Chapter III: Part 3

“If I shut my eyes I can see him sitting there in that low garret as he appeared on one occasion which particularly imprinted itself on my mind; such a high-bred, such a distinguished figure, with his silk hat and gloves beside the box which had been given him for a chair, and his face full of wonder and sadness! You have read of Marie Antoinette in prison, of her sufferings so uncomplainingly borne, of her nobility and steadfastness in the squalor of her cell! You have revolted, perhaps, at the picture--clinched your little fists and felt a great bursting of the heart? It was thus with M. de Gonse. Berthe he had often seen at our château in Nemours; Sonia’s father he had known in Russia, a general of reputation, standing high in the favour of the Czar. None was better aware than he of what the young ladies had given up. I could see that he was deeply moved. He asked many questions; at times he exclaimed beneath his breath. He insisted on learning everything--the amount of their income, the nature of their studies, all their makeshifts and contrivances. The two beautiful, solitary girls, from whom sympathy and appreciation had so long been withheld, unbared their lives to us without reserve. Berthe told us, amid the passionate interjections of Sonia Boremykin, the story of their struggles at the medical school: the open hostility of the professors; the brutal sneers and innuendoes; the indescribable affronts that had been put upon them. During this terrible recital--for it was terrible to hear of outrages so patiently borne, of insults which bring the blood to the cheek even to remember after all these years--de Gonse rose more than once from his seat, walking up and down like one possessed, uttering cries of rage and pity. It was no feigned anger, no play-acting to win the regard of these poor women. Let me do the man that justice.

“I don’t think my sister was prepared for the effect of her eloquence on the marquis, or could have foreseen, even for a moment, the tempest she had raised within his breast. He swore he would challenge every professor in the school; that he would unloose spadassins on the offending students, whose bones should be broken with clubs; that to blight their careers in after life he would make his business, his pleasure, his joy! It was with difficulty that he was recalled to the realities of every-day existence, my sister telling him frankly that such a course as he proposed might benefit woman in general, but could not fail to destroy the future of herself and Sonia Boremykin. To be everywhere talked about, to get their names into the newspapers, to be pointed at on the street as the victims of frightful insults--what could be more detestable, more ruinous to the careers they hoped to make? De Gonse was reluctantly compelled to withdraw his plans of extermination; for who could controvert the logic with which they were demolished or fail to see the justice of my sister’s contention? Confessing himself beaten on this point, he sought for some other solution of the problem. Private tutors? Intolerably expensive, came the answer; poor substitutes for one of the greatest schools in Europe; unable, besides, to confer the longed-for degree. The University of Geneva, famous for its generous treatment of women? Good, but its diploma would not carry the desired prestige in France. I hazarded boys’ clothes and false mustaches; but my remark was greeted with a shout of laughter and a half-blushing confession from Mademoiselle Sonia that one experiment in this direction had sufficed. It was to the marquis that light finally came.

“‘Fool! Idiot!’ he thundered, striking himself on his handsome forehead with his fist. ‘Why did I not think of it before? To-morrow I join the medical school myself--the student de Gonse, cousin of the marquis, a man tired of the hollowness and the trivialities of high life. I do nothing to show I am acquainted with you, nothing to compromise you in the faintest manner. But de Gonse, the medical student, is a gentleman, a man of honour. A companion ventures on a remark derogatory to the dignity of the young ladies; behold, his head cracks like an egg against his desk! Another opens his mouth, only to discover that _le boxe_ (you know I am quite an Anglais) is driving the teeth down his throat, setting up medical complications of an extraordinary and baffling nature. A professor so far forgets his manhood as to heap insults on the undefended; the strange medical student tweaks his nose in the tribune and challenges him to combat! How simple, how direct!’

“Imagine my surprise a few days later to learn that this had been no idle gasconade on the marquis’s part. True to his word, he had appeared at the school elaborately attired for the part he was to play, even to a detestable cravat and a profusion of cheap jewellery! Unquestionably there must have been others in the plot, for no formalities anywhere tied his hands or opposed the least obstacle to his audacity. As one would have expected from a man so eager and so full of resource, the object for which he came was soon achieved. Mingling with the students as one of themselves, he singled out those who went the farthest in persecuting the women, and insensibly cajoled them into a better way of conduct. The minority, too, those that still kept alive the chivalry of young France, were strengthened and encouraged by the force of his example, so that the crusade, once authoritatively begun, went on magnificently of itself. Not a blow was struck, not a wry word said, and behold, de Gonse had accomplished a miracle! From that time the position of women was assured; protectors arose on every side as though by magic; in a word, gallantry became the fashion. When professors ventured on impertinences, hisses now greeted them in place of cheers; they changed colour, and were at pains to explain away their words. The battle, indeed, was won.

“Had de Gonse contented himself with this victory, which saved my sister and Mademoiselle Sonia from countless mortifications, how much human misery would have been averted, how great a tragedy would have remained unplayed! But evil and good are inexplicably blended in this world, a commonplace of whose truth, mademoiselle, you will have many opportunities of verifying. Having acted so manly a part, one so calculated to earn the gratitude and esteem of these poor girls, he turned from one to the other, wondering with which he should reward himself. I have reason to think his choice first fell on Sonia Boremykin, who had the whitest skin and the prettiest blue eyes in the world. How can I doubt, to judge from her wild, tragic after life, but that he could have persuaded her to her ruin? But he must have paused half-way, struck by the incomparable superiority of my sister. In beauty she was not perhaps the equal of her companion, though to compare _blonde_ and _brune_ is a matter of supererogation. In other ways, at least, there never lived a woman more desirable than Berthe de Charruel. She possessed to a supreme degree the charm that springs from intelligence,--I might say from genius,--which, when found in the person of a young and beautiful woman, is almost irresistible to any man that gains her favour. Jeanne d’Arc was such another as my poor sister, and must have been impelled on her career by something of the same fire, something of the same passionate earnestness. To break a heart like hers seemed to de Gonse the crown to a hundred vulgar intrigues and _bonnes fortunes_.

“Of course, I knew nothing of this gradual undoing of my sister, though during the course of my visits to the little garret I often found the marquis in the society of Berthe and her friend. I disliked to see him there, but I was powerless to interfere. I was often puzzled, indeed, by the ambiguous conduct of Mademoiselle Sonia, who had the queerest way of looking at me, and whose eyes were always meeting mine in singular glances, whether of warning or appeal I was at a loss to tell. Her words, too, often left me uneasy, recurring to me constantly when I was in the saddle at the head of my troop or as I lay awake in bed awaiting the reveille. I wondered if the little Russian were making love to me, for, like all hussars, I was something of a coxcomb, though, to do me justice, neither a lady-killer nor a pursuer of adventures. It was in my profession that I found my only distraction, my only mistress. I am almost ashamed to tell you how good I was, how innocent--how in me the Puritan stock of my mother seemed to find a fresh recrudescence. Some thought me a hypocrite, others a coward; but I was neither.

“I learned the truth late one afternoon from Sonia Boremykin, who came to my quarters closely veiled, in a condition of agitation the most frightful. I could not believe her; I seemed to see only another of her devices to win my regard. My sister! My Berthe! It was impossible! I said to her the crudest things; I was beside myself. She went on her knees; she hid nothing; it was all true. My anger flamed like a blazing fire; I rushed out of the barracks regardless of my duties--of everything except revenge. A lucky _rencontre_ on the street put me on de Gonse’s track, and I ran him down in the _salle_ of the Jockey Club. He was standing under one of the windows, reading a letter by the fading light, a note, as like as not, he had just received from Berthe. I think he changed colour when he saw me; at least, he drew back with a start.

“I lifted my glove and struck him square across his handsome face.

“‘You will understand what that is for, M. le Marquis de Gonse!’ I cried.

“He turned deadly white, and with a quick movement caught my wrists in both his hands.

“‘_Mon enfant!_’ he exclaimed in a loud voice, which he tried to invest with a tone of jocularity, ‘you carry your high spirits beyond all reason; I am too old to enjoy being hit upon the nose.’ Then in a lower key he whispered: ‘Paul, calm thyself; for the love of God, do not force a quarrel. Come outside and let us talk with calmness.’

“But I was in no humour to be cajoled. I fiercely shook off his restraining hands. ‘Messieurs,’ I cried, as the others, detecting a scene, began to close round us, ‘Messieurs, behold how I buffet the face of the Marquis de Gonse!’ And with that I again flicked my glove across his face.

“De Gonse slunk back with a sort of sob.

“‘Captain de Charruel and I have had an unfortunate difference of opinion,’ he cried, recovering his aplomb on the instant. ‘It seems we cannot agree upon the Spanish Succession. M. le Comte, my seconds will await on you this evening.’

“I turned and left the club, my head in a whirl, my face so distraught and haggard that I carried consternation through the jostling street, the people making way for me as though I were a madman. To obtain seconds was my immediate preoccupation, a task of no difficulty for a young hussar. My colonel kindly condescended to act, and with him my friend Nicholas van Greef, the military attaché of the Netherlands government. To both I told the same story of the Spanish Succession and the quarrel of which it had been the occasion. But my colonel smiled and laid a meaning finger against his nose; the Dutchman said drily it was well to keep ladies’ names out of such affairs. I am convinced, however, that neither of them had the faintest glimmering of the truth. Having thus arranged matters with my seconds, I attempted next to find my poor sister, hastening up her interminable stairs with an impatience I leave you to imagine. Needless to say, she was not in the garret, which was inhabited by Mademoiselle Sonia alone, her pretty face swollen with weeping, her humour one of extraordinary caprices and contradictions. She blamed me altogether for the catastrophe: I ought not to have given Berthe a sou; I ought to have starved her back into servitude. Women were intended for slaves; to make them free was to give them the rope to hang themselves. For her part, said mademoiselle, she thought a convent the right place for girls, and crochet work the best occupation! At any other time I might have stared to hear such sentiments from my sister’s friend, but for the moment I could think of nothing but Berthe. To find her was my one desire. In this, however, Sonia would afford me no assistance, frankly asking what would be the good.

“‘The harm is done, my poor Paul,’ she said, looking at me sorrowfully. ‘Why should I expose you or her to an interview so unpleasant? How could it profit any one?’

“I could not altogether see the force of this acquiescence in evil. I said that the honour of one of the oldest families in France was at stake; that if my sister did not leave the marquis I should kill her with my own hands and fly the country. I implored Mademoiselle Sonia, with every argument I thought might move her, to betray my sister’s hiding-place. But she kept putting me off, mocked at my impatience, and tried to learn, on her side, whether or not I meant to fight de Gonse.

“‘If you really wish to find out where she is,’ she cried at last, ‘why don’t you make me tell you? Why don’t you take me by the throat and pound my head against the wall, as they do down-stairs with such admirable success? Those women positively adore their men.’ As she spoke she threw back her head and exposed her charming neck with a gesture half defiant, half submissive! Upon my soul, I felt like carrying her suggestion into effect and choking her in good earnest, for I had become furious at her contrariety. But, restraining the impulse, I saw there was nothing left for me save to retire.

“‘Mademoiselle Boremykin,’ I said, ‘you are heartless and wicked beyond anything I could have imagined possible. You have helped to bring a noble name to dishonour, and in place of remorse your only feelings seem those of levity. I have the honour of wishing you good day.’

“De Gonse and I met the following morning in the Bois de Boulogne. His had been the choice of arms, and he selected rapiers, knowing, like all men of the world, that a pistol has the knack of killing. I ground my teeth at his decision, for he had the reputation of being a fine fencer, while I could boast no more than the average proficiency. He appeared to great advantage on the field; so cool, so handsome, such a _grand seigneur_--in every way so marked a contrast to myself. It was not unnatural, however: he was there to prick me in the shoulder, I to kill him if I could. Small wonder that my face was livid, that my eyes burned like coals in my head, that I was petulant with my own seconds, insulting towards my adversary’s. I looked at these with scorn, the supporters of a scoundrel, themselves, no doubt, seducers and libertines like him they served. My dear old colonel chid me for my discourtesy--bade me be a _galant homme_ for his sake, if not for mine. I kissed his wrinkled hand before them all; I said I respected men only who were honourable like himself. Every one laughed at my extravagance, at the poor old man’s embarrassment. It was plain they considered me a coward. They said things I could not help overhearing. But I cared for nothing. My God, no! I was there to kill de Gonse, not to pick quarrels with his friends.

“We were placed in position. Everything was _en règle_. The doctors, of whom there were a couple, lit cigarettes and did not even trouble to open their wallets. They knew it to be an affair of scratches.

“The handkerchief fell. We set to, warily, cautiously, looking into each other’s eyes like wild beasts. More than once he could have killed me, so openly did I expose myself to his attack, so unconscionably did I force him back, hoping to give lunge for lunge, my life for his. But in his adventurous past de Gonse must often have crossed swords with men no less desperate than myself; it was no new thing to him to face a determined foe, or to guard himself against thrusts that were meant to kill. His temper was under admirable control; he handled his weapon like a master in the school of arms, and allowed me to tire myself out against what seemed a wall of steel. Suddenly he forced my guard with a stroke like a lightning-flash; I felt my left arm burn as though melted wax had been dropped upon it. Some one seized my sword; some one caught me in his arms!

“My dizziness, my bewilderment, were the sensations of a moment, and in a trice I was myself again. The wound was nothing--a nicely calculated stroke through the fleshy part of the arm. I laughed when they talked of honour satisfied and of our return to the barracks. I said I never felt better in my life. It was true, for I was possessed with a berserker rage, as they call it in the old Norse sagas; a bullet through my heart could not have hurt me then. The seconds demurred; they told me that I was in their hands; that I was overruled; repeated, like parrots, that honour was satisfied. This only made me laugh the more. I went up to the marquis and asked him was it necessary for me to strike him again? I called him a coward, and swore I would post him in every salon and club in Paris. I slapped him in the face with my bare hand--my right, for my left felt numb and strange. There was another scene. De Gonse appeared discomposed for the first time; the seconds were pale and more than perturbed. One had a sense of death being in the air. There were consultations apart; appeals to which I would not listen; expostulations as idle as the wind. De Gonse, trembling with wrath, left himself unreservedly to his seconds, walking up and down at a little distance like a sentinel on duty. I also strolled about to show how strong and fit I was--the angriest, the bitterest man in France.

“At length it was decided that we might continue the combat. De Gonse solemnly protested, bidding us all take notice that he had been allowed no alternative. My colonel was almost in tears. Repeatedly, as a favour to himself, he besought me to apologise for that second blow and retire from the field. But I was adamant. ‘_Mon colonel_,’ I said to him, in a whisper, ‘this is a quarrel in which one of us must fall. Let me assure you it is not about a trifle.’

“Again we ranged ourselves; again we grasped our rapiers, saluted, and stood ready for the game to begin. The marquis’s coolness had somewhat forsaken him. The finest equanimity is ruffled by a buffet in the face; one cannot command calm at will. His friends said afterwards that he showed extraordinary self-control, but I should rather have described it as extraordinary uneasiness. No duellist cares for a berserker foe. De Gonse was, moreover, of a superstitious fancy. There are such things, besides, as presentiments; I think he must have had one then. God knows, perhaps he was struggling with remorse. The handkerchief fell; we crossed swords, and the combat was resumed with the utmost vivacity. The air rang with the shivering steel. The doctors smoked no longer, but looked on with open mouths. A duel in grim earnest is seldom seen in France, though I venture to say there was one that morning. It lasted only a minute; we had scarcely well begun before I felt a stinging in my side, and saw, as in a dream, my enemy’s triumphant face, red with his exertions. The exasperation of that moment passes the power of words to describe. This was my revenge, this a villain’s punishment on the field of honour! He would leave it without a scratch, to be lionised in salons, to relate in boudoirs the true inwardness of the quarrel! Remember, I felt all this within the confines of a single second, as a drowning man in no more brief a space passes his entire life in review. Imagine, if you can, my rage, my uncontrollable indignation, my unbounded fury. What I did then I would do now,--by God, I would,--if need be, a dozen times! I caught his rapier in my left hand and held it in the aching wound, while with my unimpeded right I stabbed him through the body, again and again, with amazing swiftness--so that he fell pierced in six places. There was a terrible outcry; shouts of ‘Murder!’ ‘Coward!’ ‘Assassin!’ on every side looks of horror and detestation. One of the marquis’s seconds beset me like a maniac with his cane, and I believe I should have killed him too had not the old colonel run between us.

“The other second was supporting de Gonse’s head and assisting the surgeons to staunch the pouring blood. But it was labour lost; any one could see that he was doomed. From a little distance I watched them crowding about him where he lay on the grass; for I had drawn apart, sick and dizzy with my own wounds, conscious that I was now an outcast among men. At last one came towards me; it was Clut, the doctor. He said nothing, but drew me gently towards the group he had just quitted. They opened for me to pass as though I were a leper. A second later I stood beside the dying man, gazing down at his face.

“‘He wishes to shake hands with you,’ said the other doctor, solemnly, guiding the marquis’s hand upward in his own. ‘Let his death atone, he says; he wishes to part in amity.’

“I folded my arms.

“‘No, monsieur,’ I said. ‘What you ask is impossible.’ With that I walked away, not daring to look back lest I might falter in my resolution. I can say honestly that de Gonse’s death weighs on me very little; yet I would give ten years of my life to unsay those final words--to recall that last brutality. In my dreams I often see him so, holding out the hand, which I try to grasp. I hear the doctor saying, ‘He wishes to part in amity.’

“I fainted soon after leaving my opponent’s side. I lay on the ground where I fell, no one caring to come to my assistance. When consciousness returned I saw them lifting the marquis’s body into a carriage, and I needed no telling to learn that he was dead. My colonel and Van Greef assisted me into another cab, neither of them saying a word nor showing me the least compassion. I suppose I should have been thankful they did so much. Was not I accursed? Were they not involved in my dishonour? They abandoned me, wounded, faint, and parching with thirst, to find my own way to Paris. Alone? No, not altogether. On the seat beside me my colonel laid a flask of brandy and a loaded pistol. The first I drank; the revolver I pitched out of window. I never thought to kill myself. For cheating at cards, for several varieties of dishonour, yes. But not for what I had done--never in all the world. My conscience was as undisturbed as that of a little child; excepting always that--why had I not taken his hand!

“I was arrested, of course, and tried--tried for murder. You see, there were too many in the secret for it to be long kept. It was a _cause célèbre_, attracting universal attention. The quarrel concerned the Spanish Succession; as to that they could not shake me. There were many surmises, many suspicions, but no one stumbled on the truth. To a single man only was it told--Maître Le Roux, my counsel. Him I had to tell, for at first he would not take up my case at all. There was a great popular outcry against me, the army furious and ashamed, the bourgeoisie in hysterics. I was condemned; sentenced to death; reprieved at the particular intercession of the Marquise de Gonse, the dead man’s mother, who threw herself on her knees before the Chief Executive--reprieved to transportation for life!

“You will be surprised I mention not my mother. Ah, mademoiselle, there are some things which will not permit themselves to be told--even to you. She went mad. She died. My military degradation is another of those things unspeakable. The epaulets were torn from my shoulders, the _galons_ from my sleeves, my sword broken in two; all this in public before my regiment in hollow square. Picture for yourself, on every side, those walls of faces, scarcely one not familiar; my colonel, choking on his charger, the agitated master of ceremonies; my former friends and comrades trying not to meet my eye; in the ranks many of my own troopers crying, and the officers swearing at them below their breath. My God, it was another Calvary!

“At Havre they kept me long in prison, waiting for the transport to carry me to New Caledonia. It was there I heard of my sister’s death, the news being brought to me by a young French lady, a friend of Berthe’s. My sister had poisoned herself, appalled at what she had done. There was no scandal, however, no sensational inquiry. She was too clever for that, too scientific; it was by no vulgar means that she sought her end. Assembling her friends, she bade them good-bye in turn, and divided among them her little property, her money, jewels, and clothes. She died in the typhus hospital to which she had volunteered her services--a victim to her own imprudence, said the doctors; a martyr to duty, proclaimed the world. She was accorded the honour of a municipal funeral (though her actual body was thrown into a pit of lime): the _maire_ and council in carriages, the charity children on foot, the _pompiers_ with their engine, a battalion of the National Guard, and the band of the Ninth Marine Infantry! What mockery! What horror!

“Here in New Caledonia I looked forward to endure frightful sufferings, to be herded with the dregs of mankind in a squalor unspeakable. But, on the contrary, I was received everywhere with kindness. The rigours of imprisonment were relieved by countless exemptions. I found, as I had read before in books, that the sight of a great gentleman in misfortune is one very moving to common minds; and if he bears his sorrows with manly fortitude and dignity, he need not fear for friends. To my jailers I was invariably ‘Monsieur’; they apologised for intruding on my privacy, for setting me the daily task; they would have looked the other way had I been backward or disinclined. I was neither, for I was not only ready to conform to the regulations, but something within me revolted at being unduly favoured.

“At the earliest moment permissible by law I left the prison to become a serf, the initial stage of freedom, hired out at twelve francs a month to any one who required my services. I fell into the hands of Fitzroy, here, the mine-owner, who treated me with a consideration so distinguished, so entirely generous, that when I earned my right to a little farm of my own I begged and received permission to settle near him. The government gave me these few acres on the hill, rations for a year, and a modest complement of tools and appliances, exacting only one condition: my _parole d’honneur_. It is only Frenchmen who could ask such a thing of a convict, but, as I told you before, I was regarded as an exception, a man whose word might safely be taken.

“Never was one less inclined to escape than myself; my estates, which are extensive and valuable, would have instantly paid the forfeit; and though I am prohibited from receiving a sou of their revenues, I am not disallowed to direct how my money shall be used. You will wonder why I weigh possessions so intangible against a benefit which would be so real. But the traditions of an old family become almost a religion. To jeopardise our lands would be a sacrilege of which I am incapable; we phantoms come and go, but the race must continue on its ancestral acres; the noble line must be maintained unbroken. So peremptory is this feeling that you will see it at work in families that boast no more than three generations. The father’s château is dear; the grandfather’s precious; the great-grandfather’s a thing to die for! Think what it is among those, like ourselves, whose lineage and lands go back to Charlemagne! Though I can never return to France myself, though I shall die on my little hillside farm and be buried by strangers, still, it is much to me that the estates will pass to those of my blood. I have cousins, children of my uncle, who will succeed me--manly, handsome boys, whose careers are my especial care. Their children will often ask,--their children’s children, perhaps,--of that portrait of a man in chains, in the stripes of a convict, that hangs in our great picture-gallery at Nemours, beneath it this legend: ‘Paul de Charruel, painted in prison at his own request.’ At the prompting of vanity, of humility,--I scarcely know which to call it,--I had this done before I quitted France for ever, the artist coming daily to study me through the bars; and ordered it hung amid the effigies of my race. I suppose it hangs there now, slowly darkening in that empty house. It shall be my only plea to posterity, my only cry.

* * * * *

“It is nearly sixteen years ago since these events took place. For more than twelve I have lived like a peasant on my little farm, the busiest of the busy; up at dawn, to bed by nine o’clock. Blossoming under a care so sedulous and undivided, it has yielded me a rich return for my labour. My heart it has kept from breaking; my hands it has never left empty of a task to fill. There is a charm in freedom and solitude, a solace to be found in the society of plants, beyond the power of words to adequately express. Our government is right when it gives the convict a piece of land and a spade, leaving him to work out his own salvation. I took their spade; I found their salvation. On that hillside there I have passed from youth to middle age; my hair has turned to grey; my talents, my strength, all that I have inherited or acquired in mind or body, have been expended in hoeing cabbages, in weeding garden-beds, in felling the forest-trees which encumbered my little estate. Yet I have not been unhappy, if you except one day each year, a day I should gladly see expunged from my calendar. Once a year I receive from the Marquise de Gonse a letter in terms the most touching and devout, written in mingled vitriol and tears. This annual letter is to her, I know, a supreme sacrifice; every line of it breathes anguish and revolt. To forgive me has become the touchstone of her religion, a test to which she submits herself with agony. I cannot--I do not--blame her for hating me; I would not have her learn the truth for anything on earth: but is it a pleasure for me to be turned the other cheek? Is it any consolation to be forgiven in terms so scathing? It is terrible, that piety which deceives itself, which attempts to achieve what is impossible. And she not only forgives me: she sends me little religious books, texts to put upon my walls, special tracts addressed to those in prison. She asks about my soul, and tells me she wearies the President with intercessions for my release. Poor, lonely old woman, bereft of her only son! In the bottom of her heart, does she not wish me torn limb from limb? Would she not love to see me in the fires of hell?

“This, mademoiselle, concludes my story. To-morrow, in your father’s beautiful yacht, you leave our waters, never to return. You will pursue your adventurous voyage, encircling the world, to reach at last that far American home, receiving on the way countless new impressions that will each obliterate the old. Somewhere there awaits you a husband, a man of untarnished name and honour. In his love you will forget still more; your memories will fade into dreams. Will you ever recall this land of desolation? Will you ever recall de Charruel the convict?”

He had not looked at the girl once during the course of his long narrative. He felt that she had been affected--how much or how little, he did not know, a certain delicacy, a certain fear, withholding him. When at last he sought her face he saw that she had been crying.

“I shall never forget,” she said.

They walked in silence until, at a parting of the paths, he said: “This one leads to my little cabin. Come; it will interest you, perhaps--the roof that has sheltered me for twelve irrevocable years. You are not afraid?” he asked.

She made a motion of dissent, drawing closer to him as though to express her confidence.

A few hundred yards brought them to a grassy paddock fenced with limes, through which they passed to reach a grove of breadfruit and orange trees beyond. On the farther side the house itself could be seen, a wooden hut embowered in a bougainvillea of enormous size. It looked damp, dark, and uninviting. Not a breath stirred the tree-tops above nor penetrated into the deep shade below; except for the drone of bees and a sound of falling water in the distance, the intense quiet was untroubled by a sound. De Charruel led the way in silence, with the preoccupation of a man who had too often trod that path before to need his wits to guide him. Reaching the hut, he threw open the door and stood back to allow his companion to enter before him. The little room was bare and clean; a table, a book-shelf, a couple of chairs, the only furniture; the only ornaments a shining lamp and a vase of roses. Miss Amy Coulstoun took a seat in the long canvas chair which the convict drew out for her. The air seemed hot and suffocating, the perfume of the orange-blossoms almost insupportable. She was possessed, besides, with a thought, a fancy, that bewildered her; that made her feel half ashamed, half triumphant; that brought the tears to her eyes repeatedly. De Charruel did not speak. He was standing in the doorway, looking down at her with a sort of awe, as though at something sacred, something he wished to imprint for ever in his mind.

“I wish to remember you as you are now!” he exclaimed--“lying back in my chair, your face a little in profile, your eyes sad and compassionate. When you are gone I shall keep this memory in my heart; I shall cherish it; it shall live with me here in my solitude.”

“I must go,” she said, with a little thrill of anger or agitation in her voice. “I have stayed too long already.”

He came towards her.

“I want first to show you this,” he said, drawing from his pocket a jewel-case, which he almost forced into her hands. “You will not refuse me a last favour--you who have accorded me so many?”

She avoided his glance, and opened the box, giving, as she did so, an exclamation of astonishment.

It was full of rings.

“They were my poor mother’s,” he explained. “By special permission I was allowed to receive them here; I feared they might go astray.”

There were, perhaps, ten rings in all, every one the choice of a woman of refinement and great wealth--diamonds, rubies, pearls, and opals, sparkling and burning in the hollow of the girl’s hand. No wonder she cried out at the sight of them, and turned them over and over and over with fascinated curiosity.

“Each one has its history,” said de Charruel. “This and this are heirlooms. This was a peace-offering from my father after a terrible quarrel, the particulars of which I never learned. This he gave her after my birth--are the diamonds not superb? This ruby was my mother’s favourite, for it was her engagement ring, and endeared to her by innumerable recollections. She used to tell me that at her death she wished my wife to wear it always, saying it was so charged with love that she counted it a talisman.”

Miss Coulstoun held it up to the light, turning it from side to side.

“It is like a pool of fire,” she said.

“Won’t you try it on?” he asked.

She did so, and held out her hand for him to see. The ring might have been made to the measure of her finger.

“You will never take it off again,” he said. “You will keep it for a souvenir--for a remembrance.”

She shook her head. “Indeed, I will not,” she returned, with a smile. “Besides, is it not to be preserved for your fiancée? You cannot disregard your mother’s wish.”

“Why should we pretend to one another?” he broke out. “You know why I offer it to you, mademoiselle. It would be an insult for me to say I love you--I, a convict, a man disgraced and ruined past redemption. But I can ask you to keep my poor ring. Wear it as you might that of some one dead, some one of whom you once thought with kindness, some one who had greatly suffered.”

The girl looked away.

“What you ask is impossible,” she said at length, in a voice so low and sweet that it was like a caress. “I don’t think you understand.”

“It is your pride that prevents!” he cried. “I understand very well. If I left it you in a testament you would not scruple to take it; you would see a difference! Yet, am I not dead? Is this not my grave you see around me? Am I not the corpse of the man I once was? Trample on your pride for once, for the sake of one that loves the very ground you tread upon. Take my ring, although it is worth much money, although the _convenances_ forbid. If questions are asked, say that it belonged to a man long ago passed away, whose last wish it was that you should wear it.”

“I shall say it was given me by the bravest and most eloquent of men, the Comte de Charruel!” she exclaimed, with a deep blush. “You have convinced me against my will.”

He cried out in protest, but even as he did so he heard the sounds of footsteps on the porch, and turned in time to see the door flung open by Fitzroy. Behind the Irishman strode the tall figure of General Coulstoun, his face overcast with anxiety.

“Thank God!” he cried when he saw his daughter. “You’ve been gone an age, my dear, and I’ve been uneasy in spite of Fitzroy, here. It’s very well to say ‘It’s all right, it’s all right’; but in an island full of con--”

“I felt quite safe under M. de Charruel’s protection,” interrupted Amy, striking that dreadful word full in the middle. “I thought you knew I was with this gentleman.”

“I don’t know that that made me feel any more--” began the general, recollecting himself in the nick of time. “Why, Amy, child, what are you doing with that ring?”

“M. de Charruel has just presented it to me, papa,” she returned. “Is it not beautiful?”

“Good God!” cried the general, “it is a ruby! I could swear it is a ruby! It must be worth a fortune!” Between each of these remarks he stared de Charruel in the face with mingled suspicion, anger, and surprise.

“I am told that it is worth about twelve thousand francs,” said the Frenchman.

The general started. Fitzroy hurriedly whispered something into his ear. “You don’t say so!” the former was overheard to say. “In a duel, was it? I didn’t know anybody was ever killed in a French--Oh, I see--yes--lost his head--”

This little aside finished, the general came back again to the attack, more civil, however, and more conciliatory in his tone.

“You must be aware,” he said, addressing de Charruel, “that no young lady can accept such a present as this from any one save a member of her family or the man to whom she is engaged. I can only think that my daughter has taken your ring in ignorance of its real value, forgetful for the moment that the conventionalities are the same whether in New Caledonia or New York. You will pardon me, therefore, if I feel constrained to ask you to take back your gift.”

“It rests entirely with Miss Coulstoun,” returned de Charruel.

“In that case, there can certainly be no question,” said the general.

“I shall not give it back, papa,” said Amy.

Her father stared at her in amazement, and from her distrustfully to de Charruel.

“Is he not a--convict?” he asked.

“Yes.”

“And you are going to accept a present from a convict?”

“Yes.”

“A present said to be worth twelve thousand francs?”

“Yes.”

“My God!” he cried, “I could not have believed it possible.”

At this she burst out crying.

The general put his arm round her. “Come away, my daughter,” he said. “For once in my life I am ashamed of you.”

“I must first say good-bye to M. de Charruel,” she said through her tears, holding out her hand--the left hand, on which the ruby glowed like a drop of blood.

The convict raised it slowly to his lips. Their eyes met for the last time.

“Good-bye,” he said.

* * * * *

The next day, from a rocky cliff above his house, de Charruel saw the yacht hoist her white sails and steal out to sea. He watched her as long as she remained in sight, and when at last she sank over the horizon, he threw himself on the ground in a paroxysm of despair. For an hour he lay in a sort of stupor, rising only at the insistent whistle from the mine. This told him that it was twelve o’clock, and brought him back to the realities and obligations of life. Descending to the farm, he once more took up the threads of his existence, for the habits of twelve years are not to be lightly disregarded. But it was with difficulty that he brought himself to perform his usual tasks. His heart seemed dead within his breast. He wondered miserably at his former patience and industry as he saw on every side the exemplification of both. How could he ever have found contentment in such drudgery, in such pitiful digging and toiling in the dirt! What a way for a man to pass his days--an earth-stained peasant, ignobly sweating among his cabbages! Oh, the intolerable loneliness of those years! How grim they seemed as he looked back at them, those tragic, wasted years!

Tortured by the stillness and emptiness of his hut, he spent the night at Fitzroy’s, lying on the bare verandah boards till daylight. But he returned home before the household was astir, lest he should be invited to breakfast and be expected to talk. He shrank from the thought of meeting any one, and for days afterwards kept close within the limits of his little farm, shunning every human being near him. Every convict has such phases, such mutinies of the soul. The malady runs its course like a fever, and if it does not kill or impair the victim’s reason, it leaves him at last too often a hopeless sot. But, fortunately for himself, it was work, not cognac, that cured Paul de Charruel. He came to himself one day in his garden, as he was digging potatoes. He stood up, drew his hand across his face, and realised that the brain-sickness had left him. He went into the house and looked at himself in the glass, shuddering at the scarecrow he saw reflected there. He examined his clothes, his rooms, his calloused hands, with a strange, new curiosity, studying them all with the same speculation, the same surprise. He stood off, as it were, and looked at himself from a distance. He walked about his tangled, weedy farm, and wondered what had come over him these past weeks. He had been starving, he said to himself many times over--starving for companionship.

He sought out Fitzroy at the mine. It was good again to hear the Irishman’s honest laugh, to clasp his honest hand, to think there was one person, at least, that cared for him. He hung about Fitzroy all that day, as though it would be death to lose sight of him--Fitzroy, his friend. He repeated that last word a dozen times. His friend! He talked wildly and extravagantly for the mere pleasure of hearing himself speak. He was convulsed with laughter when an accident happened to a truck, and could scarcely contain himself when Fitzroy had a mock altercation with the engineer. No one could be more humourous than Fitzroy, and the engineer was a man of admirable wit! What a fool he had been to sulk these weeks on his farm. His farm! It made him tremble to think of it, so unendurably lonely and silent it had become. It was horrible that he must return to it,--his green prison,--with its ghosts and memories.

He went back late, but not to sleep. He sat on the dark porch of his hut and thought of the woman he had lost. Like a shadow she seemed to pass beside him, and if he shut his eyes he could feel her breath against his cheek and almost hear the beating of her heart. He closed his arms on the empty air and called her name aloud, half hoping that she might come to him. But she was a thousand miles at sea, and every minute was widening the distance between them. The folly and uselessness of these repinings suddenly came over him. She was a most charming girl, but would not any charming girl have captivated him after the life he had been leading? Was he not hungry for affection? Was he not in love with love? He rose and walked up and down the porch, greatly stirred by the new current of his thoughts. Yes; he was dying for something to love--something, were it only a dog. For twelve years he had sufficed for himself, but he could do so no more.

By dawn he was at Fitzroy’s, begging the Irishman for a black boy and a horse. A little later his messenger was galloping along the Noumea road, charged with a letter to the Chef de l’Administration Pénitentiaire to request that “le nommé de Charruel” be permitted to leave his farm for seven days. The permission was accorded almost as a matter of form, for it was not the custom to refuse anything to “le nommé de Charruel.”

The count went straight to the convent and asked to see the Mother Superior. She was a stately old lady, with silvery hair, an aristocratic profile, and a voice like an ancient bell. She at once cut short his explanations, closing her ears to his official number and other particulars of his convict life.

“M. le Comte,” she said, “I knew your mother very well, and your father also, whom you favour not a little. I have often thought of you out there by the strait--ah, monsieur, believe me, often.”

De Charruel thanked her with ceremony.

“Your errand cannot be the same as that which brings the others,” she went on, half smiling. “_Mon Dieu!_” she exclaimed, as she saw the truth in his reddening face. “You, a noble! a _chef de famille_! It is impossible.”

“I am only the convict de Charruel,” he answered.

The old woman looked at him with keen displeasure.

“You know the rules?” she said in an altered voice. “You know, I suppose, that you can take your choice of three. If you are not satisfied you can return in six months.”

“Oh, madame,” he said, “spare me such a trial. I stipulate for two things only: give me not a poisoner nor a thief; but give me, if you can, some poor girl whose very honesty and innocence has been her ruin.”

“I can very easily supply you with such a one,” said the Mother Superior. “Your words apply to half the female criminals the government sends me to marry to the convicts. When I weigh their relative demerits I almost feel I am giving angels to devils, so heavy is the scale in favour of my sex. I have several young women of unusual gentleness and refinement, who could satisfy requirements the most exacting. If you like,” she went on, “I shall introduce you first to a poor girl named Suzanne. In the beginning it was like caging a bird to keep her here, but insensibly she has given her heart to God and has ceased to beat her wings against the bars.”

“Does she fulfil my conditions?” asked the count.

“Yes; a thousand times, yes!” exclaimed the Mother Superior. “Shall I give orders for her to be brought?”

“If you would have the kindness,” said de Charruel.

There was a long waiting after the command had gone forth. All the womanliness and latent coquetry of the nuns came out in this business of making ready their charges for the ordeal; and when it was whispered that the wooer was the Comte de Charruel himself, a personage with whose romantic history there was not a soul unfamiliar, great indeed was the excitement and preparation. At last, with a modest knock, the door opened and let in a young girl clothed in conventual grey. She had a very pretty face, a touch hardened by past misfortunes, a figure short, well knit, and not ungraceful, and wild black eyes that shrank to the ground at the sight of the count.

The Mother Superior motioned her to take a seat.

“This is Suzanne,” she said.

De Charruel rose to his feet and bowed.

There was a dead silence.

“Can you not say something?” said the old lady, turning to the count with some asperity.

“Mademoiselle,” he said, with a sensation of extreme embarrassment, “I have the honour to ask you to marry me.”

“You need not commit yourself,” interrupted the Mother Superior. “You can have the choice of two more.”

“If I saw a hundred, madame,” he replied, “I could find no one I preferred to this young lady.”

There was another prolonged silence.

“You must answer, Suzanne,” said the old lady. “Yes or no?”

The girl burst into tears.

“Yes or no?” reiterated the Mother.

“I weep at monsieur’s extraordinary goodness,” said the girl. “Yes, madame, yes.”

* * * * *

Ten days later de Charruel was resting in the taro-field where he had been at work, when he felt Suzanne’s arm around his neck and her warm lips against his forehead. He leaned back with a smile.

“Paul,” she said, with a little tremor in her voice, “you have hidden nothing from me? You have done nothing wrong, Paul?”

“Wrong!” he exclaimed. “Have I not told thee repeatedly that I am the model convict, the hero of a hundred official commendations, the shining star of the penal administration? Wrong! What dost thou mean?”

“The authorities--” she answered. “There has been a messenger from the mine with a blue official letter. Oh, Paul, it frightens me.”

“Thou needst not fear,” he said. “It is only some matter of routine. I could paper my house (if it would not be misunderstood) with blue official letters about nothing.”

“I am so happy, Paul,” she said,--“so happy that I tremble for my happiness!”

He smiled at her again as he reached his hand for the letter. Nonchalantly he tore it open, but turned deadly pale as he ran his eyes down the sheet inside.

“You must go back to prison?” she cried in a voice of agony.

He could only shake his head.

“Speak!” she cried again. “Paul, Paul, I must know, if it kills me!”

He gave her a dreadful look.

“I am pardoned,” he said. “I am free!”

THE HAPPIEST DAY OF HIS LIFE

THE HAPPIEST DAY OF HIS LIFE