"As I thought," she cried, hurriedly reclasping it and turning to him in eager excitement; "I must go, indeed I must go at once!"
"Alone?" asked Captain Dieppe, with a simple, but effective eloquence.
At least it appeared very effective. She came nearer to him and, of her own accord now, laid her hands in his. Shyness and pleasure struggled in her eyes as she fixed them on his face.
"I shall see you again," she murmured.
"How?" he asked.
"Why, you "re coming back--back to the Castle?" she cried eagerly. The doubt of his returning thither seemed to fill her with dismay.
The Captain"s scruples gave way. Perhaps it was the locket that undermined them, perhaps that look to her eyes, and the touch of her hands as they rested in his.
"I will do anything you bid me," he whispered.
"Then come once again." She paused. "Because I--I don"t want to say good-bye just now."
"If I come, will it be to say good-bye?"
"That shall be as you wish," she said.
It seemed to Dieppe that no confession could have been more ample, yet none more delicately reserved in the manner of its utterance. His answer was to clasp her in his arms and kiss her lips. But in an instant he released her, in obedience to the faint, yet sufficient, protest of her hands pressing him away.
"Come in an hour," she whispered, and, turning, left him and pa.s.sed from the hut.
For a moment or two he stood where he was, devoured by many conflicting feelings. But his love, once obedient to the dictates of friendship and the unyielding limits of honour, would not be denied now. How had the Count of Fieramondi now any right to invoke his honour, or to appeal to his friendship? Gladly, as a man will, the Captain seized on another"s fault to excuse his own.
"I will go again--in an hour--and I will not say good-bye," he declared, as he flung himself down on one of the trusses of straw and prepared to wait till it should be time for him to set out.
The evening had been so full of surprises, so prolific of turns of fortune good and evil, so bountiful of emotions and changeful feelings, that he had little store of surprise left wherewith to meet any new revolution of the wheel. Nevertheless it was with something of a start that he raised his head again from the straw on which he had for a moment reclined, and listened intently. There had been a rustle in the straw; he turned his head sharply to the left. But he had misjudged the position whence the noise came. From behind the truss of straw to his right there rose the figure of a man. Monsieur Guillaume stood beside him, his head tied round with a handkerchief, but his revolver in his hand. The Captain"s hand flew towards his breast-pocket.
"You "ll particularly oblige me by not moving," said Monsieur Guillaume, with a smile.
Of a certainty a man should not mingle love and business, especially, perhaps, when neither the love nor the business can be said properly to belong to him.
CHAPTER IX
THE STRAW IN THE CORNER
There was nothing odd in M. Guillaume"s presence, however little the lady or the Captain had suspected it. The surprise he gave was a reprisal for that which he had suffered when, after the Captain"s exit, he had recovered his full faculties and heard a furtive movement within the hut. It was the inspiration and the work of a moment to raise himself with an exaggerated effort and a purposed noise, and to take his departure with a tread heavy enough to force itself on the ears of the unknown person inside. But he did not go far. To what purpose should he, since it was vain to hope to overtake the Captain or Paul de Roustache? Some one was left behind; then, successful or unsuccessful, the Captain would return--unless Paul murdered him, a catastrophe which would be irremediable, but was exceedingly unlikely. Guillaume mounted to the top of the eminence and flung himself down in the gra.s.s; thence he crawled round the summit, descended again with a stealthiness in striking contrast to his obtrusive ascent, and lay down in the dark shadow of the hut itself. In about twenty minutes his patience was rewarded: the lady came out,--she had forgotten to mention this little excursion to the Captain,--mounted the rise, looked round, and walked down towards the Cross. Presumably she was looking for a sight of Dieppe. In a few minutes she returned. Guillaume was no longer lying by the hut, but was safe inside it under the straw. She found Dieppe"s matches, relighted the candle, and sat down in the doorway with her back to the straw. Thus each had kept a silent vigil until the Captain returned to the rendezvous. Guillaume felt that he had turned a rather unpromising situation to very good account. He was greatly and naturally angered with Paul de Roustache: the loss of his portfolio was grievous. But the Captain was his real quarry; the Captain"s papers would more than console him for his money; and he had a very pretty plan for dealing with the Captain.
Nothing was to be gained by sitting upright. In a moment Dieppe realised this, and sank back on his truss of straw. He glanced at Guillaume"s menacing weapon, and thence at Guillaume himself. "Your play, my friend," he seemed to say. He knew the game too well not to recognise and accept its chances. But Guillaume was silent.
"The hurt to your head is not serious or painful, I hope?" Dieppe inquired politely. Still Guillaume maintained a grim and ominous silence. The Captain tried again. "I trust, my dear friend," said he persuasively, "that your weapon is intended for strictly defensive purposes?" The candle had burnt almost down to the block on which it rested (the fact did not escape Dieppe), but it served to show Guillaume"s acid smile. "What quarrel have we?" pursued the Captain, in a conciliatory tone. "I "ve actually been engaged on your business, and got confoundedly wet over it too."
"You "ve been across the river then?" asked Guillaume, breaking his silence.
"It "s not my fault--the river was in my way," Dieppe answered a little impatiently. "As for you, why do you listen to my conversation?"
"With the Countess of Fieramondi? Ah, you soldiers! You were a little indiscreet there, my good Captain. But that"s not my business."
"Your remark is very just," agreed Dieppe. "I "ll give that candle just a quarter of an hour," he was thinking.
"Except so far as I may be able to turn it to my purposes. Come, we know one another, Captain Dieppe."
"We have certainly met in the course of business," the Captain conceded with a touch of hauteur, as he shifted the truss a little further under his right shoulder.
"I want something that you have," said Guillaume, fixing his eyes on his companion. Dieppe"s were on the candle. "Listen to me," commanded Guillaume, imperiously.
"I have really no alternative," shrugged the Captain. "But don"t make impossible propositions. And be brief. It "s late; I "m hungry, cold, and wet."
Guillaume smiled contemptuously at this useless bravado, for such it seemed to him. It did not occur to his mind that Dieppe had anything to gain--or even a bare chance of gaining anything--by protracting the conversation. But in fact the Captain was making observations--first of the candle, secondly of the number and position of the trusses of straw.
"Are you in a position to call any proposition impossible?" Guillaume asked.
"It"s quite true that I can"t make use of my revolver," agreed the Captain. "But on the other hand you don"t, I presume, intend to murder me? Would n"t that be exceeding your instructions!"
"I don"t know as to that--I might be forgiven. But of course I entertain no such desire. Captain, I "ve an idea that you "re in possession of my portfolio."
"What puts that into your head?" inquired the Captain in a rather satirical tone.
"From what you said to the Countess I--"
"Ah, I find it so hard to realise that you actually committed that breach of etiquette," murmured Dieppe, reproachfully.
"And that perhaps--I say only perhaps--you have made free with the contents. For it seems you "ve got rid of Paul de Roustache. Well, I will not complain--"
"Ah?" said the Captain with a movement of interest.
"But if I lose my money, I must have my money"s worth."
"That "s certainly what one prefers when it"s possible," smiled the Captain, indulgently.
"To put it briefly--"
"As briefly as you can, pray," cried Dieppe; but the candle burnt steadily still, and brevity was the last thing that he desired.
"Give me your papers and you may keep the portfolio."
The Captain"s indignation at this proposal was extreme; indeed, it led him to sit upright again, to fix his eyes on the candle, and to talk right on end for hard on five minutes--in fact as long as he could find words--on the subject of his honour as a gentleman, as a soldier, as a Frenchman, as a friend, as a confidential agent, and as a loyal servant. Guillaume did not interrupt him, but listened with a smile of genuine amus.e.m.e.nt.
"Excellent!" he observed, as the Captain sank back exhausted. "A most excellent preamble for your explanation of the loss, my dear Captain.
And you will add at the end that, seeing all this, it cannot be doubted that you surrendered these papers only under absolute compulsion, and not the least in the world for reasons connected with my portfolio."
"My words were meant to appeal to your own better feelings," sighed the Captain in a tone of despairing reproach.