Jason Part 37

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 a.s.saulted, 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 pa.s.sed 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 s.p.a.ce. 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 pa.s.s. 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.