The Quest: A Romance

by Justus Miles Forman

  *CHAPTER XXIX*

  *THE SCALES OF INJUSTICE*

  Ste. Marie slept soundly until mid-morning--that is to say, about teno'clock--and then awoke with a dull pain in his head and a sensation ofextreme giddiness, which became something like vertigo when he attemptedto rise. However, with the aid of the old Michel he got somehowupstairs to his room, and made a rather sketchy toilet.

  Coira came to him there and, while he lay still across the bed, told himabout the happenings of the night after he had received his injury. Shetold him also that the motor was waiting for him, outside the wall, andthat Richard Hartley had sent a message by the chauffeur, to say that hewas very busy in Paris making arrangements about Stewart, who had comeout of his strange state of half insensibility only to rave in adelirium.

  "So," she said, "you can go now whenever you are ready. Arthur is withhis family, Captain Stewart is under guard, and your work is done. Youought to be glad--even though you are suffering pain."

  Ste. Marie looked up at her.

  "Do I seem glad, Coira?" said he. And she said--

  "You will be glad to-morrow--and always, I hope and pray. Always,always!"

  The man held one hand over his aching eyes.

  "I have," he said, "queer half-memories. I wish I could rememberdistinctly."

  He looked up at her again.

  "I dropped down by the gate in the wall. When I awoke I was in a roomin the house. How did that happen?"

  "Oh," she said, turning her face away, "we got you up to the housealmost at once." But Ste. Marie frowned thoughtfully.

  "'We'? Who do you mean by 'we'?"

  "Well then, I," the girl said. "It was not difficult."

  "Coira!" cried the man, "do you mean that you carried me bodily all thatlong distance? You?"

  "Carried or dragged," she said. "As much one as the other. It was notvery difficult. I'm strong, for a woman."

  "Oh, child, child!" he cried. And he said--

  "I remember more. It was you who held Stewart, and kept him fromshooting me. I heard the shot and I heard you scream. The last thoughtI had was that you had been killed in saving me. That's what I went outinto the blank, thinking."

  He covered his eyes again as if the memory were intolerable. But aftera while he said--

  "You saved my life, you know." And the girl answered him--

  "I had nearly taken it once before. It was I who called Michel that dayyou came over the wall, the day you were shot. I nearly murdered youonce. I owed you something. Perhaps we're even now." She saw that hedid not at all remember that hour in the little room--her hour ofbitterness, and she was glad. She had felt sure that it would be so.For the present she did not greatly suffer; she had come to a statebeyond active suffering--a chill state of dulled sensibilities.

  The old Justine knocked at the door to ask if monsieur was going intothe city soon, or if she should give the chauffeur his _dejeuner_ andtell him to wait.

  "Are you fit to go?" Coira asked. And he said--

  "I suppose as fit as I shall be." He got to his feet, and the thingsabout him swam dangerously, but he could walk by using great care. Thegirl stood white and still, and she avoided his eyes.

  "It is not good-bye," said he. "I shall see you soon again--and I hope,often--often, Coira." The words had a flat and foolish sound, but hecould find no others. It was not easy to speak.

  "I suppose I must not ask to see your father?" said he, and she told himthat her father had locked himself in his own room and would see no one,would not even open his door to take in food.

  Ste. Marie went to the stairs, leaning upon the shoulder of the stoutold Justine, but, before he had gone, Coira checked him for an instant.She said--

  "Tell Arthur, if he speaks to you about me, that what I said in the noteI gave him last night, I meant quite seriously. I gave him a note toread after he reached home. Tell him for me that it was final. Willyou do that?"

  "Yes, of course," said Ste. Marie. He looked at her with some wonderbecause her words had been very emphatic.

  "Yes," he said, "I will tell him. Is that all?"

  "All but good-bye," said she. "Good-bye, Bayard!"

  She stood at the head of the stairs while he went down them. And shecame after him to the landing halfway where the stairs turned in theopposite direction for their lower flight. When he went out of thefront door he looked back, and she was standing there above him--astraight, still figure, dark against the light of the windows behindher.

  He went straight to the Rue d'Assas. He found that while he sat stillin the comfortable tonneau of the motor his head was fairly normal, andthe world did not swing and whirl about in that sickening fashion. Butwhen the car lurched or bumped over an obstruction it made him giddy,and he would have fallen had he been standing.

  The familiar streets of the Montparnasse and Luxembourg quarters had forhis eyes all the charm and delight of home things to the returnedtraveller. He felt as if he had been away for months, and he caughthimself looking for changes, and it made him laugh. He was muchrelieved when he found that his concierge was not on watch, and that hecould slip unobserved up the stairs and into his rooms. The rooms werefresh and clean, for they had been aired and tended daily.

  Arrived there he wrote a little note to a friend of his who was a doctorand lived in the Rue Notre Dame des Champs, asking this man to call assoon as it might be convenient. He sent the note by the chauffeur, andthen lay down, dressed as he was, to wait, for he could not stand ormove about without a painful dizziness. The doctor came within ahalf-hour, examined Ste. Marie's bruised head and bound it up. He gavehim a dose of something with a vile taste, which he said would take awaythe worst of the pain in a few hours, and he also gave him a sleepingpotion, and made him go to bed.

  "You'll be fairly fit by evening," he said. "But don't stir until then.I'll leave word below that you're not to be disturbed."

  So it happened that when Richard Hartley came dashing up an hour or twolater he was not allowed to see his friend, and Ste. Marie slept adreamless sleep until dark.

  He awoke then, refreshed but ravenous with hunger, and found that therewas only a dull ache in his battered head. The dizziness and thevertigo were almost completely gone. He made lights and dressed withcare. He felt like a little girl making ready for a party; it was solong--or seemed so long--since he had put on evening clothes. Then hewent out, leaving at the loge of the concierge a note for Hartley to saywhere he might be found. He went to Lavenue's and dined in solitarypomp, for it was after nine o'clock. Again it seemed to him that it wasmonths since he had done the like--sat down to a real table for a realdinner. At ten he got into a fiacre and drove to the Rue del'Universite.

  The man who admitted him said that mademoiselle was alone in thedrawing-room, and he went there at once. He was dully conscious thatsomething was very wrong, but he had suffered too much within the pastfew hours to be analytical, and he did not know what it was that waswrong. He should have entered that room with a swift and eager step,with shining eyes, with a high-beating heart. He went into it slowly,wrapped in a mantle of strange apathy.

  Helen Benham came forward to meet him and took both his hands in hers.Ste. Marie was amazed to see that she seemed not to have altered atall--in spite of this enormous lapse of time, in spite of all that hadhappened in it. And yet, unaltered, she seemed to him a stranger, acharming and gracious stranger with an icily beautiful face, He wonderedat her and at himself, and he was a little alarmed, because he thoughtthat he must be ill. That blow upon the head must, after all, have donesomething terrible to him.

  "Ah, Ste. Marie!" she said in her well-remembered voice--and again hewondered that the voice should be so high-pitched, and so without colouror feeling. "How glad I am," she said, "that you are safely out of itall! How you have suffered for us, Ste. Marie! You look white and ill.Sit down, please! Don't stand!" She drew him to a comfortable chair,and he sa
t down in it obediently. He could not think of anything tosay, though he was not, as a rule, tongue-tied, but the girl did notseem to expect any answer, for she went on at once with a rather odd airof haste--

  "Arthur is here with us, safe and sound. Richard Hartley brought himback from that dreadful place, and he has talked everything over with mygrandfather, and it's all right. They both understand now, and there'llbe no more trouble. We have had to be careful, very careful, and we havehad to--well, to rearrange the facts a little so as to leave--myuncle--to leave Captain Stewart's name out of it. It would not do toshock my grandfather by telling him the truth. Perhaps, later; I don'tknow. That will have to be thought of. For the present we have left myuncle out of it--and put the blame entirely upon this other man. Iforget his name."

  "The blame cannot rest there," said Ste. Marie sharply. "It is notdeserved, and I shall not allow it to be left so. Captain Stewart liedto O'Hara throughout. You cannot leave the blame with an innocent man."

  "Still--" she said, "such a man!"

  Ste. Marie looked at her, frowning, and the girl turned her eyes away.She may have had the grace to be a little ashamed.

  "Think of the difficulty we were in!" she urged. "Captain Stewart is mygrandfather's own son. We cannot tell him now, in his weak state, thathis own son is--what he is."

  There was reason if not justice in that, and Ste. Marie was forced toadmit it. He said--

  "Ah well! for the present, then. That can be arranged later. The mainpoint is that I've found your brother for you. I've brought him back."

  Miss Benham looked up at him and away again, and she drew a quickbreath. He saw her hands move restlessly in her lap, and he was awarethat for some odd reason she was very ill at ease. At last she said--

  "Ah, but--but have you, dear Ste. Marie? Have you?"

  After a brief silence she stole another swift glance at the man, and hewas staring in open and frank bewilderment. She rushed into rapidspeech.

  "Ah," she cried, "don't misunderstand me! Don't think that I'm brutal orungrateful for all you've--you've suffered in trying to help us. Don'tthink that! I can--we can never be grateful enough, never! But stopand think! Yes, I know this all sounds hideous, but it's so terriblyimportant. I shouldn't dream of saying a word of it if it weren't soimportant, if so much didn't depend upon it. But stop and think! Wasit, dear Ste. Marie, was it, after all, you? Was it you who broughtArthur to us?"

  The man fairly blinked at her, owl-like. He was beyond speech.

  "Wasn't it Richard?" she hurried on. "Wasn't it Richard Hartley? Ah,if I could only say it without seeming so contemptibly heartless! Ifonly I needn't say it at all! But it must be said because of whatdepends upon it.

  "Think! Go back to the beginning! Wasn't it Richard who first began tosuspect my uncle? Didn't he tell you or write to you what he haddiscovered, and so set you upon the right track? And after youhad--well, just fallen into their hands, with no hope of ever escaping,yourself--to say nothing of bringing Arthur back--wasn't it Richard whocame to your rescue and brought it all to victory? Oh, Ste. Marie, Imust be just to him as well as to you! Don't you see that? Howevergrateful I may be to you for what you have done--suffered--I cannot, injustice, give you what I was to have given you, since it is, after all,Richard who has saved my brother. I cannot, can I? Surely you must seeit. And you must see how it hurts me to have to say it. I had hopedthat--you would understand--without my speaking."

  Still the man sat in his trance of astonishment, speechless. For thefirst time in his life he was brought face to face with the amazing, theappalling injustice of which a woman is capable when her heart isconcerned. This girl wished to believe that to Richard Hartley belongedthe credit for rescuing her brother, and, lo! she believed it. A scoreof juries might have decided against her, a hundred proofs controvertedher decision, but she would have been deaf and blind. It is only womenwho accomplish miracles of reasoning like that.

  Ste. Marie took a long breath and he started to speak, but in the endshook his head and remained silent. Through the whirl and din offalling skies he was yet able to see the utter futility of words. Hecould have adduced a hundred arguments to prove her absurdity. He couldhave shown her that before he ever read Hartley's note he had decidedupon Stewart's guilt--and for much better reasons than Hartley had. Hecould have pointed out to her that it was he, not Hartley, whodiscovered young Benham's whereabouts; that it was he who summonedHartley there; and that, as a matter of fact, Hartley need not have comeat all, since the boy had been persuaded to go home in any case.

  He thought of all these things and more, and, in a moment of sheer angerat her injustice, he was on the point of stating them, but he shook hishead and remained silent. After all, of what use was speech? He knewthat it could make no impression upon her, and he knew why. For somereason, in some way, she had turned, during his absence, to RichardHartley, and there was nothing more to be said. There was no treacheryon Hartley's part. He knew that, and it never even occurred to him toblame his friend. Hartley was as faithful as any one who ever lived.It seemed to be nobody's fault. It had just happened.

  He looked at the girl before him with a new expression, an expression ofsheer curiosity. It seemed to him wellnigh incredible that any humanbeing could be so unjust and so blind. Yet he knew her to be, in othermatters, one of the fairest of all women, just and tender and thoughtfuland true. He knew that she prided herself upon her cool impartiality ofjudgment. He shook his head with a little sigh, and ceased to wonderany more. It was beyond him.

  He became aware that he ought to say something, and he said--

  "Yes. Yes, I--see. I see what you mean. Yes, Hartley did all you say.I hadn't meant to rob Hartley of the credit he deserves. I supposeyou're right." He was possessed of a sudden longing to get away out ofthat room, and he rose to his feet.

  "If you don't mind," he said, "I think I'd better go. This is--well,it's a bit of a facer, you see. I want to think it over. Perhapsto-morrow--you don't mind?" He saw a swift relief flash into MissBenham's eyes, but she murmured a few words of protest that had a ratherperfunctory sound. Ste. Marie shook his head.

  "Thanks! I won't stay," said he. "Not just now. I--think I'd bettergo." He had a confused realisation of platitudinous adieux, of a sillyformality of speech, and he found himself in the hall. Once he glancedback, and Miss Benham was standing where he had left her, looking afterhim with a calm and unimpassioned face. He thought that she lookedrather like a very beautiful statue.

  The butler came to him to say that Mr. Stewart would be glad if he wouldlook in before leaving the house, and so he went upstairs and knocked atold David's door. He moved like a man in a dream, and the things abouthim seemed to be curiously unreal and rather far away, as they seemsometimes in a fever.

  He was admitted at once, and he found the old man sitting up in bed,clad in one of his incredibly gorgeous mandarin's jackets--plum-colouredsatin, this time, with peonies--overflowing with spirits andgood-humour. His grandson sat in a chair near at hand. The old mangave a shout of welcome--

  "Ah, here's Jason, at last, back from Colchis. Welcome home to--whateverthe name of the place was. Welcome home!" He shook Ste. Marie's handwith hospitable violence, and Ste. Marie was astonished to see upon whata new lease of life and strength the old man seemed to have entered.There was no ingratitude or misconception here, certainly. Old Davidquite overwhelmed his visitor with thanks and with expressions ofaffection.

  "You've saved my life among other things!" he said in his gruff roar."I was ready to go, but, by the Lord, I'm going to stay a while longernow! This world's a better place than I thought--a much better place."He shook a heavily-waggish head.

  "If I didn't know," said he, "what your reward is to be for what you'vedone, I should be in despair over it all, because there is nothing elsein the world that would be anything like adequate. You've been makingsure of the reward downstairs, I dare say? Eh, what? Yes?"

  "You
mean----?" asked the younger man.

  And old David said--

  "I mean Helen, of course. What else?"

  Ste. Marie was not quite himself. At another time he might have got outof the room with an evasive answer, but he spoke without thinking. Hesaid--

  "Oh--yes! I suppose--I suppose I ought to tell you that MissBenham--well, she has changed her mind. That is to say----"

  "What!" shouted old David Stewart, in his great voice. "What is that?"

  "Why, it seems," said Ste. Marie, "it seems that I only blundered. Itseems that Hartley rescued your grandson, not I. And I suppose he did,you know. When you come to think of it, I suppose he did."

  David Stewart's great white beard seemed to bristle like the ruff of anangry dog, and his eyes flashed fiercely under their shaggy brows.

  "Do you mean to tell me that after all you've done and--and gonethrough, Helen has thrown you over? Do you mean to tell me that?"

  "Well," argued Ste. Marie uncomfortably, "well, you see, she seems to beright. I did bungle it, didn't I? It was Hartley who came and pulledus out of the hole."

  "Hartley be damned!" cried the old man in a towering rage. And he beganto pour out the most extraordinary flood of furious invective upon hisgranddaughter and upon Richard Hartley, whom he quite unjustly termed asnake-in-the-grass, and finally upon all women, past, contemporary orstill to be born.

  Ste. Marie, in fear of old David's health, tried to calm him, and thefaithful valet came running from the room beyond with prayers andprotestations, but nothing would check that astonishing flow of furyuntil it had run its full course. Then the man fell back upon hispillows, crimson, panting and exhausted; but the fierce eyes glitteredstill, and they boded no good for Miss Helen Benham.

  "You're well rid of her!" said the old gentleman, when at last he wasonce more able to speak. "You're well rid of her. I congratulate you!I am ashamed and humiliated, and a great burden of obligation is shiftedto me--though I assume it with pleasure--but I congratulate you. Youmight have found out too late what sort of a woman she is."

  Ste. Marie began to protest and to explain, and say that Miss Benham hadbeen quite right in what she said, but the old gentleman only waved animpatient arm to him; and presently, when he saw the valet making signsacross the bed, and saw that his host was really in a state of completeexhaustion after the outburst, he made his adieux and got away.

  Young Arthur Benham, who had been sitting almost silent during theinterview, followed him out of the room, and closed the door behindthem. For the first time Ste. Marie noted that the boy's face was whiteand strained. Young Arthur pulled a crumpled square of folded paperfrom his pocket and shook it at the other man.

  "Do you know what this is?" he cried. "Do you know what's in this?"Ste. Marie shook his head, but a sudden recollection came to him.

  "Ah!" said he, "that must be the note Mlle. O'Hara spoke of. She askedme to tell you that she meant it--whatever it may be--quite seriously;that it was final. She didn't explain. She just said that; that youwere to take it as final."

  The lad gave a sudden, very bitter sob.

  "She has thrown me over!" he said. "She says I'm not to come back toher."

  Ste. Marie gave a wordless cry, and he began to tremble.

  "You can read it if you want to," the boy said. "Perhaps you can explainit. I can't. Do you want to read it?" The elder man stood staring athim whitely, and the boy repeated his words. He said--

  "You can read it if you want to," and at last Ste. Marie took the paperbetween stiff hands and held it to the light. Coira O'Hara said brieflythat too much was against their marriage. She mentioned his age, thecertain hostility of his family, their different tastes, a number ofother things. But in the end she said she had begun to realise that shedid not love him as she ought to do if they were to marry. And so, thenote said finally, she gave him up to his family, she released himaltogether, and she begged him not to come back to her or to urge her tochange her mind. Also she made the trite but very sensible observationthat he would be glad of his freedom before the year was out.

  Ste. Marie's unsteady fingers opened, and the crumpled paper slippedthrough them to the floor. Over it the man and the boy looked at eachother in silence. Young Arthur Benham's face was white, and it wasstrained and contorted with its first grief. But first griefs do notlast very long. Coira O'Hara had told the truth; before the year was outthe lad would be glad of his freedom. But the man's face was white also,white and still, and his eyes held a strange expression which the boycould not understand, and at which he wondered. The man was trembling alittle from head to foot. The boy wondered about that too, but abruptlyhe cried out--

  "What's up? Where are you going?" for Ste. Marie had turned all at onceand was running down the stairs as fast as he could run.