"I was--from prison, not from the battalion of Biribi."
"I only know," she said, "that they say you were not guilty; that
they say you faced utter ruin, even the possibility of death, for the
sake of another man whose name even the police--even Monsieur de
Mornac--could never learn. Was there such a man?"
I hesitated. "Madame, there is such a man; _I_ am the man who
_was_."
"With no hope?"
"Hope? With every hope," I said, smiling. "My name is not my own,
but it must serve me to my end, and I shall wear it threadbare and
leave it to no one."
"Is there no hope?" she asked, quietly.
"None for the man who _was_. Much for James Scarlett, tamer of lions
and general mountebank," I said, laughing down the rising tide of
bitterness. Why had she stirred those dark waters? I had drowned
myself in them long since. Under them lay the corpse of a man I had
forgotten--my dead self.
"No hope?" she repeated.
Suddenly the ghost of all I had lost rose before me with her
words--rose at last after all these years, towering, terrible, free
once more to fill the days with loathing and my nights with hell
eternal,... after all these years!
Overwhelmed, I fought down the spectre in silence. Kith and kin were
not all in the world; love of woman was not all; a chance for a home,
a wife, children, were not all; a name was not all. Raising my head, a
trifle faint with the struggle and the cost of the struggle, I saw the
distress in her eyes and strove to smile.
"There is every hope," I said, "save the hopes of youth--the hope of
a woman's love, and of that happiness which comes through love. I am a
man past thirty, madame--thirty-five, I believe my dossier makes it.
It has taken me fifteen years to bury my youth. Let us talk of
Mornac."
"Yes, we will talk of Mornac," she said, gently.
So with infinite pains I went back and traced for her the career of
Buckhurst, sparing her nothing; I led up to my own appearance on the
scene, reviewed briefly what we both knew, then disclosed to her in
its most trivial detail the conference between Buckhurst and myself in
which his cynical avowal was revealed in all its native hideousness.
She sat motionless, her face like cold marble, as I carefully gathered
the threads of the plot and gently twitched that one which galvanized
the mask of Mornac.
"Mornac!" she stammered, aghast.
I showed her why Buckhurst desired to come to Paradise; I showed her
why Mornac had initiated her into the mysteries of my dossier, taking
that infernal precaution, although he had every reason to believe he
had me practically in prison, with the keys in his own pocket.
"Had it not been for my comrade, Speed," I said, "I should be in one
of Mornac's fortress cells. He overshot the mark when he left us
together and stepped into his cabinet to spread my dossier before you.
He counted on an innocent man going through hell itself to prove his
innocence; he counted on me, and left Speed out of his calculations.
He had your testimony, he had my dossier, he had the order for my
arrest in his pocket.... And then I stepped out of sight! I, the
honest fool, with my knowledge of his infamy, of Buckhurst's
complicity and purposes--I was gone.
"And now mark the irony of the whole thing: he had, criminally,
destroyed the only bureau that could ever have caught me. But he did
his best during the few weeks that were left him before the battle of
Sedan. After that it was too late; it was too late when the first
Uhlan appeared before the gates of Paris. And now Mornac, shorn of
authority, is shut up in a city surrounded by a wall of German steel,
through which not one single living creature has penetrated for two
months."
I looked at her steadily. "Eliminate Mornac as a trapped rat; cancel
him as a dead rat since the ship of Empire went down at Sedan. I do
not know what has taken place in Paris--save what all now know that
the Empire is ended, the Republic proclaimed, and the Imperial police
a memory. Then let us strike out Mornac and turn to Buckhurst. Madame,
I am here to serve you."
The dazed horror in her face which had marked my revelations of
Buckhurst's villanies gave place to a mantling flush of pure anger.
Shame crimsoned her neck, too; shame for her credulous innocence, her
belief in this rogue who had betrayed her, only to receive pardon for
the purpose of baser and more murderous betrayal.
I said nothing for a long time, content to leave her to her own
thoughts. The bitter draught she was draining could not harm her,
could not but act as the most wholesome of tonics.
Hers was not a weak character to sink, embittered, under the weight of
knowledge--knowledge of evil, that all must learn to carry lightly
through life; I had once thought her weak, but I had revised that
opinion and substituted the words "pure in thought, inherently loyal,
essentially unsuspicious."
"Tell me about Buckhurst," I said, quietly. "I can help you, I
think."
The quick tears of humiliation glimmered for a second in her angry
eyes; then pride fell from her, like a stately mantle which a princess
puts aside, tired and content to rest.
This was a phase I had never before seen--a lovely, natural young
girl, perplexed, troubled, deeply wounded, ready to be guided, ready
for reproof, perhaps even for that sympathy without which reproof is
almost valueless.
She told me that Buckhurst came to her house here in Paradise early in
September; that while in Paris, pondering on what I had said, she had
determined to withdraw herself absolutely from all organized
socialistic associations during the war; that she believed she could
do the greatest good by living a natural and cheerful life, by
maintaining the position that birth and fortune had given her, and by
using that position and fortune for the benefit of those less
fortunate.
This she had told Buckhurst, and the rascal appeared to agree with her
so thoroughly that, when Dr. Delmont and Professor Tavernier arrived,
they also applauded the choice she made of Buckhurst as distributer of
money, food, and clothing to the provincial hospitals, now crowded to
suffocation with the wreck of battle.
Then a strange thing occurred. Dr. Delmont and Professor Tavernier
disappeared without any explanation. They had started for St. Nazaire
with a sum of money--twenty thousand francs, locked in the private
strong-box of the Countess--to be distributed among the soldiers of
Chanzy; and they had never returned.
In the light of what she had learned from me, she feared that
Buckhurst had won them over; perhaps not--she could not bear to
suspect evil of such men.
But she now believed that Buckhurst had used every penny he had
handled for his own purposes; that not one hospital had received what
she had sent.
"I am no longer wealthy," she said, anxiously, looking up at me. "I
did find time in Paris to have matters straightened; I sold La Trappe
and paid everything. It left me with this house in Paradise, and with
means to maintain it and still have a few thousand francs to give
every year. Now it is nearly gone--I don't know where. I am dreadfully
unhappy; I have such a horror of treachery that I cannot even
understand it, but this ignoble man, Buckhurst, is assuredly a
heartless rascal."
"But," I said, patiently, "you have not yet told me where he is."
"I don't know," she said. "A week ago a dreadful creature came here
to see Buckhurst; they went across the moor toward the semaphore and
stood for a long while looking at the cruiser which is anchored off
Groix. Then Buckhurst came back and prepared for a journey. He said
he was going to Tours to confer with the Red Cross. I don't know where
he went. He took all the money for the general Red Cross fund."
"When did he say he would return?"
"He said in two weeks. He has another week yet."
"Is he usually prompt?"
"Always so--to the minute."
"That is good news," I said, gayly. "But tell me one thing: do you
trust Mademoiselle Elven?"
"Yes, indeed!--indeed!" she cried, horrified.
"Very well," said I, smiling. "Only for the sake of caution--extra,
and even perhaps useless caution--say nothing of this matter to her,
nor to any living soul save me."
"I promise," she said, faintly.
"One thing more: this conspiracy against the state no longer concerns
me--officially. Both Speed and I did all we could to warn the Emperor
and the Empress; we sent letters through the police in London, we used
the English secret-service to get our letters into the Emperor's hand,
we tried every known method of denouncing Mornac. It was useless;
every letter must have gone through Mornac's hands before it reached
the throne. We did all we dared do; we were in disguise and in hiding
under assumed names; we could not do more.
"Now that Mornac is not even a pawn in the game--as, indeed, I begin
to believe he never really was, but has been from the first a dupe of
Buckhurst--it is the duty of every honest man to watch Buckhurst and
warn the authorities that he possibly has designs on the crown jewels
of France, which that cruiser yonder is all ready to bear away to
Saïgon.
"How he proposes to attempt such a robbery I can't imagine. I don't
want to denounce him to General Chanzy or Aurelles de Palladine,
because the conspiracy is too widely spread and too dangerous to be
defeated by the capture of one man, even though he be the head of it.
"What I want is to entrap the entire band; and that can only be done
by watching Buckhurst, not arresting him.
"Therefore, madame, I have written and despatched a telegram to
General Aurelles de Palladine, offering my services and the services
of Mr. Speed to the Republic without compensation. In the event of
acceptance, I shall send to London for two men who will do what is to
be done, leaving me free to amuse the public with my lions. Meanwhile,
as long as we stay in Paradise we both are your devoted servants, and
we beg the privilege of serving you."
During all this time the young Countess had never moved her eyes from
my face--perhaps I was flattered--perhaps for that reason I talked on
and on, pouring out wisdom from a somewhat attenuated supply.
And I now rose to take my leave, bowing my very best bow; but she sat
still, looking up quietly at me.
"You ask the privilege of serving me," she said. "You could serve me
best by giving me your friendship."
"You have my devotion, madame," I said.
"I did not ask it. I asked your friendship--in all frankness and
equality."
"Do you desire the friendship of a circus performer?" I asked,
smiling.
"I desire it, not only for what you are, but for what you have
been--have always been, let them say what they will!"