command, comprehensible enough to him despite his ignorance of the
language.
Chassaigne went quietly behind the German, locked the door, and slipped
the key in his pocket.
Breidenbach, his eyes fixed on the girl, reiterated his command.
“Monsieur!” broke from Vincent in an angry expostulation which ignored
his comrade’s gesture to silence.
The German looked round upon him, forcing his face to a smile in which
the vivid blue eyes behind the pince-nez failed to participate.
“You are certainly entitled to some explanation of this unseemly
occurrence, gentlemen,” he said in French. His voice, perfectly
controlled and reinforcing his smile, suggested an appreciation of
piquancy in this equivocal situation, invited the sense of humour of
the Gallic temperament. “I need not tell you that Fräulein Rosenhagen
is entirely innocent of any intent to disturb you. She is, I may say,
under my medical care. She suffers from somnambulism, and you will
understand that it is comprehensible she should wander to this room
where she is accustomed to receive treatment.”
Vincent, with difficulty, controlled himself to silence in obedience to
his friend’s warning glance. Chassaigne stepped forward.
“Quite, monsieur,” he said, easily, smiling as though he fully
appreciated the position from all points of view. “A case of abnormal
subconscious activity. I am myself greatly interested, professionally,
in this common neuro-pathological symptom. May I suggest that, since
your patient has come here in response to an obscure instinctive
desire for the accustomed treatment of which she is doubtless in need,
you now satisfy her? I should esteem it a privilege to assist at a
demonstration of your methods.”
The German’s eyes flashed a suspicion that was instantly veiled.
“The hour is late, monsieur,” he said, coldly.
Chassaigne shrugged his shoulders good-humouredly.
“In our profession, monsieur--the service of humanity,” he said with
sly malice, “one is on duty at all hours.”
The German’s eyes expressed frank hostility.
“I do not consider it advisable,” he said. His tone was curt.
Chassaigne glanced at the young woman still crouched upon the chair.
“As a professional man of some experience, monsieur,” he said,
imperturbably, “I do not agree with you. I feel sure your patient would
benefit by it. Let me beg of you!”
The German trembled with sudden anger.
“This is an unwarrantable interference, monsieur! The patient is in my
charge. I decline absolutely!” He turned to the girl. “Come, Ottilie!”
he added in German.
She ventured a shrinking glance up at him, stirred as if to rise.
Chassaigne raised his hand in a gesture which checked her. His eyes met
the German’s in a direct challenge.
“Unreasonable as it sounds, monsieur, I have set my heart upon
witnessing your methods. It is a whim of the conqueror--the force of
which you, who have served in Belgium, will appreciate.” His right hand
slid into the pocket of his tunic. “I must insist!”
“I refuse, then!” The German was livid with rage. He turned and plucked
the girl violently from her seat. “Out of my way, monsieur!”
Dragging the girl after him, he took two steps toward the door--and
stopped suddenly. Two more steps would have brought him into contact
with the muzzle of the revolver which Chassaigne levelled at him.
“Foreseeing your possible ill-humour, monsieur,” said the Frenchman,
with a mocking suavity, “I took the precaution of locking the door.
This young woman has inspired me with so violent an interest that I
cannot bear to see her suffer unrelieved. And I might remind you that
should you unfortunately lose your life by the accidental explosion of
this revolver--I should find it comparatively easy to restore her to
complete mental health myself.”
The German glared at him.
“I do not understand you!”
“You do--perfectly!” Chassaigne turned to his friend. “Vincent, conduct
that young lady to a chair!”
The girl, who had been released by the German in the first shock of
his surprise, stood paralyzed with terror, staring speechlessly at the
revolver in Chassaigne’s hand. Unresistingly, she allowed herself to be
led to a chair by the young man who was as speechless as she.
Chassaigne nodded satisfaction.
“Good! Now, Vincent, draw your revolver and cover this gentleman
yourself. Be careful to hit him in a vital spot should you be compelled
to fire.”
Vincent obeyed with alacrity, dangling the heavy weapon with fingers
that evidently itched to pull the trigger.
“Monsieur,” said Chassaigne with grim courtesy to the German who had
remained motionless under the menace of the revolver, “I invite you to
take a seat. You may keep your hands on your knees, but do not move
them until I give permission.”
The German sat down heavily, his eyes gleaming evilly at the Frenchman.
“Now, monsieur,” said Chassaigne, in succinct tones, “since you say you
do not understand, I will be more explicit. I desire that you should
induce in this young woman the hypnotic trance which is your habitual
treatment for her indisposition----”
A gleam of cunning flitted in the German’s eyes.
“Very well,” he said, with sulky submission. “If you insist!”
“But with this difference,” continued Chassaigne, “_that your habitual
suggestion shall be reversed_!”
The German started--controlled himself quickly.
“I do not understand,” he said, maintaining his pose of sulkiness.
“I mean that instead of suggesting to her that she is and always has
been Ottilie Rosenhagen--you suggest to her that she is really Hélène
Courvoisier, a French girl deported from Lille!”
The muscles stood out suddenly upon the German’s lean jaws, even as,
with a strength of will Chassaigne could not but admire, he smiled
mockingly into his adversary’s face.
“You rave, monsieur!” he said, and his tone emphasized the insult.
“Rave or not,” replied Chassaigne, calmly, “I want you to try the
experiment. It is a whim of mine.” He handled the revolver suggestively.
“And if I refuse?”
“I shall shoot you!”
The German laughed outright.
“Ottilie!” he cried, in German, “these Frenchmen have gone mad. They
pretend that you are not Ottilie Rosenhagen but a French girl--and they
want to take you from me!”
The girl sprang from her seat with a cry of horror, rushed to him, and
flung her arms about him.
“Oh, no, no!” she cried. “I am German--I am German--I was never
anything but German! Oh, don’t take me away from him! I love him! I
love him! He is all I have in the world!”
Vincent watched the action with jealous rage.
“My God!” he muttered. “I shall kill him in another moment if this goes
on!”
The German smiled at them triumphantly.
“You see, gentlemen! Your suggestion is fantastic! This girl is my
fiancée, and she is German to the core!”
Chassaigne’s face was stern.
“Vincent! Remove the lady!”
The young man had to tear her by force from the German, who remained
immobile in his chair in a mocking respect for the revolver.
“Fantastic or not,” said Chassaigne, “I demand that you try the
experiment. If you refuse--it is because you dare not do it!”
The German shrugged his shoulders.
“Very good, monsieur. I refuse. Think what you will!”
Chassaigne drew his watch from his pocket.
“I give you three minutes to decide,” he said. “Vincent! Put the lady
in that armchair and be ready to shoot when I give the word. Two
bullets are more sure than one!”
The girl, dazed with fright, looking as though she were in some awful
dream, collapsed nervelessly into the chair. Vincent posted himself by
the German’s side, his levelled revolver held just out of reach of a
sudden snatch.
The German tried one more expostulation.
“This is madness!” he cried. “You surely do not propose to commit a
cold-blooded murder!”
“One!” said Chassaigne, grimly. “Two more minutes, monsieur!”
The German laughed diabolically.
“Very well, then! Commit your murder! Much will it profit you! I am the
only man in the world who can influence that young woman. Whatever you
may think, you cannot transform her personality. Ottilie Rosenhagen she
is and Ottilie Rosenhagen she will remain!”
“Two!” said Chassaigne.
“You may as well shoot now! Don’t wait for the third!” jeered the
German. “I deny that she is other than Ottilie Rosenhagen. I utterly
refuse to experiment upon her at your dictation. Shoot! I defy you!”
The man certainly did not lack courage. He smiled mockingly as
Chassaigne’s revolver rose slowly and deliberately to a level with his
eyes. “Shoot! Outrage for outrage, your murder of a German civilian
may well balance the deportations you prate about!” It was significant
that in this fateful crisis it should be that particular crime which
occurred to him for parity.
The taunt seemed to strike the spark of an idea in Chassaigne’s brain.
Still menacing the German with his revolver, he held out the key to the
door in his left hand.
“Vincent! In Doctor Briedenbach’s hall there is a telephone. A hundred
yards away there is a post of infantry. Ring up the commandant, tell
him that I have arrested Doctor Breidenbach on the charge of abducting
a French subject, ask him to send along an armed escort at once--not
less than half a dozen!” He glanced at the girl, who was apparently
in a swoon upon her chair. “It is important that the force should be
imposing! Hurry!”
Vincent snatched at the key, and dashed from the room.
The German smiled in grim contempt. Chassaigne, still covering him with
the revolver, smiled back, not less grimly. They waited in a complete
silence, through minute after minute. The girl upon the chair did not
stir.
Suddenly they heard the rhythmic tramp of a body of armed men on the
gravel outside, a sharp voice of command, and then, after a brief
pause, the heavy multiple tramp again, resounding through the house,
louder and louder in its approach. At the sound, the girl sat up
brusquely, stared wild-eyed at the door.
It was flung open. Vincent entered, pointed out the girl to the
French officer who accompanied him, evidently in confirmation of a
statement made outside. The officer barked an order. A file of helmeted
infantrymen, bayoneted rifles at the slope, marched heavily into the
room. The girl shrieked.
“Oh, no! no! Don’t take me!” she cried--_and her cry was French_!
“Don’t take me! I will not go! I will not go!” She sprang up from her
chair, looked frenziedly around the room in a terror-stricken search
for an avenue of escape. Her eyes fell upon Vincent remained curiously
fixed upon him. Suddenly, with a cry of recognition, she rushed into
his arms. “Maxime! Maxime! Protect me! Oh, don’t let them take me!
Don’t let them take me!”
Chassaigne smiled. He had won. As he expected, the shock of this
armed entry so vividly recalled the night of terror in Lille when the
girl-victims were snatched from their violated homes, had sufficed to
reawaken the personality which had then agonized in its last moments of
freedom.
Vincent enfolded her, murmuring reassuring words as he caressed the
head that hid itself upon his breast. Her body shook with violent sobs.
The German stood up, placed himself, with a shrug of the shoulders,
between the double file of infantrymen. The officer produced a
notebook, asked a few questions of Chassaigne, jotted down the replies.
He turned to the girl.
“Your name, mademoiselle?”
She looked up.
“Hélène Courvoisier,” she replied, unhesitatingly.
SHE WHO CAME BACK
The clock upon the mantelpiece struck, discreetly, the hour of eleven
in the night-stillness of the study where old Henry Arkwright worked.
He glanced up with busy, preoccupied brows to the dial, confirming his
half-registered impression of the tale of strokes. Eleven o’clock! He
would work for another two or three hours yet. He sucked cheerfully
at his pipe as he signed the just-written counsel’s opinion; folded
the stiff, long documents and tied them neatly with their original
tape; took yet another legal case from the pile in front of him. He
felt himself in form to-night, enjoyed the efficiency of his brain
that worked so swiftly and surely in this solitude. The complete
silence of the house was subtly grateful to him. He was immune from all
disturbance. The servants had long since gone to bed. His concentration
upon his task was unthreatened, the stores of legal knowledge held
ready for his use in that practised brain of his unobscured by any
concrete trivialities. Eleven o’clock--yes, he could put in another
three hours good work before, exhausted to-night like all the other
nights, he went slowly up the empty stairs to his empty bedroom. He
adjusted himself to consideration of the affidavits he unfolded.
What was that? The faint ringing of the door-bell, far away in the
servants’ quarters but distinctly audible in this sleep-hushed house,
persisted until it came to his full recognition. He looked up, puzzled,
from the papers in the shaded light of his reading-lamp, glanced around
the book-lined study where the fire-glow flickered redly in the absence
of full illumination. Who could it be at this time of night? The
far-away faint ringing continued, eloquent of an unrelaxed pressure
upon the bell-push at the porch. He listened to it with exasperated
annoyance, resentful of this interruption of his labours, trying to
imagine an identity for this inconsiderately late visitor. Whoever it
was, he himself would have to open the door. The servants were long ago
asleep. They would not hear the bell. With a petulant exclamation, he
rose from his desk, went out into the darkened hall.
Stimulated into haste in instinctive response to the determined urgency
of the summons of that bell, its sound quite loud and definite out
here, he fumbled hurriedly for the electric switch. Then, the lights
full on, he went quickly to the door and opened it. A cold wind blew
in upon him from the darkness into which he peered, seeing, at first,
nothing. The ringing had ceased. A doubt of reality, a suspicion of
hallucination, shot through him, was dispelled upon the instant. From
the shadowed side of the porch a woman’s form moved into the broad beam
of light. A curious, inexplicable, sudden consciousness of his own
heart, vaguely not normal in its action, filled his breast as he stared
out to her in a momentary suspense of recognition. Then she turned her
face full upon him.
He started back, shocked to his inmost as though he had touched a live
electric wire.
“Christine!” he gasped, in incredulous amazement.
“Christine!--_You!_--_Come back?_”
The eyes in the woman’s drawn face opened upon him as from a tight-shut
agony, searched what was to her his dark, featureless silhouette in the
illumination from the hall. Her whole soul seemed to yearn out to him
in doubt and in desperate appeal. He saw her lips move before she spoke.
“Will you let me in?” she asked, humbly. “Harry!” She breathed his name
as though she dared not pronounce it.
He felt himself turn dizzy under this unexpected emotional shock. He
stared at her dumbly, the scathing phrases of indignant repudiation, so
often mentally rehearsed for such a moment, eluding him. Christine! He
could not at once adjust himself to her reality, looked at her again to
make unmistakably sure. Christine--come back.
“Harry!” she breathed again in timid humility.
He shuddered in a cold gust from the darkness as he stared at her. She
was hatless, coatless, in that bitter wind. He saw her shiver as she
half-ventured to stretch out a hand toward him.
A sudden impulse, as from a source superior to him--he thought it was
pity--mastered the righteous indignation he had been trying to bring to
utterance.
“Come in,” he said, thickly, and made way for her.
She entered. He shut the door behind her, turned to look at her as she
stood in the full illumination of the hall. Once more her eyes had
closed. Her lips were compressed as over an almost unendurable agony
of the spirit. She swayed on her feet, arms limply by her sides, as
though only stayed from falling by a supreme effort of the will. How
old and haggard she looked!--the thought traversed him like a flash,
linked itself to another--twenty-five years! What had happened to her
in that twenty-five years? Little of good fortune, assuredly--with the
professional eye that appraised a new witness in the box, he noted the
poor, threadbare quality of her white dress, unadorned by any of the
jewellery that had once been her delight.
The chilled blueness of her skin struck him as he scrutinized her. He
touched her hand, automatically and impersonally, for confirmation of
his impression.
“You’re frozen!” he said. His accent of ill-humour rang oddly familiar
in his own ears. It was the old annoyance at yet another of the
impulsive follies so typical of her. “What are you thinking of, to come
out like this?” he added, sharply. “Here!” He flung open the study
door. “There’s a fire here--sit down and warm yourself!” The tone of
unsympathetic authority was--he remembered it--instinctively just the
old tone he had so often used to her in that life now so remote as
almost to seem a previous existence.
She opened her eyes again, the large emotional eyes that had not
changed, looked at him, looked _into him_. Incredulity spread over her
face.
“By your fire? Can you, Harry?--Can you, after everything--after all
these years--can you still have me by your fire?”
Tears came up in those big eyes which looked so yearningly into his,
and her mouth twisted itself into a pathetic little smile--the ghost
of the smile that he had known in a younger face. He felt oddly
uncomfortable.
“Come along!” He commanded her almost brutally, defending himself from
any relaxation of hostility. “Come and warm yourself!” He lifted one of
her hands and its chill struck to the centre of him. “Why have you no
coat?--You must be mad!”
She smiled at him, and did not answer. He drew her into the warm study,
pulled a chair close to the fire for her, pressed her down into it.
Then he turned to switch on the full lights.
She stopped him with a gesture.
“Please, Harry!--Just like this--in the firelight.”
He obeyed and returned to her. Coldness seemed to emanate from her body
as he came close. What sheer insanity! She must be chilled through and
through, he thought.
He shrugged his shoulders to himself, disclaiming responsibility, and,
for his own self-respect, played the host.
“Can I get you anything, Christine?” he asked, ungraciously. “Anything
to eat or drink?”
She lifted her large eyes toward his face and shook her head slowly,
without a word.
Baffled by her manner, he struck at what he thought to be the heart of
the awkward situation.
“What do you want? What have you come for?” he demanded, harshly.
“Money?”
She shook her head again and smiled.
“No, Harry. I want nothing, except just to be with you once again--for
a little time.”
A long sigh, from the depths of her bosom, escaped her as she turned
her head down again to the fire and stared dreamily into its red
recesses.
“Just to be with you,” she repeated, softly, as to herself, “once more.”
He stood over her, not knowing what to say. Silence filled the room.
She looked up at him, timidly.
“You’re not pleased to see me, are you, Harry? You never wanted to see
me again?”
He did not answer.
“Of course--how could you be?” she murmured to herself, gazing once
more into the fire. “You never could forgive--never!”
He forced himself to a politeness he felt to be magnanimous.
“I don’t want to dwell on past injuries, Christine,” he said, coldly.
“I should be pleased to know that what you did brought happiness.”
“Happiness!” she repeated, almost inaudibly, in ironic mockery, her
gaze still fixed upon the fire.
Suddenly she looked round to him.
“Harry!” she said, impulsively. “Harry!” Her eyes went beyond him for
a moment to the litter of papers on his desk, returned to him. “Harry!
I know I am disturbing you”--the old pathetic smile came into her
face--“but I want to ask you a favour--” she hesitated, as though her
courage failed her--“the favour for which I came.”
He hardened himself for a refusal.
“What is it?” he asked.
“I want you to give up your work for just one hour--I want you to sit
by the fireside and talk to me. Won’t you? Won’t you let me come
first for just once--as--as I used to want to in the old days?” Her
eyes, fine as ever, implored him in almost irresistible appeal. “I
have dreamed of this for so long!” She went on as in a reverie, after
a little pause, staring once more into the fire. “You never would,
Harry--and perhaps--if you had----” She sighed. “You were so ambitious!”
He stood immobile, typically reluctant to break his habits. Those
cases were important. He was coming to himself now, the effect of the
first shock diminishing. Some of the old anger awoke in his heart as
he looked down upon her. The old sense of disturbance returned. It was
just like her to come and break up his night’s work. And now--after all
that had happened! He resented her presumption, stigmatized it as sheer
callousness.
She looked up, feeling his thoughts perhaps.
“Harry! Can’t you--for just this once? I don’t ask you to forgive.”
Her eyes held him, enfeebled his resistance.
“I’ve got nothing to tell you, Christine,” he said, gruffly. “Nothing.
I didn’t ask you to come back, but since you have come--well, I will
not shut you out in the cold. You can sit by the fire if you like.”
She smiled--the little ghost of her twenty-year-old smile upon that
worn and middle-aged face. He clenched his teeth at it, at something in
himself.
“Have you really nothing to say to me, Harry? Not a question to ask?”
He armed himself against the pathos of her appeal.
“No,” he said, curtly. “Nothing.”
She shut her eyes as though under a blow. Then, with a tacit admission
of its justice, she smiled up at him again. Evidently, her courage was
held at high tension.
“I know I don’t deserve it,” she said. “I don’t deserve to be sitting
here again, after all these years. But, oh, Harry, you _could_ be
generous--once, at those rare times when I could really touch the real
you as I so often longed to do. Are you still hard, Harry?--still so
hard?” She sighed, wearily, turned her head hopelessly once more to
the fire.
He watched the play of its glow over her features, was struck by her
bad colour. The coldly observant part of him noted the fact that
she was, or had been, ill. Half-starved, too, added this detached
professional self. Suffering, physical and mental, was stamped upon
her face. He acquiesced in it, grimly. Her frivolous wickedness--he
remembered the callously jaunty tone of the note she had left for
him--had met just retribution. He wondered what had happened to the man.
She looked up again, answering, with a subtle perception, the question
in his mind.
“He’s dead, Harry--dead years ago. Very dead. To me, he never really
lived--not as you have lived, always, through every moment of my--” she
paused--“my Hell.”
A sentiment of pity pricked him sharply. Poor little Christine!--she
had certainly paid, and paid heavily. He repressed his commiseration,
in alarm at himself. He must think--think sensibly. Did she intend
to come back for good? He reacted violently against the idea. It was
impossible. He would be a laughing-stock, the butt for the pointing
fingers, the sly allusions, of his fellows in the Courts. His pride
revolted. No, no--he must get her out again somehow, before the
servants knew.
Once more she read his thought.
“No one shall know that I have come, Harry. It’s just for this one
hour and then I’ll go again. But just for this one hour--Harry!” She
stretched out her arms to him. “Be generous!”
He fenced stubbornly.
“What, exactly, do you want, Christine?”
She smiled at him, her face radiant.
“I want--I want just to pretend that it all never happened. I want,
just once, to sit with you by the fireside as though I had been here
all these years--as though you and I had learned to be the comrades I
had dreamed we should be. I want to sit with you as we should have sat,
both of us now growing old, looking back on all the beautiful things of
our life together. Harry!” She lifted her arms to him again, yearning
out to him. “Just once--just once to pretend--to be as we might have
been--and then I can go away and really and truly die, satisfied. Be
generous, Harry, be generous just this once if you never are again.”