The Quest: A Romance

"Coira!" he cried with a sudden sharpness. "Coira, I won't have it! Am I going to lose you … like this? Am I going to lose you after all … now that we know?" He put up his hand once more – a weak and uncertain hand. It touched the girl's warm cheek and a sudden violent shiver wrung the man on the couch. His eyes sharpened and stared with something like fear.

"Real!" he cried, whispering. "Real? … Not a dream?"

"Oh, very real, my Bayard!" said she. A thought came to her and she drew away from the couch, and sat back upon her heels, looking at the man with grave and sombre eyes. In that moment she fought within herself a battle of right and wrong.

"He doesn't remember," she said. "He doesn't know. He is like a little child. He knows nothing but that we two – are here together. Nothing else. Nothing!"

His state was plain to see. He dwelt still in that vague borderland between worlds. He had brought with him no memories, and no memories followed him save those her face had wakened. Within the girl a great and tender passion of love fought for possession of this little hour.

"It will be all I shall ever have!" she cried piteously. "And it cannot harm him. He won't remember it when he comes to his senses. He'll sleep again and – forget. He'll go back to her and never know. And I shall never even see him again. Why can't I have my little sweet hour?"

Once more the man cried her name, and she knelt forward and bent above him.

"Oh, at last, Coira!" said he. "After so long! … And I thought it was another dream."

"Do you dream of me, Bayard?" she asked. And he said —

"From the very first. From that evening in the Champs Elysées. Your eyes, they've haunted me from the very first.

"There was a dream of you," he said, "that I had so often – but I cannot quite remember because my head hurts. What is the matter with my head? I was – going somewhere. It was so very important that I should go, but I have forgotten where it was and why I had to go there. I remember only that you called to me – called me back – and I saw your eyes – and I couldn't go. You needed me."

"Ah, sorely, Bayard! Sorely!" cried the girl above him.

"And now," said he, whispering.

"Now?" she said.

"Coira, I love you," said the man on the couch. And Coira O'Hara gave a single dry sob. She said —

"Oh, my dear love! now I wish that I might die after hearing you say that. My life, Bayard, is full now. It's full of joy and gratefulness and everything that is sweet. I wish I might die before other things come to spoil it."

Ste. Marie – or that part of him which lay at La Lierre, laughed with a fine scorn, albeit very weakly.

"Why not live instead?" said he. "And what can come to spoil our life for us?

"Our life!" he said again in a whisper. A flash of remembrance seemed to come to him for he smiled, and said —

"Coira, we'll go to Vavau."

"Anywhere!" said she. "Anywhere!"

"So that we go together."

"Yes," she said gently, "so that we two go together." She tried with a desperate fierceness to make herself like the man before her, to put away, by sheer power of will, all memory, the knowledge of everything save what was in this little room, but it was the vainest of all vain efforts. She saw herself for a thief and a cheat – stealing, for love's sake, the mere body of the man she loved while mind and soul were absent. In her agony she almost cried out aloud as the words said themselves within her. And she denied them. She said —

"His mind may be absent but his soul is here. He loves me. It is I, not that other. Can I not have my poor little hour of pretence? A little hour out of all a lifetime! Shall I have nothing at all?"

But the voice which had accused her said —

"If he knew, would he say he loves you?" And she hid her face, for she knew that he would not – even if it were true.

"Coira!" whispered the man on the couch, and she raised her head. In the half darkness he could not have seen how she was suffering. Her face was only a warm blur to him, vague and sweet and beautiful, with tender eyes. He said —

"I think – I'm falling asleep. My head is so very, very queer! What is the matter with my head? Coira, do you think I might be kissed before I go to sleep?"

She gave a little cry of intolerable anguish. It seemed to her that she was being tortured beyond all reason or endurance. She felt suddenly very weak and she was afraid that she was going to faint away. She laid her face down upon the couch where Ste. Marie's head lay. Her cheek was against his and her hair across his eyes.

The man gave a little contented sigh and fell asleep.

Later, she rose stiffly and wearily to her feet. She stood for a little while looking down upon him. It was as if she looked upon the dead body of a lover. She seemed to say a still and white and tearless farewell to him. Her little hour was done, and it had been, instead of joy, bitterness unspeakable: ashes in the mouth. Then she went out of the room and closed the door.

In the hall outside she stood a moment considering, and finally mounted the stairs and went to her father's door. She knocked and thought she heard a slight stirring inside, but there was no answer. She knocked twice again and called out her father's name, saying that she wished to speak to him, but still he made no reply, and, after waiting a little longer, she turned away. She went downstairs again and out upon the terrace. The terrace and the lawn before it were still chequered with silver and deep black, but the moon was an hour lower in the west. A little cool breeze had sprung up and it was sweet and grateful to her. She sat down upon one of the stone benches and leant her head back against the trunk of a tree which stood beside, and she remained there for a long time, still and relaxed in a sort of bodily and mental languor – an exhaustion of flesh and spirit.

There came shambling footsteps upon the turf and the old Michel advanced into the moonlight from the gloom of the trees, emitting mechanical and not very realistic groans. He had been hard put to it to find any one before whom he could pour out his tale of heroism and suffering. Coira O'Hara looked upon him coldly, and the gnome groaned with renewed and somewhat frightened energy.

"What is the matter with you?" she asked. "Why are you about at this hour?" The old Michel told his piteous tale with tears and passion, protesting that he had succumbed only before the combined attack of twenty armed men, and exhibiting his wounds. But the girl gave a brief and mirthless laugh.

"You were bribed to tell that, I suppose," said she. "By M. Ste. Marie? Yes, probably. Well, tell it to my father to-morrow! You'd better go to bed now." The old man stared at her with open mouth for a breathless moment, and then shambled hastily away, looking over his shoulder, at intervals, until he was out of sight.

But after that the girl still remained in her place from sheer weariness and lack of impulse to move. She fell to wondering about Captain Stewart and what had become of him, but she did not greatly care. She had a feeling that her world had come to its end, and she was quite indifferent about those who still peopled its ashes – or about all of them save her father.

She heard the distant sound of a motor-car, and at that sat up quickly, for it might be Ste. Marie's friend Mr. Hartley returning from Paris. The sound came nearer and ceased, but she waited for ten minutes before rapid steps approached from the east wall and Hartley was before her.

He cried at once —

"Where's Ste. Marie? Where is he? He hasn't tried to walk into the city?"

"He is asleep in the house," said the girl. "He was struck on the head and stunned. I got him into the house and he is asleep now.

"Of course," she said, "we could wake him, but it would probably be better to let him sleep as long as he will if it is possible. It will save him a great deal of pain I think. He'll have a frightful headache if he's wakened now. Could you come for him or send for him to-morrow – towards noon?"

"Why – yes, I suppose so," said Richard Hartley. "Yes, of course, if you think that's better. Could I just see him for a moment?" He stared at the girl a bit suspiciously and Coira looked back at him with a little tired smile, for she read his thought.

"You want to make sure," said she. "Of course! Yes, come in. He's sleeping very soundly." She led the man into that dim room where Ste. Marie lay, and Hartley's quick eye noted the basin of water and the stained towels and the little bottle of aromatic salts. He bent over his friend to see the bruise at the side of the head, and listened to the sleeper's breathing. Then the two went out again to the moonlit terrace.

"You must forgive me," said he when they had come there. "You must forgive me for seeming suspicious, but – all this wretched business – and he is my closest friend. – I've come to suspect everybody. I was unjust, for you helped us to get away. I beg your pardon!"

The girl smiled at him again, her little white tired smile, and she said —

"There is nothing I would not do to make amends – now that I know – the truth."

"Yes," said Hartley. "I understand. Arthur Benham told me how Stewart lied to you all. Was it he who struck Ste. Marie?" She nodded.

"And then tried to shoot him – but he didn't succeed in that. I wonder where he is – Captain Stewart?"

"I have him out in the car," Hartley said. "Oh, he shall pay, you may be sure! If he doesn't die and cheat us, that is. I nearly ran the car over him a few minutes ago. If it hadn't been for the moonlight I would have done for him. He was lying on his face in that lane that leads to the Issy road. I don't know what is the matter with him. He's only half conscious and he's quite helpless. He looks as if he'd had a stroke of apoplexy or something. I must hurry him back to Paris, I suppose, and get him under a doctor's care. I wonder what's wrong with him?" The girl shook her head, for she did not know of Stewart's epileptic seizures. She thought it quite possible that he had suffered a stroke of apoplexy as Hartley suggested, for she remembered the half-mad state he had been in.

Richard Hartley stood for a time in thought.

"I must get Stewart back to Paris at once," he said finally. "I must get him under care, and in a safe place from which he can't escape. It will want some managing. If I can get away, I'll come out here again in the morning; but if not, I'll send the car out with orders to wait here until Ste. Marie is ready to return to the city. Are you sure he's all right – that he isn't badly hurt?"

"I think he will be all right," she said, "save for the pain. He was only stunned." And Hartley nodded.

"He seems to be breathing quite naturally," said he. "That's arranged then. The car will be here in waiting, and I shall come with it if I can. Tell him when he wakes." He put out his hand to her, and the girl gave him hers very listlessly but smiling. She wished he would go, and leave her alone.

Then in a moment more he did go, and she heard his quick steps down through the trees, and heard, a little later, the engine of the motor car start up with a sudden loud volley of explosions. And so she was left to her solitary watch. She noticed as she turned to go indoors that the blackness of the night was just beginning to grey towards dawn.

CHAPTER XXIX

THE SCALES OF INJUSTICE

Ste. Marie slept soundly until mid-morning – that is to say, about ten o'clock – and then awoke with a dull pain in his head and a sensation of extreme giddiness, which became something like vertigo when he attempted to rise. However, with the aid of the old Michel he got somehow upstairs to his room, and made a rather sketchy toilet.

Coira came to him there and, while he lay still across the bed, told him about the happenings of the night after he had received his injury. She told him also that the motor was waiting for him, outside the wall, and that Richard Hartley had sent a message by the chauffeur, to say that he was very busy in Paris making arrangements about Stewart, who had come out of his strange state of half insensibility only to rave in a delirium.

"So," she said, "you can go now whenever you are ready. Arthur is with his family, Captain Stewart is under guard, and your work is done. You ought to be glad – even though you are suffering pain."

Ste. Marie looked up at her.

"Do I seem glad, Coira?" said he. And she said —

"You will be glad to-morrow – and always, I hope and pray. Always, always!"

The man held one hand over his aching eyes.

"I have," he said, "queer half-memories. I wish I could remember distinctly."

He looked up at her again.

"I dropped down by the gate in the wall. When I awoke I was in a room in the house. How did that happen?"

"Oh," she said, turning her face away, "we got you up to the house almost at once." But Ste. Marie frowned thoughtfully.

"'We'? Who do you mean by 'we'?"

"Well then, I," the girl said. "It was not difficult."

"Coira!" cried the man, "do you mean that you carried me bodily all that long distance? You?"

"Carried or dragged," she said. "As much one as the other. It was not very difficult. I'm strong, for a woman."

"Oh, child, child!" he cried. And he said —

"I remember more. It was you who held Stewart, and kept him from shooting me. I heard the shot and I heard you scream. The last thought I had was that you had been killed in saving me. That's what I went out into the blank, thinking."

He covered his eyes again as if the memory were intolerable. But after a while he said —

"You saved my life, you know." And the girl answered him —

"I had nearly taken it once before. It was I who called Michel that day you came over the wall, the day you were shot. I nearly murdered you once. I owed you something. Perhaps we're even now." She saw that he did not at all remember that hour in the little room – her hour of bitterness, and she was glad. She had felt sure that it would be so. For the present she did not greatly suffer; she had come to a state beyond active suffering – a chill state of dulled sensibilities.

The old Justine knocked at the door to ask if monsieur was going into the city soon, or if she should give the chauffeur his déjeuner and tell him to wait.

"Are you fit to go?" Coira asked. And he said —

"I suppose as fit as I shall be." He got to his feet, and the things about him swam dangerously, but he could walk by using great care. The girl stood white and still, and she avoided his eyes.

"It is not good-bye," said he. "I shall see you soon again – and I hope, often – often, Coira." The words had a flat and foolish sound, but he could find no others. It was not easy to speak.

"I suppose I must not ask to see your father?" said he, and she told him that her father had locked himself in his own room and would see no one, would not even open his door to take in food.

Ste. Marie went to the stairs, leaning upon the shoulder of the stout old Justine, but, before he had gone, Coira checked him for an instant. She said —

"Tell Arthur, if he speaks to you about me, that what I said in the note I gave him last night, I meant quite seriously. I gave him a note to read after he reached home. Tell him for me that it was final. Will you do that?"

"Yes, of course," said Ste. Marie. He looked at her with some wonder because her words had been very emphatic.

"Yes," he said, "I will tell him. Is that all?"

"All but good-bye," said she. "Good-bye, Bayard!"

She stood at the head of the stairs while he went down them. And she came after him to the landing halfway where the stairs turned in the opposite direction for their lower flight. When he went out of the front door he looked back, and she was standing there above him – a straight, still figure, dark against the light of the windows behind her.

He went straight to the Rue d'Assas. He found that while he sat still in the comfortable tonneau of the motor his head was fairly normal, and the world did not swing and whirl about in that sickening fashion. But when the car lurched or bumped over an obstruction it made him giddy, and he would have fallen had he been standing.

The familiar streets of the Montparnasse and Luxembourg quarters had for his eyes all the charm and delight of home things to the returned traveller. He felt as if he had been away for months, and he caught himself looking for changes, and it made him laugh. He was much relieved when he found that his concierge was not on watch, and that he could slip unobserved up the stairs and into his rooms. The rooms were fresh and clean, for they had been aired and tended daily.

Arrived there he wrote a little note to a friend of his who was a doctor and lived in the Rue Notre Dame des Champs, asking this man to call as soon as it might be convenient. He sent the note by the chauffeur, and then lay down, dressed as he was, to wait, for he could not stand or move about without a painful dizziness. The doctor came within a half-hour, examined Ste. Marie's bruised head and bound it up. He gave him a dose of something with a vile taste, which he said would take away the worst of the pain in a few hours, and he also gave him a sleeping potion, and made him go to bed.

"You'll be fairly fit by evening," he said. "But don't stir until then. I'll leave word below that you're not to be disturbed."

So it happened that when Richard Hartley came dashing up an hour or two later he was not allowed to see his friend, and Ste. Marie slept a dreamless sleep until dark.

He awoke then, refreshed but ravenous with hunger, and found that there was only a dull ache in his battered head. The dizziness and the vertigo were almost completely gone. He made lights and dressed with care. He felt like a little girl making ready for a party; it was so long – or seemed so long – since he had put on evening clothes. Then he went out, leaving at the loge of the concierge a note for Hartley to say where he might be found. He went to Lavenue's and dined in solitary pomp, for it was after nine o'clock. Again it seemed to him that it was months since he had done the like – sat down to a real table for a real dinner. At ten he got into a fiacre and drove to the Rue de l'Université.

The man who admitted him said that mademoiselle was alone in the drawing-room, and he went there at once. He was dully conscious that something was very wrong, but he had suffered too much within the past few hours to be analytical, and he did not know what it was that was wrong. He should have entered that room with a swift and eager step, with shining eyes, with a high-beating heart. He went into it slowly, wrapped in a mantle of strange apathy.

Helen Benham came forward to meet him and took both his hands in hers. Ste. Marie was amazed to see that she seemed not to have altered at all – in spite of this enormous lapse of time, in spite of all that had happened in it. And yet, unaltered, she seemed to him a stranger, a charming and gracious stranger with an icily beautiful face, He wondered at her and at himself, and he was a little alarmed, because he thought that he must be ill. That blow upon the head must, after all, have done something terrible to him.

"Ah, Ste. Marie!" she said in her well-remembered voice – and again he wondered that the voice should be so high-pitched, and so without colour or feeling. "How glad I am," she said, "that you are safely out of it all! How you have suffered for us, Ste. Marie! You look white and ill. Sit down, please! Don't stand!" She drew him to a comfortable chair, and he sat down in it obediently. He could not think of anything to say, though he was not, as a rule, tongue-tied, but the girl did not seem to expect any answer, for she went on at once with a rather odd air of haste —

"Arthur is here with us, safe and sound. Richard Hartley brought him back from that dreadful place, and he has talked everything over with my grandfather, and it's all right. They both understand now, and there'll be no more trouble. We have had to be careful, very careful, and we have had to – well, to rearrange the facts a little so as to leave – my uncle – to leave Captain Stewart's name out of it. It would not do to shock my grandfather by telling him the truth. Perhaps, later; I don't know. That will have to be thought of. For the present we have left my uncle out of it – and put the blame entirely upon this other man. I forget his name."

"The blame cannot rest there," said Ste. Marie sharply. "It is not deserved, and I shall not allow it to be left so. Captain Stewart lied to O'Hara throughout. You cannot leave the blame with an innocent man."

"Still – " she said, "such a man!"

Ste. Marie looked at her, frowning, and the girl turned her eyes away. She may have had the grace to be a little ashamed.

"Think of the difficulty we were in!" she urged. "Captain Stewart is my grandfather's own son. We cannot tell him now, in his weak state, that his own son is – what he is."

There was reason if not justice in that, and Ste. Marie was forced to admit it. He said —

"Ah well! for the present, then. That can be arranged later. The main point is that I've found your brother for you. I've brought him back."

Miss Benham looked up at him and away again, and she drew a quick breath. He saw her hands move restlessly in her lap, and he was aware that for some odd reason she was very ill at ease. At last she said —

"Ah, but – but have you, dear Ste. Marie? Have you?"

After a brief silence she stole another swift glance at the man, and he was staring in open and frank bewilderment. She rushed into rapid speech.

"Ah," she cried, "don't misunderstand me! Don't think that I'm brutal or ungrateful for all you've – you've suffered in trying to help us. Don't think that! I can – we can never be grateful enough, never! But stop and think! Yes, I know this all sounds hideous, but it's so terribly important. I shouldn't dream of saying a word of it if it weren't so important, if so much didn't depend upon it. But stop and think! Was it, dear Ste. Marie, was it, after all, you? Was it you who brought Arthur to us?"

The man fairly blinked at her, owl-like. He was beyond speech.

"Wasn't it Richard?" she hurried on. "Wasn't it Richard Hartley? Ah, if I could only say it without seeming so contemptibly heartless! If only I needn't say it at all! But it must be said because of what depends upon it.

"Think! Go back to the beginning! Wasn't it Richard who first began to suspect my uncle? Didn't he tell you or write to you what he had discovered, and so set you upon the right track? And after you had – well, just fallen into their hands, with no hope of ever escaping, yourself – to say nothing of bringing Arthur back – wasn't it Richard who came to your rescue and brought it all to victory? Oh, Ste. Marie, I must be just to him as well as to you! Don't you see that? However grateful I may be to you for what you have done – suffered – I cannot, in justice, give you what I was to have given you, since it is, after all, Richard who has saved my brother. I cannot, can I? Surely you must see it. And you must see how it hurts me to have to say it. I had hoped that – you would understand – without my speaking."

Still the man sat in his trance of astonishment, speechless. For the first time in his life he was brought face to face with the amazing, the appalling injustice of which a woman is capable when her heart is concerned. This girl wished to believe that to Richard Hartley belonged the credit for rescuing her brother, and, lo! she believed it. A score of juries might have decided against her, a hundred proofs controverted her decision, but she would have been deaf and blind. It is only women who accomplish miracles of reasoning like that.

Ste. Marie took a long breath and he started to speak, but in the end shook his head and remained silent. Through the whirl and din of falling skies he was yet able to see the utter futility of words. He could have adduced a hundred arguments to prove her absurdity. He could have shown her that before he ever read Hartley's note he had decided upon Stewart's guilt – and for much better reasons than Hartley had. He could have pointed out to her that it was he, not Hartley, who discovered young Benham's whereabouts; that it was he who summoned Hartley there; and that, as a matter of fact, Hartley need not have come at all, since the boy had been persuaded to go home in any case.