The Lamp of Fate Part 65

"At--what's the name of the place?--Armanches. Oh, Dan! We've got to go right back to Paris again and then on to the coast."

Her face was full of anxiety. This would mean at least a delay of several days before they could possibly see Michael, and meanwhile it was a moot question as to how much longer Lady Arabella could restrain Magda from taking definite steps with regard to joining the sisterhood.

Storran nodded.

"Yes," he said quietly. "But all the same, you'll not start back till to-morrow--"

"Oh, but I must!" interrupted Gillian. "We can't afford to waste a moment."

He glanced down at her and shook his head. Her face was white and drawn, and there were deep violet shadows underneath her eyes. Suspense and her anxious impatience had told upon her, and she had slept but little on the journey. And now, with the addition of this last, totally unexpected disappointment, she looked as though she could not stand much more.

"We can afford to waste a single day better than we can afford the three or four which it would cost us if you collapsed en route," said Storran.

"I shan't collapse," she protested with white lips.

"So much the better. But all the same, you'll stay here till to-morrow and get a good night's rest."

"I shouldn't sleep," she urged. "Let's go right on, Dan. Let's go----"

But the sentence was never finished. Quite suddenly she swayed, stretching out her hands with a blind, groping movement. Dan was just in time to catch her in his arms as she toppled over in a dead faint.

It was a week later when, in the early morning, a rather wan and white-faced Gillian sprang up from her seat as the train ran into Bayeux.

"Thank goodness we're here at last!" she exclaimed.

Storran put out his hand to steady her as the train jolted to a standstill.

"Yes, we're here at last," he said. "Now to find a vehicle of some description to take us out to Armanches."

As he had suggested it would, Gillian's collapse had delayed them some time. Probably she had caught a slight chill while travelling, and that, together with the fatigue from which she was suffering, combined to keep her in bed at the hotel in Rome for a couple of days.

When the slight feverishness had abated, she slept the greater part of the time, her weary body exacting the price for all those wakeful hours she had pa.s.sed on the train. But it was not until four days had elapsed that Dan would agree to a resumption of the journey. Even then, consent was only wrung from him by the fear that she would fret herself ill over any further delay. He did not consider her by any means fit to travel.

But Gillian was game to the core, and they had reached Bayeux without further _contretemps_.

"The thing that puzzles me," she said as they started on the long drive from Bayeux to Armanches, "is why Michael didn't send his Normandy address to Madame Ribot. We should have been saved all that long journey to Rome if he had."

"Perhaps he intended to, and forgot," suggested Dan. "Artists are proverbially absent-minded."

But Gillian shook her head with a dissatisfied air. Michael was not of the absent-minded type.

Armanches was a tiny place on the Normandy coast, in reality not much more than a fishing village, but its possession of a beautiful _plage_--smooth, fine, golden sands--brought many visitors to the old-fashioned hostelry it boasted.

The landlady, a smiling, rosy-cheeked woman, with a chubby little brown-faced son hiding shy embarra.s.sment behind her ample skirts, greeted the travellers hospitably. But when they mentioned Quarrington's name a look of sympathetic concern overspread her comely face.

Yes, he was there. And of course madame could not know, but he had been ill, seriously ill with _la grippe_--taken ill the very day he had arrived, nearly a month ago. He had a nurse. Oh, yes! One had come from Bayeux. But this influenza! It was a veritable scourge. One was here to-day and gone to-morrow. However, Michael Quarrington was recovering, the saints be praised! Monsieur and madame wished to see him? The good woman looked doubtful. She would inquire. What name? Grey? But there was a telegram awaiting madame!

Gillian's face blanched as the landlady bustled away in search of the wire. Had Magda already----Oh, but that was impossible! Lady Arabella was in charge at that end, and Gillian had a great belief in Lady Arabella's capacity to deal with any crisis that might arise.

Nevertheless, they had wired her the Normandy address from Rome, in case of necessity. The next moment Gillian had torn open the telegram and she and Dan were reading it together.

"Magda insists we return to London on Wednesday. She has completed preliminary arrangements to join sisterhood and goes there Thursday.

Impossible to dissuade her.--ARABELLA WINTER."

Gillian's mouth set itself in a straight line of determination as her eyes raced along the score or so of pregnant words. She was silent a moment. Then she met Storran's questioning glance.

"We can just do it," she said sternly. "To-day is Wednesday. By crossing to Southampton to-night, we can make London to-morrow."

Without waiting for his reply she entered the inn and ran quickly up the stairs which the landlady had already ascended.

"But, madame, I am not sure that monsieur will receive anyone,"

protested the astonished woman, turning round as Gillian caught up with her.

"I must see him," a.s.serted Gillian quietly.

Perhaps something in the tense young face touched a sympathetic chord in the Frenchwoman's honest heart. She scented romance, and when she emerged from the invalid's bedroom her face was wreathed in smiles.

"It is all arranged. Will madame please to enter?"

A moment later Gillian found herself standing in front of a tall, gaunt figure of a man, whose coat hung loosely from his shoulders and whose face was worn and haggard with something more than _la grippe_ alone.

"Oh, Michael!"

A little, stricken cry broke from her lips. What men and women make each other suffer! She realised it as she met the stark, bitter misery of the grey eyes that burned at her out of the thin face and remembered the look on Magda's own face when she had last seen her.

She went straight to the point without a word of greeting or of explanation. There was no time for explanations, except the only one that mattered.

"Michael, why didn't you answer Lady Arabella's letter?"

He stared at her. Then he pa.s.sed his hand wearily across his forehead.

"Letter? I don't remember any letter."

"She wrote to you about a month ago. I know the letter was forwarded on to Rome. It must have followed you here."

"A month ago?" he repeated.

Then a light broke over his face. He turned and crossed the room to where a small pile of letters lay on a table, dusty and forgotten.

"Perhaps it's here," he said. "I was taken ill directly I arrived. I never even sent this address to the concierge at Paris. I believe I was off my head part of the time--'flue plays the deuce with you. But I remember now. The nurse told me there were some letters which had come while I was ill. I--didn't bother about them."

While he spoke he was turning over the envelopes, one by one, in a desultory fashion.

"Yes. This is Lady Arabella's writing." He paused and looked across at Gillian.

"Will you read it, please?" she said. "And--oh, you ought to sit down!

You don't look very strong yet."

He smiled a little.