"I cannot let you risk your life," I cried, wholly forgetting myself; "there are others who will do this."
"Others?" she said.
"I will go. I--I have nursed people before this. And there is Lindy."
A smile quivered on her lips,--or was it a smile?
"You will do as I say and go to Madame Gravois"s--at once," she murmured, striving for the first time to free herself.
"If you stay, I stay," I answered; "and if you die, I die."
She looked up into my eyes for a fleeting instant.
"Write to Mr. Temple," she said.
Dazed, I watched her open the bedroom doors, motion to Lindy to pa.s.s through, and then she had closed them again and I was alone in the darkened parlor.
The throbbing in my head was gone, and a great clearness had come with a great fear. I stood, I know not how long, listening to the groans that came through the wall, for Mrs. Temple was in agony. At intervals I heard Helene"s voice, and then the groans seemed to stop. Ten times I went to the bedroom door, and as many times drew away again, my heart leaping within me at the peril which she faced. If I had had the right, I believe I would have carried her away by force.
But I had not the right. I sat down heavily, by the table, to think and it might have been a cry of agony sharper than the rest that reminded me once more of the tragedy of the poor lady in torture. My eye fell upon the table, and there, as though prepared for what I was to do, lay pen and paper, ink and sand. My hand shook as I took the quill and tried to compose a letter to my cousin. I scarcely saw the words which I put on the sheet, and I may be forgiven for the unwisdom of that which I wrote.
"The Baron de Carondelet will send an officer for you to-night so that you may escape observation in custody. His Excellency knew of your hiding-place, but is inclined to be lenient, will allow you to-morrow to go to the Rue Bourbon, and will without doubt permit you to leave the province. Your mother is ill, and Madame la Vicomtesse and myself are with her.
"DAVID."
In the state I was it took me a long time to compose this much, and I had barely finished it when there was a knock at the outer door. There was Andre. He had the immobility of face which sometimes goes with the mulatto, and always with the trained servant, as he informed me that Monsieur le Medecin was not at home, but that he had left word. There was an epidemic, Monsieur, so Andre feared. I gave him the note and his directions, and ten minutes after he had gone I would have given much to have called him back. How about Antoinette, alone at Les Iles? Why had I not thought of her? We had told her nothing that morning, Madame la Vicomtesse and I, after our conference with Nick. For the girl had shut herself in her room, and Madame had thought it best not to disturb her at such a stage. But would she not be alarmed when Helene failed to return that night? Had circ.u.mstances been different, I myself would have ridden to Les Iles, but no inducement now could make me desert the post I had chosen. After many years I dislike to recall to memory that long afternoon which I spent, helpless, in the Rue Bourbon. Now I was on my feet, pacing restlessly the short breadth of the room, trying to shut out from my mind the horrors of which my ears gave testimony. Again, in the intervals of quiet, I sat with my elbows on the table and my head in my hands, striving to allay the throbbing in my temples. Pains came and went, and at times I felt like a f.a.got flung into the fire,--I, who had never known a sick day. At times my throat pained me, an odd symptom in a warm climate. Troubled as I was in mind and body, the thought of Helene"s quiet heroism upheld me through it all. More than once I had my hand raised to knock at the bedroom door and ask if I could help, but I dared not; at length, the sun having done its worst and spent its fury, I began to hear steps along the banquette and voices almost at my elbow beyond the little window. At every noise I peered out, hoping for the doctor. But he did not come. And then, as I fell back into the fauteuil, there was borne on my consciousness a sound I had heard before. It was the music of the fiddler, it was a tune I knew, and the voices of the children were singing the refrain:--
"Ne sait quand reviendra, Ne sait quand reviendra."
I rose, opened the door, and slipped out of it, and I must have made a strange, hatless figure as I came upon the fiddler and his children from across the street.
"Stop that noise," I cried in French, angered beyond all reason at the thought of music at such a time. "Idiots, there is yellow fever there."
The little man stopped with his bow raised; for a moment they all stared at me, transfixed. It was a little elf in blue indienne who jumped first and ran down the street, crying the news in a shrill voice, the others following, the fiddler gazing stupidly after them. Suddenly he scrambled up, moaning, as if the scourge itself had fastened on him, backed into the house, and slammed the door in my face. I returned with slow steps to shut myself in the darkened room again, and I recall feeling something of triumph over the consternation I had caused. No sounds came from the bedroom, and after that the street was quiet as death save for an occasional frightened, hurrying footfall. I was tired.
All at once the bedroom door opened softly, and Helene was standing there, looking at me. At first I saw her dimly, as in a vision, then clearly. I leaped to my feet and went and stood beside her.
"The doctor has not come," I said. "Where does he live? I will go for him."
She shook her head.
"He can do no good. Lindy has procured all the remedies, such as they are. They can only serve to alleviate," she answered. "She cannot withstand this, poor lady." There were tears on Helene"s lashes. "Her sufferings have been frightful--frightful."
"Cannot I help?" I said thickly. "Cannot I do something?"
She shook her head. She raised her hand timidly to the lapel of my coat, and suddenly I felt her palm, cool and firm, upon my forehead. It rested there but an instant.
"You ought not to be here," she said, her voice vibrant with earnestness and concern. "You ought not to be here. Will you not go--if I ask it?"
"I cannot," I said; "you know I cannot if you stay."
She did not answer that. Our eyes met, and in that instant for me there was neither joy nor sorrow, sickness nor death, nor time nor s.p.a.ce nor universe. It was she who turned away.
"Have you written him?" she asked in a low voice.
"Yes," I answered.
"She would not have known him," said Helene; "after all these years of waiting she would not have known him. Her punishment has been great."
A sound came from the bedroom, and Helene was gone, silently, as she had come.
I must have been dozing in the fauteuil, for suddenly I found myself sitting up, listening to an unwonted noise. I knew from the count of the hoof-beats which came from down the street that a horse was galloping in long strides--a spent horse, for the timing was irregular. Then he was pulled up into a trot, then to a walk as I ran to the door and opened it and beheld Nicholas Temple flinging himself from a pony white with lather. And he was alone! He caught sight of me as soon as his foot touched the banquette.
"What are you doing here?" I cried. "What are you doing here?"
He halted on the edge of the banquette as a hurrying man runs into a wall. He had been all excitement, all fury, as he jumped from his horse; and now, as he looked at me, he seemed to lose his bearings, to be all bewilderment. He cried out my name and stood looking at me like a fool.
"What the devil do you mean by coming here?" I cried. "Did I not write you to stay where you were? How did you get here?" I stepped down on the banquette and seized him by the shoulders. "Did you receive my letter?"
"Yes," he said, "yes." For a moment that was as far as he got, and he glanced down the street and then at the heaving beast he had ridden, which stood with head drooping to the kennel. Then he laid hold of me.
"Davy, is it true that she has yellow fever? Is it true?"
"Who told you?" I demanded angrily.
"Andre," he answered. "Andre said that the lady here had yellow fever.
Is it true?"
"Yes," I said almost inaudibly.
He let his hand fall from my shoulder, and he shivered.
"May G.o.d forgive me for what I have done!" he said. "Where is she?"
"For what you have done?" I cried; "you have done an insensate thing to come here." Suddenly I remembered the sentry at the gate of Fort St.
Charles. "How did you get into the city?" I said; "were you mad to defy the Baron and his police?"
"d.a.m.n the Baron and his police," he answered, striving to pa.s.s me. "Let me in! Let me see her."
Even as he spoke I caught sight of men coming into the street, perhaps at the corner of the Rue St. Pierre, and then more men, and as we went into the house I saw that they were running. I closed the doors. There were cries in the street now, but he did not seem to heed them. He stood listening, heart-stricken, to the sounds that came through the bedroom wall, and a spasm crossed his face. Then he turned like a man not to be denied, to the bedroom door. I was before him, but Madame la Vicomtesse opened it. And I remember feeling astonishment that she did not show surprise or alarm.
"What are you doing here, Mr. Temple?" she said.
"My mother, Madame! My mother! I must go to her."
He pushed past her into the bedroom, and I followed perforce. I shall never forget the scene, though I had but the one glimpse of it,--the raving, yellowed woman in the bed, not a spectre nor yet even a semblance of the beauty of Temple Bow. But she was his mother, upon whom G.o.d had brought such a retribution as He alone can bestow. Lindy, faithful servant to the end, held the wasted hands of her mistress against the violence they would have done. Lindy held them, her own body rocking with grief, her lips murmuring endearments, prayers, supplications.