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OUR LADY OF DELIVERANCE


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jOHN
OXENHAM
LONDON
EVERETT & Co. LTD.
J 42 ESSEX ST. STRAND W.C.I
_;/,/;//>**/


NOVELS BY JOHN OXENHAM.

GOD’S PRISONER
RISING FORTUNES
A PRINCESS OF VASOOVY
BONDMAN FREE
JOHN OF GERISAU
UNDER THE IRON FLAIL
BARBE OF GRAND BAYOU
HEARTS IN EXILE
JOSEPH SOORER
A WEAVER OF WEBS
WHITE FIRE
THE GATE OF THE DESERT
GIANT CIROUMSTANOE
PROFIT AND LOSS
THE LONG ROAD
CARETTE OF SARK
PEARL OF PEARL ISLAND
THE SONG OF HYACIN'I‘H
MY LADY OF SHADOWS
GREAT-HEART GILLIAN
A MAID OF THE SILVER SEA
LAURISTONS
THE COIL OF CARNE
THEIR HIGH ADVENTURE
QUEEN OF THE GUARDED MOUNTS


$25
03(er
Our Lady of Deliverance
CHAPTER I
now 1 JUMPED INTO FORTUNE
IF I were a believer in stars and omens and such
things I should certainly have the best of reasons for
saying that I was born under the luckiest and brightest
of both. For the two events in my life that have had
most to do with guiding it into, happy channels were
matters of pure—chanceP—good lucki)——-I prefer to
thank something less impalpable and more thankable.
1 I spent many years on the sea, you see, and no man
with brains in his head and a heart inside him can do
that without coming to the knowledge that chance
and luck are not the powers that be, hide it as he may
under a mask of carelessness. Intimacy with the
elements provokes no contempt, but a profound
consciousness of personal insignificance which makes
towards reliance on a higher power, and if we call it
luck or chance, that is because we have British blood
in our veins and don’t talk much of those other things.
I was the youngest fourth officer of my year in the
q Cunard Service, and again the youngest third and
Ithe youngest second—possibly, if no one younger had
§turned up in the meantime, I might in due course
‘ai'liave become the youngest captain, but that happened
Q which changed all my life and turned it otherwise.
My mother died while I was still very young. My
-_ 1 A
$3
’)


2 OUR LADY OF DELIVERANCE
\
father, before he followed her, gave me a good educa- '
tion at Merchiston, near Edinburgh, and when I
joined the service that soon told.
The first of my fortunate happenings occurred
during my fourth voyage with Captain Hains onthe '
Servia.
I was leaning over the stern railing one evening
chatting with a friend and waiting for the dinner-
bell to ring, when a shout from amidships startled us,
and as I glanced over the rail I saw a white face slide ‘
past in the green-white seethe of the ship’s wake. It
was purely a matter of instinct to rip away the life-
belt that hung at the rail, and with it on my arm to
spring out as far as I could in the direction of the face.
I- was a good swimmer and came up with it with little
difficulty. I slipped the belt over the head of the
- drowning man, as I found it to be on closer acquaint-
ance, and waved my hand to the boat that was already
making towards us. I
In ten minutes from the time my foot kicked off
the stern railing we were on board again, and the
Servia was under full steam trying to make up for
those lost ten minutes, which, by the way, cost the
man overboard the pool on the run next day. How-
ever, if anyone could afford to lose the pool it was he.
His name was Ephraim Sandbacker, and he came
from California. He was a very quiet, unpretentious
old soul, and he was worth twenty million dollars,
but that I.only learned later. For some days I was
almost afraid to show face on deck, so overpowering,
to a naturally reserved and modest man, were the
remarks of the passengers, especially the American
girls, who, I believe, took a special and perverse
delight in covering me with confusion.
However, they gradually calmed down and let me
go about in peace and free from blushes.
Old Mr Sandbacker said very little, but he wrung
my Ihand very gratefully while he held my eyes with


OUR LADY OF _DELIVERANCE 3
his, which were very bright and somewhat moist.
All he did say was, ‘ You’ll never be sorry to think
you lengthened an old man’s life, my boy.’
And I said, ‘ No, sir, but anyone else would have
done the same.’ . -
Practically nothing more passed on the subject.
The old gentleman was always very friendly and
pleasant, and would, I think, have been more so but
that I always had a fear when he got me alone that he
was going to Offer me a reward for saving his life.
As I\said, our little swim did not occupy ten
minutes, but those ten minutes were the ten most
fruitful minutes of my life. I doubt if any Roths-
child ever coined money more rapidly. And that
jump from the stern rail of the Servia was for me a
jump into a new life, though at the time I did not
know it.
Just twelve months later the bag which came out by
the tender at Queenstown brought me a letter from a
firm of solicitors in Liverpool. It was brief and to
the point.
"DEAR SIR,—VVe are advised by Messrs Lock &
Steele of Los Angeles, California, that under the will
of their late client, the Hon. Ephraim Sandbacker,
you are entitled to the sum of one million dollars, and
they hold same to your orders. Your instructions
will have our immediate and careful attention.—VVe
remain, Dear Sir, yours faithfully, LAYTON & SON.
‘ HUGH LAMONT, Esq.,
‘ S.S. Servia.’
I got such a shock at the first reading of that letter
that it took two more readings to get the sense of it
into me. Then I took it along to the captain and put
it into his hand. He read it through carefully, and
then his dear old face lighted up with gladness and
he wrung my hand lustily.
‘ I’m heartily glad, my boy,’ he said. ‘I knew the


4 OUR LADY OF DELIVERANGE
old chap would never forget, and he hasn’t, but it’s
not every man would have remembered to such an
extent. Pity after all,’ he said quietly, ‘ here’s
another good sailor spoiled. I suppose-P’ and he
looked at me with whimsical wistfulness.
‘ No,’ I said; ‘ I think I’ll have a stroll on dry land.
My only regret will be leaving you, sir. I never
want to sail under a better man.’
‘ We shall miss you,’ he said.
I forgot to ask him to say nothing about it, and it
was all over the ship inside an hour, and once more I
was put to the blush at the congratulations which
rained upon me. ‘ .
And so, at the age of twenty-eight, endowed with
the best of>health and spirits, my fortune was made
by no grace of my own, but by, let us say, a happy
accident and the generous remembrance of a grateful
old man.
CHAPTER II
MDLLE. x.—1mn roaraarr
Fon two years I roamed to and fro over the wide
world, visiting in that time nearly every Country that
had ever in any way appealed to my heart or my
imagination.
Foreign lands had always had a fascination for me,
and now that in this wonderful way I was able to
indulge my fancy I did so with the keenest enjoyment.
Time and money were alike no object. I had no ties
to keep me at home, and I was free to go whitherso-
ever the spirit led me, and the'spirit led me far and
wide and with a trend towards the unbeaten tracks of
travel. First I crossed back to America, sailing as a
passenger onmy old ship the Servia, I think I may


OUR LADY OF DELIVERANCE 5
say, without any conceit, to the great satisfaction of
my good friend the captain. We had great times
together, and we tramped the deck and the bridge for
hours, with, in the case of one of us at all events, an
enjoyment which had never been there before.
The very fact of travelling as a passenger where
hitherto I had been a servant and an official was in
itself an enjoyable novelty and had in it many
elements of amusement.v My old friends among the
crew were constantly mixing up my new position
with the old one and coming to me with reports and
so on, and then backing off with a grin and a turn of
the tongue in their cheeks which always started us
both laughing.
After a run through Canada and the States I crossed
to California and visited Los Angeles. The only
representative of Mr. Ephraim Sandbacker was his
widow, an old lady of seventy, who, when she knew
who I was, could not find large enough expression
for her good feelings towards me. She would have
had me settle down ‘right there,’ and become a son
to her old age, but the travel fever was hot in my
veins, and after a delightful visit I only got away by
promising to come back and see her again when I
was ready to settle down for good and all, if that
time ever came. .
Then, through South America and the lovely
islands of the Pacific, I wandered up to Japan, where
I lingered long. Then to Australia, India, Egypt.
Asia Minor, and so to Europe, and so at last to
Paris and all that waited me there and afterwards.
Paris charmed me greatly, and the debt I owe to
her will never be fully paid, for she proved the gate-
way to those very strange experiences through which
I was to attain to all that I hold highest in my
life;
_ One fateful day I rambled into the Salon. I was
no judge of pictures, and my taste was no doubt


\
I
6 OUR LADY OF ‘DELIVERANCE
hopeless, but I knew when a picture pleased me, and
out of such I was able to get much enjoyment.
It seemed to me a very_clever Show if slightly
eccentric here and there, and I was passing some-‘
what inattentiver through the last room, my eyes
surfeited with the masses of colour on which they had
already feasted, when I stopped short, with a catch
of the breath and a thrill like an electric shock, at
the glance of a pair of eyes that caught mine and
held them captive. I ' '
I had seen many beautiful women in my time, but
I had never seen anything within measurable distance
of the lovely face that looked calmly into mine from
that curiously-carved, dead-white frame on the wall.
It was ~the face of‘a girl, the most exquisitely-
beautiful face I had ever seen, the incarnationr—say
rather an inspiration—of all that is sweet and pure
and good, and altogether lovely. As I stood gazing at
it a voice behind me said triumphantly in French,—,
‘ Fair—one! ’ .
And another voice cried argumentatively, ‘ Not at
alll Dark—onel ’
Then the dispute, whatever it was, was taken up
by other voices, and a wordy mélée ensued, to' which
I paid no attention, because, in the first place, it was
as unintelligible to me as the chattering Of many
parrots, and because, in the second place, my thoughts
were given entirely to that lovely face before me.
Was it a portrait, or only the idealisation of a master
hand and brain?
I turned to the catalogue. A
' No. IOOl—Portrait of Mdlle. X. . . . Louis
Bidard.’ '
That left the point undecided. But the one thing
/ certain was that never in my life had I seen anything
so charming, and the very sight and thought of that
sweet face sent new life spinning through my veins
and altered the look of the world for me.


OUR LADY OF DELIVEBANCE 7
I went to the Come'die Francaise that night to see
Bernhardt, but the face of Mdlle. X. danced between
me and the divine Sara and diverted my thoughts from
even her finest agonies.
In the nature of things the following afternoon
found me once more at the Salon renewing my téte-
d-téte with the beautiful unknown. I noticed that
Mdlle. X. attracted very general attention, and scarcely
a passer-by but stopped and lingered to admire. It
struck me as very ludicrous to find myself actually
beginning to feel jealous of these attentions.
‘ Fair—one! ’ I heard the same voice behind me. __
And again that other voice: ‘ No—darkl ’ and again
a wrangle, and when I turned I saw two young men
assiduously taking note of the crowd, though why
and wherefore I could not make out.
The desire suddenly possessed me to become the
owner of that picture, and I made my way to the
secretary’s desk to inquire if it was for sale.
‘ No, monsieur,’ the secretary was explaining with
smiling courtesy to a man who had arrived just in
front of me, ‘ that portrait would have been sold fifty
-—a hundred times, had it been for sale, but it is not
‘ offered.’
The other man turned away, and in my not over
fluent French I aned the secretary if his remark
applied to No. 1001, feeling fully assured in my own
, mind that it did so. \ '
He smilingly confirmed my fears, and I too passed
on.. I had already looked for the address of M.
- Louis Bidard in the catalogue, but it was not there.
I turned back to the desk and asked the secretary,
who was just dismissing another applicant, if he
could give it to me.
‘I would, monsieur, with pleasure, but ’—and he
shook his head knowingly—‘ there is none.’
‘Ihit how——P I began.
‘There is no M. Louis Bidard. It is a nom de


8 OUR LADY OF DELIVERANCE
crayon, and I am instructed not to divulge the artist’s
name.’
There was nothing more to be done, and I went
back to take another look at Mdlle. X.
‘ Fair—one! ’ said the voice behind me.
‘ Dark—if you pleasel ’ said the other voice.
Tiens! it is the same gentleman again. That does
not count.’ '
‘ Oh, yes, it does, mon ami! ’
‘ Very well, then he is mine.’
‘Not a bit of it! Not a very little bit of it, my
childl He is distinctly and emphatically blonde.’
' ‘ Phistrel ’ Your eye is losing its cunning, mon gars.
Monsieur’s complexion is brown—distinctly brown,
with a tendency towards black. So that counts to me.’
I could not make out what they were quarrelling
about, and I strolled away and left the building.
It became a regular part of my day’s programme
to pay my respects to Mdlle. X., and the calm gaze
of the great violet eyes, with just a hint of shy
wistfulness in them, remained with me all the day
and brightened everything else I saw.
Several times I imagined myself the object of re-
' mark from the same half-dozen young fellows who
seemed to have constituted themselves a guard of
honour to Mdlle. X., and to take note of the many
who stopped to admire her. I had by this time
learned to distinguish them as art students, but what
might be the meaning of their curious carry-on I
could not at all make out.
One afternoon, however, as I strolled up to the
portrait, one of these young gentlemen gave a cry of
triumph, darted forward and, to my great astonish-
ment, shook me heartily by the hand, gabbling
as he did so at the rate of two hundred words a
minute.
I was not quite sure if he was making fun of me
or not, for he certainly was not of my acquaintance.


OUR LADY OF DELIVEBANCE \ 9
But it is my custom to grasp little nettles of this
kind firmly and so destroy their sting; Accordinviu
I gripped his hand and smiled pleasantly on him and
murmured, ' So very pleased to make monsieur’s
acquaintancel ’ till he howled, and clasping his right
arm with his left hand, as though he feared it would
come off, he finally sank on to his knees, and his three
friends danced round us in paroxysms of laughter,
while I continued shaking him heartily by the hand.
‘ Ah, the poor Philippe! he is broken, he is
mangled,’ cried one, between his spasms of laughter.
‘Have pity on him, monsieurl He is bon gareon
and meant no harm.’
‘ Nor I, monsieur,’ I said; ‘I simply accepted the
greeting Of monsieur, whose acquaintance I am de-
lighted to make,’ and as I wrung his hand once more
Master Philippe howled again.
However,~ I released him at last, and he got up and
carefully pulled each separate finger into shape and
smoothed 1t out and then impressively bandaged his
hand in his handkerchief. He was a merry youth,
however, and bore no ill-will.
‘ Allow me to introduce my friends, monsieur,’ he
said, waving the bandaged hand towards each one in
turn. ‘ Monsieur Louis Duval, Monsieur Jean Lépine
Monsieur Raoul Delavoye. Pray proffer them the
hand of friendship also.’
But they one and all declined and contented them-
selves with bows.
‘And now, messieurs, perhaps you will have the
extreme kindness to explain why we are- on such
friendly terms.’
‘ Assuredly,’ said Philippe of the bandaged hand,
‘it is due to monsieur. It is thus, monsieur.
Monsieur has unwittingly rendered me a service, and
I desired to thank him for it.’
‘I am very happy to have been of service to you.
How did I manage it? What is it I have done? ’


10 OUR LADY OF DELIVERANCE
‘You see that portrait, monsieuri’L—pointing to
Mdlle. X.
' I nodded.
‘Yes,’ laughed Philippe, ‘monsieur has seen it
several times, and in that lies the service he has
rendered me. You see, monsieur, we are .divided.
Louis and Jean there hold that like tends to like.
Raoul and myself hold that the strongest affinity lies
between opposites. That a fair man prefers a dark
woman, and a dark man a fair woman. And you,
monsieur—nit ’
‘ Opposites, I think, as a rule. But that portrait is
so very beautiful that anyone would be attracted by it.
Can you tell me who Mdlle. X. is, Monsieur Philippe? ’
He shook his head.
‘ Perhaps you can tell me where to find M. Louis
Bidard? ’
A glance flashed between them, and I got an im-
pression of something like a wink.
‘But, yes, monsieur, that is easy. We can take
monsieur there in the twinkling of an eye.’ ’
‘I shall be infinitely obliged to you.’
‘ Allons! ’ said Philippe promptly. ‘ We will go at
once,’ and he led the way. The others linked arms
and followed, with scarce concealed expectation and
enjoyment.
Master Philippe’s merry eyes twinkled many times
before we reached our destination, and I had begun
to wonder where we were getting to when be halted
suddenly and pointed across the street to a gaily-
decorated restaurant, along the front of which ran
a large gilt-lettered sign—‘ A la Palette d’Or, par
Louis Bidard;'
I stared at it in surprise. It was an artist’s studio
I was expecting, not a restaurant.
‘ But—’ I began.
' Stay, we will introduce you to him,’ said Philippe,
and led the way inside.


OUR LADY OF DELIVEBANCE 11
A stout, high-coloured, Napoleon-Third-faced man
in his shirt sleeves stood behind the counter. Flitting
to and fro among the marble-topped tables was an
exceedingly pretty girl. Both the girl and the man
greeted us with friendly nods.
‘Monsieur Bidard,’ said my keeper, ‘here is an
English gentleman who has come all the way from
the Salon to shake hands with you.’
‘ Enchantedl ’ beamed M. Bidard, extending a hand
like a big beefsteak. ‘ What can I do for monsieuriI ’
Our handshake passed off without any undue
display of strength on either side, to the great
disap ointment of my new friends.
‘ I ear, Monsieur Bidard, I am here under a misap-
prehension,’ I managed to piece out. ‘I came to see
M. Louis Bidard, the painter of a portrait in the
Salon.’
‘ Ah, these young men! ’ said Bidard with a twinkle.
‘ Monsieur is not the first, but I have not the honour.
However, being here, can I be of any other service
to monsieur? ’
‘ Certainly,’ said I, taking a sudden resolution. ‘ We
want dinner and a private room. That is if my friends
will join me? ’
‘ Will we? ’ said Philippe. ‘ \IVill we 1'1otil Monsieur
is—what is this that the little Peetairs calls itP—’
‘ Tromp-brique! ’ said Raoul.
‘ That’s it. Monsieur is tromp-brique and bon
garpon, altogether. We accept his hospitality. Is
it not so, my children? ’
The children replied in chorus that it was very
much so.
‘ Alfons, thenl ’ said I, and followed Monsieur
Bidard, who was inviting us to upper regions.
‘ Ninette will wait upon _us, Monsieur Bidard,’ cried
Philippe. '
‘ Assuredly, Monsieur Philippe, Ninette will be
enchanted.’ 


12 OUR ‘ LADY OF DELIVERANGE
Dinner was served almOst immediately, but
Ninette had managed to find time to decorate herself
specially for the occasion, and proved a decided addi-
tion to the festivities. She was as lively in her talk as
she was deft in her service, and flashed back a dozen
smart clipped words for every one the young artists
addressed to her. From what I could catch of the talk,
which was mostly too rapid and too idiomatic for my
understanding, the young lady was in the habit of
occasionally acting as model in one of the schools close
at hand, and so was exceedingly well known to my
friends. They were all on the merriest of terms, and
we all enjoyed ourselves exceedingly. ‘
It was only when Ninette had brought us gallantly
through a very excellent dinner, and provided us with
coffee and liqueurs and American cigarettes, and had
then waited herself out of the room amid a chorus Of'
compliments on herself and the dinner- and everything
else, that I turned to Philippe—who had been ren-
dered perfectly happy by my begging him to chose
the wines for the feast, and had done it to our great
satisfaction and his own—and said,—
‘ And now, Monsieur Philippe, if,y0u bear no ill-
will for my unjustifiable assault upon you at our first
meeting, will you do me a favour? ’
‘ Monsieur Lamont, I am yours to command. Oh,
that all Englishmen were like youl We would love
them as it is not always possible to do. Ask,
monsieurl Tiens, I know. You wish to know who
painted Mdlle. X.P ’
‘ Exactly! ’
' I will tell you. It is Charles Boussel. He lives in
the Rue Catharine, No. 13.’
‘ And do you know who Mdlle. X. is? ’
He shook his head. ‘ No. We none of us know
_that. In fact, there may be no such person.’
‘But, no, Philippe, mon ami,’ said one of the
others. ‘Can you now, I put it to you, can you


OUR LADY OF DELIVERANCE 13
imagine Roussel evolving that beauty from his own
head? ’
‘ It is difficult,’ acknowledged Philippe, ‘ but then,
yOu see, I do not like Roussel myself.’
‘ He is a clever painter, anyhow,’ I said.
‘Oh, he is clever, that is without doubt, but—’
and he shrugged his shoulders. and shook his
head.
‘Do you suppose he would sell the pictureil’ I
asked.
‘ He might,’ he said doubtfully; ‘there could be no
harm in asking. He might sell or he might throw a
bottle at your head. He is a trifle cracked at times,
monsieur, and he is a sulkyv devil, though he can be
charming enough when he chooses, only he doesn’t
often choose. That is the reason why I, though I am
accustomed to mixing with mild lunatics’—and he
looked solemnly round at the rest, who however only
winked lazily back at him through the smoke—‘ that
is why I do not get on with Boussel.’ -
‘ He is making fifty thousand francs a year,’ said
Raoul.
‘ And mostly portraits,’ said Jean.
‘ No imagination,’ said Louis.
-‘Not a scrap,’ said Philippe.
be a photographer.’ . I
‘In which case, with his connections, \he would
I probably make twice as much,’ said Raoul.
J ‘All the same,’ said Jean, “he may be a good
painter, but he is not an artist.’ '
‘ Isn’t that rather a nice distinction? ’ I said. ‘ After
all, do you not all of you paint portraits? If it is a
landscape nature is your model, if it is a historical
scene you still work from models, I suppose—”
‘ Still there the artistic faculty comes in,’ said
Philippe, ‘ and this pig Boussel has it not.’
‘ Then we may conclude there is an original,’ said I.
‘ Must be,’ said Philippe.
‘ He might as well



14 OUR LADY OF DELIVERANCE
‘I will call on Monsieur Boussel.’
‘And if he’s in a bad 'mood and throws a bottle
at your head shake him by the hand, Monsieur
Lamont.’
They wanted to show me something of life in the
Quartier, but I was in no humour for racketing, and
we p‘arted the best of friends.
CHAPTER III
MDLLE. X.—HER PAINTER
WHEN I strolled into the Salon next day, it seemed to
me that even before I reached that part which I had
come to know so well I became aware of something
unusual in it. As a rule I could distinguish the
glimmer of the sweet bright face through the crowd
while yet I was far away. It always seemed to be
waiting for me. But my very first glance ahead this
day showed me that something was wrong.
I walked quickly to the place. Mdlle. X. was gone.
Instead of the straight, calm gaze of the eloquent eyes
a patch of bare wall loomed up among the surround-
ing pictures with all the dull effrontery of a boarded-
up window.
I strode away to the secretary and inquired of him
what had become of the picture.
‘I can tell you nothing, monsieur, except that
monsieur—-—er—Bidard came in this morning and
removed it—against our rules.’
' M. RousseliI ’ I said.
He showed no surprise at my knowledge of the
artist’s name, but said curtly with a depreciatory
twist of the mouth,—
‘ Yes, M. Roussel.’


OUR LADY OF DELIVERANGE 15
’ Thanks,’ I said; ‘ I will see him.’
lI judged from his manner that he had had quite
enough of M. Roussel for that day.
I had no difficulty in finding the Rue Catharine,
’having made successful search for it on the map
before starting out that morning. No. 13 was an Old-
fashioned, faded and rather dirty-looking mansion.
The concierge bade me ascend to the third floor, and
there I found M. Roussel’s name on a card fastened to
the door by drawing-pins. I rapped, and immediately
on the sharp ‘ Entrez! ’ turned the handle and entered.
It was a good-sized room and lighter than one
would have expected from the outside look of the
house. An archway with curtains led into another
room at the back. Canvasses of all sizes hung from
the walls or leaned up against them. They were
mostly portraits. Such as were not struck me as wild
fantasies verging on the horrible. A wood fire smoul-
dered in a great heap of white ashes on the hearth, and
my eye fell instantly on a picture standing against
the skirting board with its face to the wall. Some
instinct told me at once that it was the portrait of
Mdlle. X.
_ A tall man in a loose jacket, with his legs defiantly
apart stood with his back to the fire, smoking a
cigarette. _
He looked up as I entered, and I was evidently
not the person he expected.
He was a good-looking fellow, with black moustach'
and pointed heard, but there was a quick, suspicious
~white gleam about his black eyes which did not com-
mend itself tO me.
‘ M. RousselP ’ I asked.
‘ Oui, .monsieuri‘ ’ he replied in a sharp, questioning
tone, which said, as plainly as if he had voiced it,
‘ Who the devil are you, and what the devil do you
want? ’ I '
‘ I have come to ask if you are disposed to sell the


16 OUR LADY OF DELIVERANCE
portrait of Mdlle. X. which you were showing in the
Salon? ’
“No, sir! ’ and the black eyes stared at me
hypnotically.
‘ I would be prepared to pay a good price for it.’
' It is not for sale, monsieur.’
‘ Not at any price?’
‘ Not at any price.’
‘I am sorry for that. I was much struck with it
as a most excellent piece of work.’
Ile bowed and puffed at his cigarette and showed
me plainly that he wanted me to be gone. But I
was not to be put off so easily as all that.
‘ Can I not induce you to reconsider the matter,
monsieur? ’
He glowered at me for a moment through his
smoke, then snatched up a knife from the table,
turned to the portrait, whose face was towards the wall,
'and dug the knife through one corner of the canvas.
With av quick, nervous motion he sawed the
blade round inside the frame, making a horrible,
ragged, rending noise. Then as the picture came
loose he rolled it up face inwards as though he hated
to look at it, and flung it on the smouldering fire.
I made a dash at it, upsetting several chairs and
an easel in my course, and before he could stop me I
had it safely in my hands.
‘ Now it is mine by right of salvage,’ I cried. .
The black eyes snapped viciously as he snarled, ' If
you take it you steal it.’
‘ Not at all,’ I said. ‘ I shall pay for it,’ and I drew
out a thousand-franc note and threw it on the table.
‘ Voile, monsieur! ’ _
For answer he picked up the note, twisted it into
a spill and lighted a fresh cigarette with it.
‘ Thanks,’ I said. ‘ Now we are quits. You threw
away the picture, I recovered it. I threw away the
note, you have put it to a very good use.’


OUR LADY OF DELIVERANCE 17
The black eyes blazed with anger, , and I half
expected he would come at me or send something
expressive of his feelings. Instead, he ran his fingers
through his hair, and with a change of front which
almost took away my breath, and which I could not
have imitated to save my life, he said quietly,—
‘ Permit me to offer you a cigarette, monsieur.-
Keep the picture by all means. It is worthless—like
the original.’ ‘
‘ Ah,’ I said. ‘ If one might inquire as to the
original—’
‘ No,’ he said. ‘ It is better for you that you should
not know her. She is disgraced.’
‘It is almost inconceivable,’ I said.
He shrugged his shoulders With a slight wave of the
hand which held the cigarette, as much as to say,
‘ Believe it or not as you choose. It is quite the same
to me.’ ~
‘ I find it difficult to connect disgrace with so sweet
a face,’ I said again, hoping to draw him out.
‘ Monsieur is not long in Paris, perhaps? ’ He
smiled, with a gleam of white teeth, which aroused in
me an unnatural wish to drive my fist at them.
‘ Not very long. I have been here about a fort-
night.’
‘ Ahl there is much to learn,’ he said with a touch
of insolence. ' '
‘ But I have had the pleasure of seeing women in
almost every country in the world,’ I,said, ‘ and I
cannot associate anything disgraceful with a face like
that.’
But he was not to be drawn. He only grinned
meaningly and repeated his shrug.
‘ Monsieur is from England, I judge, by his accent.
Is it not soiI ’
‘ From Scotland,’ I said.
‘ That is not quite so had. We do not hate Scotland
quite so much as England. In the past we were
’


18 OUR LADY OF DELIVERANCE »,
friends at times. Tenez! I have painted the beautiful
Marie of Scotland. See youl ’ and he strode to the
front windows, where a large painting stood on an
easel.
It was a surprising piece of work and confirmed the
views of my friends of the previous night as to M.
Roussel’s touch of craziness.
Lying on the floor of a room, amid a huge pile of
many-coloured silken cushions, was a wizened, red-
haired woman, with deathly white face and eyes
starting out of her head, while all around her Mary
Queen of Scots danced a horrible dance of death.
There were at least a dozen Queen Maries—all the
same figure, in a dozen different attitudes of wild
diablerie~all dressed alike in a single long white
sleeveless garment cut low in the neck, which whirled
and flew and showed lovely white legs, but in every
figure the soft white neck was cut short, and the
head which should have been there hung from the
dancer’s hand by its long bright hair, and all the eyes
of all the heads were fixed, you knew, on the horror-
starting eyes of the dying Elizabeth.
It was ludicrously ghastly, and how any man
could have squandered his genius on producing it
passed my conception.
“Strong, is it not?’ he said. ‘It is for the Salon
next year.’ .
‘ Very strong,’ said I, with a great inclination to vent
my feelings in a yell of laughter, and then I felt once
more a still stronger inclination to put my fist into his
face, for the wretch had used my beautiful Mdlle. X.
as his model for the faces of his royal Bacchantes.
‘You will have to alter those faces, monsieur,’ I
said. ‘
' And why? ’ .
‘For the same reason that you flung away the
original portrait,’ I said, ‘ and also because if those
faces appeared, supposing they will take it at the


OUR LADY OF DELIVERANGE 19
Salon, which I should think unlikely, I would be there
the first day to put my stick through every face.’
‘Ta, ta! ’ he laughed. ‘Monsieur is wonderfully
interested in Mdlle. X.’
‘Shall I tell you just exactly what I think, M.
Houssel? ’ I said.
‘By all means, if you very much wish to,’ he
grinned.
‘ Then,’ said I, staring straight into his black eyes,
‘I think you’re going crazy,’ and I tapped my fore-
head to emphasise my meaning.
It was abominably rude, of course, but he was
perpetrating an outrage on Mdlle. X., whoever she
was, and I wanted him to know what one man, at
all events, thought about it. He said nothing. I
waited for an explosion, but it did not come. He
stood leaning against the window frame, looking at
the picture. _I walked towards the door and looked
back at him. He had not moved. I went out and
closed the door.
CHAPTER IV
MDLLE. x.——-naasr.r.r
I WAS delighted to find the picture practically un-
injured. The back was merely smoked, the face was
not even blistered. I gloried in my treasure, and
would not have parted with it for fifty times the trifle
it had cost me.
I decided not to have it framed till I could give it
the place of honour over the fireplace in my own
special sanctum in my home in England, when I had
found it and had got settled in it. For now, after ten
years of the sea, and two of unfettered roving Over the


20 OUR LADY OF DELIVERANCE
face of the earth, my thoughts were beginning to dwell
longingly on the delights of a home of my own.
It must he a cosy house, not too large, covered with
ivy and sheltered by trees. It must face the sea, and
have a trim lawn running down towards it if possible.
I would buy a two-hundred-ton steam yacht, and it
seemed to me that amid such surroundings there were
the elements at all events of peace and happiness.
I must, of course, keep my promise and visit old
Mrs Sandbacker out in Los Angeles, but I had no
slightest desire to settle there, not even though she
should try to tempt me to it with the whole or a
portion of her remaining millions. And so, after
another week of Paris, I packed my boxes with great
content, sent the bulkier ones direct to London, and
started for a final leisurely jaunt towards home
through Normandy and Brittany, with my beautiful
Mdlle. X. carefully packed in my portmantean inside
a stout roll of cardboard to prevent her crushing.
She was my chiefest possession, and the sight of
her lovely face thrilled me every time I looked at it,
and set a glow in my heart whenever I thought of
it, which was pretty well all the time. To say that
I would have given much and gone far to meet
Mdlle. X. in person is quite unnecessary.
‘ And yet,’ I said to myself at times, ‘ perhaps it is
as well as it is. Mademoiselle in the flesh might turn
out very different from Mademoiselle on canms.
Better the charm of illusionment than a possibly
ghastly disillusionment.’
I found the remote, slow life of Brittany very sooth-
ing after Vienna and St Petersburg and Paris, and I
lingered there longer than I had intended——first for
my own enjoyment, and then for reasons of much
greater moment.
Sombre, time-worn old Hennes delighted me. I
made it my headquarters for a time, and thence rode
and rambled all over the countryside, and thus it was



OUR LADY OF DELIVERANCE ' 21
that, for the second time in my life, fate or luck or
Providence threw me a wonderful chance, and to my
lasting benefit and happiness it did not escape me.
I had been spending a day in Vitré, and came so
near to losing the train back to Rennes that it was
actually on the move when I leaped through the doors
_of the waiting-room, almost upsetting the hlue-bloused
attendant who stOOd with his back towards me
watching the train start.
He gave a great bellow of astonishment at my
temerity, and so drew upon me the attention of all
the other officials on the platform. A gorgeous
scowling gendarmc made as though to stop me. I
dodged him easily, and encountered three or four
more blue blouses, sauntering along with their hands
in their pockets. They made surprised and in-
effectual grabs at me, but I got past them, sprang
on to the rapidly-running step of the train, and
throwing back the catch of the carriage door nearest
to me, turned the handle and drew myself in.
It was a first-class, and had two other occupants,
a priest and a lady. I leaned out. of the window to
fasten the lower catch, waved an ironical farewell to
my friends on the platform, and then sank down into
the seat, panting with my run, and in high good
humour at having won through.‘
Before I' had recovered my wind I glanced round
to see who my fellow travellers might be, and then—
I remember still the catch in my breath and the feel-
ing of intense repression that took hold ’of me, as
though I were gazing on a beautiful bubble which an
undue breath might dissipate.
In the further corner of the carriage sat—Mdlle. X.
. It was impossible for me to be mistaken. Did I not
know every curve of the beautiful face, every hair
almost of the shapely, well-poised head? That picture
had not been in my possession all these days for
nothing.


22 OUR LADY OF DELIVERANCE
I gazed at her—open-mouthed, I doubt not—with
wonder which was not far from awe and was certainly
very near to reverence. It was truly wonderful and
beyond words that, of all the carriages in that train,
I should have tumbled into the one that contained
the sweet living original of the pictured face that
was never out of my thoughts. _
It was Mdlle. X. without a doubt, and yet not just
the Mdlle. X. of the portrait. The lovely face was
shadowed, the straight calm eyes gazed out over the
passing country with a saddened look in. them.
There was a pathetic little droop at that corner of
the mouth which was nearest me. She was in trouble.
I wondered what it was and ached to help her. But
in its essentials the face was the one I knew so well
and had come to love so much.
I wondered whether the thin-lipped, ascetic-faced
old man in the broad-brimmed beaver and long black
soutane who sat opposite to her had anything to do
with it, and the possibility of it made me dislike
him. '
How could he sit there so cold and stern, with
never a comforting word or look for the sorrowful
girl in front of him? Later on it occurred to me, in
justice to him, that if they had come all the way from
Paris, as was probable, he had had ample opportunity
of offering such comfort and consolation as might be
in him~—though, indeed, the grim face of him did not
suggest any deep fount of either—and had probably
availed himself of it. Once, as I sat gazing at her
with this rude stare of utter wonder and surprise, the
girl' turned her head slowly towards me, impelled
thereto, no doubt, by the unconscious impression of
my look. But the great sad eyes rested on me for
a brief moment as unconcernedly as if I had been
a stone, and with as little recognition of my being,
and when I dared to glance at her again she was
looking sadly at the passing landscape once more.


OUR LADY OF DELIVERANCE ,23
While my mind was still in a whirl at my wonder-
ful and unexpected discovery, the head of the con-
ductor in charge of the train came suddenly through
the window alongside me and recalled me to a due
sense of my misconductf
‘ I’m awfully sorry to have broken rules,’ I began
in English, and, though I was looking at him, I got
an impression of a sudden start on the part of Mdlle.
X., and it seemed to me that she turned towards us.
‘Pardon I, I regret, M. le Conducteur, the unusual
'manner in which I got on to the train, but, »you see,
I was very anxious not to miss it, and there is, I
think, no harm done.’ I slipped a five-franc piece
into his hand, and with a short homily on the
enormity of my offence and the risk I had run, he
grimped his way along the footboard and left me
absolved. I
When I glanced at Mademoiselle she was looking
out of the window again, but it seemed to me there
was a tinge of colour in the white cheek which had
not been there before.
Before we reached Rennes I had made up my
mind what to do, and that was simply not to lose
sight of Mdlle. X., come of it what might. They
might be going straight on to Brest, or to St Malo,
or to Vannes, or to any place on any of the lines
leading to those places. But wherever they went I‘
was going too, and, if possible, without their per-
ceiving it.
They descended at the station at Bennes, and the
old priest led the way to the buffet with the alacrity
of a keen appetite. I was sharp set too, and having
ascertained that no train left the station on any of
the westward lines for over an hour, I made my way
outside, drove rapidly to my hotel, cajoled black-
browed Marie, who happened to be on duty in the
office, into preparing a dinner basket for me, packed
a few necessaries into a small bag, and within the


24 OUR LADY OF DELIVERANCE
hour was sitting contentedly in the waiting-room at
the station, muflled in a big travelling cloak, and
with a ticket for St Malo in my pocket, since that
happened to be the first train to start.
As soon as the doors were opened I strolled straight
to the buffet, and glancing in, as I walked past, saw
that my two friends were still there, she sitting
Iistlessly at the table with downcast eyes, the old
priestileaning back in his chair, looking much more
cheerful than he had done in the train.
I passed on to the buvette and ordered a glass of
vermouth in anticipation of my dinner which I would
eat en route. The St Malo train snorted itself away,
the Brest train followed, and a careful outlook assured
me that my two were still where I had last seen
them. It was along the Vannes line then that they
were travelling, and sure enough, as soon as it was
ready, and before the waiting-room doors were
opened, the old priest led his charge along to a first-
class carriage, and the conductor of the train himself
shut them in,- and slipped the catch of the door on
them. I watched them closely from the door of the
buvette and noted the carriage they occupied, and as
soon as the outer crowd was loosed from confinement
and came streaming along the platform, I joined it
and climbed into the carriage next to them, wondering
much where I was going, but well satisfied to go the
full journey wherever it might be.
I fell to on my belated dinner, and blessed black-
browed Marie for her ample provision. At every
station I kept an anxious lookout, and at the fourth
they got down, and, allowing them so much time to
get off the platform that I was almost carried off by
the train, I followed them.
It was a tiny plackCour-des-Comptes—and the
stationmaster was in a state of extreme agitation—
! supposed at the sudden rush of business, but later
I came to know that he had other reasons.



OUR LADY OF DELIVERANCE 25
The village was some distance away, my fellow
travellers had disappeared, and the grinding of rapid
wheels in the distance told me that they had been
expected.
I set off on foot along the rough country road. It
was dark as pitch by this time, and I was stumbling
along as philosophically as might be, stubbing my
toes on the stones, and at times almost coming to
my knees in the ruts—it was just like walking in a
watercourse—when I heard a man’s rough voicev in
the darkness behind merrily chanting, ‘ Ma clef, ma
clef, qui a chipé ma clef? ’ and as the singer came up
with me he stopped with a cheerful, ‘ Hold, monsieur,
you get forward slowlyl ’
‘ Yes, it’s pretty rough walking.’
‘ Come up here on to the bank, monsieur, that is
where the cattle go. There, now we shall get on
quicker.’
‘ Ah, thanks, that is better. You see I’m a stranger
here.’
‘ Monsieur arrived by the train?’
‘ Yes.’
‘From Paris?’
‘ I was in Paris about ten days ago.’
‘Ah, a grand place Paris.’ ‘
‘Yes, a wonderful place. I have been travelling
all over the world, but Paris pleased me more than
any other city.’
‘ It is the finest city in the world,’ he said enthusi-
astically, gratified evidently by my admiration, ‘but
I have never seen it yet. Sometime~’
‘It is a treat in store for you.’
‘ Yes,’ he said. ‘ Sometime—’
We were on a smoother road by this time, and
presently passed over a bridge with the rush of water
down below and here and there a head of light
gleaming out,of the darkness of the banks.
‘ You are employed at the station? ’ I asked.


'26 OUR LADY~ OF DELIVERANCE
‘ Yes, monsieur, I am sous-chef de gare, but I live
in the village.’
‘Is there an inn there? ’
‘ Ye-es,’ he said, with a doubtful intonation.
‘Mother Thibaud can give you a bed—if she will.
She’s a bit queer-tempered at times. Perhaps I can
assist, monsieur. I am on good terms with the
daughter, you see.’
' I shall be greatly obliged to you.’ This was just
the ally I wanted. '_
‘Then, if monsieur will take my advice, he will
order something to drink as soon as we enter, and
show the old one the colour of his money. She can’t
withstand that. She’s an old close-fist is Madame
Thibaud, but she loves the pieces, you understand,
and she must have a good many by this time, and ‘
sometime—’
‘ By the way,’ I said, 'I thought I noticed an old
gentleman and a lady get out here also. Where haVe
they got to? ’ *
It was curious, but I certainly got the impression of
a slight touch of restraint in his voice as he replied,——
‘ Yes, that was the lady of the chateau, Mademoiselle
des Comptes and M. l’Abbé Dieufoy.’
‘ Do they live hereiI ’
‘ Occasionally, monsieur. Not often.’
It seemed to me policy not to pursue the subject
lest he should arrive at the idea that that was the
sole reason for my being there. Evidently he was
already on that track, for after a pause he asked,—
‘Does monsieur make a long stay in Cour-des-
Comptesi’ ’
‘I am not sure yet. . The country is rather pretty
round here is it notiI ’——the depth at which the river
ran gave me the idea that it might be so.
‘ Not bad,’ he said, ‘but the life is dulll’
‘ Not so lively, you think, as Paris? ’
‘Name of a dogl no. If I could live in Paris I
.~_.


OUR LADY OF DELIVERANCE 27
, Would never visit Cour-des-Comptes,’ and it evidently
puzzled him mightily why three people in one even-
ing, who could live In Paris if they chose, should
wish to come to Cour-des-Comptes.
We arrived at the village and at the inn, which
seemed a mere drinking shop. I begged him to order
whatever he thought fit for the propitiation of the
old lady, to the end that I might get a bed, and we
entered. ~ - .
A number of other blue blouses were sitting stolidly
at the dark Wooden tables, automatically lifting and
setting down their thick pot chopines of cider. There
was a murmured ‘ Good evening ’ as we entered, and
at sight of a stranger whatever talk had been going
on died away into a heavy silence.
My conductor bowed deferentially to the sour-faced,
old dame, in a very white cap and much blue petticoat,
who sat knitting at the far end of the room, and when.
a pretty, dark-eyed girl came forward to the small table
where we had placed ourselves, to request our order,
he put his hand over hers as it rested on the table
and smiled at her, and she showed no annoyance, but
on the contrary Seemed rather to like it.
‘ Leanne, monsieur wants a bed. Can you work it? ’
Jeanne’s pretty lips pursed up as though to say it
might be difficult, and her shapely shoulders gave a
tiny shrug as though to say, ‘ You know why.’
" Meanwhile,’ said she, with a family eye to business,
‘ whatvcan I get for messieurs? ’
‘I would like some very good coffee, Jeanne, and
some fine cognac,’ I said. 'I dined en route. And
you, mon ami? ’ I said to my friend from the station.
‘ Nothing beats Jeanne’s coffee,’ he said, ‘ and
cognac makes it heavenly. Tenez, Jeanne! Monsieur
will ~pay for it, and then the mother will be happy.’
I handed Jeanne a twenty-franc piece, and asked
her to keep. it against my board and lodging for a
, day or two. Then I offered my own blue blouse a .


28 OUR LADY OF vDELIVERANCE
cigar from my case, and he was absolutely happy.
He kept glancing out of the corner of his eye at the
progress of matters at the other end of the room, and
reporting in a low murmur,—
‘The old curmudgeon! she’s biting your gold to
see if it’s good. It’s all right. Jeanne’s making the
coffee and telling the old one she’ll see to getting a
room ready. If Jeanne sees to it you’ll be all right,
monsieur. Heavens, what a cigar this isl Tenez,
Vaurel, mon beau, just smell this ’—and he got up
and held it under the nose of another blue blouse at
the big table, a burly fellow with only one arm and
a straw-coloured beard and moustache—‘ ever smelt
anything like that?’ '
‘ Havannah,’ growled Vaurel. ’Monsieur did not
buy that in Rennes? ’ I
‘No, I bought a couple of thousand of those in
New York, and I’ve just about got through them.
Permit me to offer you one, M. Vaurel.’
‘ Mon Dieu! Two thousand! Why, it is a fortunel
Monsieur must have a gold mine if he does every-
thing else on the same scale.’
I laughed and said, ‘I like a good cigar.’
‘Who doesn’t? ’ growled Vaurel, ‘but we others
can’t all get them.’
The others along the table looked on with a
glimmer of interest in their weather-seamed old faces.
They were all old men, and their dripping mugs of
cider struck me as very cold and uninviting. I could
not offer them all cigars, but I asked my friend if he
thought they would be willing to join us in coffee
and cognac. He put it to them in a patois I did not
understand and with a grin all over his merry face.
Would they? ‘Wouldn’t they?
Only one questioning voice was raised. It came
from a shrivelled, little old fellow at the far end of the
table. His face was thin and pinched, his eyes watery.
and his whole aspect very forlorn and broken.


OUR LADY OF DELIVERANCE 29
‘ Monsieur is not a Prussian, is hei> ’ he asked in
French. .
‘Don’t be a fool, Pere Goliot,’ growled Vaurel.
‘ Don’t you think I know a Prussian when I see one? ’
‘ When one has suffered it makes one suspicious,’
said the old man in a shaky voice.
‘ And have I not suffered at their hands? ’ asked
Vaurel.
‘No doubt, Monsieur Vaurel; but not as I. My
three brave b0ys——’ then he put down his old withered
head on the table and fairly sobbed.
‘Cheer up, Pcre (ioliot,’ cried Vaurel; 'times are '
going to be better, and here comes the coffee and the
cognac. 'Be assured monsieur is no Prussian. If he
had been I would have known it by this arm of mine,
which is not here, as soon as his foot came inside the
door. I can smell a' Prussian a hundred yards away.’
‘ I’m a Scotchman,’ I said.
‘ There you are, Pere Goliot. Monseiur is a Scotch-
man, do you see. Now try that coffee, and there are
two extra lumps of sugar for you. I shall bring you
some fish to-morrow,’ and the burly Vaurel got up
and patted the old man on the back and made him
sip his coffee till a show of colour came into his face
and he no longer marred the subdued hilarity of the
occasion. They all looked as if a little warming up
inside would be beneficial to their bodily comfort,
and I asked Jeanne to leave the bottle of cognac, and
their contentment was complete. Even Madame
Thibaud grew almost cheerful. As for Jeanne, she
hovered around us beaming like a sunset.


30 OUR LADY OF DELIVERANCE
CHAPTER V
MDLLE. X.—HER HOME
A BETTER introduction to the village of Cour-des-
Comptes no man could have had, and I had a good
reason to congratulate myself on the moment when
Louis Vard came upon me in the dark road leading
from the station. .
' Is monsieur fond of fishing? ’ asked Vaurel in his
big bass voice.
‘ I am a fisherman when‘I get the chance, M. Vaurel.
Do you get good sport here? ’
‘ You come down to me, anybody’ll show you where
I live, and I’ll showyou what. we can do, monsieur.
If anyone knows how to fish the Vilaine, it is I,
Prudent Vaurel.’
"l'hat’s a bargain, then,’ I said; ‘I shall come
to-morrow.’ -
‘ Good,’ said he; ‘ we shall have rare times, you and I.’
Nothing could possibly have suited my plans better.
Vaurel’s question and offer had put into my hand the
key of the countryside. Henceforth I was free to
wander whithersoever I would without question, for
the rod in my hand would frank me in advance to
any would-be questioner.
My guests rose to depart in a body, all except Vaurel
and Louis Vard. Madame had already retired. and
Jeanne’s bright eyes were like sleepy stars. Then,
with renewed injunctions to me to come down to his
house in the morning, Vaurel went singing down the
road, and I became aware of the fact that I was the
no-company third to Louis and Jeanne, and so, with
hearty thanks to Louis for his kind offices during the


OUR LADY OF DELIVERANCE 31
evening, I begged Jeanne to show me to my room and
left Louis awaiting her return.
From certain indications I judged it was Jeanne’s
own room and bed in which I slept, but it was none
the less comfortable on that account. It was a square,
heavy-looking little room, by dim candle-light at all
events, panelled to the ceiling in dark oak, and behind
the heavy panels, richly carved in rough arabesques,
were the beds, identical with the box-beds of my
native land. The only furniture consisted of two
great carved black oak chests, and a small square
looking-glass hanging on the wall.
Well satisfied with the day’s work I slept splendidly.
I washed next morning in the back garden in a bucket
of water drawn by Jeanne from the ’well, enjoyed a-
big bowl of excellent milk coffee she had prepared for
me, with the freshest of butter and the brownest of .
bread, and then asked her how I should find Vaurel’s
house by the river.
I would have liked to ask her many more questions
concerning Mdlle. X., but deemed it best to go slowly
in the matter and not give any indications of the real
reason f0r my being there.
Jeanne herself, however, incidentally introduced‘
the subject.
‘ Shall I put you to any inconvenience, Mademoiselle
Jeanne, if I stay here a day or two?’ I asked.
‘ But no, monsieur, we shall be delighted, and there
-,is no inconvenience whatever. You did the old ones
good last night. It was a pleasure to see them so
cheerful.’
‘ They are not generally cheerful, then?’
‘ Mon Dieu, no! ’ She shook her head. ‘ Not of late.
You see, monsieur, the season has been a bad one, the
crops were bad, and the cider was not good, and alto-
gether things have not been bright in the country
here. It may be better now that Mademoiselle has
come—~’


32 OUR LADY OF DELIVERANCE
She broke off short, but this was a subject I had
no objection to her pursuing.
‘ Mademoiselle? Who is sheiI ’
‘ Mademoiselle at the chAteau,’ and then the pretty
lips closed tight.
‘ Ahl and she may make things better? How is
that? ’
‘She is very charitable. She won’t let the people
go short if she knows it.’
' And she will be sure to hear of it? ’
‘ Oh, she must hear of it. It is my aunt who is
housekeeper at the chateau, and my cousin Hortense
who acts as Ma’m’selle’s maid when she is here. She
is a very pretty girl.’
‘ Who? Hortense or Ma’m’selIeP ’
‘ Oh, monsieurl I meant Hortense. Mademoiselle is
altogether lovely, but different, of course, from us
others.’
‘This seems a country of pretty girls, Jeanne,’ at
which Jeanne’s eyes laughed and her lips showed a
.gleam of white teeth. .
‘ Well, I will go and find M. Vaurel and see what
sport he can offer me. I shall ask him to join me at
dinner, shall we say at six o’clock? And if you see
M. Louis, Jeanne ’—an'd Jeanne’s eyes twinkled as
though she thought it by no means improbable—
“ you might beg him with my compliments to join
us. I feel greatly indebted to him.’
‘ Merci, monsieur,’ said Jeanne, and I went off down
the road.
Through the village square, where I was an object
-of curiosity to the white-capped women—a packet of
the best tobacco she had at the tobacconist’s, and it
was not very good—then along a rough, high-banked
road which crept through the woods along the side of
the hill—then a sudden turn and a rapid descent
.among the trees towards the noise of running waters
and the monotonous thud, thud, thud, thud of a water


34 OUR LADY OF DELIVERANCE
But I was a dog lover and had no fear of" him. A
‘Well, Bully, old man,’ I said, ‘ come along and
make friends,’ and surely if he was not English-born
his ancestors were, for the purposeful eyes blinked at
the word and the stout little tail gave a friendly wag.
He sniffed twice at me just by way of making a show
of doing his duty, then the great front paws came up
-on my knee and Bully’s tremendous face was almost
alongside mine, and he seemed to be wanting to say,
\ ‘ Speak to me again in the tongue of my forebears.
Your words stir something inside of me. Surely I too
come of the British race,’ and Boulot and I were
friends.
‘Tiensl’ said Vaurel, as he came up the slope
swinging a brace of wood-pigeons in his hand, and
dimly perceiving something of all this, ‘ Boulot’s
English blood is stirred at sight of you. He frightens
most people.’ .
‘We are going to be very good friends,’ I said.
Who lives in the big house over there, M. Vaurel? ’
‘ That is the family seat of the Des Comptes,
monsieur; they own all the country round here.’
‘Really. They must be wealthy. I should have
thought rich people like that would live in Paris.’
’ So they do mostly, but sometimes they come here.’
‘ Anybody there just now? Can one go over the
house? ’
I saw by his manner that he wished to avoid the
answer I wanted, and this constant evasion of refer-
ence to Mdlle. des Comptes puzzled me greatly, and
only served to put a keener edge on my desire for
information. <
‘ The house is occupied just now,’ he said at last;
‘ perhaps if monsieur stays long enough the oppor-
tunity may come.’
‘ Ah, the family is there perhaps, monsieur and
madame?’ l queried.
'Monsieur lies at Sedan. We were all through the


OUR LADY OF DELIVERANCE 35
., war together. But the cursed Prussians killed him
there, and did their best for me,’ and he nodded at
his empty sleeve. lWe were together; that is why
I live here and have the freedom of the woods and
waters over all the countryside.’
‘I see,’ I nodded, and again deemed it wise not to
push him too hard at the moment. I was learning
bit by bit, and it was no good trying to go too
fast.’
‘It is a charming situation,’ I said, ‘and you ,
ought to be happy there. How did you get the
pigeons? ’
‘ I shoot them,’ he said, handing me the birds and
producing from his pocket a long-barrelled revolver.
‘Because M. des Comptes was shot by those pigs of
Prussians at Sedan I shoot his wood-pigeons here,
and hook his fish and live in this house of his.
Monsieur has not breakfasted yet? ’
‘ No. I’m hoping to have one of those pigeons for
breakfast,’ I said.
‘ That’s it, that’s it, exactly! ’ he said; ‘fresh trout
from the river and plump wood-pigeons make a feast
for a king.’
‘And for dinner I hope you will join me at
Madame Thibaud’s, M. Vaurel. I have asked Made-
moiselle Jeanne to be ready for us at six.’
‘Goodl ’ said the burly one. ‘Monsieur is a god-
send in this quiet place.’ '
We got on admirably, Vaurel and I. He turned out
a capital breakfast, and the brown bread and cider‘
only threw into greater relief the excellent qualities
of the trout and the wood-pigeons.
‘Did you take Pére Goliot the promised fishi’ ’ I
asked, while we were eating. ‘I felt quite sorry for
the poor old fellow. He looked as if he had had
hard times.’
‘ Yes,’ he said, ‘ he suffered more than most. His
three boys went to the war and none came back, not


36 OUR LADY OF DELIVEBANCE
one. Yes, I took him his fish. We do what_we can
for him, but the season has been a bad one. Now
however that Mademoiselle—~’
I listened with all my ears but with no show of
eagerness, but he broke off short and turned the
subject.
After breakfast and a smoke we fished below the
weir and had a fair afternoon’s sport. Boulot accom-
panied us with extreme reluctance, and sat afar off
sniffing'and snuffing disdainfully, with quick, appre-
hensive glances at his master whenever by any chance
he came anywhere near him. It was only when at
last we returned to the house and laid aside our rods,
and with our string of trout turned up the path
through the woods towards the village, that he showed
any signs of the enjoyment of life and ran on briskly
in front.
‘Come back, pig, Prussian, old handy-leg! come
back, and take care of the house! ’ shouted his master,
but Master Boulot paddled resolutely forward with
determination in his tail, and never even looked
round at him.. ‘ Very well, then, don’t if you won’t.
I shall throw you in the water again some day,’ and
at that the brindled legs twinkled the faster and
Boulot disappeared round a turn of the road.
‘ He hates the water as the crows say the devil
hates hely water. I threw him into the river for a-
wash one day, and he wouldn’t speak to me for a
week. He scares the children and the fools up above
here, so I generally keep him away from them, but
it shows what good friends we are that he consents
to live so near the water. He heard you talk of dinner
and doesn't want to miss the chance.’
‘ Has he ever bitten any of them? '
‘ Not he. He wouldn't bite them to save their lives,
but they always think he lonks as if he was just going
to. He killed the sheep dog at the Abbey Farm not
long since, though, a big, fierce brute that was bad


OUR LADY OF DELIVERANCE 37
to the sheep, and since then the folks are more
frightened of Boulot than ever.’
‘ \Vhere did you get him? ’ 1
' It was at Wenh. He was very young then. He
was sitting whimpering by his master’s dead body, an
Englishman who fought on our side there and at
Weissemburg. He was starving and I gave him all I
had, and buried his master, and he has never left me
since.’ He was at Sedan too and stood between my
legs when the Prussians closed in on us for the last
time, on the hill there. Heigh hot they were hard
times those. Mon Dieu! the things I saw that day.
Now, monsieur, if you will go on to Mcre Thibaud’s
and take her those ’—handing me a small string of
the trout—‘I will leave these at the chateau for;
Ma’m’selle. I must pay my respects to her.’
‘ I’ll come with you,’ I suggested ingenuously.
' N0, pardon me, monsieur, it is necessary that If
go alone.’ .
‘ All right; I’ll go and hurry up Jeanne and the,-
dinner.’
CHAPTER VI MDLLE. X.—HEH TROUBLE
WE had capital times together, Vaurel and I, and I
soon fell into the habitpf st'rolling down to the little
stone house by the river each morning, with a couple
of bottles of red wine in my pockets and a yard-long
loaf of bread in my hand, as my contribution towards
the commissariat department.
After breakfast and a smoke we punted up the river,
or fished down it, or strolled through the woods while
by.“ x 1


38 OUR LADY OF DELIVERANCE
Vaurel potted superfluous wood-pigeons for the pro-
visioning of the great house and the small one.
He was of a jovial and reckless disposition, and bit
by bit I learned much of his history, and in still more
fragmentary fashion picked up sundry scraps of infor-
mation concerning Mademoiselle. For many days the
chateau showed no signs of occupancy beyond a curl
of blue smoke, against the dark background of trees,
from one solitary chimney. The brown wooden Vene-
tian shutters along the river front remained tightly
closed, and sharply as I watched the house I never
caught sight of a soul, except on two or three occasions
when the old priest walked on the terrace on this side
of the. house, pacing slowly to and fro as if in deep
thought, and always alone.
I had to be very wary in my search for information,
for any direct question put either to Jeanne, or to
Vaurel, or to Louis Vard, concerning, even in the most
round-about way, Mademoiselle of the chateau, simply
had the effect of bringing the conversation to a full
stop.
Briefly, what I had gathered in four days was this.
Mademoiselle Denise des Comptes, who was at the
chateau, was, with her brother Gaston, owner of all
the land round about. They were wealthy, and when
Ma’m’selle was at the chateau there was no want in
the neighbourhood. The softened inflections which
came into their voices whenever they spoke of
' Ma’m’selle ’ conveyed to my mind a sense of loving
reverence which told me more than many words.
It was surely a very sweet and sympathetic nature
which could evoke so warm a feeling in the hearts
of these stolid peasants, whom Nature herself treated
somewhat indifferently at times and provided for
none too bountifully.
But when Ma’m’selle came to stop at the chateau
hard times fled before her, and the villagers looked
forward to her coming as hopefully as ice-bound


OUR LADY OF DELIVERANCE 39
voyagers look for the summer. This time, however,
since the night of her arrival with the Abbé Dieufoy,
she had never stirred out of the house, and none of
her old friends up in the village had set eyes on her,
no one in fact except Madame Tiraud, the housekeeper,
and Hortense, her daughler. Ma’m’selle had shut her-
self up in her room and refused to see even M. Dieufoy.
What the trouble was [Hortense could not say, but
trouble there was of some kind and that of the gravest.
But I could not help noticing that the others did
not debate with Hortense the possible nature of
Mademoiselle’s trouble. She was a rattlebrain, and
while she rattled on they were silent. It seemed to me
that they knew what the trouble was, but that they
did not care to discuss it with Hortense, as one does
not discuss weighty matters with a child.
Roussel’s expression, ‘ she is disgraced,’ came once
into my mind and was promptly rejected. No personal
disgrace could attach to that sweet-faced girl, I was
ready to stake my life on that. But what the trouble
tvas I could not get at, and, as I have said, any direct
attempt thereat simply resulted in a frosty silence. ’
Vaurel was, if possible, worse than anyone else.
Whenever I craftily worked the conversation round in
the direction of Mademoiselle Denise and her trouble,
he just shook his head and said, ‘ Pardon, monsieur,
let us talk of something else.’
‘ Thud—thud—dhud—thudl ’ he would say, looking
down at the mill. ‘ All that and the farm up above
ought to have been mine, but I was no man of busi-
ness and I wanted to the wars, and so I left it to my
brother Gautier, and he is getting fat on it, and I
shoot wood-pigeons and catch the trout.’
‘ That was not very prudent.’
‘ No, mon Dieu! Prudent by name but never by
nature,’ he said, with his big laugh, ‘ but what's the
odds! I live and I’m happy, and I have no cares,
while Gautier has a shrew of a wife and six brats


40 OUR LADY OF DELIVERANCE
who all take after her. Nom de Dieul I’m not sure
but I’m better off than he is after all, and anyhow I
did man’s work for my country.’
One day, as we sat on the bench smoking, we saw
the old priest pacing slowly to and fro on the terrace.
‘ Tenez! see the black crow yonder,’ said Vaurel.
‘For me, I do not like those gentry. They make
much trouble in the family at times. I wonder if my
' little friend here ’—fondling his revolver with the long
barrel—‘ would be as good at crows as at the pigeons.
If I just knew what Ma’m—’ but he did not finish his
thoughts aloud. ‘ I would like to try Boulot on him,’
’ he said after a while. ‘No, I do not like those
gentlemen of the long robe.’
‘ Why, what have they done to you? ’
‘ To me! ’ he cried, ' nothing. I always snapped my
fingers at them, but I have watched them on others,
sucking the blood of them like leeches as long as
there was anything left to suck. Pahl le bon Dieu
is served in many queer ways in this country, and
has to stand scapegoat for many queer things. It’s
a queer world, monsieurl ’ '
‘ That’s an original discovery of yours, Vaurel, and >
does you credit. Why don’t you try to improve
things? ’ ' _
‘ What can one man do? ’ he would say,‘ shrugging
off all responsibility as a duck shakes the water off
its back.
When he got on the subject of the war, and the
mismanagement at headquarters, and the criminal
stupidities of the leadership, he would wax furiously
eloquent, as one who had seen with his own eyes
and suffered in his own body from these things.
‘ Dieu de Dieul ’ he would cry, ‘I grind my teeth
even now at thought of it all. There we were, ill-
clad, ill-shod, ill-found, but with the hearts of men—
the hearts of Frenchmen, ready to fight to the last
gasp, and the fools at the top, the ten-thousand-times-


OUR LADY OF DELIVEBANCE 41
accursed fools who ought to have known everything
and knew less than nothing, they played with us and
mishandled us till our hearts were as thin as our boots
and as empty as our stomachs. Ah, if we had had a
real Bonaparte, a real chip of the old block, to lead
us and none of your painted bastard Dutchmen; why
we would have mopped those pigs of Prussians all over
their cursed sausage land. My faith, yes! But there
were many queer things in those days, monsieur. I
was in the front rank at VVijrth. We were rushing
down the slope at the Prussians. The captain of my
regiment was just in front of me, a perfect devil of a
man—as brave as men are made, but a martinet, a
tartar, an insolent—,Lepard his name was. He was
just in front of me, and he suddenly flung up his arms
and fell on his face, and I'saw the bullet go into him
and it went in from the back.’
‘ You mean one of his own men shot himi’ '
He nodded. ‘He was a devil, but he was a brave
man. I picked him up afterwards. The bullet had
gone through him, but he was not dead. I told the
surgeon he was cheering us on with his back to the
Prussians when the bullet struck him, and the surgeon
looked at me, and said; “ Quite sol but you see, my
friend, the Prussian bullet does not make the same
kind of wound as the French bullet, and I quite under-
stand.” I guess he was not the only one. Yes, indeed,
there were lots of queer things happened in those days.’
This slow, quiet, woodland life was eminently rest-
ful, but I began to ask myself what end I was serving
by staying at Cour-des-Comptes. I was no nearer
making the acquaintance of Mdlle. X. than on the
first day of my arrival,' and many a time I said to
myself that I was simply wasting my time and doing
no good by hanging about in this fashion. But all
the time I knew that I could no more pack up my
traps and go than I could take out my heart and leave
it under the bench for Boulot to play with.


42 OUR LADY OF DELIVERANCE
She was there, somewhere in the grim grey chateau
by the river, and she was in trouble, and my heart had
gone out to her for the sake of her sweet face and the
pure soul that shone out through her eyes, before ever
I knew who she was or had ever set eyes upon her.
7 Who cOuld say but that the time might come when
she would want my help? On the bare chance I would
wait a lifetime.
Lying on the grass watching my float, sitting on
the bench watching the chateau through the smoke
of my pipe, lying awake in the night in Jeanne’s box
bed, I pieced together again and again the meagre
scraps of information I had been able to glean from
the short-cut“ sentences of Vaurel and Jeanne and
Louis Vard, and turned them over and over in my
mind, and groped for the meaning of things, and so
came at last to a resolution which might or might
not prove a wise one.
It depended on Jeanne, and for Jeanne I had come
to have/a’very high respect.
I proceeded to put the matter to the test.
The following night I lingered smoking in the room
, downstairs until the poor old village fathers bad
stumbled away home, and ,even Louis Vard had
brought his lingering farewells to an end. Mere
Thibaud had already retired, leaving Jeanne to close
up, as was her custom when her customers stopped
later than usual.
Jeanne bolted the door and glanced inquisitiver
at me. I generally took my departure as soon as the
last man went, so as not to interrupt her téte-d-téte
with Louis.
‘ Jeanne,’ I said, ‘ get me another candle. I want to
show you something. Will you come upstairs for a
moment? ’
She looked a trifle astonished, but got the candle
and lighted it, and followed me up the stairs.
I had fastened the portrait of Mdlle.'X. to the dark


OUR LADY OF DELIVERANCE 43
wood panel of the room just over one of the big chests.
I set the candles on the chests and closed the door
behind her.
She stood for a moment looking at the lovely face
and then,—
‘ Mon Dieu, it, is Ma’m’sellel Where did you get
it, monsieur? ’
‘ In Paris.’
‘ She gave it to you? I did not know you knew her.’
No, I have never spoken to her, Jeanne.’
‘ Dame! that is curious,’ and her-brows arched in
surprise.
‘ I saw that picture in the Salon, and the moment I
saw it, there was no other picture there for me. Her
face bewitched me, Jeanne, and I felt that I could lay
down my life to serve her, though I could not find out
who she was, or whether there was any such person.’
Jeanne nodded sagely. ‘ You are in love with
Ma’m’selle.’
‘With her portrait at all events. I have never
spoken to her.’
‘ All the same you are in love with her,’ nodded
Jeanne, as one who knew.
‘Well, maybe. Now, Jeanne, she is in trouble.
How can I help her? ’
Jeanne pondered with her eyes on Ma’m’selle’s sweet
face, but still hesitated to speak what she knew.
‘See now, Jeanne, let me tell you in two words
about myself. I was first oilicer on board ship. An old
gentleman, a passenger, fell overboard. I jumped
after him and saved his life. A year later he died and
he left me by his will five million francs—'
‘ Five-millions——of—francsl ’ murmured Jeanne,
in an awestruck whisper. ‘ Mon Dieu, what a fortune!
‘ They are at the disposition of Mademoiselle,
Jeanne, together with my head and my heart if that
will help her in her trouble.’
Jeanne nodded very knowingly, and said, without


44 OUB LADY OF DELIVERANCE
speaking, ‘Yes, you are in love with her without
doubt.’
‘ Now I want your assistance, Jeanne, and if you will
help me, come of it what may, I will give you on your
wedding day a dowry of ten thousand francs.’
‘ Mon Dieul’ said Jeanne, clasping her hands.
‘ What is it Monsieur requires of me? ’
‘ Tell me how I can help Mademoiselle. First,
what is the trouble? Until I know that I can do
nothing, for I am all in the dark.’
‘ Monsieur means well by Ma’m’selle? ' she asked,
with a last lurking doubt.
‘ \Vhat do you think yourself, Jeanne? ’ I asked,
taking her hand and looking straight into her big
black eyes.
‘ But yes, monsieur, I know it, and Louis says the
same. You are a man to trust.’
‘ Then tell me—what is Ma’m’selle’s troublei’ ’
‘ It is this, monsieur, and the reason why we do not
speak of it is that it hurts us. It touches the family
honour, and so the honour of all of us. We, down
here, do not believe a word of it, ~but all the same it is
there, and in Paris they say it is true. Ma’m’selle’s
brother, Monsieur Gaston, is in terrible disgrace.
They say he has sold F rance—given away the secrets
of the army—betrayed his country. Mon Dieul I
do not believe it, nor do any of us down here, but in
Paris they believe it, and he has been degraded and
deported, the poor boy, and such a fine boy too! Ah,
it is impossible! and our poor Ma’m’selle, it is killing
her. Now how can monsieur helpi' ’
‘ And the priest—what is he afteri‘ ’ I asked.
‘Monsieur l’Abbé Dieufoyi" She shrugged her
shoulders expressively. ‘He is trying to persuade
Ma’m’selle to take the veil. Ma’m’selle is rich, you
understand, monsieur, and the Church has always
need of money,’ and even in her Whisper her voice
rang hard and none too friendly to the grasping


OUR LADY OF DELIVEBANGE 45
brotherhood. 'Now tell me, monsieur, what can I
do to help? Ma’m’selle is very dear to all of us, and
if the Church takes her we all suffer too.’
‘ And how does Mademoiselle herself regard the
matter, Jeanne? ’
‘ Hortense tells us she is worn with grief. She will
dr0p into their greedy mouths like a cherry if she is
left to them long enough. It is endless, you under-
stand, monsieur—morning, noon and night, day in,
day out. At last she will be worn out, and she will
say, “ Very well, do anything you like, only leave me
alone,” then—good-bye to the world and she is gone,
and we shall, see her no more. She is meant for
something better than that, monsieur.’
‘ Surelyl ’ said I, pondering the situation.
‘ Tell me what I can do, monsieur.’
‘_ This is all I can think of at the moment, Jeanne.
Get word to Mademoiselle—Hortense would do——’
‘ She talks too much. I will go myself.’
‘ That will be much better—convey to Mademoiselle
then, Jeanne, that the Englishman she saw in the train
the other day would deem it the highest privilege of
his life to be permitted to render her any assistance
in his power, and—and—’ '
‘I shall know what to say,’ said Jeanne, with a
knowing nod and a sparkle of the eyes. ‘ It will cheer
Ma’m’selle to know that someone wants to help her.’
‘ God bless you, Jeannel How soon will you see her? ’
‘ To-morrow I will go to see my aunt, and I will see
Ma’m’selle and speak with her.’
So I had made my first approach on the citadel
where my heart was already prisoner, and I waited
impatiently for the passage of the hours till I should
hear how my envoy had fared.
It was late in the afternoon of the following day
that Jeanne tripped softly up the stairs to my room,
where I had been impatiently awaiting her for more
than an hour.


4e ova LADY OF DELIVERANCE '
Her eyes were a-sparkle and her face aglow with
her rapid return from the chateau and the enjoyment
of her mission.
' ‘Well, Jeanne, you have fared well? ’
'But yes, monsieur. I think I have done all
monsieur could wish.’
‘I hope Mademoiselle did not consider it an im-
pertinence on the part of a stranger? ’
‘ She was very, very sad at first. Never have I seen
her so sorrowful and hopeless looking. ‘ And then I
told her of the picture, monsieur, and she was greatly
surprised. And when I said you were the Englishman
she had seen in the train she nodded and said, “I
remember,”‘and a little light came into her eyes and
a little colour into her cheek. And when I told her
you were ready to lay down your life to help her—’
' Did you say that? ’
She nodded briskly. ‘When I told her that, she
asked, “ Does he believe Gaston guilty? ” and I-
assured her you did not'—’
‘ But, Jeanne, I know nothing about it.’
‘ And do you believe Ma’m’selle’s own brother could
do such a thing, monsieur? ’ she asked scornfully.
‘ Certainly not, Jeanne.’ -
‘ Very well, then, that’s what I told her. I said you
felt certain, with all the rest of us, that some horrible
mistake had been made, and you were ready to do
everything in your power to have it all made clear.
Then Ma’m’selle kissed me and there were tears in
her eyes. What lovely eyes she has, monsieurl ’
I nodded. ' And theni’ ’ ‘
‘ And then she said, “ Tell monsieur that his syn1~
pathy has done me good, and I am grateful for it,
and I shall not feel quite so lonely and helpless.”
And she asked me to come and see her again, and
said that I had done her good.’
‘ Jeanne, you are angel.’
‘That is what Louis says, monsieur, but all the


OUR LADY OF DELIVERANCE 47
' same it is me myself in person whom he wants to
marry.’
‘ I shall hope to dance at your wedding, Jeanne.’
‘ With Ma’m’selleiJ ’ She laughed merrily, and fled
down the stair to see to the dinner.
CHAPTER vn
THE ARRIVAL. OF THE DEVIL
NEXT day, as I sat smoking on the bench of Vaurel’s '
cottage after breakfast, I noticed at once a change in
the look of the chateau. It was no longer quite blind.
Two of the brown wooden shutters upstairs were
thrown back and the windows were wide open. It
gave the house a more cheerful look, and I took it
as a sign of the revival of hope and interest in life
on the part of its mistress.
‘ Tiens! ’ said Vaurel when he noticed it, ‘they are
wakening up down there.’
We crossed in the punt and fished down the other
side of the river below the weir. As we progressed
slowly past the house, with the width of the river and
the grassy stretch beyond between us and it, we saw
the old priest and Mademoiselle slowly pacing the
terrace, the old man talking earnestly, Mademoiselle
listening, it seemed to me, perforce and with the man-
ner of one who Would have preferred being left alone.
The priest caught sight of us and stopped to look
and possibly to wonder to his companion who we
were. They were still pacing so, the priest turning
sideways to her in his argumentation, Mademoiselle a
little in front as though impatient of his importunity,
when we passed out of sight round the bend. I could
hear Vaurel growling curses on the ‘ crow ' as long as


48 OUR LADY OF DELIVERANCE
he could see him. He said nothing to me, but he was
not fortunate in his fishing, and presently I almost
fell over him where he lay in the grass, having thrown
aside his rod in disgust.
‘It does not go to-day,’ he growled; ‘the sight of
old crow yonder pecking away at Ma’m’selle has! up-
set my humour. Dien de Dieu! God made men and-
women, but the devil made the priests.’
‘ Tut! you are feeling had, my friend. One would
think you had suffered from their peckings yourself.’
‘That I would not mind: But Ma’m’sellel it is
different. And she all alone and with no one to help
her. Oh, he will gobble her whole, lands and money
and all—a big belly and a wide-open mouth has the
Church, and an appetite that grows on feeding.’
I dropped my rod also, and sat down in the grass
and filled my pipe and handed him my pouch.
‘ See here, Vaurel, my friend, let us talk. Tell me
all you can about Gaston des Comptes. Can you see
any daylight through the [matter yourself? ’
‘ Sapristi/ I did not know you knew anything
about the mattcrfhe said in some surprise.
‘Of course I know about it. Why should I not
know what all the world knows?’
He was evidently much puzzled at my sudden
accession of knowledge, and filled his pipe between
p his knees ruminatingly, glancing doubtfully up at me
now and again from under his brows.
‘ You do not believe he has done this thing? ’ I said.
‘ Sacré nom de Dieuf No! ’ he said with a sudden
heat, for‘ which I liked him all the more.
‘ Very well then. We are of the same opinion that
Ma’m’selle’s brother is the victim of—shall we say
some terrible blunder?’
‘ Or worse,’ he growled. ‘ I tell you, monsieur, if the
men at headquarters are no better than the men who
fooled us in the war they’re a rotten lot—ay, putridl
I’ve no doubt the country has been sold—is sold every


so ova LADY OF DELIVERANCE
‘ WVell, he is here. He is colonel now, I see.’
‘ The shooting was not very effectual, evidently.’
‘ As I told you, monsieur.’
‘ And so he’s come after you at last.’
‘ No, monsieur, when I shoot a man I shoot him in
front, unless he is a Prussian, of course.’
‘ And what do you suppose brings this gentleman
here, and how does it affect you?’
‘ He has gone to the chateau! ’
‘ The devil! ’ '
‘ Exactly! That’s it! That is what I said, monsieur.’
‘ What does he want at the chateau? ’
‘ No good, whatever it is,’ said Vaurel, with convic-
tion. ‘ The man is brave enough when it comes to
fighting, but he’s a bad man and of an evil temper,
and he was hated by his men. I have seen him more
than once strike a man across the face with his cane at
drill, and a man never forgets that kind of thing,
monsieur. And as for the women—men Dieu! he had
a reputation.’
‘ What’s he doing here, I wonder? ’ I said gloomily.
‘ Maybe he’s on Monsieur Gaston’s business.’
‘ That is possible.’ ,
‘If he is mixed up in it good-bye to Monsieur
Gaston. And if it gives him any hold on Ma’m’selle
the good God help her.’
‘ Why should it give him any hold on Mademoiselle? ’
‘I cannot say, but if it does he is the man to make '
'the most of it.’
The arrival of this man, upon whom I had never
set eyes, and of whom I had never heard except from
Vaurel, and his presence at the chAteau, caused me
quite unaccountable discomfort. There might be a
dozen good reasons for his being there, but the Simple
fact that he was there was sufficient to make me hate
him. I took myself to task for feeling so and hated
him all the more. /
I saw him walking with Mademoiselle on the


OUR LADY OF DELIVERANCE 51
terrace more than once, but he seemed to keep to the
grounds of the chateau, and though I rambled about
the village and along the road to the chateau gates
I never got a nearer sight of him.
And now I was surprised by another most un-
expected arrival, which strengthened tenfold all my
determination to see the matter through and to be at
hand in case Mademoiselle should find herself able to
avail herself of any assistance I could offer her.
As Vaurel and I turned into the little inn one
evening after a long day’s fishing down the river
towards Bessancy, we found a stranger at table and
already half way through his dinner.
He replied to our ‘Good day,’ and then, with a
laugh which was certainly not one of pleased surprise,
he cried,—
‘Diablel it is the Englishman again. How goes it,
monsieur? ’
‘ Hold, Monsieur Roussell’ I said, ‘it is quite an
unexpected pleasure to meet you once more.’
From the grin with which be greeted this I have
no doubt be judged fairly accurately the amount of
' pleasure I felt at sight of him.
‘ Monsieur is stopping in the neighbourhood?’ he
asked.
‘ Yes, I am here for the fishing,’ and I held up my
string of trout.
‘You have been fortunate,’ he said. ‘ It is a pretty
stream. I have come for some painting.’
‘ Ahl I thought you went in mostly for portraits? ’
‘On occasion,’ he laughed. ‘But it is not good
to confine oneself to one line. I try my hand at
historical subjects now and again ’—and be grinned
reminiscently—‘ and it is good also to come to Nature
herself at times.’
Jeanne supplied us with our soup and we fell to
with keen appetites.
‘ I am delighted to find you here,’ he said presently.


52 OUR LADY OF DELIVERANCE
‘ Your French is not of the most fluent, monsieur, but
it is at all events understandable, whereas the language
of the natives hereabouts is of the most barbarous,’
and Vaurel scowled at him from under his brows.
I was thinking that from this man I could probably
learn the actual facts of young Des Comptes’s trouble,
and I promised myself to cultivate him with that end
in view. I was wondering also how soon he would
broach the subject of Mademoiselle, for that she was
the object of his visit I had not, of course, a moment’s
doubt.
He made no reference to her, however, but chatted
away on matters Parisian in a way that drew a reluc-
tant interest even from Vaurel, who had been inclined
to treat him with the brusque indifference, amounting
almost to rudeness, with which the man of the soil
cloaks his native shyness in the presence of a stranger
to whom he owes no allegiance, and whose assumption
of superiority and whose very presence be somewhat
resents.
Roussel retailed for our benefit all the latest doings
of the various worlds of Paris, and when he had got
down below the half world and well on to the quarter,
More Thibaud, contrary to her custom, packed Jeanne
off to bed and settled herself in her corner with a
piece of knitting, to enjoy the juicy talk of the
stranger. Jeanne, before she went, came over to me
and whispered that she hoped I would not mind the
gentleman having to share my room, and though I
did not much relish the prospect I could but nod
acquiescence.
Roussel did most of the talking, and Mére Thibaud
and Vaurel did most of the listening. For myself, his
scandalous rattle had absolutely no interest, and still
less attraction. It was probably his perception of this
that made him turn to me at last and ask,~—
‘ And Mdlle. X., monsieur, have you succeeded in
making her acquaintance yeti) ’ and at the word it,


54 OUR LADY OF DELIVERANCE
Vaurel was wriggling uncomfortably in his chair.
Roussel’s hidden meanings, more than his words,
awoke in me the usual strong inclination to punch his
head. '
‘ He has got an evil reputation, this Colonel Lepard,
you must know,’ he said, swinging back his chair on
to its hind legs and lighting another cigarette. 'It
was his unpleasant attentions to Mademoiselle which
got him and young Gaston to loggerheads. Lepard is
on the general staff—’
‘ Rotten as punk,’ interjected Vaurel. ,
‘ Ay, rotten as punk,’ continued Roussel, ‘ and it was
the general staff that accused Des Comptes and
condemned him. I would bet a thousand to one
Colonel Lepard had his finger in that pie. First he
gobbles the brother in order to clear the way to the '
sister. And now he is here to gobble the sister——
unless, ma foif he has, had his bite already—’ and
he added with a nasty laugh some expressions which
were quite beyond my limited knowledge of the
language. .
‘And at that, Vaurel, whose anger had been steadily
rising with every reference to the family, swept round
his brawny arm, and Roussel rolled over on the floor,
chair and all.
‘ Thousand devilsl What is it, you crazy buffoon? "
gasped the artist, spitting out bits of the cigarette
which the spill had driven down his throat.
Vaurel stood over him, swinging his chair in his
big hand. ‘You dirty dogl ’ he said hotly, ‘ speak
another word of Ma’m’selle and I’ll knock your ugly
brains out.’
' Who’s saying anything against your Ma’m’selle? ’
said Roussel.
‘ You were, pig. You meant that Ma’m’selle was no
better than she should be. If you open your mouth
again I’ll ram this chair leg down your throat.’
He stood over him for a couple of minutes, but


OUR LADY OF DELIVERANCE 55
Roussel showed no intention of offering an opening for
the chair leg, and at last Vaurel banged down his
chair and sat on it with his back to the enemy.
‘Things like that should not be allowed to live,’
he growled to me; ‘ they are only fit to be squashed
under an honest man’s boot.’
At the first sign of trouble Mere Thibaud had
discreetly betaken herself to her bedroom, so we were
alone.
Roussel, with venomous glances at Vaurel, gathered
himself gingerly into a sitting posture, and then
lighted another cigarette and sat smoking it. Con-
versation was impossible after this little outbreak, and
presently Vaurel rosa and bade me good-night without
another look at Boussel.
As soon as he was gone the other got up and to my
surprise said quietly, ‘ He was right and I was wrong.
Those things should not have been said. All the same,
monsieur, it is dangerous to the reputation of Made,
moiselle for this Colonel Lepard to be at the chateau.’
The mildness of his tone, where I expected an
outburst of anger, astonished me greatly. I looked
curiously at him, but his eyes were fixed gloomily on
the fire, and it was probably only the reflection of
the smouldering logs that gleamed in them. All the
same, I made up my mind to warn my friend Vaurel
to be on his guard, for, from the little I knew of
Roussel, I believed him capable of repaying that hasty
blow with compound interest.
CHAPTER VIII
THE DEVIL’S JACKAL
I cor little sleep that night. My brain was too busy
turning over and over all these matters concerning


56 OUR LADY OF DELIVERANCE
Mademoiselle, and seeking some way in which I could
be of assistance to her.
What did Roussel mean by saying Lepard had
gobbled Gaston des Comptes?
Vaurel’s sudden explosion had driven it out of my
mind, but in the night watches it started up and
refused to be laid. What did he mean?
Taken literally, there was only one thing he could
mean, and that was that Lepard had had the brother
removed because he was a hindrance to his designs
on Mademoiselle. And that pointed to a false
accusation and an unjust condemnation. I felt myself
getting into deep waters. And then what seemed
to'my restless brain a low laugh from the adjoining
box bed, but which might only have been a snore or
a gurgle, reminded me of Philippe the artist’s asser-
tion that Roussel was half crazy, and I doubted if
any reliance could be placed on anything he said.
I made up my mind, however, to sound him on the
subject in the morning.
If only I could find out how to help Mademoiselle!
What with the abbé, and the Mother Superior, and
Lepard, she must be having trying times of it, and
here was I, aching to spend myself in her service for
love of her beautiful face and wonderful eyes, and
yet unable to move hand or foot for her, an absolute
outsider, though all my heart was in the game.
It was somewhat of a comfort to know that the
interests of the various parties at the chateau were
opposed to one another, at all events in part. The
Church might combine against the Army, but I could
not see any possibility of all three parties coalescing
for the spoliation of Mademoiselle. And as this
opposition of interests all made for delay, and as time
has a way of straightening things out, it seemed to me
that matters, bad as they were, might have been worse.
As I lay tossing restlesst in the close quarters of
my box bed it seemed to me more than once that I


58 OUR LADY OF DELIVERANCE
He puffed at his cigar in silence, and then said
quietly,— ’ ~
‘ I would esteem it a favour, monsieur, if you would
refer no more to last night. I have no recollection
of saying any such thing.’
‘ Oh, but you did without doubt. It has been in
my mind all night.’
He shook his head. ‘If I did say anything so
extremely foolish the sooner it is forgotten the better.
I must have been slightly off my head.’ '
He declined to say anything more, "though, from
his manner, I believed that he could have given me
the enlightenment I sought if he had chosen to do so.
However, he ,did not choose, and there was an end
of it. ~"
Presently Vaurel hove in sight along the road, and
Boussel turned abruptly into the wood and left me.
‘ Ha, ha! ’ laughed Vaurel as he came near,
‘monsieur the artist has no desire to continue my
acquaintance.’
‘I was trying to get at the meaning of something
he said last night. It has been running in my head
ever slnce.’ -
‘ About Ma’m’sellei’ ’
‘ No, about her brother. He said Lepard had .
gobbled him. Now what did he mean by that? ’
‘ God knows. Did you ask himi' ’
‘ Yes. He denied saying any such thing.’
‘I remember it,’ said Vaurel, casting back his
thoughts, ‘it was just before I rolled him over.’
‘ Yes.’
‘ Sometimes a fool like that lets his mouth run
away with him. Tiensl who have we here? ’
It was a man in an officer’s undress uniform
stepping briskly along towards us.
‘Reinforcements for the military party at the
chateau,’ suggested Vaurel.
The officer stopped as he came opposite in and


OUR _LADY~ OF DELIVEBANCE 59
touched his képi with careless finger, and asked, ‘ Can
you tell me the way to the chateau, messieurs? ’
His face was dark and keen, tanned to the colour of
leather by some hot sun.
‘ Straight along through the village, monsieur,’ said
Vaurel, regarding him closely.
‘ Thanks! ’ and he strode on.
‘ Now who the deuce is that? ’ said Vaurel, looking
after him. ‘ And what does he want at the chateau?
The colonel, probably. A captain of artillery; has
served in Algiers, I should say. Shifty eyes, not a
man I would like to serve under. A colleague of M.
1e Colonel’s, on the general staff, probably, and rotten
like the rest of them. Dieu! What stories I have
heard of the way they treat the men in Algiers. It’s a
wonder that any officer ever comes back alive.’
Vaurel was delighted when I told him I was coming
to stop with him altogether. He carried down all
my belongings during the morning, and procured for
me a camp bedstead and bedding similar to the one
he used himself, and I found it extremely comfortable
and decidedly more airy than the box bed up at the
inn. Boulot showed his approval by immediately
adopting my bed as his sleeping place during the day,
when he was not otherwise engaged, so we were all
quite pleased with the change, and for myself it bore '
fruit of consequence almost immediately.
I told Vaurel of Roussel’s quiet acceptance of his
rough remonstrance, but at the same time expressed
my own doubts as to the sincerity of it, and explained
my reasons, and so dropped into the telling of my
whole connection with Mademoiselle, and showed him
the portrait, with which he was mightily taken, and
only regretted that it was the work of ‘ that pig of an
artist.’
I told him frankly that it was the charm of
Mademoiselle’s sweet face which had brought me to
Cour-des-Comptes, through that accidental meeting in


‘60 I OUR LADY OF DELIVERANCE
the train, and that I was ready and anxious to render
her every service in my power.
He carefully rammed the whole matter into his
pipe with my tobacco, and smoked it thoughtfully,
and then said,—
‘ It is well! Monsieur is an honourable man, neither
rotten, nor crazy, nor yet of the'Chureh. I am with
him.’
We fished up stream towards Bency that afternoon
and Went further than we intended. On turning
homewards we climbed out>of the valley to the high
road for sake of the easier walking. It was quite dark
before we passed the road leading up to the station,
and as we drew near to the bridge over the river,
Vaurel suddenly crushed me into the bushes by the
path side and sank down beside me himself, and I
heard voices approaching. '
‘ Well, in fine, my friend,’ said one voice, harsh and
rasping, ‘ if you talk till you’re blue I can do nothing
more than I am doing. You see how matters stand.
You will just have to wait till—’
‘ Dieu de Dieu! wait, wait, waitl Haven’t I waited
till my patience is in rags, and I am at my wits’ end
for money? ’ 1
‘I also, but I can move no faster.’
‘ Well, I can’t stand it. I shall blow my brains out
or bolt if things go on this way.’
' Don’t be a fool. ‘ Just sit tight and wait. My stake
is bigger than yours, and I don’t intend to lose it—’
They passed out of hearing, and I was beginning
to gather myself out of- the uncomfortable heap into
which I had tumbled, when Vaurel’s arm again
flattened me down, as another figure flitted silently
past us in the wake of the others.
'Monsieur the artist,’ whispered Vaurel.
Then we picked ourselves up and went on our way.
' If we could have heard all that those two have
said to one another since they met to-day, we would


OUR LADY OF DELIVERANCE 61
know a good deal more about some things than we
do,’ remarked Vaurel.
Which was no doubt very true, but left much to be
’ desired from a practical point of view.
CHAPTER IX
AN INAIITISTIC REPLY
HERE then was the position.
Mademoiselle was in dire distress over her brother’s
trouble, and was being urged or persuaded in various
directions by the interested parties at the chAteau.
Of these the most dangerous probably, certainly
the most offensive from my point of view, was Colonel
Lepard. If Roussel’s indiscreet words meant anything
at all, they meant that Lepard knew all about Gaston
Des Comptes’s affair, if indeed he had not had a hand
in actually bringing it about. Such knowledge, in
the hands of such a man, and with such an object in
view as Mademoiselle and her fortune, was a thing to
be feared. The Church, as represented by the Abbé
Dieufoy and the lady who had arrived the previous
day, might be trusted to fight to the utmost for the
prize they coveted, and Mademoiselle was at all events
safe in their hands.-
What Roussel wanted there I could not imagine.
Vaurel and myself seemed the only disinterested
parties in this many-sided conflict, and we were
practically outsiders and had no standing in the
matter beyond our keen desire to be of assistance to
Mademoiselle. I might perhaps even have taken
exception, had I been so inclined, to my own complete
disintere'stedness, but, at all events, I had but one
wish, and that was for Mademoiselle’s good, and I


OUR LADY OF DELIVERANCE 63
the double pleasure of scaring all the children he met,
and of getting away from the sight and smell of the
water for a brief space, and the massive and imper-
turbable gravity with which he trotted along, looking
neither to the right hand nor to the left, scattering the
women and children without ever deigning to cast a
look at them, always amused me greatly.
We delighted the 01d dame’s heart by carrying off
all her minute stock of really smokable stuff, and
resumed our triumphant progress through the village.
We strolled quietly along till we reached the top
of the path that led down through the trees to the
river. We commenced the descent, and our feet made
no sound on the carpet of fallen leaves. Boulot trotted
on in front, and as be rounded the corner of the house
I saw his ears stand suddenly upright, and he bristled
all over. I heard a heavy splash in the water, and a
surprised yell cut short off in the middle. Boulot’s
short tail stiffened like an iron spike, the stout hind
legs spurned the earth, and he launched himself at
something in front. I got round just in time to see
him fasten on to Rousscl’s throat with a muffled howl,
then dog and man went over backwards into the
water, and Boulot gave a disgusted sno'rt as they went
under. ‘ A dozen feet further out Vaurel rose with a
choking cry and began thrashing the water helplessly
with his one arm, and I saw that he was like to drewn.
I leaped in and made my way to‘him, leaving Boulot
and Roussel to settle their quarrel as best they could.
Vaurel grabbed me spasmodically, and I shouted
into his ear, ‘ Lie still. You’re all right. I can swim
like a fish. Let go, man, or you’ll drown us both.’
I got him by the back of the neck at last. and held
his head above water, then swam with the current and
gradually edged him in to the bank, and at last our
feet touched bottom and we crawled ashore. Vaurel
sat coughing and choking with the water he had
swallowed, while I looked anxiously for the other two,


64 ’ OUR LADY OF DELIVERANCE
and presently, down stream in the direction of the'
weir, I saw a black object rolling helplessly along.
It was Master Boulot, or his body. Of Roussel I could
see nothing. I sped along the bank. If there was a _
any spark of life in the old dog he would have no
chance if the undertow got hold of him. I got below
him and swam out and managed to lay hold of him
just in time. He seemed to me to be dead, but I
dragged him ashore. While I sat panting on the bank
I held him upside down, and pressed the water out
of him, and worked him like a pair of bellows, and
blew the water out of his nose. There was a piece of
a collar and necktie between his teeth and I could
not get it out. I worked away on first aid lines,
for I was loth to let the plucky old fellow slip away if
there was any possible hope of recovering him. I
made another attempt to pull the plunder from
between his teeth and was at length cheered by a
vicious snap after a bit of the tie as I tore it away.
Then he opened one eye and heaved a big sigh and
sneezed, and when I put him on to his feet he lay
down and -was very sick. I let him cough the water
out of him till he could cough no more, and then I
picked him up, snufliing and snorting, and carried
him home in my arms.
Vaurel was lying on the bank where we landed,
still coughing up the water he had swallowed.
‘ Dead? ’ he asked, as I came up with Boulot.
‘ No, he’s coming round, but it was a pretty close
shave.’
‘ What was it? What happened?’
' Do you really mean to say you don’t know?’ I
asked.
‘I know nothing. I had thrown out a line to pass
the time, and I was sitting on my heels watching it,
and then an earthquake struck me in the back and
then I seemed to be trying to swallow the river.
Seems to me I must have been dozing.’


OUR LADY OF DELIVERANCE 65
:7
‘It was that rascal Roussel. Boulot and I saw him
heave you into the water, but we were too late to stop
him. Boulot got him by the throat and they tumbled
in after you. I wonder where he’s got to. Have you
seen anything of him?’
‘Sacré Dieul no! ’ he said, getting up. ‘I didn’t
know he was there. The miserable, to sneak on a man
like that! But if Boulot got his teeth in he’s finished.
And but for you, monsieur, Boulot and I would be
finished too,’ and he gripped my hand and shook it
heartily.
The miller, in a white blouse, with his face and
heard thick with flour dust, came along the river bank
with one of his men to ask what the trouble had been,
and on our telling him sent off his man to the village
to inform M. Juliot, the gendarme, so that everything
might be in order. Then he hurried back himself
to shut down one of his sluice-gates, which had
been open, so that if the body of the artist had not
yet got through it might be the more easily found.
Presently Juliot came majestically down the wood
path with half the village at his heels. It was evi-
dent that he did not often get such a chance of
distinguishing himself as this, and he made the most
of it. '
He questioned us magisterially and made notes in
his pocket-book. He looked at Boulot who was lying
on my bed, the centre of a widening damp spot. But
Boulot had had too much water to take any interest
in gendarmcs. He only wrinkled up his brows and
his nose and snuf‘fled disgustedly and curled himself
up the tighter, and J uliot decided not to press investi-
gations in that quarter.
Then a party crossed in the punt to the other bank,
and we all set off with sticks and poles to search for
the body. But it was not to be found, and after
poking and rooting about the weir for the best part
of an hour, the searchers streamed away down the
o


66 OUR LADY OF DELIVERANCE
river in a long straggling tail, and in time came strag-
gling back as empty as they went.
Mere Thibaud had a full house that night, and
nothing was talked of but the crazy artist’s attempt
on Prudent Vaurel., Boulot sat under his master’s
chair and received the distant homage of the villagers v
with dignified contempt, and sneezed and snuffled
at intervals as though the recollection of the cold
plunge was still heavy on him..
The villagers decided that the artist was un-
doubtedly dead and that it served him right. The
body would rise in time and that would be the end
of it. They had never liked him. He was too stuck
up and treated them as if they were dirt.
M. Juliot, as the representative of law and order,
was in great form and very much in evidence. He con-
descended to take coffee and cognac fine with us, and
discussed the case didactically. He was of opinion
that something ought to be done, and was half
inclined to think that failing the prosecution of
Roussel—for the best of reasons—for assaulting Vaurel,
Boulot ought to he proceeded against in some way or
other for assaulting Roussel. It was insufferable that
'the whole village should be terrorised by the great
animal. ‘ Why, it was only a week or two ago since
he killed the sheep dog up at La Garaye, and next
week it might be any one of them. Mon Dieu! yes,
it might be me, myself, Juliot of the gendarmerie—’
‘ All right; you take him along, Juliot, my friend,’
said Vaurel, complacently. ‘ Here he is, quiet as a
lamb; just take him right along and lock him up,
and God help you in the doing of it, for nobody else
will, and you’ll want all the help you can get.’
‘It’s a veritable devil,’ said Juliot, looking askance
at Boulot, but not offering to touch him. ‘ When he's
killed somebody else, M. Vaurel, you’ll regret it, but
then it’ll be too late.’
‘ You leave Boulot alone, Juliot, and Boulot. will leave


OUR LADY OF DELIVERANCE 67
you alone. If that fool of a sheep deg hadn’t flown at
him he’d have been alive now, and if the crazy artist
hadn’t flown at me he’d have been alive now. It’s just
a bit dangerous to touch either of us, isn’t it, old boy? ’
said Boulot’s master, pulling one of his ears till his
great white fangs showed and made the crowd shiver.
M. J uliot helped himself to some more cognac,_ and
expressed his feelings in a loud ‘ Eh, b’en/ ’ which no
doubt covered many unexpressed thoughts on the
subject, and then relapsed into silence profound if
not eloquent.
CHAPTER X
AN ANGEL’S vrsrr
Ann now for the fruitage of my move to the little
house by the river.
Vaurel was an early riser and was usually away to
the woods after pigeons for the chateau very soon after
sun-up.
He was away the morning after our adventure with
Roussel before I woke, and after a delightful plunge
in the river I set the coffee pot in the core of white
ashes on the hearth, and sat down on the wooden
bench with my pipe to await his return. Boulot had
elected to stop with me instead of following his,
master. He had not forgotten yesterday, and he dis-
approved of my bathing, and scuttled half way up
the hillside to await developments. He evidently
thought me crazy and feared to be the next victim of
my mania. It was not till I was seated on the bench
in the morning sunshine, with the water still in my
hair, and the glow of it in my blood, feeling fit and
strong and well content with the world—except as
regards Mademoiselle—that Boulot deemed it safe to


68 OUR LADY OF DELIVERANCE
come gingerly down the path and sniff round me
doubtfully, and then flopped down at my feet with a
sneeze of disgust at my late idiotic proceedings.
I was making him squirm apprehensively by sug-
,gesting that an occasional bath was good even for a
gentlemanly and well-bred bull-dog, especially when
he expected to sleep on another gentleman’s bed, when
the short ears pricked up suddenly and the great
head rose from the short thick paws and looked
steadily paslt me along the side of the hill. Then I
too caught a rustling among the leaves, and following
Boulot’s steadfast look, I saw the figure of a woman
approaching the house through the trees, and in
another moment Mademoiselle st00d before me—the
lovely face and great true eyes which had wrought
themselves into my heart—Mademoiselle herself.
The beautiful face indeed carried the shadow of her
troubles, but her eyes were more like the eyes of the
portrait, for they sought mine with the touch of
questioning shyness which had captivated my soul
at the Salon.
Boulot and 'I sprang up together.
‘ Down, Boulot! ’ I said. ‘ He will not hurt you,
Mademoiselle,’ and in my surprise I spoke in English.
And it was in English that she answered me, and
with scarce a trace of accent. ‘ Boulot and I are old
friends,’ she said, and stooped to caress him.
She wore a long brown cloak and the hood was
drawn over her head. She loosed the cloak and the
hood fell back, and she sat down on the bench while
I stood before her. My heart was beating furiously
at her coming, for it could only mean that she came
to ask my help or at all events my counsel, and—
whatever it meant—she had come. I was still gazing
at her with all my heart in my eyes when she looked
up at me timidly, and said—and the sweet, soft voice
was all in keeping with her face,—
‘If my coming here seems to you an unmaidenly


OUR LADY OF DELIVERANCE 69
thing to do, monsieur— she stopped as though for
my name. >
‘ Hugh Lamont is my name, Mademoiselle,’ I said,
‘ and the dearest wish of my life is to be of service to
you.’ t .
‘I thank you,’ she said. ‘I am surrounded by—>
difficulties ’-—I think she had been going to say
‘ enemies,’ but hesitated to express her fears so openly
—‘ and l scarce know where to turn or whom to trust.
You have heard about my brother—’
' I have heard, but I do not believe.’
‘It heartens me to hear that someone besides my!
self believes in him. Colonel Lepard promises to get
him released—they have sent him away to New
Caledonia. I do not want him to be released,
monsieur, I want him cleared. You understand—’
‘Yes, I understand, Mademoiselle, and cleared he
shall be if only you will tell me how to go to work.’
‘ Oh,’ she said, twining her fingers tightly together,
‘ I will tell you all I know and perhaps you can help
me. Colonel Lepard says he will get Gaston released
if I will marry him, and I detest him. Father Dieufoy
says there is no hope, and my only refuge is a convent,
and now he has got the Duchesse de St Ouen down
to assist him in persuading me. But I cannot trust
them wholly. I cannot forget that I am rich and that
the Church is always poor. What am I to do,
monsieur? I am only a girl and they are too strong
for me. I come to you because you are an English-
man and I am half English. My dear mother was
from Warwickshire, and when Jeanne Thibaud told
me there was an Englishman here who offered me his
help my heart was glad. Though why—ah, yes, I
remember—the portrait Monsieur Roussel painted for
the Salon—Jeanne told me of it. How did you get
it, monsieur? ’
Without going into particulars I told her I had
bought it, and stepping into the little house I


7O OUR LADY OF DELIVERANCE
unlocked my portmanteau and brought it out in its
case and unrolled it before her.
‘ I value it more than anything else in the world,’ I
could not help saying, and she regarded it steadfastly
and in silence. ,
‘ Do you know that M. Boussel has been here,
Mademoiselle? ’
‘ M. BousselP ’ she said with a startled look. ‘ What
does he want here? ’
‘ I don’t know what he wants. He said he came to
paint.’
She shook her head, and said as naively as a child,—
‘ Monsieur Lamont, I do not think Monsieur Roussel
is a good man. I wonder what he is here for? ’
I thought I could have told her what brought him,
but I deemed it better not.
‘ He is not here now, Mademoiselle. He fell into
the river yesterday, and we have not seen him since.
They are afraid he is drowned.’
‘ That was what brought all the people down the
banks yesterday? ’ she asked.
‘ Yes.’
‘ And they did not find him?) ’
‘No, they did not find him.’
' But he may still be alive? ’
‘ He may be, but it is unlikely. When he went
into the river Boulot’s teeth were in his throat.’
‘Where was he stopping? ’
' At Madame Thibaud’s in the village.’
‘ And he has not been there since? ’
‘ He would hardly dare to show himself. He
knocked Prudent Vaurel into the river and tried to
droWn him. Then Boulot got him by the throat,
and that is the last that any of us saw of him.’
The thought of it all caused her evident discomfort.
‘ If you will tell me all you know about this matter
of your brother’s, Mademoiselle,"I said, to draw her
thoughts elsewhere, ‘ I will do everything in my


OUR LADY OF DELIVERANCE 71
power to set things right. I know at present only
what the world knows.’
‘ I’m afraid I know but little more. Colonel Lepard
knows everything. Gaston and he quarrelledd
about—’ she stsmmered.
‘ I know,’ I said encouragingly.
‘ And when Gaston was arrested, not very long
afterwards, Colonel Lepard came to me and promised
to help him, but—’
,‘ But you do not trust Colonel Lepard.’
‘ I do not. He practically made it a condition that
I should do what Gaston, I knew, would never have
me do, and—and—’
‘And the colonel’s promised help was not forth-
coming.’
She nodded. ‘I hate him,’ she said in a low,
vehement voice; ‘but for Gaston’s sake, and to clear
his good name, I would willingly sacrifice myself.’
‘ That must not be,’ I said, vehement in my turn.
‘ It shall not be, Mademoiselle. Promise me you will
never think of such a thing.’
‘I trust you, Monsieur Lamont—for yourself, and
because those whom I can trust, though they cannot
help me, tell me you are an English gentleman, and
in helping me you, at all events, have no end of your
own to serve.’
I thought differently, but it was too soon to tell
her so.
‘ Now,_how can I help you, Mademoiselle? It is
evident that Colonel Lepard holds the key to your
£1‘0tg18!"8 troubles. In what way can I force it from
1m ’.
‘ I know so little,’ she said, ‘ except what he himself
has told me.’
‘And that we cannot depend on.’ It was very
pleasant to find myself associated with her in this way.
Mademoiselle fell suddenly silent, and I saw from
her knitted brow that she had got a new idea and


72 OUR LADY OF DELIVERANCE
was working it out in her own mind. She looked up
hesitatingly at me once or twice as though in two
minds whether to voice her thought or not.
' Mr Lamont,’ she said at last, ‘ I am going to ask a
strange thing of you,’ and I saw that her eyes were
pathetically bright and very near to overflowing.
’Y0u will not misjudge me?’
‘I could not, Mademoiselle.’ ,
‘Then I beg of you to come and stop at the
chateau. I am only a girl and I am one against three,
and I am not strong enough to stand against them.
Will you come?’
‘That is but a very little thing to ask of me,
Mademoiselle.’
‘ One cannot tell what it may lead to,’ she said, and
my heart hopefully agreed with her, ‘ but I shall feel
not quite so much alone in the world. I know—I
know,’ she said, with a break in her voice, ‘ I am pass-
ing all bounds, but you will let my necessity excuse me.’
‘If you knew what pleasure it gives me to be of
any service to you,’ I said. ‘ Now under what guise
shall I come?’
‘I was thinking—you might be an English friend
of my mother’s— Stay! be a cousin! That will be
best and no one can question your right to be there.
You have heard of our troubles, and in Paris you
learned I was here and followed me to see if you
could be of any assistance to me.’
" Capital! ’ I said, and then, suddenly remembering.
‘ But what of the old priest? He saw me in the train
that day. Will he know me again? ’
Her face fell. ‘1 did not think of that,’ she said
despondently.
‘I can get over that,’ I said with a sudden
inspiration.
Here Boulot’s bits of ears pricked up again, and
the nose of the punt ran softly into the bank, and
Vaurel stepped ashore with a bunch of pigeons


OUR LADY OF DELIVERANCE 73
hanging down at each side of his neck. He had been
up the river towards Bency and so we had not seen
him coming.
‘ Ma’m’sellel ’ he said deferentially, and stood befor
her, cap in hand.
‘ Prudent, mon ami,’ she said,- with a brighter look
in her face, ‘I have been making discoveries in your
absence.’ Vaurel cast a deprecating glance towards
the door of his house. ‘No, not about you, mon
ami. About M. Lamont here. Do you know that he
is a relative of my mother?’
‘ Dieu de Dieul You don’t say so, Ma’m’selle? ’ he
said, in huge surprise.
‘ And he is coming to stay at the chateau, as is
only fitting.’
‘ Truly! ’ said Vaurel, not over-joyfully. ‘ But it is
I that will miss him. We have been good friends,
monsieur and I. I know a man when I meet one,_and
so does monsieur. Is it not so, monsieur? '
‘ That is so, Vaurel, and we shall be none the less
friends, I hope, because I am shifting my quarters.’
But Vaurel shook his head doubtfully.
‘I must go,’ said Mademoiselle, ‘ or they will miss
me. When will you arrive, Monsieur Lamont?’
‘By the evening train to-day. I shall run up to
Rennes and will send you a telegram from there, and
you can send the carriage to meet me.’
‘ Goodl ’ And she clapped her hands like a child.
‘I feel better than I have done since I came here.
Adieu, Prudent! Au revoir, Monsieur Lamont.
Good-bye, Boulot! ’ and she patted the big head which
wrinkled up to her touch, and then she stepped
lightly away into the wood. '
‘ Monsieur is in luck,’ said Vaurel, when she had
gone.
‘ Mademoiselle is in trouble, my friend. And if I
can do anything to assist her I am going to do it.
I can count upon you if I need help? ’


OUR LADY OF DELIVERANCE 75
‘I hope I do not put you to any inconvenience by
taking you unawares in this way, cousin? ’
‘I am delighted to see you,’ she said. ‘ How did
on know I was here? ’ '
‘Well, you see, I heard—certain things, and ran
over to Paris, and there I found you had come down
here, so I came on to see if I could be of any service
to you.’
‘ That was very good of you. Now you must be
starving. We dine in half an hour. Hortense, show
Monsieur Lamont to his room. A bientdt, mon
cousin! ’
Within the half hour I was back in the great hall,
wondering in which direction the salon lay. Hor-
tense cametripping to my assistance from a dark
passage and showed me to the door, opening it as
she knocked.
' Monsieur! ’ she announced, and I found myself in
the presence of the enemy. Mademoiselle came
forward at once and formally introduced me.
‘ Madame la Duchesse de St Ouen—Monsieur
Lamont! ’
The face of a statue in the coif of a nun—marble
white, thin-lipped, austere eyes discreetly veiled.
Madame the Duchesse did not favour me with even
half a glance, nor did I ever at any time see her
looking at anybody or anything, but I have an idea
that all the same, in some occult way, she kept a
pretty keen eye on everything that went on.
‘ M. l’Abbé Dieufoy ’—Mademoiselle’s fellow-traveller
in the train—but not nearly so grim-faced and ascetic-
looking as when last I saw him. His manner was
suave and polished, his eyes keen as a hawk’s, and he
made no pretence of veiling them.
‘M. le Colonel Lepard'—big, burly, bull-necked,
bullyish, approaching the brutal. His strong red face
adorned with a sword-cut over the temple, and a
black moustache and imperial—a soldier to the finger


76 OUR LADY OF DELIVERANCE
tips, which, by the way, I could not help noticing
during dinner, would have been none the worse for
a little attention. ,
l bowed solemnly to these good people, and take
credit to myself for keeping so grave a face when my
heart was full of laughter.
The priest made some remark to me in French
and I turned on Mademoiselle a face of deprecation
and anxious inquiry.
‘Will you please apologise to the gentleman for
my lack of knowledge of French, cousin,’ I said, and
with one quick, amused glance at me, she did so in
the demurest fashion possible.
Here Hortense announced that Ma’m’selle was served
and we passed into the dining-room, Mademoiselle
seating me at her right hand, the priest being on
her left. .
I am bound to say I enjoyed myself exceedingly,
inasmuch as I knew that my presence there must be
extremely distasteful to the other three, and that I
was at the same time contributing somewhat to the
enjoyment, or at all events to the lightening of the
depression, of Mademoiselle.
As I showed a most lamentable ignorance of the
beautiful language, I was free to rattle away to my
heart’s content to my fair neighbour, about War-
wickshire, where I had never been, and about
numerous mutual acquaintances whom we had neither
of us ever met. Meanwhile, I was noting and absorb-
ing everything I could concerning my fellow-guests,
and forming my own opinions about them.
Madame Mere ate in silence and'as though the
very opening of her mouth to admit food were a
concession to the world and a falling from grace.
She had pudgy, ill-shaped hands, and showed her
consciousness of them, and thereby a certain lack of
absolute detachment from things earthly, by keeping
them, when not in use, folded meekly inside her


OUR LADY OF DELIVERANCE 77
ample sleeves. She sat, for the most part, a picture
of meek resignation and abnegation, qualities which,
I was later on to learn, were not the most conspicuous
in her character. Her most devoted adherent never
could have claimed for Madame IVIere that she was an
absolutely exhilarating companion at a feast.
M. l’Abbé had one prominent vice. He took snuff.
He took it freely and constantly, but with an
elegance of manner which came near to elevating it
into a virtue. Whenever M. l’Abbé indulged Madame
Mere’s marble face twinged as with a sudden spasm
of toothache, and then her lips moved rapidly, though
almost invisibly, in silent prayer. It was really very
funny. It seemed to- me that at each snuflie her mind
let slip an imprecation—something quite mild, of
course, such as ‘ Oh, dear! ’ or ‘Disgustingl ’—and
then, recognising her lack of charity, she hastened
‘to pacify Heaven with a prayer.
Colonel Lepard made me think of a hungry dog
held back from its bone. He spoke little and drank
freely of the Burgundy, and smacked his lips over it.
Many times during dinner, when I turned to speak
to Mademoiselle, her eyes showed me that, brief as
our previous acquaintance had been, she was still not
' quite accustomed to my altered looks.
When the ladies withdrew Colonel Lepard accepted
a cigar from my case with a'somewhat ill grace, and
smoked it with a relish which he tried hard to conceal.
Apparently he knew no English. But M. Dieufoy
spoke the barbarous language to a small extent, and
he and I had quite an amusing time of it. Indeed,
much as he, no doubt, regretted my appearance on
the scene, from matters of policy, it seemed to me
that from a social point of view he looked upon me as
an improvement on the colonel, and was inclined to
cultivate my acquaintance. Now and again, when
those keen eyes of his rested questioningly upon
me, as the long white finger and thumb raised the


78 OUR LADY OF DELIVERANCE
pungent morsel to his nose, I had an uncomfortable
moment of doubt as to whether he had not at last
recognised me as not quite the utter stranger I
claimed to be. But the searching look passed and I
sat in comfort again.
So here was I, in this most extraordinary fashion,
installed as chief guest in the castle of my desire,
enjoying myself greatly, it is true, but never for one
moment losing sight of the reason for my being there,
and desirous only of furthering the wishes of the fair
chatelaine. For she held my heart in sway as
completely as she ruled in this great house of hers.
M. l’Abbé waited with the utmost politeness till
the colonel had smoked his cigar to the last half inch
and had regretfully laid that down. Then he rose,
saying, ‘Mademoiselle no doubt awaits us,’ and led
the way into another room on the other side of the
great hall.
It was a large room with four long windows open-
ing on to the terrace, and by reason of its size it gave
one the impression of being somewhat sparely‘
furnished—the spindle-legged chairs and tables and
uninviting couches looking stiff and lonely on the
great expanse of highly-polished floor.
The evening was not cold, but, for the sake of its
companionableness probably, Mademoiselle had had
a bright fire of split logs built on the hearth and she
was sitting in front of it with a book. Madame Mere
had retired, for purposes of meditation, no doubt, and
our company felt a trifle warmer and less austere for
her absence.
‘ Ah, Mademoiselle, you are alone? ’ said M. Dieufoy.
‘In the best of good company, M. l’Abbé,’ she
smiled. ‘ Madame Mere has gone to bed.’
‘ She is an early riser, I believe,’ he said, with an
answering smile, from which I gathered that
gradame’s exceeding piety palled somewhat even upon
1m. '


'oua LADY OF DELIVERANCE 79
‘If madame were a soldier, now,’ growled Lepard,
and the idea was so incongruous, and needed so
vigorous a stretch of the imagination to compass it,
that M. Dieufoy smiled again, ‘ she would take
advantage of being beyond the sound of the
réveillé and would lie as long as she could of a
morning.’ L '
‘ Madame carries her réveille within her, M. le
Colonel,’ said the abbé, ‘ and she never gets beyond
reach of its call.’
‘Mon Dieul she does not seem to me absolutely
to enjoy life,’ said the colonel with a shrug.
‘ In her own way,’ said the ahbé, ‘ though the signs
of it may not be very apparent. But we all have our
own ideas of enjoyment. You, my dear colonel, have
just enjoyed a very good cigar. I myself take plea-
sure in this pinch of snuff. Madame takes offence at
both. Mademoiselle, on the contrary, graciously shows
no dislike to either.’
‘ I like the smell of a good cigar,’ said Mademoiselle,
‘ but I don’t think I should like snuff. I have never
tried it.’
‘ Pardon 1 Permit me, Mademoiselle,’ said M. l’Abbé,
tendering his box with a bow of extremest elegance.
The colonel laughed as Mademoiselle’s pretty nose
wrinkled up uncompromisingly. '
‘——-cr,é nom de Dieul ’ he cried, ‘ but I would like to
see madame try one of monsieur’s cigars. We should '
be deprived of her company for a week.’
A curious piece of furniture, from whose highly-
polished sides the firelight flickered in rosy gleams,
excited my curiosity. It looked like a big, flat,
polished box on‘four high thin legs, but from the
pedals below I surmised that it might be a piano,
though I had never seen one like it before.
Denise saw me looking at it.
‘Is it a piano?’ I asked. ‘Would you not play as
something? ’


OUR LADY OF DELIVERANCE 81
have been much better satisfied if I had never come‘
to the chateau. .
Mademoiselle’s eyes were fixed musingly on the
yellow keys, and her white hands continued gliding
over them almost unconsciously as it seemed to me,
though sweetest music followed their every touch, and
to two of us, at all events, the sound of it was at once
soothing and exhilarating. For Mademoiselle herself"
enjoyed it, once she had started, almost as much, I
believe, as I did myself. Her face, when at last she-
looked up, was brighter and more hopeful.
‘ This has done me good,’ she said, ‘ but I have tired
you all out. You should have stopped me sooner.’
‘ On the contrary, I, for one, would like you to go
on all night,’ I said.
‘We must leave some for another time,’ she said,
and closed the piano, and picked up her book, and
bade us all good-night.
My position among the contending factions in the-
house was very similar to that of the small boy who
persists in obtruding his unwelcome presence in the
parlour where his sister and his future brother-in-law
desire only to be left alone.
I disconcerted them all, and upset their plans, what- _
ever they were, and all in the most innocently uncon-
scious way, and from my extreme ignorance 'of their
language I was impervious to all hints and innuendoes.
As an accepted member of the family they were all-
fully aware that Mademoiselle’s best interests must
me paramount with me, which was not absolutely
the case with themselves. Before I arrived there were-
two factions in the house. Now there were three, for
the manner of the others showed plainly that they
quite understood that Mademoiselle would make me,
acquainted with all that was going on and would
claim my assistance.
Monsieur Dieufoy vvas always politeness personified
with an inclination even towards friendliness.


82 OUR LADY OF DELIVERANCE
Colonel Lepard’s blackhumour seemed to darken
with every hour of my stay.
Madame Mére, frosty saint, bore with me in silent
resignation and never showed the slightest desire to
break the ice either by word or look.
And Mademoiselle! Perhaps it was that Mademoi-
selle felt constrained as hostess to mitigate by every
means in her power the unsympathetic atmosphere
in which I found myself, and so deliberately over-
stepped the bounds and conventions in which she had
doubtless been brought up. Perhaps she found a new
and hitherto untasted delight in doing so. Perhaps
she knew already that my feeling for her was neither
cousinly nor that of simple friendship. But, whatever
it was, she was utterly and absolutely charming, and
my heart went out to her more and more with every
hour I spent in her company.
For two delightful hours we paced the terrace to-
gether the morning after my arrival, and spokeof
many things and learned much of or‘ie another. Made-
moiselle had given me her confidence, and it was her
nature to trust completely where she trusted at all.
Colonel Lepard gloomed like a thunder-cloud.
M. Dieufoy snuffed voluminously and regarded us
much as a schoolmaster might unobserved watch his
pupils plotting mischief.
Madame the Duchesse paid us not the slightest at
tention, but doubtless, as I have said, kept a sharp
eye on all our delinquencies.
Altogether it was an extremely enjoyable state of
affairs, and braced one like a tonic or a stiff sea breeze.
Indeed this strange and complete isolation from the
world, and the close casting together within such
narrow bounds, induced a friendliness and comrade-
ship between Mademoiselle and myself akin to that of
shipboard life, and the hours taught us to know one
another better than days and weeks of ordinary meet-
ings could have done.


oua LADY or DELIVERANCE' 83
No doubt we were both more or less high strung by
the peculiar circumstances of the case, and thereby
dropped almost unconsciously the conventional veils
and masks which at other times and under ordinary
circumstances we must have worn. But however it
came about, it is certain that by the middle of that
second day I felt as though I had known Mademoiselle
for half a lifetime, and the greatest desire of my heart
was to know her still better for the other half.
A more delightful cousin it would not be possible
to imagine, but at intervals she would suddenly re-
member that our relationship was only two days old,
and purely fictional at that. Then for a brief space
a shy reserve would fall upon her, which, however,
only served to heighten the piquant charm of her
manner as some new idea struck her and she forgot
to be reserved, and poured out her thoughts as frankly
and freely as if our supposed common ancestors had
really once existed. . ‘
At dinner I inquired as to fishing and shooting in
the neighbourhood, and Mademoiselle offered to send
for Prudent Vaurel next day to give me information
on these subjects.
That first day was passed by the parties of the other
part in a state of surprised but well-dissembled pro-
test, while Mademoiselle and I paced the terrace in
cousinly converse and rounded off the angles and
corners of our new-formed acquaintance.
But on the following morning, when we essayed
to continue this m0st enjoyable polishing process,
Colonel Lepard’s feelings got the better of him, and
drove him to smoke his cigar on the terrace at the
same time. That did not interfere with our enjoyment,
however. Indeed I am afraid I must confess to a cer-
tain amount of amusement, in which I think Made~
moiselle quietly shared, at the irritation and annoyance
'expressed in the gallant warrior’s clouded face, which
was puckered up in disgust, at this unlocked-for inter-


84 OUR LADY OF DELIVERANGE
ference with his plans, into something very like a
scowl.
The Church party made no sign; their diplomacy
was of different quality and finer temper than the
colonel’s, and in their generation they were wise,
inasmuch as they excited no presently active hostility
in our minds against them.
In the afternoon Vaurel came up to the house with
Boulot at his heels.
Boulot made for me at once, and testified his delight
at our meeting once more with snorts and grimaces
and stolid uprearings of himself against me, so that
Mademoiselle felt constrained to say, ‘ Why, you
might be old friends. I do believe he knows you’re
an Englishman.’
‘I shouldn’t be a bit surprised,’ I said gravely.
“ Fee-fi-fo-furn! ” you know—“ He smells the blood
of an Englishman." ’
The colonel was on the terrace, and Boulot, when
he had finished with me, took an emphatic saunter
in his direction, just to see What manner of man he
was. But the colonel did not, for some reason or
other, entirely satisfy him. The great dog rumbled
round the military legs like a miniature thunder-
storm, drew his breath in so hard that his big white
fangs showed, and blew it out again so vehemently
that it sounded like a disgusted sneeze, and then came
heavily back to us, while the colonel called him a
sacred devil and walked hastily away in the other
direction. '
To Vaurel's intense amusement Mademoiselle de-
murer introduced me as her cousin, acted as inter-
preter between us on the questions of fishing and
shooting, and finally commended me to his care to
be put into the way of obtaining such sport as might
be expected to satisfy the cravings of my British
nature. And so, in the most natural way possible,
Vaurel and I came into touch again.


OUR LADY OF DELIVERANCE 85
We set out at once to try one of the pools down
the river, and when we had got well out of hearing
of the house Vaurel let out his pent-up laughter
and roared with delight. .
‘ Mon Dieu, monsieur! ’ he said, ‘ but it is magnifi-
cent. There you are in the midst of them, upsetting all
their plans, and making them all as mad as bears, I’ll
be bound. And yOu don’t understand French, and,
thousand thunders! do you know, monsieur, at first
I did not know you. It is magnificent! ’
‘ But so far, my friend, I have not advanced
matters at all by being there.’
‘ Time enough! that will come all right, monsieur.
Meanwhile, for myself, I do not like this Monsieur
le Colonel Lepard.’
‘ Nor does Boulot apparently.’
‘ The little Boulot is not often at fault. If Boulot
dislikes a man I do not like him either. And mean-
while also, monsieur, I can see that Ma’m’selle is the
happier for your being there.’
> ‘ The only trouble is that I am making no progress
in the matter of Monsieur Gaston.’
‘ Any day you may tumble across something,
monsieur, and meanwhile it is good for Ma’m’selle
to have you there.’ .
‘No trace has been found of Monsieur Boussel, I
suppose? ’ l ~
‘ Not a scrap of him. He’ll come to the top in time,
but how he escaped all our poles I cannot make out.’
‘ Maybe he climbed out and got away.’
‘ Not if Boulot once got his teeth in as you say he
did, monsieur. Boulot never lets go, and besides,
where is he? No, Monsieur Roussel is down there,’
he said, pointing down into the water, ‘ and sometime
or other he'll come up, and may I not be there to see.
He will not be nice to look upon.’
However, we saw nothing of him, and we had a
fair afternoon’s fishing, but I confess the thought of


86 OUR LADY OF DELIVERANCE
eating theyfish which might possibly have fed upon
M. Roussel did not commend itself to me.
\
CHAPTER XII
WHAT HAPPENED AT THE OLD MILL
COLONEL LEPARn’s overbearing spirit chafed sorely at
the disarrangement of his ideas which my arrival and
my persistent monopolisation of Mademoiselle’s society
occasioned. I judged that he was not the kind of man
to suffer this kind of thing for any length of time
without hearing and showing resentment, and I was
curious to see what he would be moved to do.
His ill humour had so far found expression only in
black looks and deprecatory scowls. But the gallant
colonel was accustomed to more forcible methods, and
.the saving grace of patience, of which the abbé and
Madame Mere were by instinct and by training rare
examples, found no place in him. Like his brothers
in-arms his strong point was in forcing the fighting.
He was a French soldier and so he could not wait, and,
though I only learned this later, time pressed with him.
-When Mademoiselle and I sought the terrace after
breakfast next morning he joined us, with an as-
sumption of good fellowship which sat so ill upon him
that it did not deceive us for a moment.
He took up his position on the opposite side of
Mademoiselle and paced up and down beside us, in
a way that would have been annoying if it had not
been so infinitely amusing. '
But Mademoiselle did not see anything amusing in
it. It was to her wholly annoying, and by the frosti-
ness of her manner, which diverted and charmed me
greatly, she made her sentiments so apparent that the


OUR LADY OF DELIVERANGE 87
colonel could not fail to understand them. But he
was troubled by no feelings of delicacy or diffidence
himself, and he stuck to his post and talked to Made-
moiselle till at last she bade us both good day and
slipped away into the house.
I would dearly have liked to kick the colonel off
the terrace for the unseemliness of his behaviour and
for the deprivation I suffered in consequence,‘ but
that was not permissible, so I contented myself with
walking away towards the woods, leaving him in
possession of the field. As tactics, however, this move
of the colonel’s was a bad one and led to results the
.opposite of what he had hoped for.
I had my own views as to the course we might
pursue under the circumstances, but I preferred wait-
ing to see what line Mademoiselle would take, and-
she did exactly what I hoped she would do.
When we met before breakfast the next morning
she said to me, ‘I shall walk in the woods to-day.
Will you meet me at the front door immediately
after breakfast? ’
Perhaps the grateful look I gave her showed her
more than the simple expectation of the enjoyment
of her company, for her sweet face flushed gloriously
for a moment and she hastened to the table.
As we entered the woods a side glance showed us.
the colonel pacing the terrace in solitary expectancy,
and for a moment our eyes met in laughing con~
gratulations on ounescape.
‘It was just what I was hoping you would pro-
pose,’ I said.
‘ But you left it to me.’
‘ Certainly. It was gracious in you, in me it might
have been looked upon as an impertinence.’
‘ Oh, no, I could not have thought that. Anything
is better than the colonel.’ At which I laughed,
aild she, hethinking her of the reflection, laughed
a so. .


88 OUR LADY OF DELIVERANCE
' I did not mean that,’ she said. ‘ It is a very great
relief to my mind to have you here.’
‘I am only sorry that I seem unable to make any
advance in the other matter you have at heart.’
‘Yes,’ she sighed, ‘it is weary work waiting for
something to turn up, when you know he is eating
out his heart in his prison. But I do not see what you
can do but wait. Colonel Lepard never says anything
bearing on the matter when he is talking with the
abbé, does he?’
‘ Never. He and M. Dieufoy talk very littlehbefore
me at all events. I don’t think the Church and the
Army love one another over much.’
‘That they don’t, and besides their interests are
opposed. But I begin to fear sometimes that you will
tire of stopping on in this dull place, and that I am
, taxing your good nature over much by expecting it.’
‘I would stop here for ever,’ I began vehemently,
provoked into an indiscretion by her words, ‘ if—’
and then I feared to go too far.
‘ Ah, if——? ’
‘ If—.-’ I said, bringing myself up with a round turn,
‘ I could be of the very slightest service to
Mademoiselle.’
We strolled through the woods, enjoying the novel
immunity from observation, and extending our walk
beyond our intentions.
Some three miles down the river stands the ruined
mill which goes by the name of Bessancy, though the
village of the same name is a good mile further on.
In the pools by the broken weir lurk the heaviest fish
of the river, and many a time had Vaurel and I
harried them.
We sat for a time on the river bank, looking down
the long sweeps of water with the trees drooping into
them. Then we turned to go home, and then—this
happened.
I was walking by the side of Mademoiselle when a


OUR LADY OF DELIVERANCE 89
sudden slight sound behind caused me to glance back-
ward, and then, quicker than it takes to tell, the wild
figure of a man was leaping at us and striking blindly
with a great rusty iron rod which he whirled with
both hands.
I knew him at a glance, though he was an awful
figure to look at—hair and heard and moustache all
unkempt and awry, his clothes in tatters, his eyes
burning like coals, no shoes on his feet—BOussel, as
mad as a hatter, and bent on smashing us into pulp
if he could manage it.
I stepped hastily back behind Mademoiselle, and
cried,—
‘ Run, Mademoiselle, run! I will tackle him! ’
She hesitated, and then sped away, stumbling in
her fright. Then the iron rod came down on my left
arm, and it fell useless, but before he could hoist his
weapon again I rushed in and caught him on his
ragged chin with my fist. He staggered back and
dropped the bar. As he recovered himself he glared
wildly, and gnashed his teeth, and spat at me, and I
thought he was coming on again. But instead, he
suddenly tossed up his hands, all red with iron rust,
and'fled away down the river bank, and when I was
sure he was gone for good I turned to follow Made-
moiselle.
She was waiting at a distance and now came to
meet me, and her face was very white and her eyes
were suspiciously bright.
‘He is gone,’ I said, ‘the miserable brute. Thank
God that iron bar did not reach you! ’
‘ Are you hurtiJ ' she asked, and her sweet voice
trembled in spite of herself.
‘ He got one blow in on my arm,’ I said, ‘ but it
can wait. Now -we must get home. It gave you a
fright. He’s mad, whoever he is.’
I‘Didn’t you recognise himi" she asked, with a
catch in her breath.


OUR LADY OF DELIVERANCE 91
woods, and for many days no wood-pigeons appeared
on the table at the chateau.
The accident to my arm and the danger to which
Mademoiselle had been exposed causde quite a little
ripple of interest at the chateau.
Colonel Lepard was, I think, not ill-pleased, as was
perhaps only natural in him, since it was in endeav-
ouring to avoid his company that we had fallen into
worse, or at all events more outwardly violent.
Monsieur Dieufoy was extremely sympathetic, and
his shrewd eyes rather conveyed the idea that he
considered I had scored in the ‘matter.
Madame the Duchesse bore my wound with a meek
resignation which suggested that it was a dispensation
of Providence at which she was not in the least sur-
prised, and that it was more than likely that I richly
deserved all I had got.
But for myself I was well satisfied, for Mademoiselle
was more than ever gracious and charming, and our
sense of companionship, even in the presence of th
others, was warmer and sweeter than ever. '
CHAPTER XIII
naviL’s wonx
Arraa our encounter with Roussel, and pending defin-
ite news of his capture, it behoved Mademoiselle not
to wander far afield. Our morning walk was therefore
confined once more to the terrace, and as the terrace
was free to all, and as Colonel Lepard made a point
of being there at the same time as ourselves, we had
perforce to put up with him as best we could.
On the second day, however, relief came unex-
pectedly from the outside. It was a dull, heavy day


92 OUR LADY OF DELIVERANCE
with a threatening of thunder, and when we came out
after breakfast we stood for a time looking at the
strange aspect of the sky over the woods towards
Bessancy, from behind which the clouds were boiling
up like the black smoke from/a steamer’s funnel.
The colonel was on his beat already, and after a
solitary stroll in which he passed and repassed us
every second minute, he halted in front of us with
some remark to Mademoiselle about the approaching
storm, and then wheeled into line and joined us in
our walk._ But we had only paced the length of the
, terrace once when a stranger turned the corner from
the front of the house and came along to meet us.
He was in military uniform, and as he stood bowing
and raising his ke'pi to Mademoiselle, I recognised
him as the dark‘faced officer who had inquired the
way to the chateau from Vaurel and myself that Other
day on the road near the village.
‘ Ah, it is you, my friend,’ said Lepard in a tone
the reverse of cordial.
‘ But yes, my colonel, it is I, myself. Won’t you do
me the honour of introducing me to your friends? ’
It seemed to me that there was a suspicion of
insolence or bravado in his voice and manner.
Lepard hesitated, and as I glanced at his face it
was hard and black. Then he said,—
"But, certainly! Mademoiselle, this is Captain
Zuyler of the Artillery, attached tolthe general staff,
previously in Algiers. Monsieur Lamont—Captain
Zuyler.’
‘ Monsieur is wounded? ’ asked the captain, glanc-
ing at my slung arm with a look of anticipation.
‘ Monsieur has a broken arm,’ said Mademoiselle.
‘Ah l—a dueli” asked the captain, with a hopeful
snap of the eyes.
‘No, an accident simply—in the woods,’ where-
upon the captain lost interest in me.
‘If you will permit, Mademoiselle,’ said Colonel


OUI’t LADY OF DELIVEBANCE 93
Lepard, ‘ we will walk in the park. Captain Zuyler
no doubt comes on business,’ and saluting us he
linked his arm in the captain’s and drew him re-
luctantly away in the direction of the woods.
“They will get wet, I’m afraid,’ said Mademoiselle,
as we stood looking after them.
‘ Their war-paint won't wash off,’ I said. ‘ Does it
strike you, Mademoiselle, that if one could convert
oneself into a sprite and hide in the colonel’s pocket
one might learn many things from what passes be-
tween those two?’
She looked at me with a startled look in her eyes.
‘ You mean about Gaston? What makes you think
that? ’
I told her in a few words how these two had passed
Vaurel and myself the other night near the station
and of the impression their talk left on my mind.
She grew very thoughtful, and when at last the
rain began to fall in heavy, spattering gouts like the
dropping fire of an advance guard, she withdrew
into the house and to her own room.
The storm came rolling up black as night over
the woods, and the lightning flickered venomously
among the tree tops, throwing them into ghastly,
pallid relief that was almost continuous, so rapidly
did the flashes follow one another.
I stood at the window watching, and as I watched I
saw the figure of a man issue from the woods and come
labouring along the path. Even at that distance I
could see that it was the colonel, and that he was bare-
headed and in evident distress of some kind or other.
In my surprise and desire for information I started
out to meet him, forgetting for the moment that I
was not supposed to speak French.
Fortunately M. Dieufoy had seen him also, and as
I came out on to the terrace he issued from the win-
dow of another room and we ran together to meet
the colonel.


94 OUR LADY OF DELIVERENCE
‘Monsieur le Colonel, whatever has happened? ’
cried M. Dieufoy, for as we drew near we saw that
his head was bruised and bleeding, and his uniform
stained and of course wet through, and he staggered
blindly in his walk. His face was like chalk as he
looked at us and raised his hands and dropped them
to his side, as an intimation of the inexpressible.
‘Mon Dieul’ he said hoarsely, ‘that devil of a
madman stole upon us as we sheltered in the old
mill. He struck down Znyler with an iron beam
and smashed his head in. I tried to grapple with
him, but he got one blow in on me too, and then he
turned and ran, and I could not follow, for the blow
had turned me sick and dizzy.’
‘ And your friend? ’ said the abbé. '
‘The poor Zuyleri he is dead,’ said the colonel,
more hoarsely than before. ‘ Mon Dieu, yesl his head
went like an eggshell l He was dead when I lifted him.’
One on each side we assisted him into the house
and up to his room, where I left the abbé to attend
on his injuries, while I sent for Mademoiselle in order
to get her to summon Vaurel and some of the villagers
to seek Captain Znyler or what was left of him, if he
was really dead as the colonel said.
Mademoiselle came down at once, and'her face was
still aghast at my news when two men passed along
the terrace in front of the window, and Mademoiselle
exclaimed,—
‘ There is Prudent now and Juliot with him. That
is fortunate.’
She went out towards the front door, and the two .
men met us on the step. Vaurel looked savage with
disgust. The gendarme was surly and obstinate.
‘ Listen, Mademoiselle, this pig-headed Juliot wants
to make out that I have murdered a man. And just
simply because I found him lying there covered with
blood and with the top of his head bashed in, and was
trying to be of some assistance to him,’ cried Vaurel.


OUR LADY OF DELIVERANCE 95
‘ The man is dead,’ said Juliot, doggedly, ‘ and you
were with him and there! was no one else there.
Voildl ’
‘And did you see me kill him?’ asked Vaurel,
excitedly.
‘No, because I was not there. If I had been there
I should have seen.’
‘Assl ’ shouted Vaurel.
‘That’s as it may be,’ said Juliot, composedly.
‘ ‘ Send for M. l'Abbé, Mademoiselle, if I may sug-
gest it,’ I said, and she ran at once herself to fetch
him, while Hortense and her mother fluttered about
helplessly in the rear. ‘
M. Dieufoy came down at once with Mademoiselle,
and in a few quiet words explained to Juliot that he
was in the wrong, since Colonel Lepard had already
explained how Captain Zuyler came by his death.
J uliot‘ sulkily agreed that that altered the complexion
of affairs, and Vaurel exulted over his downfall, and
assured him that he would not forget that he had
believed him, Prudent Vaurel, capable of committing
a murder. '
The storm was growling and rumbling overhead
all this while, and it had grown very dark, and when
M. Dieufoy suggested the men going back to bring
home the captain’s body, it was not surprising, in the
present state of feeling between them, that neither of
them showed any inclination to do so.
Finally Mademoiselle prevailed on Vaurel to go up
to the village to get assistance, and he returned with
a dozen old men with torches. They could have found
their way without the torches well enough, but these
seemed to give them courage. Mademoiselle gave them
each a glass of red wine, and they flickered away in
an unsteady procession and the woods swallowed them
up, and then after a couple of hours we saw them
coming back, slowly and heavily, because they were
old men and because of the burden they carried.


96 OUR LADY OF DELIVERANCE
We sent the women folk away before they reached
the house, and then had the body carried into a
small unused room on the ground floor.
He was a very horrible sight, though the heavy rain
had washed away some of the more repulsive traces
of the tragedy. The blows must have been terrible
ones—I could imagine only too well what they were
like—for the top of the head was fairly beaten in.
‘ God rest his soul! ' said the abbé, looking
musingly down on the twisted face, ‘ but—’ and
he left his reservation incomplete.
‘ Did you know him, Monsieur l’Abbé? ’ I was
tempted to ask in English.
‘ I knew him,’ he said. ‘ He was not good. Still, “ de
mortuis "—you know. We will speak of him no
more.’
We left Vaurel and one of the villagers to arrange
him, and as we quitted the room I inquired of the
abbé how Colonel Lepard was faring.
‘ Ile is very sick,’ he said, ‘but his wound is but a
slight one. It was much of a shock to him to have
his friend beaten down before his eyes like that.’
We saw nothing of the colonel during the next day.
M. Dieufoy himself sent to Rennes for an undertaker
and communicated the details of the affair to the
authorities, and on the following day the colonel got
heavily into the family carriage and followed the
creaking cart which carried his friend to the station,
and then went on with the body to Paris, and it
seemed to me that we were in for a quiet time at the
chateau and that my mission was at a standstill.


OUR LADY OF DELIVEBANCE 99
that'he should not see me I climbed a tree from which
I could keep watch on the mill. That afternoon of
the storm Colonel Lepard and the captain came along
the path. The rain was just coming on and they
stopped for shelter under the tree I was in. There was
hot dispute going on between them, and this is what
they said, as nearly as I can remember it. The captain
broke out: “ I tell you I will wait no longer. I have
waited, waited, waited, till my credit is broken. I
must have money and at once.”
‘ And the colonel said sulkily, " Well, I haven’t
got any.”
‘“ Then,” said the other, “I have made up my
mind to sell my wares elsewhere.”
““ What do you mean by that? ” asked the colonel,
angrily.
“‘ Just exactly what I say, my friend,” said the
captain. “ There is a market to my hand here, and
the payment will be liberal.”
‘ “ You mean Mademoiselle?” said the Colonel ‘
‘“ Of course,” said the captain, “ who else should-
I mean? Mademoiselle would give half her fortune-
to learn some things I could tell her.”
Zuyler, you are a dirty scoundrel,” said the
colonel.
‘“ There is not much to choose between us, my
colonel,” said the captain. »
‘Then the thunder came on, and the lightning
began to play among the trees, and I was not very
happy, and those below didn’t like it either, and
Colonel Lepard ran through the rain to the old mill,
and the other followed. ,
' When the storm cleared for a bit I saw them look-
ing out of the doorway, and then of a sudden the
captain went down like a struck ox, and it was Colonel
Lepard who struck him from behind with an iron bar,
and struck him again and again as he lay on the
ground. He stood looking at him for a time and then


OUR LADY OF DELIVERANCE 101
in the “rain. Just after they had crossed the bridge
he ’—nodding at Roussel on the bed—-—‘ broke out from
the bushes and crossed the road and went down to-
wards the river. They were for going after him, but
they heard the train coming up and they hurried to
the station. ' You know what time the train from
Redon arrives. It was therefore exactly three o’clock.
And a few minutes later Colonel Lepard says this same
Boussel attacked him and the captain at the old mill
of Bessancy, which is four miles away. Voildl '
I nodded. ‘That works out all right. But have
Louis Vard and old Goliot said nothing of all this to
anyone else? ’
‘ I went up to Mere Thibaud’s last night to wash the
taste of that poor devil of a captain out of my mouth. -
Pere Goliot Was there, and they were all talking of the
murder and chaffing the old man because he said he ‘
had seen the madman up near the station that same
afternoon, when by rights he must have been down at
the old mill murdering people. The old chap went
sulky and would say nothing but “ Very well, very
well, ask Louis Vard.” I knew if Louis Vard had seen
him it was just the card I wanted, and I had a drink
and slipped out quietly to meet him as he came from
the station. I asked him if it was true he and Pere
Goliot had seen Roussel at three o’clock, and he said it
was, and then I asked him to keep it to himself till I
wanted him to tell it,and told him as shortly as I could
why I wanted it, and he understood and promised, and
then he Went in and I followed him soon after and
greeted him as if we had not seen one another. Poor
old Goliot was weeping with his head on the table. He
had appealed to Louis as soon as he came in, and Louis
only laughed at, him and said he must have had too
much cider, and the old fellow couldn’t stand it and
cried like a baby. It couldn’t be helped, and when the
rest had gone I tackled him while Louis was busy with
Jeanne. He stuck to his story and I wrote it all down


102 OUR LADY OF DELIVERANCE'
in my pocket-book where I mark down my pigeons
and my fish, and asked him to sign it, which he did,
saying, “ And it’s true, Monsieur Vaurel, every word
of it.” I told him if he took my advice he would say no
more about it to anyone, or he might get into trouble,
and then I gave him five francs and he went home
quite happy. Louis Vard wrote out his statement on
the next page. Here it is and here is Pere Goliot’s.
That little book, monsieur, holds enough to drop Mon-
sieur Lepard’s ugly head into the basket. Is it not so? ’
‘I believe it is, Vaurel, and it was cleverly done on
your part. Now, how do you suggest making use of it? ’
‘ Ah, there I don’t see my way so clearly. That is
what I want to talk to you about. You can guess
__why Colonel Lepard has gone to Paris?’
" To bury his——friend and explain matters, I
.ssuppose.’
‘_And to secure his papers without doubt. Now the
I 1’ first thing is to get Monsieur le Colonel back here with
tout a moment’s delay, and the next is to get Made-
moiselle away before he comes.’ '
‘ Why? ’
‘We may have strange doings when the colonel
- comes, monsieur, and Mademoiselle will be better out
~> of them. If we once get hold of him we shall not let
him go until he tells all he knows.’
There seemed to me possibilities in the scheme,
though Lepard did not strike me as a particularly
“aliker subject for coercion. Still there was no know-
s'iing. Men of that mould sometimes go to pieces more
.-readily than quieter and less blusterous ones. Any-
vFhOW, if the scheme offered the slightest prospect of
success it was worth trying.
" And where can Mademoiselle go to? ’
'I have thought out the beginning of it all,’ said
Vaurel. ‘ My idea is that she might pretend to fall
in with Madame Mere’s ideas and return with her to
Combourg.’ ‘


OUR LADY OF DELIVERANCE 103
‘ To a convent? ’
"1‘0 the Convent of the Sacred 'IIeart, of which
madame is the superior.’
Vaurel smiled at the blankness of my look, and
added;—
‘Mademoiselle would not take the veil right away,
and if the time came when she desired to leave the
convent, well, there are ways.’
‘ She would be entirely under their influence,’ 1
said doubtfully. ‘ They might persuade her—’
‘ No,’ he said, shaking his big head knowingly, ‘I
think not, monsieur. Not now. Before—yes, per-
haps, but not now. I am sure not, unless—’
‘ Unless what? ’
But for answer he only shrugged his shoulders and
smiled meaningly.
‘You need not fear for Mademoiselle, monsieur.
She will be quite safe there, and your mind will be
at case on her account.’ ‘
‘ Perhaps she won’t go,’ I said, half hoping in truth
that it might be so.
~‘ If monsieur will explain the idea to her, Made-
moiselle will not hesitate to do anything for the sake
of Monsieur Gaston.’
‘ And how do you expect to open Colonel Lepard’s
mouth? ’
‘ Let us get him here,’ said he, ‘ and we will do our
best, and the sooner we get him here the better.’
We sat and planned and replanned, and wiped it
all out and planned again, till it was quite dark, and
all that time the sick man lay, without sign of life
except an almost imperceptible movement of the chest
with his faint breathing, and in stark silence except
for an occasional quiet sigh of utter weariness, and a
babbled word or two which had no meaning for us.
When at length we had got our ideas into definite
shape, I returned to the chateau and begged Hor-
tense to obtain me an interview with Mademoiselle


104 OUR LADY OF DELIVERANCE
as soon as possible. She returned immediately and
asked me to follow her, and led me to the door of
Mademoiselle’s own room.
It was a charming little nest, hung with faded rose
silk. A fire of split oak logs burned on the hearth,
and Mademoiselle had been sitting before it in a big
cushioned chair, for a couple of candles with pink
shades stood on a small table beside the book she
had just laid down.
She met me with eager questioning in her face.
‘ You have news for me?’ she asked.
‘I have very grave news and a great many plans,’
I said, and I laid the whole matter before her, just as
Vaurel and I had discussed it, and told her what we
wanted to do. She listened with keen attention,
nodding her pretty head now and again to hurry me ‘
on, and seeing the end of a sentence before I had
barely started it. She was shocked and horrified at
the information about Captain Zuyler’s murder, but
did not question it.
‘ I would take Prudent Vaurel’s word for anything,’
she said; ‘ he has always been an honest man.’
She did not take over kindly to the convent idea,
which somehow gave me pleasure, but she had no
better suggestion to offer.
‘ Madame Mere will be very unwilling to ever let
me go if once she has me at Combourg,’ she said,
shaking her head doubtfully. ‘ She is made of
marble, and has no more heart than a statue. Why
can I not stop here?’
‘We cannot tell yet what may happen. We are
willing to take the risks ourselves, but we don’t want
any possible consequences of anything we may do to
fall upon you.’
‘I would sooner stop and share the consequences,’
she said, and added hastily, ‘I would do more than
that for Gaston.’ ‘
‘We know that, Mademoiselle, but we would not


106 OUR LADY OF DELIVERANCE
tried the message in various forms, but, judging from
her face, she liked the look of none of them. At last,
however, she handed me the message in its final
shape-—‘ Come quickly. I want your assistance.’
‘ ‘Wili that do?’ she asked.
‘That will bring him as fast as he can come,’ I
said, ‘ but you must add your name.’
‘ In full? ’ ,
‘ No, simply Denise.’
‘ That will make talk here,’ she said.
‘ No. Vaurel will go up to Rennes by the last train
and send it from there. Now, when can you be
ready to leave here, Mademoiselle? The colonel will
be back to-morrow night most likely. Perhaps you
willalso arrange for Hortense and her mother to go
home. We shall want the place to ourselves.’
‘ Then we must go in the afternoon. I will tell
Madame Mare at once and prepare her, and I will
arrange about Hortense and her mother. Perhaps
you will give some explanation to Monsieur Dieufoy.
What will you say?’
‘I shall tell him I do not think it wise for you to
stay here in view of the things that have happened
lately, and ask him if he thinks Madame de St Ouen
would take charge of you for a time, and I shall urge
your going at once.’
‘ They will jump at the prospect,’ she said, ‘ but I
shall be sorry to go. I am very fond of the old house.
Gaston and I spent most of our childhood here.’
‘You will return under happier circumstances,
and, I hope, with Monsieur Gaston,’ I said. ‘Now
I will go and talk to Monsieur l’Abbé.’
I found Hortense and sent her to ask M. Dieufoy
if I could speak with him, and he came down im‘
mediately to the salon.
‘Monsieur l’Abbé,’ I said in English, ‘I have just
come from Mademoiselle. I have been urging her to
leave this place at once. I do not think it right she


OUR LADY OF DELIVERANCE 107
should remain here under present circumstances.
Am I not right?’
He took a pinch of snuff and gazed at me with his
head on one side in hislinquisitive, bird-like way.
He took another pinch of snuff while he arranged his
answer in English, and then said, ‘I think that is a
very wise decision, Monsieur Lamont. What does
Mademoiselle say? ’
‘She does not wish to go, but I think I have
succeeded in‘ persuading her to it.’ .
‘ And where does Mademoiselle wish to go?’ he
asked cautiously.
‘ Well, I thought perhaps it could be arranged that
Madame de St Ouen should take charge of her for a
time. Do you think she would be willing to do so? ’
7‘ She might,’ he said, and took another very
deliberate pinch, marvelling much, I could see, at the
way Providence. was playing into his hands. ‘I will
speak to madame on the subject. When would
Mademoiselle think of going?’
‘ The sooner the better, Monsieur l’Abbé. Candidly,’
'I said, dropping into a confidential tone, ‘I do not
consider it safe here with that madman wandering
about. There is no knowing what might happen
next.’
He nodded. ‘I quite agree with you, monsieur.
It gives one a feeling of discomfort when he may
jump out on you from every bush, and any corner.
Mademoiselle will be better away, and, ma foil for
myself I shall not be sorry to go also.’
\Vhat M. Dieufoy thought my real motives were I
cannot say. His face was ever a closed book, though
not so tightly sealed as madame’s, but vI do not think
he believed them to be so transparently simple as they
seemed. - More than once during dinner I felt his eyes
fixed inquiringly‘ upon me, as though he would like
to look inside and get at actual facts.
As soon as dinner was over I excused myself and
/


OUR LADY DELIVERANCE 109
Madame de St Ouen bade me farewell with a bow
of impassive frigidity, but though her face was, as it
always was, like that of a marble statue, it conveyed
to me, in some occult fashion, a sense of exultation on
her part, and I looked at her again to see where it
showed, and could not discover it, though the feeling
remained with me.
M. Dieufoy, on the other hand, shock me heartily by
the hand, and said how much he had enjoyed my
society, and hoped we might meet again at some
future time.
I was permitted, by virtue of the presence of
madame and M. l’Abbé, to see the travellers into the
St Malo train, and then I took the next train back to
Cour-des-Comptes, wondering much what that night
and the next few days might have’in store for us all.
I took the roundabout path to Vaurel’s cottage and
so avoided the village. It was almost dusk when I
arrived there, and he was expecting me. The keys of
the cheiteau had been left with him by Hortense, act-
ing on Madcmoiselle’s instructions, and he proposed
that we should go there at once, taking Roussel with
us. I had been so busy thinking of other matters that
I had overlooked the fact that the sick man would still
need our attention, but there was evidently nothing
else to be done with him, and Vaurel had already
rigged up a transport hammock by means of a
blanket and a long pole.
We carefully put out the fire, which, Vaurel casually
remarked, had been alive for over a year, and then,
settling Roussel into the hammock, we put the ends
of the pole on our shoulders, locked the door, and with
Boulot paddling along in front, started out through
the Shadows for the chateau.


110 OUR LADY OF DELIVERANCE
CHAPTER XV
HOW WE TRAPPED THE THAITOR
WE had still three hours before Colonel Lepard could
arrive. There was, of course, the possibility that he
had been unable to leave at once, and might not
come till the following day, but we believed he
would come that night, and made all our prepara-
tions accordingly.
We made ‘Roussel comfortable in a bedroom
upstairs, and then made a hearty meal ourselves in
the salon below, and sat smoking while we waited
the arrival of our—~guest. ' ,
In this state of expectancy the minutes which lay
between us and the supreme moment when our plans
would be put to the test, for the making and marring
of more than one life, passed but slowly. As the
time drew near, my heart began to thump a trifle
quicker, and every nerve \in my body seemed on the
alert for the first sound that should tell us that the
time had come. .
Vaurel smoked calmly, but I have no doubt he
felt much the same.
‘ It’s time he was here,’ I said at last, for the simple
pleasure of breaking the Oppressive silence.
Vaurel grunted.
‘If he’s coming,’ I said.
‘ He’ll come,’ said Vaurel through'his pipe-stem.
And then there came a sudden peremptory rat-tat
on the great hall door, which brought us both to our
feet and the blood to our heads for a moment.
‘Le voildl’ said Vaurel. ‘I will let him in. You
have your revolver, Monsieur Lamont?’


OUR LADY OF ' DELIVERANCE 111
to the table and threw off his military coat.
I nodded.
‘ Then now the play begins,’ and he went out into
the hall.
I heard his ‘ Ah, Monsieur le Colonel, it is you!
Pray give yourself the trouble to enter-_—’ The
colonel, I could hear, had not awaited the invitation,
but was already in the hall.
‘You are expected in the salon, Monsieur le
’Colonel,’ said Vaurel, suavely, and I heard him bolt-
ing the front door, and then the firm, ringing step
came across the flags to the room where I was
standing with my back to the fire.
‘ Tie'ns! it is you, Monsieur Lamont? ’ said the
colonel, as he pushed aside the draught curtain that
hung over the door.
He halted for a moment on the threshold in evident
surprise. Then he came forward, terd his képi on
I heard
the door close behind him and knew that Vaurel stood
waiting inside.
‘Yes, it is I, Monsieur le Colonel,’ I replied in
French, and his eyes gave a blink of surprise, and
then settled into a look of suspicion.
‘ Won’t you sit down? ’ I said. ‘ I have something
to say to you, and some questions to ask on behalf
of Mademoiselle des Comptes.’
He frowned and sat down. The reception was not
what he had expected. He did not quite know what
to make of it.
‘Well, monsieur, and what are your questions?’
he asked gruf'fly.
‘In the first place, Mademoiselle begs you to give
her all the information you can in connection with
the affair of her brother Gaston.’
The dark face grew black. ‘ I have no information
to give to Mademoiselle,’ he said curtly.
‘I know differently, Colonel Lepard, and I intend
to have that information.’


112 OUR LADY OF DELIVERANCE
‘How, monsieur? You—intend—l What talk is
this? ’
‘ Listen, Colonel Lepard,’ I said quietly. ‘Made-
moiselle left here this morning with Madame de St
Ouen and Monsieur Dieufoy, by my request. You are
alone here with myself and Prudent Vaurel, and
you don’t leave this house until you, have disclosed
the whole matter.’
‘ Ten thousand devils!’ he shouted, springing up and
blazing out like a live shell. ‘ Am I crazy, or are y0u? ’
I said nothing and only continued to eye him
steadily.
‘ The contract is too big for you, Monsieur—
Lamont, if that be your name. If you think you
can squeeze me you are very much mistaken.’
I bowed, but held my peace, which only made him
the more angry.
‘ See here,’ he said roughly, ‘ if you or your poachcr
friend attempt to lay a finger on me, I’ll simply blow
holes in you.’
,He slipped his hand inside his tunic, but my hand
had only to come out of my jacket pocket and I was
first.
‘ Drop that instantly! ’ I said, ‘ or I fire.’
He was a very great scoundrel, but he was no
coward.‘ He probably felt that I had more to gain from
him alive than dead, whereas he had everything to
gain by killing me, and absolutely nothing to lose.
He had been trapped into the house, he was being
subject to menace, the law would certainly hold him
guiltless. '
If he thought these things they passed through his
brain like a flash, for his revolver spoke instantly.
ghedflash almost blinded me and the bullet grazed my
ea . .
The next moment Vaurel had flung round his arms
a noose with a running knot and drawn it tight, and
so held him powerless.


OUR LADY OF DELIVERANCE 113
I thought he would have had a fit. All the blood
in his body seemed to rush into his head and neck till
he seemed like to burst, and he fairly foamed curses.
‘ Gently! ’ said Vaurel, giving him a shake. ‘ Your
master the devil has handed you over to our care,
Monsieur le Colonel, to purge some of the evil out of
you. Take my advice and don’t throw away any
chance that is given you.’
, Vaurel jerked him down into a chair in spite of
his struggles, and twisted the rest of the rope round
and round him till he could not move a limb.
‘ Now,’ said Vaurel, as he straightened himself from
his task, ‘ that’s what I call a neat job.’
He cursed us with every foul oath he could lay his
tongue to, and with all the passion of impotence, and
we had to wait “till his breath gave out to get a
chance of speaking.
‘Now, listen,’ I said, when he was fairly spent,
‘ and you can think over it during the night. I If you
put us in the way of proving Gaston des Comptes’s
innocence, you go free. If you refuse we hand you
over to justice for the murder of your accomplice
Captain Zuyler—’ and at that he was suddenly silent
and the red passion in his face gave way to a black
pallor.
‘ We know all about it,’ I said. ‘ The proofs are
complete, and the motive is patent. It is your life
for Gaston’s. Think it out, Monsieur le Colonel. I
will see you in the morning.’
Vaurel tilted the chair back on to its hind legs and
dragged it scraping and groaning along the hall-
way to a small pantry at the back of the house, the'
window of which was very small and very high up—
the room where Zuyler's body had lain three days
before—~and not one single word did the prisoner
speak during this undignified progress.
He was as silent as a sack of flour, as Vaurel said.
His mind seemed to have struck ground on the fact


114 OUR LADY OF DELIVERANCE
that we knew all about the murder of Captain Zuyler,
and had not yet had time to get afloat again;
And so the first step in our search for information
was successfully accomplished. How far ahead the
last one might be we cOuld none of us foresee. .VVe
could only take things as they came, and at all events
it was much to have Lepard in our hands, and to have
brought him face to face with our demands, and with
the knowled e that his own personal safety lay in
complying With them. We had dug the mine and
laid the train, and our prisoner was tied to the powder
barrel and was aware of it. The opening of his mouth
in the way we wanted it would set him free, and the
next day or two would show which way be elected to
travel. A]! we could do was to await the result of his
meditations.
‘ WVe ought to have given him something to eat and
drink, Vaurel,’ I said.
‘ Not at all, not at all; a day or two’s fasting would
do him no harm. He is much too fat, and meagre
faring tends to high thinking, you know, monsieur.’
‘ Still, we must keep him alive. He is no use to us
dead.’
‘ He won’t die to-night, anyway, and he’s got plenty
to think about. I’m going up to see how the other
one’s getting on. Do you think he has any chance
of pulling through, monsieur? ’
‘ While there’s life there’s hope, you know. But he
seemed to me very far gone last night, and candidly,
mon ami, unless you can coax back his brain too, I
relther doubt the .advantage of his coming back at
a .
‘That might come,’ said Vaurel, ‘but anyhow I
can’t help feeling sorry for him,’ and he went upstairs
to attend to his patient.
But he was down again almost instantly with
another idea which had not occurred to either of us.
Monsieur Lamont,’v he said, ‘it would be as well


OUR LADY OF DELIVERANCE 115
for Colonel Lepard to return to Rennes to-night' by
the late train.’
‘What the deuce do you mean, Vaurel? ’ I gasped,
wondering for a moment whether something had
slipped in his brain also.
‘Don’t you see?’ he said, with his eyes dancing.
‘The_folks in the village and at the station saw him
arrive. If they don’t see him go away they will
supp0se him still here, and if he is pigheaded and
unreasonable we may have to keep him some time,
in which case we don’t want them to think that! ’
‘ Well? ’ >
‘ Well, they must see him go away again to-night,
and then they will be'satisfied and won’t talk. One
of us must go back dressed in the colonel’s coat and
ke’pi. It must. be me, I think. You’re too slim. I’m
more of his shape, though, thank God, it’s not simple _
fat. I’ll get to the station just as the-train is in, and
with the hood drawn over my head, and them all
half asleep, they’ll never nOtice. Then I’ll get out at
Bency as Prudent Vaurel, in my own cap and blouse,
with the colonel’s things in a parcel, and I’ll get back
here by the road by two o’clock.’
‘You think we may have to hold him some time?’
‘ Longer than we expected maybe, monsieur. You
see he knows as well as we do that if we give him up
that won’t help us one bit in M. Gaston’s affair, and
he_wi]l make the most of that. I’m thinking too it
will help us to let him starve for a bit.- There’s
nothing takes down the spunk in a man like that
quicker than an empty stomach.’
‘ You’ll take a look now and again at that one up-
stairs,’ he said, as he got into Colonel Lepard’s big
coat and put the gold braided Ize'pi on his head.
‘Mon Dieul don’t I look fine? I always thought I
would make a better officer than most of them, and—-
——me ooildl—M. 1e Colonel Vaurel of the General
Staff ! ’


116 OUR I LADY OF DELIVERANCE
I
He turned and twisted in front of the glass, as
pleased as a child with his new suit, and when he
drew the hood of the coat over his head, and tucked
his beard inside the collar, it seemed likely enough
that in the dark, and on the jump, he would pass well
enough for the colonel.
‘ Bienl au revoir, monsieurl ’ he saluted me in the
most approved Style of haughty nonchalance, and I
let him out at the front door and bolted it after him.
Then I took a candle and went upstairs to take a
look at Roussel, with Boulot padding inquisitively
after me wherever I went. And then I sought out
Mademoiselle’s pink nest, where I had talked with
her the night before, and I lighted the fire and sat
me down in her own soft chair, and let my thoughts
dwell lovingly on the charming mistress of the
mansion and of my heart.
I tried to picture her as last I saw her sitting here,
rosy pink in the light of the shaded candles. I tried
to recall her wistful look at the station at Rennes as
she bade me not to forget. But, strangely enough,
while all her surroundings were limned in my memory
as clearly as photographs, Mademoiselle’s own sweet
face, as last I saw it, constantly eluded me. If I got
it for a moment, the next moment it was gone.
Madame de St Ouen’s marble mask and downcast
eyes, and M. Dieufoy’s pointed nose and sharply-cut
chin, these danced mockingly in between me and the
clear vision of Mademoiselle, and at last I got up and
went to my own room and got out the rolled-up.
portrait of ‘ Mdlle. X.,’ and pinned it to the hangings
of the boudoir, and sat before it worshipfully, wonder-
ing much how it fared with Mademoiselle herself,
and daring even to wonder whether her sweet heart
turned towards me as my heart turned tOwards her.
But for her own peace of mind I Was fain to hope that
if she thought of me at all, her thoughts might be less
strenuous than my own, for the longing I had for the


OUR LADY OF DELIVERANCE 117
sight of her, and the sound of her, and the feeling of
her presence close at hand, came very near to actual
physical pain. My whole heart yearned for this
loveliest of women, and here was I cooped up with
a madman, and a murderer, and a brindled bull-
dog, and the bull-dog was more to my liking than
either of the others. , ,
CHAPTER XVI
TANGLES
IT was just about two in the morning when Vaurel’s
knock sounded on the door, and'I was glad to see
his honest face again, for there was something de-
pressing in the feeling of being shut up in the big
house with those other two, even though they were
both quite harmless.
‘That’s all right,’ he said, as he dropped into a
chair. ‘ Colonel Lepard returned to Paris by the last
train last night, and old Monsieur Leilo at the station
will not forget it in a hurry. Mon Dieu! how the
colonel did swear at him for not keeping the train
waiting a minute longer, although the old gentleman
could not possibly have known he was coming. He
came very near to missing it, and jumped in when
it was on the move, and then put out his head and
swore at Monsieur Leflo till the old grey-beard fairly
shook with anger,’ and he laughed heartily at the re-
collection of his exploit, for M. Leflo, the chef-dc-gare
was lofty in his manners and somewhat overbearing
towards his inferiors, and Vaurel had evidently greatly
enjoyed getting even with him for once.
In the morning we paid a visit to our prisoner,


118 OUR LADY OF DELIVERANCE
Boulot peering between our legs and snuflling and
growling uneasily at sight of him. I
He certainly was a sufficiently unpleasing object.
He looked limp, and shrunken, and broken down, but
a trace of the last night’s spirit rose in him as the door
opened, and his face was set in a grim scowl which
showed no present sign of giving in to our demands.
‘ Are you prepared now to give us the information
we wish, Monsieur Lepard? ’ I asked.
But not a word would he say, though I could see,
by the clench of his jaw and the throbbing pulse in
his temple, that he was bursting with wrath and kept
it in with difficulty. '
‘When you tell us all we want to know, and we
have had time to test the truth of it, you shall go
free,’ I said; ‘ until then you stop here.’
No answer came, and we'turned the key on him and
left him to his thoughts.
‘ We must feed him, Vaurel,’ I said.
‘ Not yet, monsieur, not yet, I beg of you. It seems
cruel to starve him, but .he will take no real harm, and
remember, it is better lives than his we are working ,
for.’
And so we left him all that day, but the thought of
him feeding on nothing but his own black thoughts
took away my own appetite, and 1 could eat nothing.
By the evening he was in a state of physical col-
lapse, and could scarce hold up his head to scowl at
us. I could not stand the sight of it any longer and
bade Vaurel unfasten him, which he did with much
reluctance. I think he would have liked to subject
him to treatment for one more night, but I feared
the result and insisted on his being freed from his
bonds. 1 mixed him some wine and water and placed
a loaf within his reach, but he made no signs of de-
siring them while we were there.
We ostentatioust tied Boulot with a stout cord to
the door handle outside, and as we went down the hall


OUR LADY OF DELIVERANCE 119
we heard him blow a warning snuflle below the door,
which deepened into a snarling roar, as he tore at the
crack with his great front paws and seemed to be
giving back curse for curse with the man inside.
‘ He's not going to speak, Vaurel,’ I said.
, ‘ He’ll tire in time, and we can wait more comfort-
ably than he can,’ said Vaurel confidently.
The days passed, however, and the prisoner re-
mained as dumb to us as though he had never spoken
in this world. Much as I detested him and the things
he had done, I could not but marvel at, and in a cer-
tain way admire, the steadfastness of purpose which
bottled up even that fount of profanity, the letting loose
of which would have given such immense relief.
Day followed day, every night and every morning
we gave him the chance of speaking, but never one
word did he let drop in our hearing. We suspected in-
deed that 'he let loose his evil tongue on Boulot, for
every now and again the grim old fellow broke out
suddenly into a wild fury of snarls and yelps and tore
at the bottom of the door as though he would have it.
down, but when we tiptoed cautiously to listen all
was silent within and we could make nothing of it.
Vaurel was greatly surprised at the way he held out.
‘I thought he was flabbier,’ he said. ‘ He’s a man
after all. Pity he’s a bad one.’ '
‘How is it all going to end?’ I asked, with no
little disturbance of mind, on the seventh night of
the colonel’s imprisonment, for it looked as though
we might go on this way for ever.
‘ God knows,’ said Vaurel, ‘ but we’ve got him and_
we’ll stick to him.’
Our other patient meanwhile was mending. He was
weak and worn with his exposure, and he had a hack-
ing cough, but he seemed coming to his right mind,
and was picking up strength every day. Vaurel tended
him with a solicitude that surprised me and won my
appreciation. And Roussel was grateful for all we


120 OUR LADY OF DELIVERANCE
did for him, and apparently remembered nothing
of what had happened just before his illness, or, if he
remembered at all, it was only as one recalls with a
shudder the broken bits of a nightmare.
But our plans were threatened suddenly by two out-
side dangers, one of which we had taken no account
of, because we had not reckoned on Lepard’s holding
out so long, and the other of which it had been im-
possible to foresee, because no human being can fore-
cast the eccentricities of an unbalanced brain.
One day an unusual rap came at the front door,
and Vaurel opening it was confronted by an officer
in the uniform of a captain of Chasseurs.
‘ Is Monsieur le Colonel Lepard stopping here? ’
he asked.
‘No, monsieur,’ said Vaurel, and I could well im-
agine the look of vacant surprise he would put on.
‘ But he has been here?’
‘ Yes, monsieur, Monsieur 1e Colonel came one night
about a week ago—’
‘ Thursday of last week,’ interjected the officer.
' That was it—exactlyl Thursday of last week. I
remember it was Thursday because that was the day
Mademoiselle left.’ .
‘ Ahl ’ said the officer, ‘ Mademoiselle left on Thurs-
day, did she? And where has Mademoiselle gone to? ’
‘ To Combourg, monsieur, with Madame the Duch-
esse de St Ouen and Monsieur l’Abbé Dieufoy.’
‘ And Colonel Lepard came here after they had left? ’
‘ The very same night, monsieur, and they left by
the mid-day train.’
‘ And the colonel? ’
‘ Naturally, when he heard Mademoiselle was gone
he went also. He returned, I understood, by the night
train.’
Here Boulot and the colonel had one of their little
wrangles, and the hall resounded with snarls and yelps.
‘ Mon Dieu! what is all that? ’ asked the captain.


OUR LADY OF DELIVERANCE I21
‘ My bull-dog after a rat,’ said Vaurel. ‘ Has
monsieur made inquiries at the station?’ ‘
‘ Yes, they tell me the same thing. But I was bound
to ask here also. I thank you, my friend. Good day! ’
‘ Good day, Monsieur le Capitaine, and I hope you
will find Monsieur le Colonel all right. He is a brave
man! ’ and with great enjoyment Vaurel watched the
captain return the way he had come.
But it was evident that the colonel’s disappearance
was beginning to excite suspicion at headquarters,
and this set us to the discussion of further plans for
his safe keeping and the attainment of our end.
But before we were able to arrive at any decision
in the matter our anxieties were suddenly piled into
heaps in other direction.
The morning after the visit of the emissary from
headquarters Vaurel came bounding into my room,
before I was up, in a state of great agitation.
‘ He is gone, monsieur,’ he cried.
‘ Gone? Who? the colonel? ’ and I jumped up and
began dressing in haste.
‘ No, the other, the madman.’
‘ But how gone, Vaurel? and where to? ’ '
‘I left him sleeping quietly when I turned in,’ he
said. ‘ Now his window is open and he is gone. He
is off his head again, I expect, and has made for the
woods.’
‘ Has he taken his clothes with him?’
‘I did not look. I saw he was no longer there,
and came to tell you at once.’
We went into Roussel’s room and a moment’s ex-
amination showed us that he had simply got out of
bed, opened the window, and scrambled down in some
inexplicable way, and it was evident that he had gone
with no more clothing than his nightshirt.
‘I’m afraid all your care is wasted, my friend,’
I said.‘ ‘His brain has evidently slipped again, just
as we thought he was getting better.’


122 OUR LADY OF DELIVERANCE
‘We must get help from the village and try and
find him again,’ said Vaurel.
But all the difficulties of the position suddenly
flashed upon me.
‘ No, that won’t do,’ I said. ‘ What will they do if
they catch him? ’
‘Mon Dieu! I never thought of that.’
‘They think he murdered Captain Zuyler, and if
they catch him they will hand him over to justice,
and we could only set matters right by handing over
the colonel and telling all we know, and then good-
bye to all our hopes.’
‘ That is so,’ said Vaurel, scratching his head help-
lessly. ‘ I half wish I had left him to die in the woods.
He is going to upset the whole matter, curse him l_ ’
We were greatly troubled by this unfortunate
matter, which trebled all our anxieties and rendered
almost futile the discussion of further plans concern-
ing the colonel, for they might all be blown to the
winds at a moment’s notice by the capture of the
madman by the villagers.
Vaurel ranged the woods all that day in search of
him, but returned in a state of hopeless despondency
and black anger.
‘ If I come across him I’ll break his neck,’ he growled,
‘ after all the care I gave him, to play us this trick.’
I persuaded him to go up to Mere Thibaud’s in the
. evening, for he was sure to hear there if Roussel’s
escape had yet become known to the villagers.
He returned about nine o’clock, and I saw as soon
as I opened the door to him that something had upset
him. He was in a state of pallid anger, he had a
great swollen bruise on his forehead, the blood from
which had run down over his face, and for a time he
could only gasp out angry oaths.
‘ What’s happened? Have they got him? ' I asked.
' Got him? No, but he’s been seen, and they’re as
frightened as a lot of silly sheep. Mon Dieu! why


124 OUR LADY OF DELIVERANCE
short cut through the wood, and, hang me! if he
didn’t jump out on me just the same way-flung up
his arms and gibbered and snickered, and then away
through the dark, and I got such a turn that I
stumbled and knocked my head against a tree ’—and
he pointed to the big bruise on his forehead—‘ and
when I found my feet he was gone.’
I fear our fount of charity as regards Roussel was
pretty wéll run dry, and we both devoutly wished he
might break his neck before heknocked all our plans
into a cooked hat by getting himself caught.
CHAPTER XVII
CUTTING THE KNOTS
IN spite of ourselves and of the fact that all further
plans concerning the colonel might be rendered abor-
tive at any moment by this Wretched madman, we
fell to discussing possibilities.
It was evident that only three courses were open
to us. _
Either we must acknowledge ourselves beaten and
set him free, which was not to be thought of for a
moment:
Or, we must hand him over to the law, which indeed
we might have to do at any moment if Roussel was
caught, but which would not benefit us in any way:
Or, supposing Roussel fortunately came to grief and
ceased to trouble us, we could continue our present
course of treatment—here or elsewhere. And on those
last words the whole matter, so far as the colonel was
concerned, and apart from the Roussel complication,
seemed to hinge, and we found ourselves debating
it as earnestly as though no Roussel existed.


OUR LADY OF DELIVERANCE 125
Vaurel acknowledged that if a hue and cry were
started on the colonel’s account we might be subject
to a visit from the detectives at any moment. But
nothing of the kind was at all likely for another week
or ten days, and in that time it was to be hoped that
the colonel would come to a more reasonable frame of
mind and open his mouth. .
‘I don’t know,’ I said. ‘It seems to me he may
go on this way till doomsday.’
‘ Ah, you began feeding him too soon, monsieur,’
said Vaurel; ‘ if you had waited a day or two longer
it would have shortened the time now.’
‘It would probably have shortened his time, my
friend, and I was not prepared to do that.’
‘ Well, unless we are prepared to lose the game we
have got to hold on to him. Monsieur does not sug-
gest throwing down the cards?’
‘ Not a bit of it. I am keener than ever to learn all
he can tell, and Mademoiselle is hungering for
news.’
‘ Then. monsieur, we must find another cage for the
bird. For if once they put. detectives on the matter
they will soon work back here and smell out things
which that gay little captain would never dream of
if he lived to be a hundred and ten.’
‘ Another cage? But that will not be easy to find.
Where do you suggest? ’
‘I must think that out,’ said Vaurel, and sat suck-
ing away at his pipe as though the answer lay in the
bowl of it. _
He sat’ for a long time in silence, and I saw by the
slow curls from his pipe and the fixed look in his eyes
that he was deep in the matter. Then I saw him glance
across at me from under his brows once or twice as
though in doubt whether to mention what was in his
mind. And then he said, ‘ Monsieur is rich? Is it
not so? ’ -
‘ Yes,’ I nodded.


126 OUR LADY OF DELIVERANCE
‘ And monsieur is a sailor? ’
‘ Yes.’
‘ Then take him to the sea and keep him there till
he speaks.’
‘ To the sea? How? ’ said I, surprised at the magni-
tude of the idea.
‘ By the river—~in a boat.’
I sat looking at him through the smoke, and the?
possibilities of it all began to grow upon me.~
‘ Do you know I think that’s a great idea of yours,
Vaurel,’ and I sat far into the night and smoked many
pipes upori it, and it grew and it grew, with ever-
widening bounds, till the end of it all was far beyond
my ken. It was all vague and shadowy, but some-
where in it, like a golden glory, was a vision of
Mademoiselle—how I did not quite know, but she was
there——and her brother was there too, and we sailed
over summer seas, and the days were not long enough
for our enjoyment of them.
Vaurel sat patiently watching me through the smoke
till he saw that I saw my way. ’
‘ Will it do, monsieur? "
‘It will do grandly. How will you get him to the
sea? Have you a boat? The punt would not do.’
‘ I have thought of that. There is a boat belonging
to the chéteau, in which Ma’m’selle and Monsieur Gas-
ton used to play when they were children. It is here-
in the cellar, but it has not been used for God knows
how long. It will want repairing. We might get it.
up in the morning. It’s a heavy tub of a thing, but
if we can make it tight it is as safe as a houSe.’
‘ We shall see to it first thing, and then I shall start
at once for Southampton. I think I had better call at
Combourg on my way, Vaurel,’ I said tentatively.
‘Why, certainly, monsieur. Ma’m’selle will be
anxious for news.’
‘ It will take me at least a week to get hold of just
the kind of boat I want, and we had better allow a


OUR LADY OF DELIVERANCE 127
margin of three days to bring her round to the mouth
of the river. How long will it take you to bring him
down, and how will you manage it? You can’t do it
all single handed.’
‘ I’ll manage it right enough if the madman’s dis-
posed of. I’ll tie him hand and foot and gag him, and
cart him down to the boat in a barrow. Then I’ll cover
him over with sacks and down we go. It will take me
less than half a day to get to the sea. Everybody
knows me and nobody will ask any questions.’
" You can’t tie him and gag him single handed.’
‘I and Boulot and a revolver will manage that all
right, monsieur, have no fears. If I need help I’ll get
Louis Vard. He’s safe—’
He suddenly laid his hand on my arm, and said in
a whisper, ‘ Listen! ’
We listened in-blank, staring silence, and far away
in the darkness outside, faint and dim through the
closed windows, there came a long-drawn wailing cry.
’ I thought I heard it before,’ whispered Vaurel, and
got up softly and opened the windows as noiselessly
as though any undue sound might reach the ears of
the distant wailer. ‘ It’s him! ’
The woods looked dark and eerie as we stood there
, looking out over them, straining our ears to catch
that most uncanny cry again.
‘ Are you sure? ’ I whispered.
'Nothing else could make a sound like that.’
‘ Wild cats,’ I suggested.
‘ We have none.’
Thin and distant the mournful cry came again out
of the darkness, from the direction of the‘old mill of ’
Bessancy. Vaurel shifted uneasily on his feet in a
momentary indecision, and then said, ‘ I’m going
after him.’
‘It is quite useless, my friend; you might as well
look for a needle in a haystack as look for him in
those woods.’ .


128 OUR LADY OF DELIVERANCE
‘ I’ll have a try anyhow,’ he said; ‘ I’ll take the dog.
Do you keep an car on the colonel, monsieur.’
He went quickly down the hall and unloosed Boulot.
‘ Au revoir! ’ whispered Vaurel as he passed me.
They went down the steps of the terrace and the
darkness swallowed them up. For a time I could follow
their course by Boulot’s snuflles, and then the silence
and the darkness dropped down upon me again.
I stood there leaning over the stone balustrade, and
straining after them, and heard no sound but the fall-
ing of the water over the weir, and then, after what
seemed an interminable time there came from the
distant woods the sharp report of a gun and the
barking of a dog, and all my anxieties increased, for
Vaurel, I knew, had taken no firearms with him.
The light from the open window behind me out a
solid shaft out of the darkness. It streamed across
the terrace and over the balustrades, and cast their
shadows and mine far out over the lawn below.
And as I leaned there motionless, peering out into
the darkness, I became suddenly aware of the passage
of something or somebody between the light and my-
self. There was a disturbance of the lights and shadows
in front of me and yet I had not moved a limb.
My first thought was of the colonel. Could he have
broken loose and come out through the window? I
turned quietly, half expecting to see him peering out,
but instead I saw that the light was blocked by the
wild figure of a man looking in. And such a figure!
—hair all a-bristle, thin, bony arms and legs all bare,
the remnants of his nightshirt hanging round him in
rags—Roussel. His hands rested on the sides of the
open window and he leaned forward on them, looking
into the room. .
I tiptoed'across the terrace, hoping to grip him
before he turned. But he heard me and turned and
fled into the darkness along the terrace, leaving a rag
of his garment in my hand. I sprang after him, but


OUR LADY OF DELIVERANCE 129
\
he went as swift and noiseless as a shadow, and when
I reached the corner there was nothing but the dark-
ness and not a sound to break it. I dared not follow
and leave the house with its more valuable prisoner
entirely unguarded. I stood and listened, and then
returned to my post on the terrace, and presently
Boulot came snuflling out of the dark, and close be-
hind him over the turf came his master.
‘ What was the shooting?’ I asked.
‘ That thick-headed fool Juliot. He was lying in wait
for the madman, and took me for him, or he says so,
and blazed away at me. Fortunately he was too fright-
ened to aim straight. I punched that silly head of his,
laced hat and all, but we saw nothing of the other.’
‘ He has been here.’ '
‘ Herel Nom de Dieul how is that?’
I told him, and of my attempt to catch the madman.
‘ Dieu de Dieul I wish I could come within arm’s
length of him,’ he said. ' But he can’t last long, and
if he meets that other fool in the dark he‘ll probably
get his congé quick, unless the other’s as scared as
he was when I ran into him.’
We closed the windows and drew the curtains, and
turned again to the solace of our pipes and to spas-
modic discussion of the situation.
If the boat could be found—and Vaurel asserted that
he could take me to it blindfold, as it was he himself
that laid it up after its last using by the children—and
if it could be made usable—and of that he expressed
very little doubt—then the idea of taking Colonel
Lepard down to the sea, to a yacht which I would hire
in Southampton, and of holding him there prisoner
absolutely at our discretion, was the best scheme pos-
sible under the circumstances. But we could not get
away from the fact that everything—all our schemes,
Lepard’s future, Gaston’s future, Mademoiselle's future
—all depended on this wretched madman, and under
the circumstances the concoction of plans respecting
- E


130 OUR LADY OF DELIVERANCE
any of these matters, while Roussel was still at large,
was very like the fabrication of matches over a powder
magazine. .
‘ Hang it, Vaurel! isn’t it possible to lay some trap
for him? We must get hold of him by some means
or other,’ I said.
‘ Best trap would be the muzzle of that fool Juliot’s
gun, monsieur, but I don’t see how we’re to get him
in front of it.’
‘We must save him from that, if possible, my
friend. He is'in a pitiable state, poor devil, but
there’s no need why he should be shot like a dog.’
Vaurel grunted non-committally. He had not
quite recovered his equanimity from the events of
the evening.
My thoughts wandered back to the gaunt figure
of Roussel peering in at the window, and ,an idea
came to me suddenly.
See here, Vaurel, he is starving both inside and
out. It was the light of the room attracted him. .
Perhaps he hoped to find something to eat. Suppose
we try that again? We’ll put food on the table, and
leave the window open and the lights up—’
‘ He will not ’come back, monsieur.’
‘He may; there’s no saying. Anyhow, ‘it’s easy
to try it. Then we will hide, you and I, say behind
' those curtains, one on each side of the window. If
he should come in we have him.’
‘ Bien!’ we can try, but I doubt if anything will
_ come of it. To-night? ’ he asked.
‘ No good to-night, I should say. He’s been scared
off for to-night. But we’ll try to-morrow night and
the next night, and the night after that. It’s really
no good my going; in fact, we can do nothing till
this wretched Roussel is disposed of. If we can lay
hands on him we must think out some plan of getting
himvto Paris and putting him in hospital there.’
‘I wish to God he was there now,’ said Vaurel,


OUR LADY OF DELIVERANCE ~ 131
fervently. ‘He ties our hands, and every day may
be of consequence.’
In the morning, after our usual inspection of the
prisoner, and the usual offer of release in exchange
for information, which was met with the usual sullen
scowl and tightening of the hollow black cheek, we
deséended to the cellars, and Vaurel, as he had said,
led me straight to the boat, which lay on its chocks,
carefully covered with a tarpaulin, and with its wheeled
carriage beside it. We examined it carefully, and
found its timbers sound enough, and it seemed
likely that a few days’ soaking in the river would
make it as tight as a drum. We loaded it up at once,
and Vaurel unbolted the door at the end of the
passage which led out on the level, at the south end
of the chateau, and we trundled the boat across. the
lawns down to the river. She took in water slowly
through the seams when we both got into her, so
we filled her and tied her to the bank, and left her
there awash to soak' at her leisure. Then Vaurel
went back to the cellar to sort out her gear, and I
strolled on along the bank, thinking of Mademoiselle,
and wondering greatly if all my efforts on her behalf,
and all my hopes on my own, were to end in failure
because of the craziness of Roussel and the contumacy
of Lepard.
We duly laid our trap that night. We spread the
table in full view of the window. We left the win-
dow wide open and the lamps lit. We flattened our-
selves against the wall behind the window curtains, and-
waited in silent patience for what seemed endless hours.
But nothing came of it, somewhat to Vaurel’s
satisfaction, I think, for he had no faith in my plan,
and he closed the windows, and drew the curtains,
and dropped into a chair with a sigh of relief at last,
and said, ‘That’s worse than shot drill. \I always did
hate standing still. It’s the hardest work in the world.’
Then he charged his pipe, and poured himself


134 OUR LADY OF DELIVERANCE
6
a fire, for the air was chilly, and we sat before the
hissing logs, and smoked the rest of the night away.
Boulot came back presently and flopped contentedly
down at our feet, and intimatedohis intention of spend-
ing the night before the fire, and we could not find it
,in our hearts to disturb him. .
Vaurel did not attempt to conceal the fright he had
had. ‘ Dieu de Dieul’ he said, ‘I woke in a fright,
and did not know what it was, and when I heard the
next bowl I was certain it was the devil come in
person for the colonel. But it seemed to me he might
make a mistake if he was wandering around loose
like that, and when I felt your hand on me, monsieur,
I felt‘sure he had got me, though what good the bed-
clothes would have been against. him I didn’t stop to
think. And you, monsieur, you had no fear? ’
‘ Hadn’t I? Why, my hair was standing on end,
and my legs felt stuck full of prickles, but I came to
my senses sooner than you did.’
‘ _ that gibbering idiot! ’ said Vaurel. ‘I never
had such a fright in my life, never! Mon Dieul I
would like to know-what the colonel made of it all.’
To judge by the colonel’s face next morning when
we visited him he had had quite as bad a time as the
rest of us. He was the colour of lead, and his eyes had
a scared look in them, but the bristly black check was
clenched as tight as ever, and he spoke never a word.
Vaurel ostentatiously bolted the outside cellar door
while it was still daylight next day. He laughed at
me when I suggested laying the trap again for Roussel,
but finally consented, and we arranged the room as
before, and took our stand behind the curtains on each
side of the open window. Never a sound came, and
we waited and waited—hours longer, it seemed to me,
than on the previous night.
Then, just as I was on the point of giving it up again
as a bad job, my heart gave a leap into my throat, and
the cold chill of the previous night began to creep out


OUR LADY OF DELIVERANCE 135
on me again, for without the slightest sound I saw,
through the slit between the curtain and the wall, a
gaunt, bristling head come sneaking in at the window.
The wild eyes rolled round the room, and seemed to
start out of their sunken caverns at sight of the food
and wine on the table. Something clucked in his throat,
and he began to dribble at the mouth. He was evi-
dently leaning forward with his hands on the sides of
the window as I had seen him thahother night.
Cautiously, soundlessly one thin, hairy leg came
inside, then there was a crash outside, the poor fool
threw up his arms with a shrill, womanly scream, and
fell forward in a heap on the floor and lay still, and
as we sprang out from behind the curtains the window
was suddenly filled with the blue and silver figure of
the gendarme J uliot, and the smoke was still curling
in the barrel of his rifle. ’
‘ Voila, messieursl ’ he said triumphantly. ‘ That I
think puts an end to the ghost,’ and to me, ’ Tiens.
monsieur, I did not know you were here still.’
‘ He is finished,’ said Vaurel. ‘ You had it all your_
own way this'time, Monsieur Juliot.’
‘ The people up there,’ said the gendarme, jerking
his head in the direction of the village, ‘ are having fits
about him. I had to take the matter in hand myself.’
‘It is justas well it is ended,’ said Vaurel. ‘ Have
some cognac, Monsieur Juliot? ’
‘ I don’t mind if I do,’ said the gendurme; ‘ he got
on my nerves somewhat. I’ve been watching for him
all the evening. Mon Dieu! what’s that? '
That was Boulot having a little altercation with the
colonel.
‘ It’s the dog after the rats. I’ll call him,’ said Vaurel.
‘ No, no, leave him, let him enjoy himself. He and
I do not get on too well together. Let him enjoy '
the rats.’ 7
We gave Juliot as much cognac as was good for
him, and .then in the dim dawn I persuaded the two


136 OUR LADY OF DELIVERANCE
men to carry the poor frail body up to the village,
and felt much easier in my mind now that one of our .
stumbling-blocks was removed.
CHAPTER XVIII
e
A nasrr woome _
WHEN Vaurel got back we settled our final arrange-
ments. I was to let him know by wire, post, or
messenger, the exact day, and as nearly as possible the
hour, when I would be at the mouth of the river ready
to receive the colonel, and he undertook to be there.
. Then I packed my belongings, including ‘Mdlle.
X.,’ and slept little that night, in spite of my weari-
ness, for the longing that was in me to be up and
away, and for the hope that was in me of seeing
Mademoiselle herself next day, which set my heart
jumping and my pulses galloping.
In the early morning we ventured to leave the
colonel in custody of Boulot, and took the wood path
past Vaurel’s house to the station, in time for the early
train to Rennes.
‘Tell Ma’m’selle that we will win if we hold him
till he dies, monsieur,’ said Vaurel, as he wrung my
hand and looked as if he were going to embrace me.
I was in Combourg by eleven o’clock, and leaving
my baggage at the station, found my way without
difficulty to the Convent of the Sacred Heart.
It stood a short way out of the village and was a
great and unprepossessing establishment, with im-
mensely high walls and an unpretentious door, which,
if it suggested no warm welcome to outsiders, cer-
tainly gave one the impression that what it held inside
was very tightly held indeed. In the middle of the


OUR LADY OF DELIVERANCE 137
door was a tiny grating closed with a sliding panel,
which somehow brought Madame of St Ouen and her
downcast eyes vividly to my mind. An iron handle
hung from a chain by the side of the tight-lipped
door, and I gave it a pull that woke a tinkling res-
ponse somewhere far away inside.
Time was evidently of little account with the occu-
pants of the convent. It was full five minutes before
the blind eye in the door opened noiselessly and
showed me a pale, coiffed face behind it, which
swallowed me whole in one hasty glance and then
looked down, as though I were the world and 'the
flesh and the devil all rolled into one.
‘ Madame the Duchesse of St Ouen? ’ I said in
English, and pushed my card through the grating,
which closed immediately and left me to hope that
something might eventually come of it.
_ The privilege I sought was evidently one that needed
time for consideration and was not readily accorded.
I smoked four horrible Caporal cigarettes before the
little veiled eye winked again sufficiently to allow the
passage of a folded slip of paper, on which was in-
scribed in thin wiry letters, ‘ Madame regrets that she
cannot receive M. Lamont.’
I fear the language I used, though I had the sense
to keep it below my breath, would not have prospered
my cause with the saints inside, as I hung in the wind
uncertain what to do next. I smoked several more of
the vile little cigarettes, and came to the wise decision
of seeking out the curé of the village and asking his
advice. If he were a decent fellow he might assist me;
at the worst he could only refuse. I
I found the curé without difficulty, and if I had had
him made to order he could not have been more to my
liking. 'He was a round-faced, jovial little man of
about sixty, by name Pére Joseph Bonnatt and he
spoke English fluently with a strong Irish accent,
which he explained by the fact of his having lived


138 OUR LADY OF DELIVERANCE
for several years in the States, and incidentally that
his mother was an Irishwoman. '
We became good friends immediately, and when I
told him of my difficulty he laughed loud and long.
‘ You expected to walk into the Convent of the
Sacred Heart on pr'esentation of your card? Why,
my dear young friend, no male foot has ever defiled
those' sacred precincts, save that of the Cardinal Arch-
bishop, Monsiegneur Godefroi, and even then I believe
they had all to do penance for a week, besides double
scrubbing the floors of every room he entered. But
what is it you want there, or, I should say, who?
Not Madame Mere herself?’ '
‘ No, it is my cousin, Mademoiselle Denise des
Comptes, whose affairs I am looking after, and it is
absolutely necessary that I should see her.’
‘ Ah, Mademoiselle des Comptes. That is the
wealthy novice whom Madame Mere is hoping to
persuade into the order—sister of that young Gaston
des Comptes who—yes, yes, I know all about it. And
monsieur is her cousin?’ -
I nodded without a blush. Had not Mademoiselle
herself elected me to that high position, and who had
a better right? We cannot choose our parents, but
we can choose our soi-disant cousins.
‘ I doubt if I can helpyou in the matter,’ said Pere
Bonnatt, ‘though I would very much like to do so.
Madame'and I are not on speaking terms. You see she
comes from above, I from below. She is an aristocrat,
I spring from the soil. Now, let me see,’ he said, bit-
ing his thumb in perplexity~‘ let me see— You did
not tell her what you wanted? ’ he asked suddenly.
‘ I had no chance to tell her anything. But I guess
she knows well enough what I wanted. She was stay-
ing with us down at Mademoiselle’s house at Cour-
des-Comptes, with the Abbé Dieufoy.’
‘ Ah, yes, the Abbé Dieufoy. He is bon garcon? ’
and he looked at me whimsically.


OUR LADY OF DELIVERANCE 139
‘ We got on very well together. He is shrewd and
sharp, I should say, but we were on friendly enough
terms.’
~ He nodded, and took counsel with his thumb again.
Then he looked up with a twinkle in his eye.
‘If I mention a matter to you, M. Lamont, you
must not take any undue advantage of it—unless you
very much want to.’
‘I promise,’ I said.
‘ Well, as I came from the station this morning I
met a round dozen of the doves from the big nest
there, and among them was a young lady, who was
with them but not of them. Is your cousin a tall girl
with brown hair, and rather good looking?’ '
‘ She is the most beautiful girl—’ I began, but
stopped short at sight of his twinkling eyes.
, ‘It was doubtless she. They were, I judged, going
to Dol, where there is a grand féte to the Virgin to-
day. Now, if you should happen to be about the station
when the train from Dol comes in, you might happen
to see your cousin, you know, and who could stop
you speaking to her, if you made up your mind to do
it, I don’t quite know. But, mind you, you are not
to make any use of this information unless—’
‘What time does the train come in?’
‘ Four o’clock.’
When the train came in I was waiting for it. The
red-tape Observances of the larger stations did not ob-
tain in this rural district, and I had been permitted to
take up my stand in a secluded corner of the platform
without any objections on the part of the officials.
The train was crowded with women and children
returning from the féte, but the Combourg con-
tingent was not a large one, and from my corner I
eagerly watched the Sisters of the Sacred Heart dump
themselves down on to the platform with all the
graceless weight of so many sacks of flour.
, They struck me as a 'singularly lumpy and stolid set


OUR LADY OF DELIVERANCE 141


and that she intended to in any case, and the sister
yielded to the point of permitting half her flock to
go on in front of us and half to follow behind, while
we two walked together in between.
‘ Mr Lamont,’ said Mademoiselle, before I had time
to begin my story, ‘ I must get away from here. I am
sorry I ever came. It will kill me if I stop much
longer. It is not peace—for me at all events—~it is
imprisonment, and I cannot stand. it. This is the first
time I have passed the gate since I went there. It is
crushing the spirit out of me. If I stop here much
longer I shall be like the rest of them. I would sooner
work for my living and let them have all the money
than stop here.’
She poured all this out in a quick, hot torrent that
came straight from her heart, and her face and eyes
were all aflame with the strong feeling that was in her.
My heart leaped towards her and shouted ‘ Come with
me! come with me! ’ but I managed to keep silent.
' It was a mistake my coming here,’ she said again.
‘I was afraid of it, but you advised it and I came.
But—but—you promised to help me. You must get
me away or I shall die, or become a nun, which is
worse. Now what can you do to help me?’
‘ You trust me, Denise? ’ ‘
‘ Absolutely! You know I do. More, I—’
I do not know what she was going to say, for she
was in a state of very great excitement.
' Then let me take you away for good and all. Come
and be my wife.’
‘ Oh, Hugh, do you mean it? ’ she cried.
‘ I have meant it since the first moment I saw your
picture in the Salon. You know it, Denise.’
‘ Yes,’ she said in a whisper, ‘I knew it.’
She walked in silence for a moment, and then said
eagerly, ‘ When? Now?’ -
'Can you stand it another week, dearest?’ I said,
and then I told her rapidly of the position of affairs


142 OUR LADY OF DELIVERANCE
j
at Cour-des-Comptes, and of our decision to carry the
colonel of! to sea and to hold him there until he spoke.
‘I am going now to Southampton, to charter a
yacht. I can be back here in a week. The yacht can
wait at St Malo. What do you say? ’
‘1 shall count the hours,’ she said joyfully. ‘I can
stand it now.’
‘ How am I to get at you?" I asked. - ‘I tried to
see Madame Mere, but she declined the pleasure, and
the little curé here tells me no man is allowed to set
foot inside these big walls.’
‘ And it may be a month before I am allowed out-
side again. What can we do? ’
‘ I will manage it somehow. You are quite sure—P ’
'I am quite sure,’ she said quickly.
‘ And you will be ready when—’
'I shall be ready,’ she said, and then, softly and
sweetly, as we drew near to the convent gate, ‘ You
have made me very happy, Hugh.’
It was surely as strange a wooing as man could well
have. I had hardly dared to look at her, and as for
touching her hand in the midst of that phalanx of
marble modesty, it was not to be thought of for a
moment. What pains and penances it might have
subjected my dear girl to I' could not imagine, but
I was very desirous of doing nothing to shock the
feelings of her keepers, and when the moment of
parting came I did no more than touch the tips Of
her fingers and looked the rest of all I felt, and then
bowed obsequiously to the cold-faced sisterhood and
walked away on air, therichest man in all the world.
I went straight back to Pere Bonnatt, and as soon as
he saw me he said, ‘ Eh, bien! You have seen her? ’
‘ I have seen her and spoken to her, thanks to you.’
‘Nay, nay, do not incriminate me,’ he laughed,
‘though it ’is a pleasure to me to get round the old
lady. 'She is so very, very good, and so very, very
wanting in heart.’


OUR LADY OF DELIVERANCE 143
I was strongly tempted to tell him the whole matter,
and it would have been such a very great pleasure to
talk to somebody of Mademoiselle. But I had the com-
mon sense not to do so, and maybe it was just as well.
CHAPTER XIX
PBELIMINARIES
I was fortunate in my quest at Southampton. Butlers,
the yacht agents, had a fine two-hundred-ton schooner
yacht, sail and steam, placed in their hands only the
day before. She belonged to young Lord Derrismore,
who had started in her for a cruise in the Mediteran-
ean, but had fallen in with an American millionairess
a't Nice and had.thrown up his cruise for more lucra-
tive business on shore, and had sent the boat home
in charge of her captain with instructions to Butlers
to let her for six months if they could.
She was a very handsome and roomy boat, beauti-
fully fitted, and well found in every respect, and her
crew were mostly willing to sign on for a new cruise
in place of the one that had fallen through. She was
called the Clutha,‘ and her captain was a young Scot
hailing from Port-Glasgow, by name Andrew Lyle, a
fine, bright fellow to whom I took a great liking. So
I signed the agreements and left Lyle to get her ready
for a long voyage, and then ran up to town.
I had been puzzling my brain, ever since I parted
from Mademoiselle, as to the best way of getting her
out of the clutches of Madame de St Ouen, and I had
at last hit upon a scheme which seemed to me to be
at least possible. But it required legal assistance to
carry it through, and I went straight to Mr George


144 OUR LADY OF DELIVERANCE
Dayrell, of Lincoln’s Inn Fields, who was the London
agent of Layton’s of Liverpool, and with whom I had
had some dealings before I left England. He was a tall,
strapping, jovial fellow, with a merry laugh and more
of the look of a cavalry officer than of a solicitor, and
he was just the man to further my plans, I thought.
He welcomed me very heartily and was immensely
interested in all my doings. He begged me to dine
with him at his club that night, and after dinner, over
coffee and cigars in the most secluded corner of a cosy
little smoking-room upstairs, I told him such portion
of my story as I deemed necessary,.and developed
my plans.
‘You want to rob a convent of its brightest orna-
ment,’ he began. ‘
‘But she is only there in trust, so to speak.- She
' has not joined the order.’
‘ Quite so, but they are, I presume, just as desirous
of keeping the young lady in as you are of getting her
out, and you want me to help you to get her out. It
appeals to me strongly, and I don’t think your plan
can be improved on. It may slip up, of course, but
on the other hand it has every chance of success, and
I don’t see any better one. I know some parts of the
country about there. If I were you I should drive over
from St Servan. If you have to hang about waiting
for trains it might be awkward, don’t you know. You
leave the documents to me. I’ll draw them up such
a screed as will twist their brains into a knot if they
try to make head or tail of it, and I’ll cover it with
seals till a country notary will bow down and worship
it. Oh, I'll fix that part all right. I’d mighty well
like to go along and see the fun.’
‘ It might not be a bad idea,’ I said. ‘ Think it over.
I must start for Southampton on Wednesday.' You
could bully thev notary and make him do what is
wanted.’ '
‘ Gad, I’ll go! I wouldn’t miss it for fifty pounds.


OUR LADY OF DELIVERANCE g 145
I've nothing important on this week, and it’ll be as
good as a pantomime.’
‘ There is one other matter I want you to see to for
me, Dayrell.’
‘ Yes? ’ .
‘I want a special license.’
' That’s easy—Doctors’ Commons—fee twenty-nine
pounds eight shillings. Come along to the office in
the morning and we’ll trot around and get it. This is
the kind of job I like—smack of Gretna Green about
it, don’t you know. Young lady of age? ’
‘ I’m sure I don’t know. Suppose we assume it.‘
‘ Parents living? ’
‘ No—both dead.’
' That’s better—from this particular point of view,
I mean. They’re particular on the French side as to
parents’ consent, you know.’
We ran down to Southampton on the Tuesday
afternoon and found the preparations on the Clutha
approaching completion.
Dayrell was delighted with the look of her. ' She's
a beauty and no mistake,’ he said. ‘ Say, Lamont, she
makes me wish I was going along with you afterwards.’
‘ And what about the anxious clients cooling their
heels in Lincoln's Inn Fields?’ I said.
‘ Oh, hang the clients! It’d give them time to think
better of it and not make fools of themselves.’
We made an early start and a quick run across,
and by eight o'clock in the evening were lying at
anchor outside the mole of St Malo.
‘I.et’s go ashore at once, I want to hunt up a
notary,’ said Dayrell; ‘I want him to write to-night
to the Mother Superior making an appointment for
Mademoiselle des Comptes for to-morrow morning.
I’ll fix the time as soon as I can get hold of a time-
table and find out when there’s no train back from
Combourg to this place.’ -
We went straight to the offices of the South-
I


14-6 OUR LADY OF DELIVERANGE
Western Railway Company, and Dayrell, putting on
his most impressive legal manner, inquired the name
of the leading notary in the town. .
The clerk mentioned several.
‘ Do any of them speak English, I wonder? ’ said
Dayrell. ‘ This is a matter of some importance and
I can’t afford to have any misunderstandings.’
‘ M. Lance speaks English well. He doesn’t perhaps
stand quite so high as M. Lecompte, but M. Lecompte
unfortunately neither speaks nor writes English.’
“Thanks. M. Lenoé is evidently the man, but I
may as well have both addresses in case one of them
should not be available.’ And he went straight to
M. Lecompte.
He was elderly, extremely polished in his manners,
and—he didn't understand a word of English.
Dayrell clothed himself in impressiveness and legal-
ities. He spoke French admirably, and explained what
we wanted clearly and distinctly, and the old gentle-
man took the job in hand with extreme willingness.
‘ Mademoiselle des Comptes,’ said Dayrell, ‘ who is
at present, we are informed, staying with Madame the
Duchesse de St Ouen,‘ the Mother Superior of the Con-
vent of the Sacred Heart at Combourg, is, as monsieur
is doubtless aware, of English extraction on her
mother’s side. These documents ’———he flourished his
roll of parchments, which looked extremely formid-
able, with black-letter inscriptions bristling up amid
the neatly-engrOssed text, and massive red seals dang-
ling by green ribbons——‘ these documents are of
extreme importance and have to he'signed by Made-
moiselle in person in the presence of a notary of
standing.’ M. Lecompte bowed. ‘The matter is
somewhat urgent, and expense is no object. If, there-
fore, M. Lecompte, you can make it convenient to
come over to Combourg with me to-morrow morning,
I would ask you to write at once to Madame the
Duchesse requesting her to permit you to meet Made-


148 OUR LADY OF DELIVERANCE
\
, ‘ We will hire a carriage and pair in the morning,’
he said. ‘Will you drive yourself?’
‘Certainly. I ,can manage that all right.
about finding the way?’
‘ Start about eleven and you will have heaps of time
and can inquire all you want, and give the horses a
good rest at the other end. I shall of course come back
with you. We must get on board at once and scoot.
As soon as they tumble to it and recover their wits
they will no doubt set the telegraph to work and be
on the lookout for us. Where will your boat meet us? ’
‘Up near the station, I thought. I’m told there is
a good livery stable in St Servan.’
‘ We’ll try it. You’ve got the young lady's rig-out
and picked your man? ’
‘ Didn’t you notice him on board? I had him en-
gaged on purpose.’ '
‘ That slim, smooth-faced young fellow with brown
hair. I remember him. Well, it’ll be touch and go,
and there must be no hitches.’
‘If Mademoiselle comes to the inn she shall never
go back to the convent, if I have to tie them all to
tables and chairs while I walk away with her.’
‘ I will settle with the old gentleman as we go down,’
said Dayrell, 'and I’ll make the fee so big that he
won’t feel hurt whatever happens. He’ll have no
difficulty in proving that he knew nothing about it.
Lyle will be ready to upsteam and off the moment we
get on board, of course.’ ‘
How
‘ He’ll be ready, and I’ll bless the moment Mademoi- ,
selle‘sets foot on the Clutha.’
And so our plans were complete, and as I leaned
over, the rail of the yacht before turning in and
watched the lights ashore winking themselves out
one by one, it seemed to me almost too good to
believe that before these lights shone out again, if
all went well, Mademoiselle—Denisehthe sweetest
and most beautiful girl in the whole wide world,


OUR LADY OF DELIVERANCE 149
would be there by my side, never to leave it again so .
long as life lasted. The thought was a very pleasant
one, and I kept it company till there were no lights
left but the steady official ones along the quay, and
the dimmer ones that swung uneasily at the mast
heads in the harbour, and then at last I went below
to continue my dreams and long for the hour when I
could be up and doing.
I had had the portrait of ‘ Mdlle. X.’ framed during
my short stay in town, and it hung now in the saloon,
and as I went down I stood long before it, glorying in
the straight shy glance of the steadfast eyes, and l
vowed by all that I held most sacred—and that was my
love for my love—that never from word or thought
or deed should she have cause to rue the day she
placed her faith in me and her hand in mine.
CHAPTER XX
A SAILOR-BOY in LOVE was sue
Mr first visit next morning was to the telegraph
ofiice, where I sent this message to Prudent Vaurel,
Chateau des Comptes, Cour-des-Comptes: ‘Sunday
morning—six o’clock.’ As arranged between us he
would understand that by that time I should be off the
mouth of the river awaiting him and his prisoner.
As a matter of fact I expected to be there by six
o’clock on Saturday afternoon, but it seemed to me
better that he should travel by night as being less
exposed to inquisition, and in any case it would not_
do for him to be awaiting us, whereas we could wait
for him without inconvenience.
Then to the St Servan stables, where, by leaving a
substantial deposit, I was able to secure a light coupé


150 OUR LADY OF DELIVERANCE
and a pair of decent horses, and eleven o’clock found
me jogging gently Combourg-wards, with Jim Barrett,
the slim, smooth-faced young sailor by my side on the
box, and nothing inside but a tightly-strapped plaid.
Jim was dressed in his best Sunday pilot-cloth
jacket, and a yachting stocking-cap on his brown head.
He considered the stocking-cap quite out of place with
the pilot-cloth jacket, and had wanted to wear his
reefer with the yacht’s name on it, and could not
understand why I had insisted on his changing it. I
now proceeded to enlighten him, and from the way
he chuckled and slapped his knee I gathered that be
greatly enjoyed the matter we were engaged upon.
We had no difficulty in keeping the Combourg road,
and we arrived at a little wayside inn about a mile from
that centre of the world shortly before one o’clock.
They had not much accommodation, but I had the
horses taken out and rubbed down, and gave them
the best feed the place afforded. Then leaving word
that we were going for a stroll and would want to
start again in about an hour, Jim picked up that
precious plaid and we started for the village, and as
we drew near the inn my heart beat high, for there
our venture was to be put to the test. ‘
Dayrell had undertaken to keep M. Lecompte busy
in any room they were able to procure, so I walked
boldly in and asked the white-capped old landlady for
a bedroom for the night.
She threw up her hands and doubted if it were
possible. '
‘ There are two gentlemen in my only room now,
but I do not think they stop the night,’ she said. ’ Stay.
I will ask them,’ and she bustled away upstairs and
came down presently. ‘That is all right,’ she said;
‘they do not stop, so monsieur can have that room
when they are done with it.’
‘Goodl I’ll pay you for it at once. But mean-
while I want to wash my hands somewhere and to


OUR LADY OF DELIVERANCE 151
leave this package. Haven’t you another room I
could use for a short time?’
‘ But certainly, monsieur,’ said the old lady, beam-
ing all over at the chink of the coins in her hand.
‘ Will monsieur give himself the trouble to come this
way and he can use my own room till the other is at
his disposal,’ and she led'me upstairs to a room along-
side the one in which Dayrell and M. Lecompte were
aWaiting Mademoiselle. I could hear their voices
through the wall. Barrett carried up the strapped
plaid and madame fussed about and switched things
under the bed.
‘Monsieur will excuse,’ she said with an ancient
iggle, ‘ I did not expect company in my room. But
t ere is water. I will get a clean towel.’
Then she left us alone, and as soon as her back
was turned Barrett slipped quietly out of the house
and took the road back to the place where we had
left the carriage.
He had not been gone five minutes when a rustling
down below, which presently came upstairs in the
wake of the landlady, told me that Mademoiselle and
a bodyguard of sisters had arrived, and that the crucial
moment was at hand.
Their dresses swished against the door behind which
I stood, and then I heard the scraping of chairs and
the murmur of greetings in the next room. I had
opened the plaid and laid out its contents on the bed
-—a natty new pair of wide sailor trousers with a leather
belt, gauged to the best of my powers, a pilot-cloth
jacket, a blue silk necktie, and a stocking-cap—all
just like Jim Barrett’s, and now I' stood waiting with
my heart going like a ship’s pump]
Presently I heard voices in the passage. I opened the
door and Denise was in my arms, between laughing and
crying, and all a-quiver with suppressed excitement.
I kissed her once. I could not help it, and» it only
took a second of our precious time.


" “RI
152 OUR LADY OF DELIVERANCE
‘Now, dearest,’ I whispered hurriedly, ‘dreSs in
those sailor things as quickly as you can ’-—and she
flamed red at the words—‘ bundle up such of your
own things as you wish to take, in the plaid—any-
thing you don’t need fling under the bed—leave no
visible signs of your transformation. I shall be wait-
ing outside the door. Be as quick as you can.’
I joined Dayrell outside. Outwardly he was as
cool as a fish, but his eyes were dancing and his faice
was alight with smiles.
‘ We win this hand, my boy,’ he said, ‘ and by Gadl
she’s worth winning. I congratulate you, my son.’
‘ How did you manage to get her away from her
keepers? ’
‘ I begged their permission for five minutes’ private
conversation with Mademoiselle as her'legal adviser.
One of them, a sour-faced old hen with a moustache,
was for coming with us, but I headed her off, and at
the present moment they’re admiring the legal docu-
ment with its black lettering and big seals. They look
on it as a second cousin to an illuminated missal, I
think. I shall go in presently to say that Mademoi-
selle felt faint and the landlady is attending to her.
Then I shall come out again to see how she is getting
on and shall do a sprint along the road after you.
It’s straight along that way, I suppose? '
‘ Straight as you can go,’ I said.
The door opened, and the loveliest red face this
world has ever seen peeped timidly out and drew back
quickly at sight of Dayrell. He put his finger to his
lip and went into the other room. Denise came out
with the hastily-bundled plaid in her shaking hands.
‘ I could not fasten it,’ she whispered, and her eyes
for once would not look at me.
I hurriedly fastened the straps and we went down
the stairs. Some men drinking in a side room looked
at us as we passed, and we were in the road.
‘ Dieu de Dieul' said an old crone at the corner,


OUR LADY OF DELIVERANCE 153
' another sailor-man. The place is full of sailor-men
to-day.’
We walked rapidly, and my companion showed a
desire to keep behind me. It was not till we got out
of the village that I really dared to look at her. Then
I took her hand and slipped it through my arm, and
we went on more rapidly still. '
‘Was all this necessary?’ she whispered, with a
mingling of remonstrance and laughter in her voice.
‘It was, dearest. They may wire to St Malo to be
on the look'ou_t for the loveliest—’
She pinched my arm.
‘ Oh, somebody is coming after us,’ she cried
suddenly, as quick feet came along the road.
‘It’s all right. That’s friend Dayrell. I couldn’t
have managed it alone. He’s a capital fellow. There’s
the carriage just ahead. Now we’re all right,’ and as
Dayrell tumbled in I whipped up the horses, and we
started for St Malo and the new life.
‘ Famously done,’ said Dayrell, as soon as he could
speak; ‘ I'd give any money to see that old lady’s face
with the moustache when she finds the bird flown.
Here, Lamont, get down and let me drive.’
The change was to our liking and was rapidly made.
Dayrell handled the horses well and we went along
at a spanking pace, and never in my life had 1 en-
joyed a drive so much.
I drew the carriage rug well up round us and held
the throbbing'little fingers tight in mine below it.
The colour deepened in the lovely face every time I
ventured to look at it, but her eyes for the most part
avoided mine and sought the travelling landscape out-
side. And, though I was loth to cause her any dis-
comfort, it was almost impossible for me to keep, my
eyes off her. Lovely as she always was, there was now,
by reason of the strangeness of her circumstances, an
added piquancy which doubled all her charms. It
was as much as I could do to keep from gathering


154 OUR- LADY OF DELIVERANCE
her into my arms and smothering her with kisses.
But the sight of a well-dressed man in a carriage on
the public highway smothering a handsome sailor-boy
with kisses might have been too much even for the
phlegmatic natives of Ille-et-Vilaine. So I had to
content my hungry soul with such small crumbs of
comfort as could be derived from gently-reciprocated
,squeezings of the little fingers under the rug, and from
occasional hasty glances at the blushing face by my
side. A delightful drive, but it had to come to an end.
The grey cathedral spire and the battlerhented walls
rose in front and we 'drew near to the straggling
houses of St Servan. The octroi was passed without
exciting any undue suspicions of concealed eggs or
surreptitious pats of butter, and we were clattering
through the stony streets. As we opened the harbour
and turned in the direction of the livery stables,
Barrett leaped down to go in search of the boat, and I
noticed the quick, eager glance he stole at my com-
panion, and the alacrity with which he went off to find
his fellows and give them the points of the story.
We descended quietly at the stables, paid the bill
and collected the deposit, praised the horses, and said
what a quaint. old town Dol was, and then walked
along the front till we spied sailor Jim standing on
the lookout for -us. The yacht’s boat was lying there
between two smacks, and all the men’s eyes were
round with enjoyment of the situation as the new
hand stepped daintily aboard, displaying the nattiest
of little shoes as she did so, and I am quite sure
Mademoiselle’s first impression of that boat’s crew
was that they were the jolliest and merriest set of
men she had ever set eyes on.
As soon as we had taken our seats Jim shoved her
off and sat himself down in the well astern, and we
went skimming down the inner harbour between the
smacks and coasters, and past the rolling bridge, and
round the end of the mole, and so at last to the


156 OUR LADY OF DELIVERANCE
it was herself that they were cheering, she waved the
stocking-cap with a charming gesture of camaraderie
by way of thanks, and the cheers broke out again and
again. Then she caught sight of us astern and came
along to meet us.
‘ Why are they so pleased? ’ she asked naively.
“English sailors are great admirers of pluck and
beauty,’ I said, ‘ and they wanted to tell you how glad
they all are that you got through all right. Now,
Denise, let me formally introduce you to Mr George
Dayrcll of Lincoln’s Inn Fields. You have met before.’
‘ Under different circumstances,’ said Dayrell, with
his pleasant smile. ' Permit me to add my congratu-
lations to those of our friends forward, Mademoiselle.
Our journey so far has been most auspicious. But I
cannot help my thoughts wandering back at times
to your gloomy-faced friend with the moustache. I
wonder how she is faring?‘
‘ Poor Sister Cécilel ’ said Denise, demurely; ’I am
afraid she will undergo penances of the severest, but
it really was not her fault.’
‘ No, the fault was entirely yours,’ I said, .‘ and you
are beyond the reach of penances.’
‘ Entirely mine?’ she said; ‘ and what about your
share, messieurs? ’
‘ Oh, we were only there to assist—and admire the
performance,’ laughed Dayrell, and Denise blushed
rosy red.
Here Lyle came down from the bridge, as we were
now outside the cordon of reefs and islets, and was
introduced to his fair passenger, and added his con~
gratulations in good broad Scotch and his tribute of
admiration in eloquent silence.
After dinner Denise paced the deck with her arm
pressing close in mine till the hours grew old. The
stars winked encouragingly and the friendly darkness
enfolded us. There was nothing to disturb us but the
pounding of the waves against the sides of the gallant


OUR LADY OF DELIVERANCE 157
little/ship and the humming of the rising wind in the
rigging up above, and, with the hunger of a starving
man, i endeavoured to make up for the lost oppor-
tunities in the matter of wooing which force of cir-
cumstances had-defrauded me of. But we did not
speak much. We were together and that was enough.
‘ Content, Denise?’ I whispered once.
She pressed my arm responsively.
‘Very happy,’ she said, ‘but never content till
Gaston is free and cleared of all reproach.’
‘ That comes next—after to-morrow,’ l whispered,
and I knew that the rosy colour was in her face again,
although I could not see it in the darkness.
That long, delightful stroll together on the deck of
the Clutha as she swung through the night towards
heaven will never be forgotten by either of us. It
atoned in a measure for the missing past, and every
turn of the screw brought us nearer to the wonderf 11
future. And when at last we _went down and were
parting for the night, my pent-up passion broke
bounds and I covered her face with kisses, until she
pressed her rosy palms on my lips and broke away
and ran into her room.
CHAPTER XXI
AN UNEXPECTED ’DIVERSION
WHEN I went below with Denise the Corbiere light
was winking out its congratulations and good wishes
to us, and before I reached the deck again the schooner
was beginning to feel the want of the protecting
Jersey coast.
As 1 mounted the companion Lyle was coming down.
_ ‘ Oilskins,’ he said, “we’re going to have a tough
hme.’ ‘
‘ Why, 1 saw no signs of it,’ I said.


158, OUR LADY OF DELIVERANCE
At which he smiled, as much as to say, ‘ You-were
much more pleasantly occupied.’
What he didsay was, ‘It’s gone as black as a hat
and the wind rising every minute. We’re only be-
ginning to feel it now we’re past Jersey. I’m going
outside Guernsey; it’s safer,’ and he went on to get
into his foul weather gear.
It was amazing the change a few minutes had made.
The stars were hidden, the wind was blowing in strong
gusts from the north-east, and the schooner’s how was
chopping heavily into the great cross-seas, flinging
them back in cascades of spray which the wind caught
up before they fell and hurled squattering along the
deck.
I did not like the look of things, and blamed myself
for not having noticed the signs, but, as Lyle’s quiet
smile intimated, I had been much too busily occupied.
I waited at the head of the companion till he came
up again. -
‘Couldn’t we get into Guernsey? ’ I shouted into
his ear. ‘I don’t want to expose Mademoiselle to
any more of this than is necessary.’
‘ Too risky,’ he shouted back, ‘ wouldn’t care to try
——safer in the open. She’ll stand anything we’re
likely to get.’
But he referred to his ship, while I'was thinking
only of Mademoiselle. ' ,
The night was growing wilder every minute. One
moment the screw was racing wild and free, and the
next the white caps were seething through the netting
of the stern railings. I would have given a small for-
tune to have had the Clutha safe in St Helier’s or Peter’s
Port, but that was out of the question now, and to re-
turn to St Malo would have its dangers for us apart
from the rocks and islands which encircle it. There
was nothing for it but going ahead, and as a sailor
I appreciated Lyle’s preference for an open sea to at-
tempting unkn'own ports bristling with hidden deaths.


160 OUR LADY OF DELIVERANCE
There was another burly oilskin inside with Lyle,
and it was a pretty tight fit for the three of us and
the wheel.
‘ Hello, Lamont! ’ said Oilskin No. 2, showing
Dayrell's merry face as it turned to me. ’ We thought
you had elected to stop below. VVe’re going to have
a devil of a time of it, old man,’ he added in a tone
of great enjoyment.
‘ We’re having it,’ I said. ' Got any whisky here,
Lyle? That last wave went right through me. I
haven’t got a dry thread anywhere about me.’
’ Left-hand locker,’ he said, never taking his eyes
off the waves ahead, and nursing the ship to the
rapid onslaughts as best he could.
I found a metal flask of whisky in the locker, and
a pull at it did me good.
The motion of the ship was becoming intolerable,
and the thought of our passenger below decided me.
‘ You’d better turn and run for it, Lyle. We can’t
make head against this. It’ll only strain her and
maybe something’ll give, and then there’ll be the
devil to pay.’
‘ Bight,’ he said, ‘I only wanted you to suggest it,’
and the little wheel spun round. The schooner’s head
payed off, she rolled heavily for a moment, and then
the violent. pitching ceased as she flew before the gale
~ and kept ahead of the white-capped racers.
‘ That's better,’ 1 said. ’I daren’t think what
Mademoiselle feels about all this.’
’ was she frightened? ’
‘No, but she's not a sailor-man, you know, and
she’s bound to suffer. Dayrell, you long-legged long-
shoreman, why aren’t you sick? You ought to be.’
'Never been sick in my life,’ he said. ‘This is
immense. I think I shall chuck Lincoln’s Inn and
take to the sea—“ the glorious the ever free "—“ Roll
on, thou deep and dark blue ocean—Bo-o-ollt ”’ he
shouted, sitting down suddenly on the locker as the


OUR LADY OF DELIVERANCE 161
yacht gave a drunken side lurch that made us all
glad of something solid to grip on to.
‘I suppose she’ll stand it all right? ’ I asked Lyle.
' She's all right,’ he said, ‘ but we’ve struck it strong.
There’s evidently been a big gale up in the North Sea,
and it’s coming along this way. We shan’t see South-
ampton to-morrow, I’m thinking.’
‘ We probably wouldn't see it at all if we tried to
make it through this,’ I said.
‘ That’s so. In a case of this kind take the line of least
resistance as you man on the Pall Mall would say.’
There was for me, as evidently also for Dayrell, a
keen enjoyment in the roar, and rush, and the sense
of battle, and for me too it was’a renewal of many
happy memories. It brought back the old life so
vividly that I could almost imagine myself once more
in the wheel-house of the Servia, with dear old Captain
Hains snoozing just below, ready to be up and doing
the moment he was wanted, and the roaring red
funnel while with salt on the weather side right up
to the black rim at the top. .
But my anxious thoughts were never far from the
fair girl down below, and l reproached myself much
that I had not foreseen the possibility of such a thing
as this, and brought along a stewardess for her com-
fort and assistance. But it had seemed so unnecessary
for an eighteen hours' run across the Channel that I
had not given the matter a second thought, and I
feared much that. Denise must be suffering exceedingly
from my lack of foresight.
‘When the murky dawn came at. last, bringing the
tumult of the waters more closely home to us, I
slipped down to my cabin and got into dry things,
and then, with my heart. all a-llutter, l tapped once
more on the door of Denise’s room.
It was only when I had knocked three times that
I heard her plaintive ‘ enfrez,’ so loud was the rush of
the waves alongside and the roar of the gale up above.
1“


162 OUR LADY OF . DELIVERANCE
I turned the handle and stepped reverently into this
holy of holies. ’
She was lying on the bed like a storm-beaten lily,
and I dropped on my knees beside it and put my arm
over her neck and drew the pale, sweet face towards
me, for my heart was very full.
‘Denise, my beloved,’ I said, ‘I am so very sorry
to have brought you into all this.’
‘ You could not know,’ she said. ‘ It has been very
terrible. I thought sometimes we were sinking.’
‘ Oh, there is no fear of that,’ I said heartily.
' Dayrell is absolutely revelling in it up on deck, but
you feel it more cooped up in here. Were you very
sick? ’
‘No, I was hardly sick at all, but I felt as if I
would like to die.’
‘ We won’t talk of dying. It can’t last long, and
you’ll be all right soon.’
‘ When shall we get there? ’
‘ We can’t quite tell. The gale is too strong for us
yet, but it will blow itself out soon. Now I’m going
to get you something to eat and drink.’
She raised a white, protesting hand, but I went out
into the saloon, and first of all I collected all the cush-
ions I could lay hands on, and with them I banked her
up and hedged her round, so that she needed no longer
to be all the time clinging to or fending off the side
of the bunk as the ship rolled from side to side.
‘ That is better,’ she said. ‘ Now I shan’t be afraid
of falling out. I was afraid if I went to sleep I might
be thrown out head first.’
Then I opened a bottle of champagne and poured out
half a tumblerful, and got some dry, hard biscuits and
prevailed on her to take a few sips and nibbles.
‘I will get you some hot coffee soon,’ I said, ‘but
the champagne is a good tonic.’
‘ I think I shall go- to sleep,’ she said, settling down
like a tired child among her cushions and pillows


OUR LADY OF DELIVERANCE 163
, and closing her eyes. I kissed the white forehead,
and the large eyes opened and looked trustfully up at
me, then the lovely face drooped sideways on the
pillow and I saw that she was sleeping.
I stood for a moment looking down at her, the
sweet centre and kernel of all our endeavour, round
whom Lyle, and Dayrell, and I, and the ship, and all
her crew and equipment, were but as an outer husk
of protection, and not to be weighed against a single
hair of her head. Then I went out, proud and grate- ~
in] at a trust so complete, and very humble at thought
of my own unworthiness of it all.
As soon as the steward turned out I got him to make
some coffee and dry t‘oast, but when I took them in to
her she was still sleeping as peacefully as a child, and
I would not disturb her.
I went up on deck and found Dayrell and Lyle still
in the wheel-house, smoking comfortably and swop-
ping experiences.
‘ You here yet, Dayrell? ’ I said. ‘ You’ll be getting
knocked up and then Lincoln’s Inn will blame me.
Hadn’t you better turn in? ’
‘_ Oh, hang Lincoln’s Inn,’ he said. ‘ I tell you I’m
going to turn sailor. Don’t know when I enjoyed
a night so much as last night. It was a little bit of
the real thing.’
‘ Well, there’s no accounting for tastes,’ I said.
‘ Lincoln’s Inn would suit most people better in'
weather like this.’
‘ How is the young lady standing it?’ asked Lyle.
‘ She’s asleep now that I have assured her the ship’s
not going to sink. What are our prospects, captain? ’
‘ \Ve can only go on as we’are going till the gale
breaks. I’ll get up a rag of foresail after breakfast and
save the coal; we’ll. need it all for the run home.’
We were running due south-west, straight out into
the Atlantic. It was the only thing we could do, but
it complicated matters all round.


OUR LADY OF DELIVERANCE 165
this ship while there’s a hangel aboard of her, an’ so
you may sleep easy in your bunks, my lads—that is,
as easy as the little ship’ll let yer, an’ I've no doubt
when Mr Lamont ’ears as how some 0’ them seas got
‘inside an’ damped us all, he tell old Squabbs to
serve out double rations o’ rum, and that’ll make you
warm inside if you’re a bit dampish outside.’
Denise laughed merrily at this oration, and it was
a glad sound to my ears.
‘ Do let them have it, Hugh,’ she said.
‘ Why, certainly. Barnes you’ve missed your voca-
tion, you ought to be in the diplomatic service.’
‘ Thankee, Mr Lamont, sir. It’s main kind 0’ you
to say so, but I’m well enough content to be where I
am, an’ I was brought up truthful an’ honest.’
Dayrell and Lyle did not turn out till dinner-time,
and the gong brought our full muster to table. We
were all delighted at Mademoiselle’s rapid recovery
and did our utmost to prevent the awkwardness of
the situation obtruding themselves upon her.
That she fully sounded them I knew, but I knew
also that her trust in me was perfect, and the knowl~
edge made my heart beat high and strong. She'
showed no slightest sign of embarrassment, and her'
manner was perfectly simple and natural. Her great
concern was about Vaurel, and the impossibility of
our keeping our appointment with him, and that was»
a matter we could not discuss before the others, as
at present they knew nothing about it.
‘Did you‘ give the men their extra allowance? "
asked Denise.
‘In the captain’s absence I asked Squabbs to do
so,’ and I retailed them Barnes’s invocation.
‘ He’s a wily old chap, but a first-rate seaman,’ said
Lyle. ‘ I’ve known him for many years. And I’ve no
doubt they did get a bit damp last night, but I doubt if
he made that speech until he set eyes on Mademoiselle.’
‘ No signs of the gale breaking yet, captain? ’ I asked.


166 OUR LADY OF DELIVERANCE
‘ Not a sign of it. It looks as if it was going to
carry us right across to the West'Indies.’ _
‘ Ciell’ said Denise, looking at me and thinking
of Vaurel.
‘ We’ll hope it won’t be quite as bad as that,’ said
Dayrell. ‘ They’ll be advertising for me and offering
a reward for an absconding solicitor. You couldn’t
put in anywhere where I could send off a wire just
to keep their minds easy, could you, captain?’
‘I’m afraid not, but we’ll turn and go back the
moment things slacken up a bit. It doesn’t sound
like slackening yet, does it? ’ and we all ceased talking
for a moment to listen to the wind howling over the
skylight.
‘ I’ve a case on at the Courts on Monday,’said Dayrell.
‘ You won’t be there,’ said Lyle.
‘ Lamont, my boy, I shall charge you fees on the
higher scale for a seven days’ continuous interview.
-r;-In fact, I’m not at all sure that an indictment wouldn’t
stand against you for kidnapping, with felonious in-
vtent to retard, obstruct and generally defeat the ends
. of justice.’
‘ All right, my boy, I shall send you in a little bill
vfor board, lodging and carriage. But your indict-
ment would not lie. On the contrary, I shall probably
receive the thanks of the Courts for assisting a settle-
, ment by keeping you out of the way.’
‘ It’s an interesting case,’ he said, and he described
it to us very fully and clearly, and made an excellent
-st0ry out of it, and held our attention till it was
ctime for Lyle arid him to go on deck.
‘ Whatever will Vaurel do?’ asked Denise, as soon
as we were alone.
‘I can only hope that when he finds us not there -
he will understand that something has detained us,
and he will probably hang about in the boat for a
time and then make his way home again, and wait
till he hears from us.’


OUR LADY OF DELIVERANCE 169
in spite of my confidence in him I could not help
feeling somewhat anxious. So much might happen—
could hardly help happening, it seemed to nae—and if
any one of the things that persisted in crawling about
my brain did happen, all our plans respecting Gaston
would be knocked on the head, and all our chances
of getting at the truth through Lepard would be gone.
I tried not to worry, saying to myself that Vaurel
would come out top somehow, but the more I tried
not to, the more I’ worried, and I could see that
Denise was greatly troubled about the matter also.
‘ This is Sunday, Hugh, and Prudent is waiting for
us. Whatever will he do? ’ she said, as she joined me
for a walk on deck.
‘ I can only hope he’ll go back home again, dearest,
and wait there till we come. I can see heaps of
difficulties in the way of his doing so. But I think
he’ll manage it somehow.’
‘What is the very soonest we can get there?’ she
asked.
‘It will take us three days good steaming to get
back to Southampton, one day there, and a day and
a half back. That brings us up to about Saturday
mornmg.’ ‘
‘I’m troubled to know what is happening there,’
she said. ‘It may be all right, but it may be all
wrong. If only we knew.’
\
4
a
CHAPTER XXII
A wrrr. on THE ocean wave
Evnnr vestige of the storm had swept out of the
sky before sunset, and the wind died away, thOugh
the sea was still heavy and sulky.


172 OUR LADY OF DELIVERANCE'
’ And there will be women on board? ’
‘ Most likely.’
‘ And they’ll all be laughing at me.’
‘Not a bit of it. You’ll create such a sensation
that they’ll be all jealous, and all the men will be
envying me.’
‘ But I don’t want to create a sensation.’
‘You can’t help it, my dear, unless you hide your
pretty head in a bag.’ ,
‘ How soon will the steamer be up to us?’
‘ We can bring her up in half an hour by slowing
down.’
‘ Give me a little longer and I’ll go down and get
ready,’and with another thoughtful look at the ap-
proaching vessel she went slowly down the companion.
‘ Bend on a signal that we want to speak to them,
Lyle,’ I said. ‘Mademoiselle will be ready in an
hour. And you might tell Barnes to drop the gig
into the water, and let the boat’s crew tog themselves
out in their best. We may as well make as good a
show as we can.’ '
‘Mademoiselle makes no .objections?’ he asked
with a smile.
‘ She sees with me that it is the best thing to be
done, and so she consents. Dayrell, my boy, we shall
miss your cheerful face as much as those troublesome
' clients in Lincoln's Inn must have done. Have you
any packing to do?’
‘ Toothbrush, that’s about all. I’m an ocean tramp.’
‘ You’ll enjoy yourself on that West Indiaman.’
‘ I’ve enjoyed myself here,’ he said heartily. ‘ I’d no
expectation of such a high old time when I left Lon-
don. I only hope there are no rewards out for me.’
‘You search the papers carefully when you get
home. Maybe you’ll have a chance of some good
fat libel suits, then you’ll feel that your time hasn’t
been altogether wasted.’
‘Humphl I'd sooner fight another man’s libel


OUR LADY OF DELIVERANCE. 173
suit than my own any day,’ and he also went down
to make his preparations.
The steamer had acknowledged our signals, and
as she drew nearer we saw her sides lined with ex-
pectant faces, while the officers on the bridge ogled
us with their glasses and tried to make out what
was wrong with us.
While she was still somewhat astern of us I went
downstairs and tapped on Denise’s door. She opened
it at once, and her jewel of a face was all a-sparkle
between tears and laughter. ~
I stepped inside and took the lovely rosy face
between my hands and kissed her fervently.
'May God bless you, dearest,’ I said, and meant it,
with my whole heart and soul. ‘ And now let us go.’
As we came on deck the men gave a ringing cheer,
and when Dayrell, before stepping down into the boat,
handed each man a sovereign, as a wedding present,
he explained, from him to them, they gave him
another cheer for himself, and then as we pushed off
they cheered and cheered again, and waved good luck
with their caps, and we rowed out into the steamer’s
course. And presently she came up like a moving
mountain, all a-bristle with white faces and staring
eyes. and craning necks, and dropped us a rope, and
we drew in to where a gangway, leading up into a dark,
square hole in her side, had been dropped for us.
We were received by an officer who eyed us with
much curiosity. All that he said, however, was,
‘ Captain Rougvie is on the upper deck,’ and led the
way there at once.
We issued from the companion into the midst of a
crowd of passengers with their faces all full of ques-
tions, and Captain Bougvie came forward to meet us.
He was a cheery old Scot, with kindly blue eyes
and a grizzled brown face, and the homely inflections
of his voice as soon as he opened his month were like
music to my ear.


OUR LADY OF DELIVERANCE 175
t
Our not having done so may be upsetting plans on
which very grave consequences depend, and every hour
we are away may make matters worse. If you will do
what we want we shall also ask you to give Mr Dayrell
a passage to London, and then we shall go full steam
for Nantes, and so we can save at least a couple of days.
It is a matter of most extreme urgency. I should pro-
bably not be far wrong in saying it is a matter of life
or death,’ and I saw Dayrell prick up his ears.
‘ Weel, weell ’ said the old man, regarding Denise
with a fatherly eye, ‘ I’ve had bairths on board, and
many a burying, but I never had a marriage. And
it’s your wish young leddy? ’ >
‘ Yes, captain, if you will be so good.’
‘I suppose I have the right?’ he said, turning to
Dayrell. - I
‘Yes, you have the right, captain. And I have
the special license we got for use in Southampton.
But you won’t need that. All you have to do is to
make an entry in your log book and forward a copy
of it to the Board of Trade, and Mr and Mrs Lamont
will be tied up as tight as if the Archbishop of
Canterbury had done it in Westminster Abbey. I’ll
see to all that for you.’ . _
‘Then I’ll do it, Mr Lamont,’ he said, and with a
twinkle of pleasure in his eye, he added, ‘It is na
for your silver bright but for your Winsome Ieddy.
When’ll it be?’ he asked.
‘Just as soon as you-like, captain. We've been
ready these three days past.’
‘ Myl this’ll set the ship agog. We’ve had a pretty
tough time lately, broke a blade off our propeller
two days ago. That’s why we can’t get on any faster.
You won’t mind the ladies coming to the wedding,
miss? ’ he asked anxiously.
‘ Oh, no, I suppose not, captain,’ she said, ‘ but it
will have to be a very quiet wedding, for I haven’t
got any wedding garments, you see.’


OUR LADY OF DELIVERANCE 179
I called Dayrell and presented him in due form.
‘Mais, mon Dieu,’ she said, turning to Denise,
‘ qu’est ce que c’est que ca—linkonsinsfeelsit ’
Denise explained the point to her, and she was
pleased to say that all the aooccts she had met had
been very nice men and very good company.
I told her that Dayrell would remain in the ship
when we went away, and she said, ‘ Ah, zat is good.
I am glad. I am tired of my hussband—tiensl’,
tapping Denise merrily on the arm, ‘ I should not said
zat to you ma petite. All same, we shall be goot
friends. Mistaire Day~rel-Linkonsinsfeels. You will
amuse me, is it not so? ’
‘ I shall be delighted,’ said Dayrell, and he evidently
looked upon himself as in for an unusually good
time, and I hoped he would not get into any mischief.
' Ah, lonchl ’ cried the sefiora, as the gong rang
through the ship, ' we will go togezzer, ma che’rie,
and afterwards we will see,’ and she nodded her
smart little head many times very knowingly.
The time came round at last when I stood in the
saloon, with Dayrell and Lyle by my side as best men,
awaiting my bride. '
The passengers clustered thick along the side seats,
and the doorways were blocked with stewards and
stewardesses and surreptitious passengers from the
other end of the ship, all wide-eyed and expectant.
Captain Rougvie stood in the space between the two
centre tables before an improvised reading desk, over
which were draped the Union Jack and the French
tricolour. He looked distinctly nervous, and, when
he wasn’t looking anxiously towards the door of the
saloon, he was glancing over the words of the mar-
riage service so that they should run free and smooth
when the time came, for, as he explained again after-
wards, he had never had occasion to use it before,
and it was not at all familiar to him. And, indeed,
I may say that when the time did come he boggled


OUR LADY OF DELIVERANCE 181
added to her height, and billowing lace which
enveloped her like a halo from head to foot, and bid
and heightened all herbeauty. A tiny spray of
orange blossom gathered the lace on the shining coils
of her hair and added the one touch of colour—until
she drew near and raised her eyes to mine, and then,
through the dimness of my own full eyes, I looked
into hers, my love, my bride, and all the glories of
heaven shone upon me.
I remember that I almost feared to take her hand;
there was a sense of sacrilege in it,,till she put it
trustfully into mine, and we stood before the captain,
who was almost as much taken aback as I was at this
transformation scene. _
The sefiora, I believe, stood behind us, mothering
the bride, and coruscating with delight like a pin-
wheel, I am sure, for that state lasted in her all the
rest of the day. _
But I did not see her then, nor anyone at all but
Denise, .and the honest, grizzled face of Captain
“Rougvie, and l have little recollection of the service,
but I have George Dayrell’s word for it that everything
was done correctly and in order, and that we were
tied as tight,,as he said, as the Archbishop himself
could have done it in Westminster Abbey.
Senora Fireworks behind had held herself in dur-
ing the ceremony with difficulty, and when it was
finished, and Captain Rougvie, beaming a speechless
benediction, had shaken us both very heartily by the
hand, and after the manners and customs of his
country had given Denise a very hearty kiss which
took her very much by surprise, we none of us knew
exactly what to do next, for the position was unique
for most of us. Dayrell indeed looked as if he knew
what he would like to do; and the seiiora looked as
though she feared the epidemic might spread her
way, and so she solved the difficulty by going OH
with a whizz and a bang. '


OUR LADY OF DELIVERANCE 183
Then at last the dinner gong rang out a new
triumphant note and summoned us to the wedding
feast. And it was a feast indeed, with a most miracu-
lously-compounded wedding-cake which did the cook
infinite credit, and he watched our appreciation of it
from one of the doorways and retired satisfied with
himself and with his handiwork and with-us.
And so the merry feast progressed, with much
popping of corks and much laughter, and finall
with one or two brief speeches. '
Captain Rougvie’s was a model. ‘ Ladies and
gentlemen,’ he said, ‘I’ve buried lots of folks, but v
this is the firstvtime I ever married anyone, and I am
bound to say I like it better than the buryings. If
any of the rest of you feel that way inclined I’m the
man for you. I will ask you all to fill your glasses
and drink to the health of the bride and bridegroom,
and we’ll wish them all good luck and happiness.’
Somewhat similar doings On a smaller scale were
toward in the fore-cabin and in the men’s quarters,
and the whole ship held high festival. I suspected
Dayrell’s open hand in these matters, for he had been
going about with a knowing look on his face, and I
had caught him openly conspiring with the chief
of the butlers and the chief of the bakers—the head
steward and the head cook-and he was slightly
‘ raised ' at the thought of travelling for three days in
company with the Senora del Caltera, upon whom
he evidently thought he had made an impression.
When our own feast was about drawing to a close
the head steward came along to the captain and
whispered in his ear, and the captain nodded and
smiled, and whispered in my wife’s ear, and then
between, them they cut up two great platefuls of the
wedding-cake, and he offered her his arm and led her
proudly out of the saloon and into the fore-cabin,
and everyone there, down to the very smallest, had
a piece of cakevand another good look at the sweetest


184 OUR LADY OF DELIVERANCE

face they had ever seen. And then up on deck, where
every Jack who wanted a piece of wedding-cake came
up and took it off the plate where she held it, and
they peeped shyly at her again as they did it, and
touched their forelocks, and some of them said ‘ God
‘ bless you, miss,’ and most of them bolted their hits
of cake as if they were pills, and then replaced their
quids, but. some of the younger men carried them
away carefully in their hands.
Then the ship’s band played under the awning, not
altogether untunefully, and what they lacked in skill
they made up for in good-will, and some of the ladies
danced, with the officers and the Spaniards and some
of the planters and government men as partners.
And presently Denise and the seiiora slipped away,
and when my dear one came back dressed in her
own things and the reefer coat and stocking-cap, I
knew it was time to go.
But getting away was no easy matter, for everyone
wanted to shake us by the hand and wish us good
luck, and Captain Rougvie vowed that the obligation
was all on his side and that he had never enjoyed
himself so much, and George Dayrell gave us his
blessing with paternal unetion, and Senora def Caltera
positively shed tears as she kissed Denise many times
on both cheeks, and made her promise to call on her
if ever she came to Madrid. And so at last the liner’s
syren bellowed to the yacht to stop for us, and the
yacht replied with a shrill squeak, and we found
ourselves dancing on the glinting dark water, With
leviathan towering above and watching our passage
with its rows of gleaming eyes.
A squeak from the yacht told them we had arrived,
and then boom! went the liner’s signalgun, and a
flight of rockets brought us more good wishes.
Then the big ship bellowed Goo-oo-oo-d-bye! Goo-oo-
oofoo-oo-d-byel ’ till she seemed to be in mortal agony
and the very stars seemed to shudder at the sound,


OUR LADY OF DELIVERANCE 185
and our shrill pipe, which must have sounded to them
like a small boy blowing into a key, squeakcd back
, ‘Thanksl thanks! thanks! thanks! thanks! ’
Then we turned our prow to the west and put on
steam, and the long line of lights grew smaller and
smaller, and became a yellow blur, and passed out of -
sight, and Denise and I stood watching them and
our hearts were too full for speech.
CHAPTER XXIII
HOW WE SHIPPED THE n15er
I HAD now to explain my further plans to Andrew
Lyle. Our first kidnapping venture had been entirely
successful. The next Was of a different kind, and
might possibly entail pains and penalties, the extent
of which I could not gauge, as I had not cared to
enter into the matter with Dayrell at all. True, the
colonel was a murderer and worse; for I count the
man who conspires to ruin another’s reputation, and
condemns him to a life-longr agony, worse by far than
he who strikes down his victim and ends him. But
even a murderer has his rights, and we had deprived
him of those rights, and intended still to do so, in
order to serve our own private ends. And although
those ends might be for the righting of a great wrong
we were doing an absolutely illegal thing, and we
were doing it with our eyes wide open.
When the table was cleared next morning, I asked
Lyle to come back after he had been up on deck to cast
his eye around, then I dismissed the steward and told
the captain the whole story, so far as it was known
to us. .
He was immensely interested, and upheld our
position entirely.


186 OUR LADY OF DELIVERANCE

‘The man deserves no mercy, Mr Lamont,’ he
said warmly, ‘ and if I can help you wring the
truth out of him I’m entirely at your service.’
‘Where can we stow him? ' I don’t want him
anywhere here.’
‘ I’ll see to that. He can have the engineer’s cabin.
Macpherson won’t mind bunking forward under the
circumstances. And when we’ve got him safe aboard
where do you think of taking 'him to, Mr Lamont?’
he asked.
‘Well, I’m not quite decided. It really matters
very little so long as we hold him without any risk
of interference from the outside.’
I caught Denise’s eyes fixed upon me with a strange
wistful look in them.
"Your wish is granted, dearest, whatever it is,’ I
said, laying my hand on her slim white one with its
new broad gold band which I had bought in London
and which fitted marvellously.
‘ Could we—oh, could we,’ she said, with a catch
in her voice, ‘ could we go to New Caledonia?’
‘ We can go anywhere where there is .water to float
us,’ said Lyle, stoutly.
‘ Then to New Caledonia we will go,’ I said, and
the diamond drops sparkled in my sweet wife’s eyes
once more.
‘When Gaston is free and cleared of all stain, I
shall have nothing left to wish for,’ she said.
‘Truth will out, Mrs Lamont,’ said the captain,
vehemently. ‘It never can be bid in this world, at
least,’ he added cautiously, ‘not often. And we’ll.
have it out of this man if we have to— Well, anyhow,
we’ll get it,’ he concluded, with a clenching of the
strong brown hand on the table.
But my wife’s heart and my own were heavy with
anxiety as to what might have happened at Cour-
des-Comptes or elsewhere, through our failure to be
at the appointed place at the appointed time.


OUR LADY OF DELIVERANCE 187
It was mid-day on Thursday when Croisic Point
hove in sight, and an hour later the Clutha was
moored alongside the coaling-shed at St Nazaire with
orders to cram in every pound that could be got into
her bunkers, in as short a time as- possible, and Denise
and I were jogging along towards Nantes as fast as
a very slow train could take us.
Denise managed to purchase a flat straw hat in St
Nazaire, and as the air of the land felt mild to our
weather-beaten frames she was able to discard the
reefer jacket also, and in great contentment she de-
clared that she felt clothed like a Christian once more.
We must have been a godsend to the millinery shops
of Nantes that afternoon, and the smiles and salaams
which followed us right out on to the sidewalks testi-
fied to the high appreciation in which we were held.
It did me good to watch the animation which my wife
put into her purchasing, and the masterful way in
which she had the whole of each establishment flying
to her bidding within two minutes of entering its
doors. But the charm of her manner bewitched them
all, and they delighted in trying to please her. She
knew exactly what she wanted, and her taste was never
at fault, and the amount of business and money she
got through in a very short time was, to a plain
sailorman like myself, very surprising. At some of
the shops she peremptorin ordered me to stand out-
side and wait while she dealt with the mysteries
within, and on the first of such occasions I said,—
‘ Poor little Sei'ior Manuel! Now I begin to sympa-
thise with him. I thought at the time he was some-
thing of a muff, but now I perceive he was simply
a newly-married man.’
And Denise laughed merrily. ‘If I had let her
I believe the seiiora would. have given me half her
trousseau, but then I should have missed all the
pleasure of buying my things myself, and besides she
was quite half an inch bigger round the waist than


OUR LADY OF DELIVERANCE 189
I stole close up and smiled, in spite of my anxious
mind, at sight of Hortense, who I could only see in
sections like parts of a child's puzzle, strumming
away, with the painful pertinacity of a beginner, at
‘Partant pour la Syrie.’
The poor old piano jangled and quavered under
the torture, and I pitied it, remembering the slim
white fingers slipping delicately over its yellow keys
the last time I heard it played.
Then I stole away and struck across the grass and
through the dripping woods straight for Vaurel’s
house, and the only sound was the dismal plasliing
of the weir. I struck the path above the house and
stepped cautiously downwards, for the wet leaves on
the wet Sfill were slippery.
The little house was all dark and there was no
sound from it, but my nose caught a faint fragrant
whiff of wood smoke which doubtless the rain bore
down. I turned the corner cautiously, and in an in-
stant, with nothing more than a preliminary snul'lle,
a pair of fiercely-scrabbling paws were clawing their
way up my chest, and a great blunt muzzle was work-
ing with eager snorts to fasten on to my throat.
‘ Boulot! ’ I gasped, and he dropped like a sack and
grovelled abjectly at my feet, too much ashamed of
himself even to greet me.
I bent and patted him and he recuvered sufficiently
to rear himself up against the door to carry the good
news to his master.
‘Holdl’ cried Vaurel from inside, ‘ who is that?’
‘It is I, Vaurel—~Lamont.’
‘Dieu de Dieul’ and I heard the bed creak as he
sprang up. ‘ At lastl- ’
He unholted the door and, as I entered, thrust a
piece of paper among the ashes and lighted a candle.
‘ I began to think you had got drowned, monsieur,
but I am mighty glad to see you.’
‘We got blown out to sea in the gale and only


OUR LADY OF DELIVERANCE 191
and we placed him on the litter. He placed the carpet
bag under his knees, stamped out the handful of
smouldering ashes, and we took up the poles, Vaurel
slinging his in the loops of a rope round his neck,
and we passed out into the night.
He closed and locked the door, and we turned up
the slippery path. _
We had not gone a dozen yards, h0wever, Boulot
sneezing disgustedly at our' heels, and still somewhat
ashamed of himself for making such a mistake, when
a voice just above us in the darkness said, ‘Hold,
messieursl and what have you got there? ’
Lepard came to the ground with a bump as Vaurel
loosed one end of his sling and dashed upwards at
the speaker, and in a moment the two of them were
rolling over and over among the wet leaves and bushes.
‘Tie your handkerchief over his mouth,’ panted
Vaurel.
He was lying on top of the other by this time,
squeezing all the breath he could out of him. I tied
a couple of knots in my handkerchief, and held the
stranger’s wriggling head between my knees, but his
mouth was closed tight and I could not get the gag in.
Vaurel raised himself, and came down on him with a
plump which made him gasp. I slipped the gag in
and tied it tight behind his neck.
‘ Now his feet,’ panted Vaurel.
I got the rope he had been using for the litter, and
tied the man’s feet.
‘ T0 the house,’ said Vaurel, and we each took an
arm and dragged him down the path, his bound heels
making a big furrow in the soft earth.
Vaurel unlocked the door again, sought out some
more rope, and we lashed him up like a mummy, laid
him on the bed and locked him in, and then turned
back up the path to our original enterprise.
‘ What will become of him and who is he? ’ I said,
as we replaced Lepard and the sacks on the litter.


OUR LADY OF DELIVERANCE 193
and in the best of spirits at the prosperous start we
had made. Lepard lay in the bottom of the boat,
carefully covered with the blanket and empty sacks.
Boulot sat on top of the sacks and shivered abjectly
at the proximity of the hated water, and when the
dawn came I saw his eyes rolling in horror to find
how very near it was.
We spoke little on the journey, but one time
Vaurel sprang up with a big oath and a sounding slap
of his hand against his leg.
‘Sapristi, sacristi, sacré nom de chien!’ he said.
’I’ve left the carpet bag behind with all my things,’
and he looked half inclined to get out and go back.
‘Too late now, my friend. Louis Vard will find
them and take care of them, and we’ll buy all you
want at St Nazaire.’
' It was that stupid fool coming and interfering,’ he
said, and relapsed into gloomy silence over his loss.
WVe passed several villages lying back from the river
bank, but they were all fast asleep and no one troubled
us. I took the sculls for the sake of exercise and
warmth, and it was just five o’clock when we caught
the first swell of the sea, and a quarter of an hour
later we were past the outreaching arms of the land,
and the Clutha came stealing round a point to the
south and we headed straight for her.
I
CHAPTER XXIV
oven THE seas
As the blunt nose of our boatmubbed gently up
against the schooner’s shining side the sailors gazed .
down wonderingly at this strange carry-on, and
evidently could make neither head nor tail of it.
The colonel was quickly hoisted in and carried
6


194 OUR LADY OF DELIVERANCE
down to Macpherson’s cabin. He was looking very
much the Worse for wear, and his eyes gleamed
hatred and malice and cursed us with the curses which
he would not allow his lips to utter. But the morning
sun caused them to blink, which somewhat weakened
the effect. Denise had retired to the saloon as soon
as she saw that our voyage had been prosperous, and
there she awaited us. I
The chateau boat was turned adrift and the
schooner's nose pointed out to sea, and then I said'
to Vaurel,—
‘We’ll both be the better of a change of clothes
and something to eat and drink. Come along down
below my friend, and I’ll see how I can fit you out.’
Boulot lumbered down the companion in front of
us," and from his excited snufl'les I knew that he was
paying his respects to Denise.
She stood waiting for us in the saloon and came
forward and kissed me warmly on both cheeks, and
then turned to greet Vaurel with welcoming hands
and her face alight with pleasure at the sight of him.
He stopped short in wide-eyed astonishment.
‘Comment? Ma’m’sellei' ’ he gasped.
‘ But yes, Prudent, it is really me.’
He looked from one to the other of us, not under-
standing.
‘But no longer Ma’m’selle, my friend,’ I said.
‘ Permit me to introduce you to my wife. Madame
Lamont, this is Monsieur Prudent Vaurel, the faith-
fullest and best of friends.’
‘And I knew him before I had ever set eyes on
you, my husband,’ she said merrily, and wrung his
big band in both hers.
‘Mon Dieul mon Dieu!’ he said, still slightly
dazed with surprise. ‘And you never said a word
of it, monsieur. Well, I could not have wished
anything better for Ma’m’selle. He is a true man,
Ma’m’selle, and a brave one.’


OUR LADY OF DELIVERANCE 197
scull a bit, but it was mostly towing, and it took me
. till the next night to get in sight of the chateau again. '
Then Thad to hide the boat and leave Boulot in charge
while I got Louis Vard to help. I lay in waitfor him
as he came home from the station, and'we carried
the colonel up to my house. Voild tout! Dieu dc
Dieu, Ma’m’sellel Madame, I mean,’ he broke out
again, beaming all over his face, ‘ but it does my eyes
good to see you looking so well and happy.’
‘ There is only one thing I want, Prudent, to make
me perfectly happy, and that is—’
‘Monsieur Gaston,’ he broke in, and you shall
have him, Ma’m’selle. You shall have him back as
sure as I sit here.’
We put in to St Nazaire as being the safer place from
which to telegraph to Louis Vard, but only stopped
there long enough for Vaurel and myself to go ashore
and send off the telegram, and buy such things as .
Vaurel needed, and then we turned the Clutha's nose
to the west and felt our voyage fairly begun.
During the morning I paid a visit to the colonel.
He had been freed from his bonds and was lying in
his bunk, very unhappy at the motion of the vessel,
for we were crossing the Bay of Biscay, and the
Clutha was showing us what she could do under the
circumstances.
"Colonel Lepard,’ I said, ‘I have come to offer you
one last chance. We are bound for New Caledonia to
procure the release of Gaston des Comptes. There is
still time for you to put us in possession of all the
facts of the case. If you do so, I will put you ashore
—as soon as I have found them correct—in Spain or
England or on the African coast. If you won’t speak
you go with us and we shall deal with you as seems
best to us.’
I waited, but he would not speak. His back was
towards me and I saw him shudder as the yacht
gave a sickening roll.


OUR LADY OF DELIVERANCE 199
many days to overcome his shyness at associating so
intimately with the lady of the chateau, but this wore
off by degrees before ‘ Ma’m’selle’s ’ grateful apprecia-
tion of all he had done for her and her house, and he
settled down to the position of cabin passenger with
considerable enjoyment.
Each day I visited the colonel, but never once got a
word from him. Even when he thought he was at the
point of death from sea sickness the black jaw bristled
with defiance, and the heavy shoulders humped them-
selves sulkily against me. And I must confess that
as the days passed I came to have something akin to
a lurking admiration for this dogged steadfastness of
purpose which kept the door tight locked upon him
when a dozen words would have set him free. I
wished most devoutly that his stubborn pride woull
give way and let him speak, so that we might release
him to dree his weird as Providence might permit, for
his being there was as bad as having a corpse on
board, and our thoughts could never get far away
from him. The close confinement on shore and his
sufferings at sea had told on him strongly, but he
showed a spirit worthy of a better man and a better
cause. .
At first the discussions of the men as to who the
colonel was and why he was thus kept prisoner were
endless, and it seemed to me advisable at last to put a
stop to all the talk by telling them the simple truth.
I'was pacing the deck one night after Denise had
gone to bed, when, as I passed the forward companion
which led to the men’s quarters, a lively disputation
on the subject of the colonel caught my ear.
‘ He’s the gal’s father, I tell you,’ said one gruff voice,
‘ an’ he wouldn’ say yes, so they’ve tuk him along.’
‘ Her husband, mayhe,’ suggested another.
‘Not a bit of it,’ said the first. ‘ Mr Lamont’s a
gentleman and he don’t run away with no other man’s
wife, you bet. Why, it was him as got all that money


OUR LADY OF DELIVERANCE 201
‘ Silly—the gal’s French, ain’t she? And she
couldn't git married proper unless her father said
yes, and so they’re hold’n ’im tight till he says it,
then off he goes and mercy bang and au revore.’ '
‘ Ah, I thought as how they weren’t married
proper,’ said the former doubting Thomas.
‘ Well, they will be soon as the .old man siys the
word, and anyhow it’s his fault, not theirs.’
‘ What I says,’ said another, ‘ is—has the c p’n of
a ship the right to marry people right?’
‘ Better arsk ’im next time you're on one.’
‘ Course he has,’ said Jim. ‘ He’s the right to string
you up, hasn’t he? and he's the right to bury you,
hasn’t be? Well, then, it stands to reason he’s the
right to marry you too if he wants to.’
‘I d’n know,’ said persevering Thomas; ‘ stringin’
up and buryin’ of a man, why, that makes an end of
’im, but marryin' of a man’s diff’rent and may lead
to consekences—’
‘There’s many a man'd ha bin glad if he’d bin
strung up and buried aforc he got married,’ growled
another, who had evidently had experiences.
Next day I caught our young friend Barrett alone,
and asked him, ‘What do the men think of our
friend down below, Jim?’
‘Who’s that, sir? ’ he asked, colouring up.
The Frenchman we keep locked up in Mr Mac-
pherson’s cabin.’
‘ Aw, um, well, sir,’ he said, shuffling about un-
easily, ‘they do say he’s Mrs Lamont’s father.’
‘ Dear me! and why do they suppose we treat him
in that way? ’
‘ Well, sir,’ and he looked round both sides of me,
but I stood square in front and left him no means of
escape, ‘they do say, sir, that the old gentleman
won’t say yes to your marryin’ the young lady, and
you're a-going to keep him tight till he does.’
I laughed out, which disconcerted him greatly.


202 OUR LADY OF DELIVERANCE
-“
‘ Well now, Jim, I’m going to tell you the actual
facts. It’s no good having a mystery when there’s no
need for it. The man down below is a French officer.
By fraud and trickery he caused Mrs Lamont’s only
brother to be transported to New Caledonia for treason
and betrayal of War Office secrets. We know the
facts, but cannot get hold of the proofs except through
this man. Each day I,have offered him his liberty
if he will tell what he knows, but so far he will not
speak. Until he does I hold him prisoner.’
‘ I’d jolly well screw his damned neck round,
beggin’ your pardon, sir.’ '
‘I feel like that often enough, Jim. But you see
I want him _to speak, and if his neck was screwed
round he couldn’t speak.’
‘ That’s so, sir. And may I tell the rest all about
it, sir? They do talk now and again, and it puzzles
’em more’n a bit.’
‘ Yes, tell them by all means.’
I would have liked very much to hear Jim’s dis-
course that night, but that could not be, and Iahad
to leave our characters in his hands, believing that
he would do us full justice. I
The days passed pleasantly and restfully, for us, at
all events, who were free to revel in the fresh salt air
and the glorious sunshine. For the prisoner below
they must have been infinitely long and wearisome.
Never surely was there sweeter companion than
Denise, my wife. Each day discovered fresh charms
in her, new and delightful lights in her character,
and depths of tenderness of sincerity which made me
bless, again and again, the day on which I walked
into the Salon and fell over head and ears in love
with her portrait.
Now that we were reallyon our way to Gaston,
whatever the issue of our adventure might be, her
spirits were of the brightest, and her own vivid en-
joyment of life irradiated a new joy of living on all
- i-I'


204 OUR LADY OF DELIVERANCE


pherson’s cabin, and him I had come to look upon
no longer as a man but as a dumb devil.
Soon after leaving the Cape Verde Islands we had
to take to steam again. We made a most prosperous
and enjoyable run across the Atlantic and struck the
Brazilian coast just twelve days later, and then jogged
quietly along, from Pernambuco to Bahia, from Bahia
to Rio, from Rio to Buenos Ayres, encountering
nothing but good weather till we came t0‘round Cape
Horn, and there we got it stiff and strong and bitterly
cold, with mist and snow and blinding storms of
sleet and rain.
However, we set our teeth to it, and groped and
fought night and day, till at last we won through to
the softer weather of the Pacific, and rejoiced once
more in an even keel and the comfort of the sunshine.
We ran up the coast to Valparaiso, crammed our
bunkers with every ounce of coal they could carry,
and set off, under sail again, in the best of spirits
for our eight thousand miles’ flight across the great
waste of waters to the lovely further islands.
And all things prospered with us, and the men said
. it was because of the beauty and sweetness of the lady
of the ship, and Denise was as happy as the days were
long—~~wanting only one thing, and that we were
striving to attain as fast as the winds would carry us.
For both she and Vaurel were buoyed up with the
sure and certain belief that our arrival in Noumea
would, in some way or other, accomplish the release
of Gaston, though how this was to be brought about
they could neither of them say. Vaurel went even
further, in moments of extreme exuberance, and ex-
pressed the belief that when we arrived we should
find him already released and on the way home.
I fostered all their hopes, for it was better to be
hopeful and happy than despondent and sad. But
in my own mind, while hope was never absent, I
could not attain to the assurance that they possessed,


OUR LADY OF DELIVERANCE 207
some patrol gunboat, but we saw nothing of the kind,
and as soon as night drew on, we ran in under steam,
and stole down the western coast with every light
hidden, till, in the distance, Over a promontory, a
lightening of the darkness up above told us that
Noumea lay just beyond.
Then the boat was lowered, and Vaurel and I got
into it with four men to row.
We crept in cautiously, and took our chances of the
surf and got safely ashore. Vaurel tumbled out, wrung
my hand in silence, and disappeared into the darkness.
We were to return the following night to the same
spot as nearly as we could strike it, and wait there
till he came.
It was a venture full of risks. In a penal settle-
ment a strange face was almost sure to excite suspicion
and cause inquiry, and Vaurel’s eyes were quite open to
the possibility of it all ending in an addition of one
to the colony without any advancement of our ends.
We had reason to believe, however, that ordinary
prison rules were not very much enforced, and that
the prisoners were left very largely to themselves. He
took with him a supply of food for himself, and tobacco
enough to purchase a considerable amount of goodwill.
As soon as he was ashore, we pulled quietly back to
the schooner, and assured the waiting ones there that
he had made a good start on his adventure. Then the
yacht crept out to sea again, and we spent the next
day in a state of suspense that was trying to nerves
and tempers, and subversive of anything more than
the most elementary of social intercourse.
Denise, who felt the strain more than any of us
perhaps, kept to her room for the greater part of the
day. Boulot perambulated the ship doggedly in search
of his master, and snuflled discontentedly at not find-
ing him. Lyle raked the horizon all day long for
obtrusive cruisers, but found none and was satisfied.
That was as long a day as ever I'spent, and there


OUR LADY OF DELIVERANCE 209
to him. I thought it best not to make two bites at
the matter, and your words will weigh more with
him than mine. He mixes very little with the others,
and has a hut’apart. It is at this end, just over the
bluff there. We can get to him without difficulty;
Have you the colonel there, monsieur? ’ ’
‘He is in the boat.’
‘ You can bring him a good half mile nearer. A
patrol travels aloug the road there now and again,
but they make noise enough and there is no difficulty
in avoiding them. Shall we take him with us? Then
if Monsieur Gaston agrees we can make the exchange
at once and get away.’- a l
‘ We will take him as near to the place as we can,
but he had better remain in the boat till we have
spoken with Gaston. I doubt very much if he will
consent.’ '
‘We can only try.’
I ordered the men to row quietly along the shore till
they heard our signal to come in, then Vaurel and I
walked along towards the glimmer over the rise
in front.
‘ And is he well, Vaurel, and how does he stand it? ’
‘As one would expect, monsieur. His heart, they
say, is almost broken, and he scarcely ever speaks
to any of them.’
‘ Had you any 'trouble in getting in? ’
‘None at all. The guards are at the other end
towards the town. There is nowhere for them to go
to up this way, and if they escape to the hills the
natives would make an end of them. Tiens! here
comes the patrol. I hope the boat will hear them.’
The boat heard" and lay as quiet as we lay in the
bushes, and the patrol, marching anyhow, tramped
noisily past.
‘ They will be back in half an hour or so,’ said
Vaurel; ‘ we can do nothing till they have gone, then
we have a clear field.’


o'UR LADY OF DELIVERANCE 211
the match burned out. I struck another and he
pointed silently to a tiny earthenware lamp with a
Wick and oil in it. When I turned from lighting it
his face was just breaking into recognition of Vaurel.
‘Mon Dieu! Mon Dieu!’ he 'murmured. ‘It is
Prudent Vaurel, is it not?’
‘In truth, Monsieur Gastonl’
‘ Prudent Vaurell ’ he said again to himself in a
tone of extreme wonder, and drew his hand across
his eyes as though to clear them of doubt. ‘ And
this, who is this?’
‘I am the husband of your sister Denise, Monsieur
Gaston. My name is Hugh Lamont. I am. an
Englishman.’
‘ The husband of Denise. My poor little Denise!
And she is married?’
‘ She is married, and she only needs one thing to
complete her happiness and that is her brother. we
have come to ask you to go to her.’ I ‘
._‘ Go to her? But how?’
‘ My yacht is off the coast. You can be on board
in half an hour.’
He got up and stood facing me, upright and slim,
and looked at me with Denise’s eyes.
‘ Do you propose that I should do this?’ he asked.
‘It was I, Monsieur Gaston,’ broke in Vaurel, with
what has since struck me as a fine and instant ap-
preciation of his young master’s feeling in the matter.
‘ Ma’m’selle hungers for you. \Vill you not go to her? ’
'Has she also asked it?’ he said.
And we stood silent.
‘ No,’ he said, ‘ it is not possible. I came in by the
' front door and by the front door I must go out. It
will come, my friends. It must come. The good
God will not suffer an innocent man to suffer for
ever.’
‘Mon Dieu/ how I long to see her! ’ he broke out
again. ‘ Is she well, monsieur? Is she happy?’


OUR LADY OF DELIVERANCE 217
‘I had better get back,’ said Gaston. ‘ Shall I see
you again, 'I wonder? ’ and he looked wistfully at her.
‘ You shall see us again and often,’ said Denise, and ,
he kissed.her and we went up on deck.
We pulled back to the shore in silence, and Vaurel
and I accompanied him to his but, carrying a store
of books and such papers as we had picked up' on our
journeyings, and a good-sized packet of tobacco. He
wrung our hands and we went heavily back to the
boat.
‘Mon Dieu! it. is foolishness. Why couldn’t he
come with us and leave that animal Lepard in his
place? ’ growled Vaurel.
‘ He comes of a race that cannot do mean things,
‘ Vaurel.’ '
'Sacré nom de Dieul mean things! It is those
others who keep him there who do the mean things.
Monsieur' Gaston never did an underhand thing in
his life.’
' That’s just why he won’t steal his liberty.’
But Vaurel considered it all foolishness and would
' not be comforted.
CHAPTER XXVII
REVELATIONS
Tm: following day we steamed gaily into the harbour
at Noumea, and before any official boat could put off
to us our own boat was carrying Denise and myself
to the shore.
We were met there by some of the port officials,
and Denise’s explanations of her relationship to the
governor elevated us at once to the position of privi-
leged persons, for whom the ways were to be ,made
smooth and the paths cleared of all obstructions.
We went at once through the dusty, deserted, sand-
baked streets to the governor’s residence and requested


218 OUR LADY OF DELIVERANCE

audience of him. We were shown into a drawing-
room which, with its gilt mirrors and polished floor,
was just a bit of France transported over sea; and
here we had to wait a considerable time while His
Excellency dealt with some official business.
But he came in at last with many apologies for the
delay, and gave us a hearty welcome. He was a tall,
strapping fellow, a Breton every inch of him, and a
most polished and courtly gentleman.
He led us out on to the wide verandah and installed
us comfortably in creaking basket chairs, and a
servant placed a marble-topped round table in the
midst of us and proceeded to cover it with various
cooling drinks. His Excellency insisted on my trying
one of his cigars and then turned gaily to my wife.
‘ Well, Cousin Denise, this is as unexpected as it
is delightful. How many years is it since we met?
Let me see, it was down in Picardy, was it‘ notil ’
A “Yes, at Belmaison. I wonder you remember. I
was a mere child.’
‘ But remarkable even then,’ bowed M. le Gouver-I
neur with a beaming smile. ‘ What a charming old
lady the princess is.’ _
‘ Was,’ corrected Denise. ‘ She died over six months
ago, just before I left Paris.’
‘ Dear, dear! I heard nothing of it,’ he said with
a face full of sympathy, ‘ and to whom did Belmaison
oP ’
‘With the rest, I suppose, to her grandson,
Polignac.’
‘ Ah, Polignac is a black sheep, and Belmaison will
be converted into a racing stable and a café chantant.
The pity of itl And you are married and settled
down, ma cousinel Tiens! how the time flies. I
shall begin to search for grey hairs next.’
‘In yourself,’ said Denise.
‘ Of course—immyself. One could never associate
grey hairs with anything so charming as Mademoiselle
rfllr-


OUR LADY OF DELIVERANCE 219
Denise des Comptes or even Madame Hugh Lamont.
And have you ever succeeded in arriving at our exact
degree of cousinship—eighth was it not?’
‘ Sometimes it was eighth, sometimes sixteenth. It
depended on circumstances, if I remember rightly.’
‘ That was so, I remember,’ he said laughing. ‘ And
how long are you going to favour us, Monsieur,
Lamont? That is a very fine boat of yours. I noticed
her as you came in this morning. You came all
the way in her?’ .
‘ All the way, Your Excellency. She is a capital
sea boat.’
‘ It was surely an unusually long voyage for so small
a craft. I should prefer something larger myself,’ he
said with a humorous shrug. ‘I am Breton born, it
is true, but my life has unfertunately lain away from
the sea.’
In spite of the pleasantness of his welcome and the
lightness of our talk, there was a sense of discomfort
among us, and M. de la Rocherelle faced the fact at
last with the question,— i
‘ You have come to ask after Gaston. I have
done what I could, but it has not been possible to do
much. Nor indeed would he permit it.’
‘ You do not believe him guilty, Cousin Godefroi? ’
asked Denise.
‘I could not believe Gaston des Comptes guilty of
anything dishonourable,’ he said, ‘but I am here
simply to administer the laws of the colony, and I
may not alter them to suit either my wishes or my
beliefs.’ -
‘ There has been a ghastly miscarriage of justice in
this matter,’ I said, ’ and it is an innocent man you
keep imprisoned here, Your Excellency.’
‘I am quite ready to believe that, M. Lamont, but
what can I do? Paris sent him here and here he must
stop until Paris releases him. Unless, indeed,’ he
said, with a lift of the eyebrows at me, ‘ he escapes.’


220 OUR LADY OF DELIVERANCE

‘ He will never escape,’ said Denise, vehemently.
" Very well—then—’ and another shrug intimated
that in that case Gaston would have to stop where he
was. ,
. ‘ Shall I be allowed to see him? ’ asked Denise.
' Oh, we will arrange that,’ he said, ' but it will be
better to do it unofficially. We shall walk up past
the settlement and we can drop into Gaston’s hut;
Shall we say to-morrow? How long do you stay,
M. Lamont?’
‘I can hardly say, Your Excellency.
wishes will be mine.’
‘ What news have you from home, Cousin Godefroi? ‘
asked Denise.
'There is nothing of consequence. There were
rumours of trouble of some kind among the staff at
headquarters.’
‘ Ah,’ said Denise, ‘ what was that about? ’
' I'm sure I don’t know. The references were so
slight and only in the opposition journals. There
was probably no more truth in them than there
generally is in rumours of the kind.’
' I wonder if you could lend us some of your latest
My wife’s
. "g
-
papers, cousin; we have had no Paris news for months.’ '
‘With greatest pleasure. ExCuse me a moment
and I will get you a bundle of such as I have.’
‘I wonder if there is anything in that? ’ said
Denise, eagerly, when he had left the room.
‘ We will see when we get the papers.’
His Excellency returned with a bundle of the latest
Paris papers he had received, with many apologies
for their age and the promise of some later ones in
a few days. '
‘There’s a mail overdue,’ he said, ‘and it may
arrive any day. Now you will favour me with your
company to dinner to-morrow night? It is an official
dinner, and the members of my staff and their wive's
will be here. It will give you the chance of seeing


222 OUR LADY OF DELIVERANCE


while Jim Barrett played on me refreshingly with the
hose, for bathing in those waters held more risks
than inducements, his aim fell suddenly aslant and
my bracing douche went splashing over the rail.
‘ Steady, Jim, my man,’ I said; ‘ aim straight.’
‘Beg pardon, sir. Here’s something coming and
she took my eye.’
I turned and saw a steamer coming slowly up the
bay—a Government dispatch boat, bringing no doubt
the tardy mails. She was evidently crippled, but
she was well handled, and ran to her moorings and
brought up there and dropped a boat for the shore,
with all the precision of the service and much practice.
Denise came up presently to look at her, all eager-
ness to go ashore and procure papers, and Vaurel,
leaning on the rail alongside us, gave us his ideas
on those we had passed on to him the night before
when we had done with them, and which he had
been studying ever since.
‘They’ve tumbled to him, Ma’m'selle,’ he said,
‘ as sure as guns. Everything they say, though they
'don’t say it very straight, points to Colonel Lepard.
They’ll think he’s bolted, and they’ll root things up,
and they’re bound to come across something sooner
or later, and then the truth will come out. Hello,
what's this?’
This was a steam launch coming foaming along
towards us with a curl of white spray at her bows,
and a big tricolou-r streaming out astern, and shrill
whistles flying ahead of her to attract our attention.
‘ His Excellency’s launch,’ I ventured.
‘ With news for us! ’ said Denise, full of excitement.
‘His Excellency himself, unless I am mistaken,’ I
said again, as a tall figure in uniform stood up in the
stern and waved gaily to 'us. _
‘ Good news! ’ gasped Denise, and the launch
curved into the gangway, and the governor came
quickly up the steps.


224
OUR LADY OF DELIVERANCE
des Comptes was condemned was a false accusation,
concocted by the officer above named and another
to serve their own ends.
'I require you, therefore, immediately on receipt
of this letter, to release Captain des Comptes and to
inform him of these facts.
‘ You will procure for him a passage back to France
with the least possible delay, and will treat him
meanwhile in the way which your own good sense
will dictate under the circumstances. '
‘ You will further convey to Captain des Comptes
the profound regret of France at the undeserved
' injury, humiliation and suffering unwittingly inflicted
on an innocent and honourable man, and the assu-
rance that his country will not be slow to make such
amends as may be in her power.’
I bent and kissed the back of Denise’s neck, which
was the only available spot, and at a nod of per-
mission from the governor, passed the letter on to
Vaurel, but he had got the gist of it from the journals
already, and his big face was ablaze with excitement
as he turned again to the journal spread out on the
table in front of him, and pointed to a certain place
in it where, bending with him, I read the following
announcement :—
‘The evasion of the defaulter, Lepard, is causing
the Government the gravest anxiety. To-night a re-
ward of 100,000 francs .is offered for information
'which may lead to his apprehension. How skilfully
his plans have been laid, however, is proved by the
fact that since Colonel Lepard left Paris in the early
morning of August 16 all trace of him has been lost.
It was believed that he had gone down'into Bretagne,
to Cour-des-Comptes, near Rennes, but no trace of him ,-
can be discovered there, and the police are wholly at
fault. It is useless stating the various rumours which
place the absconder at once in America, Brazil, Japan,



I


234 OUR LADY OF DELIVERANCE
.m
‘If you were you wouldn’t suffer, captain,’ said
Denise; ‘you’d get used to it.’
‘Neverl ’ he exclaimed with deep conviction; ‘ no,
not if I lived on it for a hundred years. I. was ill
every day of the voyage out, and l wished to die,
but they would not let me. When I arrived I was a
shadow, a veritable shadow. It took me months to
recover.’
‘1 wonder you consented to come this trip,’ said
Denise.
‘ Ah, madame, duty, you understand, and besides,
after six months in Noumea one is ready to risk one’s
life for a change. I anticipate much pleasure from
my visit to New Sous Vales.’
We ploughed gaily up Sydney Cove and dropped
anchor abreast of Circular Quay, and half an hour
later we were all, and especially Captain Lemarc,
enjoying a merry lunch at the big new hotel in
Collins Street. . _
Then Captain Lemarc, having made an astonish-
ingly rapid recovery under the influences of solid
earth and a bottle of champagne, started off, with
a face attuned to the importance of his mission, to
hunt up the French Consul in Wynyard Square; Lyle
went back to the yacht to settle his coaling arrange-
ments, while Denise and Gaston and I set out for a
stroll through the town.
Boulot and his master had come ashore with us,
the former enjoying the immobility of the land fully
as much as did Captain Lemarc. But our friend
Vaurel, though his shyness had worn off somewhat
in the company of Denise and myself,-felt altogether
too much abashed by the. size of our party to join us
at the hotel, and had preferred making a voyage of
discovery on his own account. Boulot hung whimsi-
cally in the wind when we separated, having a mind
to follow us as being more probably productive of
bones, and other delicacies, and yet not liking to be


OUR LADY OF DELIVERANCE 235
parted from his master. He sat on the quay, a brindled
Mr Facing-both-ways, and grinned cheerfully through
his eye-teeth first at the one retreating party and then
at the other, and waggcd his stump of a tail spas-
modically at whichever looked round at him, and
at last we saw him turn his back disdainfully upon
us, and with his tail like a bit of iron railing he rose
despondently to the path of duty and trotted heavily
after his master.
Now, whether the telegraph office leaked—which
is not likely, since Lemarc was certain to use an
official cypher—or whether, which is much more
probable, Captain Lemarc leaked himself, for he was
full to bursting of his important news—rumours of
our arrival, and of the strange circumstances sur-
rounding our visit, got abroad. The Echo and the
Evening News both made mention of the important
event, and when we got back to the hotel quite a
little mob of excited reporters from all the morning
and Weekly papers was awaiting us, every man of
them hungering and thirsting for full and exclusive
information for his own particular journal.
\IVC learned that the Sydney papers had already
published the facts concerning the gross miscarriage
of justice in Gaston’s case, but these irrepressible and
keen-nosed young gentlemen of the Press had some-
where got a hint of something more behind, and for
the moment the whole end and aim of the energetic
lives was to get to the bottom of it, and we had a great
time trying to bluff them off, for we did not feel
entitled to open our mouths concerning Lepard till
Captain Lemarc had heard from his people at home.
But in spite of us they got hold of it somehow.
Perhaps they captured Vaurel, perhaps some smart
youth pulled out to the yacht and pumped the men.
Anyhow the papers next morning were full of it, and
fairly accurate too, and at midday the governor and
his wife drove up in state to visit us and to offer their


OUR LADY OF DELIVERANCE 237
the ship, Vaurel did, at all events, and Boulot's stern
sense of duty forbade him to desert his master. "
Three very pleasant, restful days we spent at
Government House, in those very pleasant rooms over-
looking the Domain and Farm Cove, with’its great
black war-ships and the many-legged water-beetles
skimming incessantly between them and the shore.
1 think Lady had had a lurking hope that
Gaston would consent to at least one official dinner,
or a garden party, or some little function of the kind,
for the satisfaction of her many friends. But his
wounds were still too raw, and he begged for privacy
so modestly and so earnestly that she could not
possibly feel hurt, but, on the contrary, found her-
self conferring a favour by sacrificing her own,wishes
to his, and thereby obtained almost as much enjoy-
ment as she would have done out of the garden
party. .
We rode and drove about the city and its ‘environs
with the governor and his wife, courting no more
notice than was inevitable in such distinguished
company, and on the fourth day we said good-bye
to our friends and started to cross the other half of
the world on our way home.
Our voyage was prosperous and uneventful. As it
was not likely that any of us would ever be round that
way again, we took things easily and saw all that was
to be seen wherever we stopped to coal. From
Colombo we went up to Bombay to give Denise an
impression of India, thence to Aden and Suez, whence
we ran over to Cairo, and joined the yacht again at
Alexandria. Then to Malta, and so to Marseilles,
where we left the Clutha to make her way back to
Southampton. But the moment we touched French
soil there came a sudden end to all privacy and the
quiet enjoyment of life.
There was no possibility of mistaking the feeling
of the warm-hearted nation.


/ 1'.
I was watching Lepard intently. I could not help it. He fascinated me. '.-._
Suddenly I saw the black face suffuse with blood.
Grey-black one moment, the next it was black-red,
and the next moment, with his arms still folded, he
fell crashing forward against the front of his enclosure
and lay still.
The gendarmes, who had come to expect no move-
ment from him, grabbed him convulsively and hauled
him up, but his head hung limply on his chest and his
face was dabbled with blood—his own this time, and
presently one of them looked up at' the startled judge
and said, ‘Mon Dieu, monsieur, he is dead! ’
And dead he was, and at first they could not make
out how he died. ‘ By the visitation of God ' was the
favourite theory, though why such merciful visitation
should have been vouchsafed to so great a scoundrel
just when most he needed it seemed hard to reconcile
with one’s elementary ideas of justice.
But the doctors soon put another and simpler aspect
on the matter. He was a bull-necked man with a
predisposition to apoplexy. Wedged tight in his
throat they found a plug of black cloth, torn from the
lining of his coat, which he had evidently kept in
his mouth with this end in view, and had swallowed
when he considered it time to go. ,
It had choked him as effectually as a garrote.
The convulsion had burst a blood vessel in the brain,
and'he died as he had intended.
The Court broke up in confusion and we all
streamed out wondering, and then by degrees the
truth was made known to us.
In due course Vaurel received his 100,000 francs.
He asked us rather shamefacedly if we thought he
ought to take them, seeing that Monsieur Gaston
would take nothing of all they wanted to give him.
But Denise satisfied him that the cases were quite
different, and none knew better than I how thoroughly
m . ,-
246 OUR LADY OF DELIVERANCE .- ’ ‘
l


OUR LADY OF DELIVERANCE 251
himself, which started him sneezing more violently
than ever. Then,two priests looked at him, Father
Bonnatt’s eyes twinkled merrily, and he leered benevo-
lently back at them, just as the heavy uncle might
have done had he been slightly uplifted With ¢the
hilarity of the occasion. A verger in a cloak hurried
up carrying a long wand. Boulot sneezed and‘smiled,
and I could almost hear him say,—
‘ Well, old cock, ,what part of the show are you, and
how much longer. is all this nonsense going to last?
Say, tell that little boy in the long shirt that if he
throws any more of that stinking stuff at me I’ll come
through and bite a piece out of his leg. Some folks
may like it, but—a-ti-shool—‘a-ti-shoo!——a-ti-shoo!—
it gets up my nose and makes me sneeze. Want a
word with me, do you, old boy? All right, what is
it? ’ and he took a heavy step or two towards the
verger, smiling with his eye-teeth all the time, and
the verger, as soon as he saw him in motion, thought
better of it, and beat a rapid retreat down the aisle.
However, the ceremony got through a]! right, and
Boulot led us all back to Cour-des-Comptes in triumph,
Denise and Jeanne in the family carriage and the rest
of us on foot. Such a gay company of broad-brimmed
beavers and handsomely-smocked blouses, and snowy
flapping headgear, and swinging short blue skirts and
neat ankles, and seamed and weather-tanned old faces.
and young faces like rosy apples, and joyous voices
that called to and fro and shrieked with laughter at
infinitesimal jokes.
And so along the dappled high road, with the
poplars waving and shimmering on each ,side of it,
and through the green fields to the big barn at La
Garaye, where the long trestle tables were groaning
beneath the weight of a mighty feast.
Here Denise bade them all wait while she went
inside to see that everything was right, and they
gathered round Louis anduJeanne, and joked and


254 OUR LADY OF DELIVERANCE
laughed and clapped and cheered us all to greater and
greater exertions, till the blue blouses lost their stiff-
ness, and the white headgear flapped limply round
red, hot, panting faces; and some dropped out, and
the chopirtes of cider began to circulate; and some
danced on as though their legs were made of steel,
and sang the louder to make up for the rest. Among
these—Vaurel and Louis Vard. _Vaurel with his arm-
less sleeve broken loose and flapping wildly, except
when his partner on that side grasped it merrily in lieu
of a hand, his sunny face and big blue eyes all on
fire, his voice peeling out like a jerky trumpet, every
little bit of him' dancing for all he was worth; and
Louis‘Vard keeping up with him to the very last kick
because he wasn’t going to be beaten at his own wed-
ding by any man alive, much less by a man with only
one arm, even though he had been round the world.
Boulot lay on the edge of Denise’s skirt, with his
head on his paws, and viewed the proceedings with
the contemptuous toleration of a philosopher whose
creed it was to rest awhile after a good dinner. When-
ever his master whirled into his neighbourhood he
wrinkled up his brows as -who would say,’ ‘That’s
mine—that one with the [lapping sleeve. He’s not
really crazy, you know. He’s the best fellow in the
World, but he's a bit excited just now. He’ll be all
right to-morrow. I’m keeping an eye on him.’
Old Father Goliot attracted much attention by in-
sisting on showing his untravelled friends how they
danced in Paris, and his attempts at imitation of the
antics of the Moulin Rouge were received with shouts
of laughter, and how his stiff old joints would feel
about it next day I did not dare to think.
Pére Bonnatt 'won all their hearts by footing it with
the best of them. He too was of the soil, and his
yOuth came back as he danced.
I caught Denise’s eyes following Gaston with a
great glad light in them, and when they fell. on mine


OUR LADY OF DELIVERANCE 255
they fairly snapped with our common enjoyment.
For it did our hearts good to see him dancing away
among the rest with all the abandon of a child among
his own people, the past forgotten and with never a'
thought for the future.
. They talk still of Jeanne Thibaud’s wedding down
at Cour-des-Comptes, and still marvel at the ten
thousand francs she found in her plate.
‘-—cré nom de Dieul That was something like
wedding present, don’t you know. Mon Dieu, I
get married twice a week on those termsl ’
‘Ah, mon beau, it is not every day one meets an
Englishman with so open a hand, and there is only
one Ma’m’selle.’
‘ It is true! There is only one Ma’m’selle.’
That is how they keep our memory sweet at Cour-
des-Comptes. >
They danced till dusk, and then they lighted candles
and danced on far into the night. But when the
gloaming fell we others stole away and strolled
slowly through the darkening woods to the chateau.
And as Gaston and Pere Bonnatt walked on in front,
Denise, my wife, hung more heavily on my arm,
the sweetest burden in the world.
‘ Tired, dearesti> ' I asked.
‘ Just a little tired, but very, very happy,’ she said.
And the whole world held no more grateful man
than I.
We live in Britain and in Brittany, Denise and I,
and on the waters round about. And the freedom of
the'seas gives us a glorious pleasure-ground; from
Iceland and the Fiords to the softer beauties of the
Mediterranean, they are all ours, and we draw fresh
stores of life and endless enjoyment from them.
I bought. the Clutha. There were so many pleasant
memories attachedto her that I did not care for her
to go into alien hands. And Andrew Lyle is still
content to be her captain and our very good friend.
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