The Beloved Traitor (Mystery Classic). Frank L. Packard

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СКАЧАТЬ been longer in a storm than this. She is not of the milk-and-water breed is Marie-Louise, she is a Bernier, and, the bon Dieu be praised, the Berniers do not stop for that! Is it not so, Marie-Louise?"

      "Yes, uncle," she answered softly. "I will go; and I will not be long."

      "Go then, Marie-Louise," he said. "I wish it."

      She bent and kissed him, and picked up the lantern, and shook her head in a pretty gesture at Jean, as though half to tease him for the perturbed look upon his face, and half in grave wistfulness to charge him with the sick man's care—and then she went from the room, and presently the front door closed behind her.

      The lamp flickered with the inrush of wind from the opening of the door—flickered over a spotless bare floor, an incongruous high-poster bed that had been a wedding gift to Marie-Louise's father and mother from the man who lay upon it now, flickered over the raftered ceiling, the scant furnishings which were a single chair and a table, flickered over a crucifix upon the wall—and then burned on once more in a steady flame. It was like the shrug of Jean's shoulders, the flicker of that lamp; for, with the shrug, he resumed again his former position over Gaston—it was true after all, Marie-Louise would come to no harm, they were used to that, they fisherfolk of Bernay-sur-Mer.

      "Tiens, Gaston!" he said. "See, we will get off your wet clothes, and you will tell me how it happened this misère, and about the hurt. But first this—mon Dieu!—but I did not guess it was like that—a clean bandage, eh?—that is first—I will find something"—he had unbuttoned the other's jacket, disclosing a rent shirt, and, on the left side, a wad of cloth, blood-soaked now, where Marie-Louise evidently had made a pad for the wound with her underskirt, and had tied it in place with long strips torn from the garment. He began to loosen one of the strips; but Gaston, who until then had lain passive with eyes closed, caught his hand.

      "Let it alone, Jean—you will only make it bleed the more."

      "Ay," agreed Jean thoughtfully; "perhaps that is so. It would be better maybe to leave it for Father Anton."

      A wan smile came to Gaston's lips.

      "Father Anton will not touch it either, Jean."

      And then Jean, with a sudden start, stared into the other's eyes.

      "It is destiny!" said Gaston slowly. "Did you, too, like Marie-Louise, think it was for that I sent for the good father? It is the priest and Mother Church I need, there is no doctor that could help."

      "But, no!" Jean protested anxiously. "You must not talk like that, Gaston! It is not so! Wait! You will see! Father Anton will tell you that in a few days you will be strong again. It is the weakness now."

      Gaston shook his head.

      "You are a brave man, Jean, but I, too, am brave—and I am not afraid—not afraid for myself—it is for Marie-Louise—it is for that I kept you here and sent her for Father Anton. I know—something is hurt inside—I am bleeding there."

      And now Jean made no answer—no words would come. The utter weakness in the voice, the feeble movements of the hands, the greyer pallor in the other's face seemed to dawn upon him with its full significance for the first time—and for a moment it seemed to stun and bewilder him.

      "It is destiny!" said Gaston again. "Listen! It is fourteen years since René, my brother, Marie-Louise's father, was drowned on the Perigeau. I swore that night that through neither God nor devil should another lose his life as René had—and for fourteen years I burned the light, and laughed at the Perigeau as it gnawed its teeth in the storms." He stopped, and touched his lips with the tip of his tongue. "It is the hand of God," he whispered hoarsely, "The light is out—and it is the Perigeau again."

      Jean pulled the chair closer to the bed, and took one of Gaston's hands.

      "It means nothing that, Gaston," he said, trying to control his voice. "It is bad to think such thoughts—and of what good are they? You must not think of that. Tell me what happened, how you and Marie-Louise came to be out there to-night."

      Gaston lay quiet for a little while—so long that Jean thought the other had not heard the question. Then the old fisherman spoke again.

      "Marie-Louise will tell you. I have other things to say, and I have not strength enough for all. It is hard to talk. Give me the cognac again, Jean."

      He drank almost greedily this time, and, as Jean held up his head that he might do so the more readily, the grim old lips and unflinching eyes smiled back their thanks.

      "Listen to me well, Jean," he went on earnestly. "Marie-Louise is very dear to me. I love the little girl. All her life she has lived with me—for two years after she was born in this house here, her mother and René and I—and two years more with René and I—and then, after that, it was just Marie-Louise and I alone. She had no one else—and I had no one else. I have taught her as the bon Dieu has shown me the way to teach her to be a true daughter of France—to love God and be never afraid. Jean"—he reached out his other hand suddenly and clasped it over Jean's—"do you love Marie-Louise?"

      "Yes," said Jean simply.

      "She will be alone now," said Gaston, and his eyes filled. "She is a good girl, Jean. She is pure and innocent, and her heart is so full of love, there was never such love as hers, and she is so gay and bright like the flowers and like the birds—and happy—and sorrow has not come to her." He stopped once more, and the grey eyes searched Jean's face as though they would read to the other's soul. "Jean," he asked again, "do you love Marie-Louise?"

      Jean's lips were quivering now.

      "Yes," he answered. "You know I love her."

      The old fisherman lay back, silent, still for a moment, but he kept pressing Jean's hand. When he spoke again, it seemed that it was with more of an effort.

      "This house, the land, the boats, the nets, they are hers—it is her dot. But it is not of that, I fear—it is not of that—" his voice died away. Again he was silent; and then, suddenly, raising himself on his elbow: "Jean," he asked for the third time, almost fiercely now, "do you love Marie-Louise?"

      "But yes, Gaston," said Jean gently. "I have loved her all my life."

      "Yes; it is so," Gaston muttered slowly. "I give her to you then, Jean—she is a gift to you from the sea—from the sea to-night. She loves you, Jean—she has told me so. You will be good to her, Jean?"

      The tears were in Jean's eyes.

      "Gaston, can you ask it?" he cried out brokenly.

      "Ay!" said Gaston, and his voice rang out in a strange, stern note, and his form, as he lifted himself up once more, seemed to possess again its old rugged strength. "Ay—I do more than ask it. Swear it, Jean! To a dying man and in God's presence, see, there is a crucifix there, swear that you will guard her and that you will let no harm come to her."

      "I swear it, Gaston," said Jean, in a choking voice.

      "It is well, then," Gaston murmured—and lay back upon the bed.

      For a little while, Jean, dim-eyed, watched the other, a hundred reminiscences of their work together stabbing at his heart, and then he rose and began to remove what he could of the old fisherman's clothing.

      "I will not touch the wound, Gaston," he said; "but СКАЧАТЬ