The Beloved Traitor Part 27

"Very well, mademoiselle. It is perhaps your privilege. I have not time to question it. But since you remain, perhaps you will be good enough to help us."

"Yes!" she said eagerly. "Oh, yes! Tell me what to do."

"Water!" he said tersely. "A basin--cloths!"

With a quick nod of understanding, she ran ahead of them through the door, and hurried on down the hall. She had never been there in Jean's apartment before, but Madame Mi-mi had not been loath to tell her all about it--and so it was not strange to her, and there was something to do now and that seemed to relieve the dull pain that had been torturing her brain, and she could remember again every little detail that Madame Mi-mi had described. The sitting-room, the dressing-room, the bedroom, the dining-room, and from the dining-room into the kitchen--it was a complete menage, though Jean used it so little, save to sleep there, and for his _dejeuners_ which Madame Mi-mi prepared. She procured the basin, filled it, and hurried back with it--going through the rooms this time instead of the corridor--to where in the bedroom they had placed Jean upon the bed. And then there were the cloths--a sheet would serve best for bandages, and that was kept in the linen closet, where too there were clean towels, Madame Mi-mi had said. She could think very clearly now, and she could be much more brave because there was something to do. She flew to the closet, tore a sheet into strips, gathered up some towels, and returned with them again to the bedroom.

The doctor glanced at her approvingly.

"Thank you, mademoiselle," he said, in a much more kindly tone. "That will be all for the present."

But if they were more kindly, his words, they were too a sort of dismissal. She did not know what to do for a moment; and then she went slowly to the foot of the bed and knelt down--she would be out of their way there, and ready in an instant if the doctor called again. She would have given so much to help him in the intimate way this Monsieur Vinailles was helping, to hold Jean, to touch Jean, but--but they seemed so occupied, both of them, and--and she must not interfere. She could only watch, while the agony of suspense crept upon her again; watch the grey-haired man, in his s.h.i.+rt sleeves now, working so quickly, so silently--and then suddenly she turned away her head, and her heart sank with dread. It was so terrible a wound that she had caught sight of in Jean's side, as the doctor straightened up for an instant! It--it did not seem that any one could live with--with that.

And Jean lay so still, so motionless, and in his unconsciousness seemed so much like--like dead. She s.h.i.+vered a little, and fought back the tears, and tried resolutely to think of something else--of anything--of how beautifully Madame Mi-mi had told her Jean's rooms here were furnished.

She forced herself to look around her. Yes, yes, it was as Madame Mi-mi had said--the carpet seemed to s.h.i.+ne as though it were of silk; and the bed was very large and made of bra.s.s, which was something she had never seen before; and in all the rooms, as she had pa.s.sed through them, she had been conscious that everything was very magnificent, just as the salon downstairs was very magnificent. And here on that big, carved dresser were wonderful candlesticks like those Father Anton used to have at the altar in Bernay-sur-Mer, only these were perhaps real silver, just as Father Anton had said that some day, when the parish grew very rich, theirs would be instead of only looking like it, and--she turned quickly back again toward the bed. Monsieur Vinailles and the doctor were speaking.

"But what would you have!" Monsieur Vinailles was exclaiming in a low voice. "I know no more than you what it was about--and neither does LeFair. We tried to bring about an understanding, LeFair and I, before we called for you, or at least get them to consent to a delay in which their tempers might cool; but neither Valmain nor Jean would listen to us. Not a word! If LeFair and I would not act for them, they would get some one else. _Voila tout_! What would you have!"

"H'm!" returned the doctor gruffly. "Well, then, Vinailles, as I shall not need you any more for the moment, I think you had better go and tell Monsieur Bliss what has happened."

"_Sacre_--no!" e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed Vinailles. "I prefer some one else should do that! And besides, I do not think that he has returned to Paris yet."

"Then Mademoiselle Bliss," insisted the doctor quietly. "It is all one! They are Jean's family, as it were, are they not--eh? And then is not Mademoiselle Bliss as good as his fiancee? Well? I consider that she, or Monsieur Bliss, or both of them, should know."

"You mean," said Vinailles, in a startled tone, "that Jean is--"

"I mean nothing!" answered the doctor bluntly. "He is a long time unconscious, and he is not responding well to stimulants, that is all.

On the other hand, you need not unnecessarily alarm any one; if I get him through the next hour or so, and no septic complications set in later on, we'll have him on his feet in a few days. If you take Jean's car you should be back in fifteen or twenty minutes. Go at once, Vinailles."

"Very well," Vinailles agreed a little reluctantly--and left the room.

What did the doctor mean? Marie-Louise crept timidly around to the opposite side of the bed where she could watch his face, and where she could see Jean's face too. What did the doctor mean? If--if everything went right, Jean would be well in a few days, but--but he was in danger now. She questioned the grave face piteously with her eyes--but received no response. The doctor was bending over Jean, and did not look up.

The minutes pa.s.sed, ten, fifteen perhaps, as she knelt there--and then it seemed that she could not endure it any longer, and that all her self-restraint was at an end.

"Jean!" she whispered--and because they were stronger than she, and because she could keep them back no longer, the tears came in a flood, and she reached out and caught Jean's hand that was outstretched on the bed, and held it between both her own, and buried her face between her own two arms.

She felt the doctor's hand laid gently on her shoulder.

"Do not give way, mademoiselle," he said soothingly. "Courage! We shall win, I promise you."

She grew quieter after a little while--and again she tried to think.

They had sent for Mademoiselle Bliss, and very soon mademoiselle would be here. It was the mademoiselle who had spoken to her so sharply that day because she had not put on her shoes and stockings.... Hector had said that Mademoiselle Bliss and Jean were to marry ... and--and that was what the doctor had just said to Monsieur Vinailles ... and--and so it was true. And what then? What--if Mademoiselle Bliss found her here? She would do Mademoiselle Bliss no harm to stay here! Her hands closed tighter over the one in her grasp. How cold Jean's hand was!

What would she do--what would she do? She did not want to go, it seemed so hard to go, and it was so little to ask, so little out of all her life, just to stay there and kneel beside Jean and hold his hand, and--she raised her head, quickly, suddenly. The hand in hers twitched a little, there came a half moan, half gasp, and then Jean's voice, mumbling, wandering, reached her.

"Gaston, see, we are back! Put your arms around my neck, _mon brave_, and I will lift you up, and--" The words grew thick upon his tongue, lost their coherence, and died away. And then he began to speak again, and Marie-Louise leaned closer to catch the words. "See, it is a beacon--and it is for you, Marie-Louise, because it is you ... _sacre nom_, why do you say that? ... I can make a thousand ... has it not those lips that I could fas.h.i.+on even in the dark ... a thousand, I tell you ... how--not another, when--"

"_Tiens_!" exclaimed the doctor briskly. "That is good! He is regaining consciousness now, and--heh!--but what is the matter, mademoiselle?"

With a startled little cry, Marie-Louise was on her feet. She was vaguely conscious that, while they seemed to call up all her life, all the old life of Bernay-sur-Mer, her life and Jean's when they had been together, Jean's words too held some strange relation to something that had just happened here that night, some strange, puzzling, bewildering significance--and that then all this seemed swept away from her on the instant before a still greater significance in the doctor's words.

What had the doctor said--that Jean was returning to consciousness! It brought joy and gladness and hope surging over her; but it brought too something cruel and hard and cold, as though a sentence had been p.r.o.nounced upon her. She must go now, whether she wanted to or not.

Jean must not see her. It was not Mademoiselle Bliss she had to consider now--it was Jean. He must not see her--he must not even know that she had been there. He must not, he must not see her--he must not know! And then a sort of panic fear seized her, and she ran around the bed to the doctor's side.

"Monsieur, monsieur, I must go!" she cried agitatedly. "And he must not know--he must not know that I--that--that any one has been here.

Monsieur, will--will you promise that?"

"But, mademoiselle!"--he looked at her in amazement. "But, mademoiselle, I--"

She caught his hands wildly, and dropped upon her knees.

"See, monsieur, see, I beg it of you!" she pleaded almost hysterically.

"It is not much to ask--that you will not tell. Promise me, monsieur, promise me! Why should he know, why should any one know? I have done no harm! And it--it is for his sake that I ask it. Monsieur, monsieur, you will promise!"

"I see no reason now why I should say anything," he answered gravely; "but if I promise it must be with a reservation. I will promise you, mademoiselle, that unless circ.u.mstances leave me no choice I will say nothing." Then, quickly, as he leaned toward the bed: "But if he is not to see you, you must go at once!"

"Yes!" she breathed. "Yes! You are good, monsieur--you are very, very good. And--and Monsieur Vinailles, and Mademoiselle Bliss, if Monsieur Vinailles should have told her--you will not let them tell Jean any one was here?"

"I will speak to them," he said quietly. "But go then, mademoiselle, immediately!"

"And--and, monsieur"--her voice breaking--"Jean will not--not die?"

"No, mademoiselle, he will not die, I think I can promise that now without any reservation," he replied with a smile. "But, _ma foi_, if he is not to know--eh!"

She stole a half frightened, half wistful glance toward the bed--then ran from the room and out into the hall.

"He must not know! He must not know!"--she kept saying that to herself; repeating it again and again, as she went slowly down the stairs. It seemed as though those were the words that summed up her life, that she had been saying them in her soul ever since the day those strangers had come to Bernay-sur-Mer. "Jean must not know!"

She halted suddenly on the lower step, and her face whitened a little.

Paul Valmain was standing in the doorway of the salon. He was still here then, this Paul Valmain, the man who--who had tried to kill Jean!

"Mademoiselle!" he cried out. "See, I am still waiting! I must speak to you--here--in the salon--in the _atelier_ for a moment!"

It seemed that she must run from him, that she abhorred him--and yet--and yet--"Jean must not know!" She must get Paul Valmain to promise too--Paul Valmain, and that other man who had been with him.

"Mademoiselle!" he said again. "I--"

"Yes," she said--and stepped past him through the salon door.

-- VII --

MEA CULPA

The man frightened her. He had caught her arm the moment she had entered the salon, and had hurried her roughly across the room and into the _atelier_; and, besides, his face was ghastly it was so colourless, and it kept twitching, and his eyes burned with such an unnatural light.

"My arm, monsieur!" she cried out. "You are hurting me!"