More cavalry emerged from the woods, coming out in increasing numbers, and all taking the direction of Ausone.
An officer halted and called out to Sister Eila.
"It goes very well for us. The Bat. d'Af. got into them across the river! The Uhlans are running their horses!--Everywhere they're swarming out of the woods like driven hares! We turn them by Ausone! A bientot! God bless the Grey Sisters!"
Everywhere cavalry came trampling and crowding out of the woods and cantering away toward the north, hussars mostly, at first, then chasseurs-a-cheval, an entire brigade of these splendid lancers, pouring out into the road and taking the Ausone route at a gallop.
More motor cycles flashed past; then half a dozen automobiles, in which officers were seated examining maps; then up the road galloped dragoon lancers, wearing grey helmet slips and escorting three light field guns, the drivers of which were also dragoons--a sight Warner had never before seen.
An officer, wearing a plum-colored band of velvet around his red cap, and escorted by a lancer, came from the direction of Ausone, leaned from his saddle, and shook the ambulance chauffeur awake.
"Drive back toward Sais," he said. "They are taking care of our people across the river, and you may be needed below!" He saluted the Sisters of Charity: "A biplane has fallen by the third pontoon. You may be needed there," he explained.
Sister Eila rose; her face was ashen.
"What biplane, Major?" she asked unsteadily.
"I don't know. British, I think. It came down under their shrapnel like a bird with a broken wing."
He rode on. Warner aided the Sisters of Charity to their seats. Then he and Asticot jumped aboard.
As they turned slowly, two wheels describing a circle through the dusty grass of the ditch, half a dozen mounted gendarmes trotted out of the woods with sabers drawn.
Behind them came four mounted hussars. A man walked in the midst of them. There was a rope around his neck, the end of which was attached to the saddle of one of the troopers.
At the same moment a sort of howl came from Asticot; he half rose, his fingers curling up like claws; his expression had become diabolical. Then he sank back on his seat.
The ambulance rolled forward faster, faster toward Sais, where a biplane had come down into the river.
But Asticot had forgotten; and ever his blazing eyes were turned backward where, among four troopers, Wildresse walked with a rope around his neck and his clenched fists tied behind him.
*CHAPTER XXXVII*
The hussars conducted him toward headquarters. His huge hands were tied behind him; there was a rope around his neck, the other end of which was fastened to a hussar's saddlebow.
The troopers rode slowly, carbines poised forward with butt on thigh.
Fantassins along the road looked on, somber-eyed; the murmured word "spy" passed from lip to lip; the wounded turned their big, hollow eyes on him; drivers, cyclists, cannoniers, looked upon him; but nobody reviled him. Their silence was more terrible.
He spoke only once, looking up at the horseman beside him, his deep, harsh voice breaking the rigid silence:
"He! Vous la-haut! Supposition that I confess? ... That I make a statement involving others.... That Cossack there at headquarters! Do I benefit?"
The cavalryman did not even glance at him.
"Tas de casse-geules!" rumbled Wildresse, and spat into the dust.
They crossed the pontoon, the troopers dismounting and leading their horses, then into the saddle again, across the river meadows, and so around to the lodge gates.
Across the road they were opening trenches for dead horses, and on the plateau hundreds of soldiers' graves were being dug.
Wildresse glanced at them askance, and his bull neck roughened with shivers as he thought of the quick-lime.
It was then that the first convulsive twitch jerked his face and left the right eye turned slightly outward in a sort of cast. After that something seemed to loosen in his cheek, and his jaw was inclined to sag unless controlled with conscious effort.
Fantassins on guard passed forward prisoner and escort with monotonous formulae; the sentry on the terrace summoned assistance; a staff officer came; two line soldiers arrived later, halted, fixed bayonets, and loaded their pieces.
Half a dozen staff officers in the music room rose and stepped aside, opening a lane to the table where General of Division Raoul Delisle sat at the telephone. A cool-eyed major of dragoons relieved him of the apparatus; the General turned and looked up at Wildresse.
"You are Constantine Wildresse?"
"Yes, General."
"Otherwise Constantine Volmark?"
"Well--yes! My name is Volmark."
"Which name do you claim?" asked Delisle dryly.
"Volmark. It is useless to deny it--no good to deceive anybody."
"You are Austrian?"
"And Greek, on my mother's side."
"Greek?"
"That is--she was Eurasian."
"From--Tenedos?"
But Wildresse had suddenly caught sight of Count Cassilis.
"You!" he cried. "Now, then, will you do anything for me?"
Cassilis stared.
"Will you?" demanded Wildresse loudly.
Cassilis glanced at Delisle and tapped his forehead with a bored air.
"Oh!" shouted Wildresse. "So that's it, eh? I am crazy, am I?"
He passed a thick, dry tongue over his lips, made an effort; looked hard at Delisle:
"Yes, mon General; I am Constantine Volmark, born in Tenedos. What then, if you please?"
"You are known. No court is necessary. You will be shot immediately."
"Circumstances--in extenuation----"
"None!"
"And if I confess----"
"It is useless."
"A statement involving others, unsuspected----"
"What?"
"It is important. Nations are involved," muttered Wildresse. "An officer in your entourage--eh? Is there any immunity in such things, General?"
"No."
"No--immunity?"
"No."
"I am not permitted to make a statement?"
"I am here to listen. I always have time to listen."
"Then I may speak freely?"
"Yes, you may make a statement if you choose."
"Accusations?"
"If you choose."
"It will not help my case if I prove to you of what filth chancelleries are made? If I expose to you what the faith of governments amounts to?--If I show you a man who has betrayed everybody since his boyhood--an officer here--your comrade and friend? All this will not help my case?"
"No."
"And yet I may make my statement if I choose? Is that the situation, General?"
"Yes."
"And I may denounce whom I please? I am free to accuse, am I? Free to confess and involve others?"
"Yes."
"He! Nom d'un nom! Comme vous est un bon bougre!!" broke out Wildresse in his harsh and dreadful voice. "I am to die, am I? So that's it, is it? Then I'll pull down everybody and everything I can while I have the chance. Men? Does it matter so much about a man or two if one can set the treacherous nations flying at one another's throats? There's a real revenge! I'll poison the belief in nations in you all!--You with your alliances and leagues and ententes!--That's where you'll not forget me! That's where your half crazy Kings and diseased Emperors will turn cross-eyed with suspicion! That's where there'll be a ratty scuttling to cover in your dirty chancelleries! I'll strip the orders and epaulettes off one or two idols before I finish. And I want witnesses! I demand witnesses to confront me----"
"Be quiet, Wildresse. Whom do you desire to confront?"
"You--for one! Then, the educated Kurd, yonder! That Cossack there--that man over there in a green uniform, who pretends to be a Christian!--That bashi-bazouk of Abdul--Major-General Count Cassilis, Russian Military Observer at division headquarters!"
"Very well."
"And I demand to be confronted with others, too. That Yankee painter, Warner. Let him carry the poison I spill back among his own people. They won't forget. And I want the British officer here, Captain Gray! Let him report to his Government what I say, and see if it can swallow it! ... That's a sufficiency of men.... And for my supplement I want the Countess de Moidrey--so that the noble faubourg shall feel the poison in its veins.... And, as proof documentary of the statement I shall make, I demand to be confronted with the girl Philippa!"
"Is that all?"
"No.... The mercy, the extenuation denied me by the military autocracy of France, I shall seek from another. I require two things only before I die: understanding and absolution from--my son."
"Who?"
"My only son, Jacques Wildresse, 6th Company, Battalion of Africa!--Jacques--of Biribi! That's all I want--so that he understands and pardons. As for you others--je m'en----"
The staff officer at the telephone suddenly bent over and whispered to the General. He listened, nodded, looked calmly at Wildresse.
"The soldier Wildresse, 6th Company, Battalion d'Afrique, was unable to bear your disgrace. He is this moment reported dead by his own hand."
A terrible spasm shot like lightning across the prisoner's visage, drawing his whole face to one side. Slowly the flaccid muscles resumed their natural places; the screwed up features loosened.
"That's a lie," mumbled Wildresse; and his big, hairless head doddered for a moment.
At a nod from Delisle a soldier picked up the wrist rope, coiled it, and gave it a slight pull.
"March!" he said briefly to his prisoner.
Count Cassilis came over, faintly amused at the scene, to judge by his expression.
"There's a good place under the north terrace," he said languidly. "You don't intend to listen, I fancy, to this statement he wants to make.... Do you?"
"Oh, yes," said the General. "It's my business to listen always."
He sent an aid to find Warner and Gray, and to beg the honor of Madame de Moidrey's presence and of Philippa's. Then he smiled pleasantly at Count Cassilis.
"Yes," he said, "statements always should be listened to. It's the man who doesn't care to hear who makes the most terrible mistakes in life. I can't afford to make mistakes. I'd rather risk being bored. So, if you don't mind, my dear General----"
"Not in the least," said General Count Cassilis languidly.
They had conducted Wildresse into the small, semi-circular library in the northeast tower, the entrance to which gave on the terrace and billiard room.
Gray and Warner appeared presently with the Countess and Philippa; General Delisle went to them immediately, and remained in close consultation with them.
"It may prove of some military importance to us; it may prove of no value whatever--this statement he desires to make," concluded the General. "Of course it is not possible for me to guess.... And yet, Madame, if there is a chance that the statement might be of value, may I not venture to hope that you and Mademoiselle are willing to submit to this disagreeable proceeding in the interests of France?"
"Certainly," said the Countess, and linked her arm in Philippa's.
The girl was a little pale, a trifle nervous, too. She glanced at Warner, tried to smile, then stood with lips slightly compressed and head high, looking steadily at the soldier who stood before the closed door of the little library.
"If you are ready," said the General quietly.
So they went in, one by one, very noiselessly, as though somebody had just died in there. But their entrance did not arouse Wildresse from his abstraction.
Two red-legged fantassins, with fixed bayonets and loaded rifles, stood behind him.
The man himself sat huddled on a chair in a corner, his great, blunt, murderous-looking hands hanging crossed between his knees, his big, hairless head of a butcher wagging slightly as though palsied.
There was not an atom of color left in his face, except for the pockmarks which were picked out in sickly greenish grey all over his flabby features.
He did not look up when they entered, his little, wicked black eyes, which had become dull and covered with a bluish glaze, remained fixed as though he were listening, and his heavy lower lip sagged.
"Wildresse," said General Delisle.
There was no response; a soldier stirred the prisoner to attention with the butt of his piece.
"Stand up," he said.
Wildresse, aroused, got to his great feet stupidly, looked around, caught sight of Philippa, and silently snarled--merely opened his mouth a little way till his upper lip curled back, emitting no sound whatever--then he caught sight of the green uniform of General Count Cassilis, and instantly the old glare blazed up in his eyes.
"By God, the Cossack!" he growled; and the heavy voice vibrated ominously through the room.
Warner led Philippa to a chair as General Delisle seated the Countess. Wildresse, his heavy arms hanging inert, stood looking from one man to another, as they found scats in turn, on sofas or on chairs--Delisle, Warner, Cassilis, Gray.
"Make your statement," said General Delisle dryly. And he added: "If it is a long one, you may seat yourself."
Wildresse shot a terrible look at the Russian Military Observer.
"For the last time," he said hoarsely, "will you do something for me? ... For the last time?"
Cassilis lifted his expressive eyebrows and glanced rather wearily at Delisle.
"You know!" bellowed Wildresse in a sudden fury. "You know what I can say! If I say it, Russia and her allies will have an enemy instead of another ally! If I speak, your country will earn the contempt of France and of England too; and their implacable enmity after this war is ended. If I speak! Will you do something for me?"
Cassilis, polishing his monocle with a heavily scented handkerchief, shrugged.
"Very well!" roared Wildresse. "It is death, then, is it? You filthy, treacherous Cossack, I'll do what I can to ruin you and your lying Government before I pass out!--You Moslem at heart--you bashi-bazouk----"
"Moderate your voice and your manner!" said General Delisle very quietly.
Wildresse turned his great, hairless head; his face had become suddenly chalky again; he seated himself heavily; his big hands, doubled into fists, fell on either knee.
For a moment the slight, palsy-like movement of the head began again, the black eyes lost their luster, the heavy lip became pendulous. But he made an effort, and a change came over him; the muscles tightened visibly; he lifted the bulk of his great shoulders and sat erect, looking questioningly from one to another.
Then he began to speak without preamble, reciting his statement in an accentless, pedantic way which seemed to lend to what he said a somber sort of truth--the corroborative accuracy of unimaginative stupidity, which carries with it conviction to the minds of listeners.
He said:
"Count Cassilis knows. Like every Cossack he is at heart a Mussulman and a bashi-bazouk. Ask Enver Bey. He knows more than any white man, this Cassilis. He knows who sent the bashi-bazouks into the province of Philippopolis in '76, where half a hundred villages were burnt and twelve thousand Bulgarian men, women, and children were murdered. It was this man's father who did that!"
"A lie," remarked Cassilis, politely concealing a yawn. "General, if this rambling statement interests you----"
"Pardon, Count----" interposed Delisle, with cool courtesy. And to Wildresse: "Go on!"
Without even lifting his eyes, and as though he had been unconscious of the interruption, Wildresse went on reciting:
"It was the Sultan's business--that affair in Bulgaria. Your father played double traitor; the Sultan never knew; the war provoked by Count Serge Cassilis followed; Russia beat Turkey into the mud and slush. Count Serge got double pay. Your Czar wanted Bulgaria to become a free state full of gratitude to Russia; and he tried to carry things with a high hand at San Stefano. You were not there! It was Count Serge. Where I first laid eyes on you, and you on me, was at Slivnitza. And after that I did your dirty jobs for you..... Very well; it warms up; Bulgaria becomes free--except she must tip her hat to the Sultan. Eh! You Russians didn't like that! All the same, Bulgaria becomes free to choose and elect her own Prince. Only--she doesn't want the Russian candidate--you!
"Alexander of Battenberg--Cousin of the Hesse Grand Duke--he was the first. Your Czar didn't like him, eh? They made a god of him, didn't they, in Sofia? And you Russians began to hate him. So did that rickety old gambler of Servia, King Milan. Who started that Servian fool after Alexander of Battenberg? And what did he get for his foolery? He got his empty head broken at Slivnitza--he and his swineherd army--kicked headlong through the Dragoman Pass! And that settled the Roumanian question. Eh? Swine and swineherd kicked into the lap of Holy Russia.... And yours was double pay!
"Then you came sneaking back into the scene, Count Cassilis. I did your filthy work for you. You taught me how double pay is earned!
"Prince Alexander of Battenberg was the idol of Bulgaria. I don't know who gave you your orders, but I got mine from you! Was it Abdul Hamid--Abdul the Damned--who gave you your orders?
"Russian roubles paid me and the men I used. Maybe the Bank of Constantinople paid you.... And so we broke into his palace--the young prince Alexander's--and carried him across the frontier. You sat on your big horse among your Cossacks and saw us bring the Prince of Bulgaria into Russia. And your pockets full of Turkish sweetmeats!--Like a prostitute!
"That time you meant murder; but others were afraid. Alexander of Battenberg was allowed to abdicate.
"Then, for the world, history went on to the summer of '87, when that Saxe-Coburg Prince was elected--Ferdinand, who now talks to himself for want of an audience, and who calls himself the Czar of all the Bulgars--he of the long nose and beard, and the eye of a wild pig.
"Russia pretended to hate him. Does she? You know!
"But history gives us only two Bulgarian princes from 1879 to 1915. How is that, Count Cassilis? Were there only two?--Alexander of Battenberg, whom you were afraid to murder, and this fat-jowled Ferdinand of today----"
"The man is crazy, I think," remarked Count Cassilis to the Countess.
Wildresse merely gazed at him out of lackluster eyes, and went on speaking with monotonous and terrible simplicity:
"History has lied to the world. There was another prince after Alexander. Every chancellery in Europe knows it, but never mentions it. A few others outside know it; you among others.... And I.
"England and France found him. The Templars of Tenedos were not all dead. The race of the hereditary Prince of Marmora was not extinct--the race of that man whose head Saladin cut off with his own hand--the race of Djani the Paladin, and of Raymond de Chatillon--the Princess of Marmora! England found him--Philip de Chatillon--and forced him on Russia and Germany and Austria in secret conference. The Porte promised assent; it had to. Before he was presented for election to the Bulgarian people--a matter of routine merely--he was crowned and consecrated, and you know it! He was already as truly the ruler of Bulgaria as your Czar is today of all the Russias. And you know that, too! And that time, whoever gave you your orders, and whatever they may have been, my orders from you spelled murder!"
There was a moment's silence; Cassilis had turned his sneering, pallid face on Wildresse as though held by some subtle and horrible fascination, and he sat so, screwing up his golden mustache, his fishy blue eyes fixed, his lips as red as blood, and his wide, thin ears standing out translucent against the lighted lamp behind him.
Delisle, Warner, Gray, watched Wildresse with breathless attention; the Countess de Moidrey sat with Philippa's hand in hers, staring at this man who was about to die, and who continued to talk.
Only Philippa's face remained outwardly tranquil, yet she also was terribly intent upon what this man was now saying.
But Wildresse's head began to wag again with the palsy-like movement; he muttered, half to himself:
"That's how Philip de Chatillon died--Prince Philip of Bulgaria--that's how he died--there in the palace with his young wife--the way they did for Draga, the Queen--and Milan's son--the Servian swine who reigned before this old fighter, Peter!--You know, Count Cassilis! So do I--and Vasilief knew. We both knew because we did it for you--tore the bedclothes off--God! How that young man fought! We stabbed his red-haired wife first--but when we stretched that powerful young neck of his, the blood spouted to the ceiling----"
The Countess made a gesture as though she were about to rise; Philippa's hand crushed hers, drew her back.
"That's how they died--those two young things in the bedroom of the Palace there.... I know what my orders were.... There was a child--a little girl six years old.... Vasilief went to the Ghetto and cut the throat of a six-year-old.... That's what we buried with Prince Philip of Bulgaria and his wife.... I took the little Princess out of her bed and kept her for myself.... In case of trouble. Also, I thought she might mean money some day. I waited too long; it seems she was not worth killing--no use for blackmail. And the French Government wouldn't listen, and the British were afraid to listen.... What's proclaimed dead remains dead to Governments, even if they have to kill it again.
"That is my statement. Vasilief and I killed Prince Philip of Bulgaria, and his red-haired Princess, too.... In their bedroom at the Palace it was done.... But I took their little girl with me.... I had to knife Vasilief to do it. He wanted too much. I strangled him and turned my knife inside him--several times. And took the little girl away with me--the little six-year-old Princess Philippa----" He lifted his heavy head and stared at Philippa: "There she sits!"
Philippa stood straight up, her grey eyes fixed on Wildresse in terrible concentration.
He wagged his head monotonously; a tic kept snatching at the upper lip, baring his yellow dog-teeth, so that he seemed to be laughing.
"There's a bag full of the child's clothing--your clothing--toys--photographs--God knows what. There's a safe in the cellar of the Cafe Biribi. The fire won't harm it. I kept the pieces of identification there--against a time of need. England wouldn't listen and wouldn't pay anything. France was afraid for her alliance. There was nothing in it for Germany. Russia shrugged and yawned--as you do, Count Cassilis--and then tried to kill me.
"As for the long-nosed wild pig of Bulgaria--do you think I had a chance with him? Not with Ferdy. Non pas! I couldn't reach the people. That was the trouble. That is where I failed. Who would believe me without my pieces of identification? And I was afraid to take them into Sofia--afraid to cross the frontier with them--dared not even let France know I had them--or any other Power. They'd have had my throat cut for me inside of forty-eight hours! Eh, Cassilis? You know how it is done.... And that's all.... They've burned the Cafe Biribi. But the safe is in the cellar.... I've done what I could to revenge myself on every side. I've sold France, sold Germany, sold Russia when I was able. Tell them that in Petrograd! I had no chance to sell England.... At first I never meant to harm the girl Philippa.... Philippa de Chatillon! Only when she turned on me, then I meant to twist her neck.... I waited too long, talked too much. That man--the Yankee, yonder--saved her neck for her----"
His head was wagging by jerks; the tic stretched his loosened mouth, twitching it into awful and silent laughter, and the rictus mortis distorted his sagging features as the soldiers took him by both arms, shaking him into comprehension.
He shambled to his feet, looking at everybody and seeing nothing.
"Philippa de Chatillon, Princess of the Bulgars!" he mumbled.... "The girl Philippa, gentlemen, caissiere de cabaret! ... Her father died by the Palace window, and her mother on the black marble floor!--Very young they were, gentlemen--very young.... And I think very much in love----"
They took him out, still mumbling, the spasm playing and jerking at his sagging jaw.
*CHAPTER XXXVIII*
The sun was a crimson disk through the dust; a haze possessed the world; forest and hill, meadow and river, faded to phantoms in the unreal light.
The Chateau des Oiseaux was very quiet. General and staff had departed; sentries, telegraphers, wires, switchboard--the sky-guns on the northern terrace, the great racing automobiles, cyclists, motor cyclists, fantassins, cavalry--all were gone into the magic glory of the east.
The park was empty and still; only traces remained where green leaves curled up and grew brittle, and drooping boughs withered on rustic scaffoldings; where lawn and drive showed the fresh scars of wheels and hoofs; and where trusses of hay and straw and glistening heaps of spilled oats marked the abandoned lines.
So far to the north and east had the sound of cannon receded that only at intervals, when the wind was right, was it distinguishable at all as a soft, almost inaudible thudding along the horizon.
No gun shots troubled the August quiet; the shrill chirring of insects from every stubble field accentuated it.
Very few soldiers were to be seen; fantassins mounted guard by the pontoons; vedettes were visible along the river meadows and on the low hills beyond the Recollette. Patrols rode slowly on the Sais highway; wagons still rolled eastward through the sunset light, or went into park in sheltered places; few cyclists went south, fewer still whizzed by into the north and east.
Just at sunset a squadron of hussars passed the lodge gate, walking their horses. An officer turned his mount, spurred through the open gate, and galloped up the drive to the Chateau.
He dismounted at the foot of the terrace; his horse stood, turning a beautiful, gentle head around toward the distant gate where his comrades were slowly passing.
His rider, mounting the terrace steps two at a time, encountered Madame de Moidrey and Warner, paid his respects almost breathlessly, but with perfect restraint of an impatience impossible to conceal.
"And Captain Halkett?" he inquired. "I hear that he was not injured when his biplane came down into the river?"
"He was stunned, that's all," said Warner quietly. "His mechanic was badly bruised, but not seriously. The plane is a wreck."
The Vicomte d'Aures stood a moment, twisting one glove between his fingers, then, with winning dignity, but turning very red, he said to the Countess:
"I have come also to make my adieux to--Peggy--if I have your permission----"
The Countess nodded:
"She is in there.... You have my permission ... and approval."
He saluted her hand very simply, straightened up, took faultless leave of Warner, turned, and entered the house. Peggy rose from the music stool and came toward him in the dim rose light. They met as naturally and unconsciously as two children; he took both her hands; she released them and drew them around his neck and laid her face against his breast.
They had only a few moments.
Ethra de Moidrey and Warner saw his departure from where they were strolling along the parapet of the lily garden. He left the park at a fast gallop, never turning to look back. Twilight swallowed the gallant, gay young figure. For a few moments the double gallop of hoofs sounded through the evening air, then died away.
The Countess, seated on the parapet, laid her hand appealingly on Warner's sleeve:
"Jim, do you like him?"
"He's all right, Ethra. If I had a younger brother I should wish him to be like that boy."
"Yes.... He is nice.... He is going into battle.... That is hard.... Poor little Peggy. Womanhood comes swiftly when it comes, Jim. The reagent is sorrow. We all pass that way, we women. Sorrow is the philosopher's stone.... Else we remain only children until we die."
Warner gazed at the dusty glory still glowing above the western hills:
"What a day it has been!" he murmured.
"God guide those men who are riding into the east," said she. "What a strange day it has been, Jim! Did you understand that painful incident between General Delisle and General Count Cassilis?"
"Perfectly. The Russian Military Observer was given his conge. Did you not see what happened? The rattle of the volley that ended Wildresse meant also the end of the world for Count Cassilis.
"I saw General Delisle walk across the terrace and say something to Cassilis in a low voice. I saw the Russian's face. It was like death. The end was also in sight for him. He knew it. He knew what his dismissal from French division headquarters meant. He knew he must go home. He knew that his arrest would follow the instant he set foot across the frontier of his own Empire.
"But his good manners did not desert him. You saw him take his leave, stiff, correct, calm as though the ceremony meant nothing to him except familiar routine.
"There was no exchange of handclasps, nothing of cordiality, merely the faultless observance of convention. Then he went away."
"He is a traitor?" she asked, in an awed voice.
"Undoubtedly. Think what it has meant--think what it would have meant to this army if his treachery had not been discovered!--A spy at headquarters! But his own Emperor will punish him. As surely as I stand here, Ethra, that man is doomed to die on the scaffold. He knows it.... Did you notice him light a cigarette when he got into his limousine? I could not keep my eyes off him--that man already practically dead--that traitor impassively saluting the hussars' fanion as his automobile rolled by! And even while I looked at him I seemed to see him suspended there in his shroud, a dead weight on the gibbet, turning gently in the morning breeze--God! The fellow got on my nerves!--Knowing the guilt that lay black within him--the murders in Sofia----"
"Horrible," said the Countess with a slight shiver. "And the man, Wildresse--did it--with those dreadful hands of his. I thought I should faint when he was telling of it--what he did in the bedroom--"
She shuddered, rose abruptly:
"Philippa is in her room, still poring over those papers. I can't bear to leave the child all alone, and yet it seems like intrusion to disturb her. Could you take her for a little walk, Jim, before dinner?--Take her out of her room--out of the house for a while? I'm afraid she's remembering that murderer's confession. She ought not to brood over such things."
"Yes, I'll try to take her mind off it. Suppose I walk down to the inn with her! Halkett's there. It might divert her; she's fond of him." He smiled slightly. "There's a cat there, too. It will seem like old times--she and Halkett and Ariadne and I together at the Golden Peach. I believe it will divert her."
"Why not remain and dine there with Mr. Halkett, as you used to, in your somewhat unconventional way?" suggested the Countess, smiling. "I am very sure that would appeal to Philippa."
"I'll ask her," nodded Warner.
They walked slowly into the house together. Gray lay in the corner of an upholstered lounge beside a lighted lamp, a book open on his knees, his cheek resting on his hand.
At the sound of their approach he looked up quickly, and his face brightened.
"I thought I wouldn't read any further," he said frankly. "We have enjoyed so much reading it together. Do you mind going on with it to the end?"
The Countess laughed and a pretty color rose in her cheeks.
"Do you think," she said, "that I expect to spend the remainder of my days reading romances with you?"
And, as Warner turned and mounted the stairs:
"Besides," she added, "there is really nothing more to read in that silly novel."
"Why not?" he inquired, his face expressing candid disappointment.
"Because they have already fallen in love," she explained carelessly. "And the end of such a proceeding is always obvious, Mr. Gray."
She glanced up at the stairs. Warner had disappeared.
After a moment, casually unconscious, she seated herself on the broad, upholstered end of the lounge, looking down over his shoulder at the open book on his knees.
"In fiction," she remarked, "there is only one end to such situations.... But, if you like, I don't mind beginning another book with you, Mr. Gray."
Her hand, which rested among the cushions, supporting her, happened to come within the range of his wandering vision. He looked at it for a little while. Presently he placed his own over it, very lightly.
Neither moved. But it was a long time before he ventured to turn his head and look up at the woman with whom he had read through his first long love story. She had read such stories before, understood something of their tricks, their technique, their reality, and their romance. And had supposed there was nothing further for her to learn about them and that her interest in them was dead.
"If you don't mind," he said, "reading on with me, for a while----"
"I might tire."
"Try not to."
Her flushed face became thoughtful. Already the prospect of reading another romance with him seemed interesting.
Warner and Philippa, silently descending the stairs together, glanced around at the two figures together there under the lighted lamp.
The Countess was saying calmly:
"We might as well finish the love story we have begun, if you really insist on following through to the conventional end."
"Yes," he said. "I do insist. Let us follow through together--to the end."
Philippa, slim and white, moved silently through the house beside Warner, out across the terrace and down to the drive.
The last hint of color had died out in the west. Below, in the valley, no searchlights flooded the river; only a moving lantern here and there glimmered through the misty dusk.
"It will be jolly," he was saying, "for us to dine again together before Halkett leaves. Don't you think so, Philippa?"
"Yes. When is he going?"
"Tomorrow, I believe. They are sending the wrecked machine to Verdun by rail. I suppose he'll follow in the morning. What a miracle that he was not killed! They say the big Bristol behaved exactly like a wing-tipped grouse when the shrapnel hit her--coming down beating and fluttering and fighting for equilibrium to the end. It was the skill of his pilot that brought her safely wabbling and planing into the river, where she waddled about like a scotched duck."
"Was the pilot badly hurt?"
"Not badly. Sister Eila is looking after him. They're going to bring him up to the Chateau hospital in the morning. He's at the inn now."
"Why didn't they bring any wounded to us, Jim?"
"The ambulances from Ausone and Dreslin took them. I believe we are to expect fifty wounded tomorrow. Sister Felicite was notified after our ambulance returned from the Bois d'Ausone."
Twice they were halted, and the permit from General Delisle which Warner carried was minutely inspected by flashlight. Then they moved on slowly through the fragrant night toward the unlighted windows of the Golden Peach.
There, as in the Chateau, all lights were masked by shutters and curtains, so that no night visitor soaring high under the stars might sight anything at which to loose the tiny red spark--that terrible, earth-shattering harbinger of death and annihilation.
At the front door they knocked; Linette welcomed them into a darkened hall, but as soon as the door was closed again she brought out a lamp.
Madame Arlon followed, delighted that they were to dine there with Halkett.
He was somewhere about the garden, she said, and Sister Eila was upstairs with the wounded pilot.
Moving along the familiar path in the garden, they presently discovered Halkett seated alone in the little arbor, with Ariadne dozing on his lap.
"We've come to dine with you, old fellow!" said Warner. "--Philippa and you and I and Ariadne again. Does the idea appeal to you?"
"Immensely!" He had saluted Philippa's hand and had offered her the cat, which she took to her breast, burying her face in the soft fur.
"Darling," she murmured, "it is so nice to have you again! One needs all one's old friends in days like these."
They returned to the house, Philippa walking between the two men, caressing Ariadne, who acknowledged the endearments with her usual enthusiasm.
Dinner was all ready for them in the little room by the bar: a saucer was set beside Philippa's chair for Ariadne; Linette went upstairs to summon Sister Eila, and returned with word that she would be down after a while, and that dinner was not to wait for her.
Warner said to Halkett:
"How did you feel when you were falling, old chap?"
"Not very comfortable," returned the other, smiling.
"You thought it was all up with you?"
"On the contrary, I realized it was all down."
Philippa smiled faintly.
"You didn't expect to come out alive?" inquired Warner.
"I didn't think of that. Bolton, my pilot, said: 'I'm trying to make the river, sir.' I was attempting to find out how badly we were damaged. It seemed an age; but we both were busy."
"You probably did some very serious thinking, too."
Halkett nodded. He remembered that part vividly--the thinking part. He recollected perfectly where his thoughts were concentrated as he came fluttering down out of the sky. But on whom they were centered he never would tell as long as he lived.
Sister Eila came in.
Halkett placed her; she and Philippa exchanged faint smiles; then the two men resumed their seats.
"Monsieur Bolton is now asleep," she said, speaking to Halkett and looking at her plate. "Tomorrow we shall move him to the east wing of the Chateau. We shall have many wounded tomorrow, I believe."
"Yes. Sister Felicite told me," said Warner. He looked at her for a moment. "Are you well, Sister Eila?"
"Why, yes; I am perfectly well."
"You look very pale. Do you ever find time to sleep?"
"Sufficiently, thank you," she replied, smiling. "You know we are very tough, we Sisters of Charity. There is a saying that nothing but death can kill a Grey Sister."
Warner laughed, Halkett forced a smile.
"I think," added Sister Eila, "that British airmen ought to be included in that proverb. Don't you, Mr. Halkett?"
"Nothing can kill me," he said. "I'm even wondering whether old man Death could do the job."
Philippa turned to Warner:
"Isn't the conversation becoming a trifle grim for our reunion?"
They all smiled; Philippa fed tidbits to Ariadne, who had forsaken a well-garnished platter on the floor to sit up beside Philippa and pat her gown from time to time with an appealing paw.
"That's very human," commented Warner. "Ariadne wants only what is not meant for her."
"I can understand her," said Halkett carelessly. "May I smoke, Sister Eila? Do you mind, Philippa?" He struck a match: "With your permission," he said, and lighted his cigarette as Linette entered with coffee.
"Yes," he said musingly, "it seems to be the game in life--to desire what is not meant for one. The worst of it is that philosophy doesn't help one to understand and become reconciled."
Sister Eila said, looking at her plate:
"Religion helps."
"Only a favored few, Sister."
"Yes, for everybody the refuge of faith is waiting."
"Belief may explain; but it can not reconcile," rejoined Halkett quietly. "Except for the mystery of God, there is no other mystery like man. None has yet explained him; not even himself. If his riddle is ever to be solved, I don't know when that will be, unless it is to happen after death."
There was a silence.
Halkett spoke again:
"Unbidden love comes; it abides as long as it chooses--a day, a lifetime--and after life, perhaps. But if it chooses to go, no one ever born can control its departure.... This is one mystery of man--only one among many.... I believe something of this sort occurred to me while--" he laughed--"I was coming a cropper in the sky this morning."
Sister Eila's eyes were fixed on space; Halkett laid aside his cigarette and picked up Ariadne.
"Well, old lady," he said, "there is only one solution to everything; go on with the business in hand and do it as thoroughly as your intellect permits. Your business, I suppose, is to look ornamental, have kittens, and catch mice. Bonne chance, little lady!"
He set her on the table and she marched gingerly among the coffee cups toward Philippa.
Sister Eila rose; all followed her example.
Halkett, looking around at them, said pleasantly:
"It was a happy thought--this reunion. I had meant to say good-by tonight at the Chateau----"
"Tonight!" exclaimed Warner.
"Yes. Orders have come. An automobile arrives later, to take me to the railroad station at Dreslin. My wrecked machine has gone----" He looked smilingly at Sister Eila: "What's left of me is to follow tonight, it seems.... And so I shall go over to the Chateau, now, I think, and make my very grateful adieux, and have a last word with Gray. Shall I say good-by to you now? Will you be here when I return in an hour?"
Philippa said in a low voice:
"We are going to walk in the garden. Look for us there."
He turned to Sister Eila.
"I shall be with my sick man," she said smilingly. Her face was deadly white.
So Halkett took his cap and went away up the road all alone, and Sister Eila mounted the stairs to inspect her patient.
As Warner stood for a moment by the open door looking after Halkett, a familiar voice came to his ears--the voice of Asticot, bragging of his prowess and cheerfully predicting even greater glory for himself.
"Nonsense!" came the voice of Linette, sharply. "You had nothing more to do with the taking of that spy than had Ariadne!"
"M'amzelle! It was I who accomplished that! Behold your Asticot, a hero, modest and humble----"
"Tiens! You are not my Asticot! Be kind enough to remember that!"
"M'amzelle, you know me----"
"No, I don't!"
"But you are perfectly at liberty to become acquainted with me----"
"I do not desire to!"
"My master, M'sieu' Warner, trusts and respects me. He is the most wonderful gentleman in the whole world, M'sieu' Warner. And he believes in me!"
"I don't!" retorted Linette.
Asticot heaved a terrific sigh:
"And I with thirty thousand francs which I have labored to save--fruits of my toil--souvenirs of years of self-denial----"
"What! Thirty thousand francs! Bah! Thirty thousand debts, you mean----"
"I mean nothing of the sort," said Asticot simply. "If you doubt my word, I will show them to you some day. Linette, you know me----"
"I tell you I don't!"
Warner could hear Magda laughing, and Madame Arlon making caustic comments concerning the financial solvency of Asticot and the manner in which he wore his hair.
"As for that," rejoined Asticot, "I can trim my hair to please Linette----"
"That," exclaimed Linette, exasperated, "is impossible! Only a machine that will trim your neck close to your shoulders might interest me, Monsieur Asticot!"
"Woman!" said Asticot, unruffled. "Tenez, M'amzelle! That is what I think of woman--charming, capricious, enchanting woman! I salute your incomparable sex!" And Warner heard him kiss his own palm with a vigorous smack.
"Imbecile!" cried Linette. "Put on a uniform before you have the impudence to make love to an honest girl!"
"I am going to," said Asticot triumphantly.
Warner closed the door, turned back into the hallway, and entered the little dining room. Philippa was no longer there; so he went through the house into the dark garden, where the air was sweet with the perfume of clove pinks and lilies.
She was there, a pale shape in the darkness, moving slowly among the flowers. As he came up she lifted her head and looked at him, her grey eyes still vague with memories which the place evoked.
And, after a few moments' wandering along the paths with him:
"Why are you so silent?" she asked.
"I thought perhaps I might disturb your thoughts, Philippa."
"You are always part of my thoughts. I have no thought that I would not share with you.... But--you have never understood that."
"I understand you, Philippa."
"Do you?"
"Yes. You are everything a woman should be; nothing a woman should not be. That is my understanding of you."
She shook her head gently:
"That is an impossible woman. You are kind to me in your thoughts. And--you have not understood me after all."
"What have I not understood, Philippa?"
"My--my heart and mind."
"Both are wonderful, matchless----"
"You are wrong! There is your mistake. They are not wonderful; and both may be matched by the hearts and minds of any woman! ... Has it never occurred to you that I am very human?"
He remained silent; they walked on for a while, turned, and retraced their steps along the border of clove pinks.
"Have you gone over all your papers?" he asked in a hesitating voice.
"Yes."
"Is there anything I can do to help you--advise--aid----"
She turned almost impatiently:
"Always you are thinking of my well-being, my worldly benefit. It is for that you give me your companionship, your protection. I--I don't know--sometimes I think I have never been--so--lonely----"
Her voice broke; she turned sharply from him and stood with slender hands clenched in the starlight.
"Philippa?" he said gently, in his kindly, even voice. And it seemed to break the barrier to her reserve.
"Oh!" she faltered. "--It is something else a woman--hopes for--something different--when her heart--is empty----"
He dared not understand her, dared not touch her. He heard himself saying: "There is nobody but you, Philippa," and dared not speak--dared not say what he should have said before either he or she had learned who she really was.
Perhaps a faint idea of what held him to an aloofness, a formality unaccustomed, occurred to her during the strained silence. Perhaps she divined, vaguely, what might be in his mind.
After a while she turned, not looking at him, and took his arm! It was the first time she had done so since that day when he painted her.
Even yet she could scarcely realize, scarcely comprehend the great change which had come to her. She knew it was true; she understood that it must be the truth--that she was no longer nameless--not the foundling, not the lonely child of chance who had looked out blankly over the world, without aim, without interest, having nothing to expect, nothing to hope for from a world which had not even bestowed upon her a name.
And now--now, suddenly hazard had snatched aside that impenetrable curtain which, as long as she could remember, had hung between her and all that she desired most passionately to know.
From the loose, half palsied lips of a murderer had fallen the words she had never expected to hear. He had gone to his death, shambling, doddering, mumbling to himself. But the papers which had belonged to him had confirmed every word he uttered.
She knew now who she was, Philippa de Chatillon. She knew how her mother had died; and her father.
As yet, the wonderment of it all had not been too deeply embittered by the tragedy. It was still only wonder, and a striving to realize--a dream, strange, terrible, beautiful by turns; but still a dream to her.
Something far more real, more vivid, more vital, possessed her. She knew it; felt it always now. The consciousness of it shared with her the veiled emotions which the solving of her life's mystery evoked.
As she stood there in the brilliant starlight, both arms wound around one of his in the old, unconscious way, Halkett came into the garden, walking swiftly:
"The car is here. Don't come to the door. I had rather say good-by and God bless you here in this garden--where I first knew you, Philippa--where you and I became friends, Warner.... So--good-by. If I come out of it, I'll come to you--to both of you, I hope."
"Yes," said Philippa calmly.
He took her hand, held it, looked at Warner, and took the hand he offered.
"Good-by!"
"Good-by!"
He turned and walked swiftly into the house. As he passed the stairway, he saw Sister Eila standing there as white as death.
They looked at each other in silence; she laid one hand on the banisters as though to steady herself. With the other she held out to him a flower.
When he had gone with his flower, and when the whir of his motor car had died away in that silent house, she turned to ascend the stairs again, stumbled, dropped by the rail, and lay there huddled in a heap, both hands pressed desperately over her quivering face.
Then in the room above, the sick man groaned; and she straightened up and rose as though a trumpet had sounded. And slowly, steadily, she mounted her Calvary, drying her eyes naively and like a little girl who has been hurt and whose grief seems hopeless, inconsolable, and never ending.
Slowly, side by side, his arm once more in her possession, Warner and Philippa returned to the Chateau.
When they reached the terrace, the stars overhead had become magnificent; millions and millions of them sparkled up there, arching the dark earth with necklaces of light.
He turned and gazed out over the panorama of the night. Far in the east the silver pencil of a searchlight swept the heavens.
Into the mysterious east he stared in silence, thinking of Wildresse.
The Orient had hatched out Wildresse; Biribi had caught him; Biribi had utterly extinguished his race at last.
The mysterious irony of it--the death of this man's only son--the fate that had delivered the father into the crime-blotched hands of that terrible battalion--the hazard of Asticot's discovery in the safe--the sudden, dramatic unmasking of Cassilis--could these things be happening in this year of 1914?
Stranger things than these were happening, and he knew it.
Westward the spray of a grey sea dripped from the muzzles of a thousand guns.
Eastward the coldly logical strategy of a great commander was developing, and the first fierce drive at Alsace-Lorraine was being launched.
From farther eastward still the two allies, listening, caught already the low growling of the Russian bear.
Germany, poised high above the glare of battle, waiting to snatch up, one by one, heroic and dying nations to her bosom--Germany clutching the dripping sword of conquest, heard also the rumbling of the Asiatic monster behind the Caucasus.
She turned her armed head and stared over her mailed shoulder toward the east, haughty, incredulous, magnificently barbaric--the last of the Valkyries left amid the dying gods of old, standing there alone, glittering, motionless amid the hellish conflagration of the Goetterdaemmerung.
Warner looked up at the stars.
The glimmering writing on Heaven's wall was plain to read.
Plainer, it seemed, than his own heart, which had grown heavy as he stood there beside the woman to whom it was now too late to speak.
For he should have spoken before, long ago, almost in the beginning. Because he had always loved her. He had known it for days, now; and yet with that blind delay and distrust of self to which some men are fated, he had waited too long to ask of her what his heart had so long, so blindly desired.
Now it was too late: He should have spoken before.
He should have spoken when she was lonely, friendless, nameless.
Now it was too late.
He turned toward the house, but she did not move, they came face to face under the high stars.
