He did--to no avail. There was now no sound from within in reply to his
more earnest entreaties.
"Something must have happened to her," he mumbled straightening, with a
glance toward the bed. "If I thought----"
"But no," Piquette broke in quickly. "Not'ing 'as 'appen' to 'er, _mon_
Jeem. She is quite safe."
"I'm not so sure about that----"
And putting his weight against the door, he tried to force it in. It
yielded a trifle, but the slender bolt held. He waited a moment,
listening again, silencing Piquette's whispered protestations at the
commotion he was creating, but heard nothing. Then moving away a few
paces he pushed the door with his full weight and it flew open with a
crash, almost throwing him to the floor.
The room was empty, but the unlocked door leading into Nora Burke's room
showed which way she had gone. He went in and looked around. Then out
into the corridor by Nora's door. There were some people at the other
end of the corridor but Moira and her Irish nurse had disappeared.
Uncertainly, he came back through the rooms to Piquette, who stood in
Moira's room, watching the prisoners through the doorway.
"It is what I 'ave said, _mon_ Jeem. Madame does not wish to go wit'
you."
"But why----? After all----"
"'Ave I not tol' you? She is afraid of 'erself. She knows as I
know--she is a woman who loves--but not as I love, _mon_ Jeem. It is
'er God dat stan' between you, 'er God--stronger dan you and what you
are to 'er. She is afraid. She knows--if she touch your 'and--she will
go wit' you--whatever 'appens."
"What makes you think that?" muttered Horton, bewildered.
"She tol' me so----"
"You?"
"I saw 'er--talk wit' 'er. Dat is why I wait too long ontil Monsieur
Quinlevin came."
Horton paused, thinking deeply.
"I must find her, Piquette. She's got to go with us," he murmured,
starting toward the door away from her.
But Piquette caught him by the hand.
"No, Jeem. You mus'n't. Do you t'ink you can fin' 'er? Where? An' if
you do, your friend Monsieur Quinlevin will be discover' and dey will
put you in de jail----"
"Let them. I've got to take her away. She's helpless, Piquette, with
him--penniless, if she deserts him."
"Not so 'elpless as you t'ink. But she does not want to see you. Is
not dat enough?"
"No," he said, trying to shake loose her clutch on his arm. "I'll find
her."
"Jeem," Piquette pleaded desperately. "You will spoil all de good you
do. What does it matter if you fin' 'er or not if you lose de paper to
Quinlevin again? You mus' go away now before it is too late an' make
Quinlevin powerless to 'urt 'er again.. Den, _mon_ Jeem, when 'er
future is safe, you s'all fin' 'er. What does it matter now? In time
she will come to you. I know. You s'all fin' 'er. An' I, Piquette,
will 'elp you."
She felt his arm relax and knew that she had won. He stared for a long
moment toward the open door into Nora's room, then turned with a quick
gasp of decision.
"You're right, Piquette. We've got to get away--to draw his claws for
good."
"_Parfaitement_! You need not worry. 'E will not 'urt 'er now."
And so they returned to the Irishman's room and looked carefully to the
bonds of the prisoners. Nothing was disarranged. They had done their
work well, and continued it by methodically making all arrangements for
departure; shutting the French window, putting an extra turn on the
bindings of the prostrate men, who glared at them sullenly in the
obscurity. Then they went out, locking all three rooms from the outside
and leaving the keys in the doors. Unobserved, they went up to their
rooms--packed their belongings, descended to the office where Jim coolly
paid their bills, and went out into the night.
There was a garage nearby, where they hired a car, paying for it in
advance, and in less than twenty minutes, Jim Horton driving, were on
their way to Vingtimille, on the border line between France and Italy.
There they left the machine in the care of a hotel and wrote a postcard
to the owner of the garage at Monte Carlo, telling him where he would
find his machine. This message they knew would not reach him until some
time the next day, by which time they would be lost in Italy.
*CHAPTER XX*
*FREEDOM*
Meanwhile, Destiny was at her loom, weaving with careless hand. The
American and French armies were moving closer to the Rhine, but the
Infantry regiment to which Harry Horton belonged lay at Chateau Dix
awaiting orders. There Harry went upon the morning following the return
of Barry Quinlevin from Ireland. Upon his breast he wore the _Croix de
Guerre_, but in his soul was a deathly sickness, the inward reflection
of the physical discomfort with which he had awakened. The prospect
that lay before him was not to his liking. The period during which he
had been out of uniform, the weeks of secrecy, of self-indulgence and
abasement, had marked him for their own, and unfitted him for the
rigorous routine of discipline that awaited him. And so he faced the
ordeal with a positive distaste for his old associations, aware of a
sinking feeling in his breast that was not entirely the result of his
heavy potations while in Paris.
He felt the burden of his failure and a terror that he would not be able
to live up to the record Jim Horton had made for him. There would be no
more fighting perhaps, but always beside him there would stalk the
specter of his military sin, of which the medal at his breast was to be
the perpetual reminder. On the train down from Paris, the medal and its
colorful bit of green and red seemed to fill the whole range of his
vision. D---- the thing! He tore it off and put it in his pocket, and
then, somewhat relieved, sank back into his seat and tried to doze. But
his nerves were most uncertain. Every sound, even the smallest, seemed
to beat with an unpleasant staccato, upon his ear drums. And he started
up and gazed out of the window, trying to soothe himself with tobacco.
That helped. But he knew that what he wanted was stronger
drugging--whisky or brandy--needed it indeed to exorcise the demons that
inhabited him. And the thought of the difficulties that would lie in
the way of getting what he craved, to-day, to-morrow, and the long days
and nights that were to follow still further unmanned him.
Before Moira had left for Nice, he had given her his promise to report
for duty fit and sober, and he had put his will to the task, aware that
the first impression he created with his Colonel was to be important.
It was for this reason that he did not dare to open his valise and touch
the bottles hidden there because he knew that one drink would not be
enough to sooth either his nerves or the dull pangs of his weary
conscience. That he had a conscience, he had discovered in the house in
the Rue Charron when the desire of Monsieur Tricot and _Le Singe_ to put
Jim Horton out of the way for good had brought him face to face with the
evil image of himself. He hated his brother Jim as much as ever,
because he was all the things that Harry was not, but the plans of
Quinlevin which seemed to stop at nothing, not even Moira herself, now
filled him with dread and repugnance. His nerve was gone--that was it.
His nerve--his nerve....
But arrival at regimental headquarters restored him for awhile. His
Colonel gave him a soldierly welcome, fingered with some envy the _Croix
de Guerre_, which Harry had pinned on his breast again before leaving
the railroad, and summoned Harry's Major, whose greeting left nothing to
be desired. And for the moment it almost seemed to Harry as though he
might be able to "put it over." But the next day was difficult. He
managed a drink early and that kept him going for awhile; but they gave
him his company in the morning, and from that moment the intimate
contact with those who had known him began--a lieutenant he had never
liked, a sergeant who was a psychologist, and a familiar face here and
there associated unpleasantly with the long weary days of training and
preparation until the regiment had been worked up into the advanced
position. But his long sickness in the hospital and his unfamiliarity
with recent orders served him well for excuse, and the _Croix de Guerre_
upon his breast served him better. A corporal and a sergeant with whom
in the old days he had had nothing in common, each of whom wore
decorations, came up to him, saluting, and reported that it was they who
had carried him back to the dressing station from the rocks at Boissiere
Wood. He shook them by the hands with a cordiality which did not
disguise from himself the new terror, and when they attempted a recital
of the events of the great fight in which they had shared, he blundered
helplessly for a while and then cut the interview short, pleading urgent
affairs.
Then, too, there was the nasty business of the wounds. He hadn't any.
He was scathless. He had tried the ruse of the adhesive tape on Moira
with disastrous effect. Here the result of the discovery of his
unblemished skin would prove still more disastrous. And so at once he
discouraged familiarity, kept to his billet and attempted with all the
courage left to him to put through his daily round with all credit to
his new office. But it irked him horribly. His supply of strong drink
did not last long, and the thin red wines, the only substitute
procurable, were merely a source of irritation.
And there were others in his company of whose approbation he was not at
all certain. There was the sergeant, who had had the platoon that had
been caught with his own in the wheat-field. There were four or five
men of one of his own squads who had been close beside him in the same
wheat-field when he had been taken ill and they had left him face to
face with the grinning head of the hated Levinski. And there was the
late Levinski's own "buddy," Weyl, who had sometimes shared in Harry's
reprobation. Weyl annoyed him most perhaps, with his staring, fishy eye
and his Hebraic nose, so similar to that of his lamented tent-mate.
Weyl had been in the wheatfield and his heavy face seemed to conceal a
malevolent omniscience. The large staring eyes followed the new Captain
of infantry, inquisitive, accusing and contemptuous. Whenever Corporal
Weyl came within the range of Harry's vision, their glances seemed at
once to meet and hold each other and it was the Captain who always
looked away. Weyl's fishy eye fascinated and haunted him. He saw it by
day, dreamed of it by night, and he cursed the man in his heart with a
fury that did nothing for his composure.
One day as Harry was making his way to mess, he came upon Corporal Weyl
standing at ease just outside his billet. The man's eye seemed more
round, more fishy, and his demeanor more contemptuous than ever. The
last of the whisky was gone. Harry Horton's heart was behaving queerly
within him, and muscles with which he was unfamiliar announced their
existence in strange twitchings. The breakfast coffee would help. In
the meanwhile--he glared at Corporal Weyl, his fists clenched.
"What the H---- do you mean by staring at me all the time?" he asked.
Weyl came to attention and saluted in excellent form.
"I beg pardon, sir. I don't understand," he said.
"Why the H---- do you stare at me?"
"I didn't know that I did stare, sir."
"Yes, you did. Cut it out. It annoys me."
But Corporal Weyl still stared as the regulations demand, looking his
Captain squarely in the eye. And the Captain's gaze wavered and fell.
"When I'm about," he ordered, "you look some other way. Understand?"
"Yes sir. I understand," said Weyl, saluting again as Harry turned
away, but still staring at him. And Harry felt the fishy stare, more
than ever omniscient, more than ever contemptuous, in the middle of his
back, all the way down the road to mess. But he had just enough of self
control to refrain from looking around at the object of his fury.
And at mess a disagreeable surprise awaited him, in the person of a
medico who had just joined the outfit. The new Captain had barely
finished his coffee when he found himself addressed by the officer, a
Major, who sat just opposite him at table.
"How are you, Captain Horton?" asked the man cordially, extending a hand
across. "Didn't recognize you at first. How's the head?"
Harry stammered something.
"I'm Welby--looked after you down at Neuilly, you know."
"Oh, yes," said Harry. "Of course. Glad to see you again, Major."
"Things were a bit hazy down there, eh?"
"Yes, rather," said Harry.
"Delicate operation that. Touch and go for awhile. But you came through
all O.K. Delusions. Thought you were another man--or something----"
"Oh yes," said Harry faintly, "but I'm all right."
"Glad to hear it. How's the head?"
"Fine."
"No more pains--no delusions?"
"No sir."
"I'd like to have a squint at the wound presently, if you don't mind.
Interesting case. Very."
Harry rose suddenly, his face the color of ashes.
"Sorry, sir," he muttered, "I've got a lot to do now. Later perhaps,"
and then without a word took up his cap and fled incontinently from the
room.
There were but two other officers present, but they stared at him as he
went out, for the conversation across the table had drawn attention.
"H-m," remarked the Major into his coffee-cup. "Surly chap that.
Considering I saved his life--_Croix de Guerre_, I see?"
"Yes sir," said a Lieutenant. "Just joined up. Worried, maybe."
"Not much worried about me, apparently," said the Major.
Harry went straight out to his billet, locked the door of his soom and
sank on the edge of his bed. The situation was horrible. This man of
all men who had seen Jim Horton through the hospital! Suppose out of
professional curiosity the fool came nosing around! Was Welby now with
the regiment? Harry cursed himself for the hurry of his departure.
Would the man suspect anything? Hardly. But Harry couldn't take a
chance like that again. A second refusal of the Major's request would
surely make him an object of suspicion. And the wound in the
shoulder--there was none! D--n them all! Why couldn't they leave him
alone?
He couldn't face the thing out. It was too dangerous. Already he had
had enough of it. And yet what was he to do? Yesterday he had thought
he read suspicion of him in other men's eyes. They seemed to strip him
naked, those hundreds of eyes, to be gazing at the white uninjured flesh
where his wounds should have been. All this in a week only--and what
was to happen in the many weeks to follow? If this fool Welby had come
why wouldn't there be other men of the regiment, of the battalion, who
had been at the hospital at Neuilly also? They would catch him in a
false statement, force him into a position from which he could not
extricate himself, and then what? The Major,--the Colonel,--what answer
could he give them if they asked to see his wounds?
To Harry's overwrought imagination the whole army seemed joined in a
conspiracy to bring about his ruin. To go about his work seemed
impossible, but to feign illness meant the visit of a doctor, perhaps
Welby himself. He would have to go on, at least for the day, and then
perhaps he would think up something--resignation, a transfer to some
other unit....
He managed to put through the day, still wondering why men looked at him
so strangely. Was there anything the matter with his appearance? In
the afternoon, the youngest of his Lieutenants approached him kindly.
"Hadn't you better take a run down to the hospital, sir?" he asked.
"You look all in."
Harry stared at him stupidly for a moment.
"Oh, I'm all right--just--er--a little stomach upset----"
The youngster saluted and disappeared and Harry went back to his
quarters. There was no wonder that he looked "all in." He hadn't dared
to go to the mess table since morning and he hadn't had a drink since
yesterday. Tobacco had ceased to have the desired effect upon his
nerves. He felt like jumping out of his skin. The thing couldn't go on.
He _was_ "all in." A short leave of absence which might give him time
to pull himself together meant being gone over by a doctor--it meant
showing his scarless shoulder--impossible! There was only one thing to
do--to quit while there was time--before the truth came out. The more
he thought of his situation, the more clearly this course seemed
indicated. To disappear silently--in the night. It could be
managed--and when he didn't come back, perhaps they would think that the
wound in his head was troubling him again, and that he was not
responsible for what he did. Or that he had met with foul play. They
could think anything they chose so long as they didn't guess the truth.
And they could never learn the truth, unless they examined his body for
the wounds.
But they would never find him to do that if he ever got safely back of
the lines. He had managed it before. He could do it again now; because
he wouldn't have to trust to blind luck as he had done back of Boissiere
Wood. The more he thought of his plan, the more he became obsessed with
it. At any rate it was an obsession which would banish the other
obsession of the watching eyes. It was the dark he craved, the security
and blessed immunity of darkness--darkness and solitude. He wouldn't
wait for the ordeal of the morrow ... to-night!
And so, driven by all the enemies of his tortured mind, and planning
with all the craft of a guilty conscience, he arranged all things to
suit his purpose, passing beyond the village with the avowed purpose of
visiting a friend in another unit and then losing himself in the
thicket.
He traveled afoot all night, using his map and making for the railroad
at St. Couvreur, and in the early morning breakfasted at a farmhouse,
telling a story of having lost his way and craving a bed for a few
hours' sleep. He was well provided with money and his host was
hospitable. He slept a while, awoke and no one being about, searched the
house for what he sought. He found it in a wardrobe upstairs--a suit of
clothing which would serve--and leaving some money on a table, made off
without ceremony into the thicket, covering a mile or so in a hurry,
across country, when he found a disused building in which he tore off
his uniform and donned the borrowed clothing, leaving his own, including
its _Croix de Guerre_, under a truss of straw.
It grew dark again. But he did not care. In a village he managed by
paying well to find a bottle of cognac. His cares slipped from him.
Nothing mattered--not even the rain. His soul was set free. He paid
for a good lodging and slept, warm inside and out; purchased the next
day a better suit of clothing and then boldly boarded a train for Paris.
It was extraordinary how easily his liberty had been accomplished. They
would look for him, of course. The M.P. would bustle about but he had
given them the slip all right and they would never find him in Paris.
Paris for awhile and then a new land where no questions would be asked.
Curiously enough the only human being he seemed to think about, to
regret, in what he had done, was Moira. His thoughts continually
reverted to the expression on her face the night that Jim had surprised
them in the studio. Its agony, its apprehension, so nearly depicted the
very terrors that had been in his own soul. He remembered hazily too,
that she had been kind to him when Quinlevin had left him there to watch
her and he had finished the bottle of Irish whisky. Then, too, again in
the morning she had awakened him and started him upon his way back to
his post, while the expression of her face had shown that she was trying
to do her duty to him even when her own heart was breaking. She had had
a thought that even at this last moment he still had an opportunity to
"make good." He felt that Moira, his wife in name only, would know the
pain of his failure. Quinlevin would sneer, Jim would shrug, but Moira
would weep and pray--in vain.
He had cared for Moira in his strange selfish way, permitted Quinlevin
to use him for his own purposes, hoping for the fortune that would bring
ease and luxury for them all, and with it a glamour that he might turn
to his own account and win the girl to a fulfillment of their marriage
vows. But Jim had dashed the cup from his lips, Jim--his hero
brother--now like himself an outcast! So there were to be two of them
then after all. "It served him right--D--n him!" Harry Horton found a
malicious pleasure in the situation. If _he_ wasn't to have her, Jim
shouldn't either. He wasn't going to give his brother the pleasure of
reading _his_ death notice in the morning paper. He, Harry Horton,
would just go on living whatever happened, and he knew that without the
evidence of his death, Moira would never marry again.
He had gathered in a cloudy way the general meaning of the visit to the
Duc de Vautrin at Nice and had wondered at Moira's consent to go with
Quinlevin on such a mission after what she must have heard that night.
But he had been in no humor to ask questions the next morning, and knew
nothing whatever as to the prospects of success for the undertaking. It
looked very much as though with Jim Horton in on the game, the mission
was dubious. And yet Quinlevin might succeed. If he did there would be
enough money to stake Harry in a new life in some distant part of the
world. This was the price that they would pay for immunity--and Harry
would go. He knew now that Moira was not for him. She had settled that
matter definitely the night when he had come in drunk from the Rue
Charron.
He reached Paris and lost himself in Montmartre, avoiding the old
haunts. There he found new acquaintances and many bottles to soothe the
awakening pangs. Many bottles ... moments of lucidity ... how long would
it be before Moira and Quinlevin returned to the Rue de Tavennes? He
would have to sober up. Things weren't bad at all now. What difference
did it make to any one but himself what he did or what he became? It
was his own life to do what he pleased with. And it pleased him to do
what he was doing with it. He laughed at the amusing inversion. Good
joke, that!
But he would have to go down to the studio in the Rue de Tavennes and
talk things over. No use quarreling with Quinlevin. Everything amiable
and friendly. No. 7 Rue de Tavennes. If Moira wasn't there, he'd go in
and wait. Her studio ... his too. Perhaps a little of the Irish whisky
and a doze....
*CHAPTER XXI*
_*THE PETIT BLEU*_
The road to Paris was long by the way Jim Horton and Piquette had
chosen, but without mishap they came through Geneva and Lyons, reaching
their destination at the end of the second day. Of the further
adventures of Monsieur Barry Quinlevin and his apostle Tricot they had
learned nothing, though they had scanned all the newspapers upon their
way for any echoes of the adventure at the Hotel de Paris. Jim Horton
had spoken little of Moira, but as they neared their journey's end, the
birth certificate and other papers still secure in Jim's inner pocket,
he was sure that however difficult and painful his decision to desert
Moira at the critical moment, Piquette's counsel had been wise. Moira
had fled from him and he knew now that her convictions had laid a
barrier between them which no further effort that he could make would
ever pass. Pity he felt for her, deep and abiding, for she was so
helpless and now more than ever alone. But he had done his duty as he
had seen it, drawn Quinlevin's sting and opened Moira's eyes to his
perfidy, throwing a light along the path into which that perfidy was
leading her.
He and Piquette had tried to picture events in the hotel at Monte Carlo
after their flight: The helpless men lying in the dark, awaiting the
morning, Moira's probable return with Nora Burke and their liberation.
As to what Moira would do after that, they could not decide. Her flight
to Paris without money seemed impossible, and yet for her to remain with
her spurious father after this awakening seemed also impossible.
Piquette had related to him parts of her conversation with the girl and
Horton had listened, aware of Piquette's motives and the hopeless
impediments to the success of her efforts.
Piquette spoke no more of love, nor did Jim Horton revive the topic
which had given him a more awkward half an hour than he had ever spent
in his life, but he showed her by every act a consideration that touched
her deeply and made the friendship that she asked of him a sacred thing
to them both. What the future held for him was yet to be fully
revealed, but as yet he could not see it clearly. With the collapse of
Quinlevin's scheme it was probable that all the vials of his wrath would
be turned upon Horton, who would be denounced to the military
authorities, no matter what happened to his unfortunate brother Harry.
It was necessary therefore, until the birth certificate and the evidence
of Horton and Piquette was all placed with Monsieur de Vautrin's legal
representative, that Horton remain hidden and that Piquette avoid all
contact with her friends of the _Quartier_. It seemed also the part of
prudence for Piquette to remain for awhile away from her apartment,
keeping in touch with her maid who would bring her clothing and letters
to a designated place.
"It would have been much more sensible to have killed Tricot," laughed
Horton when they were established in rooms in his obscure lodging in the
Rue Jean Paul. "He'll come poking about with a brand new knife and
revolver, and then we'll have the devil to pay all over again."
"I'm not sure," said Piquette.
"We'll take no chances. And when this business is finished, if Monsieur
de Vautrin doesn't do his duty by you I'd like to take you away from
Paris, Piquette."
"Where, _mon_ Jeem?"