow, Mademoiselle," said he, "and for the remainder of the days
+that I may be at La Lierre, I shall stay in my room. You need have no
+fear of me."
+
+All the man's life he had been spoiled. The girl's bearing hurt him
+absurdly, and a little of the hurt may have betrayed itself in his face
+as he turned away, for she came toward him with a swift movement,
+saying:
+
+"No, no! Wait!--I have hurt you," she said, with a sort of wondering
+distress. "You have let me hurt you.... And yet surely you must see,...
+you must realize on what terms.... Do you forget that you are not among
+your friends... outside?... This is so very different!"
+
+"I had forgotten," said he. "Incredible as it sounds, I had for a moment
+forgotten. Will you grant me your pardon for that? And yet," he
+persisted, after a moment's pause--"yet, Mademoiselle, consider a
+little! It is likely that--circumstances have so fallen that it seems I
+shall be here within your walls for a time, perhaps a long time. I am
+able to walk a little now. Day by day I shall be stronger, better able
+to get about. Is there not some way--are there hot some terms under
+which we could meet without embarrassment? Must we forever glare at each
+other and pass by warily, just because we--well, hold different views
+about--something?"
+
+It was not a premeditated speech at all. It had never until this moment
+occurred to him to suggest any such arrangement with any member of the
+household at La Lierre. At another time he would doubtless have
+considered it undignified, if not downright unwise, to hold intercourse
+of any friendly sort with this band of contemptible adventurers. The
+sudden impulse may have been born of his long week of almost intolerable
+loneliness, or it may have come of the warm exhilaration of this first
+breath of sweet, outdoor air, or perhaps it needed neither of these
+things, for the girl was very beautiful--enchantment breathed from her,
+and, though he knew what she was, in what despicable plot she was
+engaged, he was too much Ste. Marie to be quite indifferent to her.
+Though he looked upon her sorrowfully and with pain and vicarious shame,
+he could not have denied the spell she wielded. After all, he was Ste.
+Marie.
+
+Once more the girl looked up very gravely under her brows, and her eyes
+met the man's eyes. "I don't know," she said. "Truly, I don't know. I
+think I should have to ask my father about it.--I wish," she said, "that
+we might do that. I should like it. I should like to be able to talk to
+some one--about the things I like--and care for. I used to talk with my
+father about things; but not lately. There is no one now." Her eyes
+searched him. "Would it be possible, I wonder," said she. "Could we two
+put everything else aside--forget altogether who we are and why we are
+here. Is that possible?"
+
+"We could only try, Mademoiselle," said Ste. Marie. "If we found it a
+failure we could give it up." He broke into a little laugh. "And
+besides," he said, "I can't help thinking that two people ought to be
+with me all the time I am in the garden here--for safety's sake. I might
+catch the old Michel napping one day, you know, throttle him, take his
+rifle away, and escape. If there were two, I couldn't do it."
+
+For an instant she met his laugh with an answering smile, and the smile
+came upon her sombre beauty like a moment of golden light upon darkness.
+But afterward she was grave again and thoughtful. "Is it not rather
+foolish," she asked, "to warn us--to warn me of possibilities like that?
+You might quite easily do what you have said. You are putting us on our
+guard against you."
+
+"I meant to, Mademoiselle," said Ste. Marie. "I meant to. Consider my
+reasons. Consider what I was pleading for!" And he gave a little laugh
+when the color began again to rise in the girl's cheeks.
+
+She turned away from him, shaking her head, and he thought that he had
+said too much and that she was offended, but after a moment the girl
+looked up, and when she met his eyes she laughed outright.
+
+"I cannot forever be scowling and snarling at you," said she. "It is
+quite too absurd. Will you sit down for a little while? I don't know
+whether or not my father would approve, but we have met here by
+accident, and there can be no harm, surely, in our exchanging a few
+civil words. If you try to bring up forbidden topics I can simply go
+away; and, besides, Michel stands ready to murder you if it should
+become necessary. I think his failure of a week ago is very heavy on his
+conscience."
+
+Ste. Marie sat down in one corner of the long stone bench, and he was
+very glad to do it, for his leg was beginning to cause him some
+discomfort. It felt hot and as if there were a very tight band round it
+above the knee. The relief must have been apparent in his face, for
+Mlle. O'Hara looked at him in silence for a moment, and she gave a
+little, troubled, anxious frown. Men can be quite indifferent to
+suffering in each other if the suffering is not extreme, and women can
+be, too, but men are quite miserable in the presence of a woman who is
+in pain, and women, before a suffering man, while they are not
+miserable, are always full of a desire to do something that will help.
+And that might be a small, additional proof--if any more proof were
+necessary--that they are much the more practical of the two sexes.
+
+The girl's sharp glance seemed to assure her that Ste. Marie was
+comfortable, now that he was sitting down, for the frown went from her
+brows, and she began to arrange the mysterious white garment in her lap
+in preparation to go on with her work.
+
+Ste. Marie watched her for a while in a contented silence. The leaves
+overhead stirred under a puff of air, and a single yellow beam of
+sunlight came down and shivered upon the girl's dark head and played
+about the bundle of white over which her hands were busy. She moved
+aside to avoid it, but it followed her, and when she moved back it
+followed again and danced in her lap as if it were a live thing with a
+malicious sense of humor. It might have been Tinker Bell out of _Peter
+Pan_, only it did not jingle. Mlle. O'Hara uttered an exclamation of
+annoyance, and Ste. Marie laughed at her, but in a moment the leaves
+overhead were still again, and the sunbeam, with a sense of humor, was
+gone to torment some one else.
+
+Still neither of the two spoke, and Ste. Marie continued to watch the
+girl bent above her sewing. He Was thinking of what she had said to him
+when he asked her if she read Spanish--that her mother had been Spanish.
+That would account, then, for her dark eyes. It would account for the
+darkness of her skin, too, but not for its extraordinary clearness and
+delicacy, for Spanish women are apt to have dull skins of an opaque
+texture. This was, he said to himself, an Irish skin with a darker
+stain, and he was quite sure that he had never before seen anything at
+all like it.
+
+Apart from coloring, she was all Irish, of the type which has become
+famous the world over, and which in the opinion of men who have seen
+women in all countries, and have studied them, is the most beautiful
+type that exists in our time.
+
+Ste. Marie was dark himself, and in the ordinary nature of things he
+should have preferred a fair type in women. In theory, for that matter,
+he did prefer it, but it was impossible for him to sit near Coira O'Hara
+and watch her bent head and busy, hovering hands, and remain unstirred
+by her splendid beauty. He found himself wondering why one kind of
+loveliness more than another should exert a potent and mysterious spell
+by virtue of mere proximity, and when the woman who bore it was entirely
+passive. If this girl had been looking at him the matter would have been
+easy to understand, for an eye-glance is often downright hypnotic; but
+she was looking at the work in her hands, and, so far as could be
+judged, she had altogether forgotten his presence; yet the mysterious
+spell, the potent enchantment, breathed from her like a vapor, and he
+could not be insensible to it. It was like sorcery.
+
+The girl looked up so suddenly that Ste. Marie jumped. She said:
+
+"You are not a very talkative person. Are you always as silent as this?"
+
+"No," said he, "I am not. I offer my humblest apologies. It seems as if
+I were not properly grateful for being allowed to sit here with you,
+but, to tell the truth, I was buried in thought."
+
+They had begun to talk in French, but midway of Ste. Marie's speech the
+girl glanced toward the old Michel, who stood a short distance away, and
+so he changed to English.
+
+"In that case," she said, regarding her work with her head on one side
+like a bird--"in that case you might at least tell me what your thoughts
+were. They might be interesting."
+
+Ste. Marie gave a little embarrassed laugh.
+
+"I'm sorry," said he, "but I'm afraid they were too personal. I'm afraid
+if I told you you'd get up and go away and be frigidly polite to me when
+next we passed each other in the garden here. But there's no harm," he
+said, "in telling you one thing that occurred to me. It occurred to me
+that, as far as a young girl can be said to resemble an elderly woman,
+you bear a most remarkable resemblance to a very dear old friend of mine
+who lives near Dublin--Lady Margaret Craith. She's a widow, and almost
+all of her family are dead, I believe--I didn't know any of them--and
+she lives there in a huge old house with a park, quite alone with her
+army of servants. I go to see her whenever I'm in Ireland, because she
+is one of the sweetest souls I have ever known."
+
+He became aware suddenly that Mlle. O'Hara's head was bent very low over
+her sewing and that her face, or as much of it as he could see, was
+crimson.
+
+"Oh, I--I beg your pardon!" cried Ste. Marie. "I've done something
+dreadful. I don't know what it is, but I'm very, very sorry. Please
+forgive me if you can!"
+
+"It is nothing," she said, in a low voice, and after a moment she looked
+up for the swiftest possible glance and down again. "That is my--aunt,"
+she said. "Only--please let us talk about something else! Of course you
+couldn't possibly have known."
+
+"No," said Ste. Marie, gravely. "No, of course. You are very good to
+forgive me."
+
+He was silent a little while, for what the girl had told him surprised
+him very much indeed, and touched him, too. He remembered again the
+remark of his friend when O'Hara had passed them on the boulevard:
+
+"There goes some of the best blood that ever came out of Ireland. See
+what it has fallen to!"
+
+"It is a curious fact," said he, "that you and I are very close
+compatriots in the matter of blood--if 'compatriots' is the word. You
+are Irish and Spanish. My mother was Irish and my people were Bearnais,
+which is about as much Spanish as French; and, indeed, there was a great
+deal of blood from across the mountains in them, for they often married
+Spanish wives."
+
+He pulled the _Bayard_ out of his pocket.
+
+"The Ste. Marie in here married a Spanish lady, didn't he?"
+
+The girl looked up to him once more.
+
+"Yes," she said. "Yes, I remember. He was a brave man, Monsieur. He had
+a great soul. And he died nobly."
+
+"Well, as for that," he said, flushing a little, "the Ste. Maries have
+all died rather well."
+
+He gave a short laugh.
+
+"Though I must admit," said he, "that the last of them came precious
+near falling below the family standard a week ago. I should think that
+probably none of my respected forefathers was killed in climbing over a
+garden-wall. Autres temps, autres moeurs."
+
+He burst out laughing again at what seemed to him rather comic, but
+Mlle. O'Hara did not smile. She looked very gravely into his eyes, and
+there seemed to be something like sorrow in her look. Ste. Marie
+wondered at it, but after a moment it occurred to him that he was very
+near forbidden ground, and that doubtless the girl was trying to give
+him a silent warning of it. He began to turn over the leaves of the book
+in his hand.
+
+"You have marked a great many pages here," said he.
+
+And she said: "It is my best of all books. I read in it very often. I am
+so thankful for it that there are no words to say how thankful I am--how
+glad I am that I have such a world as that to--take refuge in sometimes
+when this world is a little too unbearable. It does for me now what the
+fairy stories did when I was little. And to think that it's true, true!
+To think that once there truly were men like that--sans peur et sans
+reproche! It makes life worth while to think that those men lived even
+if it was long ago."
+
+Ste. Marie bent his head over the little book, for he could not look at
+Mlle. O'Hara just then. It seemed to him well-nigh the most pathetic
+speech that he had ever heard. His heart bled for her. Out of what mean
+shadows had the girl to turn her weary eyes upward to this sunlight of
+ancient heroism!
+
+"And yet, Mademoiselle," said he, gently, "I think there are such men
+alive to-day, if only one will look for them. Remember, they were not
+common even in Bayard's time. Oh yes, I think there are preux chevaliers
+nowadays, only perhaps they don't go about things in quite the same
+fashion. Other times, other manners," he said again.
+
+"Do you know any such men?" she demanded, facing him with shadowy eyes.
+
+And he said: "Yes, I know men who are in all ways as honorable and as
+high-hearted as Bayard was. In his place they would have acted as he
+did, but nowadays one has to practise heroism much less
+conspicuously--in the little things that few people see and that no one
+applauds or writes books about. It is much harder to do brave little
+acts than brave big ones."
+
+"Yes." she agreed, slowly. "Oh yes, of course."
+
+But there was no spirit in her tone, rather a sort of apathy. Once more
+the leaves overhead swayed in the breeze, opened a tiny rift, and the
+little trembling ray of sunshine shot down to her where she sat. She
+stretched out one hand cup-wise, and the sunbeam, after a circling
+gyration, darted into it and lay there like a small golden bird panting,
+as it were, from fright.
+
+"If I were a painter," said Ste. Marie, "I should be in torture and
+anguish of soul until I had painted you sitting there on a stone bench
+and holding a sunbeam in your hand. I don't know what I should call the
+picture, but I think it would be something figurative--symbolic. Can you
+think of a name?"
+
+Coira O'Hara looked up at him with a slight smile, but her eyes were
+gloomy and full of dark shadows. "It might be called any one of a great
+number of things, I should think," said she.
+"Happiness--belief--illusion. See! The sunbeam is gone."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+XXI
+
+A MIST DIMS THE SHINING STAR
+
+
+Ste. Marie remained in his room all the rest of that day, and he did not
+see Mlle. O'Hara again, for Michel brought him his lunch and the old
+Justine his dinner. For the greater part of the time he sat in bed
+reading, but rose now and then and moved about the room. His wound
+seemed to have suffered no great inconvenience from the morning's
+outing. If he stood or walked too long it burned somewhat, and he had
+the sensation of a tight band round the leg; but this passed after he
+had lain down for a little while, or even sat in a chair with the leg
+straight out before him; so he knew that he was not to be crippled very
+much longer, and his thoughts began to turn more and more keenly upon
+the matter of escape.
+
+He realized, of course, that now, since he was once more able to walk,
+he would be guarded with unremitting care every moment of the day, and
+quite possibly every moment of the night as well, though the simple
+bolting of his door on the outside would seem to answer the purpose save
+when he was out-of-doors. Once he went to the two east windows and hung
+out of them, testing as well as he could with his hands the strength and
+tenacity of the ivy which covered that side of the house. He thought it
+seemed strong enough to give hand and foot hold without being torn
+loose, but he was afraid it would make an atrocious amount of noise if
+he should try to climb down it, and, besides, he would need two very
+active legs for that.
+
+At another time a fresh idea struck him, and he put it at once into
+action. There might be just a chance, when out one day with Michel, of
+getting near enough to the wall which ran along the Clamart road to
+throw something over it when the old man was not looking. In one of his
+pockets he had a card-case with a little pencil fitted into a loop at
+the edge, and in the case it was his custom to carry postage-stamps. He
+investigated and found pencil and stamps. Of course he had nothing but
+cards to write upon, and they were useless. He looked about the room and
+went through an empty chest of drawers in vain, but at last, on some
+shelves in the closet where his clothes had hung, he found several large
+sheets of coarse white paper. The shelves were covered with it loosely
+for the sake of cleanliness. He abstracted one of these sheets, and cut
+it into squares of the ordinary note-paper size, and he sat down and
+wrote a brief letter to Richard Hartley, stating where he was, that
+Arthur Benham was there, the O'Haras, and, he thought, Captain Stewart.
+He did not write the names out, but put instead the initial letters of
+each name, knowing that Hartley would understand. He gave careful
+directions as to how the place was to be reached, and he asked Hartley
+to come as soon as possible by night to that wall where he himself had
+made his entrance, to climb up by the cedar-tree, and to drop his answer
+into the thick leaves of the lilac bushes immediately beneath--an answer
+naming a day and hour, preferably by night, when he could return with
+three or four to help him, surprise the household at La Lierre, and
+carry off young Benham.
+
+Ste. Marie wrote this letter four times, and each of the four copies he
+enclosed in an awkwardly fashioned envelope, made with infinite pains so
+that its flaps folded in together, for he had no gum. He addressed and
+stamped the four envelopes, and put them all in his pocket to await the
+first opportunity.
+
+Afterward he lay down for a while, and as, one after another, the books
+he had in the room failed to interest him, his thoughts began to turn
+back to Mlle. Coira O'Hara and his hour with her upon the old stone
+bench in the garden. He realized all at once that he had been putting
+off this reflection as one puts off a reckoning that one a little dreads
+to face, and rather vaguely he realized why.
+
+The spell that the girl wielded--quite without being conscious of it; he
+granted her that grace--was too potent. It was dangerous, and he knew
+it. Even imaginative and very unpractical people can be in some things
+surprisingly matter-of-fact, and Ste. Marie was matter-of-fact about
+this. The girl had made a mysterious and unprecedented appeal to him at
+his very first sight of her, long before, and ever since that time she
+had continued, intermittently at least, to haunt his dreams. Now he was
+in the very house with her. It was quite possible that he might see her
+and speak with her every day, and he knew there was peril in that.
+
+He closed his eyes and she came to him, dark and beautiful, magnetically
+vital, spreading enchantment about her like a fragrance. She sat beside
+him on the moss-stained bench in the garden, holding out her hand
+cup-wise, and a sunbeam lay in the hand like a little, golden,
+fluttering bird. His thoughts ran back to that first morning when he had
+narrowly escaped death by poison. He remembered the girl's agony of fear
+and horror. He felt her hands once more upon his shoulders, and he was
+aware that his breath was coming faster and that his heart beat quickly.
+He got to his feet and went across to one of the windows, and he stood
+there for a long time frowning out into the summer day. If ever in his
+life, he said to himself with some deliberation, he was to need a cool
+and clear head, faculties unclouded and unimpaired by emotion, it was
+now in these next few days. Much more than his own well-being depended
+upon him now. The fates of a whole family, and quite possibly the lives
+of some of them, were in his hands. He must not fail, and he must not,
+in any least way, falter.
+
+For enemies he had a band of desperate adventurers, and the very boy
+himself, the centre and reason for the whole plot, had been, in some
+incomprehensible way, so played upon that he, too, was against him.
+
+The man standing by the window forced himself quite deliberately to look
+the plain facts in the face. He compelled himself to envisage this
+beautiful girl with her tragic eyes for just what his reason knew her to
+be--an adventuress, a decoy, a lure to a callow, impressionable, foolish
+lad, the tool of that arch-villain Stewart and of the lesser villain her
+father. It was like standing by and watching something lovely and
+pitiful vilely befouled. It turned his heart sick within him, but he
+held himself to the task. He brought to aid him the vision of his lady,
+in whose cause he was pursuing this adventure. For strength and
+determination he reached eye and hand to her where she sat enthroned,
+calm-browed, serene.
+
+For the first time since the beginning of all things his lady failed
+him, and Ste. Marie turned cold with fear.
+
+Where was that splendid frenzy that had been wont to sweep him all in an
+instant into upper air--set his feet upon the stars? Where was it? The
+man gave a sudden, voiceless cry of horror. The wings that had such
+countless times upborne him fluttered weakly near the earth and could
+not mount. His lady was there; through infinite space he was aware of
+her, but she was cold and aloof, and her eyes gazed very serenely beyond
+at something he could not see.
+
+He knew well enough that the fault lay somewhere within himself. She was
+as she had ever been, but he lacked the strength to rise to her. Why?
+Why? He searched himself with a desperate earnestness, but he could find
+no answer to his questioning. In himself, as in her, there had come no
+change. She was still to him all that she ever had been--the star of his
+destiny, the pillar of fire by night, of cloud by day, to guide him on
+his path. Where, then, the fine, pure fervor that should, at thought of
+her, whirl him on high and make a god of him?
+
+He stood wrapped in bewilderment and despair, for he could find no
+answer.
+
+In plain words, in commonplace black-and-white, the man's anguish has an
+over-fanciful, a well-nigh absurd look, but to Ste. Marie the thing was
+very real and terrible, as real and as terrible as, to a half-starved
+monk in his lonely cell, the sudden failure of the customary exaltation
+of spirit after a night's long prayer.
+
+He went, after a time, back to the bed, and lay down there with one
+upflung arm across his eyes to shut out the light. He was filled with a
+profound dejection and a sense of hopelessness. Through all the long
+week of his imprisonment he had been cheerful, at times even gay.
+However evil his case might have looked, his elastic spirits had mounted
+above all difficulties and cares, confident in the face of apparent
+defeat. Now at last he lay still, bruised, as it were, and battered and
+weary. The flame of courage burned very low in him. From sheer
+exhaustion he fell after a time into a troubled sleep, but even there
+the enemy followed him and would not let him rest. He seemed to himself
+to be in a place of shadows and fears. He strained his eyes to make out
+above him the bright, clear star of guidance, for so long as that shone
+he was safe; but something had come between--cloud or mist--and his star
+shone dimly in fitful glimpses.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+On the next morning he went out once more with the old Michel into the
+garden. He went with a stronger heart, for the morning had renewed his
+courage, as bright, fresh mornings do. From the anguish of the day
+before he held himself carefully aloof. He kept his mind away from all
+thought of it, and gave his attention to the things about him. It would
+return, doubtless, in the slow, idle hours; he would have to face it
+again and yet again; he would have to contend with it; but for the
+present he put it out of his thoughts, for there were things to do.
+
+It was no more than human of him--and certainly it was very
+characteristic of Ste. Marie--that he should be half glad and half
+disappointed at not finding Coira O'Hara in her place at the rond point.
+It left him free to do what he wished to do--make a careful
+reconnaissance of the whole garden enclosure--but it left him empty of
+something he had, without conscious thought, looked forward to.
+
+His wounded leg was stronger and more flexible than on the day before;
+it burned and prickled less, and could be bent a little at the knee with
+small distress; so he led the old Michel at a good pace down the length
+of the enclosure, past the rose-gardens, a tangle of unkempt sweetness,
+and so to the opposite wall. He found the gates there, very
+formidable-looking, made of vertical iron bars connected by cross-pieces
+and an ornamental scroll. They were fastened together by a heavy chain
+and a padlock. The lock was covered with rust, as were the gates
+themselves, and Ste. Marie observed that the lane outside upon which
+they gave was overgrown with turf and moss, and even with seedling
+shrubs; so he felt sure that this entrance was never used. The lane, he
+noted, swept away to the right toward Issy and not toward the Clamart
+road. He heard, as he stood there, the whir of a tram from far away at
+the left, a tram bound to or from Clamart, and the sound brought to his
+mind what he wished to do. He turned about and began to make his way
+round the rose-gardens, which were partly enclosed by a low brick wall
+some two or three feet high. Beyond them the trees and shrubbery were
+not set out in orderly rows as they were near the house, but grew at
+will without hindrance or care. It was like a bit of the Meudon wood.
+
+He found the going more difficult here for his bad leg, but he pressed
+on, and in a little while saw before him that wall which skirted the
+Clamart road. He felt in his pocket for the four sealed and stamped
+letters, but just then the old Michel spoke behind him:
+
+"Pardon, Monsieur! Ce n'est pas permis."
+
+"What is not permitted?" demanded Ste. Marie, wheeling about.
+
+"To approach that wall, Monsieur," said the old man, with an incredibly
+gnomelike and apologetic grin.
+
+Ste. Marie gave an exclamation of disgust. "Is it believed that I could
+leap over it?" he asked. "A matter of five metres? Merci, non! I am not
+so agile. You flatter me."
+
+The old Michel spread out his two gnarled hands.
+
+"Pas de ma faute. I have orders, Monsieur. It will be my painful duty to
+shoot if Monsieur approaches that wall." He turned his strange head on
+one side and regarded Ste. Marie with his sharp and beadlike eye. The
+smile of apology still distorted his face, and he looked exactly like
+the Punchinello in a street show.
+
+Ste. Marie slowly withdrew from his pocket two louis d'or and held them
+before him in the palm of his hand. He looked down upon them, and Michel
+looked, too, with a gaze so intense that his solitary eye seemed to
+project a very little from his withered face. He was like a hypnotized
+old bird.
+
+"Mon vieux," said Ste. Marie. "I am a man of honor."
+
+"Surement! Surement, Monsieur!" said the old Michel, politely, but his
+hypnotized gaze did not stir so much as a hair's-breadth. "Ca va sans le
+dire."
+
+"A man of honor," repeated Ste. Marie. "When I give my word I keep it.
+Voila! I keep it. And," said he, "I have here forty francs. Two louis. A
+large sum. It is yours, my brave Michel, for the mere trouble of turning
+your back just thirty seconds."
+
+"Monsieur," whispered the old man, "it is impossible. He would kill
+me--by torture."
+
+"He will never know," said Ste. Marie, "for I do not mean to try to
+escape. I give you my word of honor that I shall not try to escape.
+Besides, I could not climb over that wall, as you see. Two louis,
+Michel! Forty francs!"
+
+The old man's hands twisted and trembled round the barrel of the
+carbine, and he swallowed once with some difficulty. He seemed to
+hesitate, but in the end he shook his head. It was as if he shook it in
+grief over the grave of his first-born. "It is impossible," he said
+again. "Impossible." He tore the beadlike eye away from those two
+beautiful, glowing golden things, and Ste. Marie saw that there was
+nothing to be done with him just now. He slipped the money back into his
+pocket with a little sigh and turned away toward the rose-gardens.
+
+"Ah, well," said he. "Another time, perhaps. Another time. And there are
+more louis still, mon vieux. Perhaps three or four. Who knows?"
+
+Michel emitted a groan of extreme anguish, and they moved on.
+
+But a few moments later Ste. Marie gave a sudden low exclamation, and
+then a soundless laugh, for he caught sight of a very familiar figure
+seated in apparent dejection upon a fallen tree-trunk and staring across
+the tangled splendor of the roses.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+XXII
+
+A SETTLEMENT REFUSED
+
+
+Captain Stewart had good reason to look depressed on that fresh and
+beautiful morning when Ste. Marie happened upon him beside the
+rose-gardens. Matters had not gone well with him of late. He was ill and
+he was frightened, and he was much nearer than is agreeable to a
+complete nervous breakdown.
+
+It seemed to him that perils beset him upon every side, perils both seen
+and unseen. He felt like a man who is hunted in the dark, hard pressed
+until his strength is gone, and he can flee no farther. He imagined
+himself to be that man shivering in the gloom in a strange place, hiding
+eyes and ears lest he see or hear something from which he cannot escape.
+He imagined the morning light to come, very slow and cold and gray, and
+in it he saw round about him a silent ring of enemies, the men who had
+pursued him and run him down. He saw them standing there in the pale
+dawn, motionless, waiting for the day, and he knew that at last the
+chase was over and he near done for.
+
+Crouching alone in the garden, with the scent of roses in his nostrils,
+he wondered with a great and bitter amazement at that madman--himself of
+only a few months ago--who had sat down deliberately, in his proper
+senses, to play at cards with Fate, the great winner of all games. He
+wondered if, after all, he had been in his proper senses, for the deed
+now loomed before him gigantic and hideous in its criminal folly. His
+mind went drearily back to the beginning of it all, to the tremendous
+debts which had hounded him day and night, to his fear to speak of them
+with his father, who had never had the least mercy upon gamblers. He
+remembered as if it were yesterday the afternoon upon which he learned
+of young Arthur's quarrel with his grandfather, old David's senile
+anger, and the boy's tempestuous exit from the house, vowing never to
+return. He remembered his talk with old David later on about the will,
+in which he learned that he was now to have Arthur's share under certain
+conditions. He remembered how that very evening, three days after his
+disappearance, the lad had come secretly to the rue du Faubourg St.
+Honore begging his uncle to take him in for a few days, and how, in a
+single instant that was like a lightning flash, the Great Idea had come
+to him.
+
+What gigantic and appalling madness it had all been! And yet for a time
+how easy of execution! For a time. Now.... He gave another quick shiver,
+for his mind came back to what beset him and compassed him round
+about--perils seen and hidden.
+
+The peril seen was ever before his eyes. Against the light of day it
+loomed a gigantic and portentous shadow, and it threatened him--the
+figure of Ste. Marie _who knew_. His reason told him that if due care
+were used this danger need not be too formidable, and, indeed, in his
+heart he rather despised Ste. Marie as an individual; but the man's
+nerve was broken, and in these days fear swept wavelike over reason and
+had its way with him. Fear looked up to this looming, portentous shadow
+and saw there youth and health and strength, courage and hopefulness,
+and, best of all armors, a righteous cause. How was an ill and tired and
+wicked old man to fight against these? It became an obsession, the
+figure of this youth; it darkened the sun at noonday, and at night it
+stood beside Captain Stewart's bed in the darkness and watched him and
+waited, and the very air he breathed came chill and dark from its silent
+presence there.
+
+But there were perils unseen as well as seen. He felt invisible threads
+drawing round him, weaving closer and closer, and he dared not even try
+how strong they were lest they prove to be cables of steel. He was
+almost certain that his niece knew something or at the least suspected.
+As has already been pointed out, the two saw very little of each other,
+but on the occasions of their last few meetings it had seemed to him
+that the girl watched him with a strange stare, and tried always to be
+in her grandfather's chamber when he called to make his inquiries. Once,
+stirred by a moment's bravado, he asked her if M. Ste. Marie had
+returned from his mysterious absence, and the girl said:
+
+"No. He has not come back yet, but I expect him soon now--with news of
+Arthur. We shall all be very glad to see him, grandfather and Richard
+Hartley and I."
+
+It was not a very consequential speech, and, to tell the truth, it was
+what in the girl's own country would be termed pure "bluff," but to
+Captain Stewart it rang harsh and loud with evil significance, and he
+went out of that room cold at heart. What plans were they perfecting
+among them? What invisible nets for his feet?
+
+And there was another thing still. Within the past two or three days he
+had become convinced that his movements were being watched--and that
+would be Richard Hartley at work, he said to himself. Faces vaguely
+familiar began to confront him in the street, in restaurants and cafes.
+Once he thought his rooms had been ransacked during his absence at La
+Lierre, though his servant stoutly maintained that they had never been
+left unoccupied save for a half-hour's marketing. Finally, on the day
+before this morning by the rose-gardens, he was sure that as he came out
+from the city in his car he was followed at a long distance by another
+motor. He saw it behind him after he had left the city gate, the Porte
+de Versailles, and he saw it again after he had left the main route at
+Issy and entered the little rue Barbes which led to La Lierre. Of
+course, he promptly did the only possible thing under the circumstances.
+He dashed on past the long stretch of wall, swung into the main avenue
+beyond, and continued through Clamart to the Meudon wood, as if he were
+going to St. Cloud. In the labyrinth of roads and lanes there he came to
+a halt, and after a half-hour's wait ran slowly back to La Lierre.
+
+There was no further sign of the other car, the pursuer, if so it had
+been, but he passed two or three men on bicycles and others walking, and
+what one of these might not be a spy paid to track him down?
+
+It had frightened him badly, that hour of suspense and flight, and he
+determined to remain at La Lierre for at least a few days, and wrote to
+his servant in the rue du Faubourg to forward his letters there under
+the false name by which he had hired the place.
+
+He was thinking very wearily of all these things as he sat on the fallen
+tree-trunk in the garden and stared unseeing across tangled ranks of
+roses. And after a while his thoughts, as they were wont to do, returned
+to Ste. Marie--that looming shadow which darkened the sunlight, that
+incubus of fear which clung to him night and day. He was so absorbed
+that he did not hear sounds which might otherwise have roused him. He
+heard nothing, saw nothing, save that which his fevered mind projected,
+until a voice spoke his name.
+
+He looked over his shoulder thinking that O'Hara had sought him out. He
+turned a little on the tree-trunk to see more easily, and the image of
+his dread stood there a living and very literal shadow against the
+daylight.
+
+Captain Stewart's overstrained nerves were in no state to bear a sudden
+shock. He gave a voiceless, whispering cry and he began to tremble very
+violently, so that his teeth chattered. All at once he got to his feet
+and began to stumble away backward, but a projecting limb of the fallen
+tree caught him and held him fast. It must be that the man was in a sort
+of frenzy. He must have seen through a red mist just then, for when he
+found that he could not escape his hand went swiftly to his coat-pocket,
+and in his white and contorted face there was murder plain and
+unmistakable.
+
+Ste. Marie was too lame to spring aside or to dash upon the man across
+intervening obstacles and defend himself. He stood still in his place
+and waited. And it was characteristic of him that at that moment he felt
+no fear, only a fine sense of exhilaration. Open danger had no terrors
+for him. It was secret peril that unnerved him, as in the matter of the
+poison a week before.
+
+Captain Stewart's hand fell away empty, and Ste. Marie laughed.
+
+"Left it at the house?" said he. "You seem to have no luck, Stewart.
+First the cat drinks the poison, and then you leave your pistol at home.
+Dear, dear, I'm afraid you're careless."
+
+Captain Stewart stared at the younger man under his brows. His face was
+gray and he was still shivering, but the sudden agony of fear, which had
+been, after all, only a jangle of nerves, was gone away. He looked upon
+Ste. Marie's gay and untroubled face with a dull wonder, and he began to
+feel a grudging admiration for the man who could face death without even
+turning pale. He pulled out his watch and looked at it.
+
+"I did not know," he said, "that this was your hour out-of-doors."
+
+As a matter of fact, he had quite forgotten that the arrangement
+existed. When he had first heard of it he had protested vigorously, but
+had been overborne by O'Hara with the plea that they owed their prisoner
+something for having come near to poisoning him, and Stewart did not
+care to have any further attention called to that matter; it had already
+put a severe strain upon the relations at La Lierre.
+
+"Well," observed Ste. Marie, "I told you you were careless. That proves
+it. Come! Can't we sit down for a little chat? I haven't seen you since
+I was your guest at the other address--the town address. It seems to
+have become a habit of mine--doesn't it?--being your guest." He laughed
+cheerfully, but Captain Stewart continued to regard him without smiling.
+
+"If you imagine," said the elder man, "that this place belongs to me you
+are mistaken. I came here to-day to make a visit."
+
+But Ste. Marie sat down at one end of the tree-trunk and shook his head.
+
+"Oh, come, come!" said he. "Why keep up the pretence? You must know that
+I know all about the whole affair. Why, bless you, I know it all--even
+to the provisions of the will. Did you think I stumbled in here by
+accident? Well, I didn't, though I don't mind admitting to you that I
+remained by accident."
+
+He glanced over his shoulder toward the one-eyed Michel, who stood
+near-by, regarding the two with some alarm.
+
+Captain Stewart looked up sharply at the mention of the will, and he
+wetted his dry lips with his tongue. But after a moment's hesitation he
+sat down upon the tree-trunk, and he seemed to shrink a little together,
+when his limbs and shoulders had relaxed, so that he looked small and
+feeble, like a very tired old man. He remained silent for a few moments,
+but at last he spoke without raising his eyes. He said:
+
+"And now that you--imagine yourself to know so very much, what do you
+expect to do about it?"
+
+Ste. Marie laughed again.
+
+"Ah, that would be telling!" he cried. "You see, in one way I have the
+advantage, though outwardly all the advantage seems to be with your
+side--I know all about your game. I may call it a game? Yes? But you
+don't know mine. You don't know what I--what we may do at any moment.
+That's where we have the better of you."
+
+"It would seem to me," said Captain Stewart, wearily, "that since you
+are a prisoner here and very unlikely to escape, we know with great
+accuracy what you will do--and what you will not."
+
+"Yes," admitted Ste. Marie, "it would seem so. It certainly would seem
+so. But you never can tell, can you?"
+
+And at that the elder man frowned and looked away. Thereafter another
+brief silence fell between the two, but at its end Ste. Marie spoke in a
+new tone, a very serious tone. He said:
+
+"Stewart, listen a moment!"
+
+And the other turned a sharp gaze upon him.
+
+"You mustn't forget," said Ste. Marie, speaking slowly as if to choose
+his words with care--"you mustn't forget that I am not alone in this
+matter. You mustn't forget that there's Richard Hartley--and that there
+are others, too. I'm a prisoner, yes. I'm helpless here for the
+present--perhaps, perhaps--but they are not, _and they know, Stewart.
+They know_."
+
+Captain Stewart's face remained gray and still, but his hands twisted
+and shook upon his knees until he hid them.
+
+"I know well enough what you're waiting for," continued Ste. Marie.
+"You're waiting--you've got to wait--for Arthur Benham to come of age,
+or, better yet, for your father to die." He paused and shook his head.
+"It's no good. You can't hold out as long as that--not by half. We shall
+have won the game long before. Listen to me! Do you know what would
+occur if your father should take a serious turn for the worse
+to-night--or at any time? Do you? Well, I'll tell you. A piece of
+information would be given him that would make another change in that
+will just as quickly as a pen could write the words. That's what would
+happen."
+
+"That is a lie!" said Captain Stewart, in a dry whisper. "A lie!"
+
+And Ste. Marie contented himself with a slight smile by way of answer.
+He was by no means sure that what he had said was true, but he argued
+that since Hartley suspected, or perhaps by this time knew so much, he
+would certainly not allow old David to die without doing what he could
+do in an effort to save young Arthur's fortune from a rascal. In any
+event, true or false, the words had had the desired effect. Captain
+Stewart was plainly frightened by them.
+
+"May I make a suggestion?" asked the younger man.
+
+The other did not answer him, and he made it.
+
+"Give it up!" said he. "You're riding for a tremendous fall, you know.
+We shall smash you completely in the end. It'll mean worse than
+ruin--much worse. Give it up, now, before you're too late. Help me to
+send for Hartley and we'll take the boy back to his home. Some story can
+be managed that will leave you out of the thing altogether, and those
+who know will hold their tongues. It's your last chance, Stewart. I
+advise you to take it."
+
+Captain Stewart turned his gray face slowly and looked at the other man
+with a sort of dull and apathetic wonder.
+
+"Are you mad?" he asked, in a voice which was altogether without feeling
+of any kind. "Are you quite mad?"
+
+"On the contrary," said Ste. Marie, "I am quite sane, and I'm offering
+you a chance to save yourself before it's too late. Don't misunderstand
+me!" he continued. "I am not urging this out of any sympathy for you. I
+urge it because it will bring about what I wish a little more quickly,
+also because it will save your family from the disgrace of your
+smash-up. That's why I'm making my suggestion."
+
+Captain Stewart was silent for a little while, but after that he got
+heavily to his feet. "I think you must be quite mad," said he, as
+before, in a voice altogether devoid of expression. "I cannot talk with
+madmen." He beckoned to the old Michel, who stood near-by, leaning upon
+his carbine, and when the gardener had approached he said, "Take
+this--prisoner back to his room!"
+
+Ste. Marie rose with a little sigh. He said: "I'm sorry, but you'll
+admit I have done my best for you. I've warned you. I sha'n't do it
+again. We shall smash you now, without mercy."
+
+"Take him away!" cried Captain Stewart, in a sudden loud voice, and the
+old Michel touched his charge upon the shoulder. So Ste. Marie went
+without further words. From a little distance he looked back, and the
+other man still stood by the fallen tree-trunk, bent a little, his arms
+hanging lax beside him, and his face, Ste. Marie thought, fancifully,
+was like the face of a man damned.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+XXIII
+
+THE LAST ARROW
+
+
+The one birdlike eye of the old Michel regarded Ste. Marie with a glance
+of mingled cunning and humor. It might have been said to twinkle.
+
+"To the east, Monsieur?" inquired the old Michel.
+
+"Precisely!" said Ste. Marie. "To the east, mon vieux." It was the
+morning of the fourth day after that talk with Captain Stewart beside
+the rose-gardens.
+
+The two bore to the eastward, down among the trees, and presently came
+to the spot where a certain trespasser had once leaped down from the top
+of the high wall and had been shot for his pains. The old Michel halted
+and leaned upon the barrel of his carbine. With an air of complete
+detachment, an air vague and aloof as of one in a revery, he gazed away
+over the tree-tops of the ragged park; but Ste. Marie went in under the
+row of lilac shrubs which stood close against the wall, and a passer-by
+might have thought the man looking for figs on thistles, for lilacs in
+late July. He had gone there with eagerness, with flushed cheeks and
+bright eyes; he emerged after some moments, moving slowly, with downcast
+head.
+
+"There are no lilac blooms now, Monsieur," observed the old Michel, and
+his prisoner said, in a low voice:
+
+"No, mon vieux. No. There are none." He sighed and drew a long breath.
+So the two stood for some time silent, Ste. Marie a little pale, his
+eyes fixed upon the ground, his hands chafing together behind him, the
+gardener with his one bright eye upon his charge. But in the end Ste.
+Marie sighed again and began to move away, followed by the gardener.
+They went across the broad park, past the double row of larches, through
+that space where the chestnut-trees stood in straight, close rows, and
+so came to the west wall which skirted the road to Clamart. Ste. Marie
+felt in his pocket and withdrew the last of the four letters--the last
+there could be, for he had no more stamps. The others he had thrown over
+the wall, one each morning, beginning with the day after he had made the
+first attempt to bribe old Michel. As he had expected, twenty-four hours
+of avaricious reflection had proved too much for that gnomelike being.
+
+One each day he had thrown over the wall, weighted with a pebble tucked
+loosely under the flap of the improvised envelope, in such a manner that
+it would drop but when the letter struck the ground beyond. And each
+following day he had gone with high hopes to the appointed place under
+the cedar-tree to pick figs of thistles, lilac blooms in late July. But
+there had been nothing there.
+
+"Turn your back, Michel!" said Ste. Marie.
+
+And the old man said, from a little distance: "It is turned, Monsieur. I
+see nothing. Monsieur throws little stories at the birds to amuse
+himself. It does not concern me."
+
+Ste. Marie slipped a pebble under the flap of the envelope and threw his
+letter over the wall. It went like a soaring bird, whirling
+horizontally, and it must have fallen far out in the middle of the road
+near the tramway. For the third time that morning the prisoner drew a
+sigh. He said, "You may turn round now, my friend," and the old Michel
+faced him. "We have shot our last arrow," said he. "If this also fails,
+I think--well, I think the bon Dieu will have to help us then.--Michel,"
+he inquired, "do you know how to pray?"
+
+"Sacred thousand swine, no!" cried the ancient gnome, in something
+between astonishment and horror. "No, Monsieur. 'Pas mon metier, ca!" He
+shook his head rapidly from side to side like one of those toys in a
+shop-window whose heads oscillate upon a pivot. But all at once a gleam
+of inspiration sparkled in his lone eye. "There is the old Justine!" he
+suggested. "Toujours sur les genoux, cette imbecile la."
+
+"In that case," said Ste. Marie, "you might ask the lady to say one
+little extra prayer for--the pebble I threw at the birds just now.
+Hein?" He withdrew from his pocket the last two louis d'or, and Michel
+took them in a trembling hand. There remained but the note of fifty
+francs and some silver.
+
+"The prayer shall be said, Monsieur," declared the gardener. "It shall
+be said. She shall pray all night or I will kill her."
+
+"Thank you," said Ste. Marie. "You are kindness itself. A gentle soul."
+
+They turned away to retrace their steps, and Michel rubbed the side of
+his head with a reflective air.
+
+"The old one is a madman," said he. (The "old one" meant Captain
+Stewart.) "A madman. Each day he is madder, and this morning he struck
+me--here on the head, because I was too slow. Eh! a little more of that,
+and--who knows? Just a little more, a small little! Am I a dog, to be
+beaten? Hein? Je ne le crois pas. He!" He called Captain Stewart two
+unprintable names, and after a moment's thought he called him an animal,
+which is not so much of an anti-climax as it may seem, because to call
+anybody an animal in French is a serious matter.
+
+The gardener was working himself up into something of a quiet passion,
+and Ste. Marie said:
+
+"Softly, my friend! Softly!" It occurred to him that the man's
+resentment might be of use later on, and he said: "You speak the truth.
+The old one is an animal, and he is also a great rascal."
+
+But Michel betrayed the makings of a philosopher. He said, with profound
+conviction: "Monsieur, all men are great rascals. It is I who say it."
+
+And at that Ste. Marie had to laugh.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+He had not consciously directed his feet, but without direction they led
+him round the corner of the rose-gardens and toward the rond point. He
+knew well whom he would find there. She had not failed him during the
+past three days. Each morning he had found her in her place, and for his
+allotted hour--which more than once stretched itself out to nearly two
+hours, if he had but known--they had sat together on the stone bench,
+or, tiring of that, had walked under the trees beyond.
+
+Long afterward Ste. Marie looked back upon these hours with, among other
+emotions, a great wonder--at himself and at her. It seemed to him then
+one of the strangest relationships--intimacies, for it might well be so
+called--that ever existed between a man and a woman, and he was amazed
+at the ease, the unconsciousness, with which it had come about.
+
+But during this time he did not allow himself to wonder or to examine,
+scarcely even to think. The hours were golden hours, unrelated, he told
+himself, to anything else in his life or in his interests. They were
+like pleasant dreams, very sweet while they endured, but to be put away
+and forgotten upon the waking. Only in that long afterward he knew that
+they had not been put away, that they had been with him always, that the
+morning hour had remained in his thoughts all the rest of the long day,
+and that he had waked upon the morrow with a keen and exquisite sense of
+something sweet to come.
+
+It was a strange fool's paradise that the man dwelt in, and in some
+small, vague measure he must, even at the time, have known it, for it is
+certain that he deliberately held himself away from
+thought--realization; that he deliberately shut his eyes, held his ears
+lest he should hear or see.
+
+That he was not faithless to his duty has been shown. He did his utmost
+there, but he was for the time helpless save for efforts to communicate
+with Richard Hartley, and those efforts could consume no more than ten
+minutes out of the weary day.
+
+So he drifted, wilfully blind to bearings, wilfully deaf to Sound of
+warning or peril, and he found a companionship sweeter and fuller and
+more perfect than he had ever before known in all his life, though that
+is not to say very much, because sympathetic companionships between men
+and women are very rare indeed, and Ste. Marie had never experienced
+anything which could fairly be called by that name. He had had, as has
+been related, many flirtations, and not a few so-called love-affairs,
+but neither of these two sorts of intimacies are of necessity true
+intimacies at all; men often feel varying degrees of love for women
+without the least true understanding or sympathy or real companionship.
+
+He was wondering, as he bore round the corner of the rose-gardens on
+this day, in just what mood he would find her. It seemed to him that in
+their brief acquaintance he had seen her in almost all the moods there
+are, from bitter gloom to the irrepressible gayety of a little child. He
+had told her once that she was like an organ, and she had laughed at him
+for being pretentious and high-flown, though she could upon occasion be
+quite high-flown enough herself for all ordinary purposes.
+
+He reached the cleared margin of the rond point, and a little cold fear
+stirred in him when he did not hear her singing under her breath, as she
+was wont to do when alone, but he went forward and she was there in her
+place upon the stone bench. She had been reading, but the book lay
+forgotten beside her and she sat idle, her head laid back against the
+thick stems of shrubbery which grew behind, her hands in her lap. It was
+a warm, still morning, with the promise of a hot afternoon, and the girl
+was dressed in something very thin and transparent and cool-looking,
+open in a little square at the throat and with sleeves which came only
+to her elbows. The material was pale and dull yellow, with very vaguely
+defined green leaves in it, and against it the girl's dark and clear
+skin glowed rich and warm and living, as pearls glow and seem to throb
+against the dead tints of the fabric upon which they are laid.
+
+She did not move when he came before her, but looked up to him gravely
+without stirring her head.
+
+"I didn't hear you come," said she. "You don't drag your left leg any
+more. You walk almost as well as if you had never been wounded."
+
+"I'm almost all right again," he answered. "I suppose I couldn't run or
+jump, but I certainly can walk very much like a human being. May I sit
+down?"
+
+Mlle. O'Hara put out one hand and drew the book closer to make a place
+for him on the stone bench, and he settled himself comfortably there,
+turned a little so that he was facing toward her.
+
+It was indicative of the state of intimacy into which the two had grown
+that they did not make polite conversation with each other, but indeed
+were silent for some little time after Ste. Marie had seated himself. It
+was he who spoke first. He said:
+
+"You look vaguely classical to-day. I have been trying to guess why, and
+I cannot. Perhaps it's because your--what does one say: frock, dress,
+gown?--because it is cut out square at the throat."
+
+"If you mean by classical, Greek," said she, "it wouldn't be square at
+the neck at all; it would be pointed--V-shaped. And it would be very
+different in other ways, too. You are not an observing person, after
+all."
+
+"For all that," insisted Ste. Marie, "you look classical. You look like
+some lady one reads about in Greek poems--Helen or Iphigenia or Medea or
+somebody."
+
+"Helen had yellow hair, hadn't she?" objected Mlle. O'Hara. "I should
+think I probably look more like Medea--Medea in Colchis before Jason--"
+
+She seemed suddenly to realize that she had hit upon an unfortunate
+example, for she stopped in the middle of her sentence and a wave of
+color swept up over her throat and face.
+
+For a moment Ste. Marie did not understand, then he gave a low
+exclamation, for Medea certainly had been an unhappy name. He remembered
+something that Richard Hartley had said about that lady a long time
+before. He made another mistake, for to lessen the moment's
+embarrassment he gave speech to the first thought which entered his
+mind. He said:
+
+"Some one once remarked that you look like the young Juno--before
+marriage. I expect it's true, too."
+
+She turned upon him swiftly.
+
+"Who said that?" she demanded. "Who has ever talked to you about me?"
+
+"I beg your pardon," he said. "I seem to be singularly stupid this
+morning. A mild lunacy. You must forgive me, if you can. To tell you
+what you ask would be to enter upon forbidden ground, and I mustn't do
+that."
+
+"Still, I should like to know," said the girl, watching him with sombre
+eyes.
+
+"Well, then," said he, "it was a little Jewish photographer in the
+Boulevard de la Madeleine."
+
+And she said, "Oh!" in a rather disappointed tone and looked away.
+
+"We seem to be making conversation chiefly about my personal
+appearance," she said, presently. "There must be other topics if one
+should try hard to find them. Tell me stories. You told me stories
+yesterday; tell me more. You seem to be in a classical mood. You shall
+be Odysseus, and I will be Nausicaa, the interesting laundress. Tell me
+about wanderings and things. Have you any more islands for me?"
+
+"Yes," said Ste. Marie, nodding at her slowly. "Yes, Nausicaa, I have
+more islands for you. The seas are full of islands. What kind do you
+want?"
+
+"A warm one," said the girl. "Even on a hot day like this I choose a
+warm one, because I hate the cold."
+
+She settled herself more comfortably, with a little sigh of content that
+was exactly like a child's happy sigh when stories are going to be told
+before the fire.
+
+"I know an island," said Ste. Marie, "that I think you would like
+because it is warm and beautiful and very far away from troubles of all
+kinds. As well as I could make out, when I went there, nobody on the
+island had ever even heard of trouble. Oh yes, you'd like it. The people
+there are brown, and they're as beautiful as their own island. They wear
+hibiscus flowers stuck in their hair, and they very seldom do any work."
+
+"I want to go there!" cried Mlle. Coira O'Hara. "I want to go there now,
+this afternoon, at once! Where is it?"
+
+"It's in the South Pacific," said he, "not so very far from Samoa and
+Fiji and other groups that you will have heard about, and its name is
+Vavau. It's one of the Tongans. It's a high, volcanic island, not a
+flat, coral one like the southern Tongans. I came to it, one evening,
+sailing north from Nukualofa and Haapai, and it looked to me like a
+single big mountain jutting up out of the sea, black-green against the
+sunset. It was very impressive. But it isn't a single mountain, it's a
+lot of high, broken hills covered with a tangle of vegetation and set
+round a narrow bay, a sort of fjord, three or four miles long, and at
+the inner end of this are the village and the stores of the few white
+traders. I'm afraid," said Ste. Marie, shaking his head--"I'm afraid I
+can't tell you about it, after all. I can't seem to find the words. You
+can't put into language--at least, I can't--those slow, hot, island days
+that are never too hot because the trades blow fresh and strong, or the
+island nights that are more like black velvet with pearls sewed on it
+than anything else. You can't describe the smell of orange groves and
+the look of palm-trees against the sky. You can't tell about the sweet,
+simple, natural hospitality of the natives. They're like little,
+unsuspicious children. In short," said he, "I shall have to give it up,
+after all, just because it's too big for me. I can only say that it's
+beautiful and unspeakably remote from the world, and that I think I
+should like to go back to Vavau and stay a long time, and let the rest
+of the world go hang."
+
+Mlle. O'Hara stared across the park of La Lierre with wide and shadowy
+eyes, and her lips trembled a little.
+
+"Oh, I want to go there!" she cried again. "I want to go there--and
+rest--and forget everything!" She turned upon him with a sudden bitter
+resentment. "Why do you tell me things like that?" she cried. "Oh yes, I
+know. I asked you, but--can't you see? To hide one's self away in a
+place like that!" she said. "To let the sun warm you and the trade-winds
+blow away--all that had ever tortured you! Just to rest and be at
+peace!" She turned her eyes to him once more. "You needn't be afraid
+that you have failed to make me see your island! I see it. I feel it. It
+doesn't need many words. I can shut my eyes and I am there. But it was a
+little cruel. Oh, I know, I asked for it. It's like the garden of the
+Hesperides, isn't it?"
+
+"Very like it," said Ste. Marie, "because there are oranges--groves of
+them. (And they were the golden apples, I take it.) Also, it is very far
+away from the world, and the people live in complete and careless
+ignorance of how the world goes on. Emperors and kings die, wars come
+and go, but they hear only a little faint echo of it all, long
+afterward, and even that doesn't interest them."
+
+"I know," she said. "I understand. Didn't you know I'd understand?"
+
+"Yes," said he, nodding. "I suppose I did. We--feel things rather alike,
+I suppose. We don't have to say them all out."
+
+"I wonder," she said, in a low voice, "if I'm glad or sorry." She stared
+under her brows at the man beside her. "For it is very probable that
+when we have left La Lierre you and I will never meet again. I wonder if
+I'm--"
+
+For some obscure reason she broke off there and turned her eyes away,
+and she remained without speaking for a long time. Her mind, as she sat
+there, seemed to go back to that southern island, and to its peace and
+loveliness, for Ste. Marie, who watched her, saw a little smile come to
+her lips, and he saw her eyes half close and grow soft and tender as if
+what they saw were very sweet to her. He watched many different
+expressions come upon the girl's face and go again, but at last he
+seemed to see the old bitterness return there and struggle with
+something wistful and eager.
+
+"I envy you your wide wanderings," she said, presently. "Oh, I envy you
+more than I can find any words for. Your will is the wind's will. You go
+where your fancy leads you, and you're free--free. We have wandered, you
+know," said she, "my father and I. I can't remember when we ever had a
+home to live in. But that is--that is different--a different kind of
+wandering."
+
+"Yes," said Ste. Marie. "Yes, perhaps." And within himself he said, with
+sorrow and pity, "Different, indeed!"
+
+As if at some sudden thought the girl looked up at him quickly. "Did
+that sound regretful?" she asked. "Did what I say sound--disloyal to my
+father? I didn't mean it to. I don't want you to think that I regret it.
+I don't. It has meant being with my father. Wherever he has gone I have
+gone with him, and if anything ever has been--unpleasant, I was willing,
+oh, I was glad, glad to put up with it for his sake and because I could
+be with him. If I have made his life a little happier by sharing it, I
+am glad of everything. I don't regret."
+
+"And yet," said Ste. Marie, gently, "it must have been hard sometimes."
+He pictured to himself that roving existence lived among such people as
+O'Hara must have known, and it sent a hot wave of anger and distress
+over him from head to foot.
+
+But the girl said: "I had my father. The rest of it didn't matter in the
+face of that." After a little silence she said, "M. Ste. Marie!"
+
+And the man said, "What is it, Mademoiselle?"
+
+"You spoke the other day," she said, hesitating over her words, "about
+my aunt, Lady Margaret Craith. I suppose I ought not to ask you more
+about her, for my father quarrelled with his people very long ago and he
+broke with them altogether. But--surely, it can do no harm--just for a
+moment--just a very little! Could you tell me a little about her, M.
+Ste. Marie--what she is like and--and how she lives--and things like
+that?"
+
+So Ste. Marie told her all that he could of the old Irishwoman who lived
+alone in her great house, and ruled with a slack Irish hand, a sweet
+Irish heart, over tenants and dependants. And when he had come to an end
+the girl drew a little sigh and said:
+
+"Thank you. I am so glad to hear of her. I--wish everything were
+different, so that--I think I should love her very much if I might."
+
+"Mademoiselle," said Ste. Marie, "will you promise me something?"
+
+She looked at him with her sombre eyes, and after a little she said: "I
+am afraid you must tell me first what it is. I cannot promise blindly."
+
+He said: "I want you to promise me that if anything ever should
+happen--any difficulty--trouble--anything to put you in the position of
+needing care or help or sympathy--"
+
+But she broke in upon him with a swift alarm, crying: "What do you mean?
+You're trying to hint at something that I don't know. What difficulty or
+trouble could happen to me? Please tell me just what you mean."
+
+"I'm not hinting at any mystery," said Ste. Marie. "I don't know of
+anything that is going to happen to you, but--will you forgive me for
+saying it?--your father is, I take it, often exposed to--danger of
+various sorts. I'm afraid I can't quite express myself, only, if any
+trouble should come to you, Mademoiselle, will you promise me to go to
+Lady Margaret, your aunt, and tell her who you are and let her care for
+you?"
+
+"There was an absolute break," she said. "Complete."
+
+But the man shook his head, saying:
+
+"Lady Margaret won't think of that. She'll think only of you--that she
+can mother you, perhaps save you grief--and of herself, that in her old
+age she has a daughter. It would make a lonely old woman very happy,
+Mademoiselle."
+
+The girl bent her head away from him, and Ste. Marie saw, for the first
+time since he had known her, tears in her eyes. After a long time she
+said:
+
+"I promise, then. But," she said, "it is very unlikely that it should
+ever come about--for more than one reason. Very unlikely."
+
+"Still, Mademoiselle," said he, "I am glad you have promised. This is an
+uncertain world. One never can tell what will come with the to-morrows."
+
+"I can," the girl said, with a little tired smile that Ste. Marie did
+not understand. "I can tell. I can see all the to-morrows--a long, long
+row of them. I know just what they're going to be like--to the very
+end."
+
+But the man rose to his feet and looked down upon her as she sat before
+him. And he shook his head.
+
+"You are mistaken," he said. "Pardon me, but you are mistaken. No one
+can see to-morrow--or the end of anything. The end may surprise you very
+much."
+
+"I wish it would!" cried Mlle. O'Hara. "Oh, I wish it would!"
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+XXIV
+
+THE JOINT IN THE ARMOR
+
+
+Ste. Marie put down a book as O'Hara came into the room and rose to meet
+his visitor.
+
+"I'm compelled," said the Irishman, "to put you on your honor to-day if
+you are to go out as usual. Michel has been sent on an errand, and I am
+busy with letters. I shall have to put you on your honor not to make any
+effort to escape. Is that agreed to? I shall trust you altogether. You
+could manage to scramble over the wall somehow, I suppose, and get clean
+away, but I think you won't try it if you give your word."
+
+"I give my word gladly," said Ste. Marie. "And thanks very much. You've
+been uncommonly kind to me here. I--regret more than I can say that
+we--that we find ourselves on opposite sides, as it were. I wish we were
+fighting for the same cause."
+
+The Irishman looked at the younger man sharply for an instant, and he
+made as if he would speak, but seemed to think better of it. In the end
+he said:
+
+"Yes, quite so. Quite so. Of course you understand that any
+consideration I have used toward you has been by way of making amends
+for--for an unfortunate occurrence."
+
+Ste. Marie laughed.
+
+"The poison," said he. "Yes, I know. And of course I know who was at the
+bottom of that. By the way, I met Stewart in the garden the other day.
+Did he tell you? He was rather nervous and tried to shoot me, but he had
+left his revolver at the house--at least it wasn't in his pocket when he
+reached for it."
+
+O'Hara's hard face twitched suddenly, as if in anger, and he gave an
+exclamation under his breath, so the younger man inferred that "old
+Charlie" had not spoken of their encounter. And after that the Irishman
+once more turned a sharp, frowning glance upon his prisoner as if he
+were puzzled about something. But, as before, he stopped short of speech
+and at last turned away.
+
+"Just a moment!" said the younger man. He asked: "Is it fair to inquire
+how long I may expect to be confined here? I don't want to presume upon
+your good-nature too far, but if you could tell me I should be glad to
+know."
+
+The Irishman hesitated a moment and then said:--
+
+"I don't know why I shouldn't answer that. It can't help you, so far as
+I can see, to do anything that would hinder us. You'll stay until Arthur
+Benham comes of age, which will be in about two months from now."
+
+"Yes," said the other. "Thanks. I thought so. Until young Arthur comes
+of age and receives his patrimony--or until old David Stewart dies. Of
+course that might happen at any hour."
+
+The Irishman said: "I don't quite see what--Ah, yes, to be sure! Yes, I
+see. Well, I should count upon eight weeks if I were you. In eight weeks
+the boy will be independent of them all, and we shall go to England for
+the wedding."
+
+"The wedding?" cried Ste. Marie. "What wedding?--Ah!"
+
+"Arthur Benham and my daughter are to be married," said O'Hara, "so soon
+as he reaches his majority. I thought you knew that."
+
+In a very vague fashion he realized that he had expected it. And still
+the definite words came to him with a shock which was like a physical
+blow, and he turned his back with a man's natural instinct to hide his
+feeling. Certainly that was the logical conclusion to be drawn from
+known premises. That was to be the O'Haras' reward for their labor. To
+Stewart the great fortune, to the O'Haras a good marriage for the girl
+and an assured future. That was reward enough surely for a few weeks of
+angling and decoying and luring and lying. That was what she had meant,
+on the day before, by saying that she could see all the to-morrows. He
+realized that he must have been expecting something like this, but the
+thought turned him sick, nevertheless. He could not forget the girl as
+he had come to know her during the past week. He could not face with any
+calmness the thought of her as the adventuress who had lured poor Arthur
+Benham on to destruction. It was an impossible thought. He could have
+laughed at it in scornful anger, and yet--What else was she?
+
+He began to realize that his action in turning his back upon the other
+man in the middle of a conversation must look very odd, and he faced
+round again trying to drive from his expression the pain and distress
+which he knew must be there, plain to see. But he need not have troubled
+himself, for the other man was standing before the next window and
+looking out into the morning sunlight, and his hard, bony face had so
+altered that Ste. Marie stared at him with open amazement. He thought
+O'Hara must be ill.
+
+"I want to see her married!" cried the Irishman, suddenly, and it was a
+new voice, a voice Ste. Marie did not know. It shook a little with an
+emotion that sat uncouthly upon this grim, stern man.
+
+"I want to see her married and safe!" he said. "I want her to be rid of
+this damnable, roving, cheap existence. I want her to be rid of me and
+my rotten friends and my rotten life."
+
+He chafed his hands together before him, and his tired eyes fixed
+themselves upon something that he seemed to see out of the window and
+glared at it fiercely.
+
+"I should like," said he, "to die on the day after her wedding, and so
+be out of her way forever. I don't want her to have any shadows cast
+over her from the past. I don't want her to open closet doors and find
+skeletons there. I want her to be free--free to live the sort of life
+she was born to and has a right to."
+
+He turned sharply upon the younger man.
+
+"You've seen her!" he cried. "You've talked to her; you know her! Think
+of that girl dragged about Europe with me ever since she was a little
+child! Think of the people she's had to know, the things she's had to
+see! Do you wonder that I want to have her free of it all, married and
+safe and comfortable and in peace? Do you? I tell you it has driven me
+as nearly mad as a man can be. But I couldn't go mad, because I had to
+take care of her. I couldn't even die, because she'd have been left
+alone without any one to look out for her. She wouldn't leave me. I
+could have settled her somewhere in some quiet place where she'd have
+been quit at least of shady, rotten people, but she wouldn't have it.
+She's stuck to me always, through good times and bad. She's kept my
+heart up when I'd have been ready to cut my throat if I'd been alone.
+She's been the--bravest and faithfulest--Well, I--And look at her! Look
+at her now! Think of what she's had to see and know--the people she's
+had to live with--and look at her! Has any of it stuck to her? Has it
+cheapened her in any littlest way? No, by God! She has come through it
+all like a--like a Sister of Charity through a city slum--like an angel
+through the dark."
+
+The Irishman broke off speaking, for his voice was beyond control, but
+after a moment he went on again, more calmly:
+
+"This boy, this young Benham, is a fool, but he's not a mean fool.
+She'll make a man of him. And, married to him, she'll have the comforts
+that she ought to have and the care and--freedom. She'll have a chance
+to live the life that she 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.
+
+"You're well rid of her!" said the old gentleman, when at last he was
+once more able to speak. "You're well rid of her! I congratulate you! I
+am ashamed and humiliated, and a great burden of obligation is shifted
+to me--though I assume it with pleasure--but I congratulate you. You
+might have found out too late what sort of a woman she is."
+
+Ste. Marie began to protest and to explain and to say that Miss Benham
+had been quite right in what she said, but the old gentleman only waved
+an impatient arm to him, and presently, when he saw the valet making
+signs across the bed, and saw that his host was really in a state of
+complete exhaustion after the outburst, he made his adieus and got away.
+
+Young Arthur Benham, who had been sitting almost silent during the
+interview, followed him out of the room and closed the door behind them.
+For the first time Ste. Marie noted that the boy's face was white and
+strained. He pulled a crumpled square of folded paper from his pocket
+and shook it at the other man. "Do you know what this is?" he cried. "Do
+you know what's in this?"
+
+Ste. Marie shook his head, but a sudden recollection came to him.
+
+"Ah," said he, "that must be the note Mlle. O'Hara spoke of! She asked
+me to tell you that she meant it--whatever it may be--quite seriously;
+that it was final. She didn't explain. She just said that--that you were
+to take it as final."
+
+The lad gave a sudden very bitter sob. "She has thrown me over!" he
+said. "She says I'm not to come back to her."
+
+Ste. Marie gave a wordless cry, and he began to tremble.
+
+"You can read it if you want to," the boy said. "Perhaps you can explain
+it. I can't. Do you want to read it?"
+
+The elder man stood staring at him whitely, and the boy repeated his
+words.
+
+He said, "You can read it if you want to," and at last Ste. Marie took
+the paper between stiff hands, and held it to the light.
+
+Coira O'Hara said, briefly, that too much was against their marriage.
+She mentioned his age, the certain hostility of his family, their
+different tastes, a number of other things. But in the end she said she
+had begun to realize that she did not love him as she ought to do if
+they were to marry. And so, the note said, finally, she gave him up to
+his family, she released him altogether, and she begged him not to come
+back to her, or to urge her to change her mind. Also she made the trite
+but very sensible observation that he would be glad of his freedom
+before the year was out.
+
+Ste. Marie's unsteady fingers opened and the crumpled paper slipped
+through them to the floor. Over it the man and the boy looked at each
+other in silence. Young Arthur Benham's face was white, and it was
+strained and contorted with its first grief. But first griefs do not
+last very long. Coira O'Hara had told the truth--before the year was out
+the lad would be glad of his freedom. But the man's face was white also,
+white and still, and his eyes held a strange expression which the boy
+could not understand and at which he wondered. The man was trembling a
+little from head to foot. The boy wondered about that, too, but abruptly
+he cried out: "What's up? Where are you going?" for Ste. Marie had
+turned all at once and was running down the stairs as fast as he could
+run.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+XXX
+
+JASON SAILS BACK TO COLCHIS.--JOURNEY'S END
+
+
+In the hall below, Ste. Marie came violently into contact with and
+nearly overturned Richard Hartley, who was just giving his hat and stick
+to the man who had admitted him. Hartley seized upon him with an
+exclamation of pleasure, and wheeled him round to face the light. He
+said:
+
+"I've been pursuing you all day. You're almost as difficult of access
+here in Paris as you were at La Lierre. How's the head?"
+
+Ste. Marie put up an experimental hand. He had forgotten his injury.
+"Oh, that's all right," said he. "At least, I think so. Anderson fixed
+me up this afternoon. But I haven't time to talk to you. I'm in a hurry.
+To-morrow we'll have a long chin. Oh, how about Stewart?"
+
+He lowered his voice, and Hartley answered him in the same tone.
+
+"The man is in a delirium. Heaven knows how it'll end. He may die and he
+may pull through. I hope he pulls through--except for the sake of the
+family--because then we can make him pay for what he's done. I don't
+want him to go scot free by dying."
+
+"Nor I," said Ste. Marie, fiercely. "Nor I. I want him to pay, too--long
+and slowly and hard; and if he lives I shall see that he does it, family
+or no family. Now I must be off."
+
+Ste. Marie's face was shining and uplifted. The other man looked at it
+with a little envious sigh.
+
+"I see everything is all right," said he, "and I congratulate you. You
+deserve it if ever any one did."
+
+Ste. Marie stared for an instant, uncomprehending. Then he saw.
+
+"Yes," he said, gently, "everything is all right."
+
+It was plain that the Englishman did not know of Miss Benham's decision.
+He was incapable of deceit. Ste. Marie threw an arm over his friend's
+shoulder and went with him a little way toward the drawing-room.
+
+"Go in there," he said. "You'll find some one glad to see you, I think.
+And remember that I said everything is all right."
+
+He came back after he had turned away, and met Hartley's puzzled frown
+with a smile.
+
+"If you've that motor here, may I use it?" he asked. "I want to go
+somewhere in a hurry."
+
+"Of course," the other man said. "Of course. I'll go home in a cab."
+
+So they parted, and Ste. Marie went out to the waiting car.
+
+On the left bank the streets are nearly empty of traffic at night, and
+one can make excellent time over them. Ste. Marie reached the Porte de
+Versailles, at the city's limits, in twenty minutes and dashed through
+Issy five minutes later. In less than half an hour from the time he had
+left the rue de l'Universite he was under the walls of La Lierre. He
+looked at his watch, and it was not quite half-past eleven.
+
+He tried the little door in the wall, and it was unlocked, so he passed
+in and closed the door behind him. Inside he found that he was running,
+and he gave a little laugh, but of eagerness and excitement, not of
+mirth. There were dim lights in one or two of the upper windows, but
+none below, and there was no one about. He pulled at the door-bell, and
+after a few impatient moments pulled again and still again. Then he
+noticed that the heavy door was ajar, and, since no one answered his
+ringing, he pushed the door open and went in.
+
+The lower hall was quite dark, but a very faint light came down from
+above through the well of the staircase. He heard dragging feet in the
+upper hall, and then upon one of the upper flights, for the stairs,
+broad below, divided at a half-way landing and continued upward in an
+opposite direction in two narrower flights. A voice, very faint and
+weary, called:
+
+"Who is there? Who is ringing, please?"
+
+And Coira O'Hara, holding a candle in her hand, came upon the
+stair-landing and stood gazing down into the darkness. She wore a sort
+of dressing-gown, a heavy white garment which hung in straight, long
+folds to her feet and fell away from the arm that held the candle on
+high. The yellow beams of light struck down across her head and face,
+and even at the distance the man could see how white she was and
+hollow-eyed and worn--a pale wraith of the splendid beauty that had
+walked in the garden at La Lierre.
+
+"Who is there, please?" she asked again. "I can't see. What is it?"
+
+"It is I, Coira!" said Ste. Marie.
+
+And she gave a sharp cry. The arm which was holding the candle overhead
+shook and fell beside her as if the strength had gone out of it. The
+candle dropped to the floor, spluttered there for an instant and went
+out, but there was still a little light from the hall above.
+
+Ste. Marie sprang up the stairs to where the girl stood, and caught her
+in his arms, for she was on the verge of faintness. Her head fell back
+away from him, and he saw her eyes through half-closed lids, her white
+teeth through parted lips. She was trembling--but, for that matter, so
+was he at the touch of her, the heavy and sweet burden in his arms. She
+tried to speak, and he heard a whisper:
+
+"Why? Why? Why?"
+
+"Because it is my place, Coira!" said he. "Because I cannot live away
+from you. Because we belong together."
+
+The girl struggled weakly and pushed against him. Once more he heard
+whispering words and made out that she tried to say:
+
+"Go back to her! Go back to her! You belong there!"
+
+But at that he laughed aloud.
+
+"I thought so, too," said he, "but she thinks otherwise. She'll have
+none of me, Coira. It's Richard Hartley now. Coira, can you love a
+jilted man? I've been jilted--thrown over--dismissed."
+
+Her head came up in a flash and she stared at him, suddenly rigid and
+tense in his arms.
+
+"Is that true?" she demanded.
+
+"Yes, my love!" said he.
+
+And she began to weep, with long, comfortable sobs, her face hidden in
+the hollow of his shoulder. On one other occasion she had wept before
+him, and he had been horribly embarrassed, but he bore this present
+tempest without, as it were, winking. He gloried in it. He tried to say
+so. He tried to whisper to her, his lips pressed close to the ear that
+was nearest them, but he found that he had no speech. Words would not
+come to his tongue; it trembled and faltered and was still for sheer
+inadequacy.
+
+Rather oddly, in that his thoughts were chaos, swallowed up in the surge
+of feeling, a memory struck through to him of that other exaltation
+which had swept him to the stars. He looked upon it and was amazed
+because now he saw it, in clear light, for the thing it had been. He saw
+it for a fantasy, a self-evoked wraith of the imagination, a dizzy
+flight of the spirit through spirit space. He saw that it had not been
+love at all, and he realized how little a part Helen Benham had ever
+really played in it. A cold and still-eyed figure for him to wrap the
+veil of his imagination round, that was what she had been. There were
+times when the sweep of his upward flight had stirred her a little,
+wakened in her some vague response, but for the most part she had stood
+aside and looked on, wondering.
+
+The mist was rent away from that rainbow-painted cobweb, and at last the
+man saw and understood. He gave an exclamation of wonder, and the girl
+who loved him raised her head once more, and the two looked each into
+the other's eyes for a long time. They fell into hushed and broken
+speech.
+
+"I have loved you so long, so long," she said, "and so hopelessly! I
+never thought--I never believed. To think that in the end you have come
+to me! I cannot believe it!"
+
+"Wait and see!" cried the man. "Wait and see!"
+
+She shivered a little. "If it is not true I should like to die before I
+find out. I should like to die now, Bayard, with your arms holding me up
+and your eyes close, close."
+
+Ste. Marie's arms tightened round her with a sudden fierceness. He hurt
+her, and she smiled up at him. Their two hearts beat one against the
+other, and they beat very fast.
+
+"Don't you understand," he cried, "that life's only just
+beginning--day's just dawning, Coira? We've been lost in the dark. Day's
+coming now. This is only the sunrise."
+
+"I can believe it at last," she said, "because you hold me close and you
+hurt me a little, and I'm glad to be hurt. And I can feel your heart
+beating. Ah, never let me go, Bayard! I should be lost in the dark again
+if you let me go." A sudden thought came to her, and she bent back her
+head to see the better. "Did you speak with Arthur?"
+
+And he said: "Yes. He asked me to read your note, so I read it. That
+poor lad! I came straight to you then--straight and fast."
+
+"You knew why I did it?" she said, and Ste. Marie said:
+
+"Now I know."
+
+"I could not have married him," said she. "I could not. I never thought
+I should see you again, but I loved you and I could not have married
+him. Ah, impossible! And he'll be glad later on. You know that. It will
+save him any more trouble with his family, and besides--he's so very
+young. Already, I think, he was beginning to chafe a little. I thought
+so more than once. Oh, I'm trying to justify myself!" she cried. "I'm
+trying to find reasons; but you know the true reason. You know it."
+
+"I thank God for it," he said.
+
+So they stood clinging together in that dim place, and broken,
+whispering speech passed between them or long silences when speech was
+done. But at last they went down the stairs and out upon the open
+terrace, where the moonlight lay.
+
+"It Was in the open, sweet air," the girl said, "that we came to know
+each other. Let us walk in it now. The house smothers me." She looked up
+when they had passed the west corner of the facade and drew a little
+sigh. "I am worried about my father," said she. "He will not answer me
+when I call to him, and he has eaten nothing all day long. Bayard, I
+think his heart is broken. Ah, but to-morrow we shall mend it again! In
+the morning I shall make him let me in, and I shall tell him--what I
+have to tell."
+
+They turned down under the trees, where the moonlight made silver
+splashes about their feet, and the sweet night air bore soft against
+their faces. Coira went a half-step in advance, her head laid back upon
+the shoulder of the man she loved, and his arm held her up from falling.
+
+So at last we leave them, walking there in the tender moonlight, with
+the breath of roses about them and their eyes turned to the coming day.
+It is still night and there is yet one cloud of sorrow to shadow them
+somewhat, for up-stairs in his locked room a man lies dead across the
+floor, with an empty pistol beside him--heart-broken, as the girl had
+feared. But where a great love is, shadows cannot last very long, not
+even such shadows as this. The morning must dawn--and joy cometh of a
+morning.
+
+So we leave them walking together in the moonlight, their faces turned
+toward the coming day.
+
+THE END
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Jason, by Justus Miles Forman
+
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