days--here, beneath that clear sky, within sound of the sea, and with
this balmy autumn
breeze whispering to her a last
lullaby. All was so
solitary, so silent, like unto dreamland. Even the last faint echo of
the distant cart had long ago died away, afar.
Suddenly. . .a sound. . .the strangest,
undoubtedly, that
these
lonely cliffs of France had ever heard, broke the silent
solemnity of the shore.
So strange a sound was it that the gentle
breeze ceased to
murmur, the tiny pebbles to roll down the steep incline! So strange,
that Marguerite, wearied, overwrought as she was, thought that the
beneficial unconsciousness of the approach of death was playing her
half-sleeping senses a weird and elusive trick.
It was the sound of a good, solid,
absolutely British "Damn!"
The sea gulls in their nests awoke and looked round in astonishment;
a distant and
solitary owl set up a
midnight hoot, the tall cliffs
frowned down majestically at the strange, unheard-of sacrilege.
Marguerite did not trust her ears. Half-raising herself on
her hands, she strained every sense to see or hear, to know the
meaning of this very
earthly sound.
All was still again for the space of a few seconds; the same
silence once more fell upon the great and
lonely vastness.
Then Marguerite, who had listened as in a
trance, who felt she
must be dreaming with that cool,
magneticmoonlightoverhead, heard
again; and this time her heart stood still, her eyes large and
dilated, looked round her, not
daring to trust her other sense.
"Odd's life! but I wish those demmed fellows had not hit quite so hard!"
This time it was quite
unmistakable, only one particular pair
of
essentially British lips could have uttered those words, in sleepy,
drawly,
affected tones.
"Damn!"
repeated those same British lips, emphatically.
"Zounds! but I'm as weak as a rat!"
In a moment Marguerite was on her feet.
Was she dreaming? Were those great, stony cliffs the gates of
paradise?
Was the
fragrantbreath of the
breeze suddenly caused by the
flutterof angels' wings, bringing
tidings of un
earthly joys to her, after
all her
suffering, or--faint and ill--was she the prey of delirium?
She listened again, and once again she heard the same very
earthly sounds of good, honest British language, not the least akin to
whisperings from
paradise or
flutter of angels' wings.
She looked round her
eagerly at the tall cliffs, the
lonelyhut, the great stretch of rocky beach. Somewhere there, above or
below her, behind a
boulder or inside a
crevice, but still
hidden from
her
longing,
feverish eyes, must be the owner of that voice, which
once used to
irritate her, but now would make her the happiest woman
in Europe, if only she could locate it.
"Percy! Percy!" she shrieked hysterically, tortured between doubt
and hope, "I am here! Come to me! Where are you? Percy! Percy!. . ."
"It's all very well
calling me, m'dear!" said the same sleepy,
drawly voice, "but odd's life, I cannot come to you: those demmed
frog-eaters have trussed me like a goose on a spit, and I am weak as a
mouse. . .I cannot get away."
And still Marguerite did not understand. She did not realise
for at least another ten seconds
whence came that voice, so drawly, so
dear, but alas! with a strange
accent of
weakness and of
suffering.
There was no one within sight. . .except by that rock. . .Great
God!. . .the Jew!. . .Was she mad or dreaming?. . .
His back was against the pale
moonlight, he was half crouching,
trying
vainly to raise himself with his arms
tightly pinioned.
Marguerite ran up to him, took his head in both her hands. . .
and look straight into a pair of blue eyes,
good-natured, even a
trifle amused--shining out of the weird and distorted mask of the Jew.
"Percy!. . .Percy!. . .my husband!" she gasped, faint with the
fulness of her joy. "Thank God! Thank God!"
"La! m'dear," he rejoined good-humouredly, "we will both do
that anon, an you think you can
loosen these demmed ropes,
and
release me from my inelegant attitude."
She had no knife, her fingers were numb and weak, but she
worked away with her teeth, while great
welcome tears poured from her
eyes, onto those poor, pinioned hands.
"Odd's life!" he said, when at last, after
frantic efforts on
her part, the ropes seemed at last to be giving way, "but I
marvelwhether it has ever happened before, that an English gentleman allowed
himself to be licked by a demmed
foreigner, and made no attempt to
give as good as he got."
It was very
obvious that he was exhausted from sheer
physical pain,
and when at last the rope gave way, he fell in a heap against the rock.
Marguerite looked
helplessly round her.
"Oh! for a drop of water on this awful beach!" she cried in
agony,
seeing that he was ready to faint again.
"Nay, m'dear," he murmured with his good-humoured smile,
"personally I should prefer a drop of good French
brandy! an you'll
dive in the pocket of this dirty old
garment, you'll find my
flask. . . . I am demmed if I can move."
When he had drunk some
brandy, he forced Marguerite to do likewise.
"La! that's better now! Eh! little woman?" he said, with a
sigh of
satisfaction. "Heigh-ho! but this is a queer rig-up for Sir
Percy Blakeney, Bart., to be found in by his lady, and no mistake.
Begad!" he added, passing his hand over his chin, "I haven't been
shaved for nearly twenty hours: I must look a disgusting object. As
for these curls. . ."
And laughingly he took off the disfiguring wig and curls, and
stretched out his long limbs, which were cramped from many hours'
stooping. Then he bent forward and looked long and searchingly into
his wife's blue eyes.
"Percy," she whispered, while a deep blush suffused her
delicate cheeks and neck, "if you only knew. . ."
"I do know, dear. . .everything," he said with
infinite gentleness.
"And can you ever
forgive?"
"I have
naught to
forgive,
sweetheart; your
heroism, your
devotion, which I, alas! so little deserved, have more than atoned
for that
unfortunateepisode at the ball."
"Then you knew?. . ." she whispered, "all the time. . ."
"Yes!" he replied
tenderly, "I knew. . .all the time. . . .
But, begad! had I but known what a noble heart yours was, my Margot,
I should have trusted you, as you deserved to be trusted, and you
would not have had to
undergo the terrible
sufferings of the past few
hours, in order to run after a husband, who has done so much that
needs
forgiveness."
They were sitting side by side, leaning up against a rock, and
he had rested his aching head on her shoulder. She certainly now
deserved the name of "the happiest woman in Europe."
"It is a case of the blind leading the lame,
sweetheart, is it
not?" he said with his
good-natured smile of old. "Odd's life! but I
do not know which are the more sore, my shoulders or your little feet."
He bent forward to kiss them, for they peeped out through her torn
stockings, and bore
patheticwitness to her
endurance and devotion.
"But Armand. . ." she said with sudden
terror and
remorse, as in
the midst of her happiness the image of the
beloved brother,
for whose sake she had so deeply sinned, rose now before her mind.
"Oh! have no fear for Armand,
sweetheart," he said
tenderly,
"did I not
pledge you my word that he should be safe? He with de
Tournay and the others are even now on board the DAY DREAM."
"But how?" she gasped, "I do not understand."
"Yet, `tis simple enough, m'dear," he said with that funny,
half-shy, half-inane laugh of his, "you see! when I found that that
brute Chauvelin meant to stick to me like a leech, I thought the best
thing I could do, as I could not shake him off, was to take him along
with me. I had to get to Armand and the others somehow, and all the
roads were patrolled, and every one on the look-out for your humble
servant. I knew that when I slipped through Chauvelin's fingers at
the `Chat Gris,' that he would lie in wait for me here,
whichever way
I took. I wanted to keep an eye on him and his
doings, and a British
head is as good as a French one any day."
Indeed it had proved to be
infinitely better, and Marguerite's