The man finished with a short laugh, which was unpleasant to the ear.
Lory thought of the woman who was leading the Peruccas now, who had quitted the chair in which her accuser now sat, a few minutes earlier, and smiled.
"Have you a cigarette?" asked the Corsican, bluntly.
"Yes--but I cannot offer it to you. It is in my right-hand pocket, and my right arm is disabled."
"An arm and a leg, eh?" said the man, seeking in the pocket indicated by Lory, for the neat silver cigarette-case, which he handled with a sort of grand air--this gentleman of the mountain side. "You will smoke also?"
And with his own brown fingers he was kind enough to place a cigarette between de Va.s.selot"s lips. The tobacco-smoke seemed to make him feel still more at home with the head of his clan. For he sat down again and began the conversation in quite a familiar way.
"Who is this Colonel Gilbert of Bastia, who mixes himself up in affairs?"
he inquired.
"What affairs, my friend?"
"Well, the affairs of others, it would appear. We hear strange stories in the macquis--and things that one would never expect to reach the mountains. They say that Colonel Gilbert busies himself in stirring up the Peruccas and the de Va.s.selots against each other--an affair that has slept these thirty years."
"Ah!"
"Yes, and you should know it, you who are the chief of the de Va.s.selots, and have this woman to deal with; the women are always the worst. The chateau, they say, was burnt down, and the women disappeared from the Casa Perucca in the same week. The Casa Perucca is empty now, and the Chateau de Va.s.selot is gone--at Olmeta they are bored enough, I can tell you."
"They have nothing to quarrel about," suggested Lory.
"Nothing," replied the Corsican, quite gravely.
"And the chateau was empty when they burnt it?" inquired Lory.
"Yes; it has been empty since I was a boy. I remember it when I went to St. Florent to school, and it was then that I used to see your father, the count. He was powerful in those days--before the Peruccas began to get strong. But they overrun that country now, which is no doubt the reason why you have never been there."
"Pardon me--I was there when the war broke out two months ago."
"Ah! We never heard that in the macquis, though the Abbe Susini must have known it. He knows so much that he does not tell--that abbe."
"Which makes him the strong man he is, mon ami."
"You are right--you are right," said the Corsican, rising energetically.
"But I am wasting your time with my talk, and tiring you as well, no doubt."
"Wait a minute," replied Lory, touching the bell that stood on a table by his side. "I will give you a letter to a friend of mine, commanding a regiment in Paris."
The servant brought the necessary materials, and Lory prepared awkwardly to write. His arm was still weak, but he could use his hand without pain.
While he was writing, the man sat watching him, and at last muttered an exclamation of wonderment.
"It is a marvel how you resemble the count," he said, "as I remember him thirty years ago, when I was a boy. And do you know, monsieur, I saw an old man the other day for a moment, in pa.s.sing on the road, above Asco, who brought my heart into my throat. If he had not been dead this score of years it might have been your father--not as I remember him, but as the years would have made him. I was hidden in the trees at the side of the road, and he pa.s.sed by on foot. He had the air of going into the macquis. But I do not know who he was."
"When was that?" asked de Va.s.selot, pausing with his pen on the paper.
"That must have been a month ago."
"And you never saw or heard of him again?"
"No," answered the man.
Lory continued to write, his arm moving laboriously on the paper.
"I must have a name--of some sort," he said, "to give my friend, the commandant."
"Ah! I cannot give you my own. Jean Florent--since I came from St.
Florent--that will do."
De Va.s.selot wrote the name, folded and addressed the letter.
"There", he said, "and I wish you good luck. Good luck in war-time may mean gold lace on your sleeve in a few months. I shall join you as soon as I can throw my leg across a horse. Will two hundred francs serve you to reach Paris?"
"Give me one hundred. I am no beggar."
He took the letter and the bank note, shook hands, and went away as abruptly as he came. The man was a murderer, with probably more than one life to account for; and yet he carried his crimes with a certain dignity, and had, at all events, that grand manner which comes from the habit of facing life fearlessly with the odds against.
Lory sat up and watched him. He rang the bell.
"See that man off the premises," he said to the servant, "and then beg Mademoiselle Lange to be good enough to return here."
Denise kept him waiting a long time, and then came with reluctant steps.
The mention of Corsica seemed to have changed her humour. She sat down, nevertheless, in the chair, placed there by Fate.
"You sent for me," she said, rather curtly.
"Because I could not come myself," he answered. "I did not want you to see that man. Or rather, I did not want him to see you. He is not one of your people--quite the contrary."
And de Va.s.selot laughed with significance.
"One of yours?" she suggested.
"So it appears, though I was not aware of the honour. He described you as "that woman.""
Denise laughed lightly, and threw back her head.
"He may describe me as he likes. Did he bring you news?"
And Denise turned away as she spoke, with that air of indifference which so often covers a keen desire for information, if it is a woman who seeks it.
"Yes," answered Lory, turning, as she turned, to look at her. He looked at her whenever opportunity offered. The cheek half turned from him was a little sunburnt, the colour of a peach that has ripened in the open under a Southern sun, for Denise loved the air. Perhaps he had only spoken the truth when he said that her absence made him tired. There are many in the world who have to fight against that weariness all their lives. At last, as if with an effort, Denise turned, and met his glance for a moment.
"Bad news," she said; "I can see that."
"Yes. It is bad enough."