The Secret Mark Part 25

It was true. The magnificent mahogany desks from which great, high-salaried executives sent out orders to thousands of weary tailors, made quite as good kindling that night as did some poor widow's washboard, and they were given quite as much consideration by that bad master, fire.

"Hurry!" Lucile's voice was hoa.r.s.e with emotion. "We must get behind it, out of the path of the wind, or we will be burned to a cinder." Catching the full force of her meaning, Florence seized Lucile's hand and together they rushed forward.

Burning cinders rained about them, a half-burned board came swooping down to fall in their very path. Twice Lucile stumbled and fell, but each time Florence had her on her feet in an instant.

"Courage! Courage!" she whispered. "Only a few feet more and then the turn."

After what seemed an age they reached that turn and found themselves in a place where a breath of night air fanned their cheeks.

Buildings lay between them and the doomed executive building. The firemen were plying these with water. The great cement structure would be completely emptied of its contents by the fire but it would stand there empty-eyed and staring like an Egyptian sphinx.

"It may form a fire-wall which will protect this and the next street,"

said Florence hopefully. "The worst may be over."

CHAPTER XXIV SECRETS REVEALED

On a night such as this, one does not stand on formalities. There was a light burning in the mystery cottage on Tyler street. The girls entered without knocking.

The scene which struck their eyes was most dramatic. On a long, low couch lay the aged Frenchman. Beside his bed, her hair disheveled, her garments blackened and scorched by fire, knelt the child. She was silently sobbing. The man, for all one could see, might be dead, so white and still did he lie.

Yet as the girls, still dressed in great coats and rubber hats, stepped into the room, his eyes opened; his lips moved and the girls heard him murmur:

"Ah, the firemen. Now my books will burn, the house will go. They all will burn. But like Montcalm at Quebec, I shall not live to see my defeat."

"No, no, no!" the child sprang to her feet. "They must not burn! They shall not burn!"

"Calm yourself," said Lucile, advancing into the room and removing her coat as she did so. "It is only I, your friend, Lucile. The fire is two blocks away and there is reason to hope that this part of Tyler street will be saved. The huge concrete building is burning out from within but is standing rugged as a great rock. It is your protection."

"Ah, then I shall die happy," breathed the man.

"No! No! No!" almost screamed the child. "You shall not die."

"Hush, my little one," whispered the man. "Do not question the wisdom of the Almighty. My hour has come. Soon I shall be with my sires and with my sons and grandsons; with all the brave ones who have so n.o.bly defended our beloved France.

"And as for you, my little one, you have here two friends and all my books. It is in the tin box behind the books, my will. I have no living kin. I have made you my heir. The books are worth much money. You are well provided for. Your friends here will see that they are not stolen from you, will you not?"

Florence and Lucile, too touched to trust themselves to speak, bowed their heads.

"As for myself," the man went on in a hoa.r.s.e whisper, "I have but one regret.

"Come close," he beckoned to Lucile. "Come very close. I have something more to tell you."

Lucille moved close to him, something seeming to say to her, "Now you are to hear the gargoyle's secret."

"Not many days ago," he began, "I told you some of my life, but not all.

I could not. My heart was too sore. Now I wish to tell you all. You remember that I said I took my books to Paris. That is not quite true. I started with all of them but not all arrived. One box of them, the most precious of all, was stolen while on the way and a box of cheap and worthless books put in its place.

"Heartbroken at this loss, I traced the robbers as best I could at last to find that the books had been carried overseas to America.

"I came to America. They had been sold, scattered abroad. The thief eluded me, but the books I could trace. By the gargoyle in the corner and by the descriptions of dealers in rare books, I located many of them.

"Those who had them had paid handsomely for them. They would not believe an old man's story. They would not give them up.

"I brought suit in the courts. It was no use. No one would believe me.

"Young lady," the old man's voice all but died away as his feeble fingers clutched at the covers, "young lady, every man has some wish which he hopes to fulfill. He may desire to become rich, to secure power, to write a book, to paint a great picture. There is always something. As for me, I wished but one thing, a very little thing: to die with the books, those precious volumes I had inherited. The foolish wish of a childish old man, perhaps, but that was my wish. The war has taken my family. They cannot gather by my bedside; I have only my books. And, thanks to this child,"

he attempted to place his hand on the child's bowed head, "thanks to her, there are but few missing at this, the last moment."

For a little there was silence in the room, then the whisper began again, this time more faint:

"Perhaps it was wrong, the way I taught the child to get the books. But they were really my own. I had not sold one of them. They were all my own. She knows where they came from. When I am gone, if that is the way of America, they may all be returned."

Lucile hesitated for a moment, then bent over the dying man.

"The books," she whispered. "Were two of them very small ones?"

The expression on the dying man's face grew eager as he answered, "Yes, yes, very small and very rare. One was a book about fis.h.i.+ng and the other--ah, that one!--that was the rarest of all. It had been written in by the great Napoleon and had been presented by him to one of his marshals, my uncle."

Lucile's hand came out from behind her back. In it were two books.

"Are these the ones?" she asked.

"Yes, yes," he breathed hoa.r.s.ely. "Those are the very most precious ones.

I die--I die happy."

For a second the gla.s.sy eyes stared, then lighted up with a smile that was beautiful to behold.

"Ah!" he breathed, "I am happy now, happy as when a child I played beneath the grapevines in my own beloved France."

Those were his last words. A moment later, Lucile turned to lead the silently weeping child into another room. As she did so, she encountered a figure standing with bowed head.

It was the studious looking boy who had donned the fireman's coat and followed them.

"Harry Brock!" she whispered. "How did you come here?"

"I came in very much the same manner that you came," he said quietly. "I have been where you have been many times of late. I did not understand, but I thought you needed protection and since I thought of myself as the best friend you had among the men at the university, I took that task upon myself. I have been in this room, unnoticed, for some time. I heard what he said and now I think I understand. Please allow me to congratulate you and--and to thank you. You have strengthened my faith in--in all that is good and beautiful."

He stepped awkwardly aside and allowed her to pa.s.s.

CHAPTER XXV BETTER DAYS