"You are not a very talkative person. Are you always as silent as
this?"
"No," said he, "I am not. I offer my humblest apologies. It seems as
if I were not being properly grateful for being allowed to sit here with
you, but to tell the truth I was buried in thought." They had begun to
talk in French, but, midway of Ste. Marie's speech, the girl glanced
towards the old Michel, who stood a short distance away, and so he
changed to English.
"In that case," she said, regarding her work with her head on one side
like a bird--"in that case you might at least tell me what your thoughts
were. They might be interesting." Ste. Marie gave a little embarrassed
laugh.
"I'm sorry," said he, "but I'm afraid they were too personal. I'm
afraid if I told you, you'd get up and go away, and be frigidly polite
to me when next we passed each other in the garden here.
"But there's no harm," he said, "in telling you one thing that occurred
to me. It occurred to me that, as far as a young girl can be said to
resemble an elderly woman, you bear a most remarkable resemblance to a
very dear old friend of mine who lives near Dublin--Lady Margaret
Craith. She's a widow and almost all of her family are dead, I believe
(I didn't know any of them), and she lives there in a huge old house
with a park, quite alone, with her army of servants. I go to see her
whenever I'm in Ireland, because she is one of the sweetest souls I have
ever known."
He became aware suddenly that Mlle. O'Hara's head was bent very low over
her sewing, and that her face, or as much of it as he could see, was
crimson.
"Oh I--I beg your pardon!" cried Ste. Marie. "I've done something
dreadful. I don't know what it is, but I'm very, very sorry. Please
forgive me if you can!"
"It is nothing," she said in a low voice, and after a moment she looked
up for the swiftest possible glance and down again.
"That is my--aunt," she said. "Only--please, let us talk about
something else! Of course you couldn't possibly have known."
"No," said Ste. Marie gravely. "No, of course. You are very good to
forgive me." He was silent a little while, for what the girl had told
him surprised him very much indeed, and touched him too. He remembered
again the remark of his friend when O'Hara had passed them on the
boulevard--
"There goes some of the best blood that ever came out of Ireland. See
what it has fallen to!"
"It is a curious fact," said he, "that you and I are very close
compatriots in the matter of blood--if 'compatriots' is the word. You
are Irish and Spanish. My mother was Irish and my people were Bearnais,
which is about as much Spanish as French--and indeed there was a great
deal of blood from across the mountains in them, for they often married
Spanish wives." He pulled the Bayard out of his pocket.
"The Ste. Marie in here married a Spanish lady, didn't he?"
The girl looked up to him once more.
"Yes," she said. "Yes, I remember. He was a brave man, monsieur. He
had a great soul. And he died nobly."
"Well, as for that," he said, flushing a little, "the Ste. Maries have
all died rather well." He gave a short laugh.
"Though I must admit," said he, "that the last of them came precious
near falling below the family standard a week ago. I should think that
probably none of my respected forefathers was killed in climbing over a
garden wall. _Autres temps autres moeurs_."
He burst out laughing again at what seemed to him rather comic, but
Mlle. O'Hara did not smile. She looked very gravely into his eyes and
there seemed to be something like sorrow in her look. Ste. Marie
wondered at it, but after a moment it occurred to him that he was very
near forbidden ground, and that doubtless the girl was trying to give
him a silent warning of it. He began to turn over the leaves of the
book in his hand.
"You have marked a great many pages here," said he, and she said--
"It is my best of all books. I read in it very often. I am so thankful
for it that there are no words to say how thankful I am--how glad I am
that I have such a world as that to--take refuge in sometimes when this
world is a little too unbearable. It does for me now what the fairy
stories did when I was little. And to think that it's true, true! To
think that once there truly were men like that--_sans peur et sans
reproche_! It makes life worth while to think that those men lived even
if it was long ago."
Ste. Marie bent his head over the little book, for he could not look at
Mlle. O'Hara just then. It seemed to him wellnigh the most pathetic
speech that he had ever heard. His heart bled for her. Out of what mean
shadows had the girl to turn her weary eyes upward to this sunlight of
ancient heroism!
"And yet, mademoiselle," said he gently, "I think there are such men
alive to-day if only one will look for them. Remember! they were not
common even in Bayard's time. Oh yes, I think there are _preux
chevaliers_ nowadays--only perhaps they don't go about things in quite
the same fashion.
"Other times, other manners!" he said again.
"Do you know any such men?" she demanded, facing him with shadowy eyes.
And he said--
"Yes. I know men who are in all ways as honourable and as high-hearted
as Bayard was. In his place they would have acted as he did, but
nowadays one has to practise heroism much less conspicuously--in the
little things that few people see and that no one applauds or writes
books about. It is much harder to do brave little acts than brave big
ones."
"Yes," she agreed slowly. "Oh yes, of course." But there was no spirit
in her tone, rather a sort of apathy. Once more the leaves overhead
swayed in the breeze, opened a tiny rift, and the little trembling rays
of sunshine shot down to her where she sat. She stretched out one hand
cupwise, and the sunbeam, after a circling gyration, darted into it and
lay there like a small golden bird panting, as it were, from flight.
"If I were a painter," said Ste. Marie, "I should be in torture and
anguish of soul until I had painted you sitting there on a stone bench
and holding a sunbeam in your hand. I don't know what I should call the
picture, but I think it would be something figurative--symbolic. Can
you think of a name?"
Coira O'Hara looked up at him with a slight smile, but her eyes were
gloomy and full of dark shadows.
"It might be called any one of a great number of things, I should
think," said she. "Happiness--belief--illusion.
"See! The sunbeam is gone."
*CHAPTER XXI*
*A MIST DIMS THE SHINING STAR*
Ste. Marie remained in his room all the rest of that day, and he did not
see Mlle. O'Hara again, for Michel brought him his lunch and the old
Justine his dinner. For the greater part of the time he sat in bed
reading, but rose now and then and moved about the room. His wound
seemed to have suffered no great inconvenience from the morning's
outing. If he stood or walked too long it burned somewhat, and he had
the sensation of a tight band round the leg, but this passed after he
had lain down for a little while, or even sat in a chair with the leg
straight out before him, so he knew that he was not to be crippled very
much longer, and his thoughts began to turn more and more keenly upon
the matter of escape.
He realised of course that now, since he was once more able to walk, he
would be guarded with unremitting care every moment of the day, and
quite possibly every moment of the night as well, though the simple
bolting of his door on the outside would seem to answer the purpose save
when he was out of doors. Once he went to the two east windows and hung
out of them testing, as well as he could with his hands, the strength
and tenacity of the ivy which covered that side of the house. He
thought it seemed strong enough to give hand and foothold without being
torn loose, but he was afraid it would make an atrocious amount of noise
if he should try to climb down it, and besides he would need two very
active legs for that.
At another time a fresh idea struck him, and he put it at once into
action. There might be just a chance, when out one day with Michel, of
getting near enough to the wall which ran along the Clamart road to
throw something over it when the old man was not looking. In one of his
pockets he had a cardcase with a little pencil fitted into a loop at one
edge, and, in the case, it was his custom to carry postage stamps. He
investigated, found pencil and stamps. Of course he had nothing but
cards to write upon, and they were useless. He looked about the room
and went through an empty chest of drawers in vain, but at last, on some
shelves in the closet where his clothes had hung, he found several large
sheets of coarse white paper: the shelves were covered with it loosely
for the sake of cleanliness. He abstracted one of these sheets and cut
it into squares of the ordinary note paper size, and he sat down and
wrote a brief letter to Richard Hartley, stating where he was, that
Arthur Benham was there, the O'Haras and, he thought, Captain Stewart.
He did not write the names out, but put instead the initial letters of
each name, knowing that Hartley would understand. He gave careful
directions as to how the place was to be reached, and he asked Hartley
to come as soon as possible by night to that wall where he himself had
made his entrance, to climb up by the cedar-tree, and to drop his answer
into the thick leaves of the lilac bushes immediately beneath--an answer
naming a day and hour, preferably by night, when he could return with
three or four to help him, surprise the household at La Lierre, and
carry off young Benham.
Ste. Marie wrote this letter four times, and each of the four copies he
enclosed in an awkwardly fashioned envelope, made with infinite pains so
that its flaps folded in together, for he had no gum. He addressed and
stamped the four envelopes, and put them all in his pocket to await the
first opportunity.
Afterwards he lay down for awhile and, as, one after another, the books
he had in the room failed to interest him, his thoughts began to turn
back to Mlle. Coira O'Hara and his hour with her upon the old stone
bench in the garden. He realized all at once that he had been putting
off this reflection as one puts off a reckoning that one a little dreads
to face, and rather vaguely he realised why.
The spell that the girl wielded--quite without being conscious of it: he
granted her that grace--was too potent. It was dangerous, and he knew
it. Even imaginative and very unpractical people can be in some things
surprisingly matter-of-fact, and Ste. Marie was matter-of-fact about
this. The girl had made a mysterious and unprecedented appeal to him at
his very first sight of her, long before, and ever since that time she
had continued, intermittently at least, to haunt his dreams. Now he was
in the very house with her. It was quite possible that he might see her
and speak with her every day, and he knew there was peril in that.
He closed his eyes and she came to him, dark and beautiful, magnetically
vital, spreading enchantment about her like a fragrance. She sat beside
him on the moss-stained bench in the garden, holding out her hand
cupwise, and a sunbeam lay in the hand like a little golden fluttering
bird. His thoughts ran back to that first morning when he had narrowly
escaped death by poison. He remembered the girl's agony of fear and
horror. He felt her hands once more upon his shoulders, and he was
aware that his breath was coming faster and that his heart beat quickly.
He got to his feet and went across to one of the windows, and he stood
there for a long time frowning out into the summer day. If ever in his
life, he said to himself with some deliberation, he was to need a cool
and clear head, faculties unclouded and unimpaired by emotion, it was
now in these next few days. Much more than his own well-being depended
upon him now. The fates of a whole family and quite possibly the lives
of some of them were in his hands. He must not fail and he must not, in
any least way, falter.
For enemies he had a band of desperate adventurers, and the very boy
himself, the centre and reason for the whole plot, had been, in some
incomprehensible way, so played upon that he too was against him.
The man standing by the window forced himself quite deliberately to look
the plain facts in the face. He compelled himself to envisage this
beautiful girl with her tragic eyes for just what his reason knew her to
be--an adventuress, a decoy, a lure to a callow impressionable foolish
lad, the tool of that arch-villain Stewart and of the lesser villain her
father. It was like standing by and watching something lovely and
pitiful vilely befouled. It turned his heart sick within him, but he
held himself to the task. He brought to aid him the vision of his lady
in whose cause he was pursuing this adventure. For strength and
determination he reached eye and hand to her where she sat enthroned,
calm-browed, serene.
For the first time since the beginning of all things his lady failed
him, and Ste. Marie turned cold with fear.
Where was that splendid frenzy that had been wont to sweep him all in an
instant into upper air--set his feet upon the stars? Where was it? The
man gave a sudden voiceless cry of horror. The wings that had such
countless times upborne him fluttered weakly near the earth and could
not mount. His lady was there: through infinite space he was aware of
her, but she was cold and aloof and her eyes gazed very serenely beyond,
at something he could not see.
He knew well enough that the fault lay somewhere within himself. She
was as she had ever been, but he lacked the strength to rise to her.
Why? Why? He searched himself with a desperate earnestness, but he
could find no answer to his questioning. In himself, as in her, there
had come no change. She was still to him all that she ever had
been--the star of his destiny, the pillar of fire by night, of cloud by
day, to guide him on his path. Where then the fine pure fervour that
should, at thought of her, whirl him on high and make a god of him?
He stood wrapped in bewilderment and despair, for he could find no
answer.
In plain words, in commonplace black and white, the man's anguish has an
over-fanciful, a wellnigh absurd look, but to Ste. Marie the thing was
very real and terrible: as real and as terrible as, to a half-starved
monk in his lonely cell, the sudden failure of the customary exaltation
of spirit after a night's long prayer.
He went after a time back to the bed and lay down there, with one
upflung arm across his eyes to shut out the light. He was filled with a
profound dejection and a sense of hopelessness. Through all the long
week of his imprisonment he had been cheerful, at times even gay.
However evil his case might have looked, his elastic spirits had mounted
above all difficulties and cares, confident in the face of apparent
defeat. Now at last he lay still, bruised, as it were, and battered and
weary. The flame of courage burnt very low in him. From sheer
exhaustion he fell after a time into a troubled sleep, but even there
the enemy followed him and would not let him rest. He seemed to himself
to be in a place of shadows and fear. He strained his eyes to make out
above him the bright clear star of guidance, for so long as that shone
he was safe, but something had come between--cloud or mist--and his star
shone dimly in fitful glimpses.
On the next morning he went out once more, with old Michel, into the
garden. He went with a stronger heart, for the morning had renewed his
courage, as bright fresh mornings do. From the anguish of the day
before he held himself carefully aloof. He kept his mind away from all
thought of it, and gave his attention to the things about him. It would
return doubtless in the slow idle hours; he would have to face it again,
and yet again; he would have to contend with it: but for the present he
put it out of his thoughts, for there were things to do.
It was no more than human of him--and certainly it was very
characteristic of Ste. Marie--that he should be half glad and half
disappointed at not finding Coira O'Hara in her place at the _rond
point_. It left him free to do what he wished to do--make a careful
reconnaissance of the whole garden enclosure--but it left him empty of
something he had, without conscious thought, looked forward to.
His wounded leg was stronger and more flexible than on the day before:
it burnt and prickled less, and could be bent a little at the knee with
small distress, so he led the old Michel at a good pace down the length
of the enclosure, past the rose gardens--a tangle of unkempt
sweetness--and so to the opposite wall. He found the gates there, very
formidable-looking, made of vertical iron bars connected by cross pieces
and an ornamental scroll. They were fastened together by a heavy chain
and a padlock. The lock was covered with rust, as were the gates
themselves, and Ste. Marie observed that the lane outside upon which
they gave was overgrown with turf and moss and even with seedling
shrubs, so he felt sure that this entrance was never used. The lane, he
noted, swept away to the right, towards Fort d'Issy and not towards the
Clamart road. He heard, as he stood there, the whirr of a tram from far
away at the left--a tram bound to or from Clamart--and the sound brought
to his mind what he wished to do. He turned about and began to make his
way round the rose gardens, which were partly enclosed by a low brick
wall some two or three feet high. Beyond them the trees and shrubbery
were not set out in orderly rows as they were near the house, but grew
at will without hindrance or care. It was like a bit of the Meudon
wood.
He found the going more difficult here for his bad leg, but he pressed
on and in a little while saw before him that wall which skirted the
Clamart road. He felt in his pocket for the four sealed and stamped
letters, but just then the old Michel spoke behind him.
"_Pardon, monsieur! Il n'est pas permis._"
"What is not permitted?" demanded Ste. Marie, wheeling about.
"To approach that wall, monsieur," said the old man with an incredibly
gnome-like and apologetic grin.
Ste. Marie gave an exclamation of disgust.
"Is it believed that I could leap over it?" he asked. "A matter of five
metres? _Merci non_! I am not so agile. You flatter me."
The old Michel spread out his two gnarled hands.
"_Pas de ma faute_. I have orders, monsieur. It will be my painful
duty to shoot if monsieur approaches that wall." He turned his strange
head on one side and regarded Ste. Marie with his sharp and bead-like
eye. The smile of apology still distorted his face, and he looked
exactly like the Punchinello in a street show.
Ste. Marie slowly withdrew from his pocket two louis d'or, and held them
before him in the palm of his hand. He looked down upon them and Michel
looked too, with a gaze so intense that his solitary eye seemed to
project a very little from his withered face. He was like a hypnotised
old bird.
"_Mon vieux,_" said Ste. Marie. "I am a man of honour."
"_Surement_! _Surement_, monsieur!" said the old Michel politely, but
his hypnotised gaze did not stir so much as a hair's-breadth.
"_Ca va sans le dire._"
"A man of honour," repeated Ste. Marie. "When I give my word I keep it.
_Voila_! I keep it."
"And," said he, "I have here forty francs. Two louis. A large sum. It
is yours, my brave Michel, for the mere trouble of turning your back
just thirty seconds."
"Monsieur," whispered the old man, "it is impossible. He would kill
me--by torture."
"He will never know," said Ste. Marie, "for I do not mean to try to
escape. I give you my word of honour that I shall not try to escape.
Besides, I could not climb over that wall, as you see.
"Two louis, Michel! Forty francs!"
The old man's hands twisted and trembled round the barrel of the
carbine, and he swallowed once with some difficulty. He seemed to
hesitate but in the end he shook his head. It was as if he shook it in
grief over the grave of his firstborn.
"It is impossible," he said again. "Impossible." He tore the bead-like
eye away from those two beautiful glowing golden things, and Ste. Marie
saw that there was nothing to be done with him just now. He slipped the
money back into his pocket with a little sigh, and turned away towards
the rose gardens.
"Ah well," said he. "Another time perhaps. Another time. And there are
more louis still, _mon vieux_. Perhaps three or four. Who knows?"
Michel emitted a groan of extreme anguish, and they moved on.
But a few moments later Ste. Marie gave a sudden low exclamation and
then a soundless laugh, for he caught sight of a very familiar figure
seated in apparent dejection upon a fallen tree trunk and staring across
the tangled splendour of the roses.
*CHAPTER XXII*
*A SETTLEMENT REFUSED*
Captain Stewart had good reason to look depressed on that fresh and
beautiful morning when Ste. Marie happened upon him beside the rose
gardens. Matters had not gone well with him of late. He was ill and he
was frightened, and he was much nearer than is agreeable to a complete
nervous breakdown.
It seemed to him that perils beset him upon every side: perils both seen
and unseen. He felt like a man who is hunted in the dark, hard pressed
until his strength is gone and he can go no farther. He imagined
himself to be that man shivering in the gloom in a strange place, hiding
eyes and ears lest he see or hear something from which he cannot escape.
He imagined the morning light to come very slow and cold and grey, and
in it he saw round about him a silent ring of enemies, the men who had
pursued him and run him down. He saw them standing there in the pale
dawn, motionless, waiting for the day, and he knew that at last the
chase was over and he was done for.
Crouching alone in the garden with the scent of roses in his nostrils,
he wondered with a great and bitter amazement at that madman--himself of
only a few months ago--who had sat down deliberately, in his proper
senses, to play at cards with Fate, the great winner of all games. He
wondered if, after all, he had been in his proper senses, for the deed
now loomed before him gigantic and hideous in its criminal folly. His
mind went drearily back to the beginning of it all, to the tremendous
debts which had hounded him day and night; to his fear to speak of them
with his father, who had never had the least mercy upon gamblers. He
remembered, as if it were yesterday, the afternoon upon which he learnt
of young Arthur's quarrel with his grandfather, old David's senile
anger, and the boy's tempestuous exit from the house, vowing never to
return. He remembered his talk with old David later on about the will,
in which he learnt that he was now to have Arthur's share under certain
conditions. He remembered how that very evening, three days after his
disappearance, the lad had come secretly to the Rue du Faubourg St.
Honore, begging his uncle to take him in for a few days, and how, in a
single instant that was like a lightning flash, the Great Idea had come
to him.
What gigantic and appalling madness it had all been! And yet, for a
time, how easy of execution. For a time. Now ... He gave another quick
shiver, for his mind came back to what beset him and compassed him round
about. Perils seen and hidden.
The peril seen was ever before his eyes. Against the light of day it
loomed a gigantic and portentous shadow, and it threatened him--the
figure of Ste. Marie _who knew_. His reason told him that, if due care
were used, this danger need not be too formidable, and indeed in his
heart he rather despised Ste. Marie as an individual; but the man's
nerve was broken and, in these days, fear swept wave-like over reason
and had its way with him. Fear looked up to this looming portentous
shadow, and saw there youth and health and strength, courage and
hopefulness, and (best of all armours) a righteous cause. How was an ill
and tired and wicked old man to fight against these? It became an
obsession, the figure of this youth: it darkened the sun at noonday, and
at night it stood beside Captain Stewart's bed in the darkness and
watched him and waited, and the very air he breathed came chill and dark
from its silent presence there.
But there were perils unseen as well as seen. He felt invisible threads
drawing round him, weaving closer and closer, and he dared not even try
how strong they were lest they prove to be cables of steel. He was
almost certain that his niece knew something or at the least suspected.
As has already been pointed out, the two saw very little of each other,
but on the occasions of their last few meetings it had seemed to him
that the girl watched him with a strange stare, and tried always to be
in her grandfather's chamber when he called to make his inquiries. Once,
stirred by a moment's bravado, he asked her if M. Ste. Marie had
returned from his mysterious absence, and the girl said--
"No. He has not come back yet, but I expect him soon now--with news of
Arthur. We shall all be very glad to see him, grandfather and Richard
Hartley and I."
It was not a very consequential speech, and to tell the truth it was
what, in the girl's own country, would be termed pure "bluff," but to
Captain Stewart it rang harsh and loud with evil significance, and he
went out of that room cold at heart. What plans were they perfecting
among them? What invisible nets for his feet?
And there was another thing still. Within the past two or three days he
had become convinced that his movements were being watched. (And that
would be Richard Hartley at work, he said to himself.) Faces vaguely
familiar began to confront him in the street, in restaurants and cafes.
Once he thought his rooms had been ransacked during his absence at La
Lierre, though his servant stoutly maintained that they had never been
left unoccupied save for a half-hour's marketing. Finally, on the day
before this morning by the rose gardens, he was sure that as he came out
from the city in his car he was followed at a long distance by another
motor. He saw it behind him after he had left the city gate, the Porte
de Versailles, and he saw it again after he had left the main route at
Issy, and entered the little Rue Barbes which led to La Lierre. Of
course he promptly did the only possible thing under the circumstances.
He dashed on past the long stretch of wall, swung into the main avenue
beyond and continued, through Clamart, to the Meudon wood, as if he were
going to St. Cloud. In the labyrinth of roads and lanes there he came
to a halt, and after a half-hour's wait ran slowly back to La Lierre.
There was no further sign of the other car, the pursuer, if so it had
been; but he passed two or three men on bicycles and others walking, and
what one of these might not be a spy paid to track him down?
It had frightened him badly, that hour of suspense and flight, and he
determined to remain at La Lierre for at least a few days, and wrote to
his servant in the Rue du Faubourg to forward his letters there under
the false name by which he had hired the place.
He was thinking very wearily of all these things as he sat on the fallen
tree trunk in the garden and stared unseeing across tangled ranks of
roses. And after awhile his thoughts, as they were wont to do, returned
to Ste. Marie--that looming shadow which darkened the sunlight, that
incubus of fear which clung to him night and day. He was so absorbed
that he did not hear sounds which might otherwise have roused him. He
heard nothing, saw nothing, save that which his fevered mind projected,
until a voice spoke his name.
He looked over his shoulder thinking that O'Hara had sought him out. He
turned a little on the tree trunk to see more easily, and the image of
his dread stood there a living and very literal shadow against the
daylight.
Captain Stewart's overstrained nerves were in no state to bear a sudden
shock. He gave a voiceless, whispering cry, and he began to tremble
very violently so that his teeth chattered. All at once he got to his
feet and began to stumble away backwards, but a projecting limb of the
fallen tree caught him and held him fast. It must be that the man was
in a sort of frenzy. He must have seen through a red mist just then,
for when he found that he could not escape his hand went swiftly to his
coat pocket, and in his white and contorted face there was murder, plain
and unmistakable.
[Illustration: "His hand went swiftly to his coat pocket."]
Ste. Marie was too lame to spring aside or to dash upon the man across
intervening obstacles and defend himself. He stood still in his place
and waited. And it was characteristic of him that at that moment he
felt no fear, only a fine sense of exhilaration. Open danger had no
terrors for him. It was secret peril that unnerved him, as in the matter
of the poison a week before.
Captain Stewart's hand fell away empty and Ste. Marie laughed.
"Left it at the house?" said he. "You seem to have no luck, Stewart.
First the cat drinks the poison and then you leave your pistol at home.
Dear! dear! I'm afraid you're careless."
Captain Stewart stared at the younger man under his brows. His face was
grey and he was still shivering, but the sudden agony of fear, which had
been after all only a jangle of nerves, was gone away. He looked upon
Ste. Marie's gay and untroubled face with a dull wonder, and he began to
feel a grudging admiration for the man who could face death without even
turning pale. He pulled out his watch and looked at it.
"I did not know," he said, "that this was your hour out of doors." As a
matter of fact he had quite forgotten that the arrangement existed. When
he had first heard of it he had protested vigorously, but had been
overborne by O'Hara with the plea that they owed their prisoner
something for having come near to poisoning him, and Stewart did not
care to have any further attention called to that matter: it had already
put a severe strain upon the relations at La Lierre.
"Well," observed Ste. Marie, "I told you you were careless. That proves
it. Come! Can't we sit down for a little chat? I haven't seen you
since I was your guest at the other address--the town address. It seems
to have become a habit of mine, doesn't it? being your guest." He
laughed cheerfully, but Captain Stewart continued to regard him without
smiling.
"If you imagine," said the elder man, "that this place belongs to me you
are mistaken. I came here to-day to make a visit." But Ste. Marie sat
down at one end of the tree trunk and shook his head.
"Oh, come, come!" said he. "Why keep up the pretence? You must know
that I know all about the whole affair Why, bless you, I know it
all--even to the provisions of the will. Did you think I stumbled in
here by accident? Well, I didn't, though I don't mind admitting to you
that I remained by accident." He glanced over his shoulder towards the
one-eyed Michel, who stood near by regarding the two with some alarm.
Captain Stewart looked up sharply at the mention of the will, and he
wetted his dry lips with his tongue. But after a moment's hesitation he
sat down upon the tree trunk, and he seemed to shrink a little together,
when his limbs and shoulders had relaxed, so that he looked small and
feeble, like a very tired old man. He remained silent for a few
moments, but at last he spoke without raising his eyes. He said--
"And now that you--imagine yourself to know so very much, what do you
expect to do about it?" Ste. Marie laughed again.
"Ah, that would be telling!" he cried. "You see, in one way I have the
advantage (though outwardly all the advantage seems to be with your
side): I know all about your game. I may call it a game? Yes? But you
don't know mine. You don't know what I--what we may do at any moment.
That's where we have the better of you."
"It would seem to me," said Captain Stewart wearily, "that since you are
a prisoner here and very unlikely to escape, we know with great accuracy
what you will do--and what you will not."
"Yes," admitted Ste. Marie. "It would seem so. It certainly would seem
so. But you never can tell, can you?" And at that the elder man frowned
and looked away. Thereafter another brief silence fell between the two,
but at its end Ste. Marie spoke in a new tone, a very serious tone. He
said--
"Stewart, listen a moment!" and the other turned a sharp gaze upon him.
"You mustn't forget," said Ste. Marie, speaking slowly as if to choose
his words with care--"you mustn't forget that I am not alone in this
matter. You mustn't forget that there's Richard Hartley--and that there
are others too. I'm a prisoner, yes, I'm helpless here for the
present--perhaps--perhaps, but they are not, _and they know, Stewart.
They know_."
Captain Stewart's face remained grey and still, but his hands twisted
and shook upon his knees until he hid them.
"I know well enough what you're waiting for," continued Ste. Marie.
"You're waiting--you've got to wait, for Arthur Benham to come of age,
or, better yet, for your father to die." He paused and shook his head.
"It's no good. You can't hold out as long as that--not by half. We
shall have won the game long before. Listen to me! Do you know what
would occur if your father should take a serious turn for the worse
to-night--or at any time? Do you? Well, I'll tell you. A piece of
information would be given him that would make another change in that
will just as quickly as a pen could write the words. That's what would
happen."
"That is a lie!" said Captain Stewart in a dry whisper. "A lie." And
Ste. Marie contented himself with a slight smile by way of answer. He
was by no means sure that what he said was true, but he argued that
since Hartley suspected or, perhaps by this time, knew so much, he would
certainly not allow old David to die without doing what he could do in
an effort to save young Arthur's fortune from a rascal. In any event,
true or false, the words had had the desired effect. Captain Stewart
was plainly frightened by them.
"May I make a suggestion?" asked the younger man. The other did not
answer him and he made it.
"Give it up!" said he. "You're riding for a tremendous fall, you know.
We shall smash you completely in the end. It'll mean worse than
ruin--much worse. Give it up, now, before you're too late. Help me to
send for Hartley, and we'll take the boy back to his home. Some story
can be managed that will leave you out of the thing altogether, and
those who know will hold their tongues. It's your last chance, Stewart.
I advise you to take it."
Captain Stewart turned his grey face slowly and looked at the other man
with a sort of dull and apathetic wonder.
"Are you mad?" he asked in a voice which was altogether without feeling
of any kind. "Are you quite mad?"
"On the contrary," said Ste. Marie, "I am quite sane, and I'm offering
you a chance to save yourself before it's too late.
"Don't misunderstand me!" he said. "I am not urging this out of any
sympathy for you. I urge it because it will bring about what I wish a
little more quickly, also because it will save your family from the
disgrace of your smash-up. That's why I'm making my suggestion."
Captain Stewart was silent for a little while, but after that he got
heavily to his feet.
"I think you must be quite mad," said he, as before, in a voice
altogether devoid of expression. "I cannot talk with madmen." He
beckoned to the old Michel, who stood near-by leaning upon his carbine,
and when the gardener had approached, he said--
"Take this--prisoner back to his room!"