The Maids of Paradise Part 73

"Yes, mademoiselle; and he knows what happens to spies."

"Did he offer to go?" she asked, incredulously.

"Mademoiselle, he insists."

Her lip began to tremble. She turned toward the window, where the sea-fog flew past in the rising wind, and stared out across the immeasurable blackness of the ocean.

Without turning her head she said: "Does he know that it may mean his death?"

"He has suffered worse for your sake!" I said, bitterly.

"What?" she flashed out, confronting me in an instant.

"You must know that," I said--"three years of h.e.l.l--prison--utter ruin! Do you dare deny you have been ignorant of this?"

For a s.p.a.ce she stood there, struck speechless; then, "Call him!" she cried. "Call him, I tell you! Bring him here--I want him here--here before us both!" She sprang to the door, but I blocked her way.

"I will not have Madame de Va.s.sart know what you did to him!" I said.

"If you want Kelly Eyre, I will call him." And I stepped into the hallway.

Eyre, pa.s.sing the long stone corridor, looked up as I beckoned; and when he entered the tea-room, Sylvia, white as a ghost, met him face to face.

"Monsieur," she said, harshly, "why did you not come to that book-store?"

He was silent. His face was answer enough--a terrible answer.

"Monsieur Eyre, speak to me! Is it true? Did they--did you not know that I made an error--that I _did_ go on Monday at the same hour?"

His haggard face lighted up; she saw it, and caught his hands in hers.

"Did you think I knew?" she stammered. "Did you think I could do that? They told me at the _usine_ that you had gone away--I thought you had forgotten--that you did not care--"

"Care!" he groaned, and bowed his head, crushing her hands over his face.

Then she broke down, breathless with terror and grief.

"I was not a spy then--truly I was not, Kelly. There was no harm in me--I only--only asked for the sketches because--because--I cared for you. I have them now; no soul save myself has ever seen them--even afterward, when I drifted into intrigue at the Emba.s.sy--when everybody knew that Bismarck meant to force war--everybody except the French people--I never showed those little sketches! They were--were mine!

Kelly, they were all I had left when you went away--to a fortress!--and I did not know!--I did not know!"

"Hush!" he groaned. "It is all right--it is all right now."

"Do you believe me?"

"Yes, yes. Don't cry--don't be unhappy--now."

She raised her head and fumbled in her corsage with shaking fingers, and drew from her bosom a packet of papers.

"Here are the sketches," she sobbed; "they have cost you dear! Now leave me--hate me! Let them come and take me--I do not want to live any more. Oh, what punishment on earth!"

Her suffering was unendurable to the man who had suffered through her; he turned on me, quivering in every limb.

"We must start," he said, hoa.r.s.ely. "Give me your revolver."

I drew it from my hip-pocket and pa.s.sed it to him.

"Scarlett," he began, "if we don't reach--"

A quick rapping at the door silenced him; the young Countess stood in the hallway, bright-eyed, but composed, asking for me.

"The red and the white lights are gone," she said. "There are four green lights on the tower and four blue lights on the halyards."

I turned to Eyre. "This is interesting," I said, grimly. "I set signals for the _Fer-de-Lance_ to land in force. Somebody has changed them. You had better get ready to go."

Sylvia had shrunk away from Eyre. The Countess looked at her blankly, then at me.

"Madame," I said, "there is little enough of happiness in the world--so little that when it comes it should be welcomed, even by those who may not share in it."

And I bent nearer and whispered the truth.

Then I went to Sylvia, who stood there tremulous, pallid.

"You serve your country at a greater risk than do the soldiers of your King," I said. "There is no courage like that which discounts a sordid, unhonored death. You have my respect, mademoiselle."

"Sylvia!" murmured the young Countess, incredulously; "you a spy?--here--under my roof?"

Sylvia unconsciously stretched out one hand toward her.

Eyre stepped to her side, with an angry glance at Madame de Va.s.sart.

"I--I love you, madame," whispered Sylvia. "I only place my own country first. Can you forgive me?"

The Countess stood as though stunned; Eyre pa.s.sed her slowly, supporting Sylvia to the door.

"Madame," I said, "will you speak to her? Your countries, not your hearts, are at war. She did her duty."

"A spy!" repeated the Countess, in a dull voice. "A spy! And she brings this--this shame on me!"

Sylvia turned, standing unsteadily. For a long time they looked at each other in silence, their eyes wet with tears. Then Eyre lifted Sylvia's hand and kissed it, and led her away, closing the door behind.

The Countess still stood in the centre of the room, transfixed, rigid, staring through her tears at the closed door. With a deep-drawn breath she straightened her shoulders; her head drooped; she covered her face with clasped hands.

Standing there, did she remember those who, one by one, had betrayed her? Those who first whispered to her that love of country was a narrow creed; those who taught her to abhor violence, and then failed at the test--Bazard, firing to kill, going down to death under the merciless lance of an Uhlan; Buckhurst, guilty of every crime that attracted him; and now Sylvia, her friend, false to the salt she had eaten, false to the roof above her, false, utterly false to all save the land of her nativity.

And she, eline de Trecourt, a soldier's daughter and a Frenchwoman, had been used as a shield by those who were striking her own mother-land--the country she once had denied; the country whose frontiers she knew not in her zeal for limitless brotherhood; the blackened, wasted country she had seen at Strasbourg; the land for which the cuira.s.siers of Morsbronn had died!

"What have I done?" she cried, brokenly--"what have I done that this shame should come upon me?"

"You have done nothing," I said, "neither for good nor evil in this crisis. But Sylvia has; Sylvia the spy. That a man should give up his life for a friend is good; that a woman offer hers for her country is better. What has it cost her? The friendship of the woman she worships--you, madame! It has cost her that already, and the price may include her life and the life of the man she loves. She has done her duty; the sacrifice is still burning; I pray it may spare her and spare him."