ACCUSATION
Guillaumette opened the door to her, and stood exclaiming upon the
threshold--
“Madam--oh, Madame!”
“Let me pass, Guillaumette--I am very ill and my clothes are wet.”
“But--Madame--oh, _mon Dieu!_ and Monsieur has come back.”
Beatrix shut the door quietly. The draughts through the broken ceiling
of the hall played with the gas-jet there, and cast a garish, fitful
light upon the faces of the women. From the dining-room there came
the echo of voices. Men were talking in the room, and one of them was
Edmond Lefort.
“He came back an hour ago, Madame; he would not eat or sit until you
were here. And now the Captain Gatelet is with him--and you--Holy
Virgin!”
She wrung her hands, and tears came into her eyes as she looked upon
the pale face and trembling hands and sodden clothes of her mistress.
But Beatrix did not hear her. For an instant she hesitated, cold and
faint and dizzy in the hall. The words “Edmond is here” were exquisite
beyond any words she had spoken in all her life. Out of the darkness
and the place of death she had come back there to this reward--to her
lover’s arms.
Maladroitly, yet with eager fingers, she put off her cloak and hat. In
shadow as the mirror was, it yet enabled her to see her own white face
and straightened hair and disordered frock. A woman’s vanity, even in
such an hour, gave the wish that Edmond might see her otherwise. But
her thought of self was momentary; and when she had stood an instant,
combating an agitation which threatened to unnerve her utterly, she
opened the door and entered the room.
He was standing with his back to the table, listening earnestly to
Gatelet, who told him the story of the night. He had not heard her
knock, for the narrative absorbed him entirely, and when she entered
all unexpectedly an exclamation burst from his lips, and he stood
regarding her awkwardly. She had thought that he would hold out his
arms to her, or give her some warm word of welcome even before another;
but no word was uttered, nor did he make any movement. She, in turn,
was as one struck dumb. The lights danced before her eyes. She tried
to utter his name, but her lips would not help her.
Lefort was the first to speak. There was no anger in his voice, but
rather the tone of one who must pronounce some judicial and impartial
sentence. She knew, when she heard him, that no event of the past week
remained to be told.
“I am glad that you have come, Beatrix,” he said; “the Captain has been
telling me about to-night, and it is right that you should hear him.
All this is news to me, and I wait until you speak. Of course, you must
have much to say to us?”
He paused, regarding her curiously. She stood against the wall, a wan
and desolate figure facing her accuser--for this she knew that Gatelet
was.
“If this man has spoken, he has told you that our friend is dead,” she
exclaimed angrily. “I went to the Rue de l’Arc-en-Ciel to-night, but
could not save him. He died in the tavern there because I did not wish
to be Monsieur Gatelet’s friend. Is not that your news, Monsieur?”
A new courage, born of the danger, came to her as she confronted them.
Impossible for her to realise that her husband had ceased to be her
lover. She had only to speak, she thought. Gatelet, in his turn, was
quick to pursue an advantage of her words.
“Madame,” he said, “I will leave you to explain everything to your
husband. He will judge of the rest by what you have just told us. The
spy did not die in the city to-night, Madame, because you and your
confederates were before us in the house. If I wished you to be my
friend, it was to save your husband’s name from disgrace. It will be
for him to say to-morrow, if not to-night, whether I have done my duty
or have failed in it.”
He bowed curtly to them both and left the house. They heard the door
shut and still were silent. The news of Brandon’s escape dumfounded
her. She could not believe that Edmond, her lover, stood before her,
silent, stern, unpitying. The desire to put her arms about his neck and
to be held in his embrace and there to tell her story was such a desire
as might well have broken down all her pride and cast her prostrate at
his feet. But some chain of her destiny held her back. He had listened
to the slander--he, the man she had loved with all her heart and soul.
She set her heart against any thought of love when he began to speak
again.
“Beatrix,” he exclaimed, when minutes of angry silence had elapsed, “I
have signed away my honour to return to you to-night. God help me if
these things I hear are true. Let us have no misunderstanding. They say
that you left Wörth with Brandon North. Is that a lie?”
“It is no lie. I left there with our friend--with your friend. They
burned our house, and there was no one in Wörth to help me. Brandon
found an Englishman who drove me to Strasburg. Was that a crime against
your honour?”
She spoke in a voice grown hard and satirical. He bit his lips and
pursued the question.
“There can be no friendship in war,” he said quietly; “this man has
chosen to be the enemy of France. He is, therefore, my enemy, and
should have been yours. Admitting that danger led you to forget these
things--and I see the possibility of that--how came it that you met him
in Strasburg and went to his house there?”
“I went that he might carry my letter to you. I knew that he had come
here out of pure friendship to me. There was no news of you except
the news that he brought into Strasburg. Cannot you understand that,
Edmond? When he was wounded, my honour and gratitude compelled me to
befriend him. Would you have done less, had you been here? You know
that you would not--”
“We are not discussing my actions but your own, Beatrix. If I had
gone to a woman’s house, a Frenchwoman’s, under such circumstances as
you went to the house of Brandon North, I should have known beforehand
what you would think of me. Do you not see that you have dishonoured me
in the eyes of every man who hears of these things? And are you child
enough to believe that the Englishman came to Strasburg simply with the
desire to serve you? My God, Beatrix, are you child enough to believe
that?”
She looked up at him defiantly.
“Brandon is an Englishman,” she said. “He does not lie as your friends
lie. I know that he came here to serve me. I am glad that my friends
saved him to-night. If your love of me is such a little thing that
every word of slander can influence it, believe what you will. I have
told you my story. Do not think that I shall appeal to you to accept
it, Edmond.”
He began to walk up and down the room restlessly. In the intervals of
silence the thunder of the German cannon could be heard as a dreadful
tocsin of the night. The old house quivered at every savage discharge.
“Your friend is an Englishman,” he said, deliberating his words. “Your
heart was never in France nor for me, Beatrix. From the first day you
spoke of England and not of my country. The army I serve has meant
nothing to you. My honour was in your keeping, and you sold it to this
man--because he was your fellow country-man. If it had been otherwise,
you would have died in our home at Wörth before a German bivouac should
have protected you. I cannot conceal these things from myself. God
knows it was for love of you, to hear your voice again, that I gave my
word and came back to this house ashamed to show my face to men. You
have rewarded me by harbouring the enemies of France and saving them
from justice. I can never forgive that, Beatrix. There must be no more
talk of love between us. We have both made a mistake--let it begin and
end with that, and God help me to deal with the man who has made my
home desolate.”
She answered him with a little nervous laugh, which the intense emotion
of the moment provoked. Nor was there wanting a certain contempt for
his threat.
“Your home is desolate if you choose to make it so,” she said, looking
him full in the face. “The folly will be yours. As for your honour,
I am sorry you value it so lightly. Does honour betray a friend
because he is wounded and helpless? Oh, you will deal with Brandon
very easily--his foot is crushed, and he cannot stand. It was crushed
because he wished to bring me news of you, Edmond.”
“As he has told you. And you are simple enough to believe it? He, a
German soldier, comes into Strasburg to help me, a French hussar. It
is a story for a fairy book. I do not read books like that. I tell
myself that when a man risks his life to see a woman, she is not as
other women to him. A true wife would not have spoken to such a man.
You have seen him every day; you have been to his rooms; you have
helped him to-night to get back to the German lines and to tell them
that Strasburg is at death’s door, a burning city, a city which can no
longer help France. Is that the work that my wife should do? God help
me--my wife!”
He stood before her, white now with anger, as thus he weighed the
evidence and seemed to judge her story for himself. She did not utter
any word nor seek to defend herself. If he, Edmond, her lover, could
believe that, then, indeed, would she be for ever silent. But he
continued relentlessly:
“You love this man; why do you deny it?”
A cry which was half a moan came to her lips.
“Oh, my God--my God!”
“But I shall kill him, Beatrix. My honour can wait for that. He is in
the city still. No other now shall pay that debt. It is mine--you hear,
mine. All your acting will not save him. And I shall see you suffer as
I must suffer, because I thought you were the best--the truest woman in
France!”
Her face was tearless when she lifted it to answer him.
“I am glad that you do not think so now,” she said.
He ground his heel into the carpet, for all his self-control had gone,
and an empty vanity compelled him more and more to think of the shame
which would fall upon him personally when the story of these things was
known.
“Your confession is unnecessary,” he exclaimed. “I was a fool to
ask you to explain. Your father left your mother because she was a
Frenchwoman; you have betrayed my country because I am a Frenchman.
It is useless to lie to me. You are judged out of your own mouth. My
country means nothing to you. The sufferings of my country give you
pleasure. You are the friend of those who have brought this suffering
upon us. I do not want to hear more. Henceforth I will forget your
name--I will forget, when this man is dead, that you ever came to
Strasburg to dishonour me in the eyes of those who have loved me. You
shall hear my name no more--never again, as God is my witness, will I
enter the house which shelters you. Do not seek to turn from that; do
not seek to find me out. The past is irrevocable; I will begin a new
page, and your name shall not be written upon it. If they say of me,
‘He was a coward,’ they shall say it no more when your lover is dead.
Do not make any mistake, Beatrix. I will not sleep until I have found
him out. I will watch his house night and day until he has answered
with the only answer a liar can give--his life. That is my farewell to
you--oh, my God, that I should be here in Strasburg to utter it!”
He paused suddenly and looked at her. She stood white-faced and mute
against the wall by the door. Her eyes were as stars in the dim light.
Her hands were locked together, and she tapped the boards nervously
with her little foot. And she was still standing so when he left the
room and passed out to the darkness of the terrible city.
But at dawn Guillaumette found her senseless upon the floor, and hours
passed before it was known whether she were alive or dead.