THE NEXT MORNING
There was another who kept a vigil all the night In the Villa
Pontignard Pamela Mardale saw from her window the morning break, and
wondered in dread what had happened upon that broad terrace by the
sea. She dressed and went down into the garden. As yet the world was
grey and cool, and something of its quietude entered into her and gave
her peace. A light mist hung over the sea, birds sang sweetly in the
trees, and from the chimneys of Roquebrune the blue smoke began to
coil. In the homely suggestions of that blue smoke Pamela found a
comfort. She watched it for a while, and then there came a flush of
rose upon the crests of the hills. The mist was swept away from the
floor of the sea, shadows and light suddenly ran down the hillsides,
and the waves danced with a sparkle of gold. The sun had risen. Pamela
saw a man coming up the open slope from Roquebrune to the villa. It
was M. Giraud. She ran to the gate and met him there.
"Well?" she asked. And he answered sadly--
"I arrived too late."
The colour went from Pamela's cheeks. She set a hand upon the gate to
steady herself. There was an expression of utter consternation on her
face.
"Too late, I mean," the schoolmaster explained hurriedly, "to help
you, to be of any real service to you. But the harm done is perhaps
not so great as you fear."
He described to her what he had seen--Lionel Callon lying outstretched
and insensible upon the pavement, Tony and Millie Stretton within the
room.
"We removed M. Callon to his bedroom," he said. "Then I fetched a
doctor. M. Callon will recover--it is a concussion of the brain. He
will be ill for a little time, but he will get well."
"And the man and the woman?" Pamela asked eagerly. "The two within the
room? What of them?"
"They were standing opposite to one another." The schoolmaster had not
seen Millie on her knees. "A chair was overturned, the chair on which
she had sat. She was in great distress, and, I think, afraid; but he
spoke quietly." He described how he had offered Tony the letter, and
how Tony had closed the door of the room upon the waiters.
"The manager did not know what to do, whether to send for help or not.
But I did not think that there was any danger to the woman in the
room, and I urged him to do nothing."
"Thank you," said Pamela, gratefully. "Indeed, you were in time to
help me."
But even then she did not know how much she was indebted to the
schoolmaster's advice. She was thinking of the scandal which must have
arisen had the police been called in, of the publication of Millie's
folly to the world of her acquaintances. That was prevented now. If
Tony took back his wife--as with all her heart she hoped he would--he
would not, at all events, take back one of whom gossip would be
speaking with a slighting tongue. She was not aware that Tony had
deserted from the Legion to keep his tryst upon the thirty-first of
the month. Afterwards, when she did learn this, she was glad that she
had not lacked warmth when she had expressed her gratitude to M.
Giraud. A look of pleasure came into the schoolmaster's face.
"I am very glad," he said. "When I brought the doctor back the two
within the room were talking quietly together; we could hear their
voices through the door. So I came away. I walked up to the villa
here. But it was already late, and the lights were out--except in one
room on an upper floor looking over the sea--that room," and he
pointed to a window.
"Yes, that is my room," said Pamela.
"I thought it was likely to be yours, and I hesitated whether I should
fling up a stone; but I was not sure that it was your room. So I
determined to wait until the morning. I am sorry, for you have been
very anxious and have not slept--I can see that. I could have saved
you some hours of anxiety."
Pamela laughed in friendliness, and the laugh told him surely that her
distress had gone from her.
"That does not matter," she said. "You have brought me very good news.
I could well afford to wait for it."
The schoolmaster remained in an awkward hesitation at the gate; it was
clear that he had something more to say. It was no less clear that he
found the utterance of it very difficult. Pamela guessed what was in
his mind, and, after her own fashion, she helped him to speak it. She
opened the gate, which up till now had stood closed between them.
"Come in for a little while, won't you?" she said; and she led the way
through the garden to that narrow corner on the bluff of the hill
which had so many associations for them both. If M. Giraud meant to
say what she thought he did, here was the one place where utterance
would be easy. Here they had interchanged, in other times, their
innermost thoughts, their most sacred confidences. The stone parapet,
the bench, the plot of grass, the cedar in the angle of the
corner--among these familiar things memories must throb for him even
as they did for her. Pamela sat down upon the parapet and, leaning
over, gazed into the torrent far below. She wished him to take his
time. She had a thought that even if he had not in his mind that
utterance which she hoped to hear, the recollection of those other
days, vividly renewed, might suggest it. And in a moment or two he
spoke.
"It is true, mademoiselle, that I was of service to you last night?"
"Yes," replied Pamela, gently; "that is quite true."
"I am glad," he continued. "I shall have that to remember. I do not
suppose that I shall see you often any more. Very likely you will not
come back to Roquebrune--very likely I shall never see you again. And
if I do not, I should like you to know that last night will make a
difference to me."
He was now speaking with a simple directness. Pamela raised her face
towards his. He could see that his words greatly rejoiced her; a very
tender smile was upon her lips, and her eyes shone. There were tears
in them.
"I am so glad," she said.
"I resented your coming to me at first," he went on--"I was a fool; I
am now most grateful that you did come. I learnt that you had at last
found the happiness which I think you have always deserved. You know I
have always thought that it is a bad thing when such a one as you is
wasted upon loneliness and misery--the world is not so rich that it
can afford such waste. And if only because you told me that a change
had come for you, I should be grateful for the visit which you paid
me. But there is more. You spoke a very true word last night when you
told me it was a help to be needed by those one needs."
"You think that too?" said Pamela.
"Yes, now I do," he answered. "It will always be a great pride to me
that you needed me. I shall never forget that you knocked upon my door
one dark night in great distress. I shall never forget your face, as I
saw it framed in the light when I came out into the porch. I shall
never forget that you stood within my room, and called upon me, in the
name of our old comradeship, to rise up and help you. I think my room
will be hallowed by that recollection." And he lowered his voice
suddenly and said, "I think I shall see you as I saw you when I opened
the door, between myself and the threshold of the wineshop; that is
what I meant to say."
He held out his hand, and, as Pamela took it, he raised her hand to
his lips and kissed it.
"Good-bye," he said; and turning away quickly he left her up in the
place where she had known the best of him, and went down to his
schoolroom in the square of Roquebrune. Very soon the sing-song of the
children's voices was droning from the open windows.
Pamela remained upon the terrace. The breaking of old ties is always a
melancholy business, and here was one broken to-day. It was very
unlikely, she thought, that she would ever see her friend the little
schoolmaster again. She would be returning to England immediately, and
she would not come back to the Villa Pontignard.
She was still in that corner of the garden when another visitor called
upon her. She heard his footsteps on the gravel of the path, and,
looking up, saw Warrisden approaching her. She rose from the parapet
and went forward to meet him. She understood that he had come with his
old question, and she spoke first. The question could wait just for a
little while.
"You have seen Tony?" she asked.
"Yes; late last night," he replied. "I waited at the hotel for him. He
said nothing more than 'Good night,' and went at once to his room."
"And this morning?"
"This morning," said Warrisden, "he has gone. I did not see him. He
went away with his luggage before I was up, and he left no message."
Pamela stood thoughtful and silent.
"It is the best thing he could have done," Warrisden continued; "for
he is not safe in France."
"Not safe?"
"No. Did he not tell you? He deserted from the French Legion. It was
the only way in which he could reach Roquebrune by the date you
named."
Pamela was startled, but she was startled into activity.
"Will you wait for me here?" she said. "I will get my hat."
She ran into the villa, and coming out again said, "Let us go down to
the station."
They hurried down the steep flight of steps. At the station Warrisden
asked, "Shall I book to Monte Carlo?"
"No; to Eze," she replied.
She hardly spoke at all during the journey; and Warrisden kept his
question in reserve--this was plainly no time to utter it. Pamela
walked at once to the hotel.
"Is Lady Stretton in?" she asked; and the porter replied--
"No, Madame. She left for England an hour ago."
"Alone?" asked Pamela.
"No. A gentleman came and took her away."
Pamela turned towards Warrisden with a look of great joy upon her
face.
"They have gone together," she cried. "He has taken his risks. He has
not forgotten that lesson learnt on the North Sea. I had a fear this
morning that he had."
"And you?" said Warrisden, putting his question at last.
Pamela moved away from the door until they were out of earshot. Then
she said--
"I will take my risks too." Her eyes dwelt quietly upon her companion,
and she added, "And I think the risks are very small."