Dross Part 39

"Let me go," he said. "I know best."

Her face flushed suddenly, and the nun stood before the detective.

"No," she replied quietly, "you do not know best. I am mistress here.

Will you kindly go?"

She went to the door and held it open for him, her actions and words belying the meek demeanour which belongs to her calling, and which she never laid aside for a moment.

So with a hopeless mien Sander left the room, and my nurse came towards the bed.

"That," she said, softly, "is a very stupid man."

"He is not generally considered so, my sister."

She paid as little heed to my words as a nurse to the prattle of a child.

"You have moved," she said, "and this bandage is ruffled. You must try to lie quieter, for you have a nasty wound in your shoulder. I know, for I have been through the war. How came you by such a hurt now that peace has been declared?"

"The other man came by a worse one, for he is dead."

"Then the good G.o.d forgive you. But you must keep quiet. See--I will read to you."

And out came the book again in its devotional black cover. She read for a long while, but I paid no heed to her voice, nor fell under its sleepy spell. Presently she closed the pages with a pious look of reproach.

"You are not attending," she said.

"No."

"Why not?"

"Because I was wondering what cause you had to fall out with my agent, Mr. Sander, who is not so stupid as you think."

"He is one of those," she answered primly, "who do not know how to behave in a sick room. He foolishly wanted to talk to you of affairs--when you are not well enough. Affairs--to a sick man!"

"Who should be thinking of the affairs of another world, my sister."

"Those always should come first," she answered, with downcast eyes.

"And of what did Mr. Sander want to speak?" I asked.

She looked up with a gleam of interest. Beneath the demure bib of her professional ap.r.o.n there beat still a woman's heart. Sister Renee wanted to tell me the news herself.

"Oh," she answered, "it is nothing that will interest you. You are not even an Italian--only an Englishman."

"That is all, my sister."

"But all Genoa is on the housetops about it."

"Ah!"

"Yes. Never has there been so great a catastrophe; but you have no friends here, so it will not affect you."

"Therefore, I may be the more safely told. I am not affected by great catastrophes from a humane point of view."

"Well," she said, busying herself about the room with quick and noiseless movements, "but it is always terrible to hear of such a thing when one reflects that we are all so unprepared."

"For what, my sister?"

"For death," she answered, with a look of awe in the most innocent eyes in the world.

"But who is dead?"

"Three hundred people," she answered. "The pa.s.sengers and crew of the _Principe Amadeo_--a large steamer that sailed last night from Genoa, with emigrants for South America."

"And all are drowned?" I asked, after a pause, thankful that my face was in the shadow of the curtain.

"All, except two of the crew. The steamer had only left the harbour an hour before, and all the pa.s.sengers were at dinner. There came, I think, a fog, and in the darkness a collision occurred. The _Principe Amadeo_ went down in five minutes."

She spoke quietly, and with that calm which religion, doubtless, gave her. Indeed, her only thought seemed to be that these people had pa.s.sed to their account without the ministrations of the church.

She soon left me, having my promise to sleep quietly and at once.

Soeur Renee, despite her grey hairs and the wrinkles that the years (for her life seemed purged of other cause) had left, was an easy victim to deception.

I did not sleep, but lay awake for many hours, turning over in my mind the events that had followed each other so quickly. And one thought came ever uppermost--namely, that in the smallest details of our existence a judgment far superior to ours must of necessity be at work. This wiser judgment I detected in the chance, as some will call it, that sent Sister Renee to me with this news. For if Sander had told me of the sinking of the _Principe Amadeo_ I must a.s.suredly, in the heat of the moment, have disclosed to him, in return, my knowledge that the Vicomte de Clericy was on board of her when she sailed from Genoa. Whereas, now that I had time to reflect, I saw clearly that this news belonged to Madame de Clericy alone, and was in nowise the business of Mr. Sander. That keen-witted man had faithfully performed the duty on which he had been employed--namely, to enable me to lay my hands on Charles Miste. One half of the money--a fortune in itself--had been recovered. There remained, therefore, nothing but to pay Mr. Sander and bid him farewell.

I was, however, compelled to await the arrival of Alphonse Giraud, who telegraphed to me that he was still in Nice. I did not know until long after that he had been formally arrested there for his partic.i.p.ation in the chase of Miste that ended in that ill-starred miscreant's death. Nor did I learn, until months had elapsed, that my good friend John Turner had also hastened to Nice, taking thither with him a great Parisian lawyer to defend me in the trial that took place while I lay ill at Genoa. Sister Renee, moreover, had not laid aside her womanly guile when she took the veil, for she concealed from me with perfect success that I was under guard night and day in my bedroom at the Hotel de Genes. What had I done to earn such true friends or deserve such faithful care?

The trial pa.s.sed happily enough, and Alphonse arrived at Genoa ere I had been there a week. He had delayed little in realising with a boyish delight one of his recovered drafts for five thousand pounds.

He repaid such loans as I had been able to make him, settled accounts with Sander, and greatly relieved my mind by seeing him depart. For I felt in some sort a criminal myself, and the secret, which had by the merest accident been thrust upon me, discomfited me under the keen eye of the expert.

The weather was exceedingly hot, and sickness raged unchecked in the city. A fortnight elapsed, during which Giraud was my faithful attendant. The doctor who had been called in, the first of his craft with whom I had had business, a Frenchman and a clever surgeon, restored me to a certain stage of convalescence, but could not get beyond it.

"Where do you live," he asked me one day, with a grave face, "when you are at home?"

"In Suffolk, on the east coast of England."

"Where the air is different from this."

"As different as sunrise from afternoon," I answered, with a sudden longing for the bluff, keen air of Hopton.

"Are you a good sailor?" he asked.

"I spent half my boyhood on the North Sea."

He walked to the window and stood there in deep thought.

"Then," he said at length, "go home at once by steamer from here, and stay there. Your own country will do more for you than all the doctors in Italy."