It is a secret. If the time ever should come--in case of war, for
instance--my father will give the secret to France--freely--without
recompense--a secret that all the nations of Europe could not buy!
Now, don't you wish you knew, monsieur?"
"And you know?"
"Yes," she said, with a tantalizing toss of her head.
"Then you'd better look out," he laughed; "if European nations
get wind of this they might kidnap you."
"They know it already," she said, seriously. "Austria, Spain,
Portugal, and Russia have sent agents to my father--as though he
bought and sold the welfare of his country!"
"And that map-making fellow this morning--do you suppose he might
have been hanging about after that sort of thing--trying to pry
and pick up some scrap of information?"
"I don't know," she said, quietly; "I only saw him making maps.
Listen! there are two secrets that my father possesses, and they
are both in writing. I do not know where he keeps them, but I
know what they are. Shall I tell you? Then listen--I shall
whisper. One is the chemical formula for the silvery dust, the
gas of which can fill a balloon in five seconds. The other
is--you will be astonished--the plan for a navigable balloon!"
"Has he tried it?"
"A dozen times. I went up twice. It steers like a ship."
"Do people know this, too?"
"Germany does. Once we sailed, papa and I, up over our forest and
across the country to the German frontier. We were not very high;
we could see the soldiers at the custom-house, and they saw us,
and--would you believe it?--they fired their horrid guns at
us--pop! pop! pop! But we were too quick; we simply sailed back
again against the very air-currents that brought us. One bullet
made a hole in the silk, but we didn't come down. Papa says a
dozen bullets cannot bring a balloon down, even when they pierce
the silk, because the air-pressure is great enough to keep the
gas in. But he says that if they fire a shell, that is what is to
be dreaded, for the gas, once aflame!--that ends all. Dear me! we
talk a great deal of war--you and I. It is time for me to go."
They rose in the moonlight; he gave her back her fan. For a full
minute they stood silent, facing each other. She broke a lily
from its stem, and drew it out of the cluster at her breast. She
did not offer it, but he knew it was his, and he took it.
"Symbol of France," she whispered.
"Symbol of Lorraine," he said, aloud.
A deep boom, sullen as summer thunder, shook the echoes awake
among the shrouded hills, rolling, reverberating, resounding,
until the echoes carried it on from valley to valley, off into
the world of shadows.
The utter silence that followed was broken by a call, a gallop of
hoofs on the gravel drive, the clink of stirrups, the snorting of
hard-run horses.
Somebody cried, "A telegram for you, Ricky!" There was a patter
of feet on the terrace, a chorus of voices: "What is it, Ricky?"
"Must you go at once?" "Whatever is the matter?"
The young German soldier, very pale, turned to the circle of
lamp-lit faces.
"France and Germany--I--I--"
"What?" cried Sir Thorald, violently.
"War was declared at noon to-day!"
Lorraine gave a gasp and reached out one hand. Jack Marche took
it in both of his.
Inside the ballroom the orchestra was still playing the
farandole.
V
COWARDS AND THEIR COURAGE
Rickerl took the old vicomte's withered hand; he could not speak;
his sister Alixe was crying.
"War? War? Allons donc!" muttered the old man. "Helen! Ricky says
we are to have war. Helen, do you hear? War!"
Then Rickerl hurried away to dress, for he was to ride to the
Rhine, nor spare whip nor spur; and Barbara Lisle comforted
little Alixe, who wept as she watched the maids throwing
everything pell-mell into their trunks; for they, too, were to
leave at daylight on the Moselle Express for Cologne.
Below, a boy appeared, leading Rickerl's horse from the stables;
there were lanterns moving along the drive, and dark figures
passing, clustering about the two steaming horses of the
messengers, where a groom stood with a pail of water and a
sponge. Everywhere the hum of voices rose and died away like the
rumour of swarming bees. "War!" "War is declared!" "When?" "War
was declared to-day!" "When?" "War was declared to-day at noon!"
And always the burden of the busy voices was the same, menacing,
incredulous, half-whispered, but always the same--"War! war!
war!"
Booted and spurred, square-shouldered and muscular in his corded
riding-suit, Rickerl passed the terrace again after the last
adieux. The last? No, for as his heavy horse stamped out across
the drive a voice murmured his name, a hand fell on his arm.
"Dorothy," he whispered, bending from his saddle.
"I love you, Ricky," she gasped.
And they say women are cowards!
He lifted her to his breast, held her crushed and panting; she
put both hands before her eyes.
"There has never been any one but you; do you believe it?" he
stammered.
"Yes."
"Then you are mine!"
"Yes. May God spare you!"
And Rickerl, loyal in little things, swung her gently to the
ground again, unkissed.
There was a flurry of gravel, a glimpse of a horse rearing,
plunging, springing into the darkness--that was all. And she
crept back to the terrace with hot, tearless lids, that burned
till all her body quivered with the fever in her aching eyes. She
passed the orchestra, trudging back to Saint-Lys along the gravel
drive, the two fat violinists stolidly smoking their Alsacian
pipes, the harp-player muttering to the aged piper, the little
biniou man from the Côte-d'Or, excited, mercurial, gesticulating
at every step. War! war! war! The burden of the ghastly monotone
was in her brain, her tired heart kept beating out the cadence
that her little slippered feet echoed along the gravel--War! war!
At the foot of the steps which skirted the terrace she met her
brother and Lorraine watching the groom rubbing down the
messengers' horses. A lantern, glimmering on the ground, shed a
sickly light under their eyes.
"Dorrie," said Jack, "Sir Thorald and Lady Hesketh think that we all
should start for Paris by the early train. They have already sent
some of our trunks to Saint-Lys; Mademoiselle de Nesville"--he
turned with a gesture almost caressing to Lorraine--"Mademoiselle
de Nesville has generously offered her carriage to help transport
the luggage, and she is going to wait until it returns."
"And uncle--and our aunt De Morteyn?"
"I shall stay at Morteyn until they decide whether to close the
house and go to Paris or to stay until October. Dorrie, dear, we
are very near the frontier here."
"There will be no invasion," said Lorraine, faintly.
"The Rhine is very near," repeated Dorothy. She was thinking of
Rickerl.
"So you and Betty and Cecil," continued Jack, "are to go with the
Heskeths to Paris. Poor little Alixe is crying her eyes out
up-stairs. She and Barbara Lisle are going to Cologne, where
Ricky will either find them or have his father meet them."
After a moment he added, "It seems incredible, this news. They
say, in the village, that the King of Prussia insulted the French
ambassador, Count Benedetti, on the public promenade of Ems. It's
all about that Hohenzollern business and the Spanish succession.
Everybody thought it was settled, of course, because the Spanish
ambassador said so, and Prince Leopold von Hohenzollern withdrew
his claim. I can't understand it; I can scarcely believe it."
Dorothy stood a moment, looking at the stars in the midnight
sky. Then she turned with a sigh to Lorraine.
"Good-night," she said, and they kissed each other, these two
young girls who an hour before had been strangers.
"Shall I see you again? We leave by the early train," whispered
Dorothy.
"No--I must return when my carriage comes back from the village.
Good-by, dear--good-by, dear Dorothy."
A moment later, Dorothy, flinging her short ermine-edged cloak
from her shoulders, entered the empty ballroom and threw herself
upon the gilded canapé.
One by one the candles spluttered, glimmered, flashed up, and
went out, leaving a trail of smoke in the still air. Up-stairs
little Alixe was sobbing herself to sleep in Barbara's arms; in
his own chamber the old vicomte paced to and fro, and to and fro,
and his sweet-faced wife watched him in silence, her thin hand
shading her eyes in the lamplight. In the next room Sir Thorald
and Lady Hesketh sat close together, whispering. Only Betty
Castlemaine and Cecil Page had lost little of their cheerfulness,
perhaps because neither were French, and Cecil was not going to
the war, and--after all, war promised to be an exciting thing,
and well worth the absorbed attention of two very young lovers.
Arm in arm, they promenaded the empty halls and galleries,
meeting no one save here and there a pale-faced maid or scared
flunky; and at length they entered the gilded ballroom where
Dorothy lay, flung full length on the canapé.
She submitted to Betty's caresses, and went away to bed with her,
saying good-night to Cecil in a tear-choked voice; and a moment
later Cecil sought his own chamber, lighted a pipe, and gave
himself up to delightful visions of Betty, protected from several
Prussian army-corps by the single might of his strong right arm.
At the foot of the terrace, Lorraine de Nesville stood with Jack,
watching the dark drive for the lamps of the returning carriage.
Her maid loitered near, exchanging whispered gossip with the
groom, who now stood undecided, holding both horses and waiting
for orders. Presently Jack asked him where the messengers were,
and he said he didn't know, but that they had perhaps gone to the
kitchens for refreshments.
"Go and find them, then; here, give me the bridles," said Jack;
"if they are eating, let them finish; I'll hold their horses. Why
doesn't Mademoiselle de Nesville's carriage come back from
Saint-Lys? When you leave the kitchens, go down the road and look
for it. Tell them to hurry."
The groom touched his cap and hastened away.
"I wish the carriage would come--I wish the carriage would
hurry," repeated Lorraine, at intervals. "My father is alone; I
am nervous, I don't know why. What are you reading?"
"My telegram from the New York _Herald_," he answered,
thoughtfully.
"It is easy to understand now," she said.
"Yes, easy to understand. They want me for war correspondent."
"Are you going?"
"I don't know--" He hesitated, trying to see her eyes in the
darkness. "I don't know; shall you stay here in the Moselle
Valley?"
"Yes--I suppose so."
"You are very near the Rhine."
"There will be--there shall be no invasion," she said,
feverishly. "France also ends at the Rhine; let them look to
their own!"
She moved impatiently, stepped from the stones to the damp
gravel, and walked slowly across the misty lawn. He followed,
leading the horses behind him and holding his telegram open in
his right hand. Presently she looked back over her shoulder, saw
him following, and waited.
"Why, will you go as war correspondent?" she asked when he came
up, leading the saddled horses.
"I don't know; I was on the _Herald_ staff in New York; they gave
me a roving commission, which I enjoyed so much that I resigned
and stayed in Paris. I had not dreamed that I should ever be
needed--I did not think of anything like this."
"Have you never seen war?"
"Nothing to speak of. I was the _Herald's_ representative at
Sadowa, and before that I saw some Kabyles shot in Oran. Where
are you going?"
"To the river. We can hear the carriage when it comes, and I want
to see the lights of the Château de Nesville."
"From the river? Can you?"
"Yes--the trees are cut away north of the boat-house. Look! I
told you so. My father is there alone."
Far away in the night the lights of the Château de Nesville
glimmered between the trees, smaller, paler, yellower than the
splendid stars that crowned the black vault above the forest.
After a silence she reached out her hand abruptly and took the
telegram from between his fingers. In the starlight she read it,
once, twice; then raised her head and smiled at him.
"Are you going?"
"I don't know. Yes."
"No," she said, and tore the telegram into bits.
One by one she tossed the pieces on to the bosom of the placid
Lisse, where they sailed away towards the Moselle like dim, blue
blossoms floating idly with the current.
"Are you angry?" she whispered.
He saw that she was trembling, and that her face had grown very
pale.
"What is the matter?" he asked, amazed.
"The matter--the matter is this: I--I--Lorraine de Nesville--am
afraid! I am afraid! It is fear--it is fear!"
"Fear?" he asked, gently.
"Yes!" she cried. "Yes, it is fear! I cannot help it--I never
before knew it--that I--I could be afraid. Don't--don't leave
us--my father and me!" she cried, passionately. "We are so alone
there in the house--I fear the forest--I fear--"
She trembled violently; a wolf howled on the distant hill.
"I shall gallop back to the Château de Nesville with you," he said;
"I shall be close beside you, riding by your carriage-window. Don't
tremble so--Mademoiselle de Nesville."
"It is terrible," she stammered; "I never knew I was a coward."
"You are anxious for your father," he said, quietly; "you are no
coward!"
"I am--I tremble--see! I shiver."
"It was the wolf--"
"Ah, yes--the wolf that warned us of war! and the men--that one who
made maps; I never could do again what I did! Then I was afraid of
nothing; now I fear everything--the howl of that beast on the hill,
the wind in the trees, the ripple of the Lisse--C'est plus fort que
moi--I am a coward. Listen! Can you hear the carriage?"
"No."
"Listen--ah, listen!"
"It is the noise of the river."
"The river? How black it is! Hark!"
"The wind."
"Hark!"
"The wind again--"
"Look!" She seized his arm frantically. "Look! Oh, what--what was
that?"
The report of a gun, faint but clear, came to their ears.
Something flashed from the lighted windows of the Château de
Nesville--another flash broke out--another--then three dull
reports sounded, and the night wind spread the echoes broadcast
among the wooded hills.
For a second she stood beside him, white, rigid, speechless; then
her little hand crushed his arm and she pushed him violently
towards the horses.
"Mount!" she cried; "ride! ride!"
Scarcely conscious of what he did, he backed one of the horses,
seized the gathered bridle and mane, and flung himself astride.
The horse reared, backed again, and stood stamping. At the same
instant he swung about in his saddle and cried, "Go back to the
house!"
But she was already in the saddle, guiding the other horse, her
silken skirts crushed, her hair flying, sawing at the bridle-bit
with gloved fingers. The wind lifted the cloak on her shoulders,
her little satin slipper sought one stirrup.
"Ride!" she gasped, and lashed her horse.
He saw her pass him in a whirl of silken draperies streaming in
the wind; the swan's-down cloak hid her body like a cloud. In a
second he was galloping at her bridle-rein; and both horses, nose
to nose and neck to neck, pounded across the gravel drive,
wheeled, leaped forward, and plunged down the soft wood road,
straight into the heart of the forest. The lace from her corsage
fluttered in the air; the lilies at her breast fell one by one,
strewing the road with white blossoms. The wind loosened her
heavy hair to the neck, seized it, twisted it, and flung it out
on the wind. Under the clusters of ribbon on her shoulders there
was a gleam of ivory; her long gloves slipped to the wrists; her
hair whipped the rounded arms, bare and white below the riotous
ribbons, snapping and fluttering on her shoulders; her cloak
unclasped at the throat and whirled to the ground, trampled into
the forest mould.
They struck a man in the darkness; they heard him shriek; the
horses staggered an instant, that was all, except a gasp from the
girl, bending with whitened cheeks close to her horse's mane.
"Look out! A lantern!--close ahead!" panted Marche.
The sharp crack of a revolver cut him short, his horse leaped
forward, the blood spurting from its neck.
"Are you hit?" he cried.
"No! no! Ride!"
Again and again, but fainter and fainter, came the crack! crack!
of the revolver, like a long whip snapped in the wind.
"Are you hit?" he asked again.
"Yes, it is nothing! Ride!"
In the darkness and confusion of the plunging horses he managed
to lean over to her where she bent in her saddle; and, on one
white, round shoulder, he saw the crimson welt of a bullet, from
which the blood was welling up out of the satin skin.
And now, in the gloom, the park wall loomed up along the river,
and he shouted for the lodge-keeper, rising in his stirrups; but
the iron gate swung wide, and the broad, empty avenue stretched
up to the Château.
They galloped up to the door; he slipped from his horse, swung
Lorraine to the ground, and sprang up the low steps. The door was
open, the long hall brilliantly lighted.
"It is I--Lorraine!" cried the girl. A tall, bearded man burst in
from a room on the left, clutching a fowling-piece.
"Lorraine! They've got the box! The balloon secret was in it!" he
groaned; "they are in the house yet--" He stared wildly at Marche,
then at his daughter. His face was discoloured with bruises, his
thick, blond hair fell in disorder across steel-blue eyes that
gleamed with fury.
Almost at the same moment there came a crash of glass, a heavy
fall from the porch, and then a shot.
In an instant Marche was at the door; he saw a game-keeper raise
his gun and aim at him, and he shrank back as the report roared
in his ears.
"You fool!" he shouted; "don't shoot at me! drop your gun and
follow!" He jumped to the ground and started across the garden
where a dark figure was clutching the wall and trying to climb to
the top. He was too late--the man was over; but he followed,
jumped, caught the tiled top, and hurled himself headlong into
the bushes below.
Close to him a man started from the thicket, and ran down the wet
road--splash! splash! slop! slop! through the puddles; but Marche
caught him and dragged him down into the mud, where they rolled
and thrashed and spattered and struck each other. Twice the man
tore away and struggled to his feet, and twice Marche fastened to
his knees until the huge, lumbering body swayed and fell again.
It might have gone hard with Jack, for the man suddenly dropped
the steel box he was clutching to his breast and fell upon the
young fellow with a sullen roar. His knotted, wiry fingers had
already found Jack's throat; he lifted the young fellow's head
and strove to break his neck. Then, in a flash, he leaped back
and lifted a heavy stone from the wall; at the same instant
somebody fired at him from the wall; he wheeled and sprang into
the woods.
That was all Jack Marche knew until a lantern flared in his
eyes, and he saw Lorraine's father, bright-eyed, feverish,
dishevelled, beside him.
"Raise him!" said a voice that he knew was Lorraine's.
They lifted Jack to his knees; he stumbled to his feet, torn,
bloody, filthy with mud, but in his arms, clasped tight, was the
steel box, intact.
"Lorraine!--my box!--look!" cried her father, and the lantern
shook in his hands as he clutched the casket.
But Lorraine stepped forward and flung both arms around Jack
Marche's neck.
Her face was deadly pale; the blood oozed from the wounded
shoulder. For the first time her father saw that she had been
shot. He stared at her, clutching the steel box in his nervous
hands.
With all the strength she had left she crushed Jack to her and
kissed him. Then, weak with the loss of blood, she leaned on her
father.
"I am going to faint," she whispered; "help me, father."
VI
TRAINS EAST AND WEST
It was dawn when Jack Marche galloped into the court-yard of the
Château Morteyn and wearily dismounted. People were already
moving about the upper floors; servants stared at him as he
climbed the steps to the terrace; his face was scratched, his
clothes smeared with caked mud and blood.
He went straight to his chamber, tore off his clothes, took a
hasty plunge in a cold tub, and rubbed his aching limbs until
they glowed. Then he dressed rapidly, donned his riding breeches
and boots, slipped a revolver into his pocket, and went
down-stairs, where he could already hear the others at breakfast.
Very quietly and modestly he told his story between sips of
café-au-lait.
"You see," he ended, "that the country is full of spies, who
hesitate at nothing. There were three or four of them who tried
to rob the Château; they seem perfectly possessed to get at the
secrets of the Marquis de Nesville's balloons. There is no doubt
but that for months past they have been making maps of the whole
region in most minute detail; they have evidently been expecting
this war for a long time. Incidentally, now that war is declared,
they have opened hostilities on their own account."
"You did for some of them?" asked Sir Thorald, who had been
fidgeting and staring at Jack through a gold-edged monocle.
"No--I--we rode down and trampled a man in the dark; I should
think it would have been enough to brain him, but when I galloped
back just now he was gone, and I don't know how badly he was
hit."
"But the fellow that started to smash you with a
paving-stone--the Marquis de Nesville fired at him, didn't he?"
insisted Sir Thorald.
"Yes, I think he hit him, but it was a long shot. Lorraine was
superb--"
He stopped, colouring up a little.
"She did it all," he resumed--"she rode through the woods like a
whirlwind! Good heavens! I never saw such a cyclone incarnate!
And her pluck when she was hit!--and then very quietly she went
to her father and fainted in his arms."
Jack had not told all that had happened. The part that he had not
told was the part that he thought of most--Lorraine's white arms
around his neck and the touch of her innocent lips on his
forehead. In silent consternation the young people listened;
Dorothy slipped out of her chair and came and rested her hands on
her brother's shoulder; Betty Castlemaine looked at Cecil with
large, questioning eyes that asked, "Would you do something
heroic for me?" and Cecil's eyes replied, "Oh, for a chance to
annihilate a couple of regiments!" This pleased Betty, and she
ate a muffin with appreciation. The old vicomte leaned heavily on
his elbow and looked at his wife, who sat opposite, pallid and
eating nothing. He had decided to remain at Morteyn, but this
episode disquieted him--not on his own account.
"Helen," he said, "Jack and I will stay, but you must go with the
children. There is no danger--there can be no invasion, for our
troops will be passing here by night; I only wish to be sure
that--that in case--in case things should go dreadfully wrong,
you would not be compelled to witness anything unpleasant."
Madame de Morteyn shook her head gently.
"Why speak of it?" she said; "you know I will not go."
"I'll stay, too," said Sir Thorald, eagerly; "Cecil and Molly can
take the children to Paris; Madame de Morteyn, you really should
go also."
She leaned back and shook her head decisively.
"Then you will both come, you and Madame de Morteyn?" urged Lady
Hesketh of the vicomte.
The old man hesitated. His wife smiled. She knew he could not
leave in the face of the enemy; she had been the wife of this old
African campaigner for thirty years, and she knew what she knew.
"Helen--" he began.
"Yes, dear, we will both stay; the city is too hot in July," she
said; "Sir Thorald, some coffee? No more? Betty, you want another
muffin?--they are there by Cecil. Children, I think I hear the
carriages coming; you must not make Lady Hesketh wait."
"I have half a mind to stay," said Molly Hesketh. Sir Thorald
said she might if she wanted to enlist, and they all tried to
smile, but the sickly gray of early morning, sombre, threatening,
fell on faces haggard with foreboding--young faces, too, lighted
by the pale flames of the candles.
Alixe von Elster and Barbara Lisle went first; there were tears
and embraces, and au revoirs and aufwiedersehens.
Little Alixe blanched and trembled when Sir Thorald bent over
her, not entirely unconscious of the havoc his drooping mustache
and cynical eyes had made in her credulous German bosom. Molly
Hesketh kissed her, wishing that she could pinch her; and so they
left, tearful, anxious, to be driven to Courtenay, and whirled
from there across the Rhine to Cologne.
Sir Thorald and Lady Hesketh lingered on the terrace after the
others had returned to the breakfast-room.
"Thorald," she said, "you are a brute!"
"Eh?" cried Sir Thorald.