"I shall tell them, Coira, that if that wretched half-baked lad should
search this wide world round, from Paris on to Paris again, and if he
should spend a lifetime searching, he would never find the beauty and
the sweetness and the tenderness and the true faith that he left behind
at La Lierre--nor the hundredth part of them. I should say that you are
so much above him that he ought to creep to you on his knees from the
Rue de l'Universite to this garden, thanking God that you were here at
the journey's end, and kissing the ground that he dragged himself over
for sheer joy and gratitude. I should tell them--Oh, I have no words! I
could tell them so pitifully little of you! I think I should only say:
'Go to her and see!' I think I should just say that."
The girl turned her head away with a little sob, but afterwards she
faced him once more, and she looked up to him with sweet, half-shut eyes
for a long time. At last she said--
"For love of whom, Ste. Marie, did you undertake this quest--this search
for Arthur Benham? It was not in idleness or by way of a whim. It was
for love. For love of whom?"
For some strange and inexplicable reason the words struck him like a
blow, and he stared whitely.
"I came," he said at last, and his voice was oddly flat, "for his
sister's sake. For love of her." Coira O'Hara dropped her eyes. But
presently she looked up again with a smile. She said--
"God make you happy, my friend!" And she turned and moved away from him
up among the trees. At a little distance she turned, saying--
"Wait where you are! I will fetch Arthur or send him to you. He must
be told at once." Then she went on and was lost to sight.
Ste. Marie followed a few steps after her and halted. His face was
turned, by chance, towards the east wall, and suddenly he gave a great
cry and smothered it with his hands over his mouth. His knees bent under
him and he was weak and trembling. Then he began to run. He ran with
awkward steps for his leg was not yet entirely recovered, but he ran
fast, and his heart beat within him until he thought it must burst.
He was making for that spot which was overhung by the half dead cedar
tree.
*CHAPTER XXVI*
*"I WON'T GO!"*
Ste. Marie came under the wall breathless and shaking. What he had seen
there from a distance was no longer visible, but he pressed in close
among the lilac shrubs and called out in an unsteady voice. He said--
"Who is there? Who is it?" And after a moment he called again.
A hand appeared at the top of the high wall. The drooping screen of
foliage was thrust aside, and he saw Richard Hartley's face looking
down. Ste. Marie held himself by the strong stems of the lilacs, for
once more his knees had weakened under him.
"There's no one in sight," Hartley said. "I can see for a long way. No
one can see us or hear us." And he said: "I got your letter this
morning--an hour ago. When shall we come to get you out--you and the
boy? To-night?"
"To-night at two!" said Ste. Marie. He spoke in a loud whisper. "I'm
to talk with Arthur here in a few minutes. We must be quick. He may
come at any time. I shall try to persuade him to go home willingly, but
if he refuses we must take him by force. Bring a couple of good men
with you to-night and see that they're armed. Come in a motor and leave
it just outside the wall by that small door that you passed. Have you
any money in your pockets? I may want to bribe the gardener."
Hartley searched in his pockets, and while he did so the man beneath
asked--
"Is old David Stewart alive?"
"Just about!" Hartley said. "He's very low and he suffers a great deal,
but he's quite conscious all the time. If we can fetch the boy to him
it may give him a turn for the better. Where is Captain Stewart? I had
spies on his trail for some time but he has disappeared within the past
three or four days. Once I followed him in his motor out past here, but
I lost him beyond Clamart."
"He's here, I think," said Ste. Marie. "I saw him a few days ago."
The man on the wall had found two notes of a hundred francs each, and he
dropped them down to Ste. Marie's hands. Also he gave him a small
revolver which he had in his pocket, one of the little automatic weapons
such as Olga Nilssen had brought to the Rue du Faubourg St. Honore.
Afterwards he glanced up and said--
"Two people are coming out of the house, I shall have to go. At two
to-night, then!--and at this spot. We shall be in time." He drew back
out of sight, and the other man heard the cedar-tree shake slightly as
he went down to the ground. Then Ste. Marie turned and walked quickly
back to the place where Mlle. O'Hara had left him. His heart was
leaping with joy and exultation, for now at last he thought that the end
was in sight--the end he had so long laboured and hoped for. He knew
that his face must be flushed and his eyes bright, and he made a strong
effort to crush down these tokens of his triumph--to make his bearing
seem natural and easy. He might have spared himself the pains.
Young Arthur Benham and Coira O'Hara came together down under the trees
from the house. They walked swiftly, and the boy was a step in advance,
his face white with excitement and anger. He began to speak while he was
still some distance away. He cried out in his strident young voice--
"What the devil is all this silly nonsense about old Charlie and lies
and misunderstandings and--and all that guff?" he demanded. "What the
devil is it? D'you think I'm a fool? D'you think I'm a kid? Well, I'm
not!" He came close to Ste. Marie, staring at him with an angry scowl,
but the scowl twitched and wavered, and his hands shook a little beside
him, and his breath came irregularly. He was frightened.
"There is no nonsense," said Ste. Marie. "There is no nonsense in all
this whole sorry business. But there has been a great deal of
misunderstanding and a great many lies and not a little cruelty. It's
time you knew the truth at last." He turned his eyes to where Coira
O'Hara stood near-by.
"How much have you told him?" he asked. And the girl said--
"I told him everything, or almost. But I had to say it very quickly
and--he wouldn't believe me. I think you'd best tell him again."
The boy gave a short contemptuous laugh.
"Well, I don't want to hear it," said he. He was looking towards the
girl. He said--
"This fellow may be able to hypnotize you, all right, but not Willie.
Little Willie's wise to guys like him." And swinging about to Ste.
Marie, he cried--
"Forget it! Forget it! I don't want to listen to your little song
to-day. Ah, you make me sick! You'd try to make me turn on old Charlie,
would you? Why, old Charlie's the only real friend I've got in the
world. Old Charlie has always stood up for me against the whole bunch
of them. Forget it, George! I'm wise to your graft."
Ste. Marie frowned, for his temper was never of the most patient, and
the youth's sneering tone annoyed him. Truth to tell the tone was about
all he understood, for the strange words were incomprehensible.
"Look here, Benham!" he said sharply. "You and I have never met, I
believe, but we have a good many friends in common, and I think we know
something about each other. Have you ever heard anything about me which
would give you the right to suspect me of any dishonesty of any sort?
Have you?"
"Oh, slush!" said the boy. "Anybody 'll be dishonest if it's worth his
while."
"That happens to be untrue," Ste. Marie remarked, "and as you grow older
you will know it. Leaving my honesty out of the question if you like, I
have the honour to tell you that I am, perhaps not quite formally,
engaged to your sister, and it is on her account, for her sake, that I
am here. You will hardly presume, I take it, to question your sister's
motive in wanting you to return home? Incidentally your grandfather is
so overcome by grief over your absence that he is expected to die at any
time.
"Come!" said he, "I have said enough to convince you that you must
listen to me. Believe what you please, but listen to me for five
minutes! After that I have small doubt of what you will do."
The boy looked nervously from Ste. Marie to Mlle. O'Hara, and back
again. He thrust his unsteady hands into his pockets, but withdrew them
after a moment and clasped them together behind him.
"I tell you!" he burst out at last--"I tell you it's no good, your
trying to knock old Charlie to me. I won't stand for it. Old Charlie's
my best friend, and I'd believe him before I'd believe anybody in the
world. You've got a knife out for old Charlie, that's what's the matter
with you."
"And your sister?" suggested Ste. Marie. "Your mother? You'd hardly
know your mother if you could see her to-day. It has pretty nearly
killed her."
"Ah, they're all--they're all against me!" the lad cried. "They've
always stood together against me. Helen too!"
"You wouldn't think they were against you if you could just see them
once, now," said Ste. Marie. And Arthur Benham gave a sort of shamefaced
sob, saying--
"Ah, cut it out! Cut it out!
"Go on then and talk, if you want to," he said. "_I_ don't care. I
don't have to listen. Talk, if you're pining for it." And Ste. Marie,
as briefly as he could, told him the truth of the whole affair from the
beginning, as he had told it to Coira O'Hara. Only, he laid special
stress upon Charles Stewart's present expectations from the new will;
and he assured the boy that no document his grandfather might have asked
him to sign could have given away his rights in his father's fortune
since he was a minor, and had no legal right to sign away anything at
all even if he wished to.
"If you will look back as calmly and carefully as you can," he said,
"you will find that you didn't begin to suspect your grandfather of
anything wrong until you had talked with Captain Stewart. It was your
uncle's explanation of the thing that made you do that. Well, remember
what he had at stake--I suppose it is a matter of several millions of
francs. And he needs them. His affairs are in a bad way."
He told also about the pretended search which Captain Stewart had so
long maintained, and of how he had tried to mislead the other searchers
whose motives were honest.
"It has been a gigantic gamble, my friend," he said at the last. "A
gigantic and desperate gamble to get the money that should be yours.
You can end it by the mere trouble of climbing over that wall yonder,
and taking the Clamart tram back to Paris. As easily as that you can end
it--and, if I am not mistaken, you can at the same time save an old
man's life--prolong it at the very least." He took a step forwards.
"I beg you to go!" he said very earnestly. "You know the whole truth
now. You must see what danger you have been and are in. You must know
that I am telling you the truth. I beg you to go back to Paris."