*CHAPTER XXV*
*COIRA GOES OVER TO THE ENEMY*
They were near the east end of the _rond point_, in a space where firtrees stood and the ground underfoot was covered with dry needles.
"I was just on my way to--our bench beyond the fountain," said she, andSte. Marie nodded, looking upon her sombrely. It seemed to him that helooked with new eyes, and after a little time when he did not speak butonly gazed in that strange manner the girl said--
"What is it? Something has happened. Please tell me what it is!"Something like the pale foreshadow of fear came over her beautiful face,and shrouded her golden voice as if it had been a veil.
"Your father," said Ste. Marie heavily, "has just been telling me--thatyou are to marry young Arthur Benham. He has been telling me."
She drew a quick breath, looking at him, but, after a moment, she said--
"Yes, it is true. You knew it before, though. Didn't you? Do you meanthat you didn't know it before? I don't quite understand. You musthave known that.
"What in Heaven's name _did_ you think?" she cried, as if with a sort ofanger at his dulness.
The man rubbed one hand wearily across his eyes.
"I--don't quite know," said he. "Yes, I suppose I had thought of it. Idon't know. It came to me with such a--shock! Yes. Oh, I don't know.I expect I didn't think at all. I--just didn't think." Abruptly hiseyes sharpened upon her and he moved a step forward.
"Tell me the truth!" he said. "Do you love this boy?"
The girl's cheeks burned with a swift crimson and she set her lipstogether. She was on the verge of extreme anger just then, but after alittle the flush died down again and the dark fire went out of her eyes.She made an odd little gesture with her two hands. It seemed to expressfatigue as much as anything--a great weariness.
"I like him," she said. "I like him--enough, I suppose. He isgood--and kind--and gentle. He will be good to me. And I shall tryvery, very hard to make him happy." Quite suddenly and without warningthe fire of her anger burnt up again. She flamed defiance in the man'sface.
"How dare you question me?" she cried. "What right have you to ask mequestions about such a thing? You, what you are!"
Ste. Marie bent his head.
"No right, mademoiselle," said he in a low voice. "I have no right toask you anything--not even forgiveness. I think I am a little madto-day. It--this news came to me suddenly. Yes, I think I am a littlemad." The girl stared at him and he looked back with sombre eyes. Oncemore he was stabbed with intolerable pain to think what she was. Yet inan inexplicable fashion it pleased him that she should carry out hertrickery to the end with a high head. It was a little less base doneproudly. He could not have borne it otherwise.
"Who are you," the girl cried in a bitter resentment, "that you shouldunderstand? What do you know of the sort of life I have led--we haveled together, my father and I?--Oh, I don't mean that I'm ashamed of it!We have nothing to feel shame for, but you simply do not know what sucha life is."
Though he writhed with pain, the man nodded over her. He was so gladthat she could carry it through proudly, with a high hand, an erecthead.
She spread out her arms before him, a splendid and tragic figure.
"What chance have I ever had?" she demanded. "No, I am not blaming him.I am not blaming my father! I chose to follow him. I chose it! Butwhat chance have I had? Think of the people I have lived among! Wouldyou have me marry one of them--one of those men? I'd rather die! Andyet I cannot go on--forever. I am twenty now. What if my father--Youyourself said yesterday--Oh, I am afraid! I tell you I have lain awakeat night a hundred times and shivered with cold, terrible fear of whatwould become of me if--if anything should happen--to my father.
"And so," she said, "when I met Arthur Benham last winter and he--beganto--he said--when he begged me to marry him.... Ah, can't you see? Itmeant safety--safety--safety! And I liked him. I like him now--very,very much. He is a sweet boy. I--shall be happy with him--in apeaceful fashion. And my father----
"Oh, I'll be honest with you," said she. "It was my father who decidedme. He was--he is--so pathetically pleased with it! He so wants me tobe safe! It's all he lives for now. I--couldn't fight against themboth. Arthur and my father.
"So I gave in. And then when Arthur had to be hidden we came here withhim--to wait."
She became aware that the man was staring at her with something strangeand terrible in his gaze, and she broke off in wonder. The air of thatwarm summer morning turned all at once keen and sharp aboutthem--charged with moment.
"Mademoiselle!" cried Ste. Marie. "Mademoiselle, are you telling me thetruth?"
For some obscure reason she was not angry. Again she spread out herhands in that gesture of weariness. She said--
"Oh, why should I lie to you?" And the man began to trembleexceedingly. He stretched out an unsteady hand.
"You--knew Arthur Benham last winter?" he said. "Long beforehis--before he left his home? Before that?"
"He asked me to marry him last winter," said the girl. "For a long,long time I--wouldn't.... But he never let me alone. He followed meeverywhere. And my father----"
Ste. Marie clapped his two hands over his face, and a groan came to herthrough the straining fingers. He cried in an agony--
"Mademoiselle! mademoiselle!"
He fell upon his knees at her feet, his head bent in what seemed to bean intolerable anguish, his hands over his hidden face. The girl heardhard-wrung, stumbling, incoherent words, wrenched each with an effortout of extreme pain.
"Fool! Fool!" the man cried, groaning. "Oh, fool that I have been!worm, animal! Oh, fool not to see--not to know! Madman; imbecile;thing without a name!"
She stood white-faced, smitten with great fear over this abasement. Notthe least and faintest glimmer reached her of what it meant. Shestretched down a hand of protest and it touched the man's head. As ifthe touch were a stroke of magic he sprang upright before her.
"Now at last, mademoiselle," said he, "we two must speak plainlytogether. Now at last I think I see clear, but I must know beyond doubtor question. Oh, mademoiselle, now I think I know you for what you are,and it seems to me that nothing in this world is of consequence besidethat. I have been blind, blind, blind! ... Tell me one thing! Why didArthur Benham leave his home two months ago?"
"He had to leave it!" she said, wondering. She did not understand yet,but she was aware that her heart was beating in loud and fast throbs,and she knew that some great mystery was to be made plain before her.Her face was very white.
"He had to leave it!" she said again. "You know as well as I. Why doyou ask me that? He quarrelled with his grandfather. They had oftenquarrelled before--over money--always over money! His grandfather is amiser, almost a madman. He tried to make Arthur sign a paper releasinghis inheritance--the fortune he is to inherit from his father--and whenArthur wouldn't he drove him away. Arthur went to his uncle--CaptainStewart--and Captain Stewart helped him to hide. He didn't dare go backbecause they're all against him, all his family. They'd make him givein."
Ste. Marie gave a loud exclamation of amazement. The thing wasincredible--childish! It was beyond the maddest possibilities. Buteven as he said the words to himself a face came before him--CaptainStewart's smiling and benignant face--and he understood everything. Asclearly as if he had been present he saw the angry bewildered boy, freshfrom David Stewart's berating, mystified over some commonplace legalmatter requiring a signature. He saw him appeal for sympathy andcounsel to "old Charlie," and he heard "old Charlie's" reply. It waseasy enough to understand now. It must have been easy enough to bringabout. What absurdities could not such a man as Captain Stewart instilinto the already prejudiced mind of that foolish lad?
His thoughts turned from Arthur Benham to the girl before him, and thatpart of the mystery was clear also. She would believe whatever she wastold in the absence of any reason to doubt. Wh
at did she know of oldDavid Stewart or of the Benham family? It seemed to Ste. Marie all atonce incredible that he could ever have believed ill of her--ever havedoubted her honesty. It seemed to him so incredible that he could havelaughed aloud in bitterness and self-disdain. But as he looked at thegirl's white face and her shadowy, wondering eyes all laughter, allbitterness, all cruel misunderstandings were swallowed up in the goldenlight of his joy at knowing her, in the end, for what she was.
"Coira! Coira!" he cried, and neither of the two knew that he calledher for the first time by her name. "Oh, child," said he, "how theyhave lied to you and tricked you! I might have known, I might have seenit, but I was a blind fool. I thought--intolerable things. I mighthave known! They have lied to you most damnably, Coira."
She stared at him in a breathless silence without movement of any sort.Only her face seemed to have turned a little whiter, and her great eyesdarker so that they looked almost black, and enormous in that stillface.
He told her, briefly, the truth, how young Arthur had had frequentquarrels with his grandfather over his waste of money, how after one ofthem, not at all unlike the others, he had disappeared, and how CaptainStewart, in desperate need, had set afoot his plot to get the lad'sgreater inheritance for himself. He described for her old David Stewartand the man's bitter grief, and he told her about the will, about how hehad begun to suspect Captain Stewart and of how he had traced the lostboy to La Lierre. He told her all that he knew of the whole matter andhe knew almost all there was to know, and he did not spare himself evenhis misconception of the part she had played, though he softened that asbest he could.
Midway of his story Mlle. O'Hara bent her head and covered her face withher hands. She did not cry out or protest or speak at all. She made nomore than that one movement, and after it she stood quite still, but thesight of her, bowed and shamed, stripped of pride, as it had been ofgarments, was more than the man could bear. He cried her name--
"Coira!" And when she did not look up, he called once more upon her.He said--
"Coira, I cannot bear to see you stand so! Look at me! Ah, child, lookat me!
"Can you realise," he cried, "can you even begin to think what a greatjoy it is to me to know at last that you have had no part in all this?Can't you see what it means to me? I can think of nothing else. Coira,look up!"
She raised her white face and there were no tears upon it, but a stillanguish too great to be told. It would seem never to have occurred toher to doubt the truth of his words. She said--
"It is I who might have known. Knowing what you have told me now itseems impossible that I could have believed.--And Captain Stewart--Ialways hated him--loathed him--distrusted him.
"And yet," she cried, wringing her hands, "how could I know? How couldI know?"
The girl's face writhed suddenly with her grief and she stared up atSte. Marie with terror in her eyes. She whispered--
"My father! Oh, Ste. Marie, my father! It is not possible. I will notbelieve--He cannot have done this, knowing. My father, Ste. Marie!"
The man turned his eyes away, and she gave a sobbing cry.
"Has he," she said slowly, "done even this for me? Has he given--hishonour also--when everything else was--gone? Has he given me his honourtoo?
"Oh!" she said, "why could I not have died when I was a little child?Why could I not have done that? To think that I should have livedto--bring my father to this! I wish I had died.
"Ste. Marie!" she said, pleading with him. "Ste. Marie, do you think--myfather--knew?"
"Let me think!" said he. "Let me think! Is it possible that Stewart haslied to you all--to one as to another? Let me think!" His mind ranback over the matter and he began to remember instances which had seemedto him odd but to which he had attached no importance. He rememberedO'Hara's puzzled and uncomprehending face when he, Ste. Marie, hadspoken of Stewart's villainy. He remembered the man's indignation overthe affair of the poison, and his fairness in trying to make amends. Heremembered other things, and his face grew lighter and he drew a greatbreath of relief. He said--
"Coira, I do not believe he knew. Stewart has lied equally to youall--tricked each one of you!" And at that the girl gave a cry ofgladness, and began to weep.
As long as men and women continue to stand upon opposite sides of agreat gulf--and that will be as long as they exist together in thisworld--just so long will men continue to be unhappy and ill at ease inthe face of women's tears, even though they know vaguely that tears maymean just anything at all, and by no means always grief.
Ste. Marie stood first upon one foot and then upon the other. He lookedanxiously about him for succour. He said: "There! there!" or words tothat effect, and once he touched the shoulder of the girl who stoodweeping before him, and he was very miserable indeed.
But quite suddenly, in the midst of his discomfort, she looked up tohim, and she was smiling and flushed, so that Ste. Marie stared at herin utter amazement.
"So now at last," said she, "I have back my Bayard. And I think therest--doesn't matter very much."
"Bayard?" said he, wondering. "I don't understand," he said.
"Then," said she, "you must just go without understanding. For I shallnever, never explain."
The bright flush went from her face and she turned grave once more.
"What is to be done?" she asked. "What must we do now, Ste. Marie?--Imean about Arthur Benham. I suppose he must be told."
"Either he must be told," said the man, "or he must be taken back to hishome by force." He told her about the four letters which in four dayshe had thrown over the wall into the Clamart road.
"It was on the chance," he said, "that some one would pick one of themup and post it, thinking it had been dropped there by accident. Whathas become of them I don't know. I know only that they never reachedHartley."
The girl nodded thoughtfully.
"Yes," said she, "that was the best thing you could have done. It oughtto have succeeded. Of course----" She paused a moment and then noddedagain. "Of course," said she, "I can manage to get a letter in the postnow. We'll send it to-day if you like. But I was wondering--Would itbe better or not to tell Arthur the truth? It all depends upon how hemay take it--whether or not he will believe you. He's very stubborn,and he's frightened about this break with his family, and he is quitesure that he has been badly treated. Will he believe you? Of course ifhe does believe he could escape from here quite easily at any time andthere'd be no necessity for a rescue. What do you think?"
"I think he ought to be told," said Ste. Marie. "If we try to carry himaway by force there'll be a fight, of course, and--who knows what mighthappen? That we must leave for a last resort--a last desperate resort.First we must tell the boy."
Abruptly he gave a cry of dismay, and the girl looked up to him,staring.
"But--but _you_, Coira!" said he, stammering. "But _you_! I hadn'trealised--I hadn't thought--it never occurred to me what this means toyou." The full enormity of the thing came upon him slowly. He wasasking this girl to help him in robbing her of her lover.
She shook her head with a little wry smile.
"Do you think," said she, "that knowing what I know now I would go onwith that until after he has made his peace with his family? Before, itwas different. I thought him alone and ill-treated and hunted down. Icould help him then, comfort him. Now I should be--all you ever thoughtme, if I did not send him to his grandfather." She smiled again, alittle mirthlessly.
"If his love for me is worth anything," she said, "he will comeback--but openly, this time, not in hiding. Then I shall know that heis--what I would have him be. Otherwise----"
Ste. Marie looked away.
"But you must remember, Coira," said he, "that the lad is very young,and that his family--They may try--It may be hard for him. They may saythat he is too young to know--Ah, child, I should have thought of this!"
"Ste. Marie!" said the girl, and after a moment he turned to face her.
"What will you say to Arthur's family, Ste. Marie," she demanded verysoberly, "when they ask you if I--if Arthur should be allowed to--comeback to me?"
A wave of colour flooded the man's face and his eyes shone. He cried--
"I shall tell them, Coira, that if that wretched half-baked lad shouldsearch this wide world round, from Paris on to Paris again, and if heshould spend a lifetime searching, he would never find the beauty andthe sweetness and the tenderness and the true faith that he left behindat La Lierre--nor the hundredth part of them. I should say that you areso much above him that he ought to creep to you on his knees from theRue de l'Universite to this garden, thanking God that you were here atthe journey's end, and kissing the ground that he dragged himself overfor sheer joy and gratitude. I should tell them--Oh, I have no words! Icould tell them so pitifully little of you! I think I should only say:'Go to her and see!' I think I should just say that."
The girl turned her head away with a little sob, but afterwards shefaced him once more, and she looked up to him with sweet, half-shut eyesfor a long time. At last she said--
"For love of whom, Ste. Marie, did you undertake this quest--this searchfor Arthur Benham? It was not in idleness or by way of a whim. It wasfor love. For love of whom?"
For some strange and inexplicable reason the words struck him like ablow, and he stared whitely.
"I came," he said at last, and his voice was oddly flat, "for hissister's sake. For love of her." Coira O'Hara dropped her eyes. Butpresently she looked up again with a smile. She said--
"God make you happy, my friend!" And she turned and moved away from himup among the trees. At a little distance she turned, saying--
"Wait where you are! I will fetch Arthur or send him to you. He mustbe told at once." Then she went on and was lost to sight.
Ste. Marie followed a few steps after her and halted. His face wasturned, by chance, towards the east wall, and suddenly he gave a greatcry and smothered it with his hands over his mouth. His knees bent underhim and he was weak and trembling. Then he began to run. He ran withawkward steps for his leg was not yet entirely recovered, but he ranfast, and his heart beat within him until he thought it must burst.
He was making for that spot which was overhung by the half dead cedartree.
The Quest: A Romance Page 25