Chapter V: Free--With a Broken Wing (2)

He was extremely silent all the rest of the evening, and as by ten o'clock he looked to Laurent much more ill than he had done at that hour in the morning the latter decided to spend the night in his room, in an ancestral and not uncomfortable chair. What could Aymar and M. Perrelet have disagreed about, as they obviously had, and when could the disagreement have taken place? Clearly only during the doctor's first visit--during the night, in fact. Then Aymar had been fibbing to him when he said that no conversation had passed between them. Pausing a moment over this distasteful idea he remembered with relief that, on M. Perrelet's showing, Aymar had been slightly light-headed. His friend need not then have been consciously lying to him. Still, one couldn't quarrel in delirium--the thing was preposterous; and surely no doctor would take offence at anything said in that state! What could M. Perrelet have been thinking about to be so touchy? He had seemed this evening as if he hardly cared what happened to the man he had dragged back from death and been so devoted to--"that lad of mine" as he had called him less than twenty-four hours ago. Laurent began to feel rather annoyed with the old surgeon, and, remembering, too, what he had said about his own "over-fidelity," even angry. What a cruelly unjust thing to hint at to Aymar, who had tried so hard to get his friend to leave him!

Aymar's own voice broke in on his reflections and preparations.

"What are you doing there?" he demanded rather sharply.

"I am going to spend the night in here with you."

Aymar flung round instantly. "No, indeed you are not!" he said with vehemence. "If you do, I don't sleep in this bed!"

"Certainly I will not, then," returned Laurent, somewhat offended. He resumed his coat. "I don't wish to force my society on you to that extent!"

"Laurent," said his friend quickly, beseechingly, "I beg your pardon! I'm . . . I'm in a vile temper to-night. I am better alone, that is all I meant. . . . Forgive me for saying that!"

"My dear fellow!" said Laurent, instantly melted. He came over to the bed. How frightfully strained he looked! "Of course I forgive you! Well, let me shake up your pillows for you. You have something to drink there, haven't you? Promise me, at least, that you will call me if you need anything?"

He gave him his hand to show him that he bore him no rancour for his display of petulance, but he was rather embarrassed when Aymar bowed his head and put his lips to it. Decidedly L'Oiseleur was deeply shaken out of his composure to-night.

It was not until he was himself half undressed that the explanation of everything came on Laurent like a thunderclap--of M. Perrelet's unaccountable demeanour, of Aymar's distress, of his own semi-banishment from his room just now. Last night, in fever, Aymar had let slip his carefully guarded secret--_and knew it_. Moreover, to have sent away M. Perrelet, who was so fond of him, who only yesterday was so whole-heartedly proclaiming his belief in him--to have sent him away, as it had, a changed man, it could be no honourable mystery, after all. It _was_ something disgraceful, something of which, for good reasons, Aymar could not clear himself . . . as he had acknowledged with his own lips.

That was why M. Perrelet had pushed him, Laurent, out of the room last night, why he had asked him this evening if he had overheard anything, and been relieved at his reply. He wanted him, poor fool, to preserve his illusions. . . . Fool, fool, indeed, as Rigault, he knew, had always thought him, and blind beyond belief! And the fact that it had taken him hours to recognize what was now so horribly clear to him--that he had not at once realized the sharp significance of the doctor's profoundly altered attitude towards his cherished patient, seemed to open beneath Laurent's feet further abysses of self-delusion. He had been so secure in this fool's paradise of his. . . . But it was Aymar, Aymar himself who had shattered it--Aymar who had so plainly showed alarm when he told him this morning that he had been talking in the night--Aymar whose demeanour to M. Perrelet also had altered . . . guiltily altered. . . . Aymar who had driven _him_ out of his room for fear of a recurrence of the same thing. . . . Aymar who had in fact betrayed himself!

And with a sensation as though his heart were being slowly cased in ice Laurent de Courtomer sat on the side of the farmhouse bed staring at the dwindling candle, till at last it went out and left him in physical darkness also.

(5)

The coffee in the bowl steamed invitingly, and as long as Madeleine was in the kitchen Laurent made some pretence of eating the bread. The moment that she was gone he took his head between his hands and all but groaned aloud.

A very much curtailed visit to Aymar's room this morning had shown him what a wretchedly bad actor he himself was--almost as bad as M. Perrelet, whose bad acting it had nevertheless taken him, poor dunderhead, such a long time to see through. Aymar, he was sure, must have noticed the constraint in his manner--he who felt that the Aymar he had known and believed in and loved existed no longer--never had existed. It was that thought which made the blackness of his misery.

He took a great gulp of the hot coffee. How was he going to get through the day like this in the company of this unknown person, this _simulacrum_ of L'Oiseleur, this man to whom no decent human being would ever willingly speak again? And even as he fiercely drank down the remainder of the coffee Fate answered his question by showing the unlikelihood of his being required, or indeed able, to spend it in this way at all. For Mme Allard burst abruptly into the kitchen gesticulating--"They are on their way--they will be here immediately! Hide, Monsieur, quickly!"

"What, soldiers?" cried Laurent. "Where?"

"Riding along the road. Jeannot has seen them. Oh, be quick, Monsieur, before they reach the house!"

"I've got a place," quoth Laurent. "Tell M. de la Rocheterie then!" And, suppressing the instinctive desire to rush in to him, he sped out of the farmhouse towards his walnut tree.

He might well congratulate himself on having chosen a refuge beforehand, and also on having already scaled it. Dropping with a thud, he flung himself flat on the thatch between the two sloping dormers of the barn, and almost immediately the foremost soldiers came clattering into the yard below. A moment later Laurent heard orders given to make a cordon round the place and search the outbuildings first, the voice that issued these being undoubtedly that of a _maréchal des logis_. They had then no commissioned officer with them, though, by the sound, they numbered a score or more. More clattering and shouting showed that these orders were being obeyed.

Laurent held his breath. But he knew that there existed no ladder at La Baussaine long enough to reach this roof. He heard the dragoons in the barn below, cursing; he heard them saying that this time they had got to find him, that Arbelles would be too hot to hold them if they did not. . . .

It seemed a long time before they gave up the search outside, and went into the farmhouse. And with the temporary fading of excitement and apprehension the anguish of the night rolled back again over Laurent's soul. He stretched himself out on the warm thatch of his eyrie and buried his face on his arms, and began to suffer even more than he had suffered then, because he was less stunned now, because this morning the agonizing readjustment of ideas had begun in his mind--that readjustment which brought quite logically in its train the conclusion that all the time "they" had been quite right at Arbelles. L'Oiseleur, whom he had so championed, on whose behalf he had gone through a whole gamut of emotions, had done a thing so infamous that, as Colonel Guitton had said, shooting was too good for him. . . . The Imperialist, hateful as he was, was less despicable, after all, than the man he had ill-treated. . . . Laurent writhed at the thought.

The situation could not go on; that was manifest even to his "over-fidelity." He saw now the true meaning of that remark, not so unjust to Aymar after all! What was he going to do, then? Leave La Rocheterie here without seeking to plumb the shameful secret, or tax him with it, and have to witness his avowal . . . or his attempt to lie about it?--No, not that. At least, as he had never attempted to justify himself, he would not lie.

Why not? Why should he be so sure that La Rocheterie would not lie? He asked himself that, and all the reply that came was a picture of a face whose eyes were not those of a liar, nor the firm and sensitive mouth. . . . That mouth had said to him less than four days ago, "Try to go on believing that I am not a traitor!" And here, already----

No, no! He did not believe it! The wave turned upon itself. There must be some other explanation; Aymar could not, could not have done it. Those very words were in themselves a denial. And in that case, if he taxed him with the thing, he broke their friendship for ever. If Aymar were innocent, he could never forgive him.

The sun was so hot now--for time was going on--that Laurent was obliged to clasp his hands together over the back of his neck. But nothing could interrupt his thoughts; they went circling back to their first standpoint. Innocent; with that "haunted" look on him did he seem innocent--had he behaved all along as an innocent man would behave? M. Perrelet's early observations on that point came back to him. Yet Aymar had tried to recall M. Perrelet yesterday evening. He had perhaps some explanation to offer of whatever it was he had said in the night. . . . But why could he not have offered him, Laurent, some explanation during all these weeks of companionship? Aymar had seemed to feel that himself at their parting the other day. If he still was not going to tell him the story he would have to ask him for it--not so much because he believed him guilty, but because he could not endure the strain of ignorance. Aymar _must_ tell him why he "had no one but himself to thank."

By the time that Laurent had come to this resolution fresh sounds from below suddenly warned him that the soldiers were emerging from the farmhouse. He had been so absorbed that he had not realized that it must be nearly two hours since they came. Well, they had not found him, and unless they did so now . . .

An altercation seemed to be taking place about their ill-success. Only scraps of it floated up to him. "We ought to have gone on." . . . "It would not have been any use. Why, the impudent devil was laughing!" . . . "Yes, to begin with . . ." "I could have bet my boots that the cupboard . . ." . . . "What shall you report, _maréchal?_" "Why . . . hunted high and low and could find no . . ." . . . "What about that unmade bed . . . coffee . . . ?" . . . "I did not see them," returned what was probably the non-commissioned officer's voice, and Laurent was sure that he winked.

"They've been questioning Aymar," he thought, amid the sounds of mounting and moving off below. "I suppose the search was amusing, but he must be in better spirits than I am to have laughed at it. . . . At any rate, he has not treated me as he treated his men!"

Then he was horribly, bitingly ashamed of himself.

He was too much obsessed by the thought of what he was going to do to allow a really prudent interval ere he descended his walnut tree, but once on _terra firma_ he approached the house with a lagging step. As he went along the flagged passage to the kitchen he heard a sound of sobbing, and surmised that the troopers had made themselves unpleasant to Mme Allard. However, nothing seemed to matter much--not even that they had failed to find him.

Madeleine _was_ sobbing, searching meanwhile in a press. But when she heard his step she turned round.

"Oh, Monsieur de Courtomer, an awful thing has happened!" She dabbed with her apron at her face, disfigured with crying, and Laurent ejaculated quickly "What? Tell me!"

She gulped a moment, then recovered speech. "After they had searched every hole and corner for you, everywhere you can conceive, and I had told them I had no idea where you were, they began to threaten M. Aymar if he would not tell them . . . they said the most abominable things to him . . . and at last they said that as he was a Chouan they should imitate the Chouans----"

"Imitate the Chouans--what do you mean?" exclaimed Laurent.

"What they used to do in the old days to make people speak," gasped Madeleine.

"Good God!" said the young man, turning pale, for he knew by repute of those past methods.

"--And they turned me out of M. le Vicomte's room where they had been questioning me, too, and when I came into the kitchen here there was one of them holding something in the fire--a ramrod, I think it was. I tried to get it from him and fling it away, but they held me . . ."

But Laurent was no longer there. With a cold sweat breaking out on him he was at the door of the bedroom. His horror had carried him there like a whirlwind--and then he feared to enter because of what he might find. But the first thing he saw was Aymar, raising himself a little in the bed, and saying eagerly, "Are you sure they are gone? For Heaven's sake don't show yourself----"

"They are gone--but if they were not--Aymar, what in God's name have the devils been doing to you . . . and how could you let them . . . it wasn't worth it--my liberty! Let me see! Oh, if I had known! Let me see!" It came pouring out in incoherent distress, and, as L'Oiseleur relapsed on to his pillows again and shut his eyes, he was bending over him half choking: "My God, my God, what have they done?"

"I see Madeleine has been frightening you," said Aymar rather faintly, but with the glimmer of an amused smile. "That was all they did to me, mon ami--tried to frighten me."

And all the time the trickle of blood on his chin from his bitten underlip gave him the lie.

"Don't believe him!" cried Madeleine at the door, a bottle of oil and a bunch of rags in her hand. "They did more than that. . . . If only I had known where you were--I'd have told them fast enough!"

"I wish you had, I wish you had!" groaned Laurent. "For pity's sake tell me . . ."

"It's his arm, Monsieur," said Madeleine. And Laurent, now perceiving that the bedclothes were somewhat suspiciously bestowed, lifted them off and saw.

Only one of the burns was really severe, and that not nearly as bad as it might have been, given such an instrument and so unscrupulous an intention, but the five imprints of the iron between right wrist and elbow were more than enough for Laurent. The even spacing of an inch or two between each gave them an air of deliberation that was sickening. He fell on his knees by the bedside, uncontrollably moved, his English strain all swept away, and put his head down on the hand of that seared and blistered arm with the tears running down his face.

Aymar drew a sharp breath. "My dear Laurent," he said, opening his eyes and smiling at him, "excuse me . . . but your method of treatment . . . I believe oil, and not . . ." Then he fainted.

(6)

A greater peace reigned next afternoon in Madeleine Allard's little plot of garden, where the great pear tree stood sentinel over the stocks and gillyflowers and the old lavender hedge, than any one acquainted with the events of the previous day would have believed possible. In the shade of the pear tree had been placed the ancient chair, and in this, with his swathed right arm extended on its shabby leather, and his legs on another chair, was ensconced L'Oiseleur. Laurent, elbow-propped, lay near him on the grass, and every now and then threw at some prowling hen one of the tiny unripe pears which strewed it.

"You would not do for the artillery, mon cher," observed Aymar lazily, smiling down at him under halfdropped lashes.

"But I am not trying to hit," retorted Laurent, equally lazily.

Abased in spirit to the very dust as he still was, he was also extraordinarily happy. For he had Aymar back, the real Aymar, who, wounded, weak and alone, had five times gone through agony for him--it must have been agony, whatever he said. He shot a swift but almost adoring glance at him now, where he leant his head back against Madeleine's best pillow-case. He was nearly as colourless as the linen, and the circles under his eyes were very deep and dark, but at least he did not seem to be in pain any longer. Yet while Aymar, ill and defenceless, had been undergoing _that_ for his sake, he, in security, had been thinking. . . . The very remembrance almost choked him as he lay there under Aymar's eyes. If he knew . . . if he knew!

Aymar, who had heard the soldiers talking, believed Guitton to be at the back of the disgraceful business. It appeared that he had so bullied the first search-party when he learnt (not, however, for hours afterwards) of L'Oiseleur's presence at the farm that the second hardly dared to face him without the escaped prisoner, whom he correctly assumed to be there also. Indeed, Aymar was of opinion that the Colonel had gone so far as to hint that there was no need to stand on ceremony with _him_. . . . Perhaps that was even why they had been sent without an officer. He asserted that he bore the dragoon no ill-will for proceeding to extremities; they were really desperate--and if their commanding officer had assured them that, since he was beyond the pale, it did not matter what they did to him, could they be blamed for believing him? They had only used the ramrod as a last resource, and unwillingly--or there would not have been such a long prelude of threats first.

But, however much their victim tried to extenuate them, Laurent felt, as he said, that he was not so proud of being a Frenchman as he had been. His disgust and horror suddenly got the better of him again now, and, abruptly smiting the grass, he swore. And then, for the twentieth time, he said, "How _could_ you let them do it! And how I wish I had not told you about that dungeon!"

"My dear fellow, you are making a tempest in a teacup once more," responded Aymar. "And do you suppose that the exact degree of captivity with which you were threatened made any difference? Or"--unconsciously he threw back his head a little against the pillow--"or that if you had been my worst enemy I should have yielded up the secret of your hiding-place to force? Think of that aspect of it, if it is any consolation to you; also of the fact that I got a testimonial out of it. For though they began by remarking that I was not likely to require any violent persuasion----Oh, I'm sorry, I did not mean to tell you that--they ended by saying that I was a stubborn devil, which I took as a high compliment. . . . No, Laurent, in all seriousness, it was child's play to what it might have been."

"Even if that were true," said Laurent, pulling up grass distractedly, "you did not know whether at any moment it might not cease being 'child's play'--nor when it was going to end at all!" And as Aymar said nothing to this, he shot out the query, "Why did it end?"

"Perhaps owing to the intervention of your patron saint," suggested Aymar, smiling. "He had considerable experience of the effects of heat, we are told.--No, I think they were ashamed to go on any longer, and a little frightened at what they had done, insignificant though it was. Moreover, iron does not keep hot for ever, and though they talked of going into the kitchen to reheat it I really think they dared not face Madeleine again. My impression is that she screamed continuously throughout, and that distressed me more than anything, because I was afraid you might hear her, and come in."

"I only wish I had!" sighed Laurent, running his fingers through his hair. "But, Aymar"--he was unable to leave the hated subject--"if the accursed thing was cooling, as you say, how is it that the last burn is so much the worst?"

Aymar looked up at the pear tree. "Because they kept the ramrod on about three times as long, that is why. . . . What is that book you are not reading?"

Laurent raised himself and laid on his knee the little copy of _The Vicar of Wakefield_ which he had inadvertently brought away from Arbelles in his pocket.

"Ah, my old friend," remarked L'Oiseleur, and fell to turning over the pages with one hand.

Laurent returned to his pose on the grass. Yes, Aymar could talk and even jest about yesterday's ordeal; he would never be able to do so about that horrible inquisition at Arbelles, in which he had suffered no actual physical violence.

Presently, indeed, the reader gave an exclamation of amusement. "Laurent, listen to what I have lighted on!" And he read out, in his careful English, "'My friends,' said I, 'this is severe weather in which you are come to take me to a prison; and it is particularly unfortunate at this time as one of my arms has lately been burnt in a terrible manner' . . ."

Laurent could not help smiling. "Really," he remarked appreciatively, "that book is extraordinarily apt. It always seems to hit the situation."

"Yes," agreed Aymar, "for it goes on to say, 'And I want clothes to cover me.'" He glanced at the three or four inches of wrist protruding from the sleeve of M. Arbelles' coat. "But how did this unfortunate divine come by his burnt arm? I have not read it."

"By rescuing his infant children from his house, which burst into flames before his eyes in what I have always considered the most surprising manner. If you'll give me the book I will find the place--it is a few chapters earlier." He reached up, found the page, and read: "'It was now near midnight that I came to knock at my door: all was still and silent--my heart dilated with unutterable happiness, when, to my amazement, I saw the house bursting out into a blaze of fire, and every aperture red with conflagration. I gave a loud convulsive outcry, and fell upon the pavement insensible.'"

"Very surprising, indeed," assented Aymar gravely. "But tell me, why did you say that the book was always so appropriate? I do not remember in our readings any other circumstances of the life of M. Primrose which your ingenuity could apply to either of us."

Laurent bent his head to conceal from him how red he had got. How could he have been such a fool as to let slip that remark? For what had been in his mind faced him now as he turned back from Chapter xxiv to Chapter xxii--the famous and disturbing heading of the intermediate chapter, which had given him such a shock at Arbelles--'NONE BUT THE GUILTY CAN BE LONG AND COMPLETELY MISERABLE.'

"I--I can't find the other place," he stammered, hastily turning over the leaves to get away from the damning phrase.

"But surely you can remember what the incident was?" persisted Aymar. "Come, now!" and he threw a pear on to the book, while the unwary Laurent, thankful at least to have got the volume out of the enquirer's hands, cudgelled his brains desperately. At last inspiration leapt into them.

"This is what I meant. Don't you remember, somewhere near the beginning, where his daughter falls into a torrent--not a salmon river, though--and is rescued by a stranger who plunges in?" He turned feverishly in search of the episode and read it, and encouraged, by his escape, looked up at his friend with a meaning smile and added, "We are told a little earlier that 'the stranger's conversation, which was at once pleasing and instructive, induced me to wish for a continuance of it.'" Then he closed the dangerous volume firmly, returned it to his own pocket and dropped his head again upon his arms on the warm grass.

"The sun is getting round," observed Aymar presently. "No, I am all right. I like it on my feet. Come and lean up here; you will be out of it then."

So Laurent dragged himself nearer and rested his back against the side of the chair. Aymar amused himself by gently pulling his hair.

"Tiens," said Laurent with a little yawn, "that is what Maman used to do to send me to sleep when I was small. It generally did; if not, she would tell me a fairy story. Tell me one!" His head dropped on to Aymar's knee.

The hand left his hair, and there was silence.

"If I told you a story, Laurent," came L'Oiseleur's voice at last, "it would not be a fairy story. Nor do I think it would send you to sleep." And, after a longer pause still, he added, so low that Laurent barely heard it, "No, not to-day."

But Laurent was already carrying the words with him into a land of dreams where they interpreted themselves as something quite different.

(7)

But even as misfortune pursued the Reverend Dr. Primrose, pressing on him a fresh calamity in every chapter, so with Dr. Primrose's readers. The day of peace to which they were both looking forward when Aymar was next morning installed again under the pear tree was rudely broken by the advent of a letter to Mme Allard from Jérôme, her elder son, announcing his immediate return, ill. And Jérôme, there was no possibility of doubt, would instantly denounce Laurent's presence to the garrison at Arbelles.

"But not yours, surely," broke in Laurent when he heard this, thinking of Madeleine's devotion.

"It is true that he would not find me a very profitable speculation," said Aymar drily. "But I do not choose to risk a second turning out at the hands of an Imperialist. Madeleine has a plan for despatching me to her brother-in-law, at Port-Marie, about six miles away, on the coast. There is no need, however, for you to wait until I can be assured of a fresh shelter. I suggest that you hurry off at once, especially as the letter speaks of an Imperial victory on the frontier. Jérôme may arrive to-day."

Laurent sat down upon the grass. "We go together," he said simply. "Tell me now about this brother-in-law."

It appeared that Michel Royer was a fisherman of some means and of Royalist leanings, having been out in the war of '99. There was therefore reasonable hope that he would shelter them, and Jeannot had been sent on the farm mare with a letter to ask this favour.

Laurent took it very philosophically; there was nothing else to do, it seemed to him. "The coast, too," he observed. "Here is the finger of Providence. Was I not talking of returning by sea?"

But he could see that Aymar was not finding philosophy so easy--who would, as weak as he? He lay back frowning, looking very tired.

"Yes," he said listlessly, "you might find it convenient."

"But you?" said Laurent. "It is not good for you to be bundled about like this, and, moreover, it is not necessary. You ought to go home now to be nursed; you need so much care still. And Port-Marie is in exactly the opposite direction from Sessignes, is it not?"

Aymar shut his eyes. "Yes," he answered, his voice grating a little, "it is; but it may be very convenient for me also to be on the coast. When I am a little stronger, I shall very likely leave France altogether."

Laurent stared at him, thunderstruck. The clean-cut, sensitive mouth was set in a line that was half resolution, half pain. God in Heaven, what did he mean by that? As he tried in one and in the same mental process to arrive at his inner meaning and to ward it off from him, the face, the chair, the background all rocked for a second before his sight.

"_Leave France altogether!_" he repeated when he could find his voice.

Aymar opened his eyes again, but he did not look at him. "Yes," he said. Then he added, "Perhaps." And on that Madeleine, sniffing audibly, came hurrying over the grass in her heelless shoes.

(8)

It was evening, saffron and sea-green. Jeannot had come back from Port-Marie with a letter. Michel Royer would receive the two gentlemen, but they must not arrive till dark, and he would meet them at the turning under the chestnuts, half a mile out of the village.

"_I shall very likely leave France altogether._"

Whatever Laurent said or did in that wind-blown, lovely, interminable day of waiting had those words sounding through it. Surely, though Aymar might feel, as he had said, that he was unable to clear himself, surely, with the consciousness of innocence to sustain him he might try--or, at any rate, remain and mutely endure till that very endurance should speak for him. Instead of that, L'Oiseleur, the incarnation of courage and daring, was contemplating running away! That, surely, could only mean one thing.

The ramrod with its attendant heroism and horror had altered nothing; facts were too hard to be melted in the crucible of emotion. Laurent began to see that now. And, numb with misery, he fought in the little garden-plot with the spectre which yesterday, in the same place, he had thanked God was laid for ever.

At last it was dusk, and they could start. That Aymar's burnt arm should run no risk of contact with anything they put him on the right hand of the one long seat; Laurent sat next him, and Jeannot drove from the left. And very soon Madeleine and her tearful farewells and the low buildings of La Baussaine were gone.

Heavy clouds were lumbering up over what had been the sunset. Aymar hardly answered anything that was said to him, and indeed conversation was difficult, for the idiot boy's driving was rudimentary, the farm cart, though light, springless, and the roads which they had to take abominable--one succession of deep ruts, in and out of which they continuously rolled and jolted. About halfway it began to rain. Laurent silently arranged the piece of sacking provided round his friend's shoulders, and as they sat there, with bent heads, holding their rough cape round them, it seemed to him that they were rather a sorry pair of outcasts. Yet it might have been amusing and venturous, this odyssey. Perhaps that was what L'Oiseleur was feeling so intensely. But if that horrible thing should be true . . . he had made himself the outcast.

And more than once Laurent's thoughts went back to that drive in England, rather more than a year ago, when he hardly knew him, and was so elated at taking home a lion. He remembered thinking afterwards that he had been too garrulous, and that his guest in consequence had withdrawn himself a little. Now L'Oiseleur was infinitely farther away than when he had been a stranger; and Laurent himself had never had less heart for converse. At last they came to the sharp turn of the road where they were to meet Royer. But even in the gloom under the trees it was apparent that there was no one there. Aymar climbed wearily down, remarking that they were perhaps too punctual, and, the idiot boy refusing to wait on events, but driving off again, the two fugitives were left stranded in the semi-darkness to await their host. The rain, however, had stopped.

"This begins not to be amusing," remarked Aymar after a few minutes; and indeed there was no amusement in his voice. "Dieu! How tired I am!"

He had sat down on a log that lay, in the long wet grass, close to a broken-down gate which had once closed the entrance to a little lane, and against this gate he now leant back. Overhead the chestnut leaves were gently dripping.

"I'll go along the road a little and see if I can meet the man," said Laurent.

In a few moments he came striding back, rather angry.

"Aymar, where are you? A confoundedly annoying thing has happened. I met Royer in the road there, and he says he has changed his mind. It is too risky, he thinks, to take us into his house in the village, but he says that just along the coast to our left there is a smugglers' cave, the 'Panier', which we can easily reach, and which is quite habitable. He will show us the way, and he is bringing some provisions with him. He will be here himself in a minute or two."

Aymar on his log in the dusk was silent for a couple of seconds, then he said, "If this is a joke, it is a damnably bad one."

"It is not a joke. I am far too much annoyed to jest. But of course we cannot force the man to take us in."

"Well, I," declared L'Oiseleur, "am not going to set out at this time of night for a cave along the coast."

"But you cannot spend the night here by the side of the road!" cried Laurent.

"Why not?" enquired his friend.

"My dear Aymar, after that fever--itself the result of a night in the open!"

"I assure you," replied Aymar, dropping his head on to his hand, "that I don't care if I get a hundred fevers. I am not going any farther. I . . . can't."

Laurent stood looking down at him in dismay. L'Oiseleur's courage failing him at last! What on earth was he to do?

"Let us go to the inn at Port-Marie then--if there is one--and risk it," suggested he in some desperation.

"You mean that you would run the risk for my sake? I have already been told that I allow you to carry your devotion too far. No; go to your cave by yourself; I will find it in the morning--perhaps."

"I wish M. Perrelet had minded his own business!" said Laurent sharply. "Come on, Aymar!"

"I tell you I am going no farther. Leave me, for God's sake!"

"Don't be absurd! How can you imagine that I should do such a thing?"

Aymar made a dimly seen gesture. "It's all I ask! . . . Leave me--leave me! You would if you knew!"

And, as by a fleet arrow, Laurent was transfixed by annoyance. If only he did know instead of having to listen to these eternal hints and innuendoes!

"But _till_ I know!" he riposted sharply. "L'Oiseleur, for God's sake be a man! . . . Here is my arm."

Aymar pulled himself instantly to his feet. "No, thanks!--Which is the way?"

It was too dark to see his face, but his tone showed only too clearly the effect of this adjuration. Even as he asked the question Michel Royer had come up. Laurent, keeping down something in his own breast at once miserable and fierce, drew the fisherman a little aside and whispered to him, "My friend is ill. He may want assistance--but don't touch his right arm. Give me half of what you are carrying."

The transfer was made. "This is the way, gentlemen," said the vague figure, in a hoarse voice which seemed to have known many tempests, and led off past the broken gate and down the very track by whose entrance Aymar had been sitting. Aymar followed, without a glance at his friend, and that friend brought up the rear, in a perfect daze of misery, irritation, and anxiety.

(9)

Some three quarters of an hour afterwards Laurent stood, lantern in hand, in the smugglers' cave, the "Panier," and looked remorsefully down at Aymar, lying at his feet on the rough bed of sailcloth and seaweed in the profound slumber of exhaustion. His own burst of irritation had subsided now, and the sight of that bandaged arm made him doubly ashamed of it; though as for having forced Aymar, as he had, to use the last shred of his strength, he did not see what else he could have done. But at least it was he himself, and not Royer, who, when they had reached their goal, had guided L'Oiseleur, blind with fatigue as he was, to this couch, on which he had dropped like a log, not to move since.

Royer had gone, promising to come again to-morrow. The "Panier," as far as Laurent could see by lantern-light, seemed wonderfully dry and spacious, and there was a sufficiency of food and coverings. So there was nothing to do but to go to sleep; and in sleep he could forget the cruel rebirth which had taken place in his mind . . . perhaps in sleep it would even go from him again. He lay down as quietly as possible by L'Oiseleur and pulled a little of the covering over himself.

But it was soon obvious to him that he was not going to sleep; he was far too conscious of Aymar's proximity--too conscious that his theory about Aymar was crumbling to pieces as Aymar had foretold. Yet it was he himself who felt the traitor. How could he bear to lie there, almost touching that arm, martyred for him, and realize, as he did at length, that that martyrdom could not change the past! It still was "If you knew!" It still was that L'Oiseleur, for all his courage and endurance, quailed before the thought of a future in his own country. Why . . . why . . . why?

His thoughts buzzed and stung like flies. And now the recurrent plunge of the tide, the sound that none can stay, began to torment him. Every time the waves splashed outside they seemed to reiterate something monotonous and final, some message charged with ruin and farewell. And when Aymar, who had lain beside him all the time like a man drugged or dead, stirred, and in stirring touched him, it was more than Laurent could bear. He slipped from under the covering and groped his way across the cave to its mouth.

It was a cloudy night. The sea looked dull--not sinister, not violent, just a dimly seen expanse of moving mud. There was no moon visible and not a star. It was like his own thoughts. Laurent sat down on a keg at the mouth of the cave and gave himself over to the contemplation of these.

They were far more bitter than on that night at La Baussaine, when the veil of self-deception had first been rent, more bitter even than in that hot vigil on the roof, because of the stage of revulsion and remorse which lay between . . . and fruitlessly. For his reason coldly said to him, "His undoubted affection for you, his more than undoubted strength of will, may have carried him for your sake through an act of heroism, and yet that does not prove that he could not have done . . . the other thing." And it was in vain that his heart cried out, "Yes, it does, it does, it does!" because reason then retorted, "Why, then, has he not told you 'everything,' as he said that day at Arbelles he wished he had? Why did he not tell you yesterday under the pear tree? Evidently he will not--till you ask him!" But that Laurent would never do now. He would leave him, but he would never ask him for his secret.

He could not abandon him yet, but when Aymar was well enough he would say that he must go back to Vendée (as Aymar had urged him) and thus their parting would have no special significance about it. All the same, he would be tearing him out of his heart for ever, deliberately slaying and burying the friendship which had come to mean so immeasurably much to him . . . and condemning himself to go through the rest of his life not knowing the real truth.

He covered his face with his hands, and pictures of the bright and dishonoured head rose constantly before him: Aymar that night in Devonshire, under his roof, looking at him with that quiet and immensely attractive smile--Aymar in the great salon at the Hôtel de Saint-Séverin with the King talking to him, the magnet for every gaze--Aymar at Arbelles, helpless, suffering, despised . . . and all the dearer for it then--Aymar wringing out his wet locks by the swirling river in which he had just risked his life--for him. . . . And he wondered if he would always see that picture-gallery when they had parted, and he heard his name mentioned with loathing--his friend, his friend, who could not have done the thing they said he had, even though his own men believed it and had wreaked vengeance on him--even though he, Laurent, his champion of champions, was at last brought to saying so, too. . . .

Was he indeed saying that? saying it with the slow, hot tears running down against his fingers? The sea was saying it relentlessly. . . . He took away his hands and brushed off the moisture, and found that he must have been there much longer than he knew, for it was light outside, with a cold and heartless light, and from the port a sail was stealing out as Aymar's might one day. And with that, out of the darkness still prevalent within the cave, there came Aymar's voice, no more than a little drowsy.

"What are you doing over there, Laurent? Did I disgust you so with my . . . my want of manhood, that you will not share the same bed with me?"

Laurent jumped. He had no idea that Aymar was awake, nor that he himself was visible. In spite of the words, the tone was not sarcastic; it merely held a sort of sad amusement.

"I . . . I found I couldn't sleep," he stammered hoarsely.

"You won't sleep sitting on that barrel!"

Almost unconsciously Laurent got up and sat down on the sand, putting his shoulders against the rock. "It is dawn," he murmured.

He heard Aymar sigh.

"Is your arm hurting you?"

"No, thanks. . . . Laurent, come back to bed."

Laurent dug his fingers into the sand. "I was abominably rude to you this evening," he said with a gulp.

"It was, I daresay, deserved. At any rate, you succeeded in getting me here."

"Well, go to sleep again," murmured Laurent.

"I will, if you will tell me why you are sitting out there."

There was a long pause, filled by the sea. Laurent had just made up his mind to one course of action--and now, suddenly, he was weighing the opposite. Why not? It was more honest, fairer to _him_. And there was so much in the voice, though it was even and unemotional, that tore his very heart.

"I am sitting here," he said at last slowly, "because I was thinking about you. Because the last few days I could not help . . ." He leant forward, clenched his hands between his knees, and said in a rush, "Aymar, what did you say to M. Perrelet that night?"

In the darkness Aymar observed quietly, "It _is_ that, then. I thought so. God knows what I said! At any rate, M. Perrelet did not like it." He gave a desolate little laugh. "Am I responsible to you also?"

"I never meant to ask you," said Laurent, fighting down his misery. "You know what I have always thought about it all. . . . And after that ramrod, too . . ." A sound like a sob escaped him. "You must tell me something, Aymar. I'm . . . I'm too bewildered to go on in the dark any longer."

Neither sound nor movement came from the other end of the cave; only, outside, the sea came up twice, saluted the sand, and withdrew. Then Aymar spoke. "Yes, I must do it. I ought to have done it long ago--I know it. Only . . . well, you will know soon enough why I did not. Do you want me to tell you the story now?"

"Good God, no!" said Laurent, raising his head. "To-morrow. . . ." And then all his deep affection and a certain cold dread, warring together, swept over him. He sprang to his feet, and, going uncertainly over to him, dropped on his knees beside him. "--Or never, Aymar, if you choose. Let it be never then! I have no right----"

"No right! If ever in the world a man had a right! You ought not to have had to ask. As you have asked"--a suspicion of hardness crept into his voice--"you shall have it, every word, to-morrow . . . or rather to-day. What time is it?"

Laurent struck a light and looked at his watch, and had for his pains a little picture of his friend lying there, with his bandaged arm, challenged at last, on the heels of illness and suffering and extreme fatigue. The tinder must have shown the wretchedness on his own face, for Aymar put out his left hand a little and said very gently, "Why are you reproaching yourself, Laurent? _You_ have no cause--no shadow of cause! And as you do not yet know how much I have you could still lie down here again . . . for a little."

And Laurent came instantly. He tried to seize the extended hand as he lay down, but it evaded him; and he lay there on his face, motionless, dreading the day. But the traitorous thoughts were stilled. . . .

(10)

Despite its spiritless dawn, it was a fine morning, with a breeze and circling gulls--not at all a morning on which to be executed . . . for that had been Laurent's sensation on rising. Only he was not sure now which was the victim and which the executioner.

The two of them had just finished breakfast outside the cave. Laurent felt himself far the more outwardly nervous, and when Aymar became absolutely silent he grew very nervous indeed, thinking that the next moment, or the next, would certainly hear him begin. But Aymar, perhaps, was experiencing a shrinking from that moment more acute still, for when Laurent, unable to bear the tension any longer, scrambled to his feet and picked up the loaf and the empty bowls, Aymar, too, got up, and without a word to him walked down towards the sea. He stood there with his head bent; and Laurent remembered once more how he had seen him, first in the sunshine, by moving water. He turned and went into the cave.

He had barely put away the loaf when Aymar's figure darkened the entrance.

"I will tell you what you want to know now," he said. "It shall be as short as I can make it, but even at that it will take a little time if you are to hear everything."

"Shall I come outside?" asked Laurent, not looking at him.

"No, I can tell you better in here, if you will allow me. The sea is disturbing--louder than that salmon river of yours." He looked round for a seat, and finally sat down on the heap of seaweed.

Then he, too, had been thinking of their first meeting. Laurent fetched for himself the keg he had sat on during the night.

"I must say again," resumed Aymar after a moment, "that I am fully aware you ought never to have had to ask for this. It was owed you on every count. But at Arbelles I . . . put it off from day to day; when I was turned out there was not time, and afterwards at Madeleine's, when I had at least one excellent opportunity, I--well, never mind why I did not take it. The only good excuse I have for my silence is, that to tell you the story properly I must have told you something rather intimate . . . and I did not know you very well at first. My other excuse is not so good." He paused, and played for a moment with the earing of the sail near his left hand. "The other excuse is merely my own cowardice. I thought that when you knew you would----You see how M. Perrelet took it."

"But in M. Perrelet's case you were wandering--whatever you said," began Laurent, feeling a chill at the heart.

"Yes, I probably made him think it was worse than it was." He raised his head and smiled, a little drawn smile. "But I am quite clear-headed now . . . and you will not like what I am going to tell you, Laurent. (Please don't interrupt me, or I shall not be able to tell you at all.) Because I know that you have thought, until quite recently, that I was shielding someone." For the first time his voice betrayed real difficulty. "And I suppose I was. I was shielding . . . myself!"

As it came out he looked straight at his hearer, but Laurent, as though he had been the accused, could not meet his eyes. He put his hand over his own, his elbow on his knees.

"Go on," he said, all but inaudibly. He had turned very pale.

Aymar went on.