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 Copyright, 1899, by 
 Hugh S. Scott.
 
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 TO LUCASTA 
 
 GOING TO THE WARS 
 
 Tell me not, sweet, I am unkind 
 
 That from the nunnery 
 Of thy chaste breast, and quiet mind, 
 
 To war and arms I fly. 
 
 True : a new mistress now I choose, 
 
 The first foe in the field ; 
 And with a stronger faith embrace 
 
 A sword, a horse, and shield. 
 
 Yet this inconstancy is such 
 
 As you too shall adore ; 
 I could not love thee, dear, so much 
 
 Lov'd I not honour more. 
 
 Richard Lovelace. 
 
 16:18448
 
 CONTENTS 
 
 CHAPTKB PAGE 
 
 I. The Moving Finger i 
 
 II. Chez Clement = . . 12 
 
 III. A By-path 23 
 
 IV. A Toss-up 34 
 
 V. In the Rue du Cherche-Midi ' " 45 
 
 VI. Neighbours 56 
 
 VII. Journey's End 67 
 
 VIII. At Vasselot 78 
 
 IX. The Promised Land 89 
 
 X. Thus Far 100 
 
 XI. By Surprise iii 
 
 XII. A Summons 122 
 
 XIII. War 133 
 
 XIV. Gossip 144 
 
 XV. War 154 
 
 XVI. A Masterful Man 165 
 
 XVII. Without Drum or Trumpet 176 
 
 XVIII. A Woman of Action 188 
 
 XIX. The Search 199 
 
 XX. Wounded 209 
 
 XXI. For France 220 
 
 XXII. In the Macquis 231 
 
 XXIII. An Understanding 242 
 
 XXIV. " Ce que Femme Veut " 253 
 
 vii
 
 viii CONTENTS 
 
 CHAPTBR PAGB 
 
 XXV. On the Great Road 262 
 
 XXVI. The End of the Journey 273 
 
 XXVII. The Abbe's Salad 284 
 
 XXVIII. Gold 295 
 
 XXIX. A Balanced Account 304 
 
 XXX. The Beginning and the End 314
 
 The Isle of Unrest 
 
 CHAPTEE I 
 
 THE MOVING FINGER 
 
 " The Moving Finger writes ; and, having writ, 
 Moves on : nor all thy piety nor wit 
 
 Shall lure it back to cancel half a line, 
 Nor all thy tears wash out a word of it," 
 
 The afternoon sun was lowering toward a heavy 
 bank of clouds hanging still and sullen, over the 
 Mediterranean. A mistral was blowing. The last 
 yellow rays shone fiercely upon the towering coast 
 of Corsica, and the windows of the village of Olmeta 
 glittered like gold. 
 
 There are two Olmetas in Corsica, both in the 
 north, both on the west coast, both perched high 
 like an eagle's nest, both looking down upon those 
 lashed waters of the Mediterranean, which are not 
 the waters that poets sing of, for they are as often 
 white as they are blue ; they are seldom glassy ex- 
 cept in the height of summer, and sailors tell that 
 they are as treacherous as any waters of the earth. 
 Neither aneroid nor weather-wisdom may, as a 
 matter of fact, tell when a mistral will arise, how 
 it will bloAY, how veer, how drop and rise, and drop 
 
 1
 
 2 THE ISLE OF UNREST 
 
 again. For it will blow one day beneath a cloud- 
 less sky, lashing the whole sea white like milk, and 
 blow harder to-morrow under racing clouds. 
 
 The great chestnut trees in and around Olmeta 
 groaned and strained in the grip of their lifelong 
 foe. The small door, the tiny windows, of every 
 house were rigorously closed. The whole place had 
 a wind-swept air despite the heavy foliage. Even 
 the roads, and notably the broad " Place," had been 
 swept clean and dustless. And in the middle of the 
 "Place," between the fountain and the church 
 steps, a man lay dead upon his face. 
 
 It is as well to state here, once for all, that we 
 are dealing with Olmeta-di-Tuda, and not that other 
 Olmeta — the virtuous, di Capocorso, in fact, which 
 would shudder at the thought of a dead man lying 
 on its " Place," before the windows of the very 
 Mairie, under the shadow of the church. For Cap 
 Corse is the good boy of Corsica, where men think 
 sorrowfully of the wilder communes to the south, 
 and raise their eyebrows at the very mention of 
 Corte and Sartene — where, at all events, the women 
 have for husbands, men — and not degenerate Pisan 
 vine-snippers. 
 
 It was not so long ago either. For the man 
 might have been alive to-day, though he would 
 have been old and bent no doubt ; for he was a 
 thick-set man, and must have been strong. He had, 
 indeed, carried his lead up from the road that runs 
 by the Guadelle river. Was he not to be traced all 
 the way up the short cut through the olive terraces
 
 THE MOVING FINGER 3 
 
 bj one bloody footprint at regular intervals ? You 
 could track his passage across the " Place," toward 
 the fountain of which he had fallen short like a 
 poisoned rat that tries to reach water and fails. 
 
 He lay quite alone, still grasping the gun which 
 he had never laid aside since boyhood. No one 
 went to him ; no one had attempted to help him. 
 He lay as he had fallen, with a thin stream of blood 
 running slowly from one trouser-leg. For this was 
 Corsican work — that is to say, dirty work — from 
 behind a rock, in the back, at close range, without 
 warning or mercy, as honest men would be 
 ashamed to shoot the merest beast of the forest. 
 It was as likely as not a charge of buck-shot low 
 down in the body, leaving the rest to hemorrhage 
 or gangrene. 
 
 All Olmeta knew of it, and every man took care 
 that it should be no business of his. Several had 
 approached, pipe in mouth, and looked at the dead 
 man without comment ; but all had gone away 
 again, idly, indifferently. For in this the most 
 beautiful of the islands, human life is held cheaper 
 than in any land of Europe. 
 
 Some one, it was understood, had gone to tell the 
 gendarmes down at St, Florent. There was no 
 need to send and tell his wife — half a dozen women 
 were racing through the olive groves to get the 
 first taste of that. Perhaps some one had gone to- 
 ward Oletta to meet the Abbe Susini, whose busi- 
 ness in a measure this must be. 
 
 The sun suddenl}'' dipped behind the heavy bank
 
 4 THE ISLE OF UNKEST 
 
 of clouds and the mountains darkened. Although 
 it lies in the very centre of the Mediterranean, 
 Corsica is a gloomy land, and the summits of her 
 high mountains are more often covered than clear. 
 It is a land of silence and brooding quiet. The 
 women are seldom gay ; the men, in their heavy 
 clothes of dark corduroy, have little to say for 
 themselves. Some of them were standing now in 
 the shadow of the great trees, smoking their pipes 
 in silence, and looking with a studied indifference 
 at nothing. Each was prepared to swear before a 
 jury at the Bastia assizes that he knew nothing of 
 the "accident," as it is here called, to Pietro 
 Andrei, and had not seen him crawl up to Olmeta 
 to die. Indeed, Pietro Andrei's death seemed to 
 be nobody's business, though w^e are told that not 
 so much as a sparrow may faU unheeded. 
 
 The Abbe Susini was coming now — a little fiery 
 man, with the walk of one who was slightly bow- 
 legged, though his cassock naturally concealed this 
 defect. He was small and not too broad, with a 
 narrow face and clean, straight features — something 
 of the Spaniard, something of the Greek, nothing 
 Italian, nothing French. In a word, this was a 
 Corsican, which is to say that he was different from 
 any other European race, and would, as sure as 
 there is corn in Egypt, be overbearing, masterful, 
 impossible. He was, of course, clean shaven, as 
 brown as old oak, with little flashing black eyes. 
 His cassock was a good one, and his hat, though 
 dusty, shapely and new. But his whole bearing
 
 THE MOVING FINGER 5 
 
 threw, as it were, into the observer's face the sug- 
 gestion that the habit does not make the priest. 
 
 He came forward without undue haste, and dis- 
 played little surprise and no horror. 
 
 " Quite like old times," he said to himself, remem- 
 bering the da^'s of Louis Philippe. He knelt down 
 beside the dead man, and perhaps the attitude re- 
 minded him of his calling ; for he fell to praying, 
 and made the gesture of the cross over Andrei's 
 head. Then suddenly he leapt to his feet, and shook 
 his lean fist out toward the valley and St. Florent, 
 as if he knew whence this trouble came. 
 
 " Provided they would keep their work in their 
 own commune," he cried, " instead of bringing dis- 
 grace on a parish that has not had the gendarmes 
 this— this " 
 
 " Three days," added one of the bystanders, who 
 had drawn near. And he said it with a certain 
 pride, as of one well pleased to belong to a virtuous 
 community. 
 
 But the priest was not listening. He had already 
 turned aside in his quick, jerky way ; for he was a 
 comparatively young man. He was looking through 
 the olives toward the south. 
 
 "It is the women," he said, and his face suddenly 
 hardened. He was impulsive, it appeared — quick 
 to feel for others, fiery in his anger, hasty in his 
 judgment. 
 
 From the direction in which he and the bystand- 
 ers looked, came the hum of many voices, and the 
 high, incessant shrieks of one who seemed demented.
 
 6 TPIE ISLE OF UNREST 
 
 Presently a confused procession appeared from the 
 direction of the south, hurrying through the narrow- 
 street now called the Rue Carnot. It Avas headed 
 by a woman, who led a little child, running and 
 stumbling as he ran. At her heels a number of 
 women hurried, confusedly shouting, moaning, and 
 wailing. The men stood waiting for them in dead 
 silence — a characteristic scene. The leading woman 
 seemed to be superior to her neighbours, for she 
 wore a black silk handkerchief on her head instead 
 of a white or coloured cotton. It is almost a man- 
 tilla, and marks as clear a social distinction in Cor- 
 sica as does that head-dress in Spain. She dragged 
 at the child, and scarce turned her head when he 
 fell and scrambled as best he could to his feet. He 
 laughed and crowed with delight, remembering last 
 year's carnival with that startling, photographic 
 memory of early childhood which never forgets. 
 
 At every few steps the woman gave a shriek as 
 if she were suffering some intermittent agony which 
 caught her at regular intervals. At the sight of 
 the crowd she gave a quick cry of despair, and ran 
 forward, leaving her child sprawling on the road. 
 She knelt by the dead man's side with shriek after 
 shriek, and seemed to lose all control over herself, 
 for she gave way to those strange gestures of de- 
 spair of which many read in novels and a few in 
 the Scriptures, and which come by instinct to those 
 who have no reading at all. She dragged the hand- 
 kerchief from her head, and threw it over her face. 
 She beat her breast. She beat the very ground
 
 SHE KNELT BY THE DEAD MAN 3 SIDE.
 
 THE MOVING FINGER 7 
 
 with her clenched hands. Her little boy, having 
 gathered his belongings together and dusted his 
 cotton frock, now came forward, and stood watch- 
 ing her with his fingers at his mouth. He took it 
 to be a game which he did not understand ; as in- 
 deed it was — the game of life. 
 
 The priest scratched his chin with his forefinger, 
 which was probably a habit with him when puz- 
 zled, and stood looking down out of the corner of 
 his eyes at the ground. 
 
 It was he, however, who moved first, and, stoop- 
 ing, loosed the clenched fingers round the gun. It 
 was a double-barrelled gun, at full cock, and every 
 man in the little crowd assembled carried one like 
 it. To this day, if one meets a man, even in the 
 streets of Corte or Ajaccio, who carries no gun, it 
 may be presumed that it is only because he pins 
 greater faith on a revolver. 
 
 Neither hammer had fallen, and the abbe gave a 
 little nod. It was, it seemed, the usual thing to 
 make quite sure before shooting, so that there might 
 be no unnecessary waste of powder or risk of re- 
 prisal. The woman looked at the gun, too, and 
 knew the meaning of the raised hammers. 
 
 She leapt to her feet, and looked round at the 
 sullen faces. 
 
 " And some of you know who did it," she said ; 
 " and you will help the murderer when he goes to 
 the macquis, and take him food, and tell hhn when 
 the gendarmes are hunting him." 
 
 She waved her hand fiercely toward the moun-
 
 8 THE ISLE OF UNREST 
 
 tains, which loomed, range behind range, dark and 
 forbidding to the south, toward Calvi and Corte. 
 But the men only shrugged their shoulders ; for the 
 forest and the mountain brushwood were no longer 
 the refuge they used to be in this the last year of 
 the iron rule of Napoleon III., who, whether he 
 possessed or not the Corsican blood that his foes 
 deny him, knew, at all events, how to rule Corsica 
 better than any man before or since. 
 
 "No, no," said the priest, soothingly, "Those 
 days are gone. He will be taken, and justice will 
 be done." 
 
 But he spoke without conviction, almost as if he 
 had no faith in this vaunted regeneration of a peo- 
 ple whose history is a story of endless strife — as if 
 he could see with a prophetic eye thirty years into 
 the future, down to the present day, when the last 
 state of that land is worse than the first. 
 
 " Justice ! " cried the woman. " There is no jus- 
 tice in Corsica ! What had Pietro done that he 
 should lie there? Only his duty — only that for 
 which he was jjaid. He was the Peruccas' agent, 
 and because he made the idlers pay their rent, they 
 threatened him. Because he put up fences, they 
 raised their guns to him. Because he stopped their 
 thieving and their lawlessness, they shoot him. He 
 drove their cattle from the fields because they were 
 Perucca's fields, and he was paid to watch his mas- 
 ter's interest. But Perucca they dare not touch, 
 because his clan is large, and would hunt the mur- 
 derer down. If he was caught, the Peruccas would
 
 THE MOVING FINGER 9 
 
 make sure of the jury — ay ! and of the judge at 
 Bastia — but Pietro is not of Corsica; he has no 
 friends and no clan, so justice is not for him." 
 
 She knelt down again as she spoke and laid her 
 hand on her dead husband's back, but she made no 
 attempt to move him. For although Pietro Andrei 
 was an Italian, his wife was Corsican — a woman of 
 Bonifacio, that grim town on a rock so often be- 
 sieged and never yet taken by a fair fight. She 
 had been brought up in, as it were, an atmosphere 
 of conventional lawlessness, and knew that it is 
 well not to touch a dead man till the gendarmes 
 have seen him, but to send a child or an old woman 
 to the gendarmerie, and then to stand aloof and 
 know nothing, and feign stupidity ; so that the offi- 
 cials, when they arrive, may find the whole village 
 at work in the fields or sitting in their homes, while 
 the dead, who can tell no tales, has suddenly few 
 friends and no enemies. 
 
 Then Andrei's widow rose slowly to her feet. 
 Her face was composed now and set. She arranged 
 the black silk handkerchief on her head, and set 
 her dress in order. She was suddenly calm and 
 quiet. 
 
 " But see," she said, looking round into eyes that 
 failed to meet her own, " in this country each man 
 must execute his own justice. It has always been 
 so, and it will be so, so long as there are any 
 Corsicans left. And if there is no man left, then 
 the women must do it." 
 
 She tied her apron tighter, as if about to under-
 
 10 THE ISLE OF UNJREST 
 
 take some hard domestic duty, and brushed the 
 dust from her black dress. 
 
 " Come here," she said, turning to the child, and 
 lapsing into the soft dialect of the south and east 
 — "come here, thou child of Pietro Andrei." 
 
 The child came forward. He was probably two 
 years old, and understood nothing that was pass- 
 ing. 
 
 " See here, you of Olmeta," she said composedly ; 
 and, stooping down, she dipped her finger in the 
 pool of blood that had collected in the dust. " See 
 here — and here." 
 
 As she spoke she hastily smeared the blood over 
 the child's face and dragged him away from the 
 priest, who had stepped forward. 
 
 " 'No, no," he protested. " Those times are past." 
 
 " Past ! " said the woman, with a flash of f urv. 
 " All the country knows that your own mother did 
 it to you at Sartene, where you come from." 
 
 The abbe made no answer, but, taking the child 
 by the arm, dragged him gently away from his 
 mother. With his other hand he sought in his 
 pocket for a handkerchief. But he was a lone 
 man, without a housekeeper, and the handkerchief 
 was missing. The child looked from one to the 
 other, laughing uncertainly, with his grimly 
 decorated face. 
 
 Then the priest stooped, and with the skirt of 
 his cassock wiped the child's face. 
 
 " There," he said to the woman, " take him home, 
 for I hear the gendarmes coming."
 
 THE MOVING FINGER n 
 
 Indeed, the trotting of horses and the clank of 
 the long swinging sabres could be heard on the 
 road below the village, and one by one the onlook- 
 ers dropped away, leaving the Abbe Susini alone at 
 the foot of the church steps.
 
 CHAPTER II 
 
 CHEZ CLEMENT 
 " Gomme on est heureux quand on sait ce qu'on veut ! " 
 
 It was the dinner hour at the Hotel Clement at 
 Bastia ; and the event was of greater importance 
 than the outward appearance of the house would 
 seem to promise. For there is no promise at all 
 about the house on the left-hand side of Bastia's 
 one street, the Boulevard du Palais, which bears, as 
 its only sign, a battered lamp with the word 
 "Clement " printed across it. The ground floor is 
 merely a rope and hemp warehouse. A small Corsi- 
 can donkey, no bigger than a Newfoundland dog, 
 lives in the basement, and passes many of his wak- 
 ing hours in what may be termed the entrance hall 
 of the hotel, appearing to consider himself in some 
 sort a concierge. The upper floors of the huge 
 Genoese house are let out in large or small apart- 
 ments to mysterious families, of which the younger 
 members are always to be met carrying jugs care- 
 fully up and down the greasy common staircase. 
 
 The first floor is the Hotel Clement, or, to be 
 more correct, one is " chez Clement " on the first 
 floor. 
 
 " You stay with Clement," will be the natural 
 
 12
 
 CHEZ CLEMENT 13 
 
 remark of any on board the Marseilles or Leghorn 
 steamer, on being told that the traveller disembarks 
 at Bastia. 
 
 " We shall meet to-night chez Clement," the 
 officers say to each other on leaving the parade 
 ground at four o'clock, 
 
 " Dejeuner chez Clement," is the usual ending to 
 a notice of a marriage, or a first communion, in 
 the Petit Bastiais, that greatest of all foolscap-size 
 journals. 
 
 It is comforting to reflect, in these times of 
 hurried changes, that the traveller to Bastia may 
 still find himself chez Clement — may still have to 
 kick at the closed door of the first-floor flat, and 
 find that door opened by Clement himself, always 
 affable, always gentlemanly, with the same crumbs 
 strewed carelessly down the same waistcoat, or, if 
 it is evening time, in his spotless cook's dress. One 
 may be sure of the same grave welcome, and the 
 easy transition from grave to gay, the smiling, 
 grand manner of conducting the guest to one of 
 those vague and darksome bedrooms, where the jug 
 and the basin never match, where the floor is of 
 red tiles, with a piece of uncertain carpet sliding 
 hither and thither, with the shutters always shut, 
 and the mustiness of the middle ages hanging heavy 
 in the air. For Bastia has not changed, and never 
 will. And it is not only to be fervently hoped, but 
 seems likely, that Clement will never grow old, and 
 never die, but continue to live and demonstrate the 
 startling fact that one may be born and live all
 
 14 THE ISLE OF UNKEST 
 
 one's life in a i*emot©, forgotten town, and still be a 
 man of the world. 
 
 The soup had been served precisely at six, and 
 the four artillery officers were already seated at the 
 square table near the fireplace, which was and is 
 still exclusively the artillery table. The other 
 habitues were in their places at one or other of the 
 half-dozen tables that fill the room — two gentlemen 
 from the Prefecture, a civil engineer of the pro- 
 jected railway to Corte, a commercial traveller of 
 the old school, and, at the corner table, farthest 
 from the door, Colonel Gilbert of the Engineers. 
 A clever man this, who had seen service in the 
 Crimea, and had invariably distinguished himself 
 whenever the opportunity occurred ; but he was 
 one of those who await, and do not seek oppor- 
 tunities. Perhaps he had enemies, or, what is 
 worse, no friends ; for at the age of forty he found 
 himself appointed to Bastia, one of the waste places 
 of the War Office, where an inferior man would 
 have done better. 
 
 Colonel Gilbert was a handsome man, with a fair 
 moustache, a high forehead, surmounted by thin, 
 receding, smooth hair, and good-natured, idle eyes. 
 He lunched and dined chez Clement always, and 
 was frankly, good naturedly bored at Bastia. He 
 hated Corsica, had no sympathy with the Corsican, 
 and was a Northern Frenchman to the tips of his 
 long white fingers. 
 
 " Your Bastia, my good Cl6ment," he said to the 
 host, who invariably came to the dining-room with
 
 CHEZ CLEMENT 15 
 
 the roast and solicited the opinion of each guest 
 upon the dinner in a few tactful, easy words — 
 " your Bastia is a sad place." 
 
 This evening Colonel Gilbert was in a less talk- 
 ative mood than usual, and exchanged only a nod 
 with his artillery colleagues as he passed to his own 
 small table. He opened his newspaper, and became 
 interested in it at once. It was several days old, 
 and had come by way of Nice and Ajaccio from 
 Paris. All France was at this time eager for news, 
 and every Frenchman studied the journal of his 
 choice with that uneasiness which seems to fore- 
 shadow in men's hearts the approach of any great 
 event. For this was the spring of 1870, when 
 France, under the hitherto iron rule of her ad- 
 venturer emperor, suddenly began to plunge and 
 rear, while the nations stood around her wondering 
 who should receive the first kick. The emperor 
 was ill; the cheaper journals were already talk- 
 ing of his funeral. He was uneasy and restless, 
 turning those dull eyes hither and thither over 
 Europe — a man of inscrutable face and deep hidden 
 plans — perhaps the greatest adventurer who ever 
 sat a throne. Condemned by a French Court of 
 Peers in 1840 to imprisonment for life, he went to 
 Ham with the quiet question, " But how long does 
 perpetuity last in France ? " And eight years later 
 he was absolute master of the countrv. 
 
 Corsica in particular was watching events, for 
 Corsica was cowed. She had come under the rule 
 of this despot, and for the first time in her history
 
 16 THE ISLE OF UNKEST 
 
 had found her master. Instead of being numbered 
 by hundreds, as they were before and are again 
 now at the end of the century, the outlaws hiding 
 in the mountains scarce exceeded a score. The 
 elections were conducted more honestly than had 
 ever been before, and the Continental newspapers 
 spoke hopefully of the dawn of civilisation showing 
 itself among a people who have ever been lawless, 
 have ever loved war better than peace. 
 
 " But it is a false dawn," said the Abbe Susini of 
 Olmeta, himself an insatiable reader of newspapers, 
 a keen and ardent politician. Like the majority of 
 Corsicans, he was a staunch Bonapartist, and held 
 that the founder of that marvellous dynasty was 
 the greatest man to walk this earth since the days 
 of direct Divine inspiration. 
 
 It was only because Napoleon III. was a Bona- 
 parte that Corsica endured his tyranny ; perhaps, 
 indeed, tyranny and an iron rule suited better than 
 equity or tolerance a people descended from the 
 most ancient of the fighting races, speaking a tongue 
 wherein occur expressions of hate and strife that 
 are Tuscan, Sicilian, Greek, Spanish, and Arabic. 
 
 Now that the emperor's hand was losing its grip 
 on the helm, there were many in Corsica keenly 
 alive to the fact that any disturbance in France 
 would probably lead to anarchy in the turbulent 
 island. There were even some who saw a hidden 
 motive in the appointment of Colonel Gilbert as 
 engineer officer to a fortified place that had no need 
 of his services.
 
 CHEZ CLEMENT 17 
 
 Gilbert himself probably knew that his appoint- 
 ment had been made in pursuance of the emperor's 
 policy of road and rail. For Corsica was to be 
 opened up by a railway, and would have none of 
 it. And though to-day the railway from Bastia to 
 Ajaccio is at last open, the station at Corte remains 
 a fortified place with a loopholed wall around it. 
 
 But Colonel Gilbert kept his own counsel. He 
 sat, indeed, on the board of the struggling railway 
 — a gift of the French Government to a department 
 which has never paid its way, has always been an 
 open wound. But he never spoke there, and listened 
 to the fierce speeches of the local members with his 
 idle, easy smile. He seemed to stand aloof from 
 his new neighbours and their insular interests. He 
 was, it appeared, a cultured man, and perhaps found 
 none in this wild island who could understand his 
 thoughts. His attitude toward his surroundings 
 was, in a word, the usual indifferent attitude of the 
 Frenchman in exile, reading only French news- 
 papers, fixing his attention only on France, and 
 awaiting with such patience as he could command 
 the moment to return thither. 
 
 "Any news?" asked one of the artillery officers 
 — a sub-lieutenant recently attached to his battery, 
 a penniless possessor of an historic name, who per- 
 haps had dreams of craving his wa}^ through to the 
 front again. 
 
 The colonel shrugged his shoulders. 
 
 " You may have the papers afterward," he said ; 
 for it was not wise to discuss any news in a public
 
 18 THE ISLE OF UNREST 
 
 place at that time. " See you at the Reunion, no 
 doubt." 
 
 And he did not speak again except to Clement, 
 who came round to take the opinion of each guest 
 upon the fare provided. 
 
 " Passable," said the colonel — " passable, my 
 good Clement. But do you know, I could send 
 you to prison for providing this excellent leveret 
 at this time of year. Are there no game laws, my 
 friend?" 
 
 But Clement only laughed and spread out his 
 hands, for Corsica chooses to ignore the game laws. 
 And the colonel, having finished his coffee, buckled 
 on his sword, and went out into the twilight streets 
 of what was once the capital of Corsica. Bastia, in- 
 deed, has, like the majority of men and women, its 
 history written on its face. On the high land above 
 the old port stands the citadel, just as the Genoese 
 merchant-adventurers planned it five hundred years 
 ago. Beneath the citadel, and clustered round the 
 port, is the little old Genoese town, no bigger than 
 a village, which served for two hundred and fifty 
 years as capital to an island in constant war, against 
 which it had always to defend itself. 
 
 It would seem that some hundred years ago, just 
 before the island became nominally a French posses- 
 sion, Bastia, for some reason or another, took it into 
 its municipal head to grow, and it ran as it were all 
 down the hill to that which is now the new harbour. 
 It built two broad streets of tall Genoese houses, of 
 which one somehow missed fire, and became a slum,
 
 CHEZ CLfiMENT 19 
 
 while the other, with its great houses but half in- 
 habited, is to-day the Boulevard du Palais, where 
 fashionable Bastia promenades itself — when it is too 
 windy, as it almost always is, to walk on the Place 
 St. Nicholas — where all the shops are, and where 
 the modern European necessities of daily life are 
 not to be bought for love or money. 
 
 There are, however, two excellent knife-shops in 
 the Boulevard du Palais, where every description of 
 stiletto may be purchased, where, indeed, the enter- 
 prising may buy a knife which will not only go 
 shrewdly into a foe, but come right out on the 
 other side — in front, that is to say, for no true 
 Corsican is so foolish as to stab anywhere but in 
 the back — and, protruding thus, will display some 
 pleasing legend, such as " Yendetta," or " I serve 
 my master," or " Yiva Corsica," roughly engraved 
 on the long blade. There is a macaroni warehouse. 
 There are two of those mysterious Mediterranean 
 provision warehouses, with some ancient dried sau- 
 sages hanging in the window, and either doorpost 
 flanked by a tub of sardines, highly, and yet, it 
 would seem, insufficiently, cured. There is a tiny 
 book-shop displaying a choice of religious pamphlets 
 and a fly-blown copy of a treatise on viniculture. 
 And finally, an ironmonger will sell you anything 
 but a bath, while he thrives on a lively trade in per- 
 cussion-caps and gunpowder. 
 
 Colonel Gilbert did not pause to look at these be- 
 wildering shop-windows, for the simple reason that 
 he knew every article there displayed.
 
 20 THE ISLE OF UNREST 
 
 He was, it will be remembered, a leisurely French- 
 man, than whom there are few human beings of a 
 more easily aroused attention. Any small street 
 incident sufficed to make him pause. He had the 
 air of one waiting for a train, who knows that it 
 will not come for hours yet. He strolled down the 
 boulevard, smoking a cigarette, and presently 
 turned to the right, emerging with head raised to 
 meet the sea-breeze upon that deserted promenade, 
 the Place St. Nicholas. 
 
 Here he paused, and stood with his head slightly 
 inclined to one side — an attitude usually considered 
 to be indicative of the artistic temperament, and 
 admired the prospect. The " Place " was deserted, 
 and in the middle the great statue of Napoleon 
 stood staring blankly across the sea toward Elba. 
 There is, whether the artist intended it or not, a 
 look of stony amazement on this marble face as it 
 gazes at the island of Elba lying pink and hazy a 
 few miles across that rippled sea j for on this side of 
 Corsica there is more peace than in the open waters 
 of the Gulf of Lyons. 
 
 " Surely," that look seems to say, " the world 
 could never expect that puny island to hold me." 
 
 Colonel Gilbert stood and looked dreamily across 
 the sea. It was plain to the most incompetent ob- 
 server that the statue represented one class of men 
 — those who make their opportunities ; while Gil- 
 bert, with his high and slightly receding forehead, 
 his lazy eyes and good-natured mouth, was a fair 
 type of that other class which may take advantage
 
 CHEZ CLEMENT 21 
 
 of opportunities that offer themselves. The major- 
 ity of men have not even the pluck to do that, 
 which makes it easy for mediocre people to get on 
 in this world. 
 
 Colonel Gilbert turned on his heel and walked 
 slowly back to the Eeunion des Officiers — the mili- 
 tary club which stands on the Place St. Nicholas 
 immediately behind the statue of Napoleon — a not 
 too lively place of entertainment, with a biUiard- 
 room, a reading-room, and half a dozen iron tables 
 and chairs on the pavement in front of the house. 
 Here the colonel seated himself, called for a liqueur, 
 and sat watching a young moon rise from the sea 
 beyond the Islet of Capraja. 
 
 It was the month of February, and the southern 
 spring was already in the air. The twilight is short 
 in these latitudes, and it was now nearly night. In 
 Corsica, as in Spain, the coolest hour is between 
 sunset and nightfall. With complete darkness there 
 comes a warm air from the ground. This was now 
 beginning to make itself felt ; but Gilbert had not 
 only pavement, but the whole Place St. Nicholas to 
 himself. There are two reasons why Corsicans do 
 not walk abroad at night — the risk of a chill and 
 the risk of meeting one's enemy. 
 
 Colonel Gilbert gave no thought to these mat- 
 ters, but sat with crossed legs and one spurred heel 
 thrown out, contentedly waiting as if for that train 
 which he must assuredly catch, or for that oppor- 
 tunity, perhaps, which was so long in coming that 
 he no longer seemed to look for it. And while he
 
 22 THE ISLE OF UNEEST 
 
 sat there a man came clanking from the town — a 
 tired man, with heavy feet and the iron heels of 
 the labourer. He passed Colonel Gilbert, and then, 
 seeming to have recognised him by the light of the 
 moon, paused, and came back. 
 
 " Monsieur le colonel," he said, without raising his 
 hand to his hat, as a Frenchman would have done. 
 
 " Yes," replied the colonel's pleasant voice, with 
 no ring of recognition in it. 
 
 " It is Mattel — the driver of the St. Florent dili- 
 gence," explained the man, who, indeed, carried his 
 badge of office, a long whip. 
 
 " Of course ; but I recognised you almost at 
 once," said the colonel, with that friendliness which 
 is so noticeable in the Kepublic to-day. 
 
 " You have seen me on the road often enough," 
 said the man, " and I have seen you, Monsieur le 
 Colonel, riding over to the Casa Perucca." 
 
 " Of course." 
 
 " You know Perucca's agent, Pietro Andrei ? " 
 
 " Yes." 
 
 " He was shot in the back on the Olmeta road 
 this afternoon." 
 
 Colonel Gilbert gave a slight start. 
 
 " Is that so ? " he said at length, quietly, after a 
 pause. 
 
 " Yes," said the diligence-driver ; and without 
 further comment he walked on, keeping well in the 
 middle of the road, as it is wise to do when one 
 has enemies.
 
 "'MONSIEUR 1.K COLONEL, HE SAID.
 
 CHAPTER III 
 
 A BY-PATH 
 
 " L'intrignie c'est tromper son homme ; I'habilete c'est faire qu'il se 
 trompe lui-naeme." 
 
 For an idle-minded man, Colonel Gilbert was 
 early astir the next morning, and rode out of the 
 town soon after sunrise, following the Yescovato 
 road, and chatting pleasantly enough with the 
 workers already on foot and in saddle on their way 
 to the great plain of Biguglia, Avhere men may la- 
 bour all day, though, if they spend so much as one 
 night there, must surely die. For the eastern coast 
 of Corsica consists of a series of level plains where 
 malarial fever is as rife as in any African swamp, 
 and the traveller may ride through a fertile land 
 where eucalyptus and palm grow amid the vine- 
 yards, and yet no human being may live after sun- 
 set. The labourer goes forth to his work in the 
 morning accompanied by his dog, carrying the ubiq- 
 uitous double-barrelled gun at full cock, and re- 
 turns in the evening to his mountain village, where, 
 at all events, he may breathe God's air without fear. 
 
 The colonel turned to the right a few miles out, 
 following the road which leads straight to that 
 mountain wall which divides all Corsica into the 
 "near" and the "far" side — into two peoples, 
 
 23
 
 24 THE ISLE OF UNKEST 
 
 speaking a different dialect, following slightly dif- 
 ferent customs, and only finding themselves united 
 in the presence of a common foe. The road mounts 
 steadily, and this February morning had broken 
 grey and cloudy, so that the colonel found himself 
 in the mists that hang over these mountains during 
 the spring months, long before he reached the nar- 
 row entrance to the grim and soundless Lancone 
 DejQle. The heavy clouds had nestled down the 
 mountains, covering them like a huge thickness of 
 wet cotton- wool. The road, which is little more 
 than a mule-path, is cut in the face of the rock, 
 and, far below, the river runs musically down to 
 Lake Biguglia. The colonel rode alone, though he 
 could perceive another traveller on the winding 
 road in front of him — a peasant in dark clothes, 
 w^ith a huge felt hat, astride on a little active Cor- 
 sican horse — sure of foot, quick and nervous, as 
 fiery as the men of this strange land. 
 
 The defile is narrow, and the sun rarely warms 
 the river that runs through the depths where the 
 foot of man can never have trodden since God fash- 
 ioned this earth. Colonel Gilbert, it would appear, 
 was accustomed to solitude. Perhaps he had known 
 it so well during his sojourn in this island of silence 
 and loneliness, that he had fallen a victim to its 
 dangerous charms, and being indolent hy nature, 
 had discovered that it is less trouble to be alone 
 than to cultivate the society of man. The Lancone 
 Defile has to this day an evil name. It is not wise 
 to pass through it alone, for some have entered one
 
 A BY-PATH 25 
 
 end never to emerge at the other. Colonel Gilbert 
 pressed his heavy charger, and gained rapidly on 
 the horseman in front of him. When he was within 
 two hundred yards of him, at the highest part of 
 the pass and through the narrow defile, he sought 
 in the inner pocket of his tunic — for in those days 
 French officers possessed no other clothes than their 
 uniform — and produced a letter. He examined it, 
 crumpled it between his fingers, and rubbed it 
 across his dusty knee so that it looked old and 
 travel-stained at once. Then, with the letter in his 
 hand, he put spurs to his horse and galloped after 
 the horseman in front of him. The man turned al- 
 most at once in his saddle, as if care rode behind 
 him there. 
 
 " Hi ! mon ami," cried the colonel, holding the 
 letter high above his head. " You have, I imagine, 
 dropped this letter ? " he added, as he approached 
 the other, who now awaited him. 
 
 " Where ? No ; but I have dropped no letter. 
 Where was it ? On the road ? " 
 
 "Down there," answered the colonel, pointing 
 back with his whip, and handing over the letter 
 with a final air as if it were no affair of his. 
 
 " Perucca," read the man, slowly, in the manner 
 of one having small dealings with pens and paper, 
 " Mattel Perucca — at Olmeta." 
 
 " Ah," said the colonel, lighting a cigarette. He 
 had apparently not troubled to read the address on 
 the envelope. 
 
 In such a thinly populated country as Corsica,
 
 26 THE ISLE OF UNREST 
 
 faces are of higher import than in crowded cities, 
 where types are mingled and individuality soon 
 fades. The colonel had already recognised this man 
 as of Olmeta — one of those, perhaps, who had stood 
 smoking on the '' Place " there when Pietro Andrei 
 crawled toward the fountain and failed to reach it. 
 
 " I am going to Olmeta," said the man, " and you 
 also, perhaps." 
 
 " No ; I am exercising my horse, as you see. I 
 shall turn to the left at the cross-roads, and go to- 
 ward Murato. I may come round by Olmeta later 
 — if I lose my way." 
 
 The man smiled grimly. In Corsica men rarely 
 laugh, 
 
 " You will not do that. You know this country 
 too well for that. You are the officer connected 
 with the railway. I have seen you looking through 
 your instruments at the earth, in the mountains, in 
 the rocks, and down in the plains — everywhere." 
 
 "It is my work," answered the colonel, tapping 
 with his whip the gold lace on his sleeve. " One 
 must do what one is ordered." 
 
 The other shrugged his shoulders, not seeming to 
 think that necessary. They rode on in silence, 
 which was only broken from time to time by the 
 colonel, who asked harmless questions as to the 
 names of the mountain summits now appearing 
 through the riven clouds, or the course of the 
 rivers, or the ownership of the wild and rocky land. 
 At the cross-roads they parted. 
 
 " I am returning to Olmeta," said the peasant, as
 
 A BY-PATH 27 
 
 they neared the sign-post, "and will send that 
 letter up to the Casa Perucca by one of my 
 children. I wonder " — he paused, and, taking the 
 letter from his jacket pocket, turned it curiously in 
 his hand — " I wonder what is in it ? " 
 
 The colonel shrugged his shoulders and turned 
 his horse's head. It was, it appeared, no business 
 of his to inquire what the letter contained, or to 
 care whether it be delivered or not. Indeed, he 
 appeared to have forgotten all about it. 
 
 "Good day, ray friend — good day," he said 
 absent-mindedly. 
 
 And an hour later he rode up to the Casa Perucca, 
 having approached that ancient house by a wind- 
 ing path from the valley below, instead of by the 
 high-road from the Col San Stefano to Olmeta, 
 which runs past its very gate. The Casa Perucca 
 is rather singularly situated, and commands one of 
 the most wonderful views in this wild land of un- 
 rivalled prospects. The high-road curves round the 
 lower slope of the mountains as round the base of a 
 sugar-loaf, and is cut at times out of the sheer rock, 
 while a little lower it is begirt by huge trees. It 
 forms as it were a cornice, perched three thousand 
 feet above the valley, over which it commands a 
 view of mountain and bay and inlet, but never a 
 house, never a church, and the farthest point is be- 
 yond Calvi, thirty miles away. There is but one 
 spur — a vast buttress of fertile land thrown against 
 the mountain, as a buttress may be thrown against 
 a church tower.
 
 28 THE ISLE OF UIS^REST 
 
 The Casa Perucca is built upon this spur of land, 
 and the Perucca estate — that is to say, the land 
 attached to the Casa (for property is held in small 
 tenures in Corsica) — is all that lies outside the road. 
 In the middle ages the position would have been 
 unrivalled, for it could be attacked from one side 
 only, and doubtless the Genoese Bank of St. George 
 must have had bitter reckonings with some dead 
 and forgotten rebel, who had his stronghold where 
 the Casa now stands. The present house is Italian 
 in appearance — a long, low, verandahed house, 
 built in two parts, as if it had at one time been two 
 houses, and only connected later by a round 
 tower, now painted a darker colour than the adjacent 
 buildings. There are occasional country houses like 
 it to be found in Tuscany, notably on the heights 
 behind Fiesole. 
 
 The wall defining the peninsula is ten feet high, 
 and is built actually on the roadside, so that the 
 Casa Perucca, with its great wooden gate, turns a 
 very cold shoulder upon its poor neighbours. It is, 
 as a matter of fact, the best house north of Calvi, 
 and the site of it one of the oldest. Its only rival 
 is the Chateau de Yasselot, which stands deserted 
 down in the valley a few miles to the south, nearer 
 to the sea, and farther out of the world, for no high- 
 road passes near it. 
 
 Beneath the Casa Perucca, on the northern slope 
 of the shoulder, the ground falls away rapidly in a 
 series of stony chutes, and to the south and west 
 there are evidences of the land having once been
 
 A BY-PATH 29 
 
 laid out in terraces in tlie distant days when Cor- 
 sicans were content to till the most fertile soil in 
 Europe — always excepting the Island of Majorca — 
 but now in the wane of the third empire, when 
 every Corsican of any worth had found employ- 
 ment in France, there were none to grow vines or 
 cultivate the olive. There is a short cut up from 
 the valley from the mouldering Chateau de Vasse- 
 lot, which is practicable for a trained horse. And 
 Colonel Gilbert must have known this, for he had 
 described a circle in the wooded valley in order to 
 gain it. He must also have been to the Casa 
 Perucca many times before, for he rang the bell 
 suspended outside the door built in the thickness of 
 the southern wall, where a horseman would not 
 have expected to gain admittance. This door was, 
 however, constructed without steps on its inner 
 side, for Corsica has this in common with Spain, 
 that no man walks where he can ride, so that steps 
 are rarely built where a gradual slope will prove 
 more convenient. 
 
 There was something suggestive of a siege in the 
 way in which the door was cautiously opened, and 
 a manservant peeped forth. 
 
 " Ah ! " he said, with relief, " it is the Colonel 
 Gilbert. Yes ; monsieur may see him, but no one 
 else. Ah ! but he is furious, I can tell you. He is 
 in the verandah — like a wild beast. I will take 
 monsieur's horse." 
 
 Colonel Gilbert went through the palms and bam- 
 boos and orange-trees alone, toward the house ; and
 
 30 THE ISLE OF UNREST 
 
 there, walking up and down, and stopping every 
 moment to glance toward ttie door, of which the 
 bell still sounded, he perceived a large, stout man, 
 clad in light tweed, wearing an old straw hat and 
 carrjdng a thick stick. 
 
 " Ah ! " cried Perucca, " so you have heard the 
 news. And you have come, I hope, to apologise 
 for your miserable France. It is thus that you 
 govern Corsica, Avith a Civil Service made up of a 
 parcel of old women and young counter-jumpers ! 
 I have no patience with your prefectures and your 
 3^oung men with flowing neckties and kid gloves. 
 Are we a girls' school to be governed thus ? And 
 you — such great soldiers ! Yes, I will admit that 
 the French are great soldiers, but you do not know 
 how to rule Corsica. A tight hand, colonel. Holy 
 name of thunder ! " And he stamped his foot with 
 a decisiveness that made the verandah tremble. 
 
 The colonel laughed pleasantly. 
 
 " They want some men of your type," he said. 
 
 " Ah ! " cried Perucca, " I would rule them, for 
 they are cowards ; they are afraid of me. Do you 
 know, they had the impertinence to send one of 
 their threatening letters to poor Andrei before they 
 shot him. They sent him a sheet of paper with a 
 cross drawn on it. Then I knew he was done for. 
 They do not send ihsit 2?our rire." 
 
 He stopped short, and gave a jerk of the head. 
 There was someAvhere in his fierce old heart a cord 
 that vibrated to the touch of these rude mountain 
 customs ; for the man AA^as a Corsican of long de-
 
 A BY-PATH 31 
 
 scent and pure blood. Of such the fighting nations 
 have made good soldiers in the past, and even Rome 
 could not make them slaves. 
 
 " Or you could do it," went on Perucca, with a 
 shrewd nod, looking at him beneath shaggy brows. 
 " The velvet glove — eh ? That would surprise 
 them, for they have never felt the touch of one. 
 You, with your laugh and idle ways, and behind 
 them the perception — the perception of the devil — 
 or a woman." 
 
 The colonel had drawn forward a basket chair, 
 and was leaning back in it with crossed legs, and 
 one foot swinging. 
 
 " I ? Heaven forbid ! No, my friend ; I require 
 too little. It is only the discontented who get on 
 in the world. But, mind you, I would not mind 
 trying on a small scale. I have often thought I 
 should like to buy a little property on this side of 
 the island, and cultivate it as they do up in Cap 
 Corse. It would be an amusement for my exile, 
 and one could perhaps make the butter for one's 
 bread — green Chartreuse instead of yellow — eh ? " 
 
 He paused, and seeing that the other made no 
 reply, continued in the same careless strain. 
 
 " If you or one of the other proprietors on this 
 side of the mountains would sell — perhaps." 
 
 But Perucca shook his head resolutely. 
 
 " No ; we should not do that. You, who have 
 had to do with the railway, must know that. We 
 will let our land go to rack and ruin, we will starve 
 it and not cultivate it, we will let the terraces fall
 
 32 THE ISLE OF UNREST 
 
 away after the rains, we will live miserably on the 
 finest soil in Europe — we may starve, but we won't 
 sell." 
 
 Gilbert did not seem to be listening very in- 
 tently. He was watching the young bamboos now 
 bursting into their feathery new green, as they 
 waved to and fro against the blue sky. His head 
 was slightly inclined to one side, his eyes were con- 
 templative. 
 
 " It is a pity," he said, after a pause, " that Andrei 
 did not have a better knowledge of the insular char- 
 acter. He need not have been in 01m eta church- 
 yard now." 
 
 " It is a pity," rapped out Perucca, with an em- 
 phatic stick on the wooden floor, " that Andrei was 
 so gentle with them. He drove the cattle off the 
 land. I should have driven them into my own sheds, 
 and told the owners to come and take them. He 
 was too easy-going, too mild in his manners. Look 
 at me — they don't send me their threatening letters. 
 You do not find any crosses chalked on my door — 
 eh?" 
 
 And indeed, as he stood there, with his square 
 shoulders, his erect bearing and fiery, dark eyes, 
 Mattel Perucca seemed worthy of the name of his 
 untamed ancestors, and was not a man to be trifled 
 with. 
 
 " Eh — what ? " he asked of the servant who had 
 approached timorously, bearing a letter on a tray. 
 " For me ? Something about Andrei, from those 
 fools of gendarmes, no doubt."
 
 A BY-PATH 33 
 
 And he tore open the envelope which Colonel 
 Gilbert had handed to the peasant a couple of hours 
 earlier in the Lancone Defile. He fixed his eye- 
 glasses upon his nose, clumsily, with one hand, and 
 then unfolded the letter. It was merely a sheet of 
 blank paper, with a cross drawn upon it. 
 
 His face suddenly blazed red with anger. His 
 eyes glared at the paper through the glasses placed 
 crookedly upon his nose. 
 
 " Holy name ! " he cried. " Look at this — this to 
 tne ! The dogs ! " 
 
 The colonel looked at the paper with a shrug of 
 the shoulders. 
 
 " You will have to sell," he suggested lightly ; 
 and glancing up at Perucca's face, saw something 
 there that made him leap to his feet. "Hulloa.^ 
 Here," he said quickly — " sit down." 
 
 And as he forced Perucca into the chair, his hands 
 were already at the old man's collar. And in five 
 minutes, in the presence of Colonel Gilbert and two 
 old servants, Mattel Perucca died.
 
 CHAPTER TV 
 
 A TOSS-UP 
 " One can be but what one is born." 
 
 If any one had asked the Count Lory de Yasselot 
 Avho and what he was, he would probably have an- 
 swered that he was a member of the English Jockey 
 Club. For he held that that distinction conferred 
 greater honour upon him than the accident of his 
 birth, which enabled him to claim for grandfather 
 the first Count de Yasselot, one of Murat's aides-de- 
 camp, a brilliant, dashing cavalry officer, a boy- 
 hood's friend of the great Napoleon. Lory de Yas- 
 selot was, moreover, a cavalry officer himself, but 
 had not taken part in any of the enterprises of an 
 emperor who held that to govern Frenchmen it is 
 necessary to provide them with a war every four 
 years. 
 
 " Bon Dieu ! " he told his friends, " I did not 
 sleep for two nights after I was elected to that 
 great club." 
 
 Lory de Yasselot, moreover, did his best to live 
 up to his position. He never, for instance, had his 
 clothes made in Paris. His very gloves came from 
 a little shop in Newmarket, where only the seamiest 
 and clumsiest of hand-coverings are provided, and 
 horn buttons are a sine qua non. 
 
 34
 
 A TOSS-UP 35 
 
 To desire to be mistaken for an Englishman is a 
 sure sign that you belong to the very best Parisian 
 set, and Lory de Yasselot's position was an enviable 
 one, for so long as he kept his hat on and stood 
 quite still and did not speak, he might easily have 
 been some one connected with the British turf. It 
 must, of course, be understood that the similitude 
 of de Yasselot's desire was only an outward one. 
 We all think that every other nation would fain 
 be English, but as all other countries have a like 
 pitying contempt for us, there is perhaps no harm 
 done. And it is to be presumed that if some candid 
 friend were to tell de Yasselot that the moment 
 he uncovered his hair or opened his lips, or made a 
 single movement, he was hopelessly and unmistak- 
 ably French from top to toe, he would not have 
 been sorely distressed. 
 
 It will be remembered that the Third [N'apoleon 
 — the last of that strange dynasty — raised himself 
 to the Imperial throne — made himself, indeed, the 
 most powerful monarch in Europe — by statecraft, 
 and not by power or sword. With the magic of his 
 name he touched the heart of the most impetuous 
 people in the world, and upon the uncertain, and, 
 as it is whispered, not always honest suffrage of the 
 plebiscite, climbed to the unstable height of des- 
 potism. For years he ruled France with a sort of 
 careless cynicism, and it was only when his health 
 failed that his hand began to relax its grip. In the 
 scramble for place and power, the grandson of the 
 first Count de Yasselot might easily have gained a
 
 36 THE ISLE OF UNREST 
 
 prize, but Lory seemed to have no ambition in that 
 direction. Perhaps he had no taste for ministry or 
 bureau, nor cared to cultivate the subtle knowledge 
 of court and cabinet, which meant so much at this 
 time. His tastes were rather those of the camp ; 
 and, failing war, he had turned his thoughts to 
 sport. He had hunted in England and fished in 
 Norway. In the winter of 1869, he went to Africa 
 for big game, and, returning in the early weeks of 
 March, found France and his dear Paris gayer, more 
 insouciant, more brilliant than ever. 
 
 For the empire had never seemed more secure 
 than it did at this moment, had never stood higher 
 in the eyes of the world, had never boasted so lavish 
 a court. Paris was at her best, and Lory de Vasse- 
 lot exclaimed aloud, after the manner of his country- 
 men, at the sight of the young buds and spring- 
 flowers around the Lac in the Bois de Boulogne, as 
 he rode there this fresh morning. 
 
 He had only arrived in Paris the night before, 
 and, dining at the Cercle Militaire, had accepted 
 the loan of a horse. 
 
 " One will at all events see one's friends in the 
 wood," he said. But riding there in an ultra- 
 English suit of cords at the fashionable hour, he 
 found that he had somehow missed the fashion. 
 The alleys, which had been popular a year ago, 
 were now deserted ; for there is nothing so fickle as 
 social taste, and the riders were all at the other side 
 of the Route de Longchamps. 
 
 Lory turned his horse's head in that direction,
 
 A TOSS-UP 37 
 
 and was riding leisurely, when he heard an authori- 
 tative voice apparently directed toward himself. 
 He was in one of the narrow allSes, " reserved for 
 cavaliers," and, turning perceived that the soft 
 sandy gravel had prevented his hearing the ap- 
 proach of other riders — a man and a woman. And 
 the woman's horse was beyond control. It was a 
 little, fiery Arab, leaping high in the air at each 
 stride, and timing a nasty forward jerk of the head 
 at the worst moment for its rider's comfort. 
 
 There was no time to do anything but touch his 
 own trained charger with the spur and gallop 
 ahead. He turned in his saddle. The Arab was 
 gaining on him, and gradually leaving behind the 
 heavy horse and weighty rider who were giving 
 chase. The woman, with a set white face, was 
 jerking at the bridle with her left hand in an odd, 
 mechanical, feeble Avay, while with her right, she 
 held to the pommel of her saddle. But she was 
 swaying forward in an unmistakable manner. She 
 was only half conscious, and in a moment must fall. 
 
 Lory glanced behind her, and saw a stout built 
 man, with a fair moustache and a sunburnt face, 
 riding his great horse in the stirrups like a jockey, 
 his face alight with that sudden excitement which 
 sometimes blazes in light blue eyes. He made a 
 quick gesture, which said as plainly as words — 
 
 " You must act, and quickl}'- ; I can do nothing." 
 
 And the three thundered on. The rides in the 
 Bois de Boulogne are all bordered on either side by 
 thick trees. If Lory de Vasselot pulled across, he
 
 38 THE ISLE OF UNREST 
 
 would send the maddened Arab into the forest, 
 where the first low branch must of a necessity 
 batter in its rider's head. He rode on, gradually 
 edging across to what in France is the wrong side 
 of the road. 
 
 " Hold on, madame ; hold on," he said, in a quick 
 low voice. 
 
 But the woman did not seem to hear him. She 
 had dropped the bridle now, and the Arab had 
 thrown it forward over its head. 
 
 Then Lory gradually reined in. The woman was 
 reeling in the saddle as the Arab thundered along- 
 side. The wind blew back the long habit, and 
 showed her foot to be firmly in the stirrup. 
 
 " Stirrup, madame ! " shouted Lory, as if she were 
 miles away. " Mon Dieu, your stirrup ! " 
 
 But she only looked ahead with glazed eyes. 
 
 Then, edging nearer with a delicate spur, de 
 Yasselot shook off his own right stirrup, and, lean- 
 ing down, lifted the fainting woman with his right 
 arm clean out of the saddle. He rested her weight 
 upon his thigh, and, feeling cautiously with his 
 foot, found her stirrup and kicked it free. He 
 pulled up slowly, and, drawing aside, allowed the 
 lady's companion to pass him at a steady gallop 
 after the Arab. 
 
 The lady was now in a dead faint, her dark red 
 hair hanging like a rope across de Vasselot's arm. 
 She was, fortunately, not a big woman ; for it was 
 no easy position to find one's self in, on the top, 
 thus, of a large horse with a senseless burden and
 
 A TOSS-UP 39 
 
 no help in sight. He managed, however, to dis- 
 mount, and rather breathlessly carried the lady to 
 the shade of the trees, where he laid her with her 
 head on a mound of rising turf, and, lifting aside her 
 hair, saw her face for the first time. 
 
 " Ah ! That dear baroness ! " he exclaimed ; and, 
 turning, he found himself bowing rather stiffly to 
 the gentleman, who had now returned, leading the 
 runaway horse. He was not, it may be mentioned, 
 the baron. 
 
 While the two men were thus regarding each 
 other in a polite silence, the baroness opened a pair 
 of remarkably bright brown eyes, at first with 
 wonder, and then with understanding, and finally 
 with wonder again when they lighted on de Vasse- 
 lot. 
 
 " Lory ! " she cried. " But where have you 
 fallen from ? " 
 
 " It must have been from heaven, baroness," he 
 replied, "for I assuredly came at the right moment." 
 
 He stood looking down at her — a lithe, neat, 
 rather small-made man. Then he turned to attend 
 to his horse. The baroness was already bus)'' with 
 her hair. She rose to her feet and smoothed her 
 habit. 
 
 " Ah, good ! " she laughed. " There is no harm 
 done. But you saved my life, my dear Lory. One 
 cannot have two opinions as to that. If it were 
 not that the colonel is watching us, I should em- 
 brace you. But I have not introduced you. This 
 is Colonel Gilbert — my dear and good cousin, Lory
 
 40 THE ISLE OF UNREST 
 
 de Vasselot. The colonel is from Bastia, by the 
 way, and the Count de Vasselot pretends to be a 
 Corsican. I mention it because it is only friendly 
 to tell you that you have something more than the 
 weather and my gratitude in common." 
 
 She laughed as she spoke ; then became suddenly 
 grave, and sat down again with her hand to her 
 eyes. 
 
 "And I am going to faint," she added, with 
 ghastly lips that tried to smile, " and nobody but 
 you two men." 
 
 " It is the reaction," said Colonel Gilbert, in his 
 soothing way. But he exchanged a quick glance 
 with de Yasselot. " It will pass, baroness." 
 
 " It is well to remember at such a moment that 
 one is a sportswoman," suggested de Vasselot. 
 
 " And that one has de Vasselot blood in one's 
 veins, you mean. You may as well say it." She 
 rose as she spoke, and looked from one to the other 
 with a brave laugh. " Bring me that horse," she 
 said. 
 
 De Vasselot conveyed by one inimitable gesture 
 that he admired her spirit, but refused to obey her. 
 Colonel Gilbert smiled contemplatively. He was 
 of a different school— of that school of Frenchmen 
 which owes its existence to Napoleon III. — im- 
 passive, almost tactiturn— more British than the 
 typical Briton. De Vasselot, on the contrary, was 
 quick and vivacious. His fine-cut face and dark 
 eyes expressed a hundred things that his tongue 
 had no time to put into words. He was hard and
 
 A TOSS-UP 41 
 
 brown and sunburnt, which at once made him 
 manly despite his slight frame. 
 
 " Ah," he cried, with a gay laugh, " that is bet- 
 ter. But seriously, you know, you should have a 
 patent stirrup " 
 
 He broke oif, described the patent stirrup in three 
 gestures, how it opened and released the foot. He 
 showed the rider falling, the horse galloping away, 
 the released lady-rider rising to her feet and satis- 
 fying herself that no bones were broken — all in 
 three more gestures. 
 
 "Yoila ! " he said ; " I shall send you one." 
 
 "And you as poor — as poor," said the baroness, 
 whose husband was of the new nobility, which is 
 based, as all the world knows, on solid manufacture. 
 " My friend, you cannot afford it." 
 
 " I cannot afford to lose you^'' he said, with a 
 sudden gravity, and with eyes which, to the unin- 
 itiated, Avould undoubtedly have conveyed the im- 
 pression that she was the whole world to him. 
 " Besides," he added, as an after-thought, " it is 
 only sixteen francs." 
 
 The baroness threw up her gay brown eyes. 
 
 " Just Heaven," she exclaimed, " what it is to be 
 able to inspire such affection — to be valued at six- 
 teen francs ! " 
 
 Then — for she was as quick and changeable as 
 himself — she turned, and touched his arm with her 
 thickly gloved hand. 
 
 " Seriously, my cousin, I cannot thank you, and 
 you, Colonel Gilbert, for your promptness and your
 
 42 THE ISLE OF UNKEST 
 
 skill. And as to my stupid husband, you know, he 
 has no words ; when I tell him, he will only grunt 
 behind his great moustache, and he will never thank 
 you, and will never forget. Never ! Kemeraber 
 that." And with a wave of the riding-whip, which 
 was attached to her wrist, she described eternity. 
 
 De Vasselot turned with a deprecatory shrug of 
 the shoulders, and busied himself with the girths of 
 his saddle. At the touch and the sight of the 
 buckles, his eyes became grave and earnest. And 
 it is not only Frenchmen who cherish this cult of 
 the horse, making false gods of saddle and bridle, 
 and a sacred temple of the harness-room. "Very 
 seriously de Vasselot shifted the side-saddle from 
 the Arab to his own large and gentle horse — a wise 
 old charger with a Roman nose, who never wasted 
 his mettle in park tricks, but served honestly the 
 Government that paid his forage. 
 
 The Baroness de Melide watched the transaction 
 in respectful silence, for she too took le sjport very 
 seriouslv, and had attended a course of lectures at a 
 riding-school on the art of keeping and using har- 
 ness. Her colour was now returning — that bril- 
 liant, delicate colour which so often accompanies 
 dark red hair — and she gave a little sigh of resigna- 
 tion. 
 
 Colonel Gilbert looked at her, but said nothing. 
 He seemed to admire her, in the same contempla- 
 tive way that he had admired the moon rising be- 
 hind the island of Capraja from the Place St, Nich- 
 olas in Bastia.
 
 A TOSS-UP 43 
 
 De Yasselot noted the sigh, and glanced sharply 
 at her over the shoulder of the big charger. 
 
 " Of what are you thinking ? " he said. 
 
 " Of the millennium, mon ami." 
 
 " The millennium ? " 
 
 " Yes," she answered, gathering the bridle ; 
 " when women shall perhaps be allowed to be nat- 
 ural. Our mothers played at being afraid — we 
 play at being courageous." 
 
 As she spoke she placed a neat foot in Colonel 
 Gilbert's hand, who lifted her without effort to the 
 saddle. De Vasselot mounted the Arab, and they 
 rode slowly homeward by way of the Avenue de 
 Longchamps, through the Porte Dauphine, and up 
 that which is now the Avenue du Bois de Boulogne, 
 which was quiet enough at this time of day. The 
 baroness was inclined to be silent. She had been 
 more shaken than she cared to confess to two sol- 
 diers. Colonel Gilbert probably saw this, for he 
 began to make conversation with de Vasselot. 
 
 " You do not come to Corsica," he said. 
 
 " I have never been there — shall never go there," 
 answered de Vasselot. " Tell me — is it not a ter- 
 rible place *? The end of the world, I am told. My 
 mother " — he broke off with a gesture of the utmost 
 despair. " She is dead ! " he interpolated — " al- 
 ways told me that it was the most terrible place in 
 the world. At my father's death, more than thirty 
 years ago, she quitted Corsica, and came to live in 
 Paris, where I was born, and where, if God is good, 
 I shall die."
 
 44 THE ISLE OF UNREST 
 
 " My cousin, you talk too much of death," put in 
 the baroness, seriously 
 
 " As between soldiers, baroness," replied de Yas- 
 selot, gaily, " It is our trade. You know the 
 island w^ell, colonel ? " 
 
 " No, I cannot say that. But I know the Chateau 
 de Yasselot." 
 
 " Now, that is interesting ; and I who scarcely 
 know the address ! Near Calvi, is it not ? A waste 
 of rocks, and behind each rock at least one bandit 
 — so my dear mother assured me." 
 
 " It might be cultivated," answered Colonel Gil- 
 bert, indifferently. " It might be made to yield a 
 small return. I have often thought so. I have 
 even thought of whiling away my exile by attempt- 
 ing some such scheme. I once contemplated buy- 
 ing a piece of land on that coast to try. Perhaps 
 you would sell ? " 
 
 " Sell ! " laughed de Yasselot. " No ; I am not 
 such a scoundrel as that. I would toss you for it, 
 my dear colonel ; I would toss vou for it, if you 
 like." 
 
 And as they turned out of the avenue into one of 
 the palatial streets that run toward the Avenue 
 Yictor Hugo, he made the gesture of throwing a 
 coin into the air.
 
 CHAPTER Y 
 
 IN THE RUE DU CHERCHE-MIDI 
 
 " II ne faut jamais se laisser trop voir, meme a ceux qui nous aiment." 
 
 It was not very definitely known what Made- 
 moiselle Brun taught in the School of Our Lady of 
 the Sacred Heart in the Rue du Cherche-Midi in 
 Paris. For it is to be feared that Mademoiselle 
 Brun knew nothing except the world; and it is 
 precisely that form of knowledge which is least 
 cultivated in a convent school. 
 
 " She has had a romance," whispered her bright- 
 eyed charges, and lapsed into suppressed giggles at 
 the mere mention of such a word in connection with 
 a little woman dressed in rusty black, with thin 
 grey hair, a thin grey face, and a yellow neck. 
 
 It would seem, however, that there is a point 
 where even a mother-superior must come down, as 
 it were, into the market-place and meet the world. 
 That point is where the convent purse rattles thinly 
 and the mother-superior must face hunger. It had, 
 in fact, been intimated to the conductors of the 
 School of the Sisterhood of the Sacred Heart by the 
 ladies of the quarter of St. Germain, that the con- 
 vent teaching taught too little of one world and 
 too much of another. And the mother-superior, 
 being a sensible woman, agreed to engage a certain 
 
 45
 
 46 THE ISLE OF UNREST 
 
 number of teachers from the outer world. Made- 
 moiselle Brun was vaguely entitled an instructress, 
 while Mademoiselle Denise Lange bore the proud 
 title of mathematical mistress. 
 
 Mademoiselle Brun, with her compressed mouth, 
 her wrinkled face, and her cold hazel eyes, accepted 
 the situation, as we have to accept most situations 
 in this world, merely because there is no choice. 
 
 " What can you teach ? " asked the soft-eyed 
 mother-superior. 
 
 " Anything," replied Mademoiselle Brun, with a 
 direct gaze, which somehow cowed the nun. 
 
 " She has had a romance," whispered some wag 
 of fourteen, when Mademoiselle Brun first appeared 
 in the schoolroom ; and that became the accepted 
 legend regarding her. 
 
 "What are you saying of me?" she asked one 
 day, when her rather sudden appearance caused si- 
 lence at a moment when silence was not compul- 
 sory. 
 
 " That you once had a romance, mademoiselle," 
 answered some daring girl. 
 
 "Ah!" 
 
 And perhaps the dusky wrinkles lapsed into gen- 
 tler lines, for some one had the audacity to touch 
 mademoiselle's hand with a bird-like tap of one 
 finger. 
 
 " And you must tell it to us." 
 
 For there were no nuns present, and mademoi- 
 selle was suspected of having a fine contempt for 
 the most stringent of the convent laws.
 
 IN THE RUE DU CHERCHE-MIDI 47 
 
 "Ko." 
 
 " But why not, mademoiselle ? '* 
 
 " Because the real romances are never told," re- 
 plied Mademoiselle Brun. 
 
 But that was only her way, perhaps, of conceal- 
 ing the fact that there was nothing to tell. She 
 spoke in a low voice, for her class shared the long 
 schoolroom this afternoon with the mathematical 
 class. The room did not lend itself to description, 
 for it had bare walls and two long windows looking 
 down disconsolately upon a courtyard, where a grey 
 cat sunned herself in the daytime and bewailed her 
 lot at night. "Who, indeed, would be a convent 
 cat? 
 
 At the far end of the long room Mademoiselle 
 Denise Lange was superintending, with an earnest 
 face, the studies of five young ladies. It was only 
 necessary to look at the respective heads of the 
 pupils to conclude that these young persons were 
 engaged in mathematical problems, for there is 
 nothing so discomposing to the hair as arithmetic. 
 Mademoiselle Lange herself seemed no more capable 
 of steering a course through a double equation than 
 her pupils, for she was young and pretty, with 
 laughing lips and fair hair, now somewhat ruffled 
 by her calculations. When, however, she looked 
 up, it might have been perceived that her glance 
 was clear and penetrating. 
 
 There was no more popular person in the Con- 
 vent of the Sacred Heart than Denise Lange, and in 
 no walk of life is personal attractiveness so much
 
 48 THE ISLE OF UNKEST 
 
 appreciated as in a girls' school. It is only later in 
 life that ces demoiselles begin to find that their 
 neighbour's beauty is but skin deep. The nuns — 
 " fond fools," Mademoiselle Brun called them — con- 
 cluded that because Deuise was pretty she must be 
 good. The girls loved Denise with a wild and ex- 
 ceedingly ephemeral affection, because she was little 
 more than a girl herself, and was, like themselves, 
 liable to moments of deep arithmetical despondency. 
 Mademoiselle Brun admitted that she was fond of 
 Denise because she was her second cousin, and that 
 was all. 
 
 When worldly mammas, essentially of the second 
 empire, who perhaps had doubts respecting a purely 
 conventual education, made inquiries on this sub- 
 ject, the mother-superior, feeling very wicked and 
 worldly, usually made mention of the mathematical 
 mistress, Denise Lange, daughter of the great and 
 good general who was killed at Solferino. And no 
 other word of identification was needed. For some 
 keen-witted artist had painted a great salon picture 
 of, not a young paladin, but a fat old soldier, eight- 
 een stone, on his huge charger, with shaking red 
 cheeks and blazing eyes, standing in his stirrups, 
 bursting out of his tight tunic, and roaring to his 
 enfants to follow him to their death. 
 
 It was after the battle of Solferino that Made- 
 moiselle Brun had come into Denise Lange's life, 
 taking her from her convent school to live in a 
 dull little apartment in the Rue des Saints Peres, 
 educating her, dressing her, caring for her with a
 
 IN THE EUE DU CHEECHE-MIDI 49 
 
 grim affection which never wasted itself in words. 
 How she pinched and saved, and taught herself 
 that she might teach others ; how she triumphantly 
 made both ends meet, — are secrets which, like 
 Mademoiselle Brun's romance, she would not tell. 
 For French women are not only cleverer and more 
 capable than French men, but they are cleverer and 
 more capable than any other women in the world. 
 History, moreover, will prove this ; for nearly all 
 the great women that the world has seen have been 
 produced by France. 
 
 Denise and Mademoiselle Brun still lived in the 
 dull little apartment in the Kue des Saints Peres — 
 that narrow street which runs southward from the 
 Quai Voltaire to the Boulevard St. Germain, where 
 the cheap frame-makers, the artists' colourmen, and 
 the dealers in old prints have their shops. To the 
 convent school, the old woman and the young girl, 
 Avalking daily through the streets to their work, 
 brought with them that breath of worldliness which 
 the advance of civilisation seemed to render desir- 
 able to the curriculum of a girls' school. 
 
 " It must be heavenly, mademoiselle, to walk in 
 the streets quite alone," said one of Mademoiselle 
 Brun's pupils to her one day. 
 
 " It is," was the reply ; " especially near the 
 gutter." 
 
 But this afternoon there was no conversation, for 
 the literature class knew that Mademoiselle Brun 
 was in a contrary humour. 
 
 " She is looking at that dear Denise with discon-
 
 50 THE ISLE OF UNREST 
 
 tented eyes. She is in a shocking temper," had 
 been the whispered warning from mouth to mouth. 
 
 And in truth Mademoiselle Brun constantly 
 glanced down the length of the schoolroom to 
 where Denise Avas sitting. But a seeing eye could 
 well perceive that it was not with Denise, but with 
 the schoolroom, that the little old woman was dis- 
 contented. Perhaps she had at times a cruel thought 
 that the Eue des Saints P^res, emphasised as it were 
 by the Rue du Cherche-Midi, was hardly gay for a 
 young life. Perhaps the soft touch of spring that 
 was in the March air stirred up restless longings in 
 the soul of this little grey town-mouse. 
 
 And while she was watching Denise, the cross- 
 grained old nun who acted as concierge to this quiet 
 house came into the room, and handed Denise a 
 long blue envelope. 
 
 "It is addressed in a man's handwriting," she 
 said warningly. 
 
 " Then let us by all means send for the tongs," 
 answered Denise, taking the letter with a mock air 
 of alarm. 
 
 But she looked at it curiously, and glanced 
 toward Mademoiselle Brun before she opened it. 
 It was perhaps characteristic of the little old 
 schoolmistress to show no interest whatever. And 
 yet to her it probably seemed an age before Denise 
 came toward her, carrying the letter in her out- 
 stretched hand. 
 
 " At first," said the girl, " I thought it was a 
 joke — a trick of one of the girls. But it is serious
 
 IN THE KUE DU CHEKCHE-MIDI 51 
 
 enough. It is a romance inside a blue envelope — 
 that is all." 
 
 She gave a joyous laugh, and threw the letter 
 down on Mademoiselle Brun's knees. 
 
 " It is my father's cousin, Mattel Perucca, who 
 has died suddenly, and has left me an estate in 
 Corsica," she continued, impatiently opening the 
 letter, which Mademoiselle Brun fingered with 
 pessimistic distrust. " See here ! that is the address 
 of my estate in Corsica, where I shall invite you to 
 stay with me — I, who stand before you in my old 
 black alpaca, and would borrow a hairpin if you 
 can spare it." 
 
 Her hands were busy with her hair as she spoke ; 
 and she seemed to touch life and its entanglements 
 as lightly. Mademoiselle Brun, however, read the 
 letter very gravely. For she was a wise old French- 
 woman, who knew that it is only bad news which 
 may safely be accepted as true. 
 
 The letter, which was accompanied by an enclo- 
 sure, was from a Marseilles solicitor, and began by 
 inquiring as to the identity of Mademoiselle Denise 
 Lange, instructress at the convent school in the 
 Kue du Cherche-Midi, with the daughter of the late 
 General Lange, who met his death on the field of 
 Solferino. It then proceeded to explain that Denise 
 Lange had inherited the property known as the 
 Perucca property, in the commune of Calvi, in the 
 Island of Corsica. Followed a schedule of the said 
 property, which included the historic chateau, 
 known as the Casa Perucca. The solicitor con-
 
 52 THE ISLE OF UNEEST 
 
 eluded with a word for himself, after the manner 
 of his kind, and clearly demonstrated that no other 
 lawyer was so capable as he to arrange the affairs 
 of Mademoiselle Denise Lange. 
 
 " Jean Jacques Moreau," read Mademoiselle Brun, 
 with some scorn, the signature of the Marseilles 
 notary. "An imbecile, your Jean Jacques — an 
 imbecile, like his great and mischievous namesake. 
 He does not say of what malady your second 
 cousin died, or what income the property will yield 
 — if anj^" 
 
 " But we can ask him those particulars." 
 
 " And pay for each answer," retorted Mademoi- 
 selle Brun, folding the letter reflectively. 
 
 She was remembering that a few minutes earlier 
 she had been thinking that their present existence 
 was too narrow for Denise ; and now, in the twink- 
 ling of an eye, life seemed to be opening out and 
 spreading with a rapidity which only the thoughts 
 of youth could follow and the energy of spring keep 
 pace with. 
 
 " Then we will go to Marseilles and ask the 
 questions ourselves, and then he cannot charge for 
 each answer, for I know he could never keep 
 count." 
 
 But Mademoiselle Brun only looked grave, and 
 would not rise to Denise's lighter humour. It al- 
 most seemed, indeed, as if she were afraid — she 
 who had never known fear through all the years of 
 pinch and struggle, who had faced a world that had 
 no use for her, that would not buy the poor serv-
 
 m THE RUE DU CHERCHE-MIDI 53 
 
 ices she had to sell. For to know the worst is 
 always a relief, and to exchange it for something 
 better is like exchanging an old coat for a new one. 
 
 " And in the mean time " said Mademoiselle 
 
 Brun, turning sharply upon her pupils, who had 
 taken the opportunity of abandoning French litera- 
 ture. 
 
 " In the mean time," said Denise, turning reluc- 
 tantly away — " in the mean time, I am filling a vat 
 of so many cubic metres, from a well so many 
 metres deep, with a pail containing four litres, and 
 of course the pail has a leak in it, and the well be- 
 comes deeper as one draws from it, and the Casa 
 Perucca is, I suppose, a dream," 
 
 She went back to her work, and in a few mo- 
 ments was quite absorbed in it. And it was Ma- 
 demoiselle Brun who could not settle to her French 
 literature, nor compose her thoughts at all. For 
 change is the natural desire of youth, and the be- 
 lief that it must be for the better, part and parcel 
 of the astounding optimism of that state of life. 
 
 A few minutes later Denise remembered the en- 
 closure — a letter in a thick white envelope, which 
 was still lying on her desk. She opened it. 
 
 " Mademoiselle " (the letter ran), 
 
 " I think I have the pleasure of addressing 
 the daughter of an old comrade-in-arms, and this 
 must be my excuse for at once approaching my ob- 
 ject. I hear by accident that you have inherited 
 from the late Mattel Perucca his small property 
 near Olmeta in Corsica. I knew Mattel Perucca,
 
 54 THE ISLE OF UNREST 
 
 and the property you inherit is not unknown to one 
 who has had official dealings with landowners in 
 Corsica. I tell you frankly that it would be im- 
 possible, in the present disturbed state of the island, 
 for you to live at Olmeta, and I ask you as frankly 
 whether you are disposed to sell me your small 
 estate. I have long cherished the scheme of buy- 
 ing a small parcel of land in Corsica for the purpose 
 of showing the natives that agriculture may be 
 made profitable in so fertile an island, by dint of 
 industry and a firm and unswerving honesty. The 
 Perucca property would suit my purpose. You 
 may be doing a good action in handing over your 
 tenants to one who understands the Corsican na- 
 ture. I, in addition to relieving the monotony of 
 my present exile at Bastia, may perhaps be in- 
 augurating a happier state of affairs in this most 
 unfortunate country. 
 
 "Awaiting your answer, I am, mademoiselle, 
 " Your obedient servant, 
 
 " Louis Gilbert (Colonel)." 
 
 The school bell rang as Denise finished reading 
 the letter. The class was over. 
 
 "We shall descend into the well again to- 
 morrow," she said, closing her books. 
 
 The girls trooped out into the forlorn courtyard, 
 leaving Mademoiselle Brun and Denise alone in the 
 schoolroom. Mademoiselle Brun read the second 
 letter with a silent concentration. She glanced up 
 when she had finished it. 
 
 " Of course you will sell," she said. 
 
 Denise was looking out of the tall closed windows 
 at the few yards of sky that were visible above the
 
 IN THE RUE DU CHERCHE-MIDI 55 
 
 roofs. Some fleecy clouds were speeding across the 
 clear ether. 
 
 " No," she answered slowly ; " I think I shall go 
 to Corsica. Tell me," she added, after a pause — " I 
 suppose I have Corsican blood in my veins ? " 
 
 "I suppose so," admitted Mademoiselle Brun, 
 reluctantly.
 
 CHAPTER VI 
 
 NEIGHBOURS 
 
 " Chaque homme a trois caracteres : celui qu'il a, celui qu'il montre, 
 el celui qu'il croit avoir." 
 
 By one of the strokes of good fortune which 
 come but once to the most ardent student of fash- 
 ion, the Baroness de Melide had taken up horsiness 
 at the very beginning of that estimable craze. It 
 was, therefore, in mere sequence to this pursuit that 
 she fixed her abode on the south side of the Champs 
 Elysees, and within a stone's throw of the Avenue 
 du Bois de Boulogne, before the world found out 
 that it was quite impossible to live elsewhere. It 
 is so difficult, in truth, to foretell the course of fash- 
 ion, that one cannot help wondering why the mod- 
 ern soothsayers, who eke out what appears to be a 
 miserable existence in the smaller streets of the 
 Faubourg St. Honore and in the neighbourhood of 
 Bond Street, do not turn their second-sight to the 
 contemplation of the future of streets and districts, 
 instead of telling the curious a number of vague 
 facts respecting their past and vaguer prophecies as 
 to the future. 
 
 If, for instance, Cagliostro had foretold that to- 
 day the Chausee d'Antin would be deserted ; that 
 the faubourg would have completely ousted the 
 
 56
 
 NEIGHBOURS 67 
 
 Rue St. Honore ; that the Avenue de la Grande 
 Armee should be, fashionably speaking, dead after 
 a short and brilliant life ; and that the little streets 
 of the Faubourg St. Germain should be all that is 
 most chic — what fortunes might have been made ! 
 Indeed, no one in a trance or in his right mind can 
 tell to-day why it is right to walk on the right-hand 
 side of the Boulevard des Italiens and the Boulevard 
 des Capucines, and heinously wrong to walk on the 
 left ; while, on the contrary, no self-respecting Pa- 
 risian would allow himself to be seen on the right- 
 hand pavement of the Boulevard de la Madeleine. 
 Indeed, these things are a mystery, and the wise 
 seek only to obey, and not to ask the reason why. 
 It would be difficult to lay before the English 
 reader the precise social position of the Baroness de 
 Melide. For there are wheels within wheels, or, 
 more properly perhaps, shades within shades, in the 
 social world of Paris, which are quite unsuspected 
 on this side of the Channel. Indeed, our ignorance 
 of social France is only surpassed by the French ig- 
 norance of social England. The Baroness de Melide 
 was rich, however, and the rich, as we all know, 
 have nothing to fear in this world. As a matter of 
 fact, Monsieur de Melide dated his nobility from 
 Napoleon's creation, and madame's grandfather was 
 of the Emigration. By conviction, 'they belonged 
 to the Anglophile school, and theirs was one of the 
 prettiest little houses between the Avenue Yictor 
 Hugo and the Avenue du Bois de Boulogne, which 
 is more important than ancestors.
 
 58 THE ISLE OF UNREST 
 
 It was to this miniature palace that Mademoiselle 
 Brun and Denise were bidden, to the new function 
 of afternoon tea, the day after the receipt of the 
 lawyer's letter. Madame de Mfelide would take no 
 denial. 
 
 " I have already heard of Denise's good fortune ; 
 and from whom do you think ? " she wrote. " From 
 my dear good cousin. Lory de Vasselot, who is, if 
 you will believe it, a Corsican neighbour — the Vas- 
 selot and Perucca estates actually adjoin. Both, I 
 need hardly tell you, bristle with bandits, and are 
 quite impossible. But I have quite decided that 
 Lory shall marry Denise. Come, therefore, with- 
 out fail. I need not tell you to see that Denise looks 
 pretty. The good God has seen to that for you. 
 And as for Lory, he is an angel. I cannot think 
 why I did not marry him myself — except that he 
 did not ask me. And then there is my stupid, 
 whom nobody else would have, and who now sends 
 his dear love to his oldest friend. — Your devoted 
 Jane." 
 
 The Baroness de Melide was called Jeanne, but 
 she had enthusiastically changed that name for its 
 English version at the period when England was, 
 as it were, first discovered by social France. 
 
 When Mademoiselle Brun and Denise arrived, 
 they found the Baroness beautifully dressed as 
 usual, and very French, for the empress was at this 
 time the leader of the world's women, as the em- 
 peror — that clever parvenu — was undoubtedly the 
 first monarch in Europe. It behoves not a mascu-
 
 NEIGHBOUKS 59 
 
 line pen to attempt a description of Madame de 
 Melide's costume, which, moreover, was of a bygone 
 mode, and nothing is so unsightly in death as a de- 
 ceased fashion. 
 
 " How good of you to come ! " she cried, embracing 
 both ladies in turn, with a fervour which certainly 
 seemed to imply that she had no other friends on 
 earth. 
 
 In truth, she had, for the moment, none so dear ; 
 for there are certain warm hearts that are happy in 
 always loving, not the highest, but the nearest, 
 
 " Let me see, now," she added, vigorously drag- 
 ging forward chairs. " I asked some one to meet 
 you — some one I particularly wanted you to become 
 acquainted with, but I cannot remember who it is." 
 As she spoke she consulted a little red morocco befc- 
 ting-book. 
 
 " Lory ! " she cried, after a short search. " Yes, of 
 course it was Lory de Yasselot — my cousin. And 
 — will you believe it ? — he saved my life the other 
 day, all in a moment ! Yes ! I saw death, quite 
 close, before my eyes. Ugh ! And I, who am so 
 wicked ! You do not know what it is to be wicked 
 and to know it, Denise — you who are so young. 
 But that dear Mademoiselle Brun, she knows." 
 
 " Thank you," said mademoiselle. 
 
 " And Lory saved me, ah ! so cleverly. There is 
 no better horseman in the army, they say. Yes ; 
 he will certainly come this afternoon, unless there 
 is a race at Longchamps. Now, is there a race, I 
 wonder ? "
 
 60 THE ISLE OF UNEEST 
 
 " For the moment," said Mademoiselle Brun, very 
 gravely, " I cannot tell you." 
 
 " She is laughing at me," cried the baroness, 
 shaking a vivacious forefinger at Mademoiselle 
 Brun. " But I do not mind ; we cannot all be wise 
 —eh ? " 
 
 " And what a dull world for the rest of us if you 
 were," said Mademoiselle Brun ; and Lory de Vas- 
 selot, coming into the room at this moment, was met 
 by her sour smile. 
 
 " Ah ! " cried the baroness, " here he is. I pre- 
 sent you, my dear Lory, to Mademoiselle Brun, a 
 terrible friend of mine, and to Mademoiselle Lange, 
 who, as you know, has just inherited the other half 
 of Corsica." 
 
 "My congratulations," answered Lory, shaking 
 hands with Denise in the English fashion. " An in- 
 heritance is so nice when it is quite new." 
 
 " And figure to yourself that this dear child has 
 no notion how it has all come about ! She only 
 knows the bare fact that some one is dead, and she 
 has gained — well, a white elephant, one may sup- 
 pose." 
 
 De Vasselot's quick face suddenly turned grave. 
 
 " Ah," he said, " then I can tell you how it has 
 all come about. Though I confess at once that I 
 have never been to Corsica, and have never found 
 myself a halfpenny the richer for owning land 
 there." 
 
 He paused for a moment, and glanced at Made- 
 moiselle Brun.
 
 NEIGHBOURS 61 
 
 "Unless," he interpolated, "such personal mat- 
 ters will bore mademoiselle." 
 
 " But mademoiselle is the good angel of Made- 
 moiselle Lange, my dear, dull Lory," explained the 
 baroness ; and the object of the elucidation looked 
 at him more keenly than so trifling an incident 
 would seem to warrant. 
 
 " You will not be betraying secrets to the first- 
 comer," she said. 
 
 Still de Vasselot seemed to hesitate, as if choos- 
 ing his words. 
 
 " And," he said at length, " they shot your 
 cousin's agent in the back, almost in the streets of 
 Olmeta, and Mattel Perucca himself died suddenly, 
 presumably from apoplexy, brought on by great 
 anger at receiving a letter threatening his life — 
 that is how it has come about, mademoiselle." 
 
 He broke off short, with a quick gesture and a 
 flash of his eyes, usually so pleasant and smiling. 
 
 "I have that from a reliable source," he went 
 on, after a pause, during which Mademoiselle Brun 
 looked steadily at Denise and said nothing. 
 
 " Gracious heavens ! " exclaimed the baroness, in 
 a whisper ; and for once was silenced. 
 
 " A faithful correspondent on the island," ex- 
 plained de Yasselot. " Though why he is faithful 
 I cannot tell ^''ou. Some family legend, perhaps — 
 I cannot tell. It is the Abbe Susini of Olmeta who 
 has told me this. He it was who told me of your — 
 well, I can only call it your misfortune, made- 
 moiselle. For there is assuredly a curse upon
 
 62 THE ISLE OF UNREST 
 
 Corsica as there is upon Ireland. It cannot govern 
 itself, and no other can govern it. The Napoleons 
 have been the only men to make anything of the 
 island, but a man who is driving a pair of horses 
 down the Champs Elysees cannot give much thought 
 to his little dog that runs behind. And it is in the 
 Bonaparte blood to drive, not only a pair, but a 
 four-in-hand in the thickest traffic of the world. 
 The Abbe Susini tells me that when the emperor's 
 hand was firm, Corsica was almost orderly, justice 
 was almost administered, banditism was for the mo- 
 ment made to feel the hand of the law, and the 
 authorities could count the number of outlaws 
 evading their grip in the mountains. But since the 
 emperor's illness has taken a dangerous turn things 
 have gone back again. Corsica is, it seems, a 
 weather-glass by which one may tell the state of 
 the political weather in France ; and now it is dis- 
 turbed, mademoiselle." 
 
 He had become graver as he spoke, and now 
 found himself addressing Denise almost as if she 
 were a man. There is as much difference in listen- 
 ers as there is in talkers. And Lory de Yasselot, 
 who belonged to the new school of Frenchmen — 
 the open-air, the vigorous, the sportsmanlike — found 
 his interlocutor listening w^th clear eyes fixed 
 frankly on his face. Intelligence betrays itself in 
 listening more than in talking, and de Yasselot, 
 with characteristic and an eminentlv national intui- 
 tion, perceived that this girl from a convent school 
 in the Rue du Cherche-Midi was not a person to
 
 NEIGHBOURS 63 
 
 whom to address drawing-room generalities, and 
 those insults to the feminine comprehension which 
 a bygone generation called compliments. 
 
 " But a woman need surely have nothing to fear," 
 said Denise, Avho had the habit of carrjing her head 
 rather high, and now spoke as if this implied more 
 than a mere trick of deportment. 
 
 " A woman ! You are not going to Corsica, 
 mademoiselle ? " 
 
 " But I am," she answered. 
 
 De Vasselot turned thoughtfully, and brought 
 forward a chair. He sat down and gravely con- 
 templated Mademoiselle Brun, whose attitude — up- 
 right in a low chair, with crossed hands and a com- 
 pressed mouth — betrayed nothing. A Frenchman 
 is not nearly so artificial as the shallow British ob- 
 server has been pleased to conclude. He is, in fact, 
 much more a child of nature than either an Ens:- 
 lishman or a German. Lory de Vasselot's expres- 
 sion said as plainly as words to Mademoiselle 
 Brun — 
 
 " And what have you been about ? " 
 
 It was so obvious that Mademoiselle Brun, al- 
 most imperceptibly, shrugged one shoulder. She 
 was powerless, it appeared. 
 
 " But, if you will permit me to say so," said 
 Lory, sitting down and drawing near to Denise in 
 his earnestness, " that is impossible. I will not 
 trouble you with details, but it is an impossibility. 
 I understand that Mattel Perucca and his agent 
 were the two strongest men in the northern dis-
 
 U THE ISLE OF UNKEST 
 
 trict, and they only attempted to hold their own, 
 nothing more. With the result that you know." 
 
 " But there are many ways of attempting to hold 
 one's own," persisted Denise ; and she shook her 
 head with a wisdom which only belongs to youth. 
 
 De Yasselot spread out his hands in utter despair. 
 The end of the world, it seemed, was at hand. And 
 Penise only laughed. 
 
 " And when I have regulated my own affairs, I 
 will undertake the management of your estate at a 
 high salary," she said. 
 
 " There is only one thing to do," said Lory, 
 gravely, " and I have done it myself. I have aban- 
 doned the idea for ever receiving a halfpenny of 
 rent. I have allowed the land to go out of culti- 
 vation. The vine-terraces are falling, the olive 
 trees are dying for want of cultivation. A fcAV 
 peasants graze their cattle in my garden, I under- 
 stand. The house itself is only saved from falling 
 down by the fact that it is strongly built of stone. 
 I would sell for a mere song, if I could find a seri- 
 ous offer of that trifle ; but nobody buys land in 
 Corsica — for the peasants recognise no title deeds 
 and respect no rights of ownership. I had indeed 
 an offer the other day, but it was undoubtedly a 
 joke, and I treated it as such." 
 
 " Denise also has had an offer to buy the Perucca 
 property," said Mademoiselle Brun. 
 
 " Yes," said Denise, seeing his surprise. " And 
 you would advise me to accept it ? " 
 
 " If it is a serious one, most decidedly."
 
 NEIGHBOUKS 65 
 
 ^' It is serious enough," answered Denise. " It is 
 from a Colonel Gilbert, an officer stationed at 
 Bastia." 
 
 " Ah ! " he exclaimed ; and at that moment an- 
 other caller entered the room, and he rose with 
 eager politeness. 
 
 So it happened that Mademoiselle Brun could not 
 see his face, and was left wondering what the ex- 
 clamation meant. 
 
 Several other callers now appeared — persons of 
 the Baroness de Melide's own world, who had a 
 hundred society tricks, and bowed or shook hands 
 according to the latest mode. This was not Ma- 
 demoiselle Brun's world, and she was not interested 
 to hear the latest gossip from that hotbed of scan- 
 dal, the Tuileries, nor did the ever-changing face of 
 the political world command her attention. She 
 therefore rose, and stiffly took her leave. De Yas- 
 selot accompanied them to the hail. 
 
 Denise paused in the entrance, and turned to 
 him. 
 
 " Seriously," she said, " do you advise me to ac- 
 cept this offer to sell Perucca ? " 
 
 " I scarcely feel authorised to give you any ad- 
 vice upon the subject," answered Lory, reluctantly. 
 " Though, after all, Ave are neighbours." 
 
 "Then " 
 
 " Then, I should say not, mademoiselle. At all 
 events, do nothing in haste. And, if I may ask it, 
 will you communicate with me before you finally 
 decide ? "
 
 6e THE ISLE OF UNREST 
 
 They had come in an open cab, which was wait- 
 ing on the shady side of the street. 
 
 " A young man who changes his mind very 
 quickly," commented Mademoiselle Brun, as they 
 drove away.
 
 CHAPTER VII 
 
 journey's end 
 
 " The offender never pardons." 
 
 De Vasselot returned to the Baroness de Me- 
 lide's pretty drawing-room, and there, after the 
 manner of his countrymen, made himself agreeable 
 in that vivacious manner which earns the contempt 
 of all honest and, if one may say so, thick-headed 
 Englishmen. He laughed with one, and with an- 
 other almost wept. Indeed, to see him sympathise 
 with an elderly countess whose dog was grievously 
 ill, one could only conclude that he too had placed 
 all his affections upon a canine life. 
 
 He outstayed the others, and then, holding out 
 his hand to the baroness, said curtly — 
 
 " Good-bye." 
 
 " Good-bye ! What do you mean ? " 
 
 " I am going to Corsica," he explained airily. 
 
 " But where did you get that idea, mon ami ? " 
 
 " It came. A few moments ago, I made up my 
 mind." And, with a gesture, he described the ar- 
 rival of the idea, apparently from heaven, upon his 
 head, and then a sideward jerk of the arm seemed 
 to indicate the sudden and irrevocable making up 
 of his own mind.
 
 68 THE ISLE OF UXEEST 
 
 " But what for ? " cried the lady. " You were 
 not even born there. Your father died thirty 
 years ago — you will not even find his tomb. Your 
 dear mother left the place in horror, just before you 
 were born. Besides, you promised her that you 
 would never return to Corsica — and she who has 
 been dead only live years ! Is it filial, I ask you, 
 my cousin ? Is it filial ? " 
 
 " Such a promise, of course, only held good dur- 
 ing her lifetime," answered Lory. " Since there is 
 no one left behind to be anxious on my account, it 
 is assuredly no one's affair whether I go or stay." 
 
 " And now you are asking me to say it will break 
 my heart if you go," said the baroness, with a gay 
 glance of her brown eyes ; " and you may ask — and 
 ask ! " 
 
 She shook hands as she spoke. 
 
 " Go, ingratitude ! " she said. " But tell me, 
 what will bring you back ? " 
 
 " War," he ansAvered, with a laugh, pausing for a 
 moment on the threshold. 
 
 And three days later Lory de Yasselot stood on 
 the deck of a small trading steamer that rolled 
 sideways into Calvi Bay, on the shoulder, as it 
 were, of one of those March mistrals which serve 
 as the last kick of the dying winter. De Yasselot 
 had taken the first steamer he could find at Mar- 
 seilles, with a fine disregard for personal comfort, 
 which was part of his military training and parcel 
 of his sporting instincts. He was, like many is- 
 landers, a good sailor, for, strange as it may seem,
 
 JOURNEY'S END 69 
 
 a man may inherit from his forefathers not only a 
 taste for the sea, but a stout heart to face its griev- 
 ous sickness. 
 
 There are few finer sights than Calvi Bay when 
 the heavens are clear and the great mountains of the 
 interior tower above the bare coast-hills. But now 
 the clouds hung low over the island, and the shape 
 of the heights was only suggested by a deeper shadow 
 in the grey mist. The little town nestling on a prom- 
 ontory looked gloomy and deserted with its small 
 square houses and mediaeval fortress — Calvi the 
 faithful, that fought so bravely for the Genoese 
 masters whose mark lies in every angle of its square 
 stronghold ; Calvi, where, if (as seems likely) the 
 local historian is to be believed, the greatest of all 
 sailors was born, within a day's ride of that other 
 sordid little town where the greatest of all soldiers 
 first saw the light. Assuredly Corsica has done its 
 duty — has played its part in the world's history — 
 with Christopher Columbus and Napoleon as lead- 
 ing actors. 
 
 De Yasselot landed in a small boat, carrying his 
 own simple luggage. He had not been very so- 
 ciable on the trading steamer ; had dined with the 
 captain, and now bade him farewell without an ex- 
 change of names. There is a small inn on the 
 wharf facing the anchorage and the wave-washed 
 steps where the fishing-boats lie. Here the travel- 
 ler had a better lunch than the exterior of the 
 house would appear to promise, and found it easy 
 enough to keep his own counsel ; for he was now in
 
 70 THE ISLE OF UKKEST 
 
 Corsica, where silence is not only golden, but speech 
 is apt to be fatal. 
 
 " I am going to St. Florent," he said to the 
 woman who had waited on him. " Can I have a 
 carriage or a horse ? I am indifferent which." 
 
 "You can have a horse," was the reply, "and 
 leave it at Rutali's at St. Florent when you have 
 done with it. The price is ten francs. There are 
 parts of the road impassable for a carriage in this 
 wind." 
 
 De Vasselot replied by handing her ten francs, 
 and asked no further questions. If you wish to an- 
 swer no questions, ask none. 
 
 The horse presently appeared, a little thin beast, 
 all wires, carrying its head too high, boring im- 
 patiently — masterful, intractable. 
 
 " He wants riding," said the man who led him to 
 the door, half -sailor, half -stableman, who made fast 
 de Yasselot's portmanteau to the front of the high 
 Spanish saddle with a piece of tarr}'^ rope and simple 
 nautical knots. 
 
 He nodded curtly, with an upward jerk of the 
 head, as Lory climbed into the saddle and rode 
 away ; for there is nothing so difficult to conceal as 
 horsemanship. 
 
 "A soldier," muttered the stableman. A gen- 
 darme, as likely as not." 
 
 De Yasselot did not ask the way, but trusted to 
 Fortune, who as usual favoured him who left her a 
 free hand. There is but one street in Calvi, but 
 one way out of the town, and a cross-road leading
 
 JOITKNEY'S END Yl 
 
 north and south. Lory turned to the north. He 
 had a map in his pocket, which he knew almost by 
 heart ; for he was an officer of the finest cavalry in 
 the world, and knew his business as well as any. 
 And it is the business of the individual trooper to 
 find his way in an unknown country. That a couple 
 of hours' hard riding brought him to his own lands, 
 de Vasselot knew not nor heeded, for he was aware 
 that he could establish his rights only by force of 
 martial law, and with a miniature army at his 
 back ; for civil law here is paralysed by a cloud 
 of false witnesses, while equity is administered by 
 a jury which is under the influence of the two 
 strongest of human motives, greed and fear. 
 
 At times the solitary rider mounted into the 
 clouds that hung low upon the hills, shutting in the 
 valleys beneath their grey canopy, and again de- 
 scended to deep gorges, where brown water churned 
 in narrow places. And at all times he was alone. 
 For the Government has built roads through these 
 rocky places, but it has not yet succeeded in mak- 
 ing traffic upon them. 
 
 With the quickness of his race de Yasselot noted 
 everything — the trend of the watersheds, the colour 
 of the water, the prevailing wind as indicated by 
 the growth of the trees — a hundred petty details of 
 Nature which would escape any but a trained com- 
 prehension, or that wonderful eye with which some 
 men are born, who cannot but be gipsies all their 
 lives, whether fate has made them rich or poor ; 
 who cannot live in towns, but must breathe the air
 
 n THE ISLE OF UNREST 
 
 of open heaven, and deal by sea or land with the 
 wondrous works of God. 
 
 It was growing dusk when de Vasselot crossed 
 the bridge that spans the Aliso — his own river, that 
 ran through and all around his own land — and 
 urged his tired horse along the level causeway 
 built across the old river-bed into the town of St. 
 Florent. The field-workers were returning from 
 vineyard and olive grove, but appeared to take 
 little heed of him as he trotted past them on the 
 dusty road. These were no heavy, agricultural boors, 
 of the earth earthy, but lithe, dark-eyed men and 
 women, who tilled the ground grudgingly, because 
 they had no choice between that and starvation. 
 Their lack of curiosity arose, not from stupidity, 
 but from a sort of pride which is only seen in Spain 
 and certain South American States. The proudest 
 man is he who is sufiicient for himself. 
 
 A single inquiry enabled de Vasselot to find the 
 house of Rutali ; for St. Florent is a small place, 
 with Ichabod written large on its crumbling houses. 
 It Avas a house like another — that is to say, the 
 ground floor was a stable, while the family lived 
 above in an atmosphere of its own and the stable 
 drainage. 
 
 The traveller gave Rutali a small coin, which was 
 coldly accepted — for a Corsican never refuses money 
 like a Spaniard, but accepts it grudgingly, mindful 
 of the insult — and left St. Florent by the road that 
 he had come, on foot, humbly carrying his own 
 portmanteau. Thus Lory de Yasselot, went through
 
 JOURNEY'S END Y3 
 
 his paternal acres with a map. His intention was 
 to catch a glimpse of the Chateau de Vasselot and 
 walk on to the village of Olmeta, and there beg 
 bed and board from his faithful correspondent, the 
 Abbe Susini. 
 
 He followed the causeway across the marsh to 
 the mouth of the river, and here turned to the left, 
 leaving the route nationale to Calvi on the right. 
 That which he now followed was the narrower 
 route departementale, which borders the course of 
 the stream Guadelle, a tributary to the Aliso. The 
 valley is flat here — a mere level of river deposit, 
 damp in winter, but dry and sandy in the autumn. 
 Here are cornfields and vineyards all in one, with 
 olives and almonds growing amid the wheat — a 
 promised land of milk and honey. There are no 
 walls, but great hedges of aloe and prickly pear 
 serve as a sterner landmark. At the side of the 
 road are here and there a few crosses — the silent 
 witnesses that stand on either side of every Corsi- 
 can road — marking the spot where such and such 
 a one met his death, or was found dead by his 
 friends. 
 
 Above, perched on the slope that rises abruptly 
 on the left-hand side of the road, the village of 
 Oletta looks out over the plain toward St. Florent 
 and the sea — a few brown houses of dusky stone, 
 Avith roofs of stone ; a square-towered church, built 
 just where the cultivation ceases and the rocks and 
 the macquis begin. 
 
 De Yasselot quitted the road where it begins
 
 Y4 THE ISLE OF UNREST 
 
 sharply to ascend, and took the narrow path that 
 follows the course of the river, winding through 
 the olive groves around the great rock that forms 
 a shoulder of Monte Torre, and breaks off abruptly 
 in a sheer cliff. He looked upward with a soldier's 
 eye at this spot, designed by nature as the site of a 
 fort which could command the whole valley and 
 the roads to Corte and Calvi. Far above, amid 
 chestnut trees and some giant pines, De Vasselot 
 could see the roof and the chimneys of a house — it 
 was the Casa Perucca. Presently he was so imme- 
 diately below it that he could see it no longer as he 
 followed the path, winding as the river wound 
 through the narrow flat valley. 
 
 Suddenly he came out of the defile into a vast 
 open country, spread out like a fan upon a gentle 
 slope rising to the height of the Col St. Stefano, 
 where the Bastia road comes through the Lancone 
 defile — the road by which Colonel Gilbert had rid- 
 den to the Casa Perucca not so very long before. 
 At the base of the fan runs the Aliso, without haste, 
 bordered on either bank by oleanders growing like 
 rushes. Halfway down the slope is a lump of land 
 which looks like, and probably is, a piece of the 
 mountain cast off by some subterranean disturb- 
 ance, and gently rolled down into the valley. It 
 stands alone, and on its summit, three hundred feet 
 above the plain, are the square-built walls of what 
 was once a castle. 
 
 Lory stood for a moment and looked at this 
 prospect, noAv pink and hazy in the reflected light
 
 JOUEKEY'S END 75 
 
 of the western sky. He knew that he was looking 
 at the Chateau de Vasselot. 
 
 Within the crumbling walls, built on the sheer 
 edge of the rock, stood, amid a disorderly thicket 
 of bamboo and feathery pepper and deep copper 
 beech, a square stone house with smokeless chim- 
 neys, and, so far as was visible, every shutter shut. 
 The owner of it and all these lands, the bearer of 
 the name that was written here upon the map, 
 walked slowly out into the open country. He 
 turned once and looked back at the towering cliff 
 behind him, the rocky peninsula where the Casa 
 Perucca stood amidst its great trees, and hid the 
 village of Olmeta, perched on the mountain side be- 
 hind it. 
 
 The short winter twilight was almost gone before 
 de Yasselot reached the base of the mound of half- 
 shattered rock upon which the chateau had been 
 built. The wall that had once been the outer bat- 
 tlement of the old stronghold was so fallen into 
 disrepair that he anticipated no difficulty in finding 
 a gap through which to pass within the enclosure 
 where the house was hidden ; but he walked right 
 round and found no such breach. Where the wall 
 of rock proved vulnerable, the masonry, by some 
 curious chance, was invariably sound. 
 
 It had not been de Yasselot's intention to disturb 
 the old gardener, who, he understood, was left in 
 charge of the crumbling house, but to return the 
 next day with the Abbe Susini. But he was tired, 
 and having failed to gain an entrance, was put out
 
 76 THE ISLE OF UKKEST 
 
 and angr}^, when at length he found hhnself near 
 the great door built in the solid wall on the north- 
 west side of the ruin. A rusty bell-chain was 
 slowly swinging in the wind, which was freshening 
 again at sunset, as the mistral nearly always does 
 when it is dying. With some difficulty he suc- 
 ceeded in swinging the heavy bell suspended inside 
 the door, so that it gave two curt clangs as of a 
 rusty tongue against moss-grown metal. 
 
 After some time the door was opened by a grey- 
 haired man in his shirt-sleeves. He Avore a huge 
 black felt hat, and the baggy corduroy trousers 
 of a deep brown, which are almost universal in this 
 country. He held the door half open and peered 
 out. Then he slow^ly opened it and stood back. 
 
 " Good God ! " he whispered. " Good God ! " 
 
 De Yasselot stepped over the threshold with one 
 quick glance at the single-barrelled gun in the man's 
 hand. 
 
 " I am " he began. 
 
 " Yes," interrupted the other, breathlessly. 
 " Straight on ; the door is open." 
 
 Half puzzled, Lory de Yasselot advanced toward 
 the house alone ; for the peasant was long in closing 
 the door and readjusting chain and bolts. The 
 shutters of the house were all closed, but the door, 
 as he had said, was open. The place was neatly 
 enough kept, and the house stood on a lawn of that 
 brilliant green turf which is only seen in parts of 
 England, in Ireland, and in Corsica. 
 
 De Yasselot went into the house, which was all
 
 JOURNEY'S END 77 
 
 dark by reason of the closed shutters. There was 
 a large room, opposite to the front door, dimly 
 indicated by the daylight behind him. He went 
 into it, and was going straight to one of the 
 windows to throw back the shutters, when a sharp 
 click brought him round on his heels as if he had 
 been shot. In a far corner of the room, in a dark 
 doorway, stood a shadow. The click was that of a 
 trigger. 
 
 Quick as thought de Yasselot ran to the window, 
 snatched at the opening, opened it, threw back the 
 shutter, and was round again with bright and flash- 
 ing eyes facing the doorway. A man stood there 
 watching him — a man of his own build, slight and 
 quick, with close upright hair like his own, but it 
 was white ; with a neat upturned moustache like his 
 own, but it was white ; with a small quick face like 
 his own, but it was bleached. The eyes that flashed 
 back were dark like his own. 
 
 " You are a de Vasselot," said this man, quickly. 
 
 " Are you Lory de Vasselot ? " 
 
 " Yes." 
 
 " Then I am your father." 
 
 " Yes," said Lory, slowly ; " there is no mistaking 
 it."
 
 CHAPTER VIII 
 
 AT VASSELOT 
 
 " The life unlived, the deed undone, the tear 
 Unshed . . . not judging these, who judges right ?" 
 
 It was the father who spoke first. 
 
 " Shut that shutter, ray friend," he said. " It has 
 not been opened for thirty years." 
 
 He had an odd habit of jerking his head upward 
 and sideways with raised eyebrows. It would ap- 
 pear that a trick of thus deploring some unavoidable 
 misfortune had crystallised itself, as it were, into a 
 habit by long use. And the old man rarely spoke 
 now without this upward jerk. 
 
 Lory closed the shutter and followed his father 
 into an adjoining room — a small, round apartment 
 lighted by a skylight and impregnated with tobacco 
 smoke. The carpet was worn into holes in several 
 places, and the boards beneath were polished by the 
 passage of smooth soles. Lory glanced at his father's 
 feet, which were encased in carpet slippers several 
 sizes too large for him, bought at a guess in the 
 village shop. 
 
 Here again the two men stood and looked at each 
 other. And again it was the father who broke the 
 silence. 
 
 78
 
 
 
 1 
 
 'are you lory 1)E vasselot ? ' "
 
 AT VASSELOT Y9 
 
 " My son," he said, half to himself ; " and a sol- 
 dier. Your mother was a bad woman, mon ami. 
 And I have lived thirty years in this room," he con- 
 cluded simply. 
 
 " Name of God ! " exclaimed Lory. " And what 
 have you done all this time ? " 
 
 "Carnations," replied the old man, gravely. 
 " There is still daylight. Come ; I will show you. 
 Yes ; carnations." 
 
 As he spoke he turned and opened the door be- 
 hind him. It led out to a small terrace no larger 
 than a verandah, and every inch of earth was occu- 
 pied by the pale-green of carnation-spikes. Some 
 were budding, some in bloom. But there was not 
 a flower amQng them at which a modern gardener 
 would not have laughed aloud. And there were 
 tears in Lory de Vasselot's eyes as he looked at 
 them. 
 
 The father stood, jerking his head and looking at 
 his son, waiting his verdict. 
 
 " Yes," was the son's reply at last ; " yes — very 
 pretty." 
 
 " But to-night you cannot see them," said the old 
 man, earnestly. " To-morrow morning — we shall 
 get up early, eh ? " 
 
 " Yes," said Lory, slowly ; and they went back 
 into the little windowless room. 
 
 " We will get up early," said the count, " to see 
 the pinks. This cursed mistral beats them to pieces, 
 but I have no other place to grow them. It is the 
 only spot that is not overlooked by Perucca."
 
 80 THE ISLE OF UJMREST 
 
 He spoke slowly and mdififerentlj, as if his spirit 
 had been bleached, like his face, by long confine- 
 ment. He had lost his grip of the world and of 
 human interests. As he looked at his son, his black 
 eyes had a sort of irresponsible vagueness in their 
 glance. 
 
 " Tell me," said Lory, gently, at length, as if he 
 were speaking to a child ; " why have you done 
 this?" 
 
 " Then you did not know that I was alive ? " in- 
 quired his father in return, with an uncanny, quiet 
 laugh, as he sat down. 
 
 " No." 
 
 " ISTo ; no one knows that — no one but the Abbe 
 Susini and Jean there. You saw Jean as you came 
 in. He recognised you or he would not have let 
 you in ; for he is quick with his gun. He shot a 
 man seven years ago — one of Perqcca's men, of 
 course, who was creeping up through the tamarisk 
 trees. I do not know what he came seeking, but 
 he got more from Jean than he looked for. Jean 
 was a boy when your mother went to France, and 
 he was left in charge of the chateau. For they all 
 thought that I had gone to France with your mother, 
 and perhaps the police searched France for me ; I 
 do not know. There is a warrant out against me 
 still, though the paper it is written on must be yel- 
 low enough after thirty years." 
 
 As he spoke he carefully drew up his trousers, 
 which were of corduroy, like Jean's ; indeed, the 
 Count de Vasselot was dressed like a peasant — but
 
 AT YASSELOT 81 
 
 no rustic dress could conceal the tale told by the 
 small energetic head, the clean-cut features. It was 
 obvious that his thoughts were more concerned in 
 his immediate environments — in the care, for in- 
 stance, to preserve his trousers from bagging at the 
 knee — than he was in the past. He had the curious, 
 slow touch and contemplative manner of the pris- 
 oner. 
 
 " Yes ; Jean was a boy when he first came 
 here, and now he is a grey-haired man, as you 
 see. He picks the olives and earns a little by 
 selling them. Besides, I provided myself with 
 money long ago, before — before I died. I thought 
 I might live long, and I have, for thirty years, like 
 a tree." 
 
 Which was nearly true, for his life must have 
 been somewhere midway between the human and 
 the vegetable. 
 
 " But why, my God ! " cried Lory, impatiently, 
 " why have you done it ? " 
 
 " Why ? " echoed the count, in his calm and sup- 
 pressed way. " Why ? Because I am a Corsican, 
 and am not to be frightened into leaving the country 
 by a parcel of Peruccas. They are no better than 
 the Luccans you see working in the road, and the 
 miserable Pisans who come in the -winter to build 
 the terraces. They are no Corsicans, but come from 
 Pisa." 
 
 " But if they thought you were dead, what satis- 
 faction could there be in living on here ? " 
 
 But the count only looked at his son in silence.
 
 82 THE ISLE OF UNKEST 
 
 He did not seem to follow the hasty argument. He 
 had the placid air of a child or a very old man, who 
 will not argue. 
 
 " Besides, Mattel Perucca is dead." 
 
 " So they say. So Jean tells me. I have not 
 seen the abbe lately. He does not dare to come 
 more often than once in three months — four times 
 a year. Mattel Perucca dead ! " He shook his 
 head with the odd, upward jerk and the weary 
 smile, " I should like to see his carcase," he said. 
 
 Then, after a pause, he went back to his original 
 train of thought. 
 
 " "We are different," he said. " "We are Corsicans. 
 It was only when the Bonapartes changed their 
 name to a French one that your great-grandfather 
 Gallicised ours. We are not to be frightened away 
 by the Peruccas." 
 
 " But since he is dead " — said Lory, with an effort 
 to be patient. 
 
 He was beginning to realise now that it was all 
 real and not a dream, that this was the Chateau de 
 Yasselot, and this was his father — this little, vague, 
 quiet man, who seemed to exist and speak as if he 
 were only half alive. 
 
 " He may be," was the answer ; " but that will 
 make no difference, since for one adherent that we 
 have the Peruccas have twenty. There are a thou- 
 sand men between Cap Corse and Balagna who, if I 
 went outside this door and w^as recognised, would 
 shoot me like a rat." 
 
 "But why?"
 
 AT VASSELOT 83 
 
 " Because they are of Perucca's clan, my friend," 
 replied the count, with a shrug of the shoulder. 
 
 " But still I ask why ? " persisted Lory. 
 
 And the count spread out his thin white hands 
 with a gesture of patient indifference. 
 
 " Well, of course I shot Andrei Perucca — the 
 brother — thirty years ago. "We all know that. 
 That is ancient history." 
 
 Lory looked at the little white-haired, placid 
 man, and said no word. It was perhaps the wisest 
 thing to do. When you have nothing to say, say 
 nothing. 
 
 "But he has had his revenge — that Mattel 
 Perucca," said the count at length, in a tone of 
 careless reminiscence — " by living in that house all 
 these years, and, so they tell me, by making a small 
 fortune out of the vines. The house is not his, the 
 land is not his. They are mine. Only he and I 
 knew it, and to prove it I should have to come to 
 life. Besides, what is land in this country, unless 
 you till it with a spade in one hand and a gun in 
 the other?" 
 
 Lory de Yasselot leant forward in his chair. 
 
 " But now is the time to act," he said. " I can 
 act if you will not. I can make use of the law." 
 
 " The law," answered his father, calmly. " Do 
 you think that you could get a jury in Bastia to 
 give you a verdict ? Do you think you could find 
 a witness who vv^ould dare to appear in your favour ? 
 No, m}'- friend. There is no law in this country, 
 except that;" and he pointed to a gun in the corner
 
 84 THE ISLE OF UNREST 
 
 of the room, an old-fashioned muzzle-loader, with 
 which he had had the law of Andrei Perucca thirty 
 years before. 
 
 " But now that there is no Perucca left the clan 
 will cease to exist," said Lory. 
 
 " Not at all," replied the father. " The inheritor 
 of the estate, whoever it is, will become the head 
 of the clan, and things will be as they were before. 
 They tell me it is a woman named Denise Lange," 
 
 Lory gave a start. He had forgotten Denise 
 Lange, and all that world of Paris fad and fashion. 
 
 "And the women are always the worst," con- 
 cluded his father. 
 
 They sat in silence for some moments. And then 
 the count spoke again in his odd, detached way, as 
 if he were contemplating his environments from 
 afar. 
 
 "There was a man in Sartene who had an 
 enemy. He was a shoemaker, and could therefore 
 work at his trade indoors. He never crossed his 
 threshold for sixteen years. One day they told 
 him his enemy was dead, that the funeral was for 
 the same afternoon. It passed his door, and when 
 it had gone by, he stepped out, after sixteen years, 
 to watch it, and — Paff ! He twisted himself round 
 as he writhed on the ground, and there was his 
 enemy, laughing, with the smoke still at the muz- 
 zle. The funeral was a trick. No ; I shall not be- 
 lieve that Mattel Perucca is dead until the Abbe 
 Susini tells me that he has seen the body. Not 
 that it would make an}'^ difference. I should not go
 
 AT VASSELOT 85 
 
 outside the door. I am accustomed to this life 
 now." 
 
 He sat with his hands idly crossed on his knee, 
 and looked at nothing in particular. JS'othing could 
 arouse him now from his apathy, except perhaps 
 the culture of carnations — certainly not the arrival 
 of the son whom he had never seen. He had that 
 air of waiting without expectancy which is as- 
 suredly the dungeon mark, and a moral mourning 
 worn for dead Hope. 
 
 Lory contemplated him as a strange old man who 
 interested him despite himself. There was pity, 
 but nothing filial in his feelings. For filial love 
 only grows out of propinquity and a firm respect 
 which must keep pace with the growing demands 
 of a daily increasing comprehension. 
 
 "Why did you come?" asked the count, sud- 
 denly. 
 
 It seemed as if his mind lay hidden under the ac- 
 cumulated dehris of the years, as the old chateau 
 perhaps lay hidden beneath that smooth turf which 
 only grows over ruins. 
 
 " I do not know," answered Lory, thoughtfully. 
 Then he turned in his quick way, and looked at his 
 father with a smile. "Perhaps it was the good 
 God who put the idea into my head, for it came 
 quite suddenly. We shall grow accustomed to each 
 other, and then we may find perhaps that it was a 
 good thing that I came." 
 
 The count looked at him with rather a puzzled 
 air, as if he did not quite understand.
 
 86 THE ISLE OF UJN'REST 
 
 " Yes," he said at length — " yes ; perhaps so. I 
 thought it likely that you would come. Do you 
 mean to stay ? " 
 
 " I do not know. I have not thought yet. I 
 have had no time to think. I only know I am 
 hungry. Perhaps Jean will get me something to 
 eat." 
 
 " I have not dined yet," said the count, simply. 
 " Yes ; we will dine." 
 
 He rose, and, going to the door, called Jean, who 
 came, and a whispered consultation ensued. From 
 out of the debris of his mind the count seemed to 
 have unearthed the fact that he was a gentleman, 
 and as such was called upon to exercise an unspar- 
 ing hospitality. He rather impeded than helped 
 the taciturn man, who seemed to be gardener and 
 servant all in one, and who now prepared the table, 
 setting thereon linen and glass and silver of some 
 value. There was excellent wine, and over the 
 simple meal the father and son, in a jerky, explo- 
 sive way, made merry. For Lory was at heart a 
 Frenchman, and the French know, better than any, 
 how near together tears and laughter must ever be, 
 and have less difficulty in snatching a smile from 
 sad environments than other men. 
 
 It was only as he finally cleared the table that 
 Jean broke his habitual silence. 
 
 " The moon is up," he said to the count, and that 
 was all. 
 
 The old man rose at once, and went to a window, 
 which had hitherto been shuttered and barred.
 
 AT VASSELOT 87 
 
 " I sometimes look out," he said, " when there is 
 a moon." 
 
 With odd, slow movements he opened the shutter 
 and window, and, turning, invited Lory by a jerk 
 of the head to come and look. The moon, which 
 must have been at the full, was behind the chateau, 
 and therefore invisible. Before them, in a frame- 
 work of giant pines that have no match in Europe, 
 lay a panorama of rolling plain and gleaming river. 
 Far away toward Calvi and the south, range after 
 range of rugged mountain melted into a distance, 
 where the snow-clad summits of Cinto and Grosso 
 stood majestically against the sky. The clouds 
 had vanished. It was almost twilight under the 
 southern moon. To the right the sea lay shimmer- 
 ing. 
 
 " I did not know that there was anything like it 
 in Europe," said Lory, after a long pause. 
 
 " There is nothing like it," answered his father, 
 gravely, " in the world." 
 
 Father and son were still standing at the open 
 window, when Jean came hurriedly into the room. 
 
 " It is the abbe," he said, and went out again. 
 
 The count stepped down from the raised window 
 recess, and turned up the lamp, which he had low- 
 ered. Lory paused to close the shutter, and as he 
 did so the Abbe Susini came into the room without 
 looking toward the window, which was near the 
 door by which he entered, without, therefore, see- 
 ing Lory. He hurried into the room, and stopped 
 dead, facing the count. He threw out one finger,
 
 88 THE ISLE OF UlS^REST 
 
 and pointed at his interlocutor as he spoke, in his 
 quick dramatic way. 
 
 " I have just seen a man from Calvi. One landed 
 there this morning whom he recognised. It could 
 only have been your son. If one recognises him, 
 another may. Is the boy mad to return thus " 
 
 He broke off, and made a step nearer, peering 
 into the count's face. 
 
 " You know something. I see it in your face. 
 You know where he is." 
 
 " He is there," said the count, pointing over the 
 priest's shoulder. 
 
 "Then God bless him," said the Abbe Susini, 
 turning on his heel.
 
 CHAPTER IX 
 
 THE PROMISED LAND 
 
 " I do not ask that flowers should always spring 
 Beneath my feet." 
 
 Colonel Gilbert was not one of those vision- 
 aries who think that the lot of the individual man 
 is to be bettered by a change from, say, an empire to 
 a republic. Indeed, the late transformation from a 
 republic to an empire had made no difference to 
 him, for he was neither a friend nor a foe of the 
 emperor. He had nothing in common with those 
 soldiers of the Second Empire who had won their 
 spurs in the Tuileries, and owed promotion to a 
 woman's favouritism. He was, in a word, too good 
 a soldier to be a good courtier ; and politics repre- 
 sented for him, as they do for most wise men, an 
 after-breakfast interest, and an edifying study of 
 the careers of a certain number of persons who 
 mean to make themselves a name in the easiest 
 arena that is open to ambition. 
 
 The colonel read the newspapers because there 
 was little else to do in Bastia, and the local gossip 
 " on tap," as it were, at the cafes and the " Eeunion 
 des Officiers," had but a limited interest for him. 
 He was, however, at heart a gossip, and rode or 
 walked through the streets of Bastia with that 
 
 89
 
 90 THE ISLE OF UNREST 
 
 leisurely air which, seems to invite the passer-by to 
 stop and exchange something more than a formal 
 salutation. 
 
 The days, indeed, Tvere long enough ; for his serv- 
 ice often got the colonel out of bed at dawn, and 
 his work was frequently done before civilians were 
 awake. It thus happened that Colonel Gilbert was 
 riding along the coast-road from Brando to Bastia 
 one morning before the sun had risen very high 
 above the heights of Elba. The day was so clear 
 that not only were the rocky islands of Gorgona 
 and Capraja and Monte Cristo visible, but also the 
 mysterious flat Pianosa, so rarely seen, so capri- 
 cious and singular in its comings and goings that it 
 fades from sight before the very eyes, and in clear 
 weather seems to lie like a raft on the still water. 
 
 The colonel was contemplating the scene with a 
 leisurely, artistic eye, when some instinct made him 
 turn his head and look over his shoulder toward the 
 north. 
 
 " Ah ! " he muttered, with a nod of satisfaction. 
 
 A steamer was slowly pounding down toward 
 Bastia. It was the Marseilles boat — the old Per- 
 severance. And for Colonel Gilbert she was sure to 
 bring news from France, possibly some one with 
 whom to while away an hour or so in talk. He 
 rode more leisurely now, and the steamer 23assed 
 him. By the time he reached the dried-fruit fac- 
 tory on the northern outskirt of the town, the 
 Perseverance had rounded the pier-head, and was 
 gently edging alongside the quay. By the time he
 
 THE PROMISED LAND 91 
 
 reached the harbour she was moored, and her cap- 
 tain enjoying a morning cigar on the wharf. 
 
 Of course Colonel Gilbert knew the captain of 
 the Perseverance. Was he not friendly with the 
 driver of the St, Florent diligence? All who 
 brought news from the outside world were the 
 friends of this idle soldier. 
 
 " Good morning, captain," he cried. " What 
 news of France?" 
 
 The captain was a jovial man, with unkempt hair 
 and a smoke grimed face. 
 
 " News, colonel," he answered. " It is not quite 
 ready yet. The emperor is always brewing it in 
 the Tuileries, but it is not ripe for the public palate 
 yet." 
 
 "Ah!" 
 
 " And in the meantime," said the captain, testing 
 with his foot the tautness of the hawser that 
 moored the Perseverance to the quay — "in the 
 meantime they are busy at Cherbourg and Toulon. 
 As to the army, you probably know that better 
 than I, mon colonel." 
 
 And he finished with his jovial laugh. Then he 
 jerked his thumb in the direction of the steamer. 
 
 " Your newspapers are, no doubt, in the mail- 
 bags," he said. " We had a good passage, and are 
 a full ship. Of passengers I have two — and ladies. 
 One, by the way, is the heiress of Mattel Perucca 
 over at Olmeta, whom you doubtless knew." 
 
 The colonel turned, and looked toward the 
 steamer with some interest.
 
 92 THE ISLE OF UNREST 
 
 " Is that so ? " he said reflectively. 
 
 " Yes ; a pinched old maid in a black dress. 
 None will marry her for her acres. It will be a 
 ])re sale with a vengeance. I caught a glimpse of 
 her as we came out of harbour. I did not see the 
 other, who is young — her niece, I understand. 
 There she is, coming on deck now — the heiress, I 
 mean. She will not look her best after a night at 
 sea." 
 
 And, with a jerk of the head, he indicated a 
 black-clad form on the deck of the Perseverance. It 
 happened to be Mademoiselle Brun, who, as a mat. 
 ter of fact, looked no different after a night at sea 
 to what she had looked in the drawing-room of the 
 Baroness de Melide. She was too old or too tough 
 to take her colour from her environments. She 
 was standing with her back toward the quay, talk- 
 ing to the steward, and did not, therefore, see the 
 colonel until the clank of his spurred heel on the 
 deck made her turn sharply. 
 
 " You, mademoiselle ! " exclaimed the colonel, on 
 seeing her face as he stood, kepi in hand, staring 
 at her in astonishment. 
 
 " Yes ; I am the ogre chosen by Fate to watch 
 over Denise Lange," she answered, holding out her 
 withered hand. 
 
 " But this is indeed a pleasure," said the colonel, 
 with his ready smile. " I came by a mere accident 
 to offer my services, as any Frenchman would, to 
 ladies arriving at such a place as Bastia, as a friend, 
 moreover, of Mattei Perucca, and never expected
 
 THE PKOi\Ilb;p:D LAND 93 
 
 to see a face I knew. It is years, mademoiselle, 
 since we met — since before the war — before Sol- 
 ferino." 
 
 " Yes," said Mademoiselle Brun ; " since before 
 Solferino." 
 
 And she glanced suspiciously at him, as if she 
 had something to hide. A chance word often is 
 the " open sesame " to that cupboard where we 
 keep our cherished skeleton. Colonel Gilbert saw 
 the quick glance, and misconstrued it. 
 
 " I wrote a letter some time ago," he said, " to 
 Mademoiselle Lange, making her an offer for her 
 property, little dreaming that I had so old a friend 
 as yourself at hand, as one may say, to introduce 
 us to each other." 
 
 " No," said Mademoiselle Brun. 
 
 " And I was surprised to receive a refusal." 
 
 "Yes," said Mademoiselle Brun, looking across 
 the harbour toward the old town. 
 
 " There are not many buyers of land in Corsica," 
 he explained, half indifferently, "and there are 
 plenty of other plots which would serve my pur- 
 pose. However, I will not buy elsewhere until you 
 and Mademoiselle Lange have had an opportunity 
 of seeing Perucca — that is certain. No ; it is only 
 friendly to keep my offer open." 
 
 He was standing with his face turned toward the 
 deck-house and the saloon stairway, and tapped his 
 boot idly with his whip. There v/as something 
 expectant and almost anxious in his demeanour. 
 Mademoiselle Brun was looking at his face, and
 
 94 THE ISLE OF UNEEST 
 
 he was perhaps not aware that it changed at this 
 moment. 
 
 "Yes," she said, without looking round ; " that is 
 my niece. You find her pretty ?" 
 
 " Present me," answered the colonel, turning to 
 hook his sword to his belt. 
 
 Denise came hurriedly across the deck, her eyes 
 bright with anticipation and happiness. This was a 
 better life than that of the Eue du Cherche-Midi, 
 and the stir and bustle of the sailors, already at 
 work on the cargo, were contagious. She noticed 
 that Mademoiselle Brun was speaking to an officer, 
 but was more interested in the carriage, which, in 
 accordance with an order sent by the captain, was 
 at this moment rattling across the stones toward 
 the steamer. 
 
 "This," said Mademoiselle Brun, "is Colonel 
 Gilbert, whose letter you answered a few weeks 
 ago." 
 
 " Ah, yes," said Denise, returning his bow, and 
 looking at him with frank eyes. " Thank you very 
 much, monsieur, but we are going to live at Perucca 
 ourselves." 
 
 "By all means," laughed the colonel, "try it, 
 mademoiselle ; try it. It is an impossibility, I tell 
 you frankly. And Corsica is not a country in which 
 to attempt impossibilities. See here! I perceive you 
 have your carriage ready, and the sailors are now 
 carrying 3^our baggage ashore. You are going to 
 drive to Perucca. Good ! Now, as you pass along 
 the road, you will perceive on either side quite a
 
 THE PROMISED LAND 95 
 
 number of small crosses, simply planted at the road- 
 side — some of iron, some of wood, some with a 
 name, some with initials. They are to be found 
 all over Corsica, at the side of every road. Those 
 are people, mademoiselle, who have attempted im- 
 possibilities in this country and have failed — at the 
 very spot where the cross is planted. You under- 
 stand ? I speak as a soldier to a soldier's daughter." 
 
 He looked at her, and nodded slowly and gravely 
 with compressed lips. 
 
 "Rest assured that we shall not attempt im- 
 possibilities," replied Denise, gaily. " We only ask 
 to be left alone to feed our poultry and attend to 
 our garden. I am told that the house and servants 
 are as my father's cousin left them, and we are ex- 
 pected to-day." 
 
 "And you, colonel, shall be our protector," 
 added Mademoiselle Brun, with one of her straight 
 looks. 
 
 The colonel laughed, shrugged his shoulders, and 
 accompanied them to the carriage which awaited 
 them, 
 
 " If one only knew whether you approve or dis- 
 approve of these hair-brained proceedings," he took 
 an opportunity of sajdng to Mademoiselle Brun, 
 when Denise was out of earshot. 
 
 " If I only knew myself," she replied coldly. 
 
 They climbed into the high, old-fashioned car- 
 riage, and drove through the new Boulevard du 
 Palais, upward to the hills above the town. And 
 if they observed the small crosses on either side of
 
 96 THE ISLE OF UNREST 
 
 the road, marking the spot where some poor wight 
 had come to what is here called an accidental death, 
 they took care to make no mention of it. For 
 Denise persisted in seeing everything in that rose 
 light Avhich illumines the world when we are young. 
 She had even a good word to say for the Persever- 
 ance, which vessel had assuredlv need of such and 
 said that the captain was a good French sailor, 
 despite his grimy face. 
 
 " This," she cried, " is better than your stuffy 
 schoolroom ! " 
 
 And she stood up in the carriage to inhale the 
 breeze that hummed through the macquis from the 
 cool mountain-tops. There is no air like that 
 which comes as through a filter made of a hundred 
 scented trees — a subtle mingling of their clean 
 woody odours. 
 
 "Look!" she added, pointing down to the sea, 
 which looked calm from this great height. " Look 
 at that queer flat island there. That is Pianosa. 
 And there is Elba. Elba! Cannot the magic of 
 that word rouse you ? But no, you have no 
 Corsican blood in you ; and you sit there Avith your 
 uncompromising old face and j^our black bonnet a 
 little bit on one side, if I may mention it" — and 
 she proceeded to put Mademoiselle Brun's bonnet 
 straight — " you, who are always in mourning for 
 something — I don't know what," she added half 
 reflectively, as she sat down again. 
 
 The road to St. Florent mounts in a semi-circle 
 behind Bastia through orange-groves and vineyards,
 
 THE PROMISED LAND 9 
 
 "r 
 
 and the tiny private burial-grounds so dear to Cor- 
 sican families of position. These, indeed, are a 
 proud people, for they are too good to await the 
 last da}'' in the company of their humbler brethren, 
 but must needs have a small garden and a hideous 
 little mausoleum of their own, with a fine view and 
 easy access to the highroad. 
 
 With many turns the great road climbs round the 
 face of the mountain, and soon leaving Bastia be- 
 hind, takes a southern trend, and suddenly com- 
 mands from a height a matchless view of the Lake 
 of Biguglia and the little hillside village where a 
 Corsican parliament once sat, which was once, in- 
 deed, the capital of this war-torn island. For every 
 village can boast of a battle, and the rocky earth has 
 run with the blood of almost every European na- 
 tion, as well as that of Turk and Moor. Beyond 
 the lake, and stretching away into a blue haze 
 where sea and land melt into one, lies the great 
 salt marsh where the first Greek colony was lo- 
 cated, where the ruins of Mariana remain to this 
 day. 
 
 Soon the road mounts above the level of the 
 semi-tropical vegetation, and passes along the face 
 of bare and stony heights, where the pines are 
 small and the macquis no higher than a man's head. 
 
 Denise, tired with so long a drive at a snail's 
 pace, jumped from the carriage. 
 
 " I will walk up this hill," she cried to the driver, 
 who had never turned in his seat or spoken a word 
 to them.
 
 98 THE ISLE OF UNREST 
 
 " Then keep close to the carriage," he answered. 
 
 " Why ? " 
 
 But he only indicated the macquis with his whip, 
 and made no further answer. Mademoiselle Brun 
 said nothing, but presently, when the driver paused 
 to rest the horses, she descended from the carriage 
 and walked with Denise. 
 
 It was nearly midday when they at last reached 
 the summit of the pass. The heavy clouds, which 
 had been long hanging over the mountains that 
 border the great plain of Biguglia, had rolled north- 
 ward before a hot and oppressive breeze, and the 
 sun was now hidden. The carriage descended at a 
 rapid trot, and once the man got down and silently 
 examined his brakes. The road was a sort of cor- 
 nice cut on the bare mountain-side, and a stumble 
 or the slipping of a brake-block would inevitably 
 send the carriage rolling into the valley below. 
 
 Denise sat upright, and looked quickly, with 
 eager movements of the head, from side to side. 
 Soon they reached the region of the upper pines, 
 which are small, and presently passed a piece of 
 virgin forest — of those great pines which have no 
 like in Europe. 
 
 " Look ! " said Denise, gazing up at the great 
 trees with a sort of gasp of excitement. 
 
 But mademoiselle had only eyes for the road in 
 front. Before long they passed into the region of 
 chestnuts, and soon saw the first habitation they 
 had seen for two hours. For this is one of the 
 most thinly peopled lands of Europe, and four
 
 THE PKOMISED LAND 99 
 
 great nations of the Continent have at one time or 
 other done their best to exterminate this untarae- 
 able race. Then a few more houses and a smaller 
 road branching off to the left from the highway. 
 The carriage swung round into this, which led 
 straight to a wall built right across it. The driver 
 pulled up, and, turning, brought the horses to a 
 standstill at a door built in the solid wall. With 
 his whip he indicated a bell-chain, rusty and worn, 
 that swung in the breeze. 
 
 There was nobody to be seen. The clouds had 
 closed down over the mountains. Even the tops of 
 the great pines were hidden in a thin mist. 
 
 Denise got down and rang the bell. After a long 
 pause the door was opened by a woman in black, 
 with a black silk handkerchief over her head, who 
 looked gravely at them. 
 
 " I am Denise Lange," said the girl. 
 
 " And I," said the woman, stepping back to ad- 
 mit them, " am the widow of Pietro Andrei, who 
 was shot at Olmeta." 
 
 And Denise Lange entered her own door followed 
 by Mademoiselle Brun.
 
 CHAPTER X 
 
 THUS FAR 
 
 " There are some occasions on which a man must sell half his se- 
 cret in order to conceal the rest." 
 
 " There is some one moving among the olean- 
 ders down by the river." said the count, coming 
 quickly into the room where Lory de Vasselot was 
 sitting, one morning some days after his unexpected 
 arrival at the chateau. 
 
 The old man was cool enough, but he closed the 
 window that led to the small terrace where he cul- 
 tivated his carnations, with that haste which indi- 
 cates a recognition of undeniable danger, coupled 
 with no feeling of fear. 
 
 " I know every branch in the valley," he said, 
 " every twig, every leaf, every shadow. There is 
 some one there." 
 
 Lory rose, and laid aside the pen with which he 
 was writing for an extended leave of absence. In 
 four days these two had, as one of them had pre- 
 dicted, grown accustomed to each other. And the 
 line between custom and necessity is a fine drawn 
 one. 
 
 ''Show me," he said, going toward the window. 
 
 " Ah ! " murmured the count, jerking his head. 
 
 100
 
 THCS FAR 101 
 
 " You will hardly perceive it unless vou are a 
 hunter — or the hunted." 
 
 Lory glanced at his father. Assuredly the sleep- 
 ing mind was beginning to rouse itself. 
 
 " It is nothing but the stirring of a leaf here, the 
 movement of a branch there, which are unusual and 
 unnatural." 
 
 As he spoke, he opened the window Avith that 
 slow caution which had become habitual to his 
 every thought and action. 
 
 " There," he said, pointing with a steady hand ; 
 " to the left of that almond tree which is still in 
 bloom. "Watch those willows which have come 
 there since the wall fell away, and the terrace 
 slipped into the flooded river twenty-one years this 
 spring. You will see the branches move. There 
 — there ! You see. It is a man, and he comes too 
 slowly to have an honest purpose." 
 
 " I see," said Lory. " Is that land ours ? " 
 
 The count gave an odd little laugh. 
 
 " You can see nothing from this window that is 
 not ours," he answered. " As much as any other 
 man's," he added, after a pause. For the conviction 
 still holds good in some Corsican minds that the 
 mountains a,re common property. 
 
 " He is coming slowly, but not wevy cautiously," 
 said Lory. " Not like a man who thinks that he 
 may be watched from here. He probably is taking- 
 no heed of these windows, for he thinks the place 
 is deserted." 
 
 "It is more probable," replied the count, "that
 
 102 THE ISLE OF UNREST 
 
 he is coming here to ascertain that fact. What the 
 abbe has heard, another may hear, though he would 
 not learn it from the abbe. If you want a secret 
 kept, tell it to a priest, and of all priests, the Abbe 
 Susini. Some one has heard that you are here in 
 Corsica, and is creeping up to the castle to find out." 
 
 " And I will go and find him out. Two can play 
 at that game in the bushes," said Lory, with a 
 laugh. 
 
 " If you go, take a gun ; one can never tell how 
 a game may turn." 
 
 " Yes ; I will take a gun if you wish it." And 
 Lory went toward the door. " No," he said, paus- 
 ing in answer to a gesture made by his father, " not 
 that one. It is of too old a make." 
 
 And he went out of the room, leaving his father 
 holding in his hand the gun with which he had shot 
 Andrei Perucca thirty years before. He stood 
 looking at the closed door with dim, reflective eyes. 
 Then he looked at the gun, which he set slowly 
 back in its corner. 
 
 " It seems," he said to himself, " that I am of too 
 old a make also." 
 
 He went to the window, and, opening it cau- 
 tiously, stood looking doAvn into the valley. There 
 he perceived that, though two may play at the same 
 game, it is usually given to one to play it better 
 than the other. For he who was climbing up the hill 
 might be followed by a careful eye, by the chance 
 displacement of a twig, the bending of a bough ; 
 while Lory, creeping down into the valley, remained
 
 THUS FAE 103 
 
 quite invisible, even to his father, upon whose mem- 
 ory every shadow was imprinted. 
 
 " Aha ! " laughed the old man, under his breath. 
 " One sees that the boy is a Corsican. And," he 
 added, after a pause, " one would almost say that 
 the other is not." 
 
 In which the count's trained eye — trained as only 
 is the vision of the hunted — was by no means de- 
 ceived. For Lory, who was far down in the valley, 
 had already caught sight of a braided sleeve, and, a 
 moment later, recognised Colonel Gilbert. The 
 colonel not only failed to perceive him, but was in 
 nowise looking for him. He appeared to be en- 
 tirely absorbed, first in the examination of the 
 ground beneath his feet, and then in the contempla- 
 tion of the rising land. In his hand he seemed to 
 be carrying a note-book, and, so far as the watcher 
 could see, consulted from time to time a compass. 
 
 " He is only engaged in his trade," said Lory to 
 himself, with a laugh ; and, going out into the open, 
 he sat down on a rock with the gun across his knee 
 and waited. 
 
 Thus it happened that Colonel Gilbert, working 
 his way up through the bushes, note-book in hand, 
 looked up and saw, within a few yards of him, the 
 owner of the land upon which they stood, whom he 
 had every reason to believe to be in Paris. 
 
 His ruddy face was of a deeper red as he slipped 
 his note-book within his tunic and came forward, 
 holding out his hand. But his smile was as ready 
 and good-natured as ever.
 
 104 THE ISLE OF U^^EEST 
 
 " Well met I " he said. " You find me, count, tak- 
 ing a professional and business-like survey of the 
 land that you promised to sell me." 
 
 " You are welcome to take the survey," answered 
 Lory, taking the outstretched, cordial hand, " but I 
 must ask you to let me keep the land. I did not 
 take your offer seriously." 
 
 " It was intended seriously, I assure you." 
 
 " Then it was my mistake," answered Lory, quite 
 pleasantly. 
 
 He tapped himself vigorously on the chest, and 
 made a gesture indicating that at a word from the 
 colonel he was ready to lay violent hands upon 
 himself for having been so foolish. The colonel 
 laughed, and shrugged his shoulders as if the mat- 
 ter were but a small one. The f)itiless Mediterra- 
 nean, almost African, sun poured down on them, 
 and one of those short spells of absolute calm, 
 which are characteristic of these latitudes, made it 
 unbearabl}^ hot. The colonel took off his cap, and, 
 sitting down in quite a friendly way near de Yasse- 
 lot on a rock, proceeded to mop his high forehead, 
 pressing back the thin smooth hair which was 
 touched here and there with grey. 
 
 " You have come here at the wrong time," he 
 said, " The heats have begun. One longs for the 
 cool breezes of Paris or of Normandy." 
 
 And he paused, giving Lorj-- an opportunity of 
 explaining Avhy he had come at this time, which 
 opportunity was promptly neglected. 
 
 " At all events, count," said the colonel, replac-
 
 THUS FAR 105 
 
 ing Ills cap and lighting a cigarette, " I did not de- 
 ceive you as to the nature of the land which 1 
 wished to buy. It is a desert, as you see. And 
 I cannot help thinking that something might l)e 
 made of this land." 
 
 He sat and gazed lazily in front of him. Pres- 
 ently, leaving his cigarette to smoulder, he began 
 to buzz through his teeth, in the bucolic manner, an 
 air of Offenbach. He was, in a word, entirely 
 agricultural, and consequently slow of speech. 
 
 "Yes, count," he said, with conviction, after a 
 long pause ; " there is only one drawback to 
 Corsica." 
 
 "Ah?" 
 
 "The Corsicans," said the colonel, gravely. 
 " You do not know them as I do ; for I suppose you 
 have only been here a few days ? " 
 
 De Vasselot's quick eyes glanced for a moment 
 at the colonel's face, but no reply was made to 
 the supposition. Then the colonel fell to his guile- 
 less Offenbach again. There is nothing so inno- 
 cent as the meditative rendering of a well-known 
 tune. A popular air is that which echoes in empty 
 heads. 
 
 Colonel Gilbert glanced sideways at his com- 
 panion. He had not thought that this was a silent 
 man. Nature was singularly at fault in her mould- 
 ings if this slightly made, dark-eyed Frenchman 
 was habitually taciturn. And the colonel was 
 vaguely uneasy. 
 
 " M}^ horee," he said, " is up at Olmeta. I took a
 
 106 THE ISLE OF UNKEST 
 
 "Walk round by the river. It is my business to an- 
 swer innumerable questions from the Ministry of 
 the Interior. Railway projects are still in the air, 
 you understand, I must know my Corsica, Be- 
 sides, as I tell you, I thought I was on my own 
 land." 
 
 " I am sorry that I cannot hold to my joke, for it 
 was nothing else, as you know." 
 
 " Yes, yes, of course," acquiesced the colonel. 
 " And in the meantime, it is a great pleasure to see 
 you here, as well as a surprise. I need hardly tell 
 you that your presence here is quite unknown to 
 your neighbours. We have little to talk about at 
 this end of the island now that the Administration 
 is centred more than ever at Ajaccio ; and were it 
 known in the district that you are at Yasselot, 
 you may be sure I should have heard of it at the 
 cafe or at the hotel where I dine," 
 
 "Yes, I came without drum or trumpet," 
 
 " You are wise," 
 
 The remark was made so significantly that Lory 
 could not ignore it even if such a course had recom- 
 mended itself to one of his quick and impulsive 
 nature, 
 
 " What do you mean, colonel ? " 
 
 Gilbert made a little gesture of the hand that 
 held the half-burnt cigarette. He deprecated, it 
 would appear, having been drawn to talk on so 
 serious a topic, 
 
 " Well, I speak as one Frenchman to another, as 
 one soldier to another. If the emperor does not
 
 THUS FAR 107 
 
 die, he will declare Avar against Germany. There 
 is the situation in a nutshell, is it not ? And do 
 you think the army can afford to lose one man at 
 the present time, especially a man who has made 
 good use of such small opportunities of distinction 
 as the fates have offered him ? And, so far as I 
 have been able to follow the intricacies of the 
 parochial politics, your life is not worth two sous in 
 this country, my dear count. There, I have 
 spoken. A word to the wise, is it not ? " 
 
 He rose, and threw away his cigarette with a 
 nod and a smile. 
 
 " And now I must be returning. You will allow 
 me to pass up that small pathway that leads past 
 the chateau. Some day I should, above all things, 
 like to see the chateau. I am interested in old 
 houses, I tell you frankly." 
 
 "I will walk part of the way with you," an- 
 swered Lory, with a stiffness which was entirely 
 due to a sense of self-reproach. For it was his in- 
 stinct to be hospitable and open-handed and friendly. 
 And Lory would have liked to ask the colonel then 
 and there to come to the chateau. 
 
 " By the way," said the colonel, as they climbed 
 the hill together, " I did not, of course, mean to 
 suggest that you should sell me the old house which 
 bears your name — only a piece of land, a few 
 hectares on this south-west slope, that I may amuse 
 myself with agriculture, as I told you. Perhaps 
 some day you may reconsider your decision ? " 
 
 He waited for a reply to this suggestion, or an
 
 108 THE ISLE OF UNREST 
 
 invitation in response to the hint that he was in- 
 terested in the old house. But neither came. 
 
 " I am much obliged to you for your warning as 
 to the unpopularity of my name in this district," 
 said Lory, rather laboriously changing the subject. 
 " I had, of course, heard something of the same sort 
 before ; but I do not attach much importance to 
 local tradition, do you ? " 
 
 The colonel paused for a few minutes. He had 
 the leisurely conversational manner of an old man. 
 
 " These people have undergone a change," he said 
 at length, " since their final subjugation by ourselves 
 — exactly a hundred years ago, by the way. They 
 were a turbulent, fighting, obstinate people. Those 
 qualities — good enough in times of war — go bad in 
 times of peace. They are a lawless, idle, dishonest 
 people now. Their grand fighting qualities have 
 run to seed in municipal disagreements and elec- 
 tioneering squabbles. And, worst of all, we have 
 grafted on them our French thrift, which has run 
 to greed. There is not a man in the district who 
 would shoot you, count, from any idea of the ven- 
 detta, but there are a hundred who would do it for 
 a thousand-franc note, or in order to prevent you 
 taking back the property which he has stolen from 
 you. That is how it stands. And that is why 
 Pietro Andrei came to grief at Olmeta." 
 
 " And Mattel Perucca ? " asked Lory, thereb}'" 
 causing the colonel to trip suddenly over a stone. 
 
 " Oh, Perucca," he answered. " That was differ- 
 ent. He died a more or less natural death. He
 
 THUS FAK 109 
 
 was a very stout man, and on receiving a letter, 
 gave way to such ungovernable rage that he fell in 
 a fit. True, it was a threatening letter ; but such 
 are common enough in this country. It may have 
 been a joke or may have had some comparatively 
 harmless object. None could have foreseen such a 
 result." 
 
 They were now near the chateau, and the colonel 
 rather suddenly shook hands and went away. 
 
 " I am always to be found at Bastia, and am al- 
 ways at your service," he said, waving a farewell 
 with his whip. 
 
 Lory found the door of the chateau ajar, and Jean 
 watching behind it. His father, however, seemed 
 to have forgotten upon what mission he had gone 
 forth, and was sitting placidly in the little room, 
 lighted by a skylight, where they always lived. 
 The sight of Lory reminded him, however. 
 
 " Who was it ? " he asked, without showing a 
 very keen interest. 
 
 " It was a man called Gilbert," answered Lory, 
 " whom I have met in Paris. An engineer. He is 
 stationed at Bastia, and is connected with the rail- 
 way scheme. A man I should like to like, and yet 
 — He ought to be a good fellow. He has every 
 qualification, and yet " 
 
 Lory did not finish the sentence, but stood reflec- 
 tively looking at his father. 
 
 " He has more than once offered to buy Yasselot," 
 he said, watching for the effect. 
 
 " You must never sell Yasselot," replied the old
 
 110 THE ISLE OF UNREST 
 
 man. He did not seem to conceive it possible that 
 there should be any temptation to do so. 
 
 "I do not quite understand Colonel Gilbert," 
 continued Lory. " He has also offered to buy Per- 
 ucca ; but there I think he has to deal with a clever 
 woman."
 
 CHAPTER XI 
 
 BY SUKPKISE 
 
 " C'est ce qu'on ne dit pas qui explique ce qu'on dit." 
 
 From the Rue du Cherche-Midi in Paris to the 
 Casa Perucca in Corsica is as complete a change as 
 even the heart of woman may desire. For the Rue 
 du Cherche-Midi is probably the noisiest corner of 
 that noisy Paris that lies south of the Seine ; and 
 the Casa Perucca is one of the few quiet corners of 
 Europe where the madding crowd is non-existent, 
 and that crowning effort of philanthropic folly, the 
 statute holiday, has yet to penetrate. 
 
 "Yes," said Mademoiselle Brun, one morning, 
 after she and Denise had passed two months in 
 Avhat she was pleased to term exile — " yes ; it is 
 peaceful. Give me war," she added grimly, after a 
 pause. 
 
 They were standing on the terrace that looked 
 down over the great valley of Yasselot. There was 
 not a house in sight except the crumbling chateau. 
 The month was June, and the river, which could be 
 heard in winter, was noAv little more than a trick- 
 ling stream. A faint breeze stirred the young leaves 
 of the copper-beech, which is a silent tree by nature, 
 and did not so much as whisper now. There are 
 
 111
 
 112 THE ISLE OF UNKEST 
 
 few birds in Corsica, for the natives are great sports- 
 men, and will shoot, sitting, anything from a man 
 to a sparrow in season and out. 
 
 " Listen," said Mademoiselle Brun, holding up 
 one steady, yellow finger ; but the silence was such 
 as will make itself felt. " And the neighbours do 
 not call much," added mademoiselle, in completion 
 of her own thoughts. 
 
 Denise laughed. She had been up early, for they 
 were almost alone in the Casa Perucca now. The 
 servants who had obeyed Mattel Perucca in fear 
 and trembling, had refused to obey Denise, who, 
 with much spirit, had dismissed them one and all. 
 An old man remained, who was generally con- 
 sidered to be half-witted ; and Maria Andrei, the 
 widow of Pietro, who was shot at Olmeta. Denise 
 superintended the small farm. 
 
 " That cheery Maria," said Mademoiselle Brun, 
 "she is our only resource, and reminds me of a 
 cheap funeral." 
 
 " There is the colonel," said Denise. " You for- 
 get him." 
 
 " Yes ; there is the colonel, who is so kind to us." 
 
 And Mademoiselle Brun slowly contemplated the 
 whole landscape, taking in Denise, as it Avere, in 
 passing. 
 
 " And there is our little friend," she added, 
 " down in the valley there who does not call." 
 
 "Why do you call him little?" asked Denise, 
 looking down at the Chateau de Yasselot. " He is 
 not little."
 
 BY SUEPRISE 113 
 
 "He is not so large as the colonel," explained 
 mademoiselle. 
 
 " I wonder why he does not call ? " said Denise, 
 presently, looking down into the valley, as if she 
 could perhaps see the explanation there. 
 
 " It has something to do with the social geog- 
 raphy of the district," said mademoiselle, " which 
 we do not understand. The Cheap Funeral alone 
 knows it. Half of the country she colours red, the 
 other half black. Theoretically, we hate a number 
 of persons who reciprocate the feeling heartily. 
 Practically, we do not know of their existence. I 
 imagine the Count de Yasselot hates us on the same 
 principle." 
 
 " But we are not going to be dictated to by a 
 number of ignorant peasants," cried Denise, angrily. 
 
 " I rather fancy we are." 
 
 Denise was standing by the low wall, with her 
 head thrown back. She was naturally energetic, 
 and had the carriage that usually goes with that 
 quality. 
 
 " Are you sure he is there ? " she asked, still look- 
 ing down at the chateau. 
 
 " No, I am not. I have only Maria's word for 
 it." 
 
 " Then I am going to the village of 01m eta to 
 find out," said Denise. 
 
 And mademoiselle followed her to the house 
 without comment. Indeed, she seemed willing 
 enough to do that which they had been warned not 
 to do.
 
 114 THE ISLE OF UNREST 
 
 On the road that skh-ts the hill and turns amid 
 groves of chestnut trees, they met two men, loiter- 
 ing along with no business in hand, who scowled at 
 them and made no salutation. 
 
 " They may scowl beneath their great hats," said 
 Denise; "I am not afraid of them." And she 
 walked on with her chin well up. 
 
 Below them, on the left, the terraces of vine and 
 olive were weed-grown and neglected ; for Denise 
 had found no one to work on her land, and the soil 
 here is damp and warm, favouring a rapid growth. 
 
 Colonel Gilbert had been unable to help them in 
 this matter. His official position necessarily pre- 
 vented his taking an active part in any local differ- 
 ences. There were Luccans, he said, to be hired at 
 Bastia, hard-working men and skilled vine-dressers, 
 but they would not come to a commune where such 
 active hostility existed, and to induce them to do so 
 would inevitably lead to bloodshed. 
 
 The Abbe Susini had called, and told a similar 
 tale in more guarded language. Finding the ladies 
 good Catholics, he pleaded for and abused his poor 
 in one breath, and then returned half the money 
 that Denise gave him. 
 
 " As likely as not you will be given credit for the 
 whole in heaven, mademoiselle, but I will only take 
 part of it," he said. 
 
 "A masterful man," commented Mademoiselle 
 
 Brun, when he was gone. 
 
 But the abb6 had suggested no solution to Denise's 
 difficulties. The estate seemed to be drifting nat-
 
 BY SURPRISE 115 
 
 urally into the hands of the only man who wanted 
 it, and, after all, had offered a good price for it. 
 
 "I will find out from the Abbe Susini or the 
 mayor whether the Count de Vasselot is really 
 here," Denise said, as they approached the village. 
 
 " And if he is, we will go and see him. We can- 
 not go on like this. He says do not sell, and then 
 he does not come near us. He must give his reasons. 
 Why should I take his advice ? " 
 
 " Why, indeed ? " said Mademoiselle Brun, to 
 whom the question was not quite a new one. 
 
 She knew that though Denise would rebel 
 against de Yasselot's advice, she would continue to 
 follow it. 
 
 "It seems to be luncheon-time," said Denise, 
 when they reached the village. " The place is de- 
 serted. It must be their dejeunerP 
 
 " It may be," responded mademoiselle, with her 
 manlike curtness of speech. 
 
 They went into the church, which was empty, 
 and stayed but a few minutes there, for Mademoi- 
 selle Brun was as short in her speech with God as 
 with men. When they came out to the market- 
 place, that also was deserted, which was singular, 
 because the villagers in Corsica spend nearly the 
 whole day on the market-place, talking politics and 
 whispering a hundred intrigues of parochial policy ; 
 for here a municipal councillor is a great man, and 
 usually a great scoundrel, selling his favour and his 
 vote, trafficking for power, and misappropriating 
 the public funds. Kot only was the market-place
 
 116 THE ISLE OF UNEEST 
 
 empty, but some of the liouse-doors were closed. 
 The door of a small shop was even shut from within 
 as they approached, and surreptitiously barred. 
 Mademoiselle Brun noticed it, and Denise did not 
 pretend to ignore it. 
 
 " One would say that we had an infectious com- 
 plaint," she said, with a short laugh. 
 
 They went to the house of the Abbe Susini. 
 Even this door was shut. 
 
 " The abbe is out," said the old woman, who came 
 in answer to their summons, and she closed the door 
 again with more speed than politeness. 
 
 Denise did not need to ask which was the mayor's 
 house, for a board, wath the word " Mairie " painted 
 upon it (appropriately enough a movable board), 
 was affixed to a house nearly opposite to the church. 
 As they walked toward it, a stone, thro"wn from 
 the far corner of the Place, under the trees, nar- 
 rowly missed Denise, and rolled at her feet. Ma- 
 demoiselle Brun walked on, but Denise swung 
 round on her heel. There was no one to be seen, 
 so she had to follow^ Mademoiselle Brun, after all, 
 in silence. She was rather 'pale, but it was anger 
 that lighted her eyes, and not fear. 
 
 Almost immediately a volley of stones followed, 
 and a laugh rang out from beneath the trees. And, 
 strange to say, it was the laugh that at last fright- 
 ened Denise, and not the stones ; for it was a cruel 
 laugh — the laugh of a brutal fool, such as one may 
 still hear in a few European countries when boys 
 are torturing dumb animals.
 
 BY SUEPKISE 117 
 
 " Let us hurry," said Denise, hastily. " Let us 
 get to the Mairie." 
 
 " Where we shall find the biggest scoundrel of 
 them all, no doubt," added mademoiselle, who was 
 alert and cool. 
 
 But before they reached the Mairie the stones 
 had ceased, and they both turned at the sound of a 
 horse's feet. It was Colonel Gilbert riding hastily 
 into the Place. He saw the stones lying there and 
 the two women standing alone in the sunlight. He 
 looked toward the trees, and then round at the 
 closed houses. With a shrug of his shoulders, he 
 rode toward Denise and dismounted. 
 
 " Mademoiselle," he said, " they have been fright- 
 ening you." 
 
 " Yes," she answered. " They are not men, but 
 brutes." 
 
 The colonel, who was always gentle in manner, 
 made a deprecatory gesture with the great riding- 
 whip that he invariably carried. 
 
 " You must remember," he said, " that they are 
 but half civilised. You know their history — they 
 have been conquered by all the greedy nations in 
 succession, and they have never known peace from 
 the time that history began until a hundred years 
 ago. They are barbarians, mademoiselle, and bar- 
 barians always distrust a newcomer." 
 
 " But why do they hate me ? " 
 
 " Because they do not know you, mademoiselle," 
 replied the colonel, with perhaps a second meaning 
 in his blue eyes.
 
 118 THE ISLE OF UNREST 
 
 And, after a pause, he explained further. 
 
 " Because they do not understand you. They be- 
 long to one of the strongest clans in Corsica, and it 
 is the ambition of every one to belong to a strong 
 clan. But the Peruccas are in danger of falling 
 into dissension and disorder, for they have no head. 
 You are the head, mademoiselle. And the work 
 they expect of you is not work for such hands as 
 yours." 
 
 And again Colonel Gilbert looked at Denise 
 slowly and thoughtfully. She did not perceive the 
 glance, for she was standing with her head half 
 turned toward the trees. 
 
 " Ah ! " he said, noting the direction of her glance, 
 " they will throw no more stones, mademoiselle. 
 You need have no anxiety. They fear a uniform 
 as much as they hate it." 
 
 " And if you had not come at that moment ? " 
 
 "Ah ! " said the colonel, gravely ; and that was 
 all. " At any rate, I am glad I came," he added, 
 in a lighter tone, after a pause. " You were going 
 to the Mairie, mesdemoiselles, when I arrived. 
 Take my advice, and do not go there. Go to the 
 abbe if you like — as a man, not as a priest — and 
 come to me whenever you desire a service, but to 
 no one else in Corsica." 
 
 Denise turned as if she were going to make an 
 exception to this sweeping restriction, but she 
 checked herself and said nothing. And all the 
 while Mademoiselle Brun stood by in silence, a little, 
 patient, bent woman, with compressed lips, and
 
 BY SURPRISE 119 
 
 those steady hazel eyes that see so much and betray 
 so little. 
 
 " The abbe is not at home," continued the colonel. 
 " I saw him many miles from here not long ago ; 
 and although he is quick on his legs — none quicker 
 — he cannot be here yet. If you are going toward 
 the Casa Perucca, you will perhaps allow me to 
 accompany you." 
 
 He led the way as he spoke, leading loosely by 
 the bridle the horse which followed him, and nuz- 
 zled thoughtfully at his shoulder. The colonel was, 
 it appeared, one whose gentle ways endeared him to 
 animals. 
 
 It was glaringly hot, and when they reached the 
 Casa Perucca, Denise asked the colonel to come in 
 and rest. It was, moreover, luncheon-time, and in 
 a thinly populated country the great distances 
 between neighbours are conducive to an easier 
 hospitality than that which exists in closer quarters. 
 The colonel naturall}'^ stayed to luncheon. 
 
 He was kind and affable, and had a hundred 
 little scraps of gossip such as exiles love. He made 
 no mention of his offer to buy Perucca, remembered 
 only the fact that he was a gentleman accepting 
 frankly a lady's frank hospitality, and if the con- 
 versation turned to local matters, he gracefully 
 guided it elsewhere. 
 
 Immediately after luncheon he rose from the 
 table, refusing even to wait for coffee. 
 
 " I have my duties," he explained. " The War 
 OfSce is, for reasons known to itself, moving troops,
 
 120 THE ISLE OF FIS'EEST 
 
 and I have gradually crept up the ladder at Bastia, 
 till I am nearly at the top there." 
 
 Denise went with him to the stable to see that 
 his horse had been cared for. 
 
 " They have only left me the decrepit and the 
 half-witted," she said, " but I am not beaten yet." 
 
 Colonel Gilbert fetched the horse himself and 
 tightened the girths. They walked together toward 
 the great gate of solid wood which fitted into the 
 high wall so closely that none could peep through 
 so much as a crack. At the door the colonel 
 lingered, leaning against his great horse and strok- 
 ing its shoulder thoughtfully with a gloved finger. 
 
 " Mademoiselle," he said at length. 
 
 " Yes," answered Denise, looking at him so 
 honestly in the face that he had to turn away. 
 
 " I want to ask you," he said slowly, " to marry 
 me." 
 
 Denise looked at him in utter astonishment, her 
 face suddenly red, her eyes half afraid. 
 
 " I do not understand you," she said. 
 
 " And yet it is simple enough," answered the 
 colonel, who himself was embarrassed and ill at 
 ease. " I ask you to marry me. You think I 
 
 am too old " He paused, seeking his Avords. 
 
 " I am not forty yet, and, at all events, I am not 
 making the mistake usually made by very young 
 men. I do not imagine that I love you — I know 
 it." 
 
 They stood for a minute in silence; then the 
 colonel spoke again.
 
 BY SURPRISE 121 
 
 " Of what are you thinking, mademoiselle ? " 
 
 " That it is hard to lose the only friend we have 
 in Corsica." 
 
 " You need not do that," replied the colonel. " I 
 do not even ask you to answer now." 
 
 " Oh, I can answer at once." 
 
 Colonel Gilbert bit his lip, and looked at the 
 ground in silence. 
 
 " Then I am too old ? " he said at length. 
 
 "I do not know whether it is that or not," 
 answered Denise; and neither spoke while the 
 colonel mounted and rode slowly away. Denise 
 closed the door quite softly behind him.
 
 CHAPTER XII 
 
 A SUMMONS 
 
 " One stern tyrannic thought that made 
 All other thoughts its slave." 
 
 All round the Mediterranean Sea there dwell 
 people who understand the art of doing nothing. 
 They do it unblushingly, peaceably, and of a set 
 purpose. Moreover, their forefathers must have 
 been addicted to a similar philosophy ; for there is 
 no Mediterranean town or village without its prom- 
 enade or lounging-place, where the trees have grown 
 quite large, and the shade is quite deep, and the 
 wooden or stone seats are shiny with use. Here 
 those whom the French call " worth-nothings " 
 congregate peacefully and happily, to look at the 
 sea and contemplate life from that reflective and 
 calm standpoint which is only to be enjoyed by the 
 man who has nothing to lose. To begin at Yalentia, 
 one will find these human weeds almost Oriental in 
 their apathy. Farther north, at Barcelona, they are 
 given to fitful lapses into activity before the heat of 
 the day. At Marseilles they are almost energetic, 
 and are even known to take the trouble of asking 
 the passer for alms. But eastward, beyond Toulon, 
 thev understand their business better, and do not 
 even trouble to talk among themselves. The French 
 
 122
 
 A SUMMONS 123 
 
 worth-nothing is, in a word, worth leas than any of 
 his brothers — much less than the Italian, who is 
 quite easily roused to a display of temper and a 
 rusty knife — and more nearly approaches the su- 
 preme calm of the Moor, who, across the Mediter- 
 ranean, will sit all day and stare at nothing with 
 any man in the world. And between these dreamy 
 coasts there lie half-a-dozen islands which, strange 
 to say, are islands of unrest. In Majorca every man 
 works from morn till eve. In Minorca they do the 
 same, and quarrel after nightfall. In Iviza they 
 quarrel all day. In Corsica they do nothing, rest- 
 lessly ; while Sardinia, as all the world knows, is a 
 hotbed of active discontent. 
 
 At Ajaccio there are half a dozen idlers on the 
 Place Bonaparte, who sit under the trees against 
 the wall, but they never sit there long, and do not 
 know their business. At St. Florent, in the north 
 of the island, which has a western aspect — the best 
 for idling — there are but two real, unadulterated 
 knights of industry, who sit on the low wall of that 
 which is called the New Quay, and conscientiously 
 do nothing from morning till night. 
 
 " Of course I know him," one was saying to the 
 other. " Do I not remember his father, and are not 
 all the de Yasselots cut with the same knife ? I 
 tell you there was a moon, and I saw him get off 
 his horse, just here at the very door of Rutali's 
 stable, and unstrap his sack, which he carried him- 
 self, and set off toward Olmeta." 
 
 The speaker lapsed into silence, and Colonel Gil-
 
 124: THE ISLE OF UNEEST 
 
 bei't, who had lunched, and was now sitting at the 
 open window of the little inn, which has neither 
 sign nor license, leant farther forward. For the 
 word " 01m eta " never failed to bring a light of en- 
 ergy and enterprise into his quiet eyes. 
 
 The inn has its entrance in the main street of St. 
 Florent, and only the back windows look out upon 
 the quay and across the bay. It was at one of these 
 windows that Colonel Gilbert was enjoying a cigar- 
 ette and a cup of coffee, and the loafers on the 
 quay were unaware of his presence there. And for 
 the sixth time at least, the story of Lory de Vasse- 
 lot's arrival at St. Florent and departure for 01- 
 meta was told and patiently heard. Has not one 
 of the great students of human nature said that the 
 canaille of all nations are much alike ? And the 
 dull or idle of intellect assuredly resemble each 
 other in the patience with which the}" will listen to 
 or tell the same story over and over again. 
 
 The colonel heard the tale, listlessly gazing 
 across the bay with dreamy eyes, and only gave 
 the talker his full attention when more ancient his- 
 tory was touched upon. 
 
 " Yes," said the idler ; " and I remember his 
 father when he was just at that age — as like this 
 one as one sheep is like another. Nor have I for- 
 gotten the story which few remember now." 
 
 He pressed down the tobacco into his wooden 
 pipe — for they are pipe-smokers in a cigarette lati- 
 tude — and waited cunningly for curiosity to grow. 
 His companion showed no sign, though the colonel
 
 A SUMMONS 125 
 
 set his empty coti'ee-cup noiselessly aside and leant 
 his elbow on the window-sill. 
 
 The speaker jerked his thumb in the direction of 
 Olmeta over his left shoulder far up on the moun- 
 tain-side. 
 
 " That story was buried with Perucca," he said, 
 after a long pause. " Perhaps the Abbe Susini 
 knows it. Who can tell what a priest knows ? 
 There were two Peruccas once — fine, big men — and 
 neither married. The other — Andrei Perucca — who 
 has been in hell these thirty years, made sheep's 
 eyes, they told me, at de Yasselot's young wife. 
 She was French, and willing enough, no doubt. 
 She was dull, down there in that great chateau ; and 
 when a woman is dull she must either go to church 
 or to the devil. She cannot content herself with 
 tobacco or the drink, like a man. De Vasselot 
 heard of it. He was a quiet man, and he waited. 
 One day he began to carry a gun, like you and me 
 — a bad example, eh ? Then Andrei Perucca was 
 seen to carry a gun also. And, of course, in time 
 they met — up there on the road from Pruneta to 
 Murato. The clouds were down, and the gregale 
 was blowing cold and showery. It is when the 
 gregale blows that the clouds seem to whisper as 
 they crowd through the narrow places up among 
 the peaks, and there was no other sound while 
 these two men crept round each other among the 
 rocks, like tw^o cats upon a roof. De Yasselot was 
 quicker and smaller, and as agile as a goat, and 
 Andrei Perucca lost him altogether. He was a fool.
 
 126 THE ISLE OF UNKEST 
 
 He went to look for him. As if any one in his 
 senses would go to look for a Corsican in the rocks ! 
 That is how the gendarmes get killed. At length 
 Andrei Perucca raised his head over a big stone, 
 and looked right into the muzzle of de Yasselot's 
 gun. The next minute there was no head upon 
 Perucca's shoulders." 
 
 The narrator paused, and relighted his pipe with 
 a foul-smelling sulphur match. 
 
 " Yes," he said reflectively ; " they are fine men, 
 the de Yasselots." 
 
 He tapped himself on the chest with the stem of 
 his pipe, and made a gesture toward the mountains 
 and the sky, as if calling upon the gods to hear 
 him. 
 
 " I am all for the de Yasselots — I," he said. 
 
 Colonel Gilbert leant out of the window, and 
 quietly took stock of this valuable adherent. 
 
 " At that time," continued the speaker, " we had 
 at Bastia a young prefect who took himself seri- 
 ously. He was going to reform the world. They 
 decided to arrest the Count de Yasselot, though 
 they had not a scrap of evidence, and the clan was 
 strong in those days, stronger than the Peruccas 
 are to-day. But they never caught him. They 
 disappeared bag and baggage — went to Paris, I un- 
 derstand ; and they say the count died there, or 
 was perhaps killed by the Peruccas, who grew 
 strong under Mattel, so that" in a few years it 
 would have been impossible for a de Yasselot to 
 show his face in this country. Then Mattel
 
 A SUMMONS 127 
 
 Perucca died, and was hardly in his grave before 
 this man came. I tell you, I saw him myself, a de 
 Vasselot, with his father's quick way of turning his 
 head, of sitting in the saddle lightly like a Spaniard 
 or a Corsican. That was in the spring, and it is 
 now July — three months ago. And he has never 
 been seen or heard of since. But he is here, I tell 
 you ; he is here in the island. As likely as not he 
 is in the old chateau down there in the valley. No 
 honest man has set his foot across the threshold 
 since the de Yasselots left it thirty years ago — only 
 Jean is there, who has the evil eye. But there are 
 plenty of Perucca's people up at Olmeta who would 
 risk Jean's eye, and break down the doors of the 
 chateau at a word from the Casa Perucca. But the 
 girl there who is the head of the clan will not say 
 the word. She does not understand that she is 
 powerful if she would only go to work in the right 
 way, and help her people. Instead of that, she 
 quarrels with them over such small matters as the 
 right of grazing or of cutting wood. She will make 
 the place too hot for her " He broke off sud- 
 denly. "What is that?" he said, turning on the 
 wall, which was polished smooth by constant fric- 
 tion. 
 
 He turned to the north and listened, looking in 
 the direction of Cap Corse, from whence the 
 Bastia road comes winding down the mountain 
 slopes, 
 
 " I hear nothing," said his companion. 
 
 " Then you are deaf. It is the diligence half an
 
 128 THE ISLE OF UNREST 
 
 hour before its time, and the driver of it is shouting 
 as he comes — shouting to the people on tlie road. 
 
 It seems that there is news " 
 
 But Colonel Gilbert heard no more, for he had 
 seized his sword, ami was already halfway down 
 the stone stairs. It appeared that he expected 
 news, and when the diligence drew up in the nar- 
 row street, he was there awaiting it, amid a buzzing 
 crowd, which had inexplicably assembled in the 
 twinkling of an eye. Yes; there was assuredly 
 news, for the diligence came in at a gallop though 
 there was no one on it but the driver. He shouted 
 incoherently, and waved his whip above his head. 
 Then, quite suddenly, perceiving Colonel Gilbert, 
 he snapped his lips together, threw aside the reins, 
 and leapt to the ground. 
 
 " Mon colonel," he said, " a word with you." 
 And they went apart into a doorway. Three 
 words sufficed to tell all that the diligence driver 
 knew, and a minute later the colonel hurried to- 
 ward the stable of the inn, where his horse stood 
 ready. He rode away at a sharp trot, not toward 
 Bastia, but down the valley of Yasselot. Although 
 it was evident that he was pressed for time, the 
 colonel did not hurry his horse, but rather relieved 
 it when he could by dismounting, at every sharp 
 ascent, and riding where possible in the deep shade 
 of the chestnut trees. He turned aside from the 
 main road that climbs laboriously to Oletta and 
 Olmeta, and followed the river-path. In order to 
 gain time he presently left the patli, and made a
 
 A SUMMONS 120 
 
 short cut across the open land, glancing up at the 
 Casa Perucca as lie did so. For he was trespass- 
 ing. 
 
 He was riding leisurely enough when his horse 
 stumbled, and, in recovering itself, clumsil}^ kicked 
 a great stone with such force that he shattered it to 
 a hundred pieces, and then stood on three legs, 
 awkwardly swinging his hoof in a way that horses 
 have when the bone has been jarred. In a moment 
 the colonel dismounted, and felt the injured leg 
 carefully. 
 
 "My friend," he said kindly, "you are a fool. 
 What are you doing ? Name of a dog " — he paused, 
 and collecting the pieces of broken quartz, threw 
 them away into the brush — " name of a dog, what 
 are you doing ? " 
 
 With an odd laugh Colonel Gilbert climbed into 
 the saddle again, and although he looked carefully 
 up at the Casa Perucca, he failed to see Mademoi- 
 selle Brun's grey face amid the grey shadows of an 
 olive tree. The horse limped at first, but presently 
 forgot his grievance against the big stone that had 
 lain in his path. The colonel laughed to himself in 
 a singular way more than once at the seemingly 
 trivial accident, and on regaining the path, turned 
 in his saddle to look again at the spot where it had 
 occurred. 
 
 On nearing the chateau he urged his horse to a 
 better pace, and reached the great door at a sharp 
 trot. He rang the bell without dismounting, and 
 leisurel}'' quitted the saddle. But the summons was
 
 130 THE ISLE OF UKREST 
 
 not immediately answered. He jerked at the chain 
 again, and rattled on the door with the handle of 
 his riding-whip. At length the bolts were Avith- 
 drawn, and the heavy door opened sufficiently to 
 admit a glance of that evil eye which the peasants 
 did not care to face. 
 
 Before speaking the colonel made a step forward, 
 so that his foot must necessarily prevent the clos- 
 ing of the door. 
 
 " The Count de Vasselot," said he. 
 
 " Take away your foot," replied Jean. 
 
 The colonel noted with a good-natured surprise 
 the position of his stout riding-boot, and withdrew 
 
 it. 
 
 "The Count de Vasselot," he repeated. "You 
 need not trouble, my friend, to tell any lies or to 
 look at me with your evil eye. I know the count 
 is here, for I saw him in Paris just before he came, 
 and I spoke to him at this very door a few weeks 
 ago. He knows me, and I think you know me too, 
 my friend. Tell your master I have news from 
 France, He will see me." 
 
 Jean unceremoniously closed the door, and the 
 colonel, who was moving away toward his horse, 
 turned sharply on his heel when he heard the bolts 
 being surreptitiously pushed back again. 
 
 " Ah ! " he said, and he stood outside the door 
 wdth his hand at his moustache, reflectively follow- 
 ing Jean's movements, " they are singularly careful 
 to keep me out, these people." 
 
 He had not long to wait, however, for presently
 
 A SUMMOKS 131 
 
 Lory came, stepping quickly over the high threshold 
 aad closing the door behind him. But Gilbert was 
 taller than de Vasselot, and could see over his head. 
 He looked right through the house into the little 
 garden on the terrace, and saw some one there who 
 was not Jean. And the light of surprise was still 
 in his eyes as he shook hands with Lory de Vas- 
 selot. 
 
 " You have news for me ? " inquired de Yasselot. 
 
 " News for every Frenchman." 
 
 " Ah ! " 
 
 "Yes. The emperor has declared war against 
 Germany." 
 
 " War ! " echoed Lory, with a sudden laugh. 
 
 " Yes ; and your regiment is the first on the list." 
 
 " I know, I know ! " cried de Vasselot, his eyes 
 alight with excitement. " But this is good news 
 that you tell me. How can I thank you for com- 
 ing? I must get home — I mean to France — at 
 once. But this is great news ! " He seized the 
 colonel's hand and shook it. " Great news, mon 
 colonel — great news ! " 
 
 " Good news for you, for you are going. But I 
 shall be left behind as usual. Yes ; it is good news 
 for you." 
 
 " And for France," cried Lory, with both hands 
 outspread, as if to indicate the glory that was await- 
 ing them. 
 
 " For France," said the colonel, gravely, " it can- 
 not fail to be bad. But we must not think of that 
 now."
 
 132 THE ISLE OF UNREST 
 
 " We shall never think of it," answered Lory. 
 "This is Monday; there is a boat for Marseilles 
 to-night. I leave Bastia to-night, colonel." 
 
 " And I must get back there," said the colonel, 
 holding out his hand. 
 
 He rode thoughtfully back by the shortest route 
 through the Lancone Defile, and, as he approached 
 Bastia, from the heights behind the town he saw 
 the steamer that Avould convey Lory to France com- 
 ing northward from Bonifacio. 
 
 " Yes," he said ; he will leave Bastia to-night ; 
 and assuredly the good God, or the devil, helps me 
 at every turn of this affair."
 
 CHAPTEK XIII 
 
 WAK 
 
 " Since all that I can ever do for thee 
 Is to do nothing, may'st thou never see, 
 Never divine, the all that nothing costeth me ! " 
 
 It is for kings to declare war, for nations to fight 
 and pay. l^apoleon III. declared war against Kus- 
 sia, and France fought side by side with England 
 in the Crimea, not because the gayest and most 
 tragic of nations had aught to gain, but to ensure 
 an upstart emperor a place among the monarch s of 
 Europe. And that strange alliance was merely one 
 move in a long game played by a consmnmate in- 
 triguer — a game which began disastrously at Bou- 
 logne and ended disastrously^ at Sedan, and yet was 
 the most daring and brilliant feat of European 
 statesmanship that has been carried out since the 
 adventurer's great-uncle went to St. Helena. 
 
 But no one knows why in July, 1870, Napoleon 
 III. declared war against Germany. The secret of 
 the greatest war of modern times lies buried in the 
 Imperial mausoleum at Frognal. 
 
 There is a sort of surprise which is caused by 
 the sudden arrival of the long expected, and Ger- 
 many experienced it in that hot midsummer, for 
 there seemed to be no reason why war should break 
 
 133
 
 13i THE ISLE OF UNREST 
 
 out at the moment. Sliortlj before, the Spanish 
 Government had offered the crown to the heredi- 
 tary Prince Leopold of Hohenzollern, and France, 
 ever ready to see a grievance, found herself suited. 
 But the hereditary prince declined that throne, and 
 the incident seemed about to close. Then quite 
 suddenly France made a demand, with reference to 
 any possible recurrence of the same question, which 
 Germany could not be expected to grant. It was 
 an odd demand to make, and in a flash of thought 
 the great German chancellor saw that this meant 
 war. Perhaps he had been waiting for it. At all 
 events, he was prepared for it, as were the silent 
 soldier, von Roon, and the gentle tactician, von 
 Moltke. These gentlemen were away for a holi- 
 day, but they returned, and, as history tells, had 
 merely to fill in a few dates on already prepared 
 documents. 
 
 If France was not ready she thought herself so, 
 and was at all events willing. Nay, she was so 
 eager that she shouted when she should have held 
 her tongue. And who shall say what the schemer 
 of the Tuileries thought of it all behind that pleas- 
 ant smile, those dull and sphinx-like eyes? He 
 had always believed in his star, had always known 
 that he was destined to be great ; and now perhaps 
 he knew that his star was waning— that the great- 
 ness was past. He made his preparations quietly. 
 He was never a flustered man, this nephew of the 
 greatest genius the world has seen. Did he not sit 
 three months later in front of a cottage at Donchfery
 
 WAR 135 
 
 and impassively smoke cigarette after cigarette 
 while waiting for Otto von Bismarck ? He was a 
 fatalist. 
 
 " The Moving Finger writes ; and, having writ, 
 Moves on." 
 
 And it must be remembered to his credit that he 
 asked no man's pity — a request as foolish to make 
 for a fallen emperor as for the ordinary man who 
 has, for instance, married in haste, and is given the 
 leisure of a whole lifetime in which to repent. For 
 the human heart is incapable of bestowing unadul- 
 terated pity : there must be some contempt in it. 
 If the fall of Napoleon III. was great, let it be re- 
 membered that few place themselves by their own 
 exertions in a position to fall at all. 
 
 The declaration of war was, on the whole, ac- 
 claimed in France ; for Frenchmen are, above all 
 men, soldiers. Does not the whole world use 
 French terms in the technicalities of warfare ? The 
 majority received the news as Lory de Vasselot re- 
 ceived it. For a time he could only think that this 
 was a great and glorious moment in his life. He 
 hurried in to tell his father, but the count failed to 
 rise to the occasion. 
 
 " War ! " he said. " Yes, there have been many 
 in my time. They have not afifected me — or my 
 carnations." 
 
 " And I go to it to-night," announced Lory, watch- 
 ing his father with eyes suddenly grave and anx- 
 ious.
 
 136 THE ISLE OF UNREST 
 
 " Ah ! " said the count, and made no farther com- 
 ment. 
 
 Then, without pausing to consider his own mo- 
 tives, Lory hurried up to the Casa Perucca to tell 
 the ladies there his great news. He must, it seemed, 
 tell somebody, and he knew no one else within 
 reach, except perhaps the Abbe Susini, who did not 
 pretend to be a Frenchman. 
 
 " Is it peace ? " asked Mademoiselle Brun, who, 
 having seen him climbing the steep slope in the 
 glaring sunshine, was waiting for him by the open 
 side-door when he arrived there. 
 
 He took her withered hand, and bowed over it as 
 gallantly as if it had been soft and young. 
 
 " "What do you mean ? " he asked, looking at her 
 curiously. 
 
 " Well, it seems that the Casa Perucca and the 
 Chateau de Vasselot are not on visiting terms. We 
 only call on each other with a gun." 
 
 " It is odd that you should have asked me that," 
 said Lory, "for it is not peace, but war." 
 
 And as he looked at her, her face hardened, her 
 steady eyes wavered for once. 
 
 " Ah ! " she said, her hands dropping sharply 
 against her dingy black dress in a gesture of despair. 
 " Again ! " 
 
 " Yes, mademoiselle," answered Lory, gently ; for 
 he had a quick intuition, and knew at a glance that 
 war must have hurt this woman at one time of her 
 life. 
 
 She stood for a moment tapping the ground
 
 WAR 137 
 
 with her foot, looking reflectively across the val- 
 ley. 
 
 " Assuredly," she said, " Frenchwomen must be 
 the bravest women in the world, or else there would 
 never be a light heart in the whole country. Come, 
 let us go in and tell Denise. It is Germany, I sup- 
 pose ? " 
 
 " Yes, mademoiselle. They have long wanted it, 
 and we are obliging them at last. You look grave. 
 It is not bad news I bring you, but good." 
 
 " Women like soldiers, but they hate war," said 
 mademoiselle, and walked on slowly in silence. 
 
 After a pause, she turned and looked at him as if 
 she Avere going to ask him a question, but checked 
 herself. 
 
 " I almost did a foolish thing," she explained, 
 seeing his glance of surprise. *' I was going to ask 
 you if you were going ? " 
 
 " Ah, yes, I am going," he answered, with a laugh 
 and a keen glance of excitement. " War is a nec- 
 essary evil, mademoiselle, and assists promotion. 
 W^hy should you hate it ? " 
 
 " Because we cannot interfere in it," replied Ma- 
 demoiselle Brun, with a snap of the lips. " We 
 shall find Denise in the garden to the north of the 
 house, picking green beans, Monsieur le Comte," 
 continued Mademoiselle Brun, with a glance in his 
 direction. 
 
 " Then I shall have time to help with the beans 
 before I go to the war," answered Lory ; and they 
 Avalked on in silence.
 
 188 THE ISLE OF UNKEST 
 
 The garden was but half cultivated — a luxuriant 
 thicket of fruit and weed, of trailing vine and wild 
 clematis. The air of it was heavy with a hundred 
 scents, and, in the shade, was cool, and of a mossy 
 odour rarely found in Soutliern seas. 
 
 They did not see Denise at first, and then sud- 
 denly she emerged at the other end of the weed- 
 grown path where they stood. Lory hurried for- 
 ward, hat in hand, and perceived that Denise made 
 a movement, as if to go back into the shadow, 
 which was immediately restrained. 
 
 Mademoiselle Brun did not follow Lory, but 
 turned back toward the house. 
 
 " If they must quarrel," she said to herself, " they 
 may do it without my assistance." 
 
 And Denise seemed, indeed, ready to fall out 
 with her neighbour, for she came toward him with 
 heightened colour and a flash of annoyance in her 
 eves. 
 
 " I am sorry they put you to the trouble of com- 
 ing out here," she said. 
 
 " Why, mademoiselle ? Because I find you pick- 
 ing green beans ? " 
 
 " No ; not that. But one has one's pride. This 
 is my garden. I keep it ! Look at it ! " And she 
 waved her hand with a gesture of contempt. 
 
 De Vasselot looked gravely round him. Then, 
 after a pause, he made a movement of the deepest 
 despair. 
 
 " Yes, mademoiselle," he said, with a great sigh, 
 " it is a wilderness."
 
 WAK 139 
 
 " And now you are laughing at me." 
 
 " I, mademoiselle ? " And he faced her tragic 
 eyes. 
 
 " You think I am a woman." 
 
 De Vasselot spread out his hands in deprecation, 
 as if, this time, she had hit the mark. 
 
 " Yes," he said slowly. 
 
 " I mean you think we are only capable of wear- 
 ing pretty clothes and listening to pretty speeches, 
 and that anything else is beyond our grasp alto- 
 gether." 
 
 " Nothing in the world, mademoiselle, is beyond 
 your grasp, except " — he paused, and looked round 
 him — " except a spade, perhaps, and that is what 
 this garden wants." 
 
 They were very grave about it, and sat down on 
 a rough seat built by Mattel Perucca, who had 
 come there in the hot weather. 
 
 " Then what is to be done ? " said Denise, simply. 
 
 For the French — the most intellectual subtle peo- 
 ple of the world — have a certain odd simplicity 
 which seems to have survived all the changes and 
 chances of monarchy, republic, and empire. 
 
 " I do not quite know. Have you not a man ? " 
 
 " I have nobody, except a decrepit old man, who 
 is half an imbecile," said Denise, with a short laugh. 
 " I get my provisions surreptitiously by the hand of 
 Madame Andrei. No one else comes near the Casa. 
 We are in a state of siege. I dare not go into 01- 
 meta ; but I am holding on because j^'ou advised me 
 not to sell."
 
 140 THE ISLE OF UisREiST 
 
 " I, mademoiselle ? " 
 
 " Yes ; in Paris. Have you forgotten ? " 
 
 " No," answered luovy, slowly — " no ; I have not 
 forgotten. But no one takes my advice — indeed, 
 no one asks it — except about a horse. They think 
 I know about a horse.'' And Lory smiled to him- 
 self at the thought of his proud position. 
 
 " But you surely meant what you said ? " asked 
 Denise. 
 
 " Oh yes. But you honour me too much by tak- 
 ing my opinion thus seriously without question, 
 mademoiselle." 
 
 Denise was looking at him with her clear, search- 
 ing eyes, rather veiled by a suggestion of disappoint- 
 ment. 
 
 " I thought — I thought you seemed so decided, 
 so sure of your own opinion," she said doubtfully. 
 
 De Yasselot was silent for a moment, then he 
 turned to her quickly, impulsively, confidentially. 
 
 " Listen," he said. " I will tell you the truth. I 
 said ' Don't sell.' I say ' Don't sell ' still. And I 
 have not a shred of reason for doing so. There ! " 
 
 Denise was not a person who was easily led. She 
 laughed at the stern, strong Mademoiselle Brun to 
 her face, and treated her opinion with a gay con- 
 tempt. She had never yet been led. 
 
 " No," she said, and seemed residj to dispense 
 with reasons. " You will not sell, vourself ? " she 
 said, after a pause. 
 
 " No ; I cannot sell," he said quickly ; and she 
 remembered his answer long afterward.
 
 WAK 141 
 
 After a pause he explained farther. 
 
 " I tell you frankly," he said earnestly, for he 
 Avas always either very earnest or very gay — " I 
 tell you frankly, when we both received an offer to 
 buy, I thought there must be some reason why the 
 places are worth buying, but I have found none." 
 
 He paused, and, looking round, remembered that 
 this also was his, and did not belong to Denise at 
 all, who claimed it, and held it with such a high 
 hand, 
 
 " As Corsica at present stands, Perucca and Yas- 
 selot are valueless, mademoiselle. I claim the hon- 
 our of being in the same boat with you. And if 
 the empire falls — lo7ijou7- la paix ! " 
 
 And he sketched a grand upheaval with a wave 
 of his two hands in the air. 
 
 " But why should the empire fall ? " asked Denise, 
 sharply. 
 
 " Ah, but I have the head of a sparrow ! " cried 
 Lory, and he smote himself grievously on the fore- 
 head. " I forgot to tell you the Yerj thing that I 
 came to tell you. Which is odd, for until I came 
 into this garden I could think of nothing else. I 
 was ready to shout it to the trees. War has been 
 declared, mademoiselle." 
 
 " War ! " said Denise ; and she drew in one whist- 
 ling breath through her teeth, as one may Avho has 
 been burnt by contact with heated metal, and sat 
 looking straight in front of her. " When do you go. 
 Monsieur le Comte ? " she asked, in a steady voice, 
 after a moment.
 
 142 THE ISLE OF UNEEST 
 
 " To-night." 
 
 He rose, and stood before her, looking at the 
 tangled garden with a frown. 
 
 " Ah ! " he said, with a sudden laugh, " if the 
 emperor had only consulted me, he would not have 
 done it just yet. I want to go, of course, for I am 
 a soldier. But I do not want to go now. I should 
 have liked to see things more settled, here in Olmeta. 
 If the empire falls, mademoiselle, you must return 
 to France ; remember that. I should have liked to 
 have offered you my poor assistance ; but I cannot 
 — I must go. There are others, however. There 
 is Mademoiselle Brun, with a man's heart in that 
 little body. And there is the Abbe Susini. Yes ; 
 you can trust him as you can trust a little English 
 
 fighting terrier. Tell him JSTo ; I will tell 
 
 him. He is a Vasselot, mademoiselle, but I shall 
 make him a Perucca." 
 
 He held out his hand gaily to say good-bye. 
 
 " And — stay ! Will you write to me if you 
 want me, mademoiselle ? I may be able to get to 
 you." 
 
 Denise did not answer for a moment. Then she 
 looked him straight in the eyes, as was her wont 
 with men and women alike. 
 
 " Yes," she said. 
 
 A few minutes later, Mademoiselle Brun came 
 into the garden. She looked round but saw no 
 one. Approaching the spot where she had left 
 Denise, she found the basket with a few beans in 
 it, and Denise's gloves lying there. She knew that
 
 WAR 143 
 
 Lory had gone, but still she could see Denise no- 
 where. There were a hundred places in the garden 
 where any who did not wish to be discovered could 
 find concealment. 
 
 Mademoiselle Brun took up the basket and con- 
 tinued to pick the French beans, 
 
 " My poor child ! my poor child ! " she muttered 
 twice, with a hard face.
 
 CHAPTER XIV 
 
 GOSSIP 
 
 " Cupid is a casuist, 
 A mystic, and a cabalist. 
 Can your lurking thought surprise. 
 And interpret your device ? " 
 
 That which has been taken by the sword must 
 be held by the sword. In Corsica the blade is 
 sheathed, but it has never yet been laid aside. 
 The quick events of July thrust this sheathed 
 weapon into the hand of Colonel Gilbert, who, as 
 he himself had predicted, was left behind in the 
 general exodus. 
 
 " If you are placed in command at Bastia, how 
 many, or how few men will suffice ? " asked the civil 
 authority, who was laid on the shelf by the out- 
 break of war. 
 
 And Colonel Gilbert named what appeared to be 
 an absurd minimum. 
 
 " We must think of every event ; things may go 
 badly, the fortune of war may turn against us." 
 
 " Still I can do it," answered the colonel. 
 
 " The empire may fall, and then Corsica will 
 blaze up like tow." 
 
 " Still I can do it," repeated the colonel. 
 
 It is the natural instinct of man to strike while 
 
 144
 
 GOSSIP 145 
 
 liis blood is up, and the national spirit on either side 
 of the Rhine was all for immediate action. The 
 leaders themselves were anxious to begin, so that 
 they might finish before the winter. So the prep- 
 arations were pushed forward in Germany with a 
 methodical haste, a sane and deliberate foresight. 
 In France it was more a question of sentiment — the 
 invincibility of French arms, the heroism of French 
 soldiers, the Napoleonic legend. But while these 
 abstract aids to warfare may make a good individual 
 soldier of that untidy little man in the red trousers, 
 who has, in his time, overrun all Europe, it will not 
 move great armies or organise a successful campaign. 
 For the French soldier must have some one to fight 
 for — some one towering man in whom he trusts, 
 who can turn to good account some of the best 
 fighting material the human race has yet produced. 
 And Napoleon III. was not such a man. 
 
 It is almost certain that he counted on receiving 
 assistance from Austria or Italy, and when this was 
 withheld, the disease-stricken, suffering man must 
 assuredly have realised that his star was sinking. 
 He had made the mistake of putting off this great 
 war too long. He should have fought it years 
 earlier, before the Prussians had made sure of those 
 steady, grumbling Bavarians, who bore the brunt of 
 all the fighting, before his own hand was faltering 
 at the helm, and the face of God was turned away 
 from the Napoleonic dynasty. 
 
 The emperor was no tactician, but he knew the 
 human heart. He knew that at any cost France
 
 146 THE ISLE OF UNKEST 
 
 must lead off with a victory, not only for the sake 
 of the little man in the red trousers, but to impress 
 Avatching Europe, and perhaps snatch an ally from 
 among the hesitating powers. And the result was 
 Saarbrtick. The news of it filtered through to 
 Colonel Gilbert, who was now quartered in the 
 grey, picturesque Watrin barracks at Bastia, which 
 jut out between the old harbour and the plain of 
 Biguglia. The colonel did not believe half of it. 
 It is always safe to subtract from good news. But 
 he sat down at once and wrote to Denise Lange. 
 He had not seen her, had not communicated with 
 her, since he had asked her to marry him, and she 
 had refused. He was old enough to be her father. 
 He had asked her to marr}^ him because she would 
 not sell Perucca, and he wanted that estate ; which 
 Avas not the right motive, but it is the usual one 
 with men who are past the foolishness of 3^outh — 
 that foolishness v/hich is better than all the wisdom 
 of the ages. 
 
 From having had nothing to do. Colonel Gilbert 
 found himself thrown into a whirl of work, or what 
 would have been a whirl with a man less calm and 
 placid. Yery much at ease, in white linen clothes, 
 he sat in his room in the bastion, and transacted 
 the affairs of his command with a leisurely good 
 nature which showed his complete grasp of the 
 situation. 
 
 With regard to Denise, tliis middle-aged, cynical 
 Frenchman grasped the situation also. He was 
 slowly and surely falling in love with her. And
 
 GOSSIP 147 
 
 she herself had given him the first push down 
 that facile descent when she had refused to be his 
 wife. 
 
 " Mademoiselle," he wrote, " to quarrel is, I sup- 
 pose, in the air of Corsica, and when we parted at 
 your gate some time ago, I am afraid I left you har- 
 bouring a feeling of resentment against me. At this 
 time, and in the adverse days that I foresee must 
 inevitably be in store for France, none can afford 
 to part with friends who by any means can preserve 
 them. In our respective positions, you and I must 
 rise above small differences of opinion ; and I place 
 myself unreservedly at your service. I write to 
 tell you that I have this morning good news from 
 France. We have won a small victory at Saar- 
 briick. So far, so good. But, in case of a reverse, 
 there is only too much reason to fear that internal 
 disturbances will arise in France, and consequently 
 in this unfortunate island. It is, therefore, my 
 duty to urge upon you the necessity of quitting 
 Perucca without delay. If you will not consent to 
 leave the island, come at all events into Bastia, 
 where, at a few minutes' notice, I shall be able to 
 place you in a position of safety. I trust I am not 
 one who is given to exaggerating danger. Ask 
 Mademoiselle Brun, who has known me since, as a 
 young man, I had the privilege of serving under 
 your father, a general who had the gift of drawing 
 out from those about him such few soldierly quali- 
 ties as they might possess." 
 
 Denise received this letter by post the next morn-
 
 us THE ISLE OF UNREST 
 
 iug, and, after reading it twice, handed it to Made- 
 moiselle Brun, who was much too wise a woman to 
 ask for an explanation of those parts of it which 
 she did not comprehend. Indeed, she was manlike 
 enough to pass on with an unimpaired understand- 
 ing to the second part of the letter, whereas most 
 women would have been so consumed by curiosity 
 as to be unable to give more than half their mind 
 to the colonel's further news. 
 
 " And ? " inquired mademoiselle — a French- 
 woman's way of asking a thousand questions in 
 one. Mademoiselle Brun knew all the conversa- 
 tional tricks that serve to economise words. 
 
 " It is all based upon supposition," said the erst- 
 while mathematical instructress of the school in the 
 Rue du Cherche-Midi. " It will be time enough to 
 arrive at a decision when the reverse comes. The 
 Count de Vasselot or the Abbe Susini, will no doubt, 
 warn us in time." 
 
 " Ah ! " said Mademoiselle Brun. 
 
 " But, if you like, I will write to the Count de 
 Vasselot," said Denise, in the voice of one making 
 a concession. 
 
 Mademoiselle Brun thought deepl}'- before reply- 
 ing. It is so easy to take a wrong turning at the 
 cross-roads of life, and assuredly Denise stood at a 
 carrefour now. 
 
 " Yes," said mademoiselle at length ; "it would 
 be well to do that." 
 
 And Denise went away to write the letter that 
 Lory had asked for in case she wanted him. She
 
 GOSSIP 149 
 
 did not show it to Mademoiselle Brun, but went 
 out and posted it herself in the little square box, 
 painted Avhite, affixed to the white Avail on the 
 highroad, and just Avithin sight of Olmeta. When 
 she returned she went into the garden again, AA^here 
 she spent so great a part of these hot days that her 
 face AA'as burnt to a healthy broAAm, Avhich was in 
 keeping Avitli her fearless eyes and carriage. Made- 
 moiselle Brun, on the other hand, spent most of her 
 days indoors, divining perhaps that Denise had of 
 late fallen into an unconscious love of solitude. 
 
 Denise returned to the house at luncheon-time, 
 entered by the windoAv, and caught Mademoiselle 
 Brun hastily shutting an atlas. 
 
 " I Avas wondering," she said, " Avhere Saarbriick 
 might be, and Avhether any one Ave knoAv had time 
 to get there before the battle." 
 
 " Yes." 
 
 "But Colonel Gilbert will tell us." 
 
 "Colonel Gilbert?" inquired Denise, turning 
 rather sharply. 
 
 " Yes. I think he Avill come to-day or to-mor- 
 
 rOAA\" 
 
 And Mademoiselle Brun was right. In the full 
 lieat of the afternoon the great bell at the gate 
 gave forth a single summons ; for the colonel Avas 
 always gentle in his ways. 
 
 " I made an opportunit}^," he said, " to escape 
 from the barracks this hot day." 
 
 But he looked cool enough, and greeted Denise 
 with his usual leisureh'', friendly bow. His manner
 
 150 THE ISLE OF UNREST 
 
 conveyed, better than any words, that she need feed 
 no uneasiness on his account, and could treat him 
 literally at his word, as a friend. 
 
 " In order to tell you, with all reserve, the good 
 news," he continued. 
 
 " With all reserve ! " echoed Mademoiselle Brun. 
 
 " Good news in a French newspaper, mademoi- 
 selle " And he finished with a gesture elo- 
 quent of the deepest distrust. 
 
 "I was wondering," said Mademoiselle Brun, 
 speaking slowly, and in a manner that demanded 
 for the time the colonel's undivided attention, 
 " whether our friend the Count de Vasselot could 
 have been at Saarbriick." 
 
 " The Count de Vasselot," said Colonel Gilbert, 
 with an air of friendly surprise. " Has he quitted 
 his beloved chateau ? He is so attached to that old 
 house, you know." 
 
 " He has joined his regiment," replied Mademoi- 
 selle Brun, upon whom the burden of the conversa- 
 tion fell ; for Denise had gone to the open window, 
 and was closing the shutters against the sun. 
 
 " Ah ! Then I can tell you that he was not at 
 Saarbriick. The count's regiment is not in that 
 part of the country. I was forgetting that he was 
 a soldier. He is, by the way, your nearest neigh- 
 bour." 
 
 The colonel rose as he spoke, and went to the 
 window — not to that where Denise was standing, 
 but to the other, of which the sun-blinds were only 
 half closed.
 
 GOSSIP 151 
 
 " You can, of course, see the chateau from here?" 
 he said musingly. 
 
 " Yes," answered Mademoiselle Brun, with an un- 
 easy glance. 
 
 What was Colonel Gilbert going to say ? 
 
 He stood for a moment looking down into the 
 A^alley, while Denise and Mademoiselle Brun waited. 
 
 "And you have perceived nothing that would 
 seem to confirm the gossip current regarding your 
 — enemy ? " he asked, with a good-natured, depre- 
 catory laugh. 
 
 " What gossip ? " asked mademoiselle, bluntly. 
 
 The colonel shrugged his shoulders without look- 
 ing round. 
 
 " Oh," he answered, " one does not believe all one 
 hears. Besides, there are many who think that in 
 such a remote spot as Corsica, it is not necessary to 
 observe the ordinary — what shall I say ? — etiquette 
 of society." 
 
 He laughed uneasily, and spread out his hands as 
 if, for his part, he would rather dismiss the subject. 
 But Mademoiselle Brun could be frankly feminine 
 at times. 
 
 " What is the gossip to which you refer ? " she 
 asked again. 
 
 " Oh, I do not believe a word of it — though I, 
 myself, have seen. Well, mademoiselle — you will 
 excuse my frankness ? — they say there is some one 
 in the chateau — some one whom the count wishes 
 to conceal, you understand." 
 
 " Ah ! " said mademoiselle, indifferently.
 
 J 52 THE ISLE OF IJKREST 
 
 Denise said notliina:. Sho was looking; out of the 
 window with a face as hard as the face of Made- 
 moiselle Brun. She looked at her watch, seemed 
 to make a quick mental calculation, and then turned 
 and spoke to Colonel Gilbert with steady, smiling 
 eyes. 
 
 " You have not told us your war news yet," she 
 said. 
 
 So he told them what he knew, which, as a mat- 
 ter of fact, did not amount to much. Then he took 
 his leave, and rode home in the cool of the evening 
 — a solitary, brooding man, who had missed his 
 way somehow early on the road of life, and lacked 
 perhaps the strength of mind to go back and try 
 again. 
 
 Denise said good-bj^e to him in the same friendly 
 spirit which he had inaugurated. She was stand- 
 ing with her back to the window from which she 
 had looked down on to the chateau of Yasselot 
 while Colonel Gilbert related his idle gossip respect- 
 ing that house. And Mademoiselle Brun, who re- 
 membered such trifles, noted that she never looked 
 out of that window again, but avoided it as one 
 would avoid a cupboard where there is a skeleton. 
 
 Denise, who consulted her watch again so soon 
 as the colonel had left, wrote anotlier letter, which 
 she addressed in an open envelope to the postmaster 
 at Marseilles, and enclosed a number of stamps. 
 She went out on to the highroad, and waited there 
 in the shade of the trees for the diligence, which 
 would pass at four o'clock on its way to Bastia.
 
 GOSSIP 153 
 
 The driver of the diligence, like many who are 
 on the road and have but a passing glimpse of many 
 men and many things, was a good-natured man, and 
 willingly charged himself with Denise's commis- 
 sion. For that which she had enclosed was not a 
 letter, but a telegram to be despatched from Mar- 
 seilles on the arrival of the mail steamer there. It 
 was addressed to Lory de Vasselot at the Cercle 
 Militaire in Paris, and contained the words — 
 
 " Please return unopened the letter posted to- 
 day."
 
 CHAPTER XV 
 
 WAE 
 
 When half-gods go. 
 The gods arrive." 
 
 " Then," said the Baroness de Melide, " I shall 
 go down to St. Germain en Pre, and say my 
 prayers." And she rang for her carriage. 
 
 On all great occasions in life, the Baroness de 
 Melide had taken her overburdened heart in a car- 
 riage and pair to St. Germain en Pre. For she had 
 always had a carriage and pair for the mere ring- 
 ing of a bell ever since her girlhood, when the 
 Baron de Melide had, with much assistance from 
 her, laid his name and fortune at her feet. When 
 she had helped him to ask her to be his wife, she 
 had ordered the carriage thus, as she was ordering 
 it now in the month of August, 18Y0, on being told 
 by her husband that the battle of Worth had been 
 fought and lost, and that Lory de Vasselot was 
 safe. 
 
 " The Madeleine is nearer," suggested the baron, 
 a large man, with a vacant face which concealed a 
 very mine of common sense, " and you could give 
 me a lift as far as the club." 
 
 154
 
 WAK 155 
 
 " The Madeleine is all very well for a wedding 
 or a funeral or a great public festivity of any sort," 
 said the baroness, with a harmless, light manner of 
 talking of grave subjects which is a closed book to 
 the ordinary stolid British mind ; " but when one 
 has a prayer, there is nowhere like St. Germain en 
 Pre, which is old and simple and dirty, so that one 
 feels like a poor woman. I shall put on an old 
 dress." 
 
 She looked at her husband with a capable nod, 
 as if to convey the comforting assurance that he 
 could leave this matter entirely to her. 
 
 " Yes," said the baron ; " do as you will." 
 
 Which permission the world was pleased to con- 
 sider superfluous in the present marital case. 
 
 " It is," he said, " the occasion for a prayer ; and 
 say a word for France. And Lory is safe — one of 
 very, very few survivors. Kemember that in your 
 prayers, ma mie, and remember me." 
 
 "I will see about it," answered the baroness. 
 " If I have time, I will perhaps put in a word for 
 one who is assuredly a great stupid — no name men- 
 tioned, you understand." 
 
 So the Baroness de Melide went to the gloomy 
 old church of her choice, and sent up an incoherent 
 prayer, such as were arising from all over France 
 at this time. On returning by the Boulevard St. 
 Germain, she met a friend, a woman whose hus- 
 band had fallen at AYeissembourg, who gave her 
 more news from the front. The streets were 
 crowded and yet idle. The men stood apart in
 
 156 THE ISLE OF U^sKEST 
 
 groups, talking in a low voice : the women stood 
 apart and watched them — for it is only in times of 
 peace that the women manage France. 
 
 The baroness went home, nervous, ill at ease. 
 She hardly noticed that the door was held open by 
 a maidservant. The men had all gone out for 
 news — some to enrol themselves in the National 
 Guard. She went up to the drawing-room, and 
 there, seated at her writing-table with his back 
 turned toward her, was Lory de Yasselot. All the 
 brightness had gone from his uniform. He turned 
 as she entered the room. 
 
 " Mon Dieu ! " she said, " what is it ? " 
 
 " What is what ? " he answered gravely. 
 
 " Why, your face," said the baroness. " Look — 
 look at it ! " She took him by the arm, and turned 
 him toward a mirror half hidden in hot-house 
 flowers. " Look ! " she cried again. '* Mon Dieu ! 
 it is a tragedy, your face. What is it ? " 
 
 Lory shrugged his shoulders. 
 
 " I was at Worth," he explained, " two days ago. 
 I suppose Worth will be written for life in the face 
 of ever}'^ Frenchman who was there. They were 
 three to one. They are three to one wherever we 
 turn." 
 
 He sat down again at the writing-table, and the 
 baroness stood behind him. 
 
 " And this is war," she said, tapping slowly on 
 the carpet with her foot. 
 
 She laid her hand on his shoulder, and, noting a 
 quick movement of withdrawal, glanced down.
 
 WAR 157 
 
 " Ach ! " she exclaimed, in a wliisper, as she drew 
 back. 
 
 The shoulder and sleeve of his tunic were stained 
 a deep brown. The gold lace was green in places 
 and sticky. In an odd silence she unbuttoned her 
 glove, and laid it quietly aside. 
 
 " It seems, mon ami, that we have only been play- 
 ing at life up to now," she said, after a pause. 
 
 And Lory did not answer her. He had several 
 letters lying before him, and had taken up his pen 
 again. 
 
 " What brings you to Paris ? " asked the baroness, 
 suddenly. 
 
 "The emperor," he answered. "It is a queer 
 story, and I can tell you part of it. After AVorth, 
 I was given a staff appointment — and why ? Be- 
 cause my occupation was gone ; I had no men left." 
 With a quick gesture he described the utter anni- 
 hilation of his troop. " And I was sent into Metz 
 with despatches. While I was still there — judge of 
 my surprise ! — the emperor sent for me. You know 
 him. He was sitting at a table, and looked a big 
 man. Afterward, when he stood up, I saw he was 
 small. He bowed as I entered the room — for he is 
 polite even to the meanest private of a line regi- 
 ment — and as he bowed he winced. Even that 
 movement gave him pain. And then he smiled, 
 with an effort. ' Monsieur de Yasselot,' he said ; 
 and I bowed. ' A Corsican,' he went on. ' Yes, 
 sire.' Then he took up a pen, and examined it. He 
 wanted something to look at, though he might safely
 
 158 THE ISLE OF UNKEST 
 
 have looked at me. He could look any man in the 
 face at any time, for his eyes tell no tales. The}'' 
 are dull and veiled ; you know them, for you have 
 spoken to him often." 
 
 " Yes ; and I have seen the great snake at the 
 Jardin d'Acclimatation," answered the Baroness de 
 Melide, quietly. 
 
 "Then," continued Lory, "still looking at the 
 pen, he spoke slowly as if he had thought it all out 
 before I entered the room. * When my uncle fell 
 upon evil times he naturally turned to his fellow- 
 countrymen.' 'Yes, sire.' 'I do not know you, 
 Monsieur de Vasselot, but I know your name. I 
 am going to trust you entirely. I want you to go 
 to Paris for me.' " 
 
 " And that is all you are going to tell me ? " said 
 the baroness. 
 
 " That is all I can tell you. Whatever he may 
 be, he is more than a brave man — he is a stoic. I 
 arrived an hour ago, and went to the club for my 
 letters, but I did not dare to go in, because it is evi- 
 dent that I am from the front. Look at my clothes. 
 That is why I come here and present myself before 
 you as I am. I must beg your hospitality for a few 
 hours and the run of your writing-table." 
 
 The baroness nodded her head repeatedly as she 
 looked at him. It was not only from his gold-laced 
 uniform that the brightness had gone, but from 
 himself. His manner was abrupt. He was almost 
 stern. This, again, was war. 
 
 " You know that now, as always, our house is
 
 WAR 159 
 
 yours," she said quietly ; for it is not all light hearts 
 that have nothing in them. 
 
 Then, being a practical French woman — and there 
 is no more practical being in the world — she rang 
 for luncheon. 
 
 " One sees," she said, " that you are hungry. One 
 must eat though empires fall." 
 
 " Ah ! " said Lory, turning sharply to look at her. 
 " You talk like that in Paris, do you ? " 
 
 " In the streets, my cousin, they speak plainer 
 language than that. But Henri will tell you what 
 they are saying on the pavement. I have sent for 
 him to the club to come home to luncheon. He 
 forgives me much, that poor man, but he would 
 never forgive me if I did not tell him that you were 
 in Paris." 
 
 " Thank you," answered Lory. " I shall be glad 
 to see him. There are things which he ought to 
 know, which I cannot tell you." 
 
 " You think I am not discreet," said the baroness, 
 slowly drawing the pins from her smart hat. 
 
 Lory looked up at her with a laugh, which was 
 perhaps what she wanted, for there is no cunning 
 like the cunning of a woman who seeks to charm a 
 man from one humour to another. And when the 
 baroness had first seen Lory, she thought that his 
 heart was broken — by "Worth. 
 
 " You are beautiful, but not discreet," he answered. 
 
 " That is the worst of men^" she said reflectively, 
 as she laid her hat aside — " they always want an 
 impossible combination."
 
 160 THE ISLE OF UNREST 
 
 She looked back at him over her shoulder and 
 laughed, for she saw that she was gaining her point. 
 The quiet of this luxurious house, her own person- 
 ality, the subtle domesticity of her action in taking 
 off her hat in his presence — all these were soothing 
 a mind rasped and torn by battle and defeat. But 
 there was something yet which she had not grasped, 
 and she knew it. She glanced at the letters on the 
 table before him. As if the thought were trans- 
 mitted across the room to him, Lory took up an 
 open telegram, and read it with a puzzled face. He 
 half turned toward her as if about to speak, but 
 closed his lips again. 
 
 " Yes," said the baroness, lightly. " What is it ? " 
 
 "It is," he explained, after a pause, " that I have 
 had so little to do with women." 
 
 " Except me, mon cousin," said the baroness, com- 
 ing nearer to the Avri ting-table. 
 
 " Except you, ma cousine," he answered, turning 
 in his chair and taking her hand. 
 
 He glanced up at her with eyes that would ap- 
 pear to the ordinary British mind to express a 
 passionate devotion, eminently French and thrill- 
 ing and terrible, but which really reflected only a 
 very honest and brotherl}' affection. For a French- 
 man never hates or loves as much as he thinks he 
 does. 
 
 " Well," said the baroness, practically, " what is 
 it?" 
 
 " At the club," explained Lory, " I found a letter 
 and a telegram from Corsica."
 
 WAR 161 
 
 " Both from Denise ? " asked the baroness, rather 
 bluntly. 
 
 " Both from Mademoiselle Lange. See how things 
 hinge upon a trifling chance — how much, we cannot 
 tell ! I happened to open the telegram first, and it 
 told me to return the letter unopened." 
 
 As he spoke he handed her the grey sheet upon 
 which were pasted the narrow blue paper ribbons 
 bearing the text. The baroness read the message 
 slowly and carefully. She glanced over the paper, 
 down at his head, with a little wise smile full of 
 contempt for his limited male understanding. 
 
 " And the letter ? " she inquired. 
 
 He showed her a sealed envelope addressed by 
 himself to Denise at Perucca. She took it up and 
 turned it over slowly. It was stamped and ready 
 for the post. She then threw it down with a short 
 laugh. 
 
 " I was thinking," she explained, " of the differ- 
 ence between men and women. A woman "would 
 have filled a cup with boiling water and laid that 
 letter upon it. It is quite easy. Why, we were 
 taught it at the convent school ! You could have 
 opened the letter and read it, and then closed it 
 again and returned it. By that simple subterfuge 
 you would have known the contents, and would 
 still have had the credit for doing as you were told. 
 And I think three women out of five would have 
 done it, and the whole five would have wanted to 
 do it. Ah! you may laugh. You do not know 
 what wretches we are compared to men — compared
 
 162 THE ISLE OF UNREST 
 
 especially to some few of them ; to a Baron Henri 
 de Melide or a Count de Vasselot — who are honour- 
 able men, my cousin." 
 
 She touched him lightly on the shoulder with one 
 finger, and then turned away to look with thought- 
 ful eyes out of the window. 
 
 " I wonder what is in that letter," said Lory, re- 
 turning to his pen. 
 
 The baroness turned on her heel and looked at 
 him with her contemptuous smile again. 
 
 "Oh," she said carelessly, "she was probably in 
 a difficulty, which solved itself after the letter was 
 posted. Or she was afraid of something, and found 
 that her fears were unnecessary. That is all, no 
 doubt." 
 
 There is, it appears, an esj>rit de sexe which pre- 
 vents women from giving each other away. 
 
 " So you merel}^ placed the letter in an envelope 
 and are returning it, thus, without comment ? " in- 
 quired the baroness. 
 
 " Yes," answered Lory, who was writing a letter 
 now. 
 
 And his cousin stood looking at him with an 
 amused and yet tender smile in her gay eyes. She 
 remained silent until he had finished. 
 
 " There," he said, taking an envelope and address- 
 ing it hurriedly, " that is done. It is to the Abbe 
 Susini at Olmeta ; and it contains some of those 
 things, my cousin, that I cannot tell you." 
 
 " Do you think I care," said the baroness, " for 
 your stupid politics? Do you think any woman
 
 WAK 163 
 
 cares for politics who has found some stupid man 
 to care for her ? Tliere is 7ny stupid in the street — 
 on his new horse." 
 
 In a moment Lory was at the window. 
 
 " A new horse," he said earnestly. " I did not 
 know that. "Why did you not tell me ? " 
 
 " We were talking of empires," replied the bar- 
 oness. " By the way," she added, in after-thought, 
 " is our good friend Colonel Gilbert in Corsica ? " 
 
 " Yes — he is at Bastia." 
 
 " Ah," said the baroness, looking reflectively at 
 Denise's telegram, which she still held in her hand, 
 " I thought he was." 
 
 Then that placid man, the Baron Henri de Melide, 
 came into the room, and shook hands in the then 
 novel English fashion, looking at his lifelong friend 
 with a dull and apathetic eye. 
 
 " From the frontier ? " he inquired. 
 
 Lory laughed curtly. He had returned from that 
 Last Frontier, where each one of us shall inevitably 
 be asked " Si monsieur a quelque chose a declarer ? " 
 
 " I shall give you ten minutes for your secrets, 
 and then luncheon will be ready," said the baroness, 
 quitting the room. 
 
 And Lory told his friend those things which were 
 not for a woman's hearing. 
 
 At luncheon both men were suspiciously cheer- 
 ful ; and, doubtless, their companion read them like 
 open books. Immediately after coffee Lory took 
 his leave. 
 
 "I leave Paris to-night," he said, with his old
 
 164 THE ISLE OF UXREST 
 
 cheerfulness. " This war is not over yet. We have 
 not the shadow of a chance of winning, but we shall 
 perhaps be able to show the world that France can 
 stiU fight." 
 Which prophecy assuredly came true.
 
 CHAPTER XYI 
 
 A MASTERFUL MAN 
 
 " Tous les raisonnements des hommes ne valent pas un sentiment 
 d'une femme." 
 
 It would seem that Lory de Vasselot had played 
 the part of a stormy petrel when he visited Paris, 
 for that calm Frenchman, the Baron de Melide, 
 packed his wife off to Provence the same night, and 
 the letter that Lory wrote to the Abbe Susini, 
 reaching Olmeta three days later, aroused its re- 
 cipient from a contemplative perusal of the Petit 
 Bastiais as if it had been a bomb-shell. 
 
 The abbe threw aside his newspaper and cigarette. 
 He was essentially a man of action. He had been 
 on his feet all day, hurrying hither and thither over 
 his widespread parish, interfering in this man's 
 business and that woman's quarrels with that hasti- 
 ness which usually characterises the doings of such 
 as pride themselves upon their capability for action 
 and contempt for mere passive thought. It was 
 now evening, and a blessed cool air was stealing 
 down from the mountains. Successive days of un- 
 broken sunshine had burnt all the western side of 
 the island, had almost dried up the Aliso, which 
 crept, a mere rivulet in its stormy bed, toward St. 
 Florent and the sea. 
 
 165
 
 166 THE ISLE OF UNREST 
 
 Susini went to the window of his little room and 
 opened the wooden shutters. His house is next to 
 the church at Olmeta and faces northwest ; so that 
 in the summer the evening sun glares across the 
 valley into its windows. He was no great scholar, 
 and had but a poor record in the archives of the 
 college at Corte. Lory de Yasselot had written in 
 a hurry, and the letter was a long one. Susini read 
 it once, and was turning it to read again, when, 
 glancing out of the window, he saw Denise cross 
 the Place, and go into the church. 
 
 " Ah ! " he said aloud, " that will save me a long 
 walk." " 
 
 Then he read the letter again, with curt nods of 
 the head from time to time, as if Lory were making 
 points or giving minute instructions. He folded 
 the letter, placed it in the pocket of his cassock, and 
 gave himself a smart tap on the chest, as if to in- 
 dicate that this was the moment and himself the 
 man. He was brisk and full of self-confidence, 
 managing, interfering, commanding, as all true 
 Corsicans are. He took his hat, hardly paused to 
 blow the dust off it, and hurried out into the sunlit 
 Place. He went rather slowly up the church steps, 
 however, for he was afraid of Denise. Her youth, 
 and something spring-like and mystic in her being, 
 disturbed him, made him uneasy and shy ; which 
 was perhaps his reason for drawing aside the heavy 
 leather curtain and going into the church, instead 
 of waiting for her outside. He preferred to meet 
 her on his own ground — in the chill air, heavy with
 
 A MASTERFUL MAN 167 
 
 the odour of stale incense, and in the dim light of 
 that place where he laid down, in blunt language, 
 his own dim reading of God's law. 
 
 He stood just within the curtain, looking at 
 Denise, who was praying on one of the low chairs a 
 few yards away from him ; and he was betrayed 
 into a characteristic impatience when she remained 
 longer on her knees than he (as a man) deemed 
 necessary at that moment. He showed his impa- 
 tience by shuffling with his feet, and still Denise 
 took no notice. 
 
 The abbe, by chance or instinct, slipped his hand 
 within his cassock, and drew out the letter which he 
 had just received. The rustle of the thin paper 
 brought Denise to her feet in a moment, facing 
 him. 
 
 " The French mail has arrived," said the priest. 
 
 " Yes," replied Denise, quickly, looking down at 
 his hands. 
 
 They were alone in the church which, as a mat- 
 ter of fact, was never very well attended ; and the 
 abbe, who had not that respect for God or man 
 which finds expression in a lowered voice, spoke in 
 his natural tones. 
 
 " And I have news which aftects you, mademoi- 
 selle." 
 
 "I suppose that any news of France must do 
 that," replied Denise, with some spirit. 
 
 " Of course — of course," said the abbe, rubbing 
 his chin with his forefinger, and making a rasping 
 sound on that shaven surface.
 
 168 THE ISLE OF UKREST 
 
 He reflected in silence for a moment, and Denise 
 made, in her turn, a liasty movement of impatience. 
 She had only met the abbe once or twice; and all 
 that she knew of him was the fact that he had an 
 imperious way with him which aroused a spirit of 
 opposition in herself. 
 
 " Well, Monsieur I'Abbe," she said, " Avhat is 
 it?" 
 
 "It is that Mademoiselle Brun and yourself will 
 have but two hours to prepare for your departure 
 from the Casa Perucca," he answered. And he 
 drew out a large silver watch, which he consulted 
 with the quiet air of a commander. 
 
 Denise glanced at him with some surprise, and 
 then smiled. 
 
 " By whose orders, Monsieur I'Abbe ? " she in- 
 quired with a dangerous gentleness. 
 
 Then the priest realised that she meant fight, and 
 all his combativeness leapt, as it were, to meet 
 hers. His eyes flashed in the gloom of the twilit 
 church. 
 
 " I, mademoiselle," he said, wath that humility 
 which is naught but an aggravated form of pride. 
 He tapped himself on the chest with such emphasis 
 that a cloud of dust flew out of his cassock, and he 
 blew defiance at her through it. " I — who speak, 
 take the liberty of making this suggestion. I, the 
 Abbe Susini — and your humble servant." 
 
 Which was not true ; for he was no man's serv- 
 ant, and only offered to heaven a half-defiant al- 
 legiance. Denise wanted to know the contents of
 
 A MASTERFUL MAN . 1G9 
 
 the letter he held crushed within his fingers; so 
 she restrained an impulse to answer him hastily, 
 and merely laughed. The priest thought that he 
 had gained his point. 
 
 " I can give you two hours," he said, " in which 
 to make your preparations. At seven o'clock I 
 shall arrive at the Casa Perucca with a carriage, in 
 which to conduct Mademoiselle Brun and your- 
 self to St. Florent, where a yacht is awaiting 
 you." 
 
 Denise bit her lip impatiently, and watched the 
 thin brown fingers that were clenched round the 
 letter. 
 
 " Then what is your news from France ? " she 
 asked. " From whence is your letter — from the 
 front ? " 
 
 " It is from Paris," answered the abbe, unfolding 
 the paper carelessly ; and Denise would not have 
 been human had she resisted the temptation to try 
 and decipher it. 
 
 "And ?" 
 
 " And," continued the abbe, shrugging his shoul- 
 ders, " I have nothing to add, mademoiselle. You 
 must quit Perucca before the morning. The news 
 is bad, I tell you frankly. The empire is totter- 
 ing to its fall, and the news that I have in secret 
 will be known all over Corsica to-morrow. Who 
 knows ? the island may flare up like a heap of 
 bracken, and no one bearing a French name, or 
 known to have French sympathies, v;ill be safe. 
 You know how you yourself are regarded in 01-
 
 170 THE ISLE OF UNKEST 
 
 meta. It is foolhardy to venture here this even- 
 ing." 
 
 Denise shrugged her shoulders. She had plenty 
 of spirit, and, at all events, that courage which 
 refuses to admit the existence of danger. Per- 
 haps she was not thinking of danger, or of herself, 
 at all. 
 
 " Then the Count Lory de Vasselot has ordered 
 us out of Corsica ? " she asked. 
 
 " Mademoiselle, we are wasting time," answered 
 the priest, folding the letter and replacing it in 
 his pocket. " A yacht is awaiting you off St. Flor- 
 ent. All is organised " 
 
 " By the Count Lory de Vasselot ? " 
 
 The abbe stamped his foot impatiently. 
 
 " Bon Dieu, mademoiselle ! " he cried, " you will 
 make me lose my temper. The yacht, I tell j'-ou, 
 is at the entrance of the bay, and by to-morrow 
 morning it will be half-way to France. You can- 
 not stay here. You must make your choice be- 
 tween returning to France and going into the Wat- 
 rin barracks at Bastia. Colonel Gilbert will, I 
 fancy, know how to make you obey him. And all 
 Corsica is in the hands of Colonel Gilbert — though 
 no one but Colonel Gilbert knows that." 
 
 He spoke rapidly, thrusting forward his dark, 
 eager face, forgetting all his shyness, glaring de- 
 fiance into her quiet eyes. 
 
 " There, mademoiselle — and now your answer ? " 
 
 "Would it not be well if the Count Lory de 
 Yasselot attended to his own affairs at the Cha-
 
 A MASTEKFUL MAK lYl 
 
 teau de Vasselot, and the interests he has there ? " 
 replied Denise, turning away from his persistent 
 eyes. 
 
 And the abbe's face dropped as if she had shot 
 him. 
 
 " Good ! " he said, after a moment's hesitation. 
 " I wash my hands of you. You refuse to go ? " 
 
 " Yes," answered Denise, going toward the 
 door with a high head, and, it is possible, an ach- 
 ing heart. For the two often go together. 
 
 And the abbe, a man little given to the conceal- 
 ment of his feelings, shook his fist at the leather 
 curtain as it fell into place behind her. 
 
 " Ah — these women ! " he said aloud. " A se- 
 cret that is thirty years old ! " 
 
 Denise hurried down the steps and away from 
 the village. She knew that the postman, having 
 passed through Olmeta, must now be on the high- 
 road on his way to Perucca, and she felt sure that 
 he must have in his bag the letter of which she had 
 followed, in imagination, the progress during the 
 last three days. 
 
 " Now it is in the train from Paris to Mar- 
 seilles ; now it is on board the Perseverance^ 
 steaming across the Gulf of Lyons," had been her 
 thought night and morning. " Kow it is at Bas- 
 tia," she had imagined on waking at dawn that 
 day. And at length she had it now, in thought, 
 close to her on the Olmeta road in front of her. 
 
 At a turn of the road she caught sight of the 
 postman, trudging along beneath the heavy chest-
 
 172 THE ISLE OF UNREST 
 
 nut trees. Then at length she overtook hhn, and 
 he stopped to open the bag slung across his shoul- 
 der. He was a silent man, who saluted her awk- 
 wardly, and handed her several letters and a news- 
 paper. With another salutation he walked on, 
 leaving Denise standing by the low wall of the 
 road alone. There was only one letter for her. 
 She turned it over and examined the seal ; a bare 
 sword with a gay French motto beneath it — the 
 device of the Vasselots. 
 
 She opened the envelope after a long pause. It 
 contained nothing but her own travel-stained let- 
 ter, of which the seal had not been broken. And, 
 as she thoughtfully examined both envelopes, 
 there glistened in her eyes that light which it is 
 vouchsafed to a few men to see, and which is the 
 nearest approach to the light of heaven that ever 
 illumines this poor earth. For love has, among 
 otherg, this peculiarity : that it may live in the 
 same heart with a great anger, and seems to gain 
 only strength from the proximity. 
 
 Denise replaced the two letters in her pocket and 
 walked on. A carriage passed her, and she received 
 a curt bow and salutation from the Abbe Susini who 
 was in it. The carriage turned to the right at the 
 cross-roads, and rattled down the hill in the direction 
 of Yasselot. Denise's head went an inch higher at 
 the sight of it. 
 
 " I met the Abbe Susini at Olmeta," she said to 
 Mademoiselle Brun, a few minutes later in the great 
 bare drawing-room of the Casa Perucca. " And he
 
 A MASTERFUL MAN 173 
 
 transmitted the Count de Yasselot's command that 
 we should leave the Casa Perucca to-night for France. 
 I suggested that the order should be given to the 
 Chateau de Vasselot instead of the Casa Perucca, 
 and the abbe took me at my word. He has gone to 
 the Chateau de Vasselot now in a carriage." 
 
 Mademoiselle Brun, who was busy with her work 
 near the window, laid aside her needle and looked 
 at Denise. She had a faculty of instantly going, as 
 it were, to the essential part of a question and tear- 
 ing the heart out of it : which faculty is, with all 
 respect, more a masculine than a feminine quality. 
 She ignored the side-issues and pounced, as it were, 
 upon the central thread — the reason that Lory de 
 Yasselot had had for sending such an order. She 
 rose and tore open the newspaper, glanced at the 
 war-news, and laid it aside. Then she opened a 
 letter addressed to herself. It was on superlatively 
 thick paper and bore a coronet in one corner. 
 
 " My Dear " (it ran), 
 
 " This much I have learnt from two men 
 who will tell me nothing — France is lost. The 
 Holy Virgin help us ! 
 
 " Your devoted 
 
 " Jane de Melide." 
 
 Mademoiselle Brun turned away to the window, 
 and stood there with her back to Denise for some 
 moments. At length she came back, and the girl 
 saw something in the grey and wizened face which 
 stirred her heart, she knew" not why ; for all great
 
 174 THE ISLE OF UNREST 
 
 thoughts and high qualities have power to illumine 
 the humblest countenance. 
 
 " You may stay here if you like," said Made- 
 moiselle Brun, " but I am going back to France to- 
 night." 
 
 " What do you mean ? " 
 
 For reply Mademoiselle Brun handed her the 
 Baroness de Melide's letter. 
 
 " Yes," said Denise, when she had read the note. 
 " But I do not understand." 
 
 " No. Because you never knew your father — the 
 bravest man God ever created. But some other 
 man will teach you some day." 
 
 " Teach me what ? " asked Denise, looking with 
 wonder at the little woman. " Of what are you 
 thinking ? " 
 
 " Of that of which Lory de Yasselot, and Henri 
 de Melide, and Jane, and all good Frenchmen 
 and Frenchwomen are thinking at this moment — 
 of France, and only France," said Mademoiselle 
 Brun ; and out of her mouse-like eyes there shone, 
 at that moment, the soul of a man — and of a brave 
 man. 
 
 Her lips quivered for a moment, before she shut 
 them with a snap. Perhaps Denise wanted to be 
 persuaded to return to France. Perhaps the blood 
 that ran in her veins was stirred by the spirit of 
 Mademoiselle Brun, whose arguments were short 
 and sharp, as became a woman much given to 
 economy in words. At all events, the girl listened 
 in silence while mademoiselle explained that even
 
 A MASTEKFUL MAN 175 
 
 two women might, in some minute degree, help 
 France at this moment. For patriotism, like cour- 
 age, is infectious ; and it is a poor heart that hurries 
 to abandon a sinking ship. 
 
 It thus came about that, soon after sunset, 
 Mademoiselle Brun and Denise hurried down to 
 the cross-roads to intercept the carriage, of which 
 they could perceive the lights slowly approaching 
 across the dark valley of Yasselot.
 
 CHAPTER XVII 
 
 WITHOUT DEUM OE TEUMPET 
 
 " We do squint each through his loophole, 
 And then dream broad heaven 
 Is but the patch we see." 
 
 It was almost dark when the abbe's carriage 
 reached the valley, and the driver paused to light 
 the two stable-lanterns tied with string to the 
 dilapidated lamp-brackets. The abbe was im- 
 patient, and fidgeted in his seat. He was at 
 heart an autocrat, and hated to be defied even by- 
 one over whom he could not pretend to have con- 
 trol. He snapped his finger and thumb as he 
 thought of Denise. 
 
 " She puzzles me," he muttered. " AVhat does she 
 want ? Bon Dieu, what does she want ? " 
 
 Then he spoke angrily to the driver, whose move- 
 ments were slow and clumsy. 
 
 " At all events my task is easier here," he con- 
 soled himself by saying as the carriage approached 
 the chateau, " now that I am rid of these women." 
 
 At last they reached the foot of the slope leading 
 up to the half-ruined house, which loomed against 
 the evening sky immediately above them ; and the 
 driver pulled up his restive horses with an air sig- 
 nificant of arrival. 
 
 176
 
 WITHOUT DEUM OK TRUMPET 177 
 
 " Right up to the chS,teau," cried the abb6 from 
 beneath the hood. 
 
 But the man made no movement, and sat on the 
 box muttering to himself. 
 
 " What ! " cried the abbe, who had caught some 
 words. " Jean has the evil eye ! What of Jean's 
 evil eye ? Here, I will give you my rosary to put 
 round your coward's neck. No ! Then down you 
 get, my friend. You can Avait here till we come 
 back." 
 
 As he spoke he leapt out, and, climbing into the 
 box, pushed the driver unceremoniously from his 
 seat, snatching the reins and whip from his hands. 
 
 " He ! " he cried. " AUons, mv little ones ! " 
 
 And with whip and voice he urged the horses up 
 the slope at a canter while the carriage swayed 
 across from one great tree to another. They 
 reached the summit in safety, and the priest pulled 
 the horses up at the great door — the first carriage 
 to disturb the quiet of that spot for nearly a genera- 
 tion. He twisted the reins round the whip-socket, 
 and clambering down rang the great bell. It an- 
 swered to his imperious summons by the hollo av 
 clang that betrays an empty house. No one came. 
 He stood without, drumming Avith his fist on the 
 doorpost. Then he turned to listen. Some one 
 was approaching from the darkness of the trees. 
 But it was only the driver folio Aving sullenly on foot. 
 
 " Here ! " said the priest, recognising him. " Go 
 to your horses ! " 
 
 As he spoke he Avas already untying one of the
 
 178 THE ISLE OF UKKEST 
 
 stable-lanterns that swung at the lamp-bracket. 
 His eyes gleamed beneath the brnn of his broad 
 hat. He was quick and anxious. 
 
 " "Wait here till I come back," he said ; and, 
 keeping close to the wall, he disappeared among the 
 low bushes. 
 
 There was another way in, by a door half hidden 
 among the ivy, which Jean used for his mysterious 
 comings and goings, and of which the abbe had a 
 key. He had brought it with him to-night by a 
 lucky chance. He had to push aside the ivy which 
 hung from the walls in great ropes, and only found 
 the keyhole after a hurried search. But the lock 
 was in good order. Jean, it appeared, was a care- 
 ful man. 
 
 Susini hurried through a long passage to the little 
 round room where the Count de Yasselot had lived 
 so long. He stopped with his nose in the air, and 
 sniffed aloud. The atmosphere was heavy with the 
 smell of stale tobacco, and yet there could be de- 
 tected the sweeter odour of smoke scarcely cold. 
 The room must have been inhabited only a few 
 hours ago. The abbe opened the window, and the 
 smell of carnations swept in like the breath of 
 another world. He returned to the room, and, 
 opening his lantern, lighted a candle that stood on 
 the mantelpiece. He looked round. Sundry small 
 articles in daily use — the count's pipe, his old brass 
 tobacco-box : a few such things that a man lives 
 with, and puts in his pocket when he goes away — 
 were missing.
 
 WITHOUT DRUM OR TRUMPET 179 
 
 " Buon Diou ! Buon Diou ! Buon Diou — gone ! " 
 muttered the priest, lapsing into his native dialect. 
 He looked around him with keen eyes — at the 
 blackened walls, at the carpet worn into holes. 
 " That Jean must have known something that I do 
 not know. All the same, I shall look through the 
 house." 
 
 He blew out the candle, and taking the lantern 
 quitted the room. He searched the whole house — 
 passing from empty room to empty room. The re- 
 ception-rooms were huge and sparingly furnished 
 with those thin-legged chairs and ancient card-tables 
 which recall the days of Letitia Eamolino and that 
 easy-going Charles Buonaparte, who brought into 
 the world the greatest captain that armies have ever 
 seen. The bedrooms were small : all alike smelt of 
 mouldering age. In one room the abbe stopped 
 and raised his inquiring nose ; the room had been 
 inhabited by a woman — years and years ago. 
 
 He searched the house from top to bottom, and 
 there was no one in it. The abbe had failed in the 
 two missions confided to him by Lory, and he was 
 one to whom failure was peculiarly bitter. With 
 respect to the two women, he had perhaps scarcely 
 expected to succeed, for he had lived fifty years in 
 the world, and his calling had brought him into 
 daily contact with that salutary chastening of the 
 spirit which must assuredly be the lot of a man 
 who seeks to enforce his will upon women. But 
 his failure to find the old Count de Yasselot was a 
 more serious matter.
 
 180 THE ISLE OF UNREST 
 
 He returned slowly to the carriage, and told the 
 driver to return to Olmeta. 
 
 " I have changed my plans," he said, still mind- 
 ful of the secret he had received with other pastoral 
 charges from his predecessor. " Jean is not in the 
 chateau, so I shall not go to St. Florent to-night." 
 
 He leant forward, and looked up at the old castle 
 outlined against the sky. A breeze was springing 
 up with the suddenness of all atmospheric changes 
 in these latitudes, and the old trees creaked and 
 groaned, while the leaves had already that rustling 
 brittleness of sound that betokens the approach of 
 autumn. 
 
 As they crossed the broad valley the wind in- 
 creased, sweeping up the course of the Aliso in wild 
 gusts. It was blowing a gale before the horses 
 fell to a quick walk up the hill ; and Mademoiselle 
 Brun's small figure, planted in the middle of the 
 road, was the first indication that the driver had of 
 the presence of the two women, though the widow 
 Andrei, who accompanied them and carried their 
 travelling-bags, had already called out more than 
 once. 
 
 " The Abbe Susini ? " cried Mademoiselle Brun, 
 in curt interrogation. 
 
 In reply, the driver pointed to the inside of the 
 carriage with the handle of his whip. 
 
 " You are alone ? " said mademoiselle, in surprise. 
 
 The light of the lantern shone brightly on her, 
 and on the dimmer form of Denise, silent and an- 
 gry in the background ; for Denise had allowed her
 
 WITPIOUT DRUM OR TRUMPET isi 
 
 inclination to triumph over her pride, which con- 
 quest usually leaves a sore heart behind it. 
 
 " But, yes ! " answered the abbe, alighting quickly 
 enough. 
 
 He guessed instantly that Denise had changed 
 her mind, and was indiscreet enough to put his 
 thoughts into words. 
 
 " So mademoiselle has thought better of it ? " he 
 said ; and got no answer for his pains. 
 
 Both Mademoiselle Brun and Denise were look- 
 ing curiously at the interior of the carriage from 
 which the priest emerged, leaving it, as they noted, 
 empty. 
 
 " There is yet time to go to St. Florent ? " in- 
 quired the elder woman. 
 
 The priest grabbed at his hat as a squall swept 
 up the road, whirling the dust high above their 
 heads. 
 
 " Whether we shall get on board is another mat- 
 ter," he muttered by way of answer. " Come, get 
 into the carriage ; we have no time to lose. It will 
 be a bad night at sea." 
 
 " Then, for my sins I shall be sea-sick," said Ma- 
 demoiselle Brun, imperturbablj'". 
 
 She took her bag from the hand of the widoAV 
 Andrei, and would have it nowhere but on her lap, 
 where she held it during the rapid drive, sitting 
 bolt upright, staring straight in front of her into 
 the face of the abbe. 
 
 No one spoke, for each had thoughts sufficient to 
 occupy the moment. Susini perhaps had the nar-
 
 182 THE ISLE OF UJN^REST 
 
 rowest vein of reflection upon which to draw, and 
 therefore fidgeted in his seat and muttered to him- 
 self, for his mental range was limited to Olmeta 
 and the Chateau de Vasselot. Mademoiselle Brun 
 was thinking of France — of her great past and her 
 dim, uncertain future. While Denise sat stiller and 
 more silent than either, for her thoughts were at 
 once as wide as the whole world, and as narrow as 
 the human heart. 
 
 At a turn in the road she looked up, and saw the 
 sharp outline of the Casa Perucca, black and sombre 
 against a sky now lighted by a rising moon, flecked 
 and broken by heavy clouds, with deep lurking 
 shadows and mountains of snowy whiteness. In 
 the Casa Perucca she had learnt what life means, 
 and no man or woman ever forgets the place where 
 that lesson has been acquired. 
 
 " I shall come back," she whispered, looking up 
 at the great rock with its giant pines and the two 
 square chimneys half hidden in the foliage. 
 
 And the Abbe Susini, seeing a movement of her 
 lips, glanced curiously at her. He was still won- 
 dering what she Avanted. " Mon Dieu," he was re- 
 flecting a second time, " what does she want ? " 
 
 He stopped the carriage outside the town of St. 
 Florent at the end of the long causeway built across 
 the marsh, where the wind swept now from the 
 open bay with a salt flavour to it. He alighted, 
 and took Denise's bag, rightly concluding that 
 Mademoiselle Brun would prefer to carry her 
 own.
 
 WITHOUT DPvUM OR TRUMPET 183 
 
 " Follow me," he said, taking a delight in being 
 as curt as Mademoiselle Brun herself, and in deny- 
 ing them the explanations they were too proud to 
 demand. 
 
 They walked abreast through the narrow street 
 dimly lighted by a single lamp swinging on a gib- 
 bet at the corner, turned sharp to the left, and 
 found themselves suddenly at the water's edge. A 
 few boats bumped lazily at some steps where the 
 Avater lapped. It was blowing hard out in the bay, 
 but this corner was protected by a half -ruined house 
 built on a projecting rock. 
 
 The priest looked round. 
 
 " He ! la-bas ! " he caUed out, in a guarded voice. 
 
 But he received no answer. 
 
 " Wait here," he said to the two women. " I will 
 fetch him from the cafe." And he disappeared. 
 
 Denise and mademoiselle stood in silence listen- 
 ing to the lapping of the water and the slow, 
 muffled bumping of the boats until the abbe re- 
 turned, followed by a man who slouched along on 
 bare feet. 
 
 " Yes," he was saying, " the yacht was there at 
 sunset. I saw her myself lying just outside the 
 point. But it is folly to try and reach her to-night ; 
 wait till the morning, Monsieur I'Abbe." 
 
 " And find her gone," answered the priest. " No, 
 no ; we embark to-night, my friend. If these ladies 
 are willing, surely a St. Florent man will not hold 
 baok ? " 
 
 " But you have not told these ladies of the dan-
 
 184 THE ISLE OF UKEEST 
 
 ger. The wind is blowing right into the bay ; we 
 cannot tack out against it. It will take me two 
 hours to row out single-handed with some one bal- 
 ing out the whole time." 
 
 " But I will pull an oar with you," answered 
 Susini. " Come, show us which is your boat. Ma- 
 demoiselle Brun will bale out, and the vounof lady 
 v.qll steer. We shall be quite a family party." 
 
 There was no denying a man who took matters 
 into his own hands so energetically. 
 
 " You can pull an oar ? " inquired the boatman, 
 doubtfully. 
 
 " I was born at Bonifacio, my friend. Come, I 
 will take the bow oar if you will find me an oilskin 
 coat. It will not be too dry up in the bows to- 
 night." 
 
 And, like most masterful people — right or wrong 
 — the abbe had his way, even to the humble office 
 assigned to Mademoiselle Brun. 
 
 " You will need to remove your glove and bare 
 your arm," explained the boatman, handing her an 
 old tin mug. " But you will not find the water 
 cold. It is always warmer at night. Thus the 
 good God remembers poor fishermen. The seas 
 will come over the bows when we round this cor- 
 ner ; they will rise up and- hit the abbe in the back, 
 which is his affair ; then they will wash aft into 
 this well, and from that you must bale it out all the 
 time. When the seas come in, you need not be 
 alarmed, nor will it be necessary to cry out." 
 
 " Such instructions, my friend," said the priest,
 
 WITHOUT DRUM OR TRUMPET 185 
 
 scrambling into his oilskin coat, " are unnecessary 
 to mademoisellej who is a woman of discern- 
 ment." 
 
 " But I try not to be," snapped Mademoiselle 
 Brun. She knew which women are most popular 
 with men. 
 
 " As for you, mademoiselle," said the boatman to 
 Denise, " keep the boat pointed at the waves, and 
 as each one comes to you, cut it as you would cut a 
 cream cheese. She will jerk and pull at you, but 
 you must not be afraid of her ; and remember that 
 the highest wave may be cut." 
 
 " That young lady is not afraid of much," mut- 
 tered the abbe, settling to his oar. 
 
 They pulled slowly out to the end of the rocky 
 promontory, upon which a ruined house still stands, 
 and shot suddenly out into a howling wind. The 
 first wave climbed leisurely over the weather-bow, 
 and slopped aft to the ladies' feet ; the second rose 
 up, and smote the abbe in the back. 
 
 " Cut them, mademoiselle ; cut them ! " shouted 
 the boatman. 
 
 And at intervals during that wild journey he re- 
 peated the words, unceremoniously spitting the salt 
 water from his lips. The abbe, bending his back 
 to the work and the waves, gave a short laugh 
 from time to time, that had a ring in it to make 
 Mademoiselle Brun suddenly like the man— the 
 fighting ring of exaltation which adapts itself to 
 any voice and any tongue. For nearly an hour 
 they rowed in silence, while mademoiselle baled the
 
 186 THE ISLE OF UNKEST 
 
 water out, and Denise steered with steady eyes 
 piercing the darkness. 
 
 " We are quite close to it," she said at length ; 
 for she had long been steering toward a light that 
 flickered feebly across the broken water. 
 
 In a few moments they were alongside, and, 
 amidst confused shouting of orders, the two ladies 
 were half lifted, half dragged on board. The abbe 
 followed them. 
 
 " A word with you," he said, taking Mademoiselle 
 Brun unceremoniously by the arm, and leading her 
 apart. " You will be met by friends on your ar- 
 rival at St. Eaphael to-morrow. And when you 
 are free to do so, will you do me a favour ? " 
 
 " Yes." 
 
 " Find Lory de Yasselot, wherever he may be." 
 
 " Yes," answered Mademoiselle Brun. 
 
 " And tell him that I went to the Chateau de 
 Vasselot and found it empty." 
 
 Mademoiselle reflected for some moments. 
 
 " Yes ; I will do that," she said at length. 
 
 " Thank you." 
 
 The abbe stared hard at her beneath his dripping 
 hat for a moment, and then, turning abruptly, 
 moved toward the gangway, where his boat lay in 
 comparatively smooth water at the lee-side of the 
 yacht. Denise was speaking to a man who seemed 
 to be the captain. 
 
 Mademoiselle Brun followed the abbe. 
 
 " By the way " she said. 
 
 Susini stopped, and looked into her face, dimly
 
 "they pulle:) slowly out.
 
 WITHOUT DRUM OR TRUMPET 187 
 
 lighted by the moon, Tvhich peeped at times through 
 riven clouds. 
 
 " "Whom should you have found in the chateau ?" 
 she asked. 
 
 " Ah : that I will not tell you." 
 
 Mademoiselle Brun gave a short laugh. 
 
 " Then I shall find out. Trust a woman to find 
 out a secret." 
 
 The abbe was already over the bulwark, so that 
 only his dark face appeared above, with the water 
 running off it. His eyes gleamed in the moonlight. 
 
 " And a priest to keep one," he answered. And 
 he leapt down into the boat.
 
 CHAPTER XVIII 
 
 A WOMAN OF ACTION 
 
 " Love . . . gives to every power a double power 
 Above their functions and their offices." 
 
 " Ah ! " said Mademoiselle Brun, as she stepped 
 on deck the next morning. And the contrast be- 
 tween the gloomy departure from Corsica and the 
 sunny return to France was strong enough, Avith- 
 out further comment from this woman of few 
 words. 
 
 The yacht was approaching the little harbour of 
 St. Raphael at half speed on a sea as blue and still 
 as the Mediterranean of any poet's dream. The 
 freshness of morning was in the air — the fresh- 
 ness of Provence, where the days are hot and the 
 nights cool, and there are no mists between the one 
 and the other. Almost straight ahead, the little 
 town of Frejus (where another Corsican landed to 
 set men by the ears) stood up in sharp outline 
 against the dark pinewoods of Valescure, with the 
 thin wood-smoke curling up from a hundred chim- 
 neys. To the left, the flat lands of Les Arcs half 
 hid the distant heights of Toulon ; and, to the 
 right, headland after headland led the eye almost 
 to the frontier of Italy along the finest coast-line in 
 the world. Every shade of blue was on sky or sea 
 
 188
 
 A WOMAX OF ACTIOK 189 
 
 or mountain, while the deep morning shadows were 
 transparent and almost luminous. From the pine- 
 woods a scent of resin swept seaward, mingled with 
 the subtle odour of the tropic foliage near the shore. 
 The sky was cloudless. This was indeed the smil- 
 ing land of France. 
 
 Denise, who had followed mademoiselle on deck, 
 stood still and drank it all in ; for such sights and 
 scents have a deep eloquence for the young, which 
 older hearts can only touch from the outside, 
 vaguely and intangibly, like the memory of a per- 
 fume. 
 
 Denise had slept well, and Mademoiselle Brun 
 said she had slept enough for an old woman, A 
 cheery little stewardess had brought them coffee 
 soon after daylight, and had answered a few curt 
 questions put to her by Mademoiselle Brun. 
 
 " Yes ; the yacht was the yacht of the Baron de 
 Melide, and the hete-noh'e, by the same token, of 
 madame, who hated the sea." 
 
 And madame was at the chateau near Frejus, 
 where Monsieur le Baron had installed her on the 
 outbreak of the war, and would assuredly be on the 
 pier at St. Eaphael to meet them. And God only 
 knew where Monsieur le Baron was. He had gone, 
 it was said, to the war in some civil capacity. 
 
 As they stood on deck, Denise soon perceived the 
 little pier where there were, even at this early hour, 
 a few of those indefatigable Mediterranean Wal- 
 tons who fish and fish and catch nothing, all through 
 the sunny day. Presently Mademoiselle Brun
 
 190 THE ISLE OF UNREST 
 
 caught sight of a small dot of colour which seemed 
 to move spasmodically up and down. 
 
 " I see the parasol," she said, " of Jane de Melide. 
 "What good friends we have ! " 
 
 And presently they were near enough to wave a 
 handkerchief in answer to the Baroness de Melide's 
 vigorous salutations. The yacht crept around the 
 pier-head, and was soon made fast to a small white 
 buoy. While a boat was being lowered, the baron- 
 ess, in a gay Parisian dress, walked impatiently 
 backward and forward, waved her parasol, and 
 called out incoherent remarks, which Mademoiselle 
 Brun answered by a curt gesture of the hand. 
 
 " My poor friend ! " exclaimed the baroness, as 
 she embraced Mademoiselle Brun. "My dear 
 Denise, you are a brave woman. I have heard all 
 about you." 
 
 And her quick, dancing eyes took in at a glance 
 that Denise had come against her will, and Made- 
 moiselle Brun had brought her. Of which Denise 
 was ignorant, for the sunshine and brightness of 
 the scene affected her and made her happy. 
 
 " Surely," she said, as the}^ walked the length of 
 the pier together, " the bad news has been exagger- 
 ated. The war will soon be over and we shall be 
 happy again." 
 
 " Do not talk of it," cried the baroness. " It is a 
 horror. I saw Lory, after Worth, and that was 
 enough war for me. And, figure to yourself ! — I 
 am all alone in this great house. It is a charity to 
 come and stay with me. Lory has gone to the
 
 A WOMAX OF ACTION 191 
 
 front. My husband, who said he loved me — where 
 is he? Bonjour, and he is gone. He leaves me 
 without a regret. And I, who cry my eyes out; 
 or would cry them out if I were a fool — such as 
 mademoiselle thinks me. Ah ! I do not know what 
 has come to all the men." 
 
 " But I do," said mademoiselle, who had seen war 
 before. 
 
 And the baroness, looking at that still face, 
 laughed her gay little inconsequent laugh. 
 
 A carriage was waiting for them in the shade of 
 the trees on the market-place, its smart horses and 
 men forming a strong contrast to the untidy town 
 and slipshod idlers. As usual, a game of bowls was 
 in progress, and absorbed all the attention of the 
 local intelligence. 
 
 " We have half an hour through the pine trees," 
 said the baroness, settling herself energetically on 
 the cushions. " And, do you know, I am thankful 
 to see you. I thought you would be prevented 
 coming." 
 
 She glanced at Denise as she spoke, and with a 
 suddenly grave face, leant forward, and whis- 
 pered — 
 
 "The news is bad — the news is bad. All this 
 has been organised by Lory and my husband, who 
 told me, in so many words, that they must have us 
 where they can find us at a moment's notice. In 
 case — ah, mon Diou ! I do not knov.^ what is going 
 to happen to us all." 
 
 " Then are we to be moved about, like ornaments.
 
 192 THE ISLE OF U^KEST 
 
 from one safe place to another?" asked Denise, 
 with a laugh which was not wholly spontaneous. 
 
 " I have never been treated as an ornament yet," 
 put in Mademoiselle Brun, " and it is perhaps rather 
 late to begin now." 
 
 Denise looked at her inquiringl3^ 
 
 "Yes," said the little woman, quietly. "I am 
 going to the war — if Jane will take care of you 
 while I am away." 
 
 " And why should not I go too ? " asked Denise. 
 
 " Because you are too young and too pretty, my 
 dear — since you ask a plain question," replied the 
 baroness, impulsively. Then she turned toward 
 mademoiselle. "You know," she said, "that my 
 precious stupid is organising a field hospital." 
 
 " I thought he would find something to do," an- 
 swered mademoiselle, curtly. 
 
 " Yes," said the baroness, slowly, " yes — because 
 when he was a boy he had for governess a certain 
 little woman whose teaching was deeds, not words. 
 And he is paying for it himself. And we shall all 
 be ruined." 
 
 She spread out her rich dress, lay back in her 
 luxurious carriage, and smiled on Mademoiselle 
 Brun with something that was not mirth at the 
 back of her brown eyes. 
 
 "I shall go to him," said mademoiselle. And 
 the baroness made no reply for some moments. 
 
 " Do you know what he said ? " she asked. " He 
 said we shall want women — old ones. I know one 
 old woman who will come ! "
 
 A WOMAX OF ACTION 193 
 
 Mademoiselle Avas buttoning her cotton gloves 
 and did not seem to hear. 
 
 " It was, of course, Lory," went on the baroness, 
 " who encouraged him and told him how to go 
 about it. And then he went back to the front to 
 light. Mon Dieu ! he can fight — that Lory ! " 
 
 " Where is he ? " asked mademoiselle. And the 
 baroness spread out her gloved hands. 
 
 " At the front — I cannot tell you more." 
 
 And mademoiselle did not speak again. She 
 was essentially a woman of her word. She had 
 undertaken to find Lory and give him that odd, 
 inexplicable message from the abbe. She had 
 not undertaken much in her narrow life ; but she 
 had usually accomplished, in a quiet, mouse-like 
 way, that to which she set her hand. And now, as 
 she drove through the smiling country, with which 
 it was almost impossible to associate the idea of 
 war, she was planning how she could get to the 
 front and Avork there under the Baron de Melide, 
 and find Lory de Vasselot. 
 
 " They are somewhere near a little place called 
 Sedan," said the baroness. 
 
 And Mademoiselle Brun set out that same day 
 for the little place called Sedan; then known 
 vaguely as a fortress on the Belgian frontier, and 
 now forever written in every Frenchman's heart as 
 the scene of one of those stupendous catastrophes 
 to which France seems liable, and from which she 
 alone has the power of recovery. For, whatever 
 the history of the French may be, it has never been
 
 104 THE ISLE OF U:S'EEST 
 
 dull reading, and she has shown the whole "world 
 that one may carry a brave and a light heart out 
 of the deepest tragedy. 
 
 By day and night Mademoiselle Brun, sitting up- 
 right in a dark corner of a second-class carriage, 
 made her way northward across France. IS'o one 
 questioned her, and she asked no one's help. A 
 silent little old woman assuredly attracts less at- 
 tention to her comings and goings than any other 
 human being. And on the third day mademoiselle 
 actually reached Chalons, which many a more im- 
 portant traveller might at this time have failed to 
 do. She found the town in confusion, the civilians 
 bewildered, the soldiers sullen. No one knew what 
 an hour might bring forth. It was not even known 
 who was in command. The emperor was some- 
 where near, but no one knew where. General offi- 
 cers were seeking their army-corps. Private sol- 
 diers were wandering in the streets seeking food 
 and quarters. The railway station was blocked 
 with stores Avhich had been hastily discharged from 
 trucks wanted elsewhere. And it was no one's 
 business to distribute the stores. 
 
 Mademoiselle Brun wandered from shop to shop, 
 gathering a hundred rumours but no informa- 
 tion. "The emperor is dying — Macmahon is 
 Avounded," a butcher told her, as he mechanic- 
 ally sharpened his knife at her approach, though 
 he had not as much as a bone in his shop to sell 
 her. 
 
 She stopped a cuirassier riding a lame horse, his
 
 A WOMAN OF ACTION 195 
 
 own leg hastily bandaged with a piece of coloured 
 calico. 
 
 "What regiment?" she asked. 
 
 "I have no regiment. There is nothing left. 
 You see in me the colonel, and the majors, and the 
 captains. I am the regiment," he answered with 
 a laugh that made mademoiselle bite her steady 
 lip. 
 
 " Where are you going ? " 
 
 "I don't know. Can you give me a little 
 money ? " 
 
 " I can give you a franc. I have not too much 
 myself. Where have you come from ? " 
 
 "I don't know. None of us knew where we 
 were." 
 
 He thanked her, observed that he was very 
 hungry, and rode on. She found a night's lodging 
 at a seed-chandler's who had no seeds to sell. 
 
 " They will not need them this year," he said. 
 " The Prussians are riding over the corn." 
 
 The next morning the indomitable little woman 
 went on her way toward Sedan in a forage-cart 
 which was going to the front. She told the cor- 
 poral in charge that she was attached to the Baron 
 de Melide's field hospital and must get to her 
 work. 
 
 " You will not like it when you get there, my 
 brave lady," said the man, good-humouredly, mak- 
 ing room for her. 
 
 " I shall like it better than doing nothing here," 
 she replied.
 
 196 THE ISLE OF UNREST 
 
 And so they set forth through the country heavy 
 with harvest. It ^A-as the second of September, 
 The corn was ripe, the leaves were already turning ; 
 for it had been a dry summer, and since April hardly 
 any rain had fallen. 
 
 It was getting late in the afternoon when they 
 met a man in a dog-cart driving at a great pace. 
 He pulled up when he saw them. His face was 
 the colour of lead, his eyes were startlingl}'" blood- 
 shot. 
 
 " This parishioner has been badly scared," mut- 
 tered the soldier who was driving Mademoiselle 
 Brun. 
 
 " Where are you going ? " asked the stranger in a 
 high, thin voice. 
 
 " To Sedan." 
 
 " Then turn back," he cried ; " Sedan is no place 
 for a woman. It is a hell on earth. I saw it all, 
 mon Dieu. I saw it all. I was at Bazeilles. I 
 saw the children thrown into the windows of the 
 burning houses. I saw the Bavarians shoot our 
 women in the streets. I saw the troops rush into 
 Sedan like rabbits into their holes, and then the 
 Prussians bombarded the town. They had six hun- 
 dred guns all round the town, and they fired upon 
 that little place which was packed full like a sheep- 
 pen. It is not war — it is butchery. What is the 
 good God doing ? What is He thinking of ? " 
 
 And the man, who had the pasty face of a clerk 
 or a commercial traveller, raised his whip to heaven 
 in a gesture of fierce anger. Mademoiselle Brun
 
 A WOMAN OF ACTION 197 
 
 looked at him with measuring eyes. He was ahnost 
 a man at that moment. But perhaps her standard 
 of manhood was too high. 
 
 " And is Sedan taken ? " she asked quietly,, 
 
 " Sedan is taken. Macmahon is wounded. The 
 emperor is prisoner, and the ^vhole French army has 
 surrendered. Ninety thousand men. The Prus- 
 sians had two hundred and forty thousand men. 
 Ah ! That emperor — that scoundrel ! " 
 
 Mademoiselle Brun looked at him coldly, but with- 
 out surprise. She had dealt with Frenchmen all her 
 life, and probably expected that the fallen should 
 be reviled — an unfortunate characteristic in an oth- 
 erwise great national spirit. 
 
 " And the cavalry ? " she asked. 
 
 " Ah ! " cried the man, and again his dull eye 
 flashed. " The cavalry were splendid. They tried 
 to cut their way out. They passed through the 
 Prussian cavalry and actually faced the infantry, 
 but the fire Avas terrible. No man ever saw or 
 heard anything like it. The cuirassiers were mown 
 doAvn like corn. The cavalry exists no longer, ma- 
 dame, but its name is immortal." 
 
 There was nothing poetic about Mademoiselle 
 Brun, who listened rather coldly. 
 
 " And you," she asked, " what are you ? you are 
 assuredly a Frenchman ? " 
 
 " Yes — I am a Frenchman." 
 
 " And yet your back is turned," said Mademoiselle 
 Brun, " toward the Prussians." 
 
 " I am a writer," explained the man — " a journal-
 
 198 THE ISLE OF UNREST 
 
 ist. It is my duty to go to some safe place and 
 write of all that I have seen." 
 
 " Ah ! " said Mademoiselle Brun. " Let us, my 
 friend," she said, turning to her companion on the 
 forage-cart, " proceed toward Sedan. We are for- 
 tunately not in the position of monsieur."
 
 CHAPTER XIX 
 
 THE SEARCH 
 
 " Wisdom is ofttimes nearer when we stoop 
 Than when we soar." 
 
 There were many who thought the war was over 
 that rainy morning after the fall of Sedan. For 
 events were made to follow each other quickly by 
 those three sleepless men who moved kings and em- 
 perors and armies at their will. Bismarck, Moltke, 
 and Roon must have slept but little — if they closed 
 their eyes at all — between the evening of the first 
 and the morning of the third day of September. 
 For human foresight must have its limits, and the 
 German leaders could hardly have dreamt, in their 
 most optimistic moments, of the triumph that 
 awaited them. Bismarck could hardly have fore- 
 seen that he should have to provide for an imperial 
 prisoner. Moltke's marvellous plans of campaign 
 could scarcely have embraced the details necessary 
 to the immediate disposal of ninety thousand pris- 
 oners of war, with many guns and horses and much 
 ammunition. 
 
 It was but twenty-four hours after he had left 
 Sedan to seek, and seek in vain, the King of 
 Prussia, that the third Napoleon — the modern man 
 of destiny who had climbed so high and fallen so 
 
 199
 
 200 THE ISLE OF UNREST 
 
 very low — set out on his journey to the Palace of 
 Wilhelmshohe, never to set foot on French soil 
 again. For he was to seek a home, and. finally a 
 grave, in England, where his bones will lie till 
 that day when France shall think fit to deposit 
 them by those of the founder of the adventurous 
 dynasty. 
 
 Among those who stood in the muddy street of 
 Donchery that morning, and watched in silence the 
 departure of the simple carriage, was Mademoiselle 
 Brun, whose stern eyes rested for a moment on the 
 sphinx-like face, met for an instant the dull and 
 extinct gaze of the man who had twisted all 
 France round his little finger. 
 
 When the cavalcade had passed by, she turned 
 away and w^alked toward Sedan. The road was 
 crowded with troops, coming and going almost in 
 silence. Long strings of baggage-carts splashed 
 past. Here and there an ambulance waggon of 
 lighter build was allowed a quicker passage. Mes- 
 sengers rode, or hurried on foot, one vray and the 
 other ; but few spoke, and a hush seemed to hang 
 over all. There was no cheering this morning- 
 even that was done. The rain splashed pitilessly 
 down on these men who had won a great victory, 
 w^ho now hurried hither and thither, afraid of they 
 knew not what, cowering beneath the silence of 
 Heaven. 
 
 Mademoiselle was stopped outside the gates of 
 Sedan. 
 
 " You can go no further ! " said an under-officer
 
 THE SEARCH 201 
 
 of a Bavarian regiment in passable French, the 
 first to question the coming or going of this insig- 
 nificant and self-possessed woman. 
 
 " But I can stay here ? " returned mademoiselle 
 in German. In teaching, she had learnt — which is 
 more than many teachers do. 
 
 " Yes, you can stay here," laughed the German, 
 
 And she stayed there patiently for hours in the 
 rain and mud. It was afternoon before her reward 
 came. iSTo one heeded her, as, standing on an 
 overturned gun-carriage, beneath her shabby um- 
 brella, she watched the first detachment of nearly 
 ten thousand Frenchmen march out of the fortress 
 to their captivity in Germany. 
 
 " No cavalry ? " she said to a bystander when 
 the last detachment had gone. 
 
 " There is no cavalry left, ma bonne dame," re- 
 plied the old man to whom she had spoken. 
 
 " No cavalr}^ left ! And Lory de Vasselot was 
 a cuirassier. And Denise loved Lory." Made- 
 moiselle Brun knew that, though perhaps Denise 
 herself was scarcely aware of it. In these three 
 thoughts mademoiselle told the whole history of 
 Sedan as it affected her. Solferino had, for her, 
 narrowed down to one man, fat and old at that, 
 riding at the head of his troops on a great horse 
 specially chosen to carry bulk. The victory that 
 was to mar one empire and make another, years 
 after Solferino, was summed up in three thoughts 
 by the woman who had the courage to live frank I}'- 
 in her own small woman's world, who was ready
 
 202 THE ISLE OF UNKEST 
 
 to light — as resolutely as any fought at Sedan — for 
 Denise. She turned and went down that historic 
 road, showing now, as ever, a steady and coura- 
 geous face to the world, though all who spoke to her 
 stabbed her with the words, " There is no cavalry 
 left — no cavalry left, ma bonne dame." 
 
 She hovered about Donchery and Sedan, and the 
 ruins of Bazeilles, for some days, and made sure 
 that Lory de Vasselot had not gone, a prisoner, to 
 Germany, The confusion in the French camp was 
 greater than any had anticipated, and no reliable 
 records of any sort were obtainable. Mademoi- 
 selle could not even ascertain whether Lory had 
 fought at Sedan ; but she shrewdly guessed that 
 the mad attempt to cut a Avay through the German 
 lines was such as would recommend itself to his 
 heart. She haunted, therefore, the heights of Ba- 
 zeilles, seeking among the dead one who Avore 
 the cuirassier uniform. She found, God knows, 
 enough, but not Lory de Vasselot. 
 
 All this while she never wrote to Frejus, judg- 
 ing, with a deadly common sense, that no news is 
 better than bad news. Day by day she continued 
 her self-imposed task, on the slippery hill-sides and 
 in the muddy valleys, until at last she passed for a , 
 peasant-woman, so bedraggled was her dress, so 
 lined and weather-beaten her face. Her hair grew 
 white in those days, her face greyer. She had not 
 even enough to eat. She lay down and slept 
 whenever she could find a roof to cover her. And 
 always, night and day, she carried witli her the
 
 THE SEARCH 203 
 
 burthen of that bad news of which she would not 
 seek to relieve herself by the usual human method 
 of telling it to another. 
 
 And one day she wandered into a church ten 
 miles on the French side of Sedan, intending per- 
 haps to tell her bad news to One who will 
 always listen. But she found that this was no 
 longer a house of prayer, for the dead and dying 
 were lying in rows on the floor. As she entered, a 
 tall man coming quickly out, almost knocked her 
 down. His arms were full of cooking utensils. 
 He was in his shirt-sleeves : blood-stained, smoke- 
 grimed, unshaven and unwashed. He turned to 
 apologise, and began explaining that this was no 
 place for a woman ; but he stopped short. It 
 was the millionaire Baron de Melide. 
 
 Mademoiselle Brun sat suddenl}?- down on a 
 bench near the door. She did not look at him. 
 Indeed, she purposely looked away and bit her lip 
 with her little fierce teeth because it would quiver. 
 In a moment she had recovered herself. 
 
 "• I have come to help you," she said. 
 
 '' God knoAvs, we want you," replied the baron — 
 a phlegmatic man, who, nevertheless, saw the quiv- 
 ering lip, and turned away hastily. For he knew 
 that mademoiselle would never forgive herself, or 
 him, if she broke down now. 
 
 " Here," he said, with a clumsy gaiety, " will you 
 wash these plates and dishes ? You will find the 
 pump in the cure's garden. "We have nurses and 
 doctors, but we have no one to wash up. And it is
 
 204 THE ISLE OF UNKEST 
 
 I who do it. This is my hospital. I liave borroAved 
 the building from the good God." 
 
 Mademoiselle was naturally a secretive woman. 
 She could even be silent about her neighbours' 
 affairs. Susini had been guided by a quick intui- 
 tion, characteristic of his race, when he had con- 
 fided in this Frenchwoman. She had been some 
 hours in the baron's hospital before she even men- 
 tioned Lory's name. 
 
 " And the Count de Yasselot ? " she inquired, in 
 her usual curt form of interrogation, as they were 
 taking a hurried and unceremonious meal in the 
 vestry by the light of an altar candle. 
 
 The baron shook his head and gulped down his 
 food. 
 
 " E"o news ? " inquired Mademoiselle Brun. 
 
 "JSTone." 
 
 They continued to eat for some minutes in 
 silence. 
 
 "Was he at Sedan?" asked mademoiselle, at 
 length. 
 
 "Yes," replied the baron, gravely. And then 
 they continued their meal in silence by the light of 
 the flickering candle. 
 
 "Have you any one looking for him?" asked 
 mademoiselle, as she rose from the table and began 
 to clear it. 
 
 " I have sent two of my men to do so," replied 
 the baron, who was by nature no more expansive 
 than his old governess. And for some days there 
 was no mention of de Yasselot between them.
 
 THE SEARCH 205 
 
 Mademoiselle found plenty of work to do besides 
 the menial labours of which she had relieved the 
 man who deemed himself fit for nothing more com- 
 plicated than washing dishes and providing funds. 
 She wrote letters for the wounded, and also for the 
 dead. She had a way of looking at those who 
 groaned unnecessarily and out of idle self-pity, 
 which was conducive to silence, and therefore to 
 the comfort of others. She smoothed no pillows 
 and proffered no soft words of sympathy. But it 
 was she who found out that the cure had a piano. 
 She it was who took two hospital attendants to the 
 priest's humble house and brought the instrument 
 away. She had it placed inside the altar rails, and 
 fought the cure afterward in the vestry as to the 
 heinousness of the proceeding. 
 
 " You will not play secular airs ? " pleaded the 
 old man. 
 
 " All that there is of the most secular," replied 
 she, inexorably. "And the recording angels will, 
 no doubt, enter it to my account — and not yours, 
 monsieur le cure." 
 
 So Mademoiselle Brun played to the wounded all 
 through the long afternoons until her fingers grew 
 stiff. And the doctors said that she saved more 
 than one fretting life. She Avas not a great mu- 
 sician, but she had a soothing, old-fashioned touch. 
 She only played such ancient airs as she could re- 
 member. And the more she plaved the more she 
 remembered. It seemed to come back to her — each 
 day a little more. Which was odd, for the music
 
 206 THE ISLE OF UJ^REST 
 
 was, as she had promised the cure, secular enough, 
 and could not, therefore, have been inspired by her 
 sacred surroundings within the altar rails. Though, 
 after all, it may have been that those who recorded 
 this sacrilege against Mademoiselle Brun, not only 
 made a cross-entry on the credit side, but helped 
 her memory to recall that forgotten music. 
 
 Thus the days slipped by, and little news filtered 
 through to the quiet Ardennes village. The tide 
 of war had rolled on. The Germans, it was said, 
 were already halfway to Paris. And from Paris 
 itself the tidings were well-nigh incredible. One 
 thing alone was certain ; the Bonaparte dynasty 
 was at an end and the mighty schemes of an am- 
 bitious woman had crumbled like ashes within her 
 hands. All the plotting of the Regency had fallen 
 to pieces with the fall of the greatest schemer of 
 them all, whom the Paris government fatuously at- 
 tempted to hookwink. Napoleon the Third was 
 indeed a clever man, since his own wife never knew 
 how clever he was. So France was now a howling 
 Republic — a Republic being a community wherein 
 every man is not only equal to, but better than his 
 neighbour, and may therefore shout his loudest. 
 
 No great battles followed Sedan, France had 
 but one army left, and that was shut up in Metz, 
 under the command of another of the Paris plotters 
 who was a bad general and not even a good con- 
 spirator. 
 
 Poor France had again fallen into bad hands. It 
 seemed the end of all things. And yet for Made-
 
 THE SEARCH 207 
 
 moiselle Brun, who loved France as well as any, all 
 these troubles were one day dispersed by a single 
 note of a man's voice. She was at the piano, it be- 
 ing afternoon, and was so used to the shuffling of 
 the bearer's feet that she no longer turned to look 
 when one was carried in and another, a dead one 
 perhaps, was carried out. 
 
 She heard a laugh, however, that made her music 
 suddenly mute. It was Lory de Vasselot who was 
 laughing, as they carried hun into the little church. 
 He was explaining to the baron that he had heard 
 of his hospital, and had caused himself to be car- 
 ried thither as soon as he could be moved from the 
 cottage, where he had been cared for by some peas- 
 ants. 
 
 The laugh was silenced, however, at the sight of 
 Mademoiselle Brun. 
 
 " You here, mademoiselle ? " he said. " Alone, I 
 hope," he added, wincing as the bearers set him 
 down. 
 
 " Yes, I am alone. Denise is safe at Frejus with 
 Jane de Melide." 
 
 "Ah!" 
 
 " And your wounds ? " said Mademoiselle Brun. 
 
 "A sabre-cut on the right shoulder, a bullet 
 through the left leg— voila tout. I was in Sedan, 
 and we tried to get out. That is all I know, made- 
 moiselle." 
 
 Mademoiselle stood over him with her hands 
 crossed at her waist, looking down at him with 
 compressed lips.
 
 208 THE ISLE OF UNKEST 
 
 " Not dangerous ? " she inquired, glancing at his 
 bandages, which indeed were numerous enough. 
 
 " I shall be in the saddle again in three weeks, 
 they tell me. If the war only lasts — " He gave 
 an odd, eager laugh. " If the war only lasts " 
 
 Then he suddenly turned white and lost conscious- 
 ness.
 
 CHAPTEE XX 
 
 WOUNDED 
 
 " Le temps fortifle ce qu'il n'tbranle pas." 
 
 That night mademoiselle wrote to Denise at 
 Frejus, breaking at last her long silence. That she 
 gave the barest facts, may be safely concluded. 
 Neither did she volunteer a thought or a conclusion. 
 She was as discreet as she was secretive. There 
 are some secrets which are infinitely safer in a 
 woman's custody than in a man's. You may tell a 
 man in confidence the amount of your income, and 
 it will go ro further ; but in affairs of the heart, 
 and not of the pocket, a woman is safer. Indeed, 
 you may tell a woman your heart's secret, provided 
 she keeps it where she keeps her own. And Made- 
 moiselle Brun had only one thought night and day : 
 the happiness of Denise. That, and a single mem- 
 ory — the secret, perhaps, which was such a stand- 
 ing joke at the school in the Kue du Cherche-Midi 
 made up the whole life of this obscure woman. 
 
 Two days later she gave Lory Susini's message ; 
 and de Vasselot sent for the surgeon. 
 
 "I am going," he said. "Patch me up for a 
 journey." 
 
 The surgeon had dealt so freely with life and 
 death that he only shrugged his shoulders. 
 
 209
 
 210 THE ISLE OF UNEEST 
 
 " You cannot go alone," he said — " a man with 
 one arm and one leg." 
 
 Mademoiselle looked from one to the other. She 
 was willing enough that Lory should undertake this 
 journey, for he must needs pass through Provence 
 to get to Corsica. She did not attempt to lead 
 events, but was content to follow and steer them 
 from time to time. 
 
 " I am going to the south of France," she said. 
 " The baron needs me no longer since the hospital 
 is to be moved to Paris. I can conduct Monsieur 
 de Vasselot — a part of the way, at all events." 
 
 And the rest arranged itself. Five da,js later 
 Lory de Vasselot was lifted from the railway car- 
 riage to the Baroness de Melide's victoria at Frejus 
 station. 
 
 " Madame's son is, no doubt, from Sedan ? " said 
 the courteous station-master, who personally at- 
 tended to the wounded man. 
 
 "He is from Sedan — but he is not my son. I 
 never had one," replied mademoiselle with com- 
 posure. 
 
 She was tired, for she had hardly slept since 
 Lory came under her care. She sat open-eyed, 
 with that knowledge which is given to so tew — the 
 knowledge of the gradual completion of a set pur- 
 pose. 
 
 They had travelled all night, and it was not yet 
 midday when mademoiselle first saw, and pointed 
 out to Lory, the white turret of the chateau among 
 the pines.
 
 WOUNDED 211 
 
 The baroness was on the steps to greet them. 
 Like many persons of a ga3'' exterior, she had a kind 
 heart and a quick sympathy. She often did, and 
 said, the right thing, when cleverer people found 
 themselves at fault. She laughed when she saw 
 Lory lying full length across her smart carriage — 
 laughed, despite his white cheeks and the grey 
 weariness of mademoiselle's face. She seemed part 
 of the sunshine and the brisk resinous air. 
 
 " Ah, my cousin," she cried, " it does the eyes 
 good to see you ! I should like to carry you up 
 these steps," 
 
 " In three weeks," answered de Yasselot, " I will 
 carry you down." 
 
 " His room is on the ground floor," said the bar- 
 oness to mademoiselle, in an aside. " You are tired, 
 my dear — I see it. Your room is the same as be- 
 fore ; you must lie down this afternoon. I will 
 take care of Lory, and Denise will — but, where is 
 Denise ? I thought she was behind me." 
 
 She paused to guide the men who were carrying 
 de Vasselot through the broad doorway. 
 
 " Denise ! " she cried without looking round, 
 " Denise ! where are you ? " 
 
 Then turning, she saw Denise coming slowly 
 down the stairs. Her face was whiter than Made- 
 moiselle Brun's. Her eyes, clear and clever, were 
 fixed on Lory's face as if seeking something there. 
 There was an odd silence for a moment — such as 
 the superstitious say, is caused by the passage of an 
 angel among human beings — even the men carrying
 
 212 THE ISLE OF UNPwEST 
 
 Lory seemed to tread softly. It was he who broke 
 the spell. 
 
 " Ah, mademoiselle ! " he said gaily, " the fortune 
 of war, you see ! " 
 
 " But it might have been so much worse," 
 said the baroness in a whisper to Mademoiselle 
 Brun. " Bon Dieu, it might have been so much 
 worse ! " 
 
 And at luncheon they were gay enough. For a 
 national calamity is, after all, secondary to a family 
 calamity. Only de Vasselot and Mademoiselle Brun 
 had been close to war, and it was no new thing to 
 them. Theirs was, moreover, that sudden gaiety 
 which comes from reaction. The contrast of their 
 present surroundings to that little hospital in a 
 church within canon-sound of Sedan — the quiet of 
 this country house, the baroness, Denise herself 
 young and grave — were sufficient to chase away 
 the horror of the past weeks. 
 
 It was the baroness who kept the conversation 
 alert, asking a hundred questions, and, as often as 
 not, disbelieving the answers. 
 
 " And you assure me," she said for the hundredth 
 time, " that my poor husband is well. That he 
 does not miss me, I cannot of course believe with 
 the best will in the world, thougli Mademoiselle 
 Brun assert it with her gravest air. ]S"ow, tell me, 
 how does he spend his day ? " 
 
 " Mostly in washing up dishes," replied mademoi- 
 selle, looking severely at the baron's butler, whose 
 hand happened to shake at that moment as he
 
 WOUNDED 213 
 
 offered a plate. " But he is not good at it. He 
 was ignorant of the properties of soda until I in- 
 formed him." 
 
 " But there is no glory in that," protested the 
 baroness. "It was only because he assured me 
 that he would not run into danger, and Avould 
 inevitably be made a grand commander of the 
 Legion of Honour, that he was allowed to go. I 
 do not see the glory in washing up dishes, my 
 friends, I tell you frankly." 
 
 " No ; but it is there," said mademoiselle. 
 
 After luncheon Lory, using his crutches, made 
 his way laboriously to the verandah that ran the 
 length of the southern face of the house. It was 
 all hung with creepers, and shaded from the sun by 
 a dense curtain of foliage. Here heliotrope grew 
 like a vine on a trellis against the wall, and semi- 
 tropical flowers bloomed in a bewildering confusion. 
 A little fountain trickled sleepily near at hand, in 
 the mossy basin of which a talkative family of frogs 
 had their habitation. 
 
 Half asleep in a long chair, de Yasselot was 
 already coming under the influence of this most 
 healing air in the world, when the rustle of a skirt 
 made him turn. 
 
 " It is only I, my poor Lory," said the baroness, 
 looking down at him with an odd smile. " You 
 turned so quickly. Is there anything you want — 
 anything in my power to give you, I mean ? " 
 
 " I am afraid you have parted with that already." 
 
 "To that — scullery-man, you mean. Yes, per-
 
 214 THE ISLE OF UNKEST 
 
 haps you are too late. It is so wise to ask too late, 
 mon cousin." 
 
 She laughed gaily, and turned away toward the 
 house. Then she stopped suddenly and came back 
 to him. 
 
 " Seriously," she said, looking down at him with 
 a grave face — " seriously. My prayers should always 
 be for any woman who became your wife — ^you, and 
 your soldiering. Ciel ! it would kill any woman who 
 really cared " 
 
 She broke off and contemplated him as he lay at 
 full length. 
 
 "And she might care — a little — that poor woman." 
 
 " She would have to care for France as well," said 
 de Vasselot, momentarily grave at the thought of 
 his country. 
 
 " I know," said the baroness, with a wise shake of 
 the head. " Mon ami, I know all about that." 
 
 " I have some new newspapers from Paris," she 
 added, going toward the house. " I will send them 
 to you." 
 
 And it was Denise who brought the newspapers. 
 She handed them to him in silence. Their eyes 
 met for an instant, and both alike had that question- 
 ing look which had shone in Denise's eyes as she 
 came downstairs. They seemed to know each other 
 now better than they had done when they last parted 
 at the Casa Perucca. 
 
 There was a chair near to his, and Denise sat 
 down there as if it had been placed on purpose — as 
 perhaps it had — by Fate. They were silent for a
 
 WOUNDED 215 
 
 few moments, gathering perhaps the threads that 
 connected one with the other. For absence does 
 not always break such threads, and sometimes 
 strengthens them. Then Lory spoke without look- 
 ing at her. 
 
 " You received the letter ? " he said. 
 
 " Which letter ? " she asked hurriedly ; and then 
 closed her lips and slowly changed colour. 
 
 There was only one letter, of course. There 
 could be no other. For it had never been sug- 
 gested that Lory should write to her. 
 
 "Yes; I received it," she answered. "Thank 
 you." 
 
 " Will you answer one question ? " asked Lory. 
 
 " If it is a fair one," she answered with a laugh. 
 
 " And who is to decide whether it is a fair one or 
 not ? " 
 
 " Oh ! I will do that," replied Denise with de- 
 cision. 
 
 She knew the weakness of her position, and was 
 prepared to defend it. Her eyes were shining, and 
 the colour had not faded from her cheeks 3'et. Lory 
 held his lip between his teeth as he looked at her. 
 She waited for the question, without meeting his 
 eyes, with a baffling little smile tilting the corners 
 of her lips. 
 
 " Well," she said, after a pause, " I suppose you 
 have decided not to ask it ? " 
 
 " I have decided to draw conclusions instead, ma- 
 demoiselle." 
 
 "Ah!"
 
 216 THE ISLE OF UNREST 
 
 " What does ' Ah ! ' mean ? " 
 
 " It means that you will draw them wrong," she 
 answered ; and yet the tone of her voice seemed to 
 suggest that she would rather like to hear the con- 
 clusions. 
 
 " One may conclude then, simply, that you 
 changed your mind after you wrote, and claimed a 
 woman's privilege." 
 
 "Yes " 
 
 " That you were good enough to trust me to send 
 the letter back unopened ; and yet you would not 
 trust me with the contents. One may conclude 
 that it is, therefore, also a woman's privilege to be 
 of two minds at the same time." 
 
 " If she likes," answered Denise. To which wise 
 men know that there is no answer. 
 
 De Yasselot made a tragic gesture with his one 
 available hand, and cast his eyes upward in a mute 
 appeal to the gods. He sighed heavily, and the ex- 
 pression of his face seemed to indicate a hopeless 
 despair. 
 
 " What is the matter ? " she asked, with a solici- 
 tude which was perhaps slightly exaggerated. 
 
 " What is one to understand ? I ask you that ? " 
 said Lory, turning toward her almost fiercely. 
 
 " What do you want to understand, monsieur ? " 
 asked Denise, quietly. 
 
 " Mon Dieu — you ! " 
 
 " Me ! " 
 
 " Yes. I cannot understand you at all. You ask 
 my advice, and then you act contrary to it. You
 
 WOUNDED 217 
 
 write me a letter, and you forbid me to open it. 
 Ah ! I was a fool to send that letter back. I have 
 often thought so since " 
 
 Denise was looking gravely at him with an ex- 
 pression in her eyes which made him stop, and 
 laugh, and contradict himself suddenly. 
 
 " You are quite right, mademoiselle, I was not a 
 fool to send it back. It was the only thing I could 
 do; and yet I almost thought, just now, that you 
 were not glad that I had done so." 
 
 " Then you thought quite wrong," said Denise, 
 sharply, with a gleam of anger in her eyes. " You 
 think that it is only I who am difficult to under- 
 stand. You are no easier. They say in Balagna 
 that, if you liked, you could be a sort of king in 
 Northern Corsica, and I am quite sure you have the 
 manners of one." 
 
 "Thank you, mademoiselle," he said with a 
 laugh. 
 
 " Oh — I do not mean the agreeable side of the 
 character. I meant that you are rather given to 
 ordering people about. You send an incompetent 
 and stupid little priest to take us by the hand, and 
 lead us out of the Casa Perucca like two school- 
 children, without so much as a word of explana- 
 tion." 
 
 " But I had not your permission to write to you." 
 
 Denise laughed gaily. 
 
 " So far as that goes you had not my permission 
 to order me out of my own house; to send a 
 steamer to St. Florent to fetch me ; to treat me as
 
 218 THE ISLE OF UNREST 
 
 if I were a regiment, in a word — and yet you did 
 it, monsieur." 
 
 Lory sat up in his desire to defend himself, 
 winced and lay down again. 
 
 " I fancy it is your Corsican blood," said Denise, 
 reflectively. She rose and rearranged a very sport- 
 ing dustcloth which the baroness had laid across 
 the wounded man's legs, and which his movement 
 had cast to one side. "However, it remains for 
 me to thank you," she said, and did not sit down 
 again. 
 
 "It may have been badly done, mademoiselle," 
 he said earnestly, " but I still think that it was the 
 wisest thing to do." 
 
 " And stiU you give me no reasons," she said with- 
 out turning to look at him. She was standing at 
 the edge of the verandah, looking thoughtfully out 
 at the matchless view. For the house stood above 
 the pines which lay like a dusky green carpet be- 
 tween it and the Mediterranean. " And I am not 
 going to ask you for them," she added with an odd 
 little smile, not devoid of that deep wisdom with 
 which it is to be presumed women are born ; for 
 they have it when it is most useful to them, and at 
 an age when their masculine contemporaries are 
 singularly ignorant of human nature. 
 
 " I am going," she said after a pause. " Jane 
 told me that I must not tire you." 
 
 " Then stay," he said. " It is only when you are 
 not there that I find it tiring." 
 
 She did not answer, and did not move until a
 
 WOUNDED 219 
 
 servant came noiselessly from the house and ap- 
 proached Lory. 
 
 " It is a man," he said, " who will not be denied, 
 and says he must speak to Monsieur le Comte. He 
 is from Corsica." 
 
 Denise turned, and her face was quite changed. 
 She had until that moment forgotten Corsica.
 
 CHAPTER XXI 
 
 FOE FRANCE 
 "Lov'd I not honour more." 
 
 The servant retired to bring the new arrival to 
 the verandah. Denise followed him, and, after a 
 few paces, returned to Lory. 
 
 " If it is one of my people," she said, " I should 
 like to see him before he goes." 
 
 The man who followed the servant to the veran- 
 dah a minute later had a dark, clean-shaven face, all 
 drawn into fine lines and innumerable minute 
 wrinkles. Such lines mean starvation ; but in this 
 case they told a tale of the past, for the dark eyes 
 had no hungry look. They looked hunted — that 
 was all. The glitter of starvation had left them. 
 He glanced uneasily around, took off his hat and 
 bowed curtly to Lory. The hat and the clothes 
 were new. Then he turned and looked at the serv- 
 ant, who lingered, with a haughty stare which must 
 have been particularly offensive to that respectable 
 Parisian menial. For the Corsicans are bad serv- 
 ants, and despise good servitude in others. When 
 the footman had gone, the newcomer turned to 
 Lory, and said, in a low voice — 
 
 " I saw you at Toulon. I have not seen many 
 
 S20
 
 FOR FKANCE 221 
 
 faces in 11137^ life — for I have spent most of it in the 
 macquis — so I remember those I have once met. I 
 knew the Count de Yasselot when he was a young 
 man, and he was what you are now. You are a de 
 Yasselot." 
 
 " Yes," answered Lory. 
 
 " I thought so. That is why I followed you from 
 Toulon — spending my last sou to do so." 
 
 He stopped. His two hands were in the pockets 
 of his dark corduroy trousers, and he jerked them 
 out with a sudden movement, bringing the empty 
 pockets to view. 
 
 " Yoila ! " he said, " and I want to go to the war. 
 So I came to vou." 
 
 " Good," said Lory, looking him up and down. 
 " You look tough, mon ami." 
 
 " I am," answered the Corsican. " Ten years of 
 macquis, winter and summer — for one thing or 
 another — do not make a man soft. I was told — 
 the Abbe Susini told me — that France wants every 
 man she can get, so I thought I would try a little 
 fighting." 
 
 " Good," said Lory again. " You will find it very 
 good fun." 
 
 The man gave a twisted grin. He had forgotten 
 how to laugh. He drew forward the chair that 
 Denise had just quitted, and sat down close to Lory 
 in quite a friendly way, for there is a bond that 
 draws fighting men and roaming men together de- 
 spite accidental differences of station. 
 
 " One sees," he said, " that you are a de Yasselot.
 
 222 THE ISLE OF UJ^EEST 
 
 And I belong to the de Vasselots — I. Whenever I 
 have got into trouble it has been on that side." 
 
 He looked round to make sure that none could 
 overhear. 
 
 " It was I who shot that Italian dog, Pietro An- 
 drei," he mentioned in confidence, " on the road 
 below Olmeta — but that was a personal matter." 
 
 " Ah ! " said Lory, who had heard the story of 
 Andrei's death on the market-place at Olmeta, and 
 the stern determination of his widow to avenge it. 
 
 " Yes — I was starving, and Andrei had money on 
 him. In the old days it was easy enough to get 
 food in the macquis. One could come down into 
 the villages at night. But now it is different. It 
 is a hard life there now, and one may easily die of 
 starvation. There are many who, like Pietro An- 
 drei, are friendly with the gendarmes." * 
 
 He finished with a gesture of supreme disgust, as 
 if friendship with a gendarme were the basest of 
 crimes. 
 
 " When did you see the Abbe Susini ? " asked 
 Lory, " and where — if you can tell me that ? " 
 
 " I saw him in the macquis. He often goes up 
 into the mountains alone, dressed like one of us. 
 He is a queer man, that abbe. He says that he 
 sometimes thinks it well to care for the wanderers 
 from his flock — a jest, you see." 
 
 And the man gave his crooked grin again. 
 
 " It was above Asco, in the high mountains near 
 Cinto," he continued, " and about a week ago. It 
 was he Avho gave me money, and told me to come
 
 FOR FRANCE 223 
 
 and fight for France. He was arranging for others 
 to do the same." 
 
 " The abbe is a practical man," said Lory. 
 
 " Yes — and he told me news of Olmeta," said the 
 man, glancing sideways at his companion. 
 
 " What news ? " 
 
 " You have no doubt heard it — of Vasselot." 
 
 " I have heard nothing, my friend, but cannon. 
 I am from Sedan to-day." 
 
 The man seemed to hesitate. He turned uneasily 
 in his chair, glancing this way and that among the 
 trees — a habit acquired in. the macquis, no doubt. 
 He took off his hat and passed his hand pensively 
 over his hair. Then he turned to Lory, 
 
 " There is no longer a Chateau de A^asselot — it is 
 gone — burnt to the ground, mon brave monsieur." 
 
 " Who burnt it ? " asked de Vasselot. 
 
 " Who knows ?" replied the man. " The Peruc- 
 cas, no doubt. They have a woman to lead them 
 now ! " 
 
 The man finished with a short laugh, which was 
 unpleasant to the ear. 
 
 Lory thought of the woman who was leading the 
 Peruccas now, who had quitted the chair in which 
 her accuser now sat, a few minutes earlier, and 
 smiled. 
 
 "Have you a cigarette?" asked the Corsican, 
 bluntly. 
 
 '"■ Yes — but I cannot offer it to you. It is in ray 
 right-hand pocket, and my right arm is disabled." 
 
 " An arm and a log, eh ? " said the man, seeking
 
 224 THE ISLE OF UNREST 
 
 in the pocket indicated by Lory, for the neat silver 
 cigarette-case, which he handled with a sort of grand 
 air — this gentleman of the mountain-side. " You 
 will smoke also ? " 
 
 And with his own brown fingers he was kind 
 enough to place a cigarette between de Yasselot's 
 lips. The tobacco-smoke seemed to make him feel 
 still more at home with the head of his clan. For 
 he sat down again and began the conversation in 
 quite a familiar way. 
 
 "Who is this Colonel Gilbert of Bastia, who 
 mixes himself up in affairs ? " he inquired. 
 
 " What affairs, my friend ? " 
 
 " Well, the affairs of others, it would appear. 
 We hear strange stories in the macquis — and things 
 that one would never expect to reach the moun- 
 tains. They say that Colonel Gilbert busies him- 
 self in stirring up the Peruccas and the de Vasse- 
 lots against each other — an affair that has slept 
 these thirty years." 
 
 "Ah!" 
 
 " Yes, and you should know it, you who are the 
 chief of the de Yasselots, and have this woman to 
 deal with ; the women are always the worst. The 
 chateau, they saj^, was burnt down, and the women 
 disappeared from the Casa Perucca in the same 
 week. The Casa Perucca is empt}" now, and the 
 Chateau de Yasselot is gone— at Olmeta they are 
 bored enough, I can tell you." 
 
 " They have nothing to quarrel about," suggested 
 Lory.
 
 FOR FRANCE 225 
 
 " Nothing," replied the Corsican, quite gravely. 
 
 "And the chateau was empty when they burnt 
 it ? " inquired Lory. 
 
 " Yes ; it has been empty since I was a boy. I 
 remember it when I went to St. Florent to school, 
 and it was then that I used to see your father, the 
 count. He was powerful in those days — before the 
 Peruccas began to get strong. But they overrun 
 that country now, which is no doubt the reason 
 why you have never been there." 
 
 " Pardon me — I was there when the war broke 
 out two months ago." 
 
 " Ah ! We never heard that in the macquis, 
 though the Abbe Susini must have known it. He 
 knows so much that he does not tell — that abbe." 
 
 "Which makes him the strong man he is, mon 
 
 ami." 
 
 "You are right — you are right," said the Cor- 
 sican, rising energetically. "But I am wasting 
 your time with my talk, and tiring you as well, no 
 doubt." 
 
 " Wait a minute," replied Lory, touching the bell 
 that stood on a table by his side. " I will give you 
 a letter to a friend of mine, commanding a regi- 
 ment in Paris." 
 
 The servant brought the necessary materials, and 
 Lory prepared awkwardly to write. His arm was 
 still weak, but he could use his hand without pain. 
 While he was writing, the man sat watching him, 
 and at last muttered an exclamation of wonder- 
 ment.
 
 226 THE ISLE OF UNREST 
 
 " It is a marvel how you resemble the count," he 
 said, " as I remember him thirty years ago, when I 
 was a bo}^. And do you know, monsieur, I saw an 
 old man the other day for a moment, in passing on 
 the road, above Asco, who brought my heart into 
 my throat. If he had not been dead this score of 
 years it might have been your father — not as I re- 
 member him, but as the years would have made 
 him. I was hidden in the trees at the side of the 
 road, and he passed by on foot. He had the air of 
 going into the macquis. But I do not know who 
 he was." 
 
 " When was that ? " asked de Vasselot, pausing 
 with his pen on the paper. 
 
 " That must have been a month ago." 
 
 " And you never saw or heard of him again ? " 
 
 " No," answered the man. 
 
 Lory continued to write, his arm moving labori- 
 ously on the paper. 
 
 " I must have a name — of some sort," he said, 
 "to give my friend, the commandant." 
 
 " Ah ! I cannot give you my own. Jean Florent 
 — since I came from St. Florent — that will do." 
 
 De Vasselot wrote the name, folded and ad- 
 dressed the letter. 
 
 " There," he said, " and I wish you good luck. 
 Good luck in war-time may mean gold lace on your 
 sleeve in a few months. I shall join you as soon as 
 I can throw my leg across a horse. Will two hun- 
 dred francs serve you to reach Paris ? " 
 
 " Give me one hundred. I am no beggar."
 
 FOR FRANCE 227 
 
 He took the letter and the bank note, shook 
 hands, and went away as abruptly as he came. 
 The man was a murderer, with probably more than 
 one life to account for ; and yet he carried his 
 crimes with a certain dignity, and had, at all events, 
 that grand manner which comes from the habit of 
 facing life fearlessly with the odds against. 
 
 Lory sat up and watched him. He rang the bell. 
 
 " See that man off the premises," he said to the 
 servant, " and then beg Mademoiselle Lange to be 
 good enough to return here." 
 
 Denise kept him waiting a long time, and then 
 came with reluctant steps. The mention of Corsica 
 seemed to have changed her humour. She sat down, 
 nevertheless, in the chair, placed there by Fate. 
 
 " You sent for me," she said, rather curtly. 
 
 " Because I could not come myself," he answered. 
 " I did not want you to see that man. Or rather, I 
 did not want him to see you. He is not one of 
 your people — quite the contrary." 
 
 And de Vasselot laughed with significance. 
 
 " One of yours ? " she suggested. 
 
 " So it appears, though I was not aware of the 
 honour. He described you as 'that woman.' " 
 
 Denise laughed lightly, and threw back her head. 
 
 " He may describe me as he likes. Did he bring 
 you news ? " 
 
 And Denise turned away as she spoke, with that 
 air of indifference which so often covers a keen de- 
 sire for information, if it is a woman who seeks it. 
 
 " Yes," answered Lory, turning, as she turned, to
 
 228 THE ISLE OF UNREST 
 
 look at her. He looked at her \A^henever an oppor- 
 tunity offered. The cheek half turned from him 
 was a little sunburnt, the colour of a peach that has 
 ripened in the open under a Southern sun, for 
 Denise loved the air. Perhaps he had only spoken 
 the truth when he said that her absence made him 
 tired. There are many in the world w^ho have to 
 fight against that weariness all their lives. At last, 
 as if with an effort, Denise turned, and met his 
 glance for a moment. 
 
 " Bad news," she said ; " I can see that." 
 
 " Yes. It is bad enough." 
 
 " Of your estates ? " inquired Denise. 
 
 " No. I never cared for the estate ; I do not care 
 for it now." 
 
 " Then it is of . . . some one ?" 
 
 Lory did not answer at once. 
 
 " I shall have to go back to Corsica," he said at 
 length, " as soon as I can move — in a few days." 
 
 Denise glanced at him with angry eyes. 
 
 " I was told that story," she said, " but did not 
 believe it." 
 
 De Yasselot turned and looked at her, but could 
 not see her averted face. His eyes were suddenly 
 fierce. He was a fighter — of a fighting stock — and 
 he instantly perceived that he was called upon at 
 this moment to fight for the happiness of his whole 
 life. He put out his hand and deliberately took 
 hold of the skirt of her dress. She should not run 
 away at all events. He twisted the soft material 
 round his half-disabled fingers.
 
 FOK FRANCE 229 
 
 " What stoiy ? " he asked quietly. 
 
 Denise's eyes Hashed, and then suddenly grew 
 gentle. She did not quite know whether she was 
 furious or afraid. 
 
 "That there was some one in the Chateau de 
 Vasselot to whom — whom you loved." 
 
 " It is you that I love, mademoiselle," he an- 
 swered sharply, with a ring in his voice, which 
 came as a surprise to both of them, and which she 
 never forgot all her life. " No. Do not go. You 
 are pulling on my injured arm and I shall not let 
 go." 
 
 Denise sat still, silent and at bay. 
 
 " Then who was in the chateau ? " she asked at 
 last. 
 
 " I cannot tell you." 
 
 " If it is as you say — about me — and — I ask 
 you not to go to Corsica ? " 
 
 " I must go." 
 
 " "Why ? " asked Denise, with a dangerous quiet 
 in her voice. 
 
 " I cannot tell you." 
 
 " Then you expect a great deal." 
 
 De Vasselot slowly untwined his fingers and 
 drew in his arm. 
 
 " True," he said reflectively. " I must ask noth- 
 ing or too much. I asked more than you can give, 
 mademoiselle." 
 
 A faint smile flickered across Denise's eyes. 
 Who was he, to say how much a woman can give ? 
 She was free to go now, but did not move.
 
 230 THE ISLE OF UKREST 
 
 "With Corsica and — " she paused and glanced 
 at his helpless attitude in the long chair, — " and the 
 war, your life is surely sufficiently occupied as it 
 is," she said coldly. 
 
 " But these evil times will pass. The war will 
 cease, and then one may think of being happy. So 
 long as there is war, I must of course fight — fight — 
 fight, while there is a France to fight for." 
 
 Denise laughed. 
 
 " That is your scheme of life ? " she asked bit- 
 terly. 
 
 " Yes, mademoiselle." 
 
 She rose and turned angrily away. 
 
 " Then it is France you care for — if it is no one 
 in Corsica. France — nothing and nobody — but 
 France." 
 
 And she left him.
 
 CHAPTER XXII 
 
 IN THE MACQUIS 
 " Before man made us citizens, great Nature made us men. 
 
 The Abbe Susini had no money, but he was a 
 charitable man in a hasty and impulsive way. 
 Even the very poor may be charitable : they can 
 think kindly of the rich. It was not the rich of 
 whom the abbe had a friendly thought, but the 
 foolish and the stubborn. For this fiery little 
 priest knew more of the unwritten history of the 
 macquis than any in Corsica — infinitely more than 
 those whose business it was. 
 
 It is the custom at Ajaccio, and in a smaller way 
 at Bastia, to ignore the darker side of Corsican 
 politics, and the French officials are content with 
 the endeavour to get through their term of office 
 with a whole skin. It is not, as in other islands of 
 the Mediterranean, the gospel of " maiiana " which 
 holds good here, but rather the gospel of " So I 
 found it — it will last my time." So, from the pre- 
 fet to the humblest gendarme, they come, they 
 serve, and they go back rejoicing to France. They 
 strike when absolutely forced to do so, but they 
 commit the most fatal of all administrative errors 
 — they strike gently. 
 
 The faults are not all on one side ; for the 
 
 231
 
 232 THE ISLE OF UNREST 
 
 islanders are at once turbulent and sullen. There 
 are many who " keep the country," as the local 
 saying is, and wander year after year in the moun- 
 tain fastnesses, far above road or pathway, beyond 
 the feeble reach of the law, rather than pay a 
 trifling fine or bend their pride to face a week's im- 
 prisonment. 
 
 In the macquis, as in better society, there are 
 grades of evil. Some are hiding from their own 
 pride, others are evading a lifelong sentence, while 
 many know that if the gendarme sees them he will 
 shoot at sight — running, standing, sleeping, as a 
 keeper kills vermin. Only a few months ago, on a 
 road over which many tourists must have trav- 
 elled, a young man of twenty-three was " de- 
 stroyed " (the official term) by the gendarmes who 
 wanted him for eleven murders. It is commonly 
 asserted that these bandits are not dangerous, that 
 they have no grievance against travellers. A starv- 
 ing man has a grievance against the whole world, 
 and a condemned fratricide is not likely to pick and 
 choose his next victim if tempted by a little money 
 and the chance of escape therewith from the 
 island. 
 
 It is, moreover, usual for a man to take to the 
 macquis the moment that he finds himself involved 
 in some trouble, or, it may be, merely under suspi- 
 cion. From his retreat in the mountains he enters 
 into negotiations Avith his lawj'^er, with the local 
 magistrate, with his witnesses, even with the po- 
 lice. He distrusts justice itself, and only gives
 
 IN THE MACQUIS 233 
 
 himself up or faces the tribunal when he has made 
 sure of acquittal or such a sentence as his pride 
 may swallow. Which details of justice as under- 
 stood in a province of France at the beginning of 
 the century may be read at the Assize terms in 
 those great newspapers, Le Petit Bastiais or Le 
 Paoli Pascal, by any who have a halfpenny to 
 spend on literature. 
 
 It would appear easy enough to exterminate the 
 bandits as one would exterminate wolves or other 
 large game ; but in such a country as Corsica, al- 
 most devoid of roads, thinly populated, heavily 
 wooded, the expense would be greater than the 
 administration is prepared to incur. It would 
 mean putting an army into the field, prepared and 
 equipped for a long campaign which might ulti- 
 mately reach the dignity of a civil war. The ban- 
 dits are not worth it. The whole country is not 
 worth exploiting. Corsica is a small open wound 
 on the great back of France, carefully concealed 
 and only tended spasmodically from time to time 
 at such periods as the health of the whole frame is 
 sufficiently good to permit of serious attention be- 
 ing given to so small a sore. And such times, as 
 the wondering world knows, are few and far be- 
 tween in the history of France. 
 
 The law-abiding natives, or such natives as the 
 law has not found out, regard the denizens of the 
 macquis with a tender pity not unmixed with re- 
 spect. As often as not the bandit is a man with 
 a real grievance, and the poor have a soft place
 
 234 THE ISLE OF UNKEST 
 
 in their hearts for a man with a grievance. And 
 all Corsicans are poor. So all are for the bandits, 
 and every man's hand is secretly or openly against 
 the gendarme. Even in eumit}^, there is a certain 
 sense of honour among these naive people. A 
 man will shoot his foe in the back, but he will 
 not betray him to the gendarme. Among a primi- 
 tive people a man commands respect who has had 
 the courage to take the law into his own hands. 
 Amidst a subject population, he who rebels is not 
 without honour. 
 
 It was among these and such as these that the 
 Abbe Susini sought from time to time his lost 
 sheep. He took a certain pleasure in donning the 
 peasant clothes that his father had worn, and in 
 going to the mountains as his forefathers had 
 doubtless done before him. For every man 
 worthy of the name has lurking in his being a 
 remnant of the barbarian which makes him revolt 
 occasionally against the life of the city and the 
 crowded struggle of the streets, which sends him 
 out to the waste places of the world where God's 
 air is at all events untainted, where he may return 
 to the primitive way of living, to kill and gather 
 with his own hands that which must satisfy his 
 own hunger. 
 
 The abbe had never known a very highly refined 
 state of civilisation. The barbarian was not buried 
 very deep. To him the voice of the wind through 
 the trees, the roar of the river, the fine, free air of 
 the mountains had a charm which he could not put
 
 IN THE MACQUIS 235 
 
 into words. He hungered for them as the exile 
 hungers for the sight of his own home. The air of 
 houses choked him, as sooner or later it seems to 
 choke sailors and wanderers who have known what 
 it is to be in the open all night, sleeping or waking 
 beneath the stars, not by accident as an adventure, 
 but by habit. Then the abbe would disappear for 
 days together from Olmeta, and vanish into that 
 mystic, silent, prowling world of the macquis. The 
 sights he saw there, the men he met there, were 
 among those things which the villagers said the 
 abbe knew, but of which he never spoke. 
 
 During the stirring events of August and Sep- 
 tember the priest at Olmeta, and Colonel Gilbert at 
 Bastia, watched each, in his individual way, the ef- 
 fect of the news upon a very sensitive populace. 
 The abbe stood on the highroad one night within a 
 stone's throw of Perucca, and, looking down into the 
 great valley, watched the flickering flames consume 
 all that remained of the old Chateau de Vasselot. 
 Colonel Gilbert, in his little rooms in the bastion at 
 Bastia, knew almost as soon that the chateau was 
 burning, and only evinced his usual easj^-going sur- 
 prise. The colonel always seemed to be wondering 
 that any should have the energy to do active wrong ; 
 for virtue is more often passive, and therefore less 
 trouble. 
 
 The abbe was puzzled. 
 
 " An empty house," he muttered, " does not set 
 itself on fire. Who has done this ? and why ? " 
 
 For he knew every drift and current of feeling
 
 236 THE ISLE OF UNKEST 
 
 amid his turbulent flock, and the burning of the 
 chateau of Yasselot seemed to serve no purpose, and 
 to satisfy no revenge. There was some influence 
 at work which the Abbe Susini did not understand. 
 
 He understood well enough that a hundred griev- 
 ances — a hundred unsatisfied vengeances — had sud- 
 denly been awakened by the events of the last 
 months. The grip of France was for a moment re- 
 laxed, and all Corsica arose from its sullen sleep, 
 not in organised revolt, but in the desire to satisfy 
 personal quarrels — to break in one way or another 
 the law which had made itself so dreaded. The 
 burning of the Chateau de Yasselot might be the 
 result of some such feeling ; but the abbe thought 
 otherwise. 
 
 He went to Perucca, where all seemed quiet, 
 though he did not actually ring the great bell and 
 speak to the widow Andrei. 
 
 A few hours later, after nightfall, he set off on 
 foot by the road that leads to the Lancone Defile. 
 But he did not turn to the left at the cross-roads. 
 He went straight on instead, by the track which 
 ultimately leads to Corte, in the middle of the is- 
 land, and amidst the high mountains. This is one 
 of the loneliest spots" in all the lonely island, where 
 men ma}^ wander for days and never see a human 
 being. The macquis is thin here, and not consid- 
 ered a desirable residence. In fact, the mildest 
 malefactor may have a Avhole mountain to himself 
 Avithout any demonstration of violence whatever. 
 
 This was not the abbe's destination. He was
 
 IN THE MACQUIS 237 
 
 going farther, where the ordinary traveller would 
 fare worse, and hurried along without looldng to 
 the left or right. A half-moon was peeping through 
 an occasional rift in those heavy clouds which pre- 
 cede the autumn rains in these latitudes, and gather 
 with such astonishing slowness and deliberation. It 
 was not a dark night, and the air was still. The 
 abbe had mounted considerably since leaving the 
 cross-roads. His path now entered a valley between 
 two mountains. On either side rose a sharp slope, 
 broken, and rendered somewhat inaccessible by 
 boulders, which had at one tune been spilled down 
 the mountain-side by some great upheaval, and now 
 seemed poised in patient expectance of the next dis- 
 turbance. 
 
 Suddenly the priest stopped, and stood rooted. A 
 faint sound, inaudible to a townsman's ear, made 
 him turn sharply to the right, and face the broken 
 ground. A stone no bigger than a hazel nut had 
 been dislodged somewhere above him, and now rolled 
 down to his feet. The dead silence of the mountains 
 closed over him again. There was, of course, no 
 one in sight. 
 
 " It is Susini of Olmeta," he said, speaking quietly, 
 as if he were in a room. 
 
 There was a moment's pause, and then a man rose 
 from behind a rock, and came silently on bare feet 
 down to the pathway. His approach was heralded 
 by a scent which would have roused any sporting 
 dog to frenzy. This man was within measurable 
 distance of the beasts of the forests. As he came
 
 238 , THE ISLE OF UNREST 
 
 into the moonlight it was perceivable that he was 
 hatless, and that his tangled hair and beard were 
 streaked with white. His face was apparently black, 
 and so were his hands. He had obviously not 
 washed himself for years. 
 
 " You here," said the abbe, recognising one who 
 had for years and years been spoken of as a sort of 
 phantom, living in the summits — the life of an ani- 
 mal — alone. 
 
 The other nodded. 
 
 " Then you have heard that the gendarmes are 
 being drafted into the army, and sent to France ? " 
 
 The man nodded again. He had done so long 
 without speech that he had no doubt come to rec- 
 ognise its uselessness in the majority of human hap- 
 penings. The abbe felt in his pocket, and gave the 
 man a packet of tobacco. The Corsicans, unlike 
 nearly all other races of the Mediterranean, are 
 smokers of wooden pipes. 
 
 " Thanks," said the man, in an odd, soft voice, 
 speaking for the first time. 
 
 " I am going up into the mountains," said the 
 abbe, slowly, knowing no doubt that men who have 
 lived long with Nature are slow to understand 
 words, " to seek an old man who has recently gone 
 there. He is travelling with a man called Jean, 
 who has the evil eye." 
 
 " The Count de Yasselot," said the outlaw, 
 quietly. He touched his forehead with one finger 
 and made a vague wandering gesture of the hand. 
 " I have seen him. You go the wrong way. He is
 
 IN THE MACQUIS 239 
 
 down there, near the entrance to the Lancone Defile 
 with others." 
 
 He paused and looked round him with the slow 
 and distant glance which any may perceive in the 
 eyes of a caged wild beast. 
 
 " They are all down from the mountains," he said. 
 
 Even the Abbe Susini glanced uneasily over his 
 shoulder. These still, stony valleys were peopled 
 by the noiseless, predatory Ishmaels of the mac- 
 quis. They were, it is true, not numerous at this 
 time, but those who had escaped the clutch of the 
 imperial law were necessarily the most cunning and 
 desperate. 
 
 " Buon," he said, turning to retrace his steps. 
 " I shall go down to the Lancone Defile. God be 
 with you, my friend." 
 
 The man gave a queer laugh. He evidently 
 thought that the abbe expected too much. 
 
 The abbe w^alked until midnight, and then being 
 tired he found a quiet spot between two great 
 rocks, and lying down slept there until morning. 
 In the leather saddle-bag which formed his pillow 
 he had bread and some meat, which he ate as he 
 walked on toward the Lancone Defile. Once, soon 
 after daylight, he paused to listen, and the sound 
 that had faintly reached him was repeated. It was 
 the warning whistle of the steamer, the old Perse- 
 verance, entering Bastia harbour ten miles away. 
 He was still in the shade of the great heights that 
 lay between him and the Eastern coast, and hurried 
 while the day was cool. Then the sun leapt up
 
 240 THE ISLE OE UJNilEST 
 
 behind the hazy summits above Biguglia. The 
 abbe looked at his huge silver watch. It was 
 nearly eight o'clock. When he was near to the 
 entrance of the defile he stood in the middle of the 
 road and gave, in his high clear voice, the cry of 
 the goat-herd calling his flock. He gave it twice, 
 and then repeated it. If there were any in the 
 macquis within a mile of him they could not fail to 
 see him as he stood on the dusty road in the sun- 
 light. 
 
 He was not disappointed. In a few minutes the 
 closely-set arbutus bushes above the road were 
 pushed aside and a boy came out — an evil-faced 
 youth with a loose mouth. 
 
 " It is Jean of the Evil Eye who has sent me," 
 he said glibly, with an eye on the abbe's hands in 
 case there should be a knife. " He is up there with 
 a broken leg. He has with him the old man." 
 
 " The old man ? " repeated the abbe, interroga- 
 tively. 
 
 " Yes, he who is foolish." 
 
 " Show me the way," said Susini. " You need 
 not look at my hands ; I have nothing in them." 
 
 They climbed the steep slope that overhung the 
 road, forcing their way through the thick brush- 
 wood, stumbling over the chaos of stones. Quite 
 suddenly they came upon a group of men sitting- 
 round a smoldering lire where a tin coffee-pot stood 
 amid the ashes. One man had his leg roughly tied 
 up in sticks. It was Jean of the Evil Eye, who 
 looked hard at the Abbe Susini, and then turning,
 
 IN THE MACQUIS 241 
 
 indicated "with a nod the Count de Vasselot who 
 sat leaning against a tree. The count recognised 
 Susini and nodded vaguely. His face, once bleached 
 by long confinement, was burnt to a deep red ; his 
 eyes were quite irresponsible. 
 
 " He is worse," said Jean, without lowering his 
 voice. " Sometimes I can only keep him here by 
 force. He thinks the whole island is looking for 
 him — he never sleeps." 
 
 Jean was interrupted by the evil-faced boy, who 
 had risen, and was peering down toward the gates 
 of the defile. 
 
 " There is a carriage on the road," he said. 
 
 They all listened. There w^ere three other men 
 whom the abbe knew by sight and reputation. 
 One by one they rose to their feet and slowly 
 cocked their old-fashioned single-barrelled guns. 
 
 " It is the carriage from Olmeta — must be going 
 to Perucca," reported the boy. 
 
 And at the word Perucca, the count scrambled 
 to his feet, only to be dragged back by Jean. The 
 old man's eyes were alight with fear and hatred. 
 He was grasping Jean's gun. The abbe rose and 
 peered down through the bushes. Then he turned 
 sharply and wrenched Jean's firearm from the 
 count's hands. 
 
 "They are friends of mine," he said. " The man 
 who shoots will be shot by me." 
 
 All turned and looked at him. They knew the 
 abbe and the gun. And while they looked, Denise 
 and Mademoiselle Brun drove past in safety.
 
 CHAPTER XXIII 
 
 AN UNDERSTANDING 
 "Keep cool, and you command everybody." 
 
 When France realised that Napoleon III. had 
 fallen, she turned and rent his memory. No dog, 
 it appears, may have his day, but some cur must 
 needs yelp at his heels. Indeed (and this applies 
 to literary fame as to emperors), it is a sure sign 
 that a man is climbing high if the little dogs bark 
 below. 
 
 And the little dogs and the curs remembered 
 now the many slights cast upon them. France had 
 been betrayed — was ruined. The twenty most 
 j)rosperous years of her history were forgotten. 
 There was a rush of patriots to Paris, and another 
 rush of the chicken-hearted to the coast and the 
 frontier. 
 
 The Baron de Melide telegraphed to the baroness 
 to quit Frejus and go to Italy. And the baroness 
 telegraphed a refusal to do so. 
 
 Lory de Vasselot fretted as much as one of his 
 buoyant nature could fret under this forced inac- 
 tivity. The sunshine, the beautiful surroundings, 
 and the presence of friends, made him forget France 
 at times, and think only of the present. And 
 Denise absorbed his thoughts of the present and 
 
 242
 
 AN UNDERSTANDING 243 
 
 the future. She was a constant puzzle to him. 
 There seemed to be two Denise Langes : one who 
 was gay with that deep note of wisdom in her 
 gaiety, which only French women compass, with 
 odd touches of tenderness and little traits of almost 
 maternal solicitude, which betrayed themselves at 
 such moments as the wounded man attempted to do 
 something which his crippled condition or his weak- 
 ness prevented him from accomplishing. The other 
 Denise was clear-eyed, logical, almost cold, who re- 
 sented any mention of Corsica or of the war. 
 Indeed, de Yasselot had seen her face harden at 
 some laughing reference made by him to his 
 approaching recovery. He was quick enough to 
 perceive that she was endeavouring to shut out of 
 her life all but the present, which was unusual ; 
 for most pin their faith on the future until they are 
 quite old, and their future must necessarily be a 
 phantom. 
 
 "I do not understand you, mademoiselle," he 
 said, one day, on one of the rare occasions when 
 she had allowed herself to be left alone with him. 
 " You are brave, and yet you are a coward ! " 
 
 And the resentment in her eyes took him by 
 surprise. He did not know, perhaps, that the 
 wisest men never see more than they are intended 
 to see. 
 
 " Pray do not try," she answered. " The effort 
 might delay your recovery and your return to the 
 army." 
 
 She laughed, and presently left him. It is one
 
 244 THE ISLE OF UNREST 
 
 thing to face the future, and another to sit quietly 
 awaiting its approach. The majority of people 
 spoil their lives by going out to meet the future, 
 deliberately converting into a reality that which 
 was only a dread. They call it knowing the worst. 
 
 The next morning Mademoiselle Brun, with a 
 composed face and blinking eyes, mentioned casually 
 to Lory that she and Denise were going back to 
 Corsica. 
 
 " But why ? " cried Lory ; " but why, my dear 
 demoiselle ? " 
 
 " I do not know," answered Mademoiselle Brun, 
 smoothing her gloves. " It will, at all events, show 
 the world that we are not afraid." 
 
 De Yasselot looked at her non-committing face 
 and held his peace. There was more in this than a 
 man's philosophy might dream of. 
 
 " When do you go ? " he asked after a pause. 
 
 " To-night, from Nice," was the answer. 
 
 And, as has been noted, Denise and mademoiselle 
 arrived at Bastia in the early morning, and drove to 
 the Casa Perucca, in the face of more than one rifle- 
 barrel. Mademoiselle Brun never asked questions, 
 and, if she knew why Denise had returned to Per- 
 ucca so suddenly, she had not acquired the knowl- 
 edge from the girl herself, but had, behind her 
 beady eyes, put two and two together with that 
 accuracy of which women have the monopoly. 
 She meekly set to work to make the Casa Perucca 
 comfortable, and took up her horticultural labours 
 where she had dropped them.
 
 AN UNDERSTANDING 245 
 
 " One misses the Chateau de Vasselot," she said 
 one morning, standing by the open window that 
 gave so wide a view of the valle}^. 
 
 " Yes," answered Denise ; and that was all. 
 
 Mademoiselle went into the garden with her 
 leather gloves and a small basket. The odd thing 
 about her gardening was, that it was on such a 
 minute scale that the result was never visible to 
 the ordinary eye. Denise had, it appeared, given 
 up gardening. Mademoiselle Brun did not know 
 how she occupied herself at this time. She seemed 
 to do nothing, and preferred to do it alone. Re- 
 turning to the house at midday, mademoiselle went 
 into the drawing-room, and there found Denise and 
 Colonel Gilbert seated at the table with some papers, 
 and a map spread out before them. 
 
 . Both looked up with a guilty air, and Denise 
 flushed suddenly, while the colonel bit his lip. 
 Immediately he recovered himself, and rising, 
 shook hands with the newcomer. 
 
 " I heard that you had returned," he said, " and 
 hastened to pay my respects." 
 
 " We were looking at the plans," added Denise, 
 hurriedly. " I have agreed to sell Perucca to Colo- 
 nel Gilbert — as you have always wished me to do." 
 
 " Yes ; I have always wished you do it," re- 
 turned Mademoiselle Brun, slowly. She was very 
 cool and collected, and in that had the advantage 
 over her companions. " Has the colonel the money 
 in his pocket ? " she asked with a dry smile. " Is 
 it to be settled this afternoon ? "
 
 246 THE ISLE OF UNKEST 
 
 She glanced from one to the other. If love is 
 blind, he certainly tampers with the sight of those 
 who have had dealings with him. Denise was only 
 thinking of Perucca. She had not perceived that 
 Colonel Gilbert was honestly in love with her. But 
 Mademoiselle Brun saw it. She was wondering — 
 if this thing had come to Gilbert twenty years 
 earlier — what manner of man it might have made 
 of him. It was a good love. Mademoiselle saw 
 that quite clearly. For a dishonest man may at any 
 moment be tripped up by an honest passion. 
 Which is one of those practical jokes of Fate that 
 break men's hearts. 
 
 " You know as well as I do," said Colonel Gil- 
 bert, with more earnestness than he had ever 
 shown, " that the sooner you and mademoiselle are 
 out of the island the better." 
 
 " Bah ! " laughed mademoiselle. " "With you at 
 Bastia to watch over us, mon colonel ! Besides, we 
 Peruccas are invincible just now. Have we not 
 burnt down the Chateau de Vasselot ? " 
 
 Gilbert winced. Mademoiselle wondered why. 
 
 "I want it settled as soon as possible," put in 
 Denise, turning to the papers. " There is no need 
 of delay." 
 
 " None," acquiesced mademoiselle. She wanted 
 to sell Perucca and be done with it, and with the 
 island. She was a woman of iron nerve, but the 
 gloom and loneliness of Corsica had not left her at 
 ease. There was a haunting air of disaster that 
 seemed to brood over the whole land, with its miles
 
 AN UNDERSTANDING 24Y 
 
 and miles of untenanted mountains, its malarial 
 plains, and deserted sea-board. " None," she re- 
 peated. " But such transactions are not to be 
 carried through, in a woman's drawing-room, by 
 two women and a soldier." 
 
 She looked from one to the other. She did not 
 know why one wanted to buy and the other to sell. 
 She only knew that her own inclination was to 
 give them every assistance, and to give it even 
 against her better judgment. It could only be, 
 after all, the question of a little more or a little less 
 profit, and she, who had never had any money, knew 
 that the possession of it never makes a woman one 
 whit the happier. 
 
 " Then," said the colonel with his easy laugh — 
 for he was inimitable in the graceful art of yielding 
 — " Then, let us appoint a day to sign the necessary 
 agreements in the office of the notary at Bastia. I 
 tell you frankly I want to get you out of the 
 island." 
 
 The colonel stayed to lunch, and, whether by 
 accident or intention, made a better impression 
 than he had ever made before. He was intelligent, 
 easy, full of information and o rara avis ! proved 
 himself to be a man without conceit. He never 
 complained of his ill-fortune in life, but his individ- 
 uality thrust the fact into every mind, that this 
 was a man destined for distinction who had missed 
 it. He seemed to be riding through life for a fall, 
 and rode with his chin up, gay and dehonnah'e. 
 
 Mademoiselle Brun felt relieved by the thought
 
 248 THE ISLE OF UNKEST 
 
 that the end of Corsica, and this impossible Casa 
 Perucca, was in sight. She was gay as the little 
 grey mouse may be gay at some domestic festival. 
 She sent the widow to the cellar, and the occasion 
 was duly celebrated in a bottle of Mattel Perucca's 
 old wine. 
 
 "With coffee came the question of fixing a date for 
 the signature of the deed of sale at the notary's 
 office at Bastia. And instantly the mouse skipped, 
 as it were, into a retired corner of the conversation 
 and crouched silent, watching with bright eyes. 
 
 " I should like it to be done soon," said the 
 colonel, who, at the suggestion of his hostess, had 
 lighted a cigarette. He seemed more himself with 
 a cigarette between his fingers to contemplate with 
 a dreamy eye, to turn and twist in reflective idle- 
 ness. " You will understand that my future move- 
 ments are uncertain if, as now seems possible, the 
 war is not over." 
 
 " But surely it is over," put in Denise, quickly. 
 
 The colonel shrugged his shoulders. 
 
 " "Who can tell ? "We are in the hands of a few 
 journalists and lawyers, mademoiselle. If the men 
 of words say 'Resist,' we others are ready. I have 
 applied to be relieved of my command here, since 
 they are going to fortify Paris. Shall we say next 
 week?" 
 
 " To-day is Thursday — shall we say Monday ? " 
 replied Denise. 
 
 "Make it "Wednesday," suggested Mademoiselle 
 Brun from her silent corner.
 
 AN UNDERSTANDING 249 
 
 And after some discussion Wednesday was finally 
 selected. Mademoiselle Brun had no particular 
 reason why it should be Wednesday, in preference 
 to Monday, and, unlike most people in such circum- 
 stances, advanced none. 
 
 "We shall require witnesses," she said as the 
 colonel took his leave. " I shall be able to find two 
 to testify to the signature of Denise." 
 
 The colonel had apparently forgotten this neces- 
 sity. He thanked her and departed. 
 
 " And on Wednesday," he said, " I shall in reality 
 have the money in my pocket." 
 
 During the afternoon mademoiselle announced 
 her intention of walking to Olmeta. It would be 
 advisable to secure the Abbe Susini as a witness, 
 she said. He was a busy man, and a journey to 
 Bastia Avould of necessity take up his whole day. 
 Denise did not offer to accompany her, so she set 
 out alone at a quick pace, learnt, no doubt, in the 
 Rue des Saints Peres. 
 
 " They will not shoot at an old woman," she 
 said, and never looked aside. 
 
 The priest's housekeeper received her coldly. 
 Yes, the abbe was at home, she said, holding the 
 door ajar with scant hospitality. Mademoiselle 
 pushed it open and went into the narrow passage. 
 She had too much respect for a priest, and none 
 whatever for a priest's housekeeper, who kept a 
 house so badly. She looked at the dirty floor, and 
 with a subtle feminine irony, sought the mat 
 which was lying in the road outside the house.
 
 250 THE ISLE OF UNREST 
 
 She folded her hands at her waist, and still grasp- 
 ing her cheap cotton umbrella, waited to be an- 
 nounced. 
 
 The Abbe Susini received her in his little bare 
 study, where a few newspapers, half a dozen ancient 
 volumes of theology and a life of Napoleon the 
 Great, represented literature. He bowed silently 
 and drew forward his own horsehair armchair. 
 Mademoiselle Brun sat down, and crossed her hands 
 upon the hilt of her umbrella like a soldier at rest 
 under arms. She waited until the housekeeper had 
 closed the door and shuffled away to her own quar- 
 ters. Then she looked the resolute little abbe 
 straight in the eyes. 
 
 " Let us understand each other," she said. 
 
 " Bon Dieu ! upon what point, mademoiselle ? " 
 
 Mademoiselle was still looking at him. She per- 
 ceived that there were some points upon which the 
 priest did not desire to be understood. She held up 
 one finger in its neutral-coloured cotton glove, and 
 shook it slowly from side to side. 
 
 " None of your theology," she said ; " I come to 
 you as a man — the only man I think in this island 
 at present." 
 
 " At present ? " 
 
 " Yes, the other is in France, recovering from his 
 wounds." 
 
 " Ah ! " said the abbe, glancing shrewdly into her 
 face. " You also have perceived that he is a man 
 — that. But there is our good Colonel Gilbert. 
 You forget him."
 
 AN UNDEESTANDING 251 
 
 " He ATould have made a good priest," said made- 
 moiselle, bluntl}^, and the abbe laughed aloud. 
 
 " Ah ! but you amuse me, mademoiselle. You 
 amuse me enormously." And he leant back to 
 laugh at his ease. 
 
 " Yes, I came on purpose to amuse you. I came 
 to tell you that Denise Lange has sold Perucca to 
 Colonel Gilbert." 
 
 " Sacred name of — thunder," he muttered, the 
 mirth wiped away from his face as if with a cloth. 
 He sat bolt upright, glaring at her, his restless foot 
 tapping on the floor. 
 
 " Ah, you women ! " he ejaculated after a pause. 
 
 " Ah, you priests ! " returned Mademoiselle Brun, 
 composedly. 
 
 " And you did not stop it," he said, looking at 
 her with undisguised contempt. 
 
 " I have no control. I used to have a little ; now 
 I have none." 
 
 She finishe'd with a gesture, describing the action 
 of a leaf blown before the wind. 
 
 " But I have put off the signing of the papers 
 until "Wednesday," she continued. " I have under- 
 taken to provide two witnesses, yourself if you will 
 consent, the other — I thought we might get the 
 other from Frejus between now and Wednesday. 
 A boat from St. Florent to-night could surely, with 
 this wind, reach St. Kaphael to-morrow." 
 
 The abbe was looking at her with manifest ap- 
 proval. 
 
 " Clever," he said — " clever."
 
 252 THE ISLE OF UNKEST 
 
 Mademoiselle Brun rose to go as abruptly as she 
 had come. 
 
 " Personally," she said, " I shall be glad to be rid 
 of Perucca forever — but I fancied there are rea- 
 sons." 
 
 " Yes," said the priest, slowly, " there are rea- 
 sons." 
 
 " Oh ! I ask no questions," she snapped out at 
 him with her hand on the door. On the threshold 
 she paused. " All the same," she said, " I do ask a 
 question. Why does Colonel Gilbert want to 
 buy ? " 
 
 The priest threw up his hands in angry bewilder- 
 ment. 
 
 " That is it ! " he cried. " I wish I knew." 
 
 " Then find out," said mademoiselle, " between 
 now and "Wednesday." 
 
 And with a curt nod she left him.
 
 CHAPTER XXIV 
 
 "CE QUE FEMME VEUT " 
 
 " All nature is but art, unknown to thee ! 
 All chance, direction which thou canst not see." 
 
 It rained all night with a semi-tropical enthusi- 
 asm. The autumn rains are looked for in these lat- 
 itudes at certain dates, and if by chance they fail, 
 the whole winter will be disturbed and broken. 
 With sunrise, hoAvever, the clouds broke on the 
 western side of the island, and from the summit of 
 the great Perucca rock the blue and distant sea was 
 visible through the grey confusion of mist and 
 cloud. The autumn had been a dry one, so the 
 whole mountain-side was clothed in shades of red 
 and brown, rising from the scarlet of the black- 
 berry leaves to the deep amber of the bare rock, 
 Avhere all vegetation ceased. The distant peeps of 
 the valley of Vasselot glowed blue and purple, the 
 sea was a bright cobalt, and through the broken 
 clouds the sun cast shafts of yellow gold and shim- 
 mering silver. The whole effect was dazzling, and 
 such as dim Northern eyes can scarce imagine. 
 
 Mademoiselle Brun, who had just risen from the 
 table where she and Denise had had their early 
 breakfast of coffee and bread, was standing by the 
 
 253
 
 254 THE ISLE OF UNREST 
 
 window that opened upon the verandah where old 
 Mattel Perucca had passed so many hours of his 
 life. 
 
 " One should build on this spot," she began, " a 
 convalescent home for atheists." 
 
 She broke off, and staggered back. The room, 
 the verandah, the whole world it seemed, was shak- 
 ing and vibrating like a rickety steam-engine. For 
 a moment the human senses were paralysed by a 
 deafening roar and rattle. Mademoiselle Brun 
 turned to Denise, and for a time they clung to each 
 other ; and then Denise, whose strong young arms 
 half lifted her companion from the ground, gained 
 the open window. She held there for a moment, 
 and then staggered across the verandah and down 
 the steps, dragging mademoiselle with her. 
 
 There was no question of speech, of thought, of 
 understanding. They merely stood, holding to 
 each other, and watching the house. Then a sud- 
 den silence closed over the world, and all was still. 
 Denise turned and looked down into the valley, 
 smiling beneath them in its brilliant colouring. 
 Her hand was at her throat as if she were choking. 
 Mademoiselle, shaking in every limb, turned and 
 sat down on a garden seat. Denise would not sit, 
 but stood shaking and swaying like a reed in a mis- 
 tral. And yet each in her way was as brave a 
 woman as could be found even in their own coun- 
 try. 
 
 Mademoiselle Brun leant forward, and held her 
 head between her two hands, while she stared at
 
 "CE QUE FEMME VEUT" 255 
 
 the ground between her feet. At last speech came 
 to her, but not her natural voice. 
 
 " I suppose," she said, passing her little shrivelled 
 hand across her eyes, " that it was an earthquake." 
 
 " No," said Denise. '' Look ! " And she pointed 
 with a shaking finger down toward the river. 
 
 A great piece of the mountain-side, comprising 
 half a dozen vine terraces, a few olive terraces, and 
 a patch of pinewood, had fallen bodily down into 
 the river-bed, leaving the slope a bare and scarified 
 mass of rock and red soil. The little Guadelle 
 river, a tributary of the Aliso, was completely 
 dammed. Perucca was the poorer by the complete 
 disappearance of one of its sunniest slopes, but the 
 house stood unhurt. 
 
 "No more will fall," said Denise presently. 
 " See ; there is the bare rock." 
 
 Mademoiselle rose, and came slowly toward Den- 
 ise. They were recovering from their terror now. 
 For at all events, the cause of it lay before them, 
 and lacked the dread uncertainty of an earthquake. 
 Mademoiselle gave an odd laugh. 
 
 " It is the boundary-line betAveen Perucca and 
 Yasselot," she said, " that has fallen into the 
 valley." 
 
 Denise was thinking the same thought, and made 
 no answer. The footpath from the chateau up to 
 tiie Casa by which Gilbert had come on the day of 
 Mattel Perucca's death, b}'- which he had also rid- 
 den to the chateau one day, was completely obliter- 
 ated. Where it had crept along the face of the
 
 256 THE ISLE OF UNREST 
 
 slope, there now rose a bare red rock. There was 
 no longer a short cut from the one house to the 
 other. It made Perucca all the more inaccessible. 
 
 " Curious," whispered Mademoiselle Brun to her- 
 self, as she turned toward the house. She went in- 
 doors to get a hat, for the autumn sun was now 
 glaring down upon them. 
 
 When she came out again, Denise was sitting 
 looking thoughtfully down into the valley where 
 had once stood the old chateau, now gone, to which 
 had led this pathway, now wiped off the face of 
 the earth. 
 
 " There is assuredly," she said, without looking 
 round, " a curse upon this country." 
 
 Which Seneca had thought eighteen hundred 
 years before, and which the history of the islands 
 steadily confirms. 
 
 Mademoiselle was drawing on her gloves, and 
 carried her umbrella. 
 
 " I am going down the pathway to look at it all," 
 she said. 
 
 There was. nothing to be done. When ISTature 
 takes things into her own hands, men can only 
 stand by and look. Denise was perhaps more 
 shaken than the smaller, tougher woman. She 
 made no attempt to accompany mademoiselle, but 
 sat in the shade of a mimosa tree, and watched her 
 descend into the valley, now appearing, now hid- 
 den, in the brushwood. 
 
 Mademoiselle Brun made her way to the spot 
 where the pathway was suddenly cut short by the
 
 "CE QUE FEMME VEUT" 257 
 
 avalanche of rock and rubble and soil. It hap- 
 pened to be the exact spot where Colonel Gilbert's 
 heavy horse had stumbled months before, where 
 the footpath crossed the bed of a small mountain 
 torrent. A few loosened stones had come bowling 
 down the slope, set free by the landslip. These 
 had fallen onto the pathway, and there shattered 
 themselves into a thousand pieces. Mademoiselle 
 stood among the debris. She looked down in order 
 to make sure of her foothold, and something caught 
 her eye. She knelt down eagerly, and then, look- 
 ing up, glanced round surreptitiously like a thief. 
 She could not see the Casa Perucca. She was 
 alone on this solitary mountain-side. Slowly she 
 collected the debris of the broken rock, which was 
 mixed with a red powdery soil. 
 
 " Ciel ! " she whispered, " Ciel ! what fools we 
 have all been ! " 
 
 She rose from her knees with one clasped hand- 
 ful of rubble. Slowly and thoughtfully she climbed 
 the hill again. On the terrace, where she arrived 
 hot and tired, the widow Andrei met her. The 
 woman had been to the village on an errand, and 
 had returned during mademoiselle's absence. 
 
 " The Abbe Susini awaits you in the library," 
 she said. " He asked for you and not for made- 
 moiselle, who has gone to her own garden," 
 
 Mademoiselle hurried into the librarv. The ar- 
 rival of the abbe at this moment seemed provi- 
 dential, though the explanation of it was simple 
 enough.
 
 258 THE ISLE OF UNREST 
 
 " I came/' he said, looking at her keenly, " on a 
 fool's errand. I came to ask whether the ladies 
 were afraid." 
 
 Mademoiselle gave a chilly smile. 
 
 " The ladies were not afraid, Monsieur I'Abbe," 
 she said. " They were terrified — since you ask." 
 
 She went to a side-table and brought a news- 
 paper ; for even in her excitement she was scrupu- 
 lously tidy. She laid it on the table in front of the 
 abbe, rather awkwardl}'- with her left hand, and 
 then, holding her right over the newspaper, she 
 suddenly opened it, and let fall a little heap of 
 stones and soil. Some of the stones had a singular 
 rounded appearance. 
 
 The abbe treated her movements with the kindly 
 interest offered at the shrine of childhood or imbe- 
 cility. It Avas evident that he supposed that the 
 landslip had unhinged Mademoiselle Brun's reason. 
 
 " What is that ? " he asked soothingly, contem- 
 plating the mineral trophy. 
 
 " I think," answered mademoiselle, " that it is 
 the explanation." 
 
 " The explanation of what, if one may inquire ?" 
 
 " Of your precious colonel," said mademoiselle. 
 " That is gold. Monsieur I'Abbe. I have seen sim- 
 ilar dirt in a museum in Paris." She took up one 
 of the pebbles. " Scrape it with your knife," she 
 said, handing it to him. 
 
 The abbe obeyed her, and volunteered on his 
 own account to bite it. He handed it back to her 
 with the marks of his teeth on it, and one side of
 
 "CE QUE FEMME VEUT" 259 
 
 it scraped clean showing pure gold. Then he walked 
 pensively to the window, where he stood with his 
 back turned to her in deep thought for some min- 
 utes. At length he turned on his heel and looked 
 at her. 
 
 " It began," he said, holding up one finger and 
 shaking it slowly from side to side, which seemed 
 to indicate that his hearer must be silent for a while, 
 " long ago. I see it now." 
 
 " Part of it," corrected mademoiselle, inexorably. 
 
 " He must have discovered it two years ago when 
 he first surveyed this country for the proposed rail- 
 w^ay. I see now why that man from St. Florent 
 shot Pietro Andrei on the highroad. Pietro An- 
 drei was in the way, and a little subtle revival of a 
 forgotten vendetta secured his removal. I see now 
 whence came the anonymous letter intended to 
 frighten Mattel Perucca away from here. It 
 frightened him into the next world." 
 
 "And I see now," interrupted the refractory 
 listener, " w^hy Denise received an offer for the 
 estate before she had become possessed of it, and 
 an offer of marriage before we had been here a 
 month. But he tripped and fell then," she con- 
 cluded grimly. 
 
 " And all for money," said the abbe, contemptu- 
 ously. 
 
 " Wait," said mademoiselle — " wait till you have 
 yourself been tempted. So many fall. It must be 
 greater than we think, that temptation. You and 
 I perhaps have never had it."
 
 260 THE ISLE OF UNREST 
 
 " No," replied the abbe, simply. " There has 
 never been more than a sou in my poor-box at the 
 church. I see now," continued Susini, " who has 
 been stirring up this old strife between the Per- 
 uccas and the Vasselots — offering, as he was, to 
 buy from one and the other alternately. This di7't, 
 mademoiselle, must lie on both estates." 
 
 " It lies between the two." 
 
 The priest was deep in thought, rubbing his 
 stubbly chin with two fingers. 
 
 " I see so much now," he said at length, " which 
 I never understood before." 
 
 He turned toward the window, and looked down 
 at the rocky slope with a new interest. 
 
 " There must be a great quantity of it," he said 
 reflectively. " He has walked over so many obsta- 
 cles to get to it, with his pleasant laugh." 
 
 " He has walked over his own heart," said made- 
 moiselle, persistently contemplating the question 
 from the woman's point of view. 
 
 The priest moved impatiently. 
 
 " I was thinking of men's lives," he said. Then 
 he turned and faced her with a sudden gleam in his 
 eye. " There is one thing yet unexplained — the 
 burning of the Chateau de Yasselot. An empty 
 house does not ignite itself. Explain me that." 
 
 Mademoiselle shrugged her shoulders. 
 
 " That still remains to be explained," she said. 
 " In the meantime we must act." 
 
 "I know that — I know that," he cried. " I have 
 acted ! I am acting ! De Yasselot arrives in Cor-
 
 "CE QUE FEMME VEUT " 261 
 
 sica to-morrow night. A letter from him crossed 
 the message I sent to him by a special boat from St. 
 Florent last night." 
 
 " "What brings him here ? " 
 
 The abbe turned and looked at her with scorn. 
 
 " Bah ! " he cried. " You know as well as I. It 
 is the eyes of Mademoiselle Denise." 
 
 He took his hat and went toward the door. 
 
 " On Wednesday morning, if you do not see me 
 before, at the office of the notary, in the Boulevard 
 du Palais at Bastia," he said. " Where there will 
 be a pretty salad for Mister the Colonel, prepared 
 for him by a woman and a priest — eh ! Both A-^our 
 witnesses shall be there, mademoiselle — both." 
 
 He broke off with a laugh and an upward jerk of 
 the head. 
 
 " Ah ! but he is a pretty scoundrel, your colonel." 
 
 " He is not my colonel," returned Mademoiselle 
 Brun. " Besides, even he has his good points. He 
 is brave, and he is capable of an honest affection." 
 
 The priest gave a scornful laugh. 
 
 " Ah ! you women," he cried. " You think that 
 excuses everything. You do not know that if it is 
 worth anything it should make a man better instead 
 of worse. Otherwise it is not worth a snap of my 
 finger — your honest affection." 
 
 And he came back into the room on purpose to 
 snap his finger, in his rude way, quite close to Ma- 
 demoiselle Brun's parchment face.
 
 CHAPTEE XXY 
 
 ON THE GREAT ROAD 
 
 " Look in my face ; my name is Might-Have-Been. 
 I am also called No More, Too Late, Farewell." 
 
 " This," said the captain of the Jane, the Baron 
 de Melide's yacht, " is the bay of St. Florent. We 
 anchor a little further in." 
 
 " Yes," answered Lory, who stood on the bridge 
 beside the sailor, " I know it. I am glad to see it 
 again — to smell the smell of Corsica again." 
 
 "Monsieur le Comte is attached to his native 
 country ? " suggested the captain, consulting the 
 chart which he held folded in his hand. 
 
 De Vasselot was looking through a pair of marine 
 glasses across the hills to where the Perucca rock 
 jutted out of the mountain-side. 
 
 " No ; I hate it. But I am glad to come back," 
 he said. 
 
 " Monsieur will be welcomed by his people. It 
 is a great power, the voice of the people." For the 
 captain was a Eepublican. 
 
 " It is the bleating of sheep, mon capitaine," re- 
 turned de Yasselot, with a laugh. 
 
 They stood side by side in silence while the 
 steamer crept steadily forward into the shallow 
 bay. Already a boat had left the town wall, and 
 
 262
 
 ON THE GREAT ROAD 263 
 
 was sailing out leisurely on the evening breeze to- 
 ward them. It came alongside. De Vasselot gave 
 some last instructions to the captain, said farewell, 
 and left the ship. It was a soldier's breeze, and 
 the boat ran free. In a few minutes de Vasselot 
 stepped ashore. The abbe was waiting for him at 
 the steps. It was almost dark, but de Vasselot 
 could see the priest's black eyes flashing with some 
 new excitement. De Vasselot held out his hand, 
 but Susini made a movement, of which the new- 
 comer recognised the significance in his quick way. 
 He took a step forward, and they embraced after 
 the manner of the French. 
 
 " Voila ! " said the abbe, " we are friends at last." 
 
 " I have always known that you were mine," an- 
 swered Lory. 
 
 " Good. And now I have bad news for you. A 
 friend's privilege, Monsieur le Comte." 
 
 " Ah," said Lory, looking sharply at him. 
 
 " Your father. I have found him and lost him 
 again. I found him where I knew he would be, in 
 the macquis, living the life that they live there, 
 with perfect tranquillity. Jean was with him. By 
 some means or other Jean got wind of a proposed 
 investigation of the chateau. The Peruccas people 
 have been stirred up lately ; but that is a long story 
 which I cannot tell you now. At all events, they 
 quitted the chateau a few hours before the house 
 was mysteriously burnt down. To-day I received 
 a message from Jean. Your father left their camp 
 before daybreak to-day. All night he had been
 
 264 THE ISLE OF UNKEST 
 
 restless. He was in a panic that the Peruccas are 
 seeking him. He is no longer responsible, mon 
 ami ; his mind is gone. From his muttered talk of 
 the last few days, they conclude that he is making 
 his way south to Bonifacio, in order to cross the 
 straits from there to Sardinia. He is on foot, alone, 
 and deranged. There is my news." 
 
 " And Jean ? " asked de Vasselot, curtly ; for he 
 was quick in decision and in action. 
 
 " Jean has but half recovered from an accident. 
 The small bone of his leg was broken hy a fall. 
 He is following on the back of an old horse which 
 cannot trot, the only one he could procure. I have 
 ready for you a good horse. You have but to fol- 
 low the track over the mountains due south — you 
 know the stars, you, who are a cavalry officer — 
 until you join the Corte road at Ponte Alle Leccia, 
 then there is but the one road to Bocognano. If you 
 overtake your poor father, you have but to detain 
 him until Jean comes up. You may trust Jean to 
 bring him safely back to the yacht here as arranged. 
 But you must be at Bastia at the Hotel Clement at 
 ten o'clock on Wednesday morning. That is abso- 
 lutely necessary. You understand — life or death, 
 you must be there. I and a woman, who is clever 
 enough, are mixing a salad for some one at Bastia 
 on Wednesday morning, and it is you who are the 
 vinegar." 
 
 " Where is the horse ? " asked Lory. 
 
 " It is a few paces away. Come, I will show 
 you."
 
 ON THE GEEAT ROAD 265 
 
 " Ah ! " cried Lory, whose voice had a ring of ex- 
 citement in it that always came when action was 
 imminent. " But I cannot go at that pace. It is 
 not only Jean who has but one leg. Your arm — 
 thank you. ISTow we can go." 
 
 And he limped by the side of Susini through the 
 dark alle3^s of St, Florent. The horse was waiting 
 for them beneath an archway which de Vasselot re- 
 membered. It was the entry to the stable where 
 he had left his horse on the occasion of his first ar- 
 rival in Corsica. 
 
 " Aha ! " he said, with a sort of glee as he settled 
 himself in the saddle. " It is good to be across a 
 horse again. Pity you are a priest ; you might 
 come with me. It will be a fine night for a ride. 
 What a pity you are a priest ! You were not 
 meant for one, you know." 
 
 " I am as the good God made me, and a little 
 worse," returned Susini, " That is your road." 
 
 And so they parted. Lory rode on, happy in that 
 he was called upon to act without too much 
 thought. For those who think most, laugh least, 
 De Yasselot's life had been empty enough until the 
 outbreak of the war, and now it was full to over- 
 flowing. And though France had fallen, and he 
 himself, it would appear, must be a pauper ; though his 
 father must inevitably be a living sorrow, which one 
 who tasted it has told us is worse than a dead one ; 
 though Denise would have nothing to sa}'" to him, — 
 yet he was happier than he had ever been. He was 
 wise enough not to sift his happiness. He had
 
 266 THE ISLE OF UNREST 
 
 never spoken of it to others. It is wise not to con- 
 fide one's happiness to another ; he may pull it to 
 pieces in his endeavour to find out how it is made. 
 
 The onlooker may only guess at the inner parts 
 of another's life ; but at times one may catch a 
 glimpse of the light that another sees. And it is, 
 therefore, to be safely presumed that Lory de Yas- 
 selot found a certain happiness in the unswerving 
 execution of his duty. Not only as a soldier, but as 
 a man, he rejoiced in a strict sense of duty, which, 
 in sober earnest, is one of the best gifts that a man 
 may possess. He had not inherited it from father 
 or mother. He had not acquired it at St. Cyr. He 
 had merely received it at second-hand from Made- 
 moiselle Brun, at third-hand from that fat old 
 General Lange who fell at Solferino. For the 
 schoolgirl in the Rue du Cherche-Midi was quite 
 right when she had pounced upon Mademoiselle 
 Brun's secret, which, however, lay safely dead and 
 buried on that battlefield. And Mademoiselle 
 Brun had taught, had shaped Henri de Melide ; and 
 Henri de Melide had always been Lory de Vasse- 
 lot's best friend. So the thin silver thread of good 
 had been woven through the web of more lives 
 than the little woman ever dreamt. Who shall say 
 what good or what evil the meanest of us may thus 
 accomplish ? 
 
 De Vasselot never thought of these things. He 
 was content to go straight ahead without looking 
 down those side paths into which so many immature 
 thinkers stray. He had fought at Sedan, had
 
 ON THE GREAT ROAD 267 
 
 thrown his life with no niggard hand into the 
 balance. "When wounded he had cunningly escaped 
 the attentions of the oflBcial field hospitals. He 
 might easily have sent in his name to Prussian 
 headquarters as that of a wounded officer begging 
 to be released on parole. But he cherished the 
 idea of living to fight another day. Denise, with 
 word and glance, and, more potent still, with 
 silence, had tempted him a hundred times to aban- 
 don the idea of further service to France. " She 
 does not understand," he concluded ; and he threw 
 Denise into the balance. She made it clear to him 
 that he must choose between her and France. 
 Without hesitation he threw his happiness into the 
 balance. For this Corsican — this dapper sportsman 
 of the Bois de Boulogne and Longchamps — was, 
 after all, that creation of which the world has need 
 to be most proud — a man. 
 
 Duty had been his guiding light, though he him- 
 self would have laughed the gayest denial to such 
 an accusation. Duty had brought him to Corsica. 
 And — for there is no human happiness that is not 
 spiced by duty — he had the hope of seeing Denise. 
 
 He rode up the valley of the Guadelle blithely 
 enough, despite the fact that his leg pained him and 
 his left arm ached abominably. Of course, he 
 would find his father — he knew that ; and the peace 
 and quiet of some rural home in France would re- 
 store the wandering reason. And all was for the 
 best in the best possible world ! For Lory was a 
 Frenchman, and into the French nature there has
 
 268 THE ISLE OF UNEEST 
 
 assuredly filtered some of the light of that sunny 
 land. 
 
 At more than one turn of the road he looked up 
 toward Perucca. Once he saw a light in one of the 
 windows of the old house. Slowly he climbed to 
 the level of the tableland ; and Denise, sitting at 
 the open -window, heard the sound of his horse's 
 feet, and -wondered w^ho might be abroad at that 
 hour. He glanced at the ruined chapel that towers 
 above the Chateau de Yasselot on its rocky prom- 
 ontory, and peered curiously down into the black 
 valley, where the charred remains of his ancestral 
 home are to be found to this day. Murato was 
 asleep — a silent group of stone-roofed houses, one 
 of w^hich, however, had seen the birth of a man no- 
 torious enough in his day — Fieschi, the would-be 
 assassin of Louis Philippe. Every village in this 
 island has, it would seem, the odour of blood. 
 
 The road now mounted steadily, and presently 
 led through the rocky defile vrhere Susini had 
 turned back on a similar errand scarce a week 
 earlier. The rider now emerged into the open, and 
 made his careful way along the face of a mountain. 
 The chill air bespoke a great altitude, which was 
 confirmed by that waiting, throbbing silence which 
 is of the summits. Far down on the right, across 
 rolling ranges of lower hills, a steady pin-point of 
 light twinkled like a star. It was the lighthouse 
 of Punta-Kevellata, by Calvi, twenty miles away. 
 
 The night was clear and dark. A few clouds lay 
 on the horizon to the south, and all the dome of
 
 ON THE GREAT ROAD 269 
 
 heaven was a glittering field of stars. De Yasse- 
 lot's horse was small and wiry — part Arab, part 
 mountain pony — and attended to his own affairs 
 with the careful and surprising intelligence pos- 
 sessed by horses, mules, and donkeys that are born 
 and bred to mountain roads. After Murato the 
 track had descended sharply, only to mount again 
 to the heights dividing the watersheds of the Be- 
 vinco and the Golo. And now de Vasselot could 
 hear the Golo roaring in its rocky bed in the valley 
 below. He knew that he was safe now, for he had 
 merely to follow the river till it led him to the high- 
 road at Ponte Alle Leccia. The country here was 
 more fertile, and the track led through the thickest 
 macquis. The subtle scent of flowering bushes 
 filled the air with a cool, soft flavour, almost to be 
 tasted on the lips, of arbutus, myrtle, cistus, olean- 
 der, tamarisk, and a score of flowering heaths. The 
 silence here was broken incessantly by the stirring 
 of the birds, which swarm in these berry-bearing 
 coppices. 
 
 The track crossed the narrow, flat valley, where, 
 a hundred years earlier, had been fought the last 
 great fight that finally subjugated Corsica to 
 France. Here de Yasselot passed through some 
 patches of cultivated ground — rare enough in this 
 fertile land — noted the shadowy shape of a couple 
 of houses, and suddenly found himself on the high- 
 road. He had spared his horse hitherto, but now 
 urged the willing beast to a better pace. This took 
 the form of an uneven, fatiguing trot, which, how-
 
 270 THE ISLE OF UNEEST 
 
 ever, made good account of the kilometres, and de 
 Yasselot noted mechanically the recurrence of the 
 little square stones every five or six minutes. 
 
 It was during that darkest hour which precedes 
 the dawn that he skirted the old capital, Corte, 
 straggling up the hillside to the towering citadel 
 standing out grey and solemn against its background 
 of great mountains. The rider could now see 
 dimly a snow-clad height here and there. Halfway 
 between Corte and Yivario, where the road climbs 
 thi'ough bare heights, he paused, and then hurried 
 on again. He had heard in this desert stillness the 
 beat of a horse's feet on the road in front of him. 
 He was not mistaken, for when he drew up to listen. 
 a second time there Avas no sound. The rider had 
 stopped, and was waiting for him. The outline of 
 his form could be seen against the starry sky at a 
 turn in the road further up the mountain-side. 
 
 " Is that you, Jean ? " cried Lory. 
 
 " Yes," answered the voice of the man who rarely 
 spoke. 
 
 The two horses exchanged a low, gurgled greet- 
 ing. 
 
 " Are we on the right road ? What is the next 
 village ? " asked Lory. 
 
 " The next is a town — Yivario. We are on the 
 right road. At Yivario turn to the right, where 
 the road divides. He is going that way, through 
 Bocognano and Bastelica to Sartene and Bonifacio. 
 I have heard of him many times, from one and the 
 other."
 
 ON THE GKEAT ROAD 271 
 
 From one and the other ! De Yasselot half 
 turned in his saddle to glance back at the road over 
 which he had travelled. He had seen and heard 
 no one all through the night. 
 
 " He procured a horse at Corte last evening," 
 continued Jean. " It seems a good one. What is 
 yours ? " 
 
 " I have not seen mine," answered de Yasselot ; 
 " I can only feel him. But I think there are thirty 
 kilometres in him yet." As he spoke he had his 
 hand in his pocket. "Here," he said. "Take 
 some money. Get a better horse at Vivario and 
 follow me. It will be daylight in an hour. Tell 
 me again the names of the places on the road." 
 
 "Yivario, Bocognano, Bastelica, Cauro, Sartene, 
 Bonifacio," repeated Jean, like a lesson. 
 
 " Vivario, Bocognano, Bastelica, Cauro, Sartene," 
 muttered de Vasselot, as he rode on. 
 
 He was in the great forest of Yizzavona when the 
 day broke, and he saw through the giant pines the 
 rosy tints of sunrise on the summit of Monte D'Oro, 
 from whence at dawn may be seen the coast-line 
 of Italy and France and, like dots upon a map, all 
 the islets of the sea. Still he met no one — had seen 
 no living being but Jean since quitting St. Florent 
 at the other extremity of the island. 
 
 It was freezingly cold at the summit of the pass 
 where the road traverses a cleft in the mountain- 
 range, and de Yasselot felt that weariness which 
 comes to men, however strong, just before the dawn 
 ends a sleepless night. The horse, as he had told
 
 272 THE ISLE OF UNREST 
 
 Jean, was still fresh enough, and gained new energy 
 as the air grew lighter. The mountain town of 
 Bocognano lies below the road, and the scent of 
 burning pinewood told that the peasants were astir. 
 Here de Vasselot quitted the highway, and took a 
 side-road to Bastelica. As he came round the 
 slope of Monte Mezzo, the sun climbed up into the 
 open sky, and flooded the broad valley of the 
 Prunelli with light. De Vasselot had been cross- 
 ing watersheds all night, climbing out of one valley 
 only to descend into another, crossing river after 
 river with a monotony only varied by the various 
 dangers of the bridges. The valley of the Prunelli 
 seemed no different from others until he looked 
 across it, and perceived his road mounting on the 
 opposite slope. A single horseman was riding 
 southward at a good pace. It was his father at 
 last.
 
 CHAPTER XXYI 
 
 THE END OF THE JOURNEY 
 
 " La journee sera dure, 
 Mais elle se passera." 
 
 At the sight of the horseman on the road in 
 front of him, those instincts of the chase which 
 must inevitably be found in all manly hearts, were 
 suddenly aroused, and Lory surprised his willing 
 horse by using the spurs, of which the animal had 
 hitherto been happily ignorant. 
 
 At the same time he made a mistake. He gave 
 an eager shout, quite forgetting that the count had 
 never seen him in uniform, and would inevitably 
 perceive the glint of his accoutrements in the sun- 
 light. The instinct of the macquis was doubtless 
 strong upon the fugitive. There are certain habits 
 of thought acquired in a brief period of outlawry, 
 which years of respectability can never efface. The 
 count, who had lived in secrecy more than half his 
 life, took fright at the sight of a sword, and down 
 the quiet valley of the Prunelli father and son 
 galloped one after the other — a wild and uncanny 
 chase. 
 
 With the cunning of the hunted, the count left 
 the road by the first opening he saw — a path leading 
 into a pine-wood ; but over this rough ground the 
 
 273
 
 274 THE ISLE OF UNREST 
 
 trained soldier was equal to the native-born. The 
 track only led to the open road again at a higher 
 level, and de Vasselot had gained on his father 
 when they emerged from the wood. 
 
 Lory had called to his father once or twice, 
 reassuring him, but without effect. The old count 
 sat low in his saddle and urged his horse with a 
 mechanical jerk of the heels. Thus they passed 
 through the village of Bastelica — a place with an 
 evil name. It was early still, and but few were 
 astir, for the peasants of the South are idle. In 
 Corsica, moreover, the sight of a flying man always 
 sends others into hiding. No man wishes to see 
 him, though all sympathies are with him, and the 
 pursuer is avoided as if he bore the plague. 
 
 In Bastelica there were none but closed doors 
 and windows. A few children playing in the 
 road instinctively ran to their homes, where their 
 mothers drew them hurriedly indoors. The Bas- 
 telicans would have nought to do with the law or 
 the law-breaker. It Avas the sullen indifference of 
 the crushed, but the unconquered. 
 
 Down into the valley, across another river — the 
 southern branch of the Prunelli — and up again. 
 Cauro was above them — a straggling village with 
 one large square house and a little church — Cauro, 
 the stepping-stone between civilisation and those 
 wild districts about Sartene where the law has 
 never yet penetrated. Lory de Vasselot had 
 gained a little on the downward incline. He 
 could now see that his father's clothes were mud-
 
 THE END OF THE JOUKNEY 275 
 
 stained and torn, that his long white hair was ill- 
 kempt. But the pursuer's horse was tired ; for de 
 Yasselot had been unable to relieve him of his 
 burden all through the night. Lame and disabled, 
 he could not mount or dismount without assistance. 
 On the upward slope, where the road climbs through 
 a rocky gorge, the fugitive gained ground. Out on 
 the open road again, within sight of Cauro, the 
 count's horse showed signs of distress, but gained 
 visibly. The count was unsteady in the saddle, 
 riding heedlessly. In an instant de Yasselot saw 
 the danger. His father was dropping with fatigue, 
 and might at any moment fall from the saddle. 
 " Stop," he cried, " or I will shoot your horse ! " 
 The count took no notice. Perhaps he did not 
 hear. The road now mounted in a zigzag. The 
 fugitive was already at the angle. In a few mo- 
 ments he would be back again at a higher level. 
 Lory knew he could never overtake the fresher 
 horse. There was but one chance — the chance per- 
 haps of two shots as his father passed along the 
 road above him. Should the gendarmes of Cauro, 
 where there is a strong station, see this fugitive, so 
 evidently from the macquis. with all the signs of 
 outlawry upon him, they would fire upon him with- 
 out hesitation. Also he might at any moment fall 
 from the saddle and be dragged by the stirrup. 
 
 De Yasselot drew across the road to the outer 
 edge of it, from whence he could command a better 
 view of the upper slope. The count came on at a 
 steady trot. He looked down with eyes that had
 
 276 THE ISLE OF UNREST 
 
 no reason in them and yet no fear. He saw the 
 barrel of the revolver, polished by long use in an 
 inner pocket, and looked fearlessly into it. Lory 
 fired and missed. His father threw back his head 
 and laughed. His white hair fluttered in the wind. 
 There was time for another shot. Lory took a 
 longer aim, remembering to fire low, and horse and 
 rider suddenly dropped behind the low wall of the 
 upper road. De Vasselot rode on. 
 
 " It was the horse — it must have been the horse," 
 he said to himself, with misgiving in his heart. He 
 turned the corner at a gallop. On the road in 
 front, the horse was struggling to rise, but the 
 count lay quite still in the dust. Lory dismounted 
 as well as he could. Mechanically he tied the two 
 horses together, then turned toward his father. 
 With his uninjured hand he took the old man by the 
 shoulder and raised him. The dishevelled white 
 head fell to one side with a jerk that was unmistak- 
 able. The count was dead. And Lory de Yasselot 
 found himself face to face with that question 
 which so many have with them all through life : 
 the question whether at a certain point in the 
 crooked road of life he took the wrong or right 
 turning. 
 
 Death itself had no particular terror for de 
 Yasselot. It was his trade, and it is easier to be- 
 come familiar Avith death than with suffering. He 
 dragged his father to the side of the road where a 
 great chestnut tree cast a shadow still, though its 
 leaves were falling. Then he looked round him.
 
 THE END OF THE JOURNEY 277 
 
 There was no one in sight. He knew, moreover, 
 that he was in a country where the report of fire- 
 arms repels rather than attracts attention. It oc- 
 curred to him at that moment that his father's horse 
 had risen to its feet — a fact which had suggested 
 nothing to his mind when he had tied the two 
 bridles together. He examined the animal care- 
 fully. There was no blood upon it; no wound. 
 The dust was rubbed away from the knees. The 
 horse had crossed its legs and fallen as it started at 
 the second report of his pistol. 
 
 Lory turned and stooped over his father. Here 
 again, was no blood — only the evidence of a broken 
 neck. Still, though indirectly, Lory de Vasselot 
 had killed his father. It was well for him that he 
 was a soldier — taught by experience to give their 
 true value to the strange changes of life and death. 
 Moreover, he w^as a Frenchman — gay in life and 
 reckless of its end. 
 
 He sat down by the side of the road and remem- 
 bered the Abbe Susini's words : " Life or death, 
 you must be at Bastia on Wednesday morning." 
 
 Mechanically, he drew his watch from within his 
 tunic, which Avas white with dust. The watch had 
 run down. And when Jean arrived a few minutes 
 later, he found Lory de Vasselot sitting in the 
 shade of the great chestnut tree, by the side of his 
 dead father, sleepily winding up his w^atch. 
 
 " I fired at the horse to lame it — it crossed its 
 legs and fell, throwing him against the waU," he 
 said, shortly.
 
 278 THE ISLE OF UNEEST 
 
 Jean lifted Jiis master, noted the swinging head, 
 and laid him gently down again. 
 
 " Heaven soon takes those who are useless," he 
 said. 
 
 Then he slipped his hand within the old man's 
 jacket. The inner pockets were stuffed full of 
 papers, which Jean carefully withdrew. Some 
 were tied together with pink tape, long since faded 
 to a dull grey. He made one packet of them all 
 and handed them to Lory. 
 
 " It was for those that they burnt the chateau," 
 he said ; " but we have outwitted them." 
 
 De Vasselot turned the clumsy parcel in his 
 hand. 
 
 " What is it ? " he asked. 
 
 " It is the papers of Vasselot and Perucca — your 
 title-deeds." 
 
 Lory laid the papers on the bank beside him. 
 
 " In your pocket," corrected Jean, gruffly. " That 
 is the place for them." 
 
 And while Lory was securing the packet inside 
 his tunic, the unusually silent man spoke again. 
 
 " It is Fate who has handed them to you," he 
 said. 
 
 " Then you think that Fate has time to think of 
 the affairs of the Yasselots ? " 
 
 " I believe it, monsieur le comte." 
 
 They fell to talking of the past, and of the count. 
 Then de Vasselot told his companion that he must 
 be in Bastia in less than twenty-four hours, and 
 Jean, whose gloomy face was drawn and pinched
 
 THE END OF THE JOURNEY 2^79 
 
 by past hardships, and a present desire for sleep, 
 was alert in a moment. 
 
 " When the abbe says it, it is important," he said. 
 
 " But it is easily done," protested de Vasselot, who 
 like many men of action had a certain contempt 
 for those crises in life which are but matters of 
 words. Which is a mistake ; for as the world pro- 
 gresses it grows more verbose, and for one moment 
 of action, there are in men's lives to-day a million 
 words. 
 
 "It is to be done," answered Jean, "but not 
 easily. You must ride to Porto Yecchib and there 
 find a man called Casabianda. You will find him 
 on the quay or in the Cafe Amis. Tell him your 
 name, and that you must be at Bastia by daybreak. 
 He has a good boat." 
 
 Lory rose to his feet. There was a light in his 
 tired eyes, and he sighed as he passed his hand 
 across them, for the thought of further action was 
 like wine to him. 
 
 " But I must sleep, Jean, I must sleep," he said, 
 lightly. 
 
 " You can do that in Casabianda's boat," an- 
 swered Jean, who was already changing de Vasse- 
 lot's good saddle to the back of his own fresher 
 horse. 
 
 Jean had to lift his master into the saddle, which 
 office the wiry Susini had performed for him at St. 
 Florent fourteen hours earlier. There is a good inn 
 at Cauro where de Vasselot procured a cup of 
 coffee and some bread without dismounting. Jean
 
 280 THE ISLE OF UNEEST 
 
 had given him a list of names, and the route to 
 Porto Vecchio was not a difficult one, though it led 
 through a deserted country. By midday, de Yasse- 
 lot caught sight of the Eastern sea ; by three o'clock 
 he saw the great gulf of Porto Vecchio, and before 
 sunset he rode, half-asleep, into the ancient town 
 with its crumbling walls and ill-paved streets. He 
 had ridden in safety through one of the waste 
 places of this province of France — a canton wherein 
 a few years ago a well-known bandit had forbidden 
 the postal-service, and that postal-service was not — 
 and he knew enough to be aware that the mysteri- 
 ous messengers of the macquis had cleared the way 
 before him. But de Vasselot only fully realised 
 the magic of his own name when he at length 
 found the man, Casabianda — a scoundrel whose 
 personal appearance must assuredly have condemned 
 him without further evidence in any court of justice 
 except a Corsican court — who bowed before him as 
 before a king, and laid violent hands upon his wife 
 and daughter a few minutes later because the do- 
 mestic linen chest failed to rise to the height of a 
 clean table cloth. 
 
 The hospitality of Casabianda outlasted the sun. 
 He had the virtues of his primitive race, and that 
 appreciation of a guest which urges the entertainer 
 to give not only the best that he has, but the best 
 that he can borrow or steal. 
 
 " There is no breeze," said this Porto Yecchian, 
 jovially ; " it will come with the night. In wait- 
 ing, this is Avine of Balagna."
 
 THE END OF THE JOUKNEY 281 
 
 And he drank perdition to the Peruccas. 
 
 With nig'litfall they set sail ; the great lateen 
 swinging lazily under the pressure of those light 
 airs that flit to and fro over the islands at evening 
 and sunrise. All the arts of civilisation have as 
 yet failed to approach the easiest of all modes of 
 progression and conveyance — sailing on a light 
 breeze. For here is speed without friction, passage 
 through the air without opposition, for it is the air 
 that urges. Afloat, Casabianda was a silent man. 
 His seafaring was of a surreptitious nature, per- 
 haps. For companion, he had one with no roof to 
 his mouth, whose speech was incomprehensible — an 
 excellent thing in law-breakers. 
 
 De Vasselot was soon asleep, and slept all through 
 that quiet night. He awoke to find the dawn 
 spreading its pearly light over the sea. The great 
 plain of Biguglia lay to the left under a soft blanket 
 of mist, as deadly they say, as any African miasma, 
 above which the distant mountains raised summits 
 already tinged with rose. Ahead and close at 
 hand, the old town of Bastia jutted out into the 
 sea, the bluff Genoese bastion concealing the har- 
 bour from view. De Vasselot had never been to 
 Bastia, which Casabianda described as a great and 
 bewildering city, where the unwary might soon lose 
 himself. The man of incomprehensible speech w^as, 
 therefore, sent ashore to conduct Lory to the Hotel 
 Clement. Casabianda, himself, would not land. 
 The place reeked, he said, of the gendarmerie, and 
 was offensive to his nostrils.
 
 282 THE ISLE OF UXEEST 
 
 Clement had not opened his hospitable door. The 
 street door, of course, alTvays stood open, and the 
 donkey that lived in the entrance-hall ^ras astir. 
 Lory dismissed his guide, and after ringing a bell 
 which tinkled rather disappointingly just within 
 the door, sat down patiently on the stairs to wait. 
 At length the ancient chambermaid (who is no 
 servant, but just a woman, in the strictly domestic 
 sense of that fashionable word) reluctantly opened 
 the door. French and Italian were alike incom- 
 prehensible to this lady, and de Tasselot was still 
 explaining with much volubility, and a wealth of 
 gesture, that the man he sought wore a tonsure, 
 when Clement himseK, affable and supremely indif- 
 ferent to the scantiness of his own attire, appeared. 
 
 " Take the gentleman to number eleven," he com- 
 manded ; " the Abbe Susini expects him." 
 
 The last statement appeared to be made with that 
 breadth of veracity which is the special privilege of 
 hotel-keepers all the world over ; for the abbe was 
 asleep when Lory entered his apartment. He 
 awoke, however, with a characteristic haste, and his 
 first conscious movement was suggestive of a readi- 
 ness to defend himself against attack. 
 
 " Ah ! " he cried, with a laugh, " it is you. You 
 see me asleep." 
 
 " Asleep, but ready," answered de Yasselot, with 
 a laugh. He liked a cjuick man. 
 
 Without speaking, he unbuttoned his tunic and 
 threw his bundle of papers on the abbe's counter- 
 pane.
 
 THE END OF THE JOURNEY 283 
 
 " Voila ! " he said. " I suppose that is what you 
 want for your salad." 
 
 " It is what Jean and I have been trjang to get 
 these three months," answered the priest. 
 
 He sat up in bed, and from that difficult position, 
 did the honours of his apartment with an unassail- 
 able dignity. 
 
 " Sit down," he said, " and I will tell you a very 
 long story. Kot that chair — those are my clothes, 
 my best soutane for this occasion — the other. That 
 is well."
 
 CHAPTER XXYII 
 
 THE abbe's salad 
 
 " He either fears his fate too much, 
 Or his deserts are small. 
 That dares not put it to the touch 
 To gain or lose it all." 
 
 " And mademoiselle's witnesses ? " inquired the 
 notary, when he had accommodated the ladies with 
 chairs. 
 
 " Will arrive at ten o'clock," answered Mademoi- 
 selle Brun, with a glance at the notary's clock. 
 
 It was three minutes to ten. The notary was a 
 young man, with smooth hair brushed straight back 
 from a high forehead. He was one of those men 
 who look clever, which, in some respects, is better 
 than being clever. For a man who really has brains 
 usually perceives his own limitations, while he who 
 looks clever, and is not, has that boundless faith in 
 himself which serves to carry men very far in a 
 world which is too lazy to get up and kick imper- 
 tinence as it passes. 
 
 The room had that atmosphere of mixed stuffiness 
 and cigarette-smoke which the traveller may sam- 
 ple in any French post office. It is also the official 
 air of a court of justice or a public bureau of any 
 sort in France. There was a blank space on the 
 
 284
 
 THE ABBA'S SALAD 285 
 
 wall, where a portrait of the emperor had lately 
 hung. The notary Avould fill it by and by with a 
 president or a king, or any face of any man who 
 was for the moment in authority. Behind him, on 
 the wall, was suspended a photograph of an elderly 
 lady — his mother. It established confidence in the 
 hearts of female clients, and reminded persons with 
 daughters that this rising lawyer had as yet no 
 wife. 
 
 The notary's bow to Mademoiselle Brun when she 
 was seated Avas condescending, which betrayed the 
 small fact that he was not so clever as he looked. 
 To Denise he endeavoured to convey in one grace- 
 ful inclination from the waist the deep regard of a 
 legal adviser, struggling nobly to keep in bounds 
 the overwhelming admiration of a man of heart and 
 (out of office hours) of spirit. Gilbert, who had al- 
 ready exchanged greetings with the ladies, was lean- 
 ing against the window, playing idly with the blind- 
 cord. The notary's office was on the third floor. 
 The colonel could not, therefore, see the pavement 
 without leaning out, and the window was shut. 
 Mademoiselle Brun noted this as she sat with crossed 
 hands. She also remembered that the Hotel Clem- 
 ent was on the same side of the Boulevard du Palais 
 as the house in which she found herself. 
 
 The notary had intended to be affable, but he 
 dimly perceived that Denise was what he tersely 
 called in his own mind grande dame, and was wise 
 enough to busy himself with his papers in silence. 
 He also suspected that Colonel Gilbert was a
 
 286 THE ISLE OF UNEEST 
 
 friend of these ladies, but he did not care to take 
 advantage or his privilege in the presence of a 
 fourth person, which left an unpleasant flavour on 
 the palate of the smooth-haired lawyer. He 
 glanced involuntarily at the blank space on the 
 wall, and thought of the Kepublic. 
 
 " I have prepared a deed of sale," he said, in a 
 formal voice, " which is as binding on both sides as 
 if the full purchase-money had been exchanged for 
 the title-deeds. All that will remain to be done 
 after the present signature will be the usual legal 
 formalities between notaries. Mademoiselle has 
 but to sign here." And he indicated a blank space 
 on the document. 
 
 Mademoiselle Brun was looking at the time-piece 
 on the notary's wall. The town clocks were strik- 
 ing the hour. A knock at the door made the no- 
 tary turn, with his quill pen still indicating the 
 space for Denise's signature. It was the dingy 
 clerk who sat in a sort of cage in the outer office. 
 After opening the door he stood aside, and Susini 
 came in with glittering eyes and a defiant chin. 
 There was a pause, and Lory de Vasselot limped 
 into the room after him. He was smiling and 
 pleasant as he always was ; even, his friends said, 
 on the battlefield. 
 
 He looked at Denise, met her eyes for a moment 
 and turned to bow with grave politeness to Gil- 
 bert. It was, oddly enough, the colonel Avho 
 brought forward a chair for the wounded man. 
 
 *' Sit down," he said curtly.
 
 THE ABBE'S SALAD 28Y 
 
 " These are my witnesses, Monsieur le Notaire," 
 said Mademoiselle Brun. 
 
 The abbe was rubbing his thin, brown hands to- 
 gether, and contemplating the notary's table as a 
 greedy man might contemplate a laden board. 
 The notary himself was looking from one to the 
 other. There was something in the atmosphere 
 which he did not understand. It was, perhaps, the 
 presence in the room of a cleverer head than his 
 own, and he did not know upon whose shoulders to 
 locate it. Denise, whose nature was frank and 
 straightforward, was looking at Lory — looking 
 him reflectively up and down — as a mother might 
 look at a son of whose health she refrains from 
 asking. Mademoiselle was gazing at the blank 
 space on the wall, and the colonel was looking at 
 mademoiselle with an odd smile. 
 
 He was standing in the embrasure of the win- 
 dow, and at this moment glanced at his watch. 
 The notary looked at him inquiringly ; for his atti- 
 tude seemed to indicate that he expected some one 
 else. And at this moment the music of a military 
 band burst upon their ears. The colonel looked 
 over his shoulder down into the street. He had 
 his watch in his hand. De Yasselot rose instantly 
 and went to the window. He stood beside the colo- 
 nel, and those in the notary's office could see that 
 they were talking quickly and gravely together, 
 though the music drowned their voices. Behind 
 them, on the notary's table, lay their differences ; 
 in front lay that which bound them together with
 
 288 THE ISLE OF UIsREST 
 
 the strongest ties betAveen man. and man — their 
 honour and the honour of France. The music died 
 away, followed by the diminishing sound of steady 
 feet. All in the room were silent for a few mo- 
 ments, until the two soldiers turned from the win- 
 dow and came toward the table. 
 
 Then the notary spoke : — 
 
 " Mademoiselle has but to sign here," he re- 
 peated. 
 
 He indicated the exact spot, dipped the pen in 
 the ink, and handed it to Denise. She took the 
 pen and half turned toward Lory, as if she knew 
 that he would be the next to speak and wished him 
 to understand once and for all that he would speak 
 in vain. 
 
 " Mademoiselle cannot sign there," he said. 
 
 Denise dipped the pen into the ink again, but she 
 did not sign. 
 
 " Why not ? " she asked without looking round, 
 her hand still resting on the paper. 
 
 "Because," answered Lory, addressing her di- 
 rectly, " Perucca is not yours to sell. It is mine." 
 
 Denise turned and looked straight at Colonel 
 Gilbert. She had never been quite sure of him. 
 He had never appeared to her to be quite in ear- 
 nest. His face showed no surprise now. He had 
 known this all along, and did not even take the 
 trouble to feign astonishment. The notary gave a 
 polite, incredulous, legal laugh. 
 
 " That is an old story. Monsieur le Comte." 
 
 At which point Susini so far forgot himself as to
 
 THE ABBfi'S SALAD 289 
 
 make use of a rude local method of showing con- 
 tempt in pretending to spit upon the notary's 
 floor. 
 
 " It is as old as you please," answered Lory, half 
 turning toward Gilbert, who in his turn made a 
 gesture in the direction of the notary, as if to say 
 that the lawyer had received his instructions and 
 knew how to act. 
 
 " Of course," said the notary in a judicial voice, 
 " we are aware that the conveyance of the Perucca 
 estate by the late Count de Yasselot to the late 
 Mattel Perucca lacked formality; many convey- 
 ances in Corsica lacked formality in the beginning 
 of the century. In many cases possession is the 
 only title-deed. We can point to a possession last- 
 ing over many years, which carries the more 
 weight from the fact that the late count and his 
 neighbour Monsieur Perucca were notoriously on 
 bad terms. If the count had been able, he would 
 no doubt have evicted from Perucca a neighbour so 
 uns3''mpathetic." 
 
 " You seem," said de Yasselot, quickly, " to be 
 prepared for my objection." 
 
 The notary spread out his hands in a gesture that 
 conveyed assent. 
 
 " And if I had not come ? " 
 
 " I regret to say. Monsieur le Comte, that your 
 presence here bears little upon the transaction in 
 hand. You are only a witness. Mademoiselle will 
 no doubt complete the document now." 
 
 And the notary again handed Denise a pen.
 
 290 THE ISLE OF UNREST 
 
 " Hardly upon a title-deed which consists of pos- 
 session only." 
 
 " Pardon me, but you have even less," said the 
 notary. "If I may remind you of it, you have 
 probably no title-deeds to Vasselot itself since the 
 burning of the chateau." 
 
 " There you are wrong," answered Lory, quietly. 
 And the abbe snapped both fingers and thumbs in 
 a double-barrelled feu dejoie. 
 
 " The count may have possessed title-deeds be- 
 fore his death, thirty years ago," said the notary, 
 with that polite patience in argument which the 
 certain winner alone can compass. 
 
 Then the colonel's quiet voice broke into the con- 
 versation. His manner was politely indifferent, and 
 seemed to plead for peace at any cost. 
 
 " I should much like to be done with these formal- 
 ities," he said — " if I may be allowed to suggest a 
 little promptitude. The troops are moving, as you 
 have heard. In an hour's time I sail for Marseilles 
 with these men. Let us finish with the signatures." 
 
 " Let us, on the contrary, delay signing until the 
 war is over," suggested Lory. 
 
 " You cannot bring your father to life again, 
 monsieur, and you cannot manufacture title-deeds. 
 Your father, the notary tells us, has been dead 
 thirty years, and the Chateau de Vasselot has been 
 burnt with all the papers in it. You have no case 
 at all." 
 
 Lory was unbuttoning his tunic, awkwardly with 
 one hand.
 
 THE ABBfi'S SALAD 291 
 
 " But the notary is wrong," he said. " The Cha- 
 teau de Vasselot was burnt, it is true, but here are 
 the title-deeds. My father did not die thirty years 
 ago, but yesterday morning, in my arms." 
 
 Gilbert smiled gently. His innate politeness ob- 
 viously forbade him to laugh at this absurd story. 
 
 " Then where has he been all these years ? " he 
 inquired with a good-humoured patience. 
 
 " In the Chateau de Yasselot." 
 
 There was a dead silence for a moment, broken 
 at length by a movement on the part of Mademoi- 
 selle Brun. In her abrupt way she struck herself 
 on the forehead as a fool. 
 
 " Yes," testified Susini, brusquely, " that is where 
 he has been." 
 
 Denise remembered ever afterward, that Lory 
 did not look at her at this moment of his complete 
 justification. It was now, and only for a moment, 
 that Colonel Gilbert lost his steady imperturbabil- 
 ity. From the time that Lory de Vasselot entered 
 the room he had known that he had inevitably 
 failed. From that instant the only question in his 
 mind had been that of how much his enemies knew. 
 It could not be chance that brought de Vasselot, 
 and the Abbe Susini, and Mademoiselle Brun to- 
 gether to meet him at that time. He had been out- 
 manoeuvred by some one of the three, and he 
 shrewdly suspected by whom. There was nothing 
 to do but face it — and he faced it with a calm au- 
 dacity. He simply ignored mademoiselle's blinking 
 glance. He met de Vasselot's quick eyes without
 
 292 THE ISLE OF UNKEST 
 
 fear, and smiled coolly in the abbe's liery face. 
 But when Denise turned and looked at him with 
 direct and honest eyes, his own wavered, and for a 
 brief instant he saw himself as Denise saw him — 
 the bitterest moment of his life. The esteem of 
 the many is nothing compared to the esteem of 
 one. 
 
 In a moment he recovered himself and turned to- 
 ward Lory with his lazy smile. 
 
 " Even to a romance there must be some motive," 
 he said. " One naturally wonders why your father 
 should allow his enemy to keep possession of a 
 house and estate which were not his, and why he 
 himself should remain concealed in the Chateau de 
 Vasselot." 
 
 " That is the affair of my father. There was that 
 between him and Mattel Perucca, which neither 
 you nor I, monsieur, have any business to investi- 
 gate. There are the title-deeds. You have a cer- 
 tain right to look at them. You are therefore at 
 liberty to satisfy yourself that you cannot buy the 
 Perucca estate from Mademoiselle Lange, because 
 it does not belong to Mademoiselle Lange, and 
 never has belonged to her ! A fact of which you 
 may have been aware." 
 
 " You seem to know much." 
 
 " I know more than you suspect," answered de 
 Vasselot. " I know, for instance, your reason for 
 desiring to buy land on the western slope of Monte 
 Torre." 
 
 "Ah?"
 
 THE ABB:^'S salad 293 
 
 By Avay of reply, de Yasselot laid upon, the table 
 in front of Colonel Gilbert, the nugget no larger 
 than a pigeon's egg, that Mademoiselle Brun had 
 found in the debris of the landship. The colonel 
 looked at it, and gave a short laugh. He was too 
 indolent a man to feel an acute curiosity. But 
 there were many questions he would have liked to 
 ask at that moment. He knew that de Yasselot 
 was only the spokesman of another who deliber- 
 ately remained in the background. Lory had not 
 found the gold, he had not pieced together with 
 the patience of a clocksmith the wheels within 
 wheels that Colonel Gilbert had constructed through 
 the careful years. The whole story had been 
 handed to him whom it most concerned, complete 
 in itself like a barrister's brief, and de Vasselot was 
 not setting it forth with much skill, but bluntly, 
 simply and generously like a soldier. 
 
 " Surely I have said enough," were his next 
 words, and it is possible that the colonel and Made- 
 moiselle Brun alone understood the full meaning of 
 the words. 
 
 " Yes, monsieur," said Gilbert at length, " I think 
 you have." 
 
 And he moved toward the door in an odd, side- 
 long way. He had taken only three steps, when he 
 swung round on his heel with a sharp exclamation. 
 The Abbe Susini, with blazing eyes — half mad with 
 rage — had flown at him like a terrier. 
 
 " Ah ! " said the colonel, catching him by the two 
 wrists, and holding him at arm's length with steady
 
 294 THE ISLE OF UNREST 
 
 northern nerve and muscle. " I know you Corsi- 
 cans too well to turn my back to one." 
 
 He threw the abbe back, so that the little man 
 fell heavily against the table ; Susini recovered him- 
 self with the litheness of a wild animal, but when he 
 flew at the closed door again it was Denise who 
 stood in front of it.
 
 HE THREW THE ABBE BACK.
 
 CHAPTER XXYIII 
 
 GOLD 
 
 " I do believe yourself against yourself, 
 And will henceforward rather die than doubt." 
 
 All eyes were now turned on the notary, who 
 was hurriedly looking through the papers thrown 
 down before him by Lory. 
 
 "They have passed through my hands before, 
 when I was a youth, in connection with a boundary 
 dispute," he said, as if to explain his apparent 
 hastiness. " They are all here — they are correct, 
 monsieur." 
 
 He was a very quick man, and folding the papers 
 as he spoke, he tied them together with the faded 
 pink tape which had been fingered by three genera- 
 tions of Vasselots. He laid the packet on the table 
 close to Lory's hand. Then he glanced at Denise 
 and fell into thought, arranging in his mind that 
 which he had to say to her. 
 
 " It is one of those cases, mademoiselle," he said 
 at length, " common enough in Corsica, where a 
 verbal agreement has never been confirmed in 
 writing. Men who have been friends, become ene- 
 mies so easily in this country. I cannot tell you 
 upon what terms Mattel Perucca lived in the Casa. 
 No one can tell you that. All that we know is that 
 
 295
 
 296 THE ISLE OF UNEEST 
 
 we have no title-deeds — and that monsieur has 
 them. The Casa may be yours, but you cannot 
 prove it. Such a case tried in a law court in Cor- 
 sica would go in favour of the litigant who pos- 
 sessed the greater number of friends in the locality. 
 It would go in j'^our favour if it could be tried here. 
 But it would need to go to France. And there we 
 could only look for justice, and justice is on the side 
 of monsieur." 
 
 He apologised, as it were, for justice, of which he 
 made himself the representative in that room. 
 Then he turned toward de Vasselot. 
 
 " Monsieur is well within his rights " he 
 
 said, significantly, " if he insist on them." 
 
 " I insist on them," replied Lory, who was proud 
 of Denise's pride. 
 
 And Denise laughed. 
 
 The notary turned and looked curiously at her. 
 
 " Mademoiselle is able to be amused." 
 
 " I was thinking of the Rue du Cherche-Midi in 
 Paris," she said, and the explanation left the lawyer 
 more puzzled than before. She took up her gloves 
 and drew them on. 
 
 " Then I am rendered penniless, monsieur ? " she 
 asked the notary. 
 
 " By me," answered Lory. And even the notary 
 was silent. It is hard to silence a man who lives by 
 his tongue. But there were here, it seemed, under- 
 standings and misunderstandings which the lawyer 
 failed to comprehend. 
 
 The Abbe Susini had crossed the room and was
 
 GOLD 297 
 
 whispering something hurriedly to Mademoiselle 
 Brun, who acquiesced curtly and rather angrily. 
 She had the air of the man at the wheel, to whom 
 one must not speak. For she was endeavouring 
 rather nervously to steer two high-sailed vessels 
 through those shoals and quicksands that must be 
 passed by all who set out in quest of love. 
 
 Then the abbe turned impulsively to Lory. 
 
 " Mademoiselle must be told about the gold — she 
 must be told," he said. 
 
 " I had forgotten the gold," answered Lory, quite 
 truthfully. 
 
 " You have forgotten everything, except the eyes 
 of mademoiselle," the abbe muttered to himself as 
 he went back to his place near the window. De 
 Yasselot took up the packet of papers and began to 
 untie the tape awkwardly with his one able hand. 
 He was so slow that Mademoiselle Brun leant for- 
 ward and assisted him. Denise bit her lip and 
 pushed a chair toward him with her foot. He sat 
 down and unfolded a map coloured and drawn in 
 queer angles. This he laid upon the table, and, by 
 a gesture, called Mademoiselle Brun and Denise to 
 look at it. The abbe took a pencil from the notary's 
 table, and after studying the map for a moment he 
 drew a careful circle in the centre of it, embracing 
 portions of the various colours and of the two estates 
 described respectively as Perucca and Vasselot. 
 
 " That," he said to Lory, " is the probable radius 
 of it so far as the expert could tell me on his ex- 
 amination of the ground yesterday."
 
 298 THE ISLE OF UNREST 
 
 Lory turned to Denise. 
 
 " You must think us all mad — at our games of 
 cross-purposes," he said. *' It appears that there is 
 gold in the two estates — and gold has accounted 
 for most human madnesses. Where the abbe has 
 drawn this line there lies the gold — beyond the 
 dreams of avarice, mademoiselle. And Colonel 
 Gilbert was the only man who knew it. So you 
 understand Gilbert, at all events." 
 
 " You did not know it when I asked your advice 
 in Paris ? " 
 
 " I learnt it two hours ago from the Abbe Susini ; 
 so I hastened here to claim the whole of it," an- 
 swered Lory, with a laugh. 
 
 But Denise was grave. 
 
 " But you knew that Perucca was never mine," 
 she persisted. 
 
 " Yes, I knew that, but then Perucca was value- 
 less. So soon as I knew its value, I reclaimed it." 
 
 " I warn Monsieur de Vasselot that such frank- 
 ness is imprudent ; he may regret it," put in the 
 notary with a solemn face. And Denise gave him 
 a glance of withering pity. The poor man, it 
 seemed, was quite at sea. 
 
 "Thank you," laughed de Vasselot. "I only 
 judge myself as the world will judge me. You 
 were very rich, mademoiselle, and I have made 
 you very poor." 
 
 Denise glanced at him, and said nothing. And 
 de Vasselot's breath came rather quickly. 
 
 " But the Casa Perucca is at your disposal so
 
 GOLD 299 
 
 long as you may choose to live there," he contin- 
 ued. "My father is to be buried at Olmeta to- 
 morrow, but I cannot even remain to attend the 
 funeral. So I need not assure you that I do not 
 want the Casa Perucca for myself." 
 
 " Where are you going ? " asked Denise bluntly. 
 
 " Back to France. I have heard news that 
 makes it necessary for me to return. Gambetta 
 has escaped from Paris in a balloon, and is organ- 
 ising affairs at Tours. We may yet make a de- 
 fence." 
 
 " You ? " said Mademoiselle Brun. Into the one 
 word she threw, or attempted to throw, a world of 
 contempt, as she looked him up and down, with his 
 arm in a sling, and his wounded leg bent awk- 
 wardly to one side ; but her eyes glittered. This 
 was a man after her own heart. 
 
 " One has one's head left, mademoiselle," an- 
 swered Lory. Then he turned to the window, and 
 held up one hand. " Listen ! " he added. 
 
 It was the music of a second regiment marching 
 down the Boulevard du Palais, toward the port, 
 and, as it approached, it was rendered almost in- 
 audible by the shouts of the men themselves, and 
 of the crowd that cheered them. De Vasselot 
 went to the window, and opened it, his face twitch- 
 ing, and his eyes shining with excitement. 
 
 "Listen to them," he said. "Listen to them. 
 Ah ! but it is good to hear them." 
 
 Instinctively the others followed him, and stood 
 grouped in the open window, looking down into
 
 300 THE ISLE OF UNEEST 
 
 the street. The band was now passing, clanging 
 out the Marseillaise, and the fickle people cheered 
 the new tricolour, as it fluttered in the wind. 
 Some one looked up, and perceived de Vasselot's 
 uniform. 
 
 " Come, mon capitaine," he cried ; " you are com- 
 ing with us ? " 
 
 Lory laughed, and shouted back — 
 
 " Yes — I am coming." 
 
 " See," cried a sergeant, who was gathering re- 
 cruits as he went — " see ! there is one who has 
 fought, and is going to fight again ! Yive la France, 
 mes enfants ! Who comes ? Who comes ? " 
 
 And the soldiers, looking up, gave a cheer for 
 the wounded man who was to lead them. They 
 passed on, followed by a troup of young men and 
 boys, half of whom ultimately stepped on board 
 the steamer at the last moment, and went across 
 the sea to fight for France. 
 
 De Vasselot turned away from the window, and 
 went toward the table, where the papers lay in con- 
 fusion. The abbe took them up, and began to ar- 
 range them in order. 
 
 "And the estate and the gold?" he said; "who 
 manages that, since you are going to fight ? " 
 
 "You," replied de Yasselot, "since you cannot 
 fight. There is no one but you in Corsica who can 
 manage it. There is none but you to understand 
 these people." 
 
 "All the world knows who manages half of 
 Corsica," put in Mademoiselle Brun, looking
 
 GOLD 301 
 
 fiercely at the abbe. But the abbe only stamped 
 his foot impatiently. 
 
 " Woman's gossip," he muttered, as he shook the 
 papers to^'ether. " Yes ; I will manage your estate 
 if you like. And if there is gold in the land, I will 
 tear it out. And there is gold. The amiable 
 colonel is not the man to have made a mistake on 
 that point. I shall like the work. It will be an 
 occupation. It will serve to fill one's life." 
 
 " Your life is not empty," said mademoiselle. 
 
 The abbe turned and looked at her, his glittering 
 eyes meeting her twinkling glance. 
 
 " It is a priest's life," he said. " Come," he added, 
 turning to the lawyer — " come, Mr. the Notary, into 
 your other room, and write me out a form of au- 
 thority for the Count de Vasselot to sign. We have 
 had enough of verbal agreements on this estate." 
 
 And, taking the notary by the arm, he went to 
 the door. On the threshold he turned, and looked 
 at Mademoiselle Brun. 
 
 " A priest's life," he said, " or an old woman's. 
 It is the same thing." 
 
 And Lory was left alone with mademoiselle and 
 Denise. The window was still open, and from the 
 port the sound of the military music reached their 
 ears faintly. Mademoiselle rose, and went to the 
 window, where she stood looking out. Her eyes 
 were dim as she looked across the sordid street, but 
 her lips were firm, and the hands that rested on the 
 window-sill quite steady. She had played consist- 
 ently a strong and careful game. AVas she going
 
 302 THE ISLE OF UNREST 
 
 to win or lose ? She held that, next to being a sol- 
 dier, it is good to be a soldier's wife and the mother 
 of fighting men. And when she thought of the 
 E-ue du Cherche-Midi, she was not able to be amused, 
 as the notary had said of Denise. 
 
 There was a short silence in the notary's office. 
 De Vasselot was fingering the hilt of his long cav- 
 alry sword reflectively. After a moment he glanced 
 across at Denise. He was placed as it were between 
 her and the sword. And it was to the sword that 
 he gave his allegiance. 
 
 " You see," he said, in a low voice, " I must 
 go." 
 
 " Yes, you must go," she answered. She held her 
 lip for a moment between her teeth. Then she 
 looked steadily at him. " Go ! " she said. 
 
 He rose from his chair and looked toward Made- 
 moiselle Brun's back. At the rattle of his scabbard 
 against the chair, mademoiselle turned. 
 
 " There is a horse waiting in the street below," 
 she said — "the great horse that Colonel Gilbert 
 rides. It is waiting for you, I suppose." 
 
 " I suppose so," said Lory, who went to the win- 
 dow and looked curiously down. Gilbert was cer- 
 tainly an odd man. He had left in anger, and had 
 left his horse for Lory to ride. He waited a mo- 
 ment, and then held out his hand to Mademoiselle 
 Brun. All three seemed to move and speak under 
 a sort of oppression. It was one of those moments 
 that impress themselves indelibly on the memory — 
 a moment when words are suddenly useless — when
 
 GOLD 303 
 
 the memory of an attitude and of a silence remains 
 all through life. 
 
 " Good-bye, mademoiselle," said Lory, with a sud- 
 den cheerfulness ; " we shall meet in France next 
 time." 
 
 Mademoiselle Brun held out her shrinking little 
 hand. 
 
 " Yes, in France," she answered. 
 
 To Denise, Lory said nothing. He merely shook 
 hands with her. Then he walked toward the door, 
 haltingly. He used his sword like a walking stick, 
 with his one able hand. Denise had to open the 
 door for him. He was on the threshold, when 
 Mademoiselle Brun stopped him. 
 
 " Monsieur de Vasselot," she said, " when the sol- 
 diers went past, you and Colonel Gilbert spoke to- 
 gether hurriedly ; I saw you. You are not going 
 to fight — you two ? " 
 
 " Yes, mademoiselle, we are going to fight — the 
 Prussians. We are friends while we have a com- 
 mon enemy. "When there is no enemy — who knows ? 
 He has received a great appointment in France, and 
 has offered me a post under him. And I have ac- 
 cepted it."
 
 CHAPTER XXIX 
 
 A BALANCED ACCOUNT 
 
 " Let the end try the man." 
 
 Bad news, it is said, travels fast. But in France 
 good news travels faster, and it is the evil tidings 
 that lag behind. It is part of a Frenchman's happy- 
 nature to believe that which he wishes to be true. 
 And although the news travelled rapidly, that Gam- 
 betta — that spirit of an unquenchable hope — had 
 escaped from Paris with full power to conduct the 
 war from Tours, the notification that the army of 
 de la Motteroiige had melted away before the ad- 
 vance of von der Tann, did not reach Lory de Vas- 
 selot until he passed to the north of Marseilles with 
 his handful of men. 
 
 That a general, so stricken in years as de la Mot- 
 terouge, should have been chosen for the command 
 of the first army of the Loire, spoke eloquently 
 enough of the straits in which France found herself 
 at this time. For this was the only army of the 
 Government of National Defence, the dehris of 
 Sedan, the hope of France. General de la Motte- 
 rouge had fought in the Crimea : " Peu de feu et 
 beaucoup de bayonette " had been his maxim then. 
 But the Crimea was fifteen years earlier, and de la 
 Motterouge was now an old man. Before the su- 
 
 304
 
 A BALANCED ACCOUNT 305 
 
 perior numbers and the perfectly drilled and equipped 
 army of von der Tann, what could he do but re- 
 treat ? 
 
 Thus, on their arrival in France, Colonel Gilbert 
 and Lory de Vasselot were greeted with the news 
 that Orleans had fallen into the hands of the 
 enemy. It was the same story of incompetence 
 pitted against perfect organisation — order and dis- 
 cipline meeting and vanquishing ill-considered 
 bravery. All the world knows now that France 
 should have capitulated after Sedan. But the 
 world knows also that Paris need never have 
 fallen, could France only have produced one 
 mediocre military genius in this her moment of 
 need. The capital was indeed surrounded, cut off 
 from all the world ; but the surrounding line was 
 so thin that good generalship from within could 
 have pierced it, and there was an eager army of 
 brave men waiting to join issue from the Loire. 
 
 It was to this army of the Loire that Colonel 
 Gilbert and de Vasselot were accredited. And it 
 was an amateur army. It came from every part 
 of France, and in its dress it ran to the picturesque. 
 Franctireurs de Cannes rubbed shoulders with 
 Mobiles from the far northern departments. 
 Spahis and Zouaves from Africa bivouacked with 
 fair-haired men whose native tongue was German. 
 There were soldiers who had followed the drum all 
 their lives, and there were soldiers who did not 
 know how to load their chassepots. There were 
 veteran non-commissioned officers hurriedly drilling
 
 306 THE ISLE OF UNREST 
 
 embryo priests ; and young gentlemen from St. 
 Cyr trying to form in line grey-headed peasants 
 who wore sabots. There were fancy soldiers and 
 picturesque fighters, who joined a regiment because 
 its costume appealed to their conception of patriot- 
 ism. And if a man prefers to fight for his country 
 in the sombrero and cloak of a comic-opera brigand, 
 what boots it is so long as he fights well ? It must 
 be remembered, moreover, that it is quite as painful 
 to die under a sombrero as under a plainer cover- 
 ing. A man who wefars such clothes sees the 
 picturesque side of life, and may therefore hold 
 existence as dear as more practical persons who 
 take little heed of their appearance. For when the 
 time came these gentlemen fought well enough, 
 and ruined their picturesque get-up with their own 
 blood. And if they shouted very loud in the cafe, 
 the}'' shouted, Heaven knows, as loud on the battle- 
 field, when they faced those hated, deadly, steady 
 Bavarians, and died shouting. 
 
 Of such material was the army of the Loire ; 
 and when Chanzy came to them from North Africa 
 — that Punjaub of this stricken India from whence 
 the strong men came when they were wanted — 
 when Chanzy came to lead them, they commanded 
 the respect of all the world. For these were men 
 fighting a losing fight, without hope of victory, for 
 the honour of France. They fought with a deadlj'- 
 valour against superior numbers behind entrench- 
 ments ; they endeavoured to turn the Germans out 
 of insignificant villages after allowing them time to
 
 A BALANCED ACCOUNT 307 
 
 fortify the position. They fought in the open 
 against an invisible enemy superior in numbers, 
 superior in artillery, and here and there they gained 
 a pitiful little hard-earned advantage. 
 
 De Vasselot, still unable to go to the front, was 
 put to train these men in a little quiet town on the 
 Loire, where he lodged with a shoemaker, and 
 worked harder than any man in that sunny place 
 had ever worked before. It was his business to 
 gather together such men as could sit a horse, and 
 teach them to be cavalry soldiers. But first of all he 
 taught them that the horse was an animal possess- 
 ing possibilities far beyond their most optimistic 
 conception of that sagacious but foolish quadruped. 
 He taught them a hundred tricks of heel and wrist, 
 by which a man may convey to a horse that which 
 he wishes him to do. He made the horse and the 
 man understand each other, and when they did this 
 he sent them to the front. 
 
 In the meantime France fed herself upon false 
 news, and magnified small successes into great 
 victories. Gambetta made many eloquent speeches, 
 and issued fiery manifestoes to the soldiers ; but 
 speeches and manifestoes do not win battles. Paris 
 hoped all things of the army of the Loire, and the 
 army of the Loire expected a successful sortie from 
 Paris. And those men of iron, Bismarck, Moltke, 
 and the emperor, sat at Versailles and waited. 
 While they waited the winter came. 
 
 De Yasselot, who had daily attempted to use his 
 wounded limbs, at length found himself fit for
 
 308 THE ISLE OF UNREST 
 
 active service, and got permission to join the army. 
 Gilbert was no longer a colonel. He was a general 
 now, and commanded a division which had already 
 made its mark upon that man of misfortune — von 
 der Tann, a great soldier with no luck. 
 
 One frosty morning de Vasselot rode out of the 
 little town upon the Loire at the head of a handful 
 of his newly trained men. He was going to take 
 up his appointment : for he held the command of 
 the whole of the cavalry of General Gilbert's divi- 
 sion. These were days of quick promotion, of 
 comet-like reputations, and of great careers cut 
 short. De Vasselot had written to Jane de Melide 
 the previous night, telling her of his movements in 
 the immediate future, of his promotion, of his 
 hopes. One hope which he did not mention was 
 that Denise might be at Frejus, and w^ould see the 
 letter. Indeed, it was written to Denise, though it 
 was addressed to the Baronne de Melide. 
 
 Then he went blithely enough out to fight. For 
 he was quite a simple person, as many soldiers and 
 many horse-lovers are. He was also that which 
 is vaguely called a sportsman, and was ready to 
 take a legitimate risk not only cheerfully, but with 
 
 joy. 
 
 " It is my only chance of maldng her care for 
 me," he said to himself. He may have been right 
 or wrong. There is a wisdom which is the exclusive 
 possession of the simple. And Lory may have 
 known that it is wiser to store up in a woman's 
 mind memories that will bear honour and respect in
 
 A BALANCED ACCOUNT 309 
 
 the future, than to make appeal to her vanity in the 
 present. For the love that is won by vanity is it- 
 self vanity. 
 
 He said he was fighting for France, but it was 
 also for Denise that he fought. France and Denise 
 had got inextricably mixed in his mind, and both 
 spelt honour. His only method of making Denise 
 love him was to make himself worthy of her — an 
 odd, old-fashioned theory of action, and the only 
 one that enables two people to love each other all 
 their lives. 
 
 In this spirit he joined the army of the Loire 
 before his wounds had healed. He did not know 
 that Denise loved him already, that she had with a 
 woman's instinct divined in him the spirit, quite 
 apart from the opportunity, to do great things. 
 And most men have to content themselves with 
 being loved for this spirit and not for the perform 
 ance which, somehow, is so seldom accomplished. 
 
 And that which kept them apart was for their 
 further happiness ; it Avas even for the happiness of 
 Denise in case Lor}'- never came back to her. For 
 the majority of people get what they want before 
 they have learnt to desire. It is only the lives 
 of the few which are taken in hand and so fash- 
 ioned that there is a waiting and an attainment at 
 last. 
 
 Lory and Denise were exploring roads which few 
 are called upon to tread — dark roads with mud and 
 stones and many turnings, and each has a separate 
 road to tread and must find the way alone. But if
 
 310 THE ISLE OF UNKEST 
 
 Fate is kind they may meet at the end without 
 having gone astray, or, which is rarer, without 
 being spattered by the mud. For those mud-stains 
 will never rub off and never be forgotten. Which 
 is a hard saying, but a true one. 
 
 Lory had left Denise without any explanation of 
 these things. He had never thought of sparing her 
 by the simple method of neglecting his obvious 
 duty. In his mind she was the best of God's 
 creations — a woman strong to endure. That was 
 sufficient for him ; and he turned his attention to his 
 horses and his men. He never saw the background 
 to his own life. It is usually the onlooker who sees 
 that, just as a critic sees more in a picture that the 
 painter ever put there. 
 
 Lory hardly knew of these questions himself. 
 He only half thought of them, and Denise, far 
 away in Provence, thought the other half. Which 
 is love. 
 
 Lory took part in the fighting after Orleans and 
 risked his life freely, as he ever did when oppor- 
 tunity offered. He was more than an officer, he 
 was a leader. And it is better to show the way 
 than to point it out. Although his orders came 
 from General Gilbert, he had never met his com- 
 manding officer since quitting the little sunny town 
 on the Loire where he had recovered from his 
 wounds. It was only after Chateaudun and after 
 the Coulmiers that they met, and it was only in a 
 small affair after all, the attempted recapture of a 
 village taken and hurriedly fortified by the Germans.
 
 A BALANCED ACCOUNT 311 
 
 It was a night-attack. The army of the Loire was 
 rather fond of night-fighting ; for the night equalises 
 matters between discipline and mere bravery. Also, 
 if your troops are bad, they may as well be beaten 
 in the dark as in the daylight. The survivors come 
 away with a better heart. Also, discipline is robbed 
 of half its strength by the absence of daylight. 
 
 Cavalry, it is known, are no good at night ; for 
 horses are nervous and will whinny to friend or foe 
 when silence is imperative. And yet Lory received 
 orders to take part in this night-attack. Stranger 
 things than that were ordered and carried out in 
 the campaign on the Loire. All the rules of war- 
 fare were outraged, and those warriors who win 
 and lose battles on paper cannot explain many bat- 
 tles that were lost and won during that winter. 
 
 There was a moon, and the ground was thinly 
 covered with snow. It was horribly cold when the 
 men turned out and silently rode to the spot indi- 
 cated in the orders. These were quite clear, and 
 they meant death. De Vasselot had practically to 
 lead a forlorn hope. A fellow-officer laughed when 
 the instructions were read to him. 
 
 " The general must be an enemy of yours," 
 he said. And the thought had not occurred to 
 Lory before. 
 
 " No," he replied, " he is a sportsman." 
 
 "It is poor sport for us," muttered the officer, 
 riding away. 
 
 But Lory was right. For when the moment 
 came and he was waiting with his troopers behind a
 
 312 THE ISLE OF UNKEST 
 
 farm-building, a scout rode in to say that reinforce- 
 ments were coming. As these rode across the open 
 in the moonlight, it was apparent that they were 
 not numerous ; for cavalry was scarce since Keich- 
 shofen. They were led by a man on a big horse, 
 who was comfortably muffled up in a great fur- 
 coat. 
 
 "De Vasselot," he said in a pleasant voice, as 
 Lory went forward to meet him. " De Vasselot, I 
 have brought a few more to help you. We must 
 make a great splash on this side, while the real 
 attack is on the other. We must show them the 
 way — you and I." And Gilbert laughed quietly. 
 
 It was not the moment for greetings. Lory gave 
 a few hurried orders in a low voice, and the new- 
 comers fell into line. They were scarcely in place 
 when the signal was given. A moment later they 
 were galloping across the open toward the village 
 — a sight to lift any heart above the thought of 
 death. 
 
 Then the fire opened — a flash of flame like fork- 
 lightning running along the ground — a crashing 
 volley which mowed the assailants like a scythe. 
 Lory and Gilbert were both down, side by side. 
 Lory, active as a cat, was on his legs in a moment 
 and leapt away from the flying heels of his wounded 
 horse. A second volley blazed into the night, and 
 Lory dropped a second time. He moved a little, 
 and cursed his luck. With difficulty he raised him- 
 self on his elbow. 
 
 " Gilbert," he said, " Gilbert."
 
 A BALANCED ACCOUNT 313 
 
 He dragged himself toward the general, who was 
 lying on his back. 
 
 " Gilbert," he said, with his mouth close to the 
 other's ear, " we should have been friends, you 
 know, all the same, but the luck was against us. It 
 is not for one to judge the other. Do you hear? 
 Do you hear ? " 
 
 Gilbert lay quite still, staring at the moon with 
 his easy, contemplative smile. His right arm was 
 raised and his great sabre held aloft to show the 
 way, as he had promised, now pointed silently to 
 heaven. 
 
 Lory raised himself again, the blood running 
 down his sleeve over his right hand. 
 
 " Gilbert," he repeated, " do you understand ? " 
 
 Then he fell unconscious across the general's 
 breast.
 
 CHAPTER XXX 
 
 THE BEGINNING AND THE END 
 
 " I gave — no matter what I gave — I win." 
 
 The careful student will find in the back num- 
 bers of the Deutsche Rundschau^ that excellent 
 family magazine, the experiences of a German mili- 
 tary doctor with the army of General von der 
 Tann. The story is one touched by that deep and 
 occasionally maudlin spirit of sentimentality which 
 finds a home in hearts that beat for the Fatherland. 
 Its most thrilling page is the description of the 
 finding, by the narrator, of the body of a general 
 officer during a sharp night engagement, across 
 which body was lying a wounded cavalry colonel, 
 who had evidently devoted himself to the defence 
 of his comrade in arms. 
 
 The reminiscent doctor makes good use of such 
 compound words as " brother-love " and " though- 
 superior - in - rank-yet-comrade-in - arms-and-compan- 
 ions-in-death-affectionate," which linguistic facility 
 enables the German writer to build up as he pro- 
 gresses in his narration words of a phenomenal cali- 
 bre, and bowl the reader over, so to speak, at a long 
 range. He finishes by mentioning that the general 
 was named Gilbert, a man of colossal engineering 
 
 314
 
 THE BEGINNmG AND THE END 315 
 
 skill, while the wounded officer was the Count Lory 
 de Vasselot, grandson of one of Napoleon's most 
 dashing cavalry leaders. The doctor finishes right 
 there, as the Americans say, and quite forgets to 
 note the fact that he himself picked up de Vasselot 
 under a spitting cross-fire, carried him into his own 
 field hospital and there tended him. Which omis- 
 sion proves that to find a brave and kind heart it is 
 not necessary to consider what outer uniform may 
 cover, or gutteral tongue distinguish, the inner 
 man. 
 
 Lory was shot in two places again, and the doc- 
 tors who attended him laughed when they saw the 
 old wounds hardly yet healed. He would be lame 
 for years they said, perhaps for life. He had a bul- 
 let in his right shoulder and another had shattered 
 his ankle. Neither was dangerous, but his fighting 
 days were done, at all events for this campaign. 
 
 " You will not fight against us again," said the 
 doctor, with a smile on his broad Saxon features, 
 and in execrable French, which was not improved 
 by the scissors that he held between his lips. 
 
 " Not in this war, perhaps," answered the patient, 
 hopefully. 
 
 Again the tide of war moved on ; and, daily, the 
 cold increased. But its chill was nothing to that 
 cold, slow death of hope that numbed all France. 
 For it became momentarily more apparent that 
 those at the head of affairs were incompetent — that 
 the man upon whom hope had been placed was 
 nothing but a talker, a man of words, an orator, a
 
 316 THE ISLE OF UNREST 
 
 wind-bag. France, who has usually led the way in 
 the world's progress, had entered upon that period 
 of words — that Age of Talk — in which she still la- 
 bours, and which must inevitably be the ruin of all 
 her greatness. 
 
 For two weeks Lory lay in the improvised Ger- 
 man field hospital in that remote village, and made 
 the astounding progress toward recovery which is 
 the happy privilege of the light-hearted. It is said 
 among soldiers that a foe is no longer a foe when 
 he is down, and de Yasselot found himself among 
 friends. 
 
 The German doctor wrote a letter for him. 
 
 " It will be good practice for my French," said 
 the artless Teuton, quite frankly. And the letter 
 was sent, but never reached its destination. Lory 
 could learn no news, however. In war there are, 
 not two, but three sides to a question. Each com- 
 batant has one, and Truth has the third, which she 
 often locks up forever in her quiet breast. 
 
 At last, one morning quite early, a horseman dis- 
 mounted at the door of the house in the village 
 street, where the hospital flag hung lazily in the 
 still, frosty air. 
 
 " It is a civilian," said an attendant, in astonish- 
 ment, so rare was the sight of a plain coat at this 
 time. There followed a conversation in muffled 
 voices in the entrance hall ; not a French conversa- 
 tion in many tones of voice — but a quiet Teutonic 
 talk as between Germans and Englishmen. Then 
 the door opened, and a man came into the room, re-
 
 THE BEGINNING AND THE END 317 
 
 moving a fur coat as he came. He was a tall, im- 
 passive man, well dressed, wearing a tweed suit and 
 a single eye-glass. He might have been an English- 
 man. He was, however, the Baron de Melide, and 
 his manner had that repose which belongs to the 
 new aristocracy of France and to the shreds that 
 remain, here and there, of the old. 
 
 "Left my ambulance to subordinates," he ex- 
 plained as he shook Lory's hand. " Humanity is 
 an excellent quality, but one's friends come first. 
 It has taken me some time to find you. Have pro- 
 cured your parole for you. You are quite useless, 
 they say," — the baron eyed Lory with a calm and 
 experienced glance as he spoke — "so they release 
 you on parole. They are not generous, but they 
 have an enormous common sense." 
 
 The doctor, who understood French, laughed 
 good-naturedly, and the baron twisted his waxed 
 moustache and looked slightly uncomfortable. He 
 was conscious of having said the wrong thing as 
 usual. 
 
 And all the while de Vasselot was talking and 
 laughing, and commenting on his friend's appear- 
 ance and clothes, and goodness of heart — all in a 
 breath, as was his manner. Also he found time to 
 ask a hundred questions which the stupid would 
 take at least a week to answer, but his answer to 
 each would be the right one. 
 
 It was during the great cold of the early days of 
 January, that the baron and Lory turned their 
 backs on that bitter valley of the Loire. They had
 
 318 THE ISLE OF UNREST 
 
 a cross-journey to Lyons, and there joined a main 
 line train, in which they fell asleep to awake in the 
 brilliant sunshine, amid the cool grey -greens, the 
 bare rocks and dark cypresses of the south. After 
 Marseilles the journey became tedious again. 
 
 " Heavens ! " cried Lory, impatiently, " what a 
 delay ! Why need they stop at this little station 
 at all?" 
 
 The baron made no reply just then. The train 
 travelled five miles while he stared thoughtfully at 
 the grey hills. It was six months since he had seen 
 the vivacious lady who was supposed by this one- 
 eyed world to rule him. 
 
 " After all," he said at length, " Frejus is a little 
 station." 
 
 For the baron was a philosopher. 
 
 When at last they reached the quiet tree-grown 
 station, where even to this day so few trains stop, 
 and so insignificant a business is transacted, they 
 found the Baroness de Melide on the platform 
 awaiting them. She was in black, as were all 
 Frenchwomen at this time. She gave an odd little 
 laugh at the sight of her husband, and immediately 
 held her lip between her teeth, as if she were afraid 
 that her laugh might change to something else. 
 
 " Ah ! " she said, " how hungry you both look — 
 and yet you must have lunched at Toulon." 
 
 She looked curiously from one drawn face to the 
 other as the baron helped Lory to descend. 
 
 " Hungry," she repeated with a reflective nod. 
 " Perhaps your precious France does not satisfy."
 
 THE BEGINNING AND THE END 319 
 
 And as she led the way to the carriage tliere was 
 a gleam, almost fierce, of triumph in her eyes. 
 
 The arrival at the chateau was uneventful. Ma- 
 demoiselle Brun said no word at all ; but stood a 
 little aside with folded hands and watched. Denise, 
 young and slim in her black dress, shook hands and 
 said that she was afraid the travellers must be tired 
 after their long journey. 
 
 " AVhy should Denise think that I was tired ? " 
 the baron inquired later, as he was opening his let- 
 ters in the study. 
 
 " Mon ami," replied the baroness, " she did not 
 think you were tired, and did not care whether you 
 were or not." 
 
 Lory had the same room assigned to him that 
 opened on to the verandah where heliotrope and 
 roses and Bougainvilliers contended for the mastery. 
 Outside his windows were placed the same table 
 and long chair, and beside the last the other chair 
 where Denise had sat — which had been placed there 
 by Fate. The butler was, it appeared, a man of 
 few ideas. He had arranged everything as be- 
 fore. 
 
 After his early coffee Lory went to the verandah 
 and lay down by that empty chair. It was a 
 brilliant morning, with a light keen air which has 
 not its equal all the world over. The sun was 
 powerful enough to draw the scent from the pine- 
 woods, and the sea-breeze swept it up toward the 
 mountains. Lory waited alone in the verandah all 
 the morning. After luncheon the baron assisted
 
 S20 THE ISLE OF UNKEST 
 
 him back to his long chair, and all the party came 
 there and drank coffee. Coffee was one of Made- 
 moiselle Brun's solaces in life. " It makes exist- 
 ence bearable," she said — " if it is hot enough." 
 But she finished her cup quickly and went away. 
 The baron was full of business. He received a 
 score of letters during the day. At any moment 
 the preliminaries of peace might now be signed. 
 He had not even time for a cigarette. The baron- 
 ess sat for some minutes looking at Lory, endeav- 
 ouring to make him meet her shrewd eyes ; but he 
 Avas looking out over the plain of Les Arcs. Denise 
 had not sat down, but was standing rather rest- 
 lessly at the edge of the verandah near the helio- 
 trope which clambered up the supports. She had 
 picked a piece of the delicate flower and was idly 
 smelling it. 
 
 At last the baroness rose and walked away with- 
 out any explanation at all. After a few minutes, 
 which passed slowly in silence, Denise turned and 
 came slowly toward Lory. The chair had never 
 been occupied. She sat down and looked away 
 from him. Her face, still delicately sunburnt, was 
 flushed. Then she turned, and her eyes as they 
 met his were stricken with fear. 
 
 " I did not understand," she said. And she must 
 have been referring to their conversation in that 
 same spot months before. She was either pro- 
 foundly ignorant of the world or profoundly indif- 
 ferent to it. She ought, of course, to have made 
 some safe remark about the weather. She ought
 
 THE BEGINNING AND THE END 321 
 
 to have distrusted Lory. But he seemed to know 
 her meaning without any difficulty. 
 
 " I think a great many people never understand, 
 mademoiselle." 
 
 " It has taken me a long time — nearly four 
 months," said Denise, reflectively. " But I under- 
 stood quite suddenly at Bastia — when the soldiers 
 passed the notary's office. I understood then what 
 life is and what it is meant to be." 
 
 Lory looked up at her for a moment. 
 
 " That is because you are nearer heaven than I 
 am," he said. 
 
 "But it was you who taught me, not heaven," 
 said Denise. " You said — well, you remember what 
 you said, perhaps — and then immediately after you 
 denied me the first thing I asked you. You knew 
 what was right, and I did not. You have always 
 known what was right, and have always done it. 
 I see that now as I look back. So I have learnt 
 my lesson, you see." She concluded with a grave 
 smile. Life is full of gravity, but love is the gravest 
 part of it. 
 
 " Not from me," persisted Lory. 
 
 " Yes, from you. Suppose you had done what I 
 asked you. Suppose you had not gone to the war 
 again, what would have become of our lives ? " 
 
 " Perhaps," suggested Lory, " we have both to 
 learn from each other. Perhaps it is a long lesson 
 and will take all our lives. I think we are only be- 
 ginning it. And perhaps I opened the book when I 
 told you that I loved you, here in the verandah ! "
 
 322 THE ISLE OF UNEEST 
 
 Denise turned and looked at him with a smile 
 full of pity, and touched with that contempt which 
 women sometimes bestow upon men for under- 
 standing so little of life. 
 
 " Mon Dieu ! " she said, " I loved you long before 
 that." 
 
 The sun was setting behind the distant Esterelles 
 — those low and lonesome mountains clad from foot 
 to summit in pine — when Mademoiselle Brun came 
 out into the garden. She had to pass across the 
 verandah, and instinctively turned to look toward 
 that end of it where de Vasselot had come a second 
 time to lie in the sun and heal his wounds — a man 
 who had fought a good fight. 
 
 Denise was holding out a spray of heliotrope to- 
 ward Lory and he had taken, not the flower, but 
 her hand : and thus without a word and uncon- 
 sciously they told their whole story to made- 
 moiselle. 
 
 The little old woman walked on without showing 
 that she had seen and understood. She was not an 
 expansive person. 
 
 She sat down at the corner of the lowest terrace 
 and with blinking eyes stared across the great plain 
 of Les Arcs, where north and south meet, where 
 the palm tree and the pine grow side by side, 
 toward the Esterelles and the setting sun. The sky 
 was clear, but for a few little puffs of cloud Ioav 
 down toward the west, like a flock of sheep ready 
 to go home, waiting for the gate to open. 
 
 Mademoiselle's thin lips were moving as if she
 
 THE BEGmmNG AND THE END 323 
 
 were whispering to the God whom she served with 
 such a remarkable paucity of words. It may have 
 been that she was muttering a sort of grim Nunc 
 Dimittis — she who had seen so many wars. " Now 
 lettest Thou Thy servant depart in peace." 
 
 THE END
 
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