gerard de montignac had never been so thoroughly startled and surprised in his life. but he was angrily conscious of an emotion far keener than his surprise. he was jealous. jealousy overmastered the shock of wonder, stabbed him through and left him aching. marguerite lambert, the girl of the villa iris, so politely difficult! and paul ravenel, the man without passion! why, his brother officers used to laugh at him openly—nay, almost sneered at him and made a butt of him—because of his coldness; and he, indifferent to their laughter, had just laughed back and gone his way. well, he could afford to, it seemed, since he was here, and for two years had been here, hidden quite away from the world with marguerite lambert.
they had stolen a march upon their friends, the pair of them, they had tricked them—yes, that was the exact right word—tricked them, even as they had just tried to trick him, she with her oriental abandonment to grief—little “animal,” as he had called her in his thoughts—he stretched out on a knob of rock above a precipice in a pose of death! gerard was in an ugly mood, and he spoke out his thought in a blaze of scorn.
“i asked you the last time i saw you to give me two days of your life, my only two days. i asked no more. yet you were insulted. you could give two years to another, but two days to me? oh, dear, no! you wished never to speak to me again.”
“i would give two days to no man,” marguerite replied, gently, “though i would give my whole life to one man.”
“even though he deserted?” gerard asked, with a sneer.
“paul had not deserted when i gave myself to him,” she answered, quietly. “when he did, it was to save me!”
gerard did not want to hear anything about that. some conjecture that the truth of this catastrophe was to be discovered there, had been at the back of his mind ever since he had recognised marguerite. but he intended not to listen to it, not to let it speak at all. somehow, her use of paul’s name angered him extremely. it dropped from her lips with so usual and homely a sound.
“no doubt it was to save you. it would be!” he said, sardonically. “some decent excuse would be needed even between you two when you sat together alone through the long dark evenings.”
gerard meant to hurt, but marguerite wore an armour against him and his arrows were much too blunt to pierce it. she had a purpose of her own to serve, of which gerard de montignac knew nothing; she was clutching at a desperate chance—if, indeed, so frail a thing could be called a chance—not of merely saving her lover’s life, but of so much more that she hardly dared to think upon it. her only weapon now and for a long heart-breaking time to come, was patience.
“you are unjust,” she said, without any anger, and without any appeal that he should reconsider his words. gerard suddenly remembered the last words that the black-bearded basha had spoken as he climbed onto his mule.
“we are all in god’s hand.”
marguerite had spoken just in his tone. argument and prayer were of no value now. it was all written, all fated. what would be, would be. either gerard de montignac would drop that revolver from his hand and her desperate chance become a little less frail than before, or he would not.
“what was it that woman in the spangled skirt used to say of you?” gerard asked, with a seeming irrelevance.
“henriette?”
“yes, henriette. you had a look of fate. yes! she was right, too. it was that look which set you apart, more than your beauty. indeed, you weren’t beautiful then, marguerite.”
he was gazing at her moodily. the sharp anger had become a sullenness. marguerite had grown into beauty since those days, but it was not the roseleaf beauty born of days without anxiety and nights without unrest. it was the beauty of one who is haunted by the ghosts of dead dreams and who wakes in the dark hours to weep very silently lest some one overhear. destined for greater sorrows or perhaps greater joys than fall to the common lot! that was what henriette had meant! and looking at marguerite, gerard, with a little ungenerous throb of pleasure, perceived that at all events the greater joys, if ever they had fallen to her, had faded away long since.
“these have been unhappy years for you, marguerite,” he said.
“for both of us,” she answered. “how could they have been anything else? paul had lost everything for which he had striven, whilst i knew that it was i who had caused his loss.”
“but he didn’t lose you.”
“he didn’t have to strive for me,” marguerite returned, with just the hint of a smile and more than a hint of pride. “i was his from his first call—no, even before he called.”
gerard could not but remember the first meeting of this tragic couple in the villa iris. paul ravenel had stood behind marguerite’s chair, and without a word, without even turning her head to see who it was that stood behind her, she had risen from the midst of the dagoes and levantines, as at an order given. she had fallen into step at his side, and no word had as yet passed between them. gerard de montignac recollected that, even then, a little pang of jealousy had stabbed him and sharply enough to send him straight out of the cabaret.
“yes . . . yes,” he said, slowly. “i had never spoken to you then, had i? it wasn’t until afterwards . . .” he was thinking and drawing some queer sort of balm from the thought, that marguerite had not so much flatly refused him his two days as set her heart on paul ravenel before she had met him. if it had been he, for instance, who had stood behind marguerite’s chair and silently called her! but, then, he hadn’t. he had gone away and left the field clear for paul ravenel. other memories came back to him to assuage his wrath.
“after all, it was i who brought you and ravenel together,” he said. “for it was i who persuaded him to come with me on that first night to the villa iris.”
“yes!” marguerite drew in her breath sharply. “he told me that he almost didn’t come.”
it would have been better if he had not come, if he had stayed quietly in his house and gone on with his report. so her judgment told her. but she could never imagine those moments during which paul had stood in doubt, without picturing them so vividly that she had a quiver of fear lest he should decide not to come.
“it was i, too, who sent paul ravenel to you at the end,” gerard de montignac continued; and as marguerite drew her brows together in a wrinkle of perplexity, “yes,” he assured her. “the night after you didn’t want to speak to me any more, i went back to the villa iris to find you. did you know that? yes, i was leaving the next morning with the advance guard for fez. i didn’t know what might happen on the march. i wanted to make friends with you again, so that if anything did happen to me, you wouldn’t have any bitter memories of me.”
“that was a kind thought,” said marguerite.
“kind to myself,” returned gerard, with, for the first time in this interview, the ghost of a smile. yet to marguerite it was as the glimmer of dawn upon a black night of sickness and pain. there was a hope, then, that the revolver would be returned to its holster with its remaining five cartridges still undischarged. gerard’s own memories were at work with him, memories of a kindlier self, with enthusiasms and generous thoughts; and they must be left to do their work. there was little that she could say or do—and that little not until his mood had changed.
“i didn’t find you,” gerard resumed. “you had gone. henriette told me how you had gone and why. yes, the whole horrible story of that old harridan and the greek! and you had dropped your bundle and disappeared. and henriette feared for you. i was leaving at six in the morning; i was helpless. i went on to paul ravenel and told him that he must find you before any harm came to you. and he did, of course. that’s clear. so i had my share in all this dreadful business. yes . . . yes, i hadn’t realised it.”
he sat down on a chair by the table and stared at its surface with his forehead puckered. but he still held the butt of his revolver in his hand. if only he would lay it down just for a moment! marguerite had a queer conviction that he would never take it up again to use outside the window, once he let go of it. but he did not let go. his fingers, indeed, tightened upon the handle, and he cried: “i don’t know what to do.” neither did marguerite. she could let gerard de montignac remain in his error, or she could dispel it. she was greatly tempted not to interfere. it was a small matter, anyway. only, small matters count so much in great issues. let the scales tremble, the merest splinter will make one of them touch ground. marguerite trusted to some instinct which she could not afterwards explain.
“perhaps i am unwise,” she said. the note of hesitation, for the first time audible, drew gerard’s eyes to her troubled face. “but i don’t know . . . the truth is you had no real share in our”—she paused for a word which would neither blame nor excuse—“in our disaster. the night i was turned out, paul was waiting for me in the garden. i didn’t expect him. i was in despair. i dropped my bundle; and he rose up out of the darkness in front of me. i loved him. it was the wonderful thing come true. he took me away to a house which he had got ready——”
“a house near to his on the sea-wall?” suddenly exclaimed gerard.
“yes.”
“that’s true, then. i saw his agent and him coming out of it. i think that i told henriette, never dreaming that the house was meant for you, that you were already in it when i told henriette.” he looked at marguerite suddenly with eyes of pity. “you two poor children!” he exclaimed, softly, and after a few moments he added with a whimsical smile, “i told paul that he would break his leg when we, the less serious ones, only barked our shins. it is a bad thing not to walk in the crowd, marguerite.”
he watched her for a little while like a man in doubt. then he reached his arm out and tapped with the muzzle of his revolver—for he still held it in his hand—on the part of the table opposite to him.
“you must sit down and tell me exactly what happened.”
marguerite obeyed. she told gerard of her journey up from the coast to fez when paul was sure that the road was safe, and how she came to the little palace with the door upon the roofed alley which paul had got ready for her. gerard, who had thought to listen to her story without question or comment, could not restrain an exclamation.
“you were in fez, then, all that year!” he said, wondering. “in the house of si ahmed driss! i never dreamt of it. even when i discovered it and searched it, that never occurred to me. when i saw you both here, i imagined that paul had slipped away at a bad moment for france, without a thought of his duty, to join you at mulai idris in accordance with a plan.”
marguerite shook her head.
“no. i was in the house at fez. later, on that night of the sixteenth, he knew that the massacres were certain. he went to headquarters with the information. if they had listened to him then, he would never have deserted at all. but they wouldn’t listen, and he had to choose.”
she described how on the next day the fanatics had rushed in searching for a french officer who had been seen once or twice to visit there.
“it was not before that night, then, the night he came to the headquarters, that he was sure?” gerard interrupted, quickly.
“no.”
“they would have come to seek him in the house, even if he had ridden straight back from the hospital auvert to dar-debibagh.”
“yes.”
“then he did save your life by deserting,” said gerard. and, on the other hand, he asked himself was there any duty not discharged because paul did desert? was there any mistake made because the little praslin led paul ravenel’s company along the river bed instead of paul himself?
“my god, but it’s difficult!” cried gerard. “complexities upon complexities! how shall one judge—unless”—and he caught with relief at his good rules and standards—“yes, unless one walks in the crowd. it’s the only way to walk. thou shalt do this! thou shalt not do that! all clear and ordered and written in the book.”
gerard had gibed enough in his day at those innumerable soldiers who answered every problem of regulations and man?uvres immediately with a complacent “it’s so laid down,” or “it’s not so laid down in the book.” he was glad to get back in the windings of this case to the broad highway of “the book.” the book told him how to deal with paul ravenel. well, then!— yet—yet——!
marguerite watched his face cloud over, and hurriedly continued her story, or rather began to continue it. for at her first words as to how paul had out-witted the invaders of the house in fez gerard interrupted her with a cry.
“the uniform tunic, eh, marguerite? the tunic all hacked and battered with blood?” he uttered a little wholesome laugh of appreciation. “and all prepared in readiness the night before. yes, i recognise paul there.”
this was the third time that gerard de montignac had spoken of “paul” without any “ravenel” added to it to show that he and paul were strangers. marguerite, you may be sure, had counted each one of them with a little leap of the heart. “and the blood!” he went on. “i think i know whence that came. his arm, eh? wasn’t it so?”
marguerite had determined to use no tricks with him, but she could not resist one now, the oldest and simplest and the never-failing. she looked at gerard with awe and admiration—so sharp he was and penetrating.
“yes. oh, but how did you know? it’s rather wonderful.”
“when he was standing against the window there, the sleeve of his djellaba fell back. there was a scar like a white seam on his forearm.”
“yes.”
marguerite breathed her wonder at this prodigy of insight, and, like a good artist, having made her point, she did not labour it. she related with what reluctance paul had afterwards told her the thing which he had done.
“i knew nothing of it before. i thought that he was on leave. i should have killed myself whilst there was yet time for him to return to the camp if i had known. even when i did know, i hoped that he could make some excuse, and i tried to kill myself. but he had, of course, foreseen that, and prepared against it.”
gerard nodded.
“how?”
“he had taken my little pistol secretly from the drawer where i kept it. he did not give it me back again until i promised that i would not use it unless the moors were on the stair.”
gerard de montignac started suddenly and pushed his chair sharply back. some quite new consideration had flashed into his mind. he looked at marguerite with a sentence upon his lips. but he did not speak it. he turned away and took a turn across the room towards the window and back again, whilst marguerite waited with her heart in her mouth.
“what am i to do?” he asked; and to marguerite the fact of his actually addressing the question to her made the interview more of a nightmare than ever. he was standing close to her (breaking the breech of his revolver and snapping it to again, and almost unaware of who she was, and quite unaware that with each click and snap of the mechanism she could have screamed aloud). “what am i to do, marguerite?”
marguerite mastered her failing nerves.
“those trenches outside mulai idris,” she said. “they were dug to resist the zemmour. the people here might have used them against you but for paul. he warned the basha that he couldn’t win, that he would find you just and fair and careful of all his rights. do you believe that?”
gerard reflected.
“yes, i do,” he said, slowly. “after all, he charged with laguessière when laguessière was put to it.”
“charged with laguessière?” repeated marguerite.
“yes—in fez—one afternoon during the revolt. he had a great staff and used it—used it well. so much of the old creed remained with him, at all events.”
yes, thought marguerite, there had been an afternoon when paul had been on edge and she had sent him out. he had come back, appeased, and a new man. the riddle of that change was now explained to her. but she had no leisure to dwell upon the explanation. gerard had swung away again from her, and was now standing close to the window looking out across the chasm to the dark blue of the hill in the shadow opposite. one little step would carry him on to the balcony, and the butt of his revolver was still in his hand.
“listen to me, marguerite,” he said, in a low voice; and suddenly he became, to her thought, more dangerous in his calm than he had been in his anger. “here’s a law broken by you and paul, and see what misery has come of it! what loss! shall i repair that law by breaking another? hardly! look at me, marguerite!”
but he did not look at her. he even advanced a foot beyond the window-ledge so that the boards of the balcony creaked and groaned beneath its pressure.
“i could have lived in paris with deauville for the summer and monte carlo for the winter, and my own lands for the autumn—a pleasant, good life. i could have lived with women about me—the fine flower of them, the women who are exquisite and delicate. but i didn’t. i left the enjoyments to the others. i came out into these hot countries, the countries of squalor, to serve france. and i have served; yes, by god, i have served! that has been my creed. shall i let another spit on it, even though he was my greatest friend? not i!”
marguerite gave all up for lost. the one chance at the eleventh hour was not to be tried out by paul and her. well—she was very tired. she closed her eyes that she might not see anything of what happened at the window—anything more in the world. if ever she had worn the look of one set apart by fate, as so many had declared, she wore it now, stamped upon the submission of her face. her hands went to her girdle and felt within its folds; and that action saved her lover and herself. for gerard de montignac saw it as he was stepping out onto the boards of the balcony.
“wait!” he cried, in a sharp, loud voice; and in a moment he was standing in front of her with a look of horror in his eyes. “the little pistol, which paul took away from you and gave you back only on your promise—where is it?”
marguerite neither moved nor answered him.
“it is there,” he cried, pointing to where her hand rested within her belt. it was that bedrabbled woman in the spangled skirt who had prophesied it. henriette, yes, henriette! it was strange over how many years that poor waif’s words had reached and with what effect. “no!” he cried. “you must go your ways. i’ll not have that upon my soul the day i die,” and he turned from her and rushed from the room, and in a few moments marguerite heard the sound of a horse galloping away down the cobbled street as though its rider had no thought for his neck.
gerard de montignac talked for many hours the next day with the basha in the house at the city’s top. but neither he nor the basha spoke once of si tayeb reha. they came to a good understanding, and gerard rode back to his camp, his work in mulai idris done. he sat in his camp chair outside his tent that night watching the few lights upon the hillside go out one after the other and mulai idris glimmer, unsubstantial, as the silver city of a dream.
gerard had carried off a small sort of triumph which would mean many good marks in the books of his great commander. but he was only thinking to-night of the two outcasts in the house on the city wall. whither would they seek a refuge now that the gates of mulai idris were to stand open to the world? and was it worth their while? marguerite’s haunted face and paul ravenel burrowing deeper and deeper into obscurity! gerard turned to laguessière, who was smoking at his side.
“walk in the crowd, my friend! it is always less dangerous to walk in the crowd. well, let us turn in, for we start early to-morrow.”
in the morning the tents were gone and gerard’s column was continuing its march through the zarhoun.
