The Beloved Traitor Part 35

She moaned a little, and shrank back, and pressed her hands to her face.

"Dead!" she whispered again. "You are dead, Jean, and you have come to me."

She was swaying as he caught her in his arms. Fool, accursed fool, that he had not understood!

"No, no; Marie-Louise, _cherie, ma bien-aimee_!" he said tenderly.

"See, are my arms not real about you? See, it is I, it is really I!

It is not death, it is love that has brought me! See, Marie-Louise, lie very still for a little while in my arms, and you will not be any more afraid."

It seemed as though for a s.p.a.ce she were in a faint, so white her face was, so quiet she lay; and then her hand felt out and touched his shoulder, and his face, and his hair in a wondering, hesitant, incredulous way.

Her lips moved.

"You--you are like Jean as he used to be before he went away to the _grand monde_."

He bent his head, and laid his cheek against her cheek.

"Yes, Marie-Louise," he said softly. "And now I shall always be that Jean. Try very hard now to understand, little one! See, I am back again--for always--for always--and I will never go away from you any more. Don't you see, _pet.i.te_, that it is really Jean?"

"Yes," she said, in a low, dead voice, "it is Jean; but how can it be Jean--here--on this great ship--when Jean, I know, is in France--for I left Jean in France."

And then Jean laughed--because it would help to drive the sense of unreality from her mind, and because in his heart was only joyous laughter.

"It is very simple, that! I came with Monsieur Bliss and mademoiselle.

And it is no more strange for me to be here than for you--than that I should have seen you a little while ago from the deck up there, Marie-Louise."

She seemed to rouse herself as though in dawning comprehension, raising herself a little in his arms.

"But the clothes--those clothes that you are wearing!" she faltered.

"Ah, Marie-Louise!" he cried out happily. "Do you not remember? Was it not you who told me that day that I was to keep them with me always?

And see, I have kept them--and they have brought me back to you!"

He felt her tremble suddenly, and draw away.

"Let me go, Jean." And, as he released her, she stood for an instant clinging to the ship's side, her head turned away, before she spoke again. "You--you put them on to come down here to me?" she said dully, at last.

"But, yes! But, yes! What else?" he answered eagerly. "To come to you, Marie-Louise!"

She faced him, pitifully white.

"Oh, Jean, Jean! Why did you do it?"--it was a bitter, hopeless cry.

"What good could this hour bring to you, what could it give you when you go back there that you have not already got, while for me"--her voice broke--"it was so hard before--so hard before, and now--"

She did not understand! She did not understand! He caught her hands.

"It is not for an hour!"--his voice was ringing, vibrant, glad. "It is not for an hour, Marie-Louise, it is for--always--always! I am not going back. I have come for always--to be with you always now, Marie-Louise, as long as we shall live. Look up, Marie-Louise! Look up, and smile with those wondrous lips, and put your arms around my neck, and lay your head upon my shoulder, for there is none here to see or heed."

She did not move; and, as she stood there staring at him, the colour came into her face--and went again, leaving it as white and drawn as it had been before.

"You are not going back"--she scarcely breathed the words. Then, almost wildly: "Jean, what do you mean? Your life, your work, your--"

"Are yours, my Marie-Louise," he said quickly. "It was that I meant when I told you Jean Laparde was dead."

"Mine! You would do this--for me--for me--Jean?"--it was as though she were speaking to herself, so low her voice was, as she leaned slowly toward him. "For me?" she said again; and in a tender, wistful way took his face between her hands, and looked a long time into his eyes while her own grew dim. "You are very wonderful, and big, and brave, and strong, Jean," she whispered presently; and there was a little quickened pressure of her hands upon his cheeks, and then they fell away--and she shook her head. "But it can never be, Jean--it can never be. You must go back."

"Never be!" Jean echoed--but now there was a sudden fierce triumph in his voice. "It _must_ be now, for there is no other way. I cannot go back! Have I not told you that Jean Laparde is dead? Listen, listen, Marie-Louise, my little one. Up there I have destroyed all traces of myself, and in a little while they will find the note I left, and believe that I have thrown myself overboard. Ah, Marie-Louise, when I saw you here to-night--see, you were standing down there with your arms stretched out! But how can I tell you--the joy, the grief, the _miserable_ I had been? But it was only you then--you, Marie-Louise, my Marie-Louise again! And I must show you it was true that my life should be yours, that I knew at last all else against your love was nothing, that I had been as some sick soul wandering, deluded, in a world of phantom things--ah, I do not say it well, Marie-Louise, but you must read my heart, and out of that great love of yours forgive.

And I must make you believe--my beacon! Do you remember that? My beacon! Ah, Marie-Louise, for a little while I lost it in the darkness and the storm, but now it is bright again, and it shall always burn for me. And so, see, I have come; and it is the long past back again, and the between is gone, and it is again as the night old Gaston died, and you and I, Marie-Louise, are alone together in all the world."

"Jean! Jean!" she said brokenly--and turned away her head, and, leaning there, buried it in her arms. When she looked up again her face was wet with tears.

He held out his arms to her, and smiled.

But now again she shook her head; and, as her lips quivered, gently pushed his arms away, and took one hand of his in both her own.

"Jean, it is not too late," she was trying bravely to control her voice. "You must go back. The _bon Dieu_ has given you a great life to live, and a great work to do--the work you love."

"It was not the work that I loved--it was Jean Laparde," he said, with a bitter laugh. "But now, I tell you again, Jean Laparde is dead."

"There is your life and there is your work," she went on, as though she had not heard him. "And, Jean--Jean, I have seen them both, and--and so I know."

"You have seen them!" he repeated in a puzzled way. "What is that you say?"

"Yes," she said. "Jean, it was I who went to your studio that night.

It was I that Monsieur Valmain saw enter there. I had a cloak and hat that Father Anton had given me that had belonged to Mademoiselle Bliss."

"You?" he cried out, in wild amazement.

"Wait!" she said tensely. "It does not matter if you know now, since you have seen me here; and I am telling you because--because I must make you understand that I know what your life is there in the great world, and how the name of Jean Laparde is honoured, and how now, more than ever before, Jean, you belong to France--and that you must go back--and that this can never, never be, Jean--and that I can never let you do this thing."

He stared at her for a moment and could not speak. It was Marie-Louise who had been at the studio that night! There was bewilderment upon him; and there was something of finality in the gentle voice that swept the laughter from his heart, and brought a cold, dead thing there in its place. And then a sudden, eager uplift came.

"You were there that night!" he said swiftly. "What brought you there, Marie-Louise? What brought you there--to Paris--from Bernay-sur-Mer?"

She did not answer.

"Ah, I know! I know!" he cried out joyously. "It was your love, Marie-Louise--your love that brought you there. And so you love me now, Marie-Louise--and how then can you talk of sending me away?"

"I have always loved you, Jean," she said simply. "It is because I love you that I must not let you do this thing."

"And it is because I love you that I _will_ do it!" he burst out pa.s.sionately. "Marie-Louise, you were there that night! But is that all? You do not say it, but perhaps you are thinking of Mademoiselle Bliss. You have seen her? She knew you were there? That you were in Paris? You knew that we--"

"She told me that you were to be married, Jean," Marie-Louise interrupted quietly. "But it is not of her that I am thinking."

"She does not love me, I do not love her--_voila_! There is the end of that!" Jean flung out his arms. "It is the work then? Well, listen, Marie-Louise, to a wonderful secret that came to me to-night. It is you--you--your eyes, your face, your lips, your beauty, that has made the name of Jean Laparde! It is you that I have been modelling all this time--it is you who have been my model--you, my Marie-Louise! And I in my blind conceit did not realise it, and dreamed that I was creating out of my own genius the true, perfect, glorious womanhood of France--and it was you! You did not know that, my little one!"

"I am not that, Jean," she said steadily. "But I knew that night.

Monsieur Valmain, when he saw me, when I stepped out into the studio and you--you were lying there on the floor, Jean--Monsieur Valmain said so. And afterwards, Mademoiselle Bliss said so too."