The Secret of Sarek Part 67

"Ah, yes, a horrible adventure, too terrible for words. I have had some gruesome adventures in my life which have left painful memories behind them. But this outdoes them all. It exceeds anything that is possible in reality or human in suffering. It was so excessively logical as to become illogical; and this because it was the act of a madman . . . and also because it came to pa.s.s at a season of madness and bewilderment. It was the war which facilitated the safe silent committal of an obscure crime prepared and executed by a monster. In times of peace, monsters have not the time to realize their stupid dreams. To-day, in that solitary island, this particular monster found special, abnormal conditions . . ."

"Please don't let us talk about all this," murmured Veronique, in a trembling voice.

Don Luis kissed her hand and then took All's Well and lifted him in his arms:

"You're right. Don't let's talk about it, or else tears would come and All's Well would be sad. Therefore, All's Well, my delightful All's Well, let us talk no more of the dreadful adventure. But all the same let us recall certain episodes which were beautiful and picturesque. For instance, Maguennoc's garden with the gigantic flowers; you will remember it as I shall, won't you, All's Well? And the legend of the G.o.d-Stone, the idyll of the Celtic tribes wandering with the memorial stone of their kings, the stone all vibrant with radium, emitting an incessant bombardment of vivifying and miraculous atoms; all that, All's Well, possesses a certain charm, doesn't it? Only, my most exquisite All's Well, if I were a novelist and if it were my duty to tell the story of Coffin Island, I should not trouble too much about the horrid truth and I should give you a much more important part. I should do away with the intervention of that phrase-mongering humbug of a Don Luis and you would be the fearless and silent rescuer. You would fight the abominable monster, you would thwart his machinations and, in the end, you, with your marvellous instinct, would punish vice and make virtue triumph. And it would be much better so, because none would be more capable than you, my delightful All's Well, of demonstrating by a thousand proofs, each more convincing than the other, that in this life of ours all things come right and all's well."

THE END